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.

Los emigrantes en las áreas mineras y las ciudades de Hispania: religión, identidades y difusión cultural

En el presente artículo analizamos los desplazamientos de cultos indígenas hispanos desde distintas áreas de la Península Ibérica hacia los principales lugares de inmigración en Hispania: las áreas mineras y las ciudades. Proponemos que estos grupos de emigrantes rendían culto en su nueva residencia a las deidades que veneraban en sus regiones de procedencia como un medio de preservar su cohesión social y su identidad cultural. La dureza de la vida laboral en las áreas mineras reforzaba la necesidad de fortalecer los lazos culturales.

El ritual en los "Textos de las Pirámides": sintaxis, texto y significado

Este trabajo pretende explorar la dimensión ritual en los Textos de las Pirámides, el corpus de literatura religiosa extensa más antiguo de la humanidad. La naturaleza variada de sus componentes textuales ha impedido que los egiptólogos comprendan en profundidad las complejidades de la colección y los contextos originales en los que estos textos (ritos) aparecieron. La aplicación de la teoría del ritual, principalmente la aproximación de la sintaxis ritual, ofrece a los investigadores un marco excelente de análisis e interpretación del corpus, su estructura y función. Sujeto a las reglas de la sintaxis ritual es posible exponer los múltiples niveles de significado en el corpus para la resurrección y salvación del difunto.

Franquismo e literatura galega: "Non Chores, Sabeliña", a primeira obra da literatura galega de Posguerra. Entre o populismo e o rexoubeirismo

En este estudio se desarrolla, en clave filológico-didáctica, un análisis concienzudo sobre la gestación y la recepción de Non chores, Sabeliña, la primera obra escrita y publicada en gallego tras la Guerra Civil española. Nunca antes se había estudiado esta pieza, por lo que constituye una aproximación muy novedosa tanto el el Área de Filologías Gallega y Portuguesa como en el de Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura.

La imagen de España en la novela de viaje "Cabo de Gata" de Eugen Ruge

Este artículo presenta un análisis de la imagen de España trazada en la novela Cabo de Gata (2013). Con ello se toma en consideración un género que, hasta ahora, ha recibido poca atención en la investigación de la imagen de España en la literatura de viajes alemana. El foco del análisis lo constituyen tanto el motivo del viaje como la percepción y representación de lo ajeno español. Por último, el análisis narratológico de los diversos aspectos seleccionados de la técnica narrativa nos servirá para delimitar la repercusión imagológica de la novela.

Motivation and Vocabulary Breadth in CLIL and EFL Contexts. Different age, Same Time of Exposure

Numerous studies have found a positive connection between learners’ motivation towards foreign language and foreign language achievement. The present study examines the role of motivation in receptive vocabulary breadth (size) of two groups of Spanish learners of different ages, but all with 734 hours of instruction in English as a Foreign Language (EFL): a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) group in primary education and a non-CLIL (or EFL) group in secondary education. Most students in both groups were found to be highly motivated. The primary CLIL group slightly overcame the secondary non-CLIL group with respect to the mean general motivation but this is a non-significant difference. The secondary group surpass significantly the primary group in receptive vocabulary size. No relationship between the receptive vocabulary knowledge and general motivation is found in the primary CLIL group. On the other hand, a positive significant connection, although a very small one, is identified for the secondary non-CLIL group. We will discuss on the type of test, the age of students and the type of instruction as variables that could be influencing the results.

El carácter compilatorio del ms. 126 del Archivo Capitular de El Burgo de Osma

En este trabajo se aborda el estudio de aquellos aspectos que nos llevan a considerar al ms. 126 del Archivo Capitular de El Burgo de Osma un códice compilatorio: por una parte, la identificación de las fuentes de las que beben dos de sus glosas de contenido mitológico y, por otra, el análisis de la estructura del códice en su conjunto y de la relación entre las obras que lo componen.

La imagen de Barbación en las "Res Gestae" de Amiano Marcelino1

Este artículo analiza uno de los personajes secundarios más relevantes de las Res Gestae (RG) de Amiano Marcelino, el magister peditum Barbación. El historiador presenta a Barbación como un ser infame: colaborador en la muerte de Galo, cobarde, arrogante y desleal con Juliano durante la campaña militar del 357, delator de falsedades ante Constancio, merecedor de una muerte indigna. Sin embargo, un estudio de conjunto de los pasajes de Res Gestae, tomando como apoyo metodológico las técnicas de argumentación aplicadas al retrato y el concepto de ‘argumentación implícita’ de Sabbah 1978 y los métodos de caracterización de personajes de Pauw 1977, corrige esta visión comúnmente aceptada y demuestra la parcialidad del historiador. Así mismo se pone de manifiesto que el personaje, como otros actantes secundarios en las RG, es una réplica del carácter de Constancio II.

Lucrecio, "De rerum natura": Sentido y coherencia del prólogo

El prólogo del De rerum natura de Lucrecio (1.1-148) parece ser un tema gastado: ha sido tratado decenas de veces tanto por su excelente calidad como por los problemas que plantea. Pero esperamos poder dar un nuevo sentido y solución a ambos aspectos. En primer lugar, el himno a Venus no es una mera convención, sino que respira sentimiento religioso; Venus no personifica a la naturaleza, sino al placer y la felicidad y ni la hegemonía que se dice ejerce Venus, ni las plegarias que contiene el himno contradicen la teología epicúrea. Todavía más, nos parece que el himno constituye una auténtica epifanía religiosa muy propia de la teología epicúrea. En segundo lugar, suponiendo que el autor ha tomado como tema compartido los schemata o grados de dificultad de la intellectio retórica en el texto de 1.50-148, se intentan solucionar las dificultades de coherencia del texto.

Montesquieu, Rousseau, Herder. De las teorías climáticas a la voz del pueblo como factor constitutivo

This article shows in which way the so-called climate theories, which have been developed since Antiquity, change over the course of time and influence the different theories on the origin of language. Via Montesquieu and Rousseau, the “climate theories” have influenced Johann Gottfried Herder, who bases on the romantic concept of Volk. By this means, a lot of ideas come into being which are fundamental for the foundation and development of the national philologies in Europe.

Aetius of Amida. Libri Medicinales Book 1: A Translation with Commentary

This work is the first translation into a modern language of book 1 of the Libri Medicinales of Aëtius of Amida, a Byzantine physician who wrote in the middle of the 6th century AD. It comprises a lengthy preface, describing the analysis of pharmacological materials in terms of the science of the time, followed by 418 chapters, listing such materials obtained from plants. Commentary is to be found in the Introduction, as well as a running commentary after each part of the preface and each chapter. As Aëtius’ book 1 is a synopsis of the plants section of Galen’s On the Mixtures and Capacities of Simple Drugs, particular attention is paid to comparison between Aëtius’ work and that of Galen. Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of the ancient drugs in the light of modern scientific knowledge, a relatively neglected area of research, has also been given serious consideration.

'Yes, the century is an ashen sun': poem and subject in the philosophy of Alain Badiou

This thesis examines the relation between philosophy, the poem and the subject in the mature philosophy of Alain Badiou. It investigates Badiou’s decisive contribution to these questions primarily by means of comparison, especially to Martin Heidegger, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Theodor Adorno, as well as by analysing Badiou’s readings of poems and prose by Paul Celan and Samuel Beckett respectively as sites of potential dialogue with his immediate predecessors. The thesis stresses the importance of French philosophy’s German heritage, emphasising not only Badiou’s radical departure from Heidegger and his legacy, but also the former’s wholesale rejection of philosophies that would, in the wake of twentieth-century violence and beyond, proclaim their own end or completion. The thesis argues Badiou’s innovative readings of Celan and Beckett to be crucial to understanding this endeavour: for Badiou, both writers use the poem to affirm novel conceptions of subjectivity capable of transcending the historical conditions of their presentation. The title quotation from Badiou’s The Century, ‘Yes, the century is an ashen sun’, anticipates both the affirmative nature of these subjective figures, and their presience, beyond the bounds of a twentieth-century ‘ashen sun’ pervaded by melancholy, for the ‘new suns’ of the twenty-first. The thesis is in four chapters. The first chapter unfolds the central concepts of Badiou’s departure from Heidegger using Paul Celan’s poems to focus the enquiry. It is guided by two of Badiou’s most condensed declarations about the poem, that, firstly, ‘the modern poem harbours a central silence’, and secondly, that ‘Celan completes Heidegger’. The second chapter exposes the political implications of Heidegger’s writings on Friedrich Hölderlin and the role of the subject therein, offering at its close some thoughts about what Badiou calls, following Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, the poem’s ‘becoming-prose’. It concludes by drawing the poem and politics into relation by way of the philosophical category of the subject. The third chapter reads Badiou’s concept of ‘anabasis’ against Heidegger’s ‘homecoming’ in order to think the possibility of a collective political subject’s formation in the wake of Auschwitz. The final chapter examines the imbrication of the Two of love and the ‘latent poem’ in Badiou’s reading of Samuel Beckett’s late prose, contrasting this ‘affirmative’ reading of Beckett to Theodor Adorno’s earlier emphases on negation. Following its investigations of subjectivity, poem and prose throughout, the thesis concludes by returning to the title quotation in order to unfold the particular relations between subject, affirmation and negation Badiou’s philosophy enacts, and to offer further routes forward for research regarding Badiou’s philosophy and aesthetic figuration.

"Secretary in Fashion" and "Love-Letters": a study of socio-cultural and pragmatic-linguistic features in the late 17th century English language

Epistolary manuals are conspicuous historical documents for the pedagogy of letter writing; however, their actual usage as manuals by letter writers is unknown. "Secretary in Fashion" by Serre (1668), an epistolary manual, and "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister" (1684), an epistolary novel attributed to Behn, both give insights into epistolary conventions. Their inception and nature is interesting, considering their historical context. Despite the Restoration of Charles II, 17th century England was in a confused political state; as a result, texts regarding social convention or politics interested contemporary readers (the novel is inspired by a scandal of Lord Grey, an ardent Whig opposing Charles II). Past epistolary studies focus on 18th rather than 17th century manuals; the latter is typically used as supplementary information. Similarly, past epistolary fiction studies focus on 18th century texts; moreover, linguistic studies on Behn and the novel are deficient. Thus, this study addresses the research questions: 1) What are the socio-cultural and pragmaticlinguistic features represented in "Secretary in Fashion"? 2) What are the socio-cultural and pragmatic-linguistic features represented in "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister", and do any of these features correlate with the features represented in "Secretary in Fashion"? How far do the characteristic linguistic features of "Love-Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister" correlate with the practices recommended by the manual? Both texts were qualitatively analysed from an historical pragmatic perspective, which observes the potential effects of the socio-cultural and historical context. Also, as the texts concern shared discourses, comparisons were made with Gricean and Politeness Theory. The results show that the manual is a typical 17th century epistolary manual, aligning particularly with the "Academies of Complements", as it concerns the social conventions of the gentry. The novel mainly upheld instructions on form and matter; deviations occurred due to the amatory nature of some letters, and the narrative force affecting the style. Unfortunately, neither research question elucidates the actual usage of manuals. However, this study does show the epistolary practices of two writers, within specific contexts. It reveals that their 17th century English language use is affected by socialisation, in terms of social conventions concerning social rank, age, and gender; therefore, context varies language use. Also, their popularity reveals the interests of the 17th century society. Interest in epistolary-related texts, surely piques the interest of the modern reader as to why such epistolary-related texts were interesting.

Cassius Dio's speeches and the collapse of the Roman Republic

This thesis argues that Cassius Dio used his speeches of his Late Republican and Augustan narratives as a means of historical explanation. I suggest that the interpretative framework which the historian applied to the causes and success of constitutional change can be most clearly identified in the speeches. The discussion is divided into eight chapters over two sections. Chapter 1 (Introduction) sets out the historical, paideutic, and compositional issues which have traditionally served as a basis for rejecting the explanatory and interpretative value of the speeches in Dio’s work and for criticising his Roman History more generally. Section 1 consists of three methodological chapters which respond to these issues. In Chapter 2 (Speeches and Sources) I argue that Dio’s prosopopoeiai approximate more closely with the political oratory of that period than has traditionally been recognised. Chapter 3 (Dio and the Sophistic) argues that Cassius Dio viewed the artifice of rhetoric as a particular danger in his own time. I demonstrate that this preoccupation informed, credibly, his presentation of political oratory in the Late Republic and of its destructive consequences. Chapter 4 (Dio and the Progymnasmata) argues that although the texts of the progymnasmata in which Dio will have been educated clearly encouraged invention with a strongly moralising focus, it is precisely his reliance on these aspects of rhetorical education which would have rendered his interpretations persuasive to a contemporary audience. Section 2 is formed of three case-studies. In Chapter 5 (The Defence of the Republic) I explore how Dio placed speeches-in-character at three Republican constitutional crises to set out an imagined case for the preservation of that system. This case, I argue, is deliberately unconvincing: the historian uses these to elaborate the problems of the distribution of power and the noxious influence of φθόνος and φιλοτιμία. Chapter 6 (The Enemies of the Republic) examines the explanatory role of Dio’s speeches from the opposite perspective. It investigates Dio’s placement of dishonest speech into the mouths of military figures to make his own distinctive argument about the role of imperialism in the fragmentation of the res publica. Chapter 7 (Speech after the Settlement) argues that Cassius Dio used his three speeches of the Augustan age to demonstrate how a distinctive combination of Augustan virtues directly counteracted the negative aspects of Republican political and rhetorical culture which the previous two case-studies had explored. Indeed, in Dio’s account of Augustus the failures of the res publica are reinvented as positive forces which work in concert with Augustan ἀρετή to secure beneficial constitutional change.

Reading Pitscottie's Cronicles: a case study on the history of literacy in Scotland, 1575-1814

This thesis addresses a range of research questions regarding literacy in early modern Scotland. Using the early modern manuscripts and printed editions of Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie’s late sixteenth-century 'Cronicles of Scotland' as a case study on literacy history, this thesis poses the complementary questions of how and why early modern Scottish reading communities were encountering Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', and how features of the material page can be interpreted as indicators of contemporary literacy practices. The answers to these questions then provide the basis for the thesis to ask broader socio-cultural and theoretical questions regarding the overall literacy environment in Scotland between 1575 and 1814, and how theorists conceptualise the history of literacy. Positioned within the theoretical groundings of historical pragmatics and ‘new philology’ – and the related approach of pragmaphilology – this thesis returns to the earlier philological practice of close textual analysis, and engages with the theoretical concept of mouvance, in order to analyse how the changing ‘form’ of Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', as it was reproduced in manuscript and print throughout the early modern period, indicates its changing ‘function’. More specifically, it suggests that the punctuation practices and paratextual features of individual witnesses of the text function to aid the highly-nuanced reading practices and purposes of the discrete reading communities for which they were produced. This thesis includes extensive descriptive material which presents previously unrecorded data regarding twenty manuscripts and printed witnesses of Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles', contributing to a gap in Scotland’s literary/historiographical canon. It then analyses this material using a transferable methodological framework which combines the quantitative analysis of micro-data with qualitative analysis of this data within its socio-cultural context, in order to conduct diachronic comparative analysis of copy-specific information. The principal findings of this thesis suggest that Pitscottie’s 'Cronicles' were being read for a combination of devotional and didactic purposes, and that multiple reading communities, employing highly nuanced reading practices, were encountering the text near-contemporaneously. This thesis further suggests that early modern literacy practices, and the specific reading communities which employ them, should be described as existing within a spectrum of available practices (i.e. more or less oral/aural or silent, and intensive or extensive in practice) rather than as dichotomous entities. As such, this thesis argues for the rejection of evolutionary theories of the history of literacy, suggesting that rather than being described antithetically, historical reading practices and purposes must be recognised as complex, coexisting socio-cultural practices, and the multiplicity of reading communities within a single society must be acknowledged and analysed as such, as opposed to being interpreted as universal entities.