Inscription from Caria Mentioning Antiochus III, Ptolemy V, and Philip V

The ‘Three Kings’ Inscription’ bears the fragment of a Rhodian arbitration between Bargylia and another town in Caria. It is an important document, for it described major political events which affected western Caria on the eve of the Second Macedonian War (200-197 BC). Above all, it makes it evident that Rhodes eventually came to know about the same Syro-Macedonian connivance against Egypt and the child king Ptolemy V which Polybius (3.2.8; 15.20) later described in big words. After a detailed status quaestionis, the importance of comparing the Rhodian, Ptolemaic, and Polybian perspectives on Antiochus III and Philip V’s conduct is stressed here

Letters from Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra II, and Cleopatra III Concerning the Gymnasium of Omboi

In 135 BC, the gymnasium of Omboi (Upper Egypt) issued a decree immortalising on stone the correspondence concerning some philanthropa bestowed by Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra II, and Cleopatra III. Only a few years later, the dossier was defaced and the royal names were erased (damnatio memoriae) except for that of Cleopatra II. The inscription has thus been interpreted as an epigraphic evidence of the civil war between Ptolemy VIII, flanked by Cleopatra III, and Cleopatra II. In spite of its poor state of preservation, the Omboi dossier allows some useful considerations on its vicissitudes, along with some further restorations

Dedication to Pan Euodos by an Archisomatophylax Loyal to Ptolemy VIII

In 130 BC, the Cretan archisomatophylax Soterichos made a complex dedication to Pan of Fair Paths (Euodos) on behalf of Ptolemy VIII, Cleopatra III, and their children. From a historical point of view, this Upper Egyptian inscription testifies the dynastic conflict between Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II, but also the movement of men and goods in the Egyptian Eastern Desert at a crucial moment in Ptolemaic history. Furthemore, it can also be interpreted as a revealing autobiographical statement and a certificate of loyalty in which the contours of the god (an interpretatio Graeca of Min) and the king seem to merge together

Effective thermal dynamics following a quantum quench in a spin chain

We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the Quantum Ising Model following an abrupt quench of the transverse field. We focus on the on-site autocorrelation function of the order parameter, and extract the phase coherence time $\tau^{\phi}_Q$ from its asymptotic behavior. We show that the initial state determines $\tau^{\phi}_Q$ only through an effective temperature set by its energy and the final Hamiltonian. Moreover, we observe that the dependence of $\tau^{\phi}_Q$ on the effective temperature fairly agrees with that obtained in thermal equilibrium as a function of the equilibrium temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Published versio

John Thornton, "Polibio. Il politico e lo storico"

Review of the boo

Decreto onorario dei sacerdoti di Amon-Ra per lo stratego Callimaco dopo una carestia

In 39 BC, at the end of a famine, the priests of Amun-Ra in Thebes issued a decree with which they declared the strategos Kallimachos a saviour and honoured him as a father, a bright star and a good daimon. They credited him with having fought their calamities by benefitting from some special epiphany of the god. The synod reshaped the treatment of royal evergetism with concepts from the Egyptian tradition (maat, the defeat of Seth). This new edition, with new hypotheses, of one of the most interesting inscriptions of the late Ptolemaic history is accompanied by a commentary that attempts to highlight its conceptual and lexical stratification

Tecniche di mappatura dell’ambiente subacqueo a mezzo di sensori ottici e acustici

La presente tesi di laurea nasce all’interno dell’Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione (I.S.T.I.) del C.N.R. di Pisa, più precisamente nel SILab (Signals and Images Laboratory), ed è volta alla ricerca ed allo studio di alcune delle possibili tecniche per l’esplorazione del mondo subacqueo. In particolare si fa riferimento all'utilizzo di stereoscopia ottica con l'uso di illuminatori ausiliari laser per la ricostruzione 3D e a tecniche di analisi di immagini acustiche prodotte da sidescan sonar

Dana Fields, "Frankness, Greek Culture, and the Roman Empire"

Review of the boo

Long time dynamics following a quench in an integrable quantum spin chain: local versus non-local operators and effective thermal behavior

We study the dynamics of the quantum Ising chain following a zero-temperature quench of the transverse field strength. Focusing on the behavior of two-point spin correlation functions, we show that the correlators of the order parameter display an effective asymptotic thermal behavior, i.e., they decay exponentially to zero, with a phase coherence rate and a correlation length dictated by the equilibrium law with an effective temperature set by the energy of the initial state. On the contrary, the two-point correlation functions of the transverse magnetization or the density-of-kinks operator decay as a power-law and do not exhibit thermal behavior. We argue that the different behavior is linked to the locality of the corresponding operator with respect to the quasi-particles of the model: non-local operators, such as the order parameter, behave thermally, while local ones do not. We study which features of the two-point correlators are a consequence of the integrability of the model by analizing their robustness with respect to a sufficiently strong integrability-breaking term.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, published version. Extensive changes, one author adde