There is no doubt that it is the "confessional" character that makes Augustine's Confessions such a unique text. The aim of this study is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the key aspects that make Augustine's autobiography a "confessional" autobiography: the use of second-person forms, the indirect mode of address used in the confession, the apparently unmediated nature of the private confession, and the mysterious manner of its transposition into a literary form for reception by the reader. The article conclude that confessional discourse is based on a number of paradoxes and systematically negates its own communicative purpose. It creates the impression of the intimate communication between confessant and his divine listener, but it also assumes the presence of other listeners, to whom the discourse is actually addressed. Nevertheless, the confession takes place wordlessly, solely within the mind of the confessant, so even if a witness were indeed present, that witness would not be able to participate in the communication. And even though this unarticulated, silent discourse was never meant to leave the confines of the confessant's mind, it nevertheless in some mysterious way it becomes a public matter. This implausible communicative situation creates an impression that the recipient is participating in something that is deeply intimate and is enormously powerful.
This paper analyses the main characteristics of a (interrelated) series of (non-) stative verbs, in an investigation that moves from the lexical-semantic to the syntactic level. The first task is to establish and quantify the common and particular semantic notions that these verbs possess, and to determine the lexical domain(s) in which the most frequent and shared notions of the (non-)stative predicates analyzed are located. The consequences observed at the syntactic level are then set out, both in terms of the general lines of the complementation schemes of such verbs, and in terms of the linguistic facts that occur in the use of these predicates from a synchronic and also, to a certain extent, a diachronic point of view. The analysis shows that the features of similarity and notional variety are combined in various particular ways, and form a gallery of specific complementation schemes, ranging from an absolutely generalizing monovalent existential frame to more concrete structures which are clearly transitive.
This paper examines the main aspects of the life and reign of Mithridates Eupator in relation to Max Weber's concept of charismatic leadership. In doing so, analogies or divergences with respect to this theory are identified, while analysing how this king manifested various charismatic qualities throughout his career.
This paper is a preliminary report about three honorifically inscribed bases set up during the era of Trajan in the theatre of Telmessus in south-western Turkey by the Lycian koinon (i.e., league) for Trajan, Plotina, and Matidia and about some fragmentary statues that may belong to these inscribed monuments. Rescue excavations by the Museum of Fethiye were carried out in the theater of Telmessus between 1992 and 1995 which was built in the Late Hellenistic period. Three statue bases which were raised by the Lycian koinon in honour of Plotina, Trajan and Matidia are examined in this article, as are two female statues (Plotina and Matidia?) and two others representing an armored emperor (Trajan?). All of these finds are today exhibited in the garden of the Museum of Fethiye. The brief article discusses the architectural framework in which the bases and their statues were erected and questions the precise location where they were placed. As this paper is rather based on new epigraphic evidence from the theater of Telmessus, the study of the statuary and their context is brief and preliminary; the architectural context of the theatre is not illustrated at all.
