BOF

Joint PhD with La Sapienza – Università di Roma. This research project explores the relationship between holiness and political power in a selection of lives of saints preserved in Syriac hagiographical collections. It is based on the philological study of both these writings and the manuscripts in which they are preserved, and analyses the ideological reasons according to which the collections were formed in the course of time.

A literary-rhetorical analysis of speeches, essays and biographies from the Second Sophistic (50-250 AD) will test the hypothesis that democratic elements in politics in Greek cities continued to exist under Roman imperial rule. This hypothesis challenges a long-standing and influential common opinion among both literary scholars and ancient historians. The methodology combines ancient rhetoric and New Historicism.