http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/282 Classics 2025-09-27T08:28:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9322 Title: CHILD MORTALITY IN ANCIENT ROME AND MODERN IBADAN Authors: ANENI, M.O Abstract: High records of occurrences of child mortality were documented in ancient Rome and in modern Ibadan. Available studies on ancient Rome focused on the effect of female infanticide on the population, and those on modern Ibadan, concentrated on the effects of cerebral malaria on children below the age of 5. However, these studies ignored the comparative possibility of health situations in both societies despite their related experiences. This study, therefore, compared the causes of child mortality (ages 0-5) in both societies. The study employed historical and comparative methodologies to highlight the factors that caused child mortality in both societies. Sources utilised on ancient Rome were volume X of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, from which gender distribution of mortality and chronological age of children were gleaned. Data were also extracted from classical and contemporary authors. For modern Ibadan, information was gathered from medical literature and newspaper reports. The data were subjected to content analysis. The factors which brought about child death in ancient Rome and modern Ibadan were similar, but they occurred in varying degrees of magnitude. Respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia, acute bronchitis, asthma, and tonsillitis caused child mortality in both societies. Air-borne and water-borne diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, measles and diarrhea killed children below age 6. These diseases were often aggravated by malaria. Dysentery and inflammatory bowel diseases such as entiritis also accounted for children’s death. Other diseases that included jaundice, malaria, convulsions, neo-natal tetanus, meningitis, severe malnutrition, severe birth syphxia, ulcers and gangrene also caused child mortality in both societies. Maternal illiteracy, superstitious beliefs, social deprivation, and poverty were the social and economic factors which permitted child mortality in the two civilisations. In both societies, children less than 3 were worst affected by these diseases due to their vulnerability. In ancient Rome, neo-natal death resulting from venereal diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis were transferred from mother to child at birth, but this death was rare in modern Ibadan since people were informed of the disease in modern Ibadan than in antiquity. Lead poisoning, superstitious beliefs and social deprivation caused death in both societies. In ancient Rome, social deprivation ranked highest, followed by superstitious beliefs and lead poisoning because of government’s enthusiasm about the empire’s consolidation. In modern Ibadan, superstitious beliefs caused more death than lead poisoning and social deprivation due to the people’s belief system. While malaria and tuberculosis killed thousands of children than other diseases in ancient Rome, neonatal tetanus, prematurity and low birth weight, neonatal septicaemia and severe birth sphyxia ranked highest in modern Ibadan. They ranked highest in antiquity and Ibadan respectively due to weather conditions and people’s ignorance of the diseases. Child mortality in ancient Rome and modern Ibadan was caused by tropical diseases, sexually transmitted infections and respiratory tract infections. Thus, child mortality was a social challenge in both societies. Further studies could examine the divergence and convergence in the medical approaches applied to infant diseases in ancient Rome and modern Ibadan. Description: A thesis in the Department of CLASSICS,submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Of the UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN 2013-05-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9101 Title: Perception of women entrepreneurship in ancient Greek and traditional Yoruba societies Authors: Adebowale, B. A. Abstract: Globally, economic growth and national development may be the result of the success registered by Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises (SMEs). In the societies or nations where the intervention by SMEs is a thriving practice, credit often is given mainly to the male entrepreneurs while the contributions of their female counterparts hardly receives much robust consideration in existing literature. Thus, this paper takes a diachronic approach in explicating the perceptions and contributions of women. The study is delimited to the antiquated Grecian society and the Yoruba society of Nigeria in the pre-colonial and colonial periods and adopts a comparative hermeneutical approach in the analysis of the historical findings and textual materials peculiar to both societies. Its findings reveal that significant dichotomies existed in both societies in relation to the entrepreneurial activities of women. In Greece, women were inhibited by their cultural value to engage in entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial activities they were allowed to carry out were more passive than active. Nonetheless, they excelled and provided stability at the home front and the nation Overall albeit on a micro-managed scale. On the other hand, Yoruba women in Nigeria were privileged to engage in entrepreneurial activities with minimal restrictions. This afforded them the opportunity to translate their business enterprises into money spinning ventures. With such wealth in their hands, they could conveniently delve into politics and have a telling influence in the political affairs of their various communities. The study therefore underscores the historicity that women in different societies have found a way to counter patriarchy through diligence, dexterity, creativity and innovation to ensure domestic stability and sustainable development in every society. Thus, women should not be perceived as belonging strictly to the 'other room’. Such perception is tantamount to a subtle denial of their pivotal contributions to economic development and socio-political advancement whether in the past or present times 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9100 Title: Paedophilia in modern society a mirror of pederasty of Ancient Greece? Authors: Adebowale, B. A. Abstract: As never before, sexual abuse is rife in modern human society. Tracing the beginnings of sexual perversions to ancient Greece where pederasty was institutionalised, this paper attempts a conceptual distillation between paedophilia and pederasty. Given that pederasty in ancient Greece was an institutionalised part of aristocracy, existing between an adult male, erastes, and a pre-adolescent boy, the eromenos, some scholars have argued that paedophilia is an offshoot of this Greek practice. These scholars make references to canonical philosophical writings by Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes inter alia as authority to prop their arguments for indulging the modern phenomena of paedophilia as well as homosexuality by extension. The arguments presented, in this study, bifurcates pederasty from paedophilia by drawing copiously from the sociological and psychological perspectives in deconstructing those widely held views on both sexual Orientations. The study reveals that the former is a norm that left a multiplier effect as the pederast mentee developed to the extent of becoming a pederast mentor, thereby promoting sustainable development in ancient Greece. The study concludes that both concepts exist on different orientational pedestals with pederasty to be lauded for its gains and paedophilia to be condemned for its evils against the innocent child victim 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z http://ir.library.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/9099 Title: A re-evaluation of the theme of fate in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Ola Rotimi's the Gods are not to blame Authors: Adebowale, B. A. Abstract: Intertextuality presupposes the linkage of subjects, ideas and themes between and among texts. Although numerous scholars have carried out intertextual readings into various texts, only a few have delved principally into cosmological connectives within texts from the cultural perspective of fatalism. The universality of the theme of fatalism and its rootedness in virtually every religion around the world necessitates this work. This study, therefore, investigates the textual hybridisation and thematisation of apparently contrasting worldviews (Greek and Yoruba) in order to improve the body of existing intertextual literature on fatalism. This study is anchored on the philosophical concept of determinism. Two texts were purposively selected- Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (OR), a classical play, and Ola Rotimi's The Gods are not to Blame (TGB), a contemporary play, for contextual and intertextual study. The study finds that TGB shares more than superficial semblance with OR though textual variations exist between both. TGB is considered a perfect hybrid that thematically draws parallels from OR, foregrounding the integral and unique religio-cultural affinity that exists between the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria and the Greek of the Classical era. Fatalism, being a fundamental aspect of the ancient Greek cosmology, was often thematised in Classical Greek writings as reflected in the text, OR. The study then concludes that the Yoruba people, like the ancient Greek, acknowledge the important role of fate as determinism in human life and as a reality beyond the control of the individual 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z