Course Description

This course introduces students to the Roman world, which at its height stretched from Britain to Iran, from Germany to Africa, and lasted well over a thousand years. Students develop critical thinking skills while working with Roman literature in translation, art, architecture and other archaeological remains. The structure of the course is chronological, but we will examine major themes across time and space, including the development of Roman literature out of and in response to Greek culture; the effects of the civil wars and the resulting political change from a republic to an imperial monarchy; Roman conceptions of gender, sexuality, slave and free status, citizenship and ethnicity, and how these social categories were used to legitimize or exercise power.