BA Ancient History / Course details

This course will examine Roman attitudes to the legendary and historical past as they developed in the Republic and early Empire. It will also look at Roman responses to other cities, nations and peoples with whom they came into contact, including other Italic communities, as well as the Gauls and the Greeks. Above all, the course will consider Roman attitudes to the city of Rome itself, with special emphasis on sites of religious and political significance. Topics covered will include.

• the development of the myth of Troy in the late Republic
• the ‘Roman virtues'
• temples and religious practice as the focus of national feeling
• the symbolic significance of the Capitol, the Aventine and the Palatine

• To enable students to broaden and deepen their knowledge of the Roman world by studying a range of texts (across several genres) that explore the exemplary function of the past in Roman culture
• To develop further the skills, intellectual, practical and transferable, acquired in study of Roman history and literature during the previous year;

At level 3, a broader and more complex core of texts than at level 2 will include a selection which introduces more sophisticated or controversial issues surrounding the topics covered

By the end of this course students will have acquired:

Weekly: 1 lecture plus tutorials

Lectures will provide a framework of information and models for interpretative work which will be explored in more depth in seminar sessions.

• Broad and detailed knowledge of  traditional myths of early Rome in Roman historiographical and poetic traditions
• Understanding of the nature of patriotism and identity in Rome in the late Republic and early Empire

NB In keeping with the broader range of texts, including more complex examples, which students at level 3 will have studied, they are expected to have gained a greater level of sophistication and breadth of knowledge than those taking the course at level 2.

• Subject-specific skills, including sophisticated evaluation of literary texts as sources of evidence for ancient culture

• Transferable skills and personal qualities include the ability to construct an argument in written and oral form, to pose questions about complex issues
• To assimilate and summarise large quantities of evidence
• To locate and retrieve relevant information from primary sources
• To conduct bibliographic searches
• To present the results in a professional manner with appropriate reference to sources and modern published scholarship
• To use e-resources and gain knowledge of research methods and resources
• To manage time and resources
• To engage in critical discussion.

• Written feedback on formative and summative assessment (see above)
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during the consultation hour or by making an appointment)

All students taking the course will read (in English) a ‘core’ selection of texts from a wide range of ancient authors (including Polybius, Suetonius, Ovid, Livy, Cicero, Vergil, Pliny the Elder, Macrobius and Augustine); level 3 seminars focus on additional texts and more detailed exploration of the key themes of the course.

Suggested preliminary reading :

Dinter, M.T. & Guérin, C. eds. (2023). Cultural memory in Republican and Augustan Rome. Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press  

Edwards,C. (1996) Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to theCity, Cambr idge

Flower (1996) Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture, Oxford

Gildenhard, I., Gotter, U., Havener, W., & Hodgson, L., eds., (2019). Augustus and the destruction of history: The politics of the past in early imperial Rome (Vol. 41). Cambridge Philological Society. 

Miles, G. (1995) Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome, Cornell