"Lancea", Lusitanian Word, and the "Lancienses" Ethnogenesis

Analysis of the word lancea, of Hispanic origin after Varro, and of place names, people´s names and personal names derived from it. It confirms that the spear was the most important weapon in the Bronze Age, belonging to the iuventus and used as heroic and divine symbol. This analysis confirms also the personality of the Lusitanians, a people related to the Celts but with more archaic archaeological, linguistic and cultural characteristics originated in the tradition of the Atlantic Bronze in the II millennium BC. It is also relevant to better know the organisation of Broze and Iron Age societies and the origin of Indo-Europeans peoples in Western Europe and of pre-Roman peoples of Iberia.

Una nota a Tucídides I 22, 2

Este trabajo estudia las distintas interpretaciones del inicio del capítulo 22 centrándose en la segunda frase. Se propone una nueva interpretación basada en la construcción sintáctica del participio πυνθανόμενος.

Tifones y gigantes en el mundo macedonio: el rey como símbolo del orden cósmico

Este artículo analiza la existencia de un posible ritual en la antigua Macedonia que fuese similar al Akîtu babilonio. Pensamos que la victoria de Zeus sobre sus enemigos en la gigantomaquia y tifonomaquia fue celebrada por los reyes macedonios para fortalecer su posición en el poder. Aunque no hay evidencias directas de ello, tenemos una serie de diferentes fuentes en las cuales los macedonios están relacionados directa o indirectamente con Tifón y los gigantes. Además, la estratégica importancia del monte Olimpo para los macedonios nos hace pensar que la victoria de Zeus sobre las fuerzas del mal fue conmemorada de alguna forma por ellos.

Quintus Curtius before his sources: the episode of Alexander and the Scythians on the Tanais

Quintus Curtius found in his sources a speech where a Scythian censured Alexander, followed by the King’s reply. Curtius drastically abridged this second discourse in order to highlight the criticism of the Macedonian. The Scythian’s words have a striking rhetorical language and some allusions taken from Greek literature, in addition to possible indirect references to Caligula. Curtius declares that he follows his source word-for-word aiming to justify these inconsistencies, but also trying to hide the manipulations he has done to achieve his own narrative purposes.

The value of military oath in civil wars in Rome: The example of conflict 49-45 BC

During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, the military oath which binds the soldier to his army is often openly violated. Yet despite this offense, commanders of armed struggle require recursively the oath to their men. Admittedly, this ritual act seems ineffective given the many desertions and mutinies identified, but military leaders use its symbolic and sacred meaning to legitimize one hand their “anti-republican” actions, on the other armies fighting in a context deemed impius.

"Per aurem intrat Christus in Mariam". Aproximación iconográfica a la "conceptio per aurem" en la pintura italiana del Trecento desde fuentes patrísticas y teológicas

La tesis mariológica de la conceptio per aurem, según la cual la Virgen María habría concebido a Jesucristo por el oído en el momento de escuchar del ángel el mensaje celestial anunciándole que, sin perder su virginidad, sería madre del Hijo de Dios encarnado, ha merecido hasta ahora muy pocos estudios académicos rigurosamente fundados en fuentes primarias. De hecho, en la literatura especializada son muy escasas las referencias a tal teoría y, cuando algún estudioso la evoca, casi siempre se contenta con aludir a ella, sin aportar pruebas documentales. Sin embargo, tal como lo revelan las nueve pinturas italianas aquí analizadas, esa teoría fue ilustrada mediante sutiles metáforas visuales en muchas obras pictóricas medievales, las cuales se inspiraron en una sólida tradición literaria. Además una pléyade de Padres de la Iglesia y teólogos medievales testimonia, mediante afirmaciones explícitas, que semejante teoría gozó de notable aceptación entre los maestros del pensamiento cristiano. Basándose en numerosos textos patrísticos y teológicos, este artículo intenta dos objetivos esenciales: exponer, ante todo, las distintas formulaciones teóricas propuestas por esos pensadores; y además, tratar de poner en luz los significados dogmáticos que subyacen bajo esa sorprendente tesis.

The intertextual pilgrimage to Compostela in the Spanish nineteenth-century travel narratives written in French

Pilgrimage to Compostela was decreasing in the nineteenth century. This situation was still worse in France, where the number of pilgrims dwindled dramatically. In fact, there are not many travel narratives in this period, as no relevant French author showed any interest in this religious event. An analysis of these works reveals that the worship to Santiago was somehow considered by these authors a mere historical remnant with an aura of prestige. They allow almost no space for factual descriptions, and therefore used documentary sources to discuss the topic in their own texts. As a consequence, their knowledge of this universe became indirect and intertextual.

Una planta sin clásicos. La berenjena en la farmacología medieval y renacentista

La berenjena (Solanum melongena L.) es una planta solanácea de múltiples variedades, cuyos ancestros salvajes se sitúan en Indochina y el este de África. Su cultivo fue muy temprano en zonas de China e India. Aun así, no se extendió al Occidente antiguo ni apenas se conoció, de ahí su ausencia en los textos clásicos de botánica y farmacología. Fueron los árabes quienes llevaron el cultivo de la planta por el Norte de África y Al-Andalus, de donde pasó ya a Europa. Los primeros testimonios occidentales de la berenjena aparecen en traducciones latinas de textos árabes, para incorporarse luego a la literatura farmacológica medieval y, más tarde ya, a la del Renacimiento, que empezó a tratar de ella por su posible parecido con una especie de mandrágora. Pese a que se le reconocían algunas virtudes medicinales, siempre se la tuvo bajo sospecha por ser de sabor poco agradable, indigesta y causante de algunas afecciones. Solo los botánicos de finales del Renacimiento describirían la planta y sus variedades con criterios más «científicos» y botánicos, ya sin apenas intereses farmacológicos.

Jana Mazurkiewicza mitocentryczna koncepcja osobowości

The article deals with not well known theory of personality of Polish Neojacsonist psychiatrist Jan Mazurkiewicz. It describes its scientific background, biography and basic ideas and assumptions. The accent is put here on its, based on Lévi- Bruhl’s ideas but mostly original mythocentricity in psychological perspective and description of human symbolic thinking and acting.

Flora germanica.

"Florae germanicae scriptores ordine chorographico dispositi": p. [17]-82.

Wavelengths in bioconvection patterns

Unicellular bottom-heavy swimming microorganisms are usually denser than the fluid in which they swim. In shallow suspensions, the bottom heaviness results in a gravitational torque that orients the cells to swim vertically upwards in the absence of fluid flow. Swimming cells thus accumulate at the upper surface to form a concentrated layer of cells. When the cell concentration is high enough, the layer overturns to form bioconvection patterns. Thin concentrated plumes of cells descend rapidly and cells return to the upper surface in wide, slowly moving upwelling plumes. When there is fluid flow, a second viscous torque is exerted on the swimming cells. The balance between the local shear flow viscous and the gravitational torques determines the cells' swimming direction, (gyrotaxis). In this thesis, the wavelengths of bioconvection patterns are studied experimentally as well as theoretically as follow; First, in aquasystem it is rare to find one species lives individually and when they swim they can form complex patterns. Thus, a protocol for controlled experiments to mix two species of swimming algal cells of \emph{C. rienhardtii} and \emph{C. augustae} is systematically described and images of bioconvection patterns are captured. A method for analysing images using wavelets and extracting the local dominant wavelength in spatially varying patterns is developed. The variation of the patterns as a function of the total concentration and the relative concentration between two species is analysed. Second, the linear stability theory of bioconvection for a suspension of two mixed species is studied. The dispersion relationship is computed using Fourier modes in order to calculate the neutral curves as a function of wavenumbers $k$ and $m$. The neutral curves are plotted to compare the instability onset of the suspension of the two mixed species with the instability onset of each species individually. This study could help us to understand which species contributes the most in the process of pattern formation. Finally, predicting the most unstable wavelength was studied previously around a steady state equilibrium situation. Since assuming steady state equilibrium contradicts with reality, the pattern formation in a layer of finite depth of an evolving basic state is studied using the nonnormal modes approach. The nonnormal modes procedure identifies the optimal initial perturbation that can be obtained for a given time $t$ as well as a given set of parameters and wavenumber $k$. Then, we measure the size of the optimal perturbation as it grows with time considering a range of wavenumbers for the same set of parameters to be able to extract the most unstable wavelength.