Insularity and Imperial Politics: Hadrian on the Greek Islands

Since its conquest by Rome in the 2nd century BCE, Roman notables were a constant presence in Greece. While various sites on the mainland served as battlegrounds for Roman civil wars during the 1st century BCE (e.g., Pharsalus, Actium, Philippi), the early imperial period was characterized by the use of various Greek islands as places of – often self-imposed – exile and/or isolation for such notables as M. Vipsanius Agrippa (Lesbos) and Tiberius (Rhodes). Other imperial Romans sojourned in the Aegean islands for different reasons. Augustus spent a winter on Samos after his victory at Actium, using it as a temporary powerbase for the refinement of his imperial plans, and he visited it and other islands again as emperor. While the first two Julio-Claudian emperors maintained close contacts with the Greek world, in the 2nd century CE Hadrian took this connection a step further and promoted Hellenism as a major part of his imperial policy. Naturally, the Greek islands played an important role in imperial politics during his reign, but only as components of the wider Hellenic world and not as isolated entities. Hadrian visited Rhodes and Paros to restore and venerate older Hellenic monuments – the Colossus and the tomb of the poet Archilochus respectively – and possibly Samothrace in order to be initiated into the Mysteries of the Great Gods. He also visited other islands in Greece, but his exact travel itinerary can only be speculative given our fragmentary literary and epigraphic evidence. In this paper, I focus on Hadrian’s presence on the Aegean islands and argue that during his reign they served mainly as sites that allowed for the implementation of his imperial plans by virtue of their easy access from the mainland Greek and Asian provinces. Accordingly, by promoting certain aspects of older Hellenic culture on specific islands, Hadrian conferred renewed prestige to these islands in the Roman Empire.Since its conquest by Rome in the 2nd century BCE, Roman notables were a constant presence in Greece. While various sites on the mainland served as battlegrounds for Roman civil wars during the 1st century BCE (e.g., Pharsalus, Actium, Philippi), the early imperial period was characterized by the use of various Greek islands as places of – often self-imposed – exile and/or isolation for such notables as M. Vipsanius Agrippa (Lesbos) and Tiberius (Rhodes). Other imperial Romans sojourned in the Aegean islands for different reasons. Augustus spent a winter on Samos after his victory at Actium, using it as a temporary powerbase for the refinement of his imperial plans, and he visited it and other islands again as emperor. While the first two Julio-Claudian emperors maintained close contacts with the Greek world, in the 2nd century CE Hadrian took this connection a step further and promoted Hellenism as a major part of his imperial policy. Naturally, the Greek islands played an important role in imperial politics during his reign, but only as components of the wider Hellenic world and not as isolated entities. Hadrian visited Rhodes and Paros to restore and venerate older Hellenic monuments – the Colossus and the tomb of the poet Archilochus respectively – and possibly Samothrace in order to be initiated into the Mysteries of the Great Gods. He also visited other islands in Greece, but his exact travel itinerary can only be speculative given our fragmentary literary and epigraphic evidence. In this paper, I focus on Hadrian’s presence on the Aegean islands and argue that during his reign they served mainly as sites that allowed for the implementation of his imperial plans by virtue of their easy access from the mainland Greek and Asian provinces. Accordingly, by promoting certain aspects of older Hellenic culture on specific islands, Hadrian conferred renewed prestige to these islands in the Roman Empire.Since its conquest by Rome in the 2nd century BCE, Roman notables were a constant presence in Greece. While various sites on the mainland served as battlegrounds for Roman civil wars during the 1st century BCE (e.g., Pharsalus, Actium, Philippi), the early imperial period was characterized by the use of various Greek islands as places of – often self-imposed – exile and/or isolation for such notables as M. Vipsanius Agrippa (Lesbos) and Tiberius (Rhodes). Other imperial Romans sojourned in the Aegean islands for different reasons. Augustus spent a winter on Samos after his victory at Actium, using it as a temporary powerbase for the refinement of his imperial plans, and he visited it and other islands again as emperor. While the first two Julio-Claudian emperors maintained close contacts with the Greek world, in the 2nd century CE Hadrian took this connection a step further and promoted Hellenism as a major part of his imperial policy. Naturally, the Greek islands played an important role in imperial politics during his reign, but only as components of the wider Hellenic world and not as isolated entities. Hadrian visited Rhodes and Paros to restore and venerate older Hellenic monuments – the Colossus and the tomb of the poet Archilochus respectively – and possibly Samothrace in order to be initiated into the Mysteries of the Great Gods. He also visited other islands in Greece, but his exact travel itinerary can only be speculative given our fragmentary literary and epigraphic evidence. In this paper, I focus on Hadrian’s presence on the Aegean islands and argue that during his reign they served mainly as sites that allowed for the implementation of his imperial plans by virtue of their easy access from the mainland Greek and Asian provinces. Accordingly, by promoting certain aspects of older Hellenic culture on specific islands, Hadrian conferred renewed prestige to these islands in the Roman Empire

Selective Memory and the Legacy of Archaeological Figures in Contemporary Athens: The Case of Heinrich Schliemann and Panagiotis Stamatakis

The legacy of antiquity has loomed large over the Greek capital since thefoundation of the modern Greek state. Archaeologists have served as the main catalysts in the country’s endeavour to connect antiquity and modernity. Thus, the legacy of deceased archaeologists is tangible in many parts of Athens and a reminder of the significance of archaeology as a discipline in modern Greece. This article examines how the memory ofHeinrich Schliemann and Panagiotis Stamatakis has been appropriated (or misappropriated) in the Greek capital. They worked together to bring to light treasures from Mycenae (1876) but shared a contemptuous relationship for the remainder of their lives. We aim to understandhow society and the state treated not only the mortal remains of these two individuals but also their legacies. Hence, the abundance or absence of material evidence in Athens related to the maintenance of their memory will reveal how the archaeologists themselves worked to preserve or erase their posthumous legacy and how this has been appropriated

Testing the Use of OSL on Cobbles From the Raised Beaches of King George Island, Antarctica

The purpose of this thesis is to find a new method for dating raised-beach deposits in order to create more accurate sea-level curves for the Antarctic Peninsula. We test the use of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) in dating cobbles from raised beaches within the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula. OSL is commonly used for sediment, but the application to rocks is in its infancy. Methods were developed to isolate quartz grains from the cobbles for OSL measurement. Of the 12 samples I attempted to obtain age dates from, 8 contained enough material for OSL analysis. The OSL ages are in agreement with calibrated radiocarbon ages from the same deposits. In addition, the OSL ages are all internally consistent in that ages obtained from higher ridges are always older than lower ridges and ages obtained from the same ridges overlap one another. My results also clearly illustrate a change in rebound rates within the South Shetland Islands roughly coincident with recent glacier expansion recorded by the mapping and dating of moraines. Because of the large radiocarbon reservoir in Antarctica, OSL is shown to be a more precise method for dating raised beaches than radiocarbon techniques.Boone Pickens School of Geolog

Metabolic profiling of biologically-based samples – new profiling capabilities reveal new information

In the work underlying this thesis, comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatographic (GCxGC) methods have been developed which can be used to compare metabolic profiles from both human and plant metabolic samples. GCxGC was used to extend the GC approach in this area by using 2DGC methods, which provide greater separation power, lower detection limits (greater sensitivity, and therefore cleaner MS spectra), smaller sample amounts and less overall analysis times. A reliable microwave derivatization protocol for metabolomic analysis has been developed through the analysis of a set of standards which included a wide range of metabolites of interest to metabolic profiling. The method presented is rapid (significant decrease in derivatization time, therefore overall decreasing the total analysis time), sensitive and produces less side reactions (a more complete derivatization reaction). It has been successfully applied to two main application areas: human (urine) and plant (ginseng) metabolite profiling. In the infant urine metabolite profiling of organic acids for the diagnosis of organic acidurias, abnormal profiles were obtained from five ‘diseased’ patient samples and compared to five ‘normal’ patient samples. GCxGC with ToFMS detection was useful in separating isomeric organic acids that were otherwise not resolved using 1DGC. Crotonyl glycine was also discovered in the mitochondrial 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA synthase sample as a possible biomarker for the specific disorder. Quantification was investigated using stable isotope dilution analyses of glutaric, glyceric, orotic, 4-hydroxybutyric acids and 3-methylcrotonylglycine. Correlation coefficients for linear calibrations of the analytes ranged from 0.9805 to 0.9993 (R 2 ) and analytical recoveries from 77 and 99%. The work undertaken in the plant metabolic profiling area comprised of the comparison of four, five and six year aged panax ginseng samples through the detection, identification and quantification of volatiles using HS-SPME-GCxGC/TOFMS, and full-metabolite screens for the study of primary and secondary active metabolites using GC×GC/ToFMS. In the SPME study, major compounds identified in the samples analyzed were sesquiterpene hydrocarbons and sesquiterpene alcohols, with most of the previously known active compounds present in the five followed by the six year aged samples (examples include α-panasinene, ß-panasinene, α-humulene and α-neoclovene). In the full-metabolite screen, primary active compounds identified and quantified included α-galactopyranosyl-galactopyranose (a trisaccharide) and protopanaxadiol and protopanaxatriol (two glycosides); these primary active compounds were only found in the five and six year aged samples. Secondary active compounds included monosaccharide and disaccharide sugars. Quantification was performed using a 10 metabolite standard mixture with concentration levels of standards ranging from 0.01 to 100 µg/ml. R 2 values obtained were mainly higher than 0.980, with RSD (%) usually less than 5%. Concentration levels found for the primary active compounds ranged from 0.07 - 0.17 µg/ml for protopanaxadiol, with protopanaxatriol concentrations ranging from 0.10 - 0.15 µg/ml in the six year aged samples

European Islands Between Isolated and Interconnected Life Worlds: Interdisciplinary Long-Term Perspectives

Island studies have seen an upswing in recent years. Whereas in the past, research was largely oriented at external perspectives and perceptions, at present we witness an increasing interest in viewpoints internal to the island societies examined (with an ‘inside-out’ approach). This volume contributes to such efforts with transdisciplinary and methodological reflections from the fields of archaeology, ethnology, geography, history, philology, and literary studies. Focused on the interplay between geographic isolation and commercial as well as cultural connection, the studies here assembled investigate the role of the knowledge, resources, and practices of islanders in processes of crisis management, identity formation and transformation

Recent advances in liquid and gas chromatography methodology for extending coverage of the metabolome

The metabolome is the complete complement of metabolites (small organic biomolecules). In order to comprehensively understand the effect of stimuli on a biological system, it is important to detect as many of the metabolites within that system as possible. This review briefly describes some new advances in liquid and gas chromatography to improve coverage of the metabolome, including the serial combination of two columns in tandem, column switching and different variations of two-dimensional chromatography. Supercritical fluid chromatography could provide complimentary data to liquid and gas chromatography. Although there have been many recent advancements in the field of metabolomics, it is evident that a combination, rather than a single method, is required to approach full coverage of the metabolome