The power to define and characterize various groups, as well as those individuals commonly associated with them, remains one of the most effective ways to reinforce social hierarchy in almost any society through a justification of status, influence, and privilege based on identity. This dissertation represents an exploration of the power of social identity utilizing the framework of infamia (dishonor, ill-repute, disgrace, social stigmatization, civic disability) within the world of ancient Roman spectacle and entertainment. Such an analysis will illustrate how the Roman elite used the concept of infamia as something to define themselves against in order to augment their perceived moral and political authority. In an era of social turmoil and transformation, the gradual increase in the legal restrictions placed upon public performers in the late stages of the Republic suggests infamia was used as a social and political tool to reinforce the integrity of the traditional orders of elite Roman society. How were these disreputable performers able to create a distinctive sub-culture of their own despite a popular perception, both ancient and modern, that they lived in a state of `social death' resulting from the moral censure and civic disability associated with the stigma of infamia? How might socially marginalized people have envisioned their unique place within Roman society, and in what ways did those of degraded civic status preserve or construct a sense of identity, both individual and collective, in the face of overwhelming Roman power? The evidence suggests some of these people constructed their own form of community, in many ways modeled on traditional Roman society, with a complex network of social bonds based on family, occupation, dependency, and religion. The iconic gladiators and actors of ancient Rome conducted their daily lives in a public arena that provided an environment for them to challenge the limitations of the traditional `social death' models that are so often associated with the subjugated elements of hierarchical societies.

This dissertation investigates the cultural imagination of Roman elites regarding poverty in their society – how it was defined, how traditional and accepted images of poverty were deployed for rhetorical effect, and in what way elite attitudes toward poverty evolved over the course of the first century and a half under the Empire. It contends that the Roman conception of poverty was as a disordered discourse involving multiple competing definitions which frequently overlapped in practice. It argues that the inherent contradictions in Roman thought about poverty were rarely addressed or acknowledged by authors during this period.

The Introduction summarizes scholarly approaches toward Roman perceptions of poverty and offers a set of definitions which describe the variant images of poverty in elite texts. The first chapter addresses poverty’s role in the histories of Livy, and the ways in which his presentation of poverty diverge from his assertion that the loss of paupertas was key to the decline of the Roman state. The second chapter analyzes rich and poor characters in Roman declamation, arguing that this genre’s place in education impressed upon young elites a vision of the poor citizen as noble and worthy of protection. In the third chapter I investigate poverty’s place in the literary generation of Pliny, Suetonius, and Tacitus, concluding that their era saw the advertisement of a frugal, rustic identity among Italian and provincial aristocrats. My fourth chapter evaluates specifically urban poverty as seen in Roman satire; it argues that Martial and Juvenal construct their personas as eyewitnesses to poverty, but that only Juvenal views the Roman poor with compassion. My final section outlines the representation of poverty and labor in Roman art, concluding that, despite a general absence of poverty in domestic art, the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian saw a new trend of representing the poor as ideological symbols on state monuments and addressing their needs in public policy. The Conclusion suggests that the early 2nd century CE witnessed the increasing visibility of the poor in elite culture, with aristocrats of the era being more willing to portray the contemporary poor, and also willing to portray them in a positive light.

My dissertation employs a range of interdisciplinary methods to produce a diachronic narrative of the evolving modes of honor acquisition and conflict resolution by the ruling elites of the Roman Republic and the Early Empire. Traditionally, prominent Romans laid claim to political power by displaying “aggressive courage” in battle and then advertising their real or carefully constructed martial achievements to petition the Senate for a triumph. Celebrating a triumph provided extraordinary means for constructing an auspicious public image and augmenting one’s prestige and chances of winning elections for magistracies, thus directly translating personal bravery in battle into success in public life.

However, the rivalry for status and political power among Roman elites was characterized by the assertion of claims to social distinction upon others as well as by ranking oneself and one’s peers in a social hierarchy. This was intensified by the ancient Mediterranean belief in limited good; it dictated that all good things in life were in finite supply and could not be increased. Since no human had direct power to augment the available quantities of glory and honor, the zero-sum game meant that a person who succeeded in gaining more honor for himself must have done so at someone else’s expense, making him an immediate object of envy. Once the ruling elites stopped imposing any restraints upon their extraordinary ambitions and greed, they weakened the political system, turning the Republic into a classical Paretian demagogic plutocracy. The cycle of bloody civil wars resulted in the concentration of power first in the hands of a few dynasts and then in the hands of the single individual, Emperor Augustus.

Unlike most distinguished Romans, Augustus conducted himself as an exemplary Machiavellian prince: he ignored long-established practices and cunningly appropriated military achievements of others. While publicly maintaining the appearance of an audacious lion to exalt his own virtus, the manliness exemplified by martial prowess, he secretly acted like a shrewd fox, always looking for ways to reinforce his personal hold on power. In particular, the emperor reserved the privilege of acquiring exceptional virtus only for himself and the chosen male members of his family; he strongly discouraged Roman elites from pursuing traditional militaristic ways of honor acquisition. The radical change in the rules of the game forced Roman aristocrats and equites alike to seek alternative, non-military ways to augment their prestige. Not only did this play a role in ending the cycle of civil wars that had wrecked the Republic, but, coupled with Augustus’ sole control of the military, it also contributed to the lasting peace.

Christianity originated in what has often been described as an honor-shame culture. In Mediterranean antiquity, society, rather than the individual, defined both worthy behavior and a person's worth. While who and what was honored varied according to location and community, the ultimate result was a stratified society that judged some persons as honorable and not others.

Jesus of Nazareth and his earliest followers challenged their society's deeply held values by honoring those judged unworthy and rejecting traditionally sanctioned behavior. Paul of Tarsus embraced Jesus' provocative vision and adapted it as he established Christ-worshiping communities throughout the Mediterranean region. The former persecutor's encounter with the crucified, resurrected Christ fundamentally changed his understanding of Israel's God (Yahweh) along with what and who was honorable; in particular, all those in Christ were worthy of honor and urged to an honor-sharing life in imitation of Christ. Later canonical writings embrace and develop the challenge that Jesus and Paul presented.

The challenge to traditional honor and shame values that began with Jesus and was embraced by Paul and other canonical writers, continued in Christianity as it spread to Rome, Asia, Carthage, and across the Mediterranean region through the middle of the third century. Significant continuities endured, including the emphasis on non-retaliation, humility as a worthy path, the honor-sharing use of power, and the glory of suffering for Christ. At the same time women gained honor through martyrdom and chastity.

While Christianity challenged its culture's deeply embedded values, the dominant culture eventually altered the nascent faith's teachings on honor. The canonical writings embraced the shared honor of all Christ worshipers, but later sources returned to a patriarchal, hierarchal vision of community that emphasized the honor of some at the expense of others. At the same time, the spectacle in the arena so shaped onlookers' perception of martyrs that the honor of dying for Christ in later sources far exceeded earlier writings' estimation of martyrdom.

Christianity persisted in critiquing society's conclusions about what behavior was honorable and who should receive honor well into the third century. Jesus' honor-sharing life and humiliating, sacrificial death had left their mark.

Prompted by recent research on "example" in the field of Classics, this dissertation sets out to better understand the various ways in which Jewish and Christian authors writing, for the most part, in the Imperial west participated in the ubiquitous Roman discourse of exemplarity as they contended for what they understood to be native ancestral leadership ideals. I first introduce the form, function, and broad popularity of the Roman discourse of exemplarity (chapter 1), and propose five prevailing characteristics of ideal Roman leadership (noble lineage, courage/martial prowess, eloquence, generous patronage, and piety), before testing them on multiple Roman works (chapter 2).

My project then explores the ways in which both the rhetorical form and moral content of this ancient conversation were appropriated and redeployed in texts celebrating non-Roman ancestral leaders. I begin with the Moses(es) of Josephus' Ant. 2-4 and Philo's Mosis 1-2, arguing that Josephus' more sustained contact with Roman culture and politics significantly shaped his presentation of Moses' exemplary leadership, while Philo's account largely lacks such narratological and moral Roman coloring. Both authors, however, stress Moses' all-encompassing paradigmatic piety. Chapters 4-5 focus on the leadership discourse in 1 Clement and The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, two corporate letters deploying Christ and Christ-imitating ancestral exempla in the service of intracommunal issues of leadership. I demonstrate the robust participations of these two texts in the Roman discourse of exemplarity as well as their shared appropriation of many characteristically Roman leadership priorities (especially courage and agonistic endurance). At the same time, I argue, both texts advocate the rather un-Roman, Pauline leadership priority of humility using Roman discursive tools, thus affirming the utility of Roman exemplarity for the preservation and articulation of non-Roman ancestral traditions.

Among other implications, my project encourages those studying Roman pedagogy and moral discourse to begin including texts often overlooked as belonging exclusively to the fields of Jewish or Christian studies. Secondly, for those interested in ancient notions of Jewish and Christian leadership, my project encourages the appreciation of both the similarity of developing Mosaic or Christ-oriented leadership traditions to Roman approaches and the possibility of their cultural peculiarity.

The dissertation that follows pursues two complementary tracks: (1) a cultural critique of scholarship on earliest Christianity and (2) an original contribution regarding the social function of apocalyptic discourse in our earliest Christ-confessing texts. I situate early Christian scholarship as it relates to apocalyptic discourse and anti-imperialism. My thesis is that such scholarship is bound by return-to-origins strategies that make early Christ-groups exceptional from their social and cultural environments. These strategies provide avenues for progressive Christian scholars to legitimate their modern ideological perspectives. This dissertation provides insight into such operations in the field of apocalyptic discourse that has scarcely been explored and previously only in a sporadic manner. I use this occasion to argue that such operations belie the social complexities of early Christ-groups. I argue, then, that essentialist strategies to promote early Christian exceptionalism work to mask how embedded early Christ-confessing authors were within their ancient Mediterranean settings. I have targeted apocalyptic discourse because such discourse appears to suggest a starker, apparently more “sectarian” contrast between insiders and outsiders than potentially any other. It is even in the midst of such dualistic discourse that we see early Christ-confessing authors fully participating within their social world.

I dedicate two chapters to unpacking our scholarly operations and another two chapters “zooming in” on two very different “case studies” in which such operations introduce challenges to our academic knowledge of Christian origins. In Chapter 1, I lay the groundwork for my critique of scholarly maneuvers vis-�-vis essentialist return-to-origins narratives and early Christian exceptionalism. I then turn my attention to “empire” and apocalyptic discourse in particular in Chapter 2. My third chapter targets issues of identity and empire that capture scholarly attention on First Thessalonians, while my fourth chapter underscores how Revelation scholars have reframed the apocalypse to fit anti-imperial paradigms and absolve the document’s disturbing elements. What these case studies and theoretical interventions demonstrate is that we must honestly accept the complexity of the earliest Christ-confessing texts. As historians, we must not simply bolster their subversiveness in hopes of authorizing our modern progressive ideologies, no matter how fundamental are our contemporary fights.

This study has used Victor Turner's model of liminality as a heuristic framework for understanding the beliefs, behavior, and self-understanding of the early Christian communities. Unlike other groups in liminality who experience communitas in rites of passage separated from the broader society, and ultimately return to reinforce structure, this study proposes that the unique characteristic of the early Christian communities was that they lived in communitas within the structures of society and extended those relationships to people outside the community.

There were three aspects of liminality that were studied through four different sets of writing in the pre-Constantine communities of Christ followers: the Jesus tradition represented in Luke's narrative of Jesus' life and teaching, the formation of the community represented in Luke's narrative of Acts, and writings to Pauline communities and post-Pauline communities. In these writings, liminality was expressed as a temporal liminality, embodied liminality, and the liminality of the social body. The liminality of the social body was exhibited through the characteristics of anti-structure for inclusion in the community, interpersonal relationships, and authority in the community. Finally, the relationship of the anti-structural community to structure was examined.

There were several areas of continuity throughout the four sets of writings. First, consistently throughout this period, the early communities of Christ followers understood themselves to be living between the times. For them, the new age had begun, while the old was still present. Second, the followers of Jesus saw themselves as embodying this liminality through the in-dwelling of the Spirit in their physical body. Through the Spirit, the followers of Jesus believed they experienced new life in Christ. And third, consistently across traditions followers of Jesus believed they were incorporated into a new community that had a common identity marker, the Spirit. This identity marker transcended structural statuses of gender, ethnicity, wealth, and social rank. The Spirit did not erase these statuses but early Christians were to relate anti-structurally within their structural statuses. Although there was commonality among the communities in this study, how they related to the broader structures of their surrounding societies was a function of their particular situational context.