Roman Civilization (CLST 182)

Life Under the First Superpower

Tues/Thurs 3:05-4:20 Course Description
A superpower with ambitions unchecked.! A civilization with armies forever on the move to distant lands.! A culture unrivaled in wealth, opulence, and power.! A government made up of the richest fraction of the one percent.! Sound familiar?! If you're thinking Rome in the rst century, then you're on the right track.! In this course we will look at Roman culture, both high and low, asking questions about what it was like to live under the rst great superpower.! Well watch gladiators ght each other and cheer mock naval battles from the cheap seats in a Roman amphitheater, gaze out on life at the provincial fringes of the empire in Britain, Syria, and Gaul, walk through the dark alleys of Pompeii and peak in at the brothels and bars that dot the landscape.! Well dine with the rich in their sumptuous villas, surrounded by luxury and art, and then peer back into the servants quarters to see the hard lot of enslaved men and women.! Well follow the rise of Christianity and look at how it made its way from Palestine to the four corners of the Roman world.! Well even spend time learning about the social history of Roman toilets and the ways that sewers, aqueducts, roads, and the eradication of pirates can change whole economies.! So come and join us for a wild and exciting journey through Roman culture.! No prerequisites required.! This is an introductory course and open to anyone. Cavan Concannon 233B Allen Building Lindsey Mazurek 111 East Duke Ofce Hours: Wed 3-5 pm cavan.concannon@duke.edu (919) 684-3779 Ofce Hours: Thurs 4:30-6 pm (at the Perkins Cafe) lindsey.mazurek@duke.edu

Goals of the Course:

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1) To explore daily life and culture in the Roman Empire and develop a disciplined intimacy with that world. 2) To ask questions about empires, the effects they have on those who rule and are ruled by them, and how they function as political, economic, and religious institutions. 3) To engage in critical thinking about how we study the ancient world (and other times and cultures more generally). 4) To develop skills in persuasive and argumentative writing. Requirements: 1) Regular attendance and participation in class (Make sure to sign in on the attendance sheet) 2) Roman History Quiz (taken on the course website between Sept 13 and 18) 3) Short Projects (see below for details) 1) Imperial Travel Project (due Sept 20) 2) Short Paper (4-6 pgs) (due Oct 25) 3) Declamation / Design Project (due Dec 4) 4) Final Exam (December 11) 15% 5%

10% 15% 25% 30%

This course is focused on daily life, politics, and religion in the empire and the requirements for the course are designed to offer a variety of different ways to explore these aspects of the empire. We will provide more specic details for each project in advance of their due date. But to summarize, the Imperial Travel project asks you to think about travel in the Mediterranean in the past and present, the short paper will ask you to explore a literary text or issue in more detail than we do in class, and the Declamation/Design project will ask you to get creative with the rhetoric, art, or architecture of the empire. The goal of these projects is to allow you to go deeper into the material that we are examining in the course and to give you the space to engage creatively on your own terms. Because learning about Roman civilization requires at least some understanding of the basic outlines of Roman history, there will be a Roman history quiz (multiple choice) that you will take on the course website. More information will be provided in advance of the quiz. The Final Exam will be given in class between 2 and 5 pm on December 11. It will consist of short IDs
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and two essays. You will be given a study guide in advance and are encouraged to work collaboratively to prepare. We expect that you will attend lectures, keep up with the course readings, and participate in class discussions and group work when appropriate. This includes doing the required readings before class, behaving appropriately in class, so please refrain from checking email, updating facebook, browsing the web, or talking with your neighbors. Also, make sure that you sign in on the attendance sheet before you leave class. All of this will be factored into your participation grade. Course Readings: All readings for the course will be available either on the course website or in textbooks available for sale at both the Bryan Center. All required textbooks will also be on reserve at Lilly Library. You are welcome (and encouraged) to purchase used versions of these books online. Any readings not in these textbooks will be available on the course website. We expect all reading to be done *before class.* Books available for purchase in the bookstore: Greg Woolf, Rome: An Empires Story Plautus, The Comedies Vol. 1 Robert Knapp, Invisible Romans Mary Boatwright, The Peoples of the Roman Empire Also, check out the course website, where you can nd a blog and other interesting material related to the course: http://sites.duke.edu/clst182_01_f2012/

Academic Integrity
We expect all students to abide by the Duke Community Standard (http:// registrar.duke.edu/bulletins/communitystandard/2008-09/html/ dcs2008-09-05-1.html). In particular, we recommend reviewing the universitys policies on plagiarism and cheating (see pages 17-21 of the pdf available here: http://registrar.duke.edu/bulletins/communitystandard/).

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Course Schedule:
August 28 Introduction August 30 Rome: Topography and Timeline Readings: 1. Woolf, chapters 1, 2, and 18 2. Knapp, chapter 1 Part 1: Daily Life in a Roman City September 4 The Roman City: Architecture, Baths, and Administration 1. Woolf, chapter 7 2. Zanker, Pompeii: public and private life, Townscape and ideology in the Age of Augustus, pp. 78-123. September 6 The Roman City: Houses, Toilets, Brothels and Grafti 1. Woolf, chapter 9 2. Various, Urination and Defecation Roman-Style (you can ignore the case-studies in this chapter if you wish) (Website) 3. Knapp, chapter 7 4. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Website) September 11 The Roman City: Demographics, Social Structure, and Associations 1. Woolf, chapters 4, 11, and 12
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2. Aldrete, Daily Life in the Roman City, chapter 5 (Website) Part II: Empire at the Margins September 13 Becoming Roman and Traveling the Empire 1. Woolf, chapter 14 2. Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, chapter 7 (Website) 3. Boatwright, chapter 1 Recommended 1. Mattingly, Being Roman (Website)

***Online Quiz must be taken on Sakai before class on September 18***

September 18 Empire at the Margins: Gaul and Britain 1. Caesar, The Gallic War, book 6 (focus on sections 13-36) (Website) 2. Boatwright, chapter 2 3. Woolf, Becoming Roman, Roman power and the Gauls, 24-47 (Website)

September 20 Empire at the Margins: Egypt 1. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 351 (1) D- 358 (20) E (Website) 2. Boatwright, chapter 4 3. Parsons, Glorious and Most Glorious City, City of the sharp-nosed sh: Greek lives in Roman Egypt, 46-60 (Website)
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***Travel Project Due in Class***

September 25 Empire at the Margins: Syria, Palestine, and the Jews 1. Josephus, Vita and The Jewish War (selections) (Website) 2. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora (Website) 3. Boatwright, chapter 5 September 27 Empire at the Margins: Greece (Corinth and Athens) 1. Plutarch, Life of Marc Antony (Website) 2. Boatwright, chapter 3 3. Stefanidou-Tiveriou, Tradition and Romanization in the monumental landscape of Athens. Athens During the Roman Period (Website) October 2 Empire at the Margins: Greece and the Second Sophistic 1. Favorinus, The Corinthian Oration (Website) 2. Lucian, Consonants at Law (Website) 3. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights (selections) (Website) 4. Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic, chapter 1 (Website) Suggested Reading: 1. Woolf, Becoming Roman, Staying Greek (Website) Part III: Culture and Imperialism October 4

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Telling the Empires Story: Epic and Imperialism 1. Virgil, The Aeneid, book 6 and a portion of book 8 (on the shield of Aeneas) (Website) 2. Seneca, Apocolocyntosis (Website) 3. Myers, Imperial Poetry (Website) October 9 Entertaining the Masses: Comedy and the Roman Theater 1. Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 2. Welch, The Colosseum: Canonization of the Amphitheater Building Type. The Roman Amphitheatre, 128-162 (Website) October 11 Gladiators, Beast Fights, and Spectacular Excecutions 1. Tertullian, On Spectacles (Website) 2. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, chapter 1 (Website) 3. Knapp, chapter 8

Fall Break October 18 The Pursuit of Virtue: Philosophy and the Imperial Elite 1. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods (Website) 2. Lucian, Philosophies for Sale (Website) 3. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, chapter 7 (Website) Recommended Reading: 1. Woolf, chapter 10

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Part IV: Imperial Religion October 23 Roman Religion and the Cult of the Emperors 1. Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 3.15-26 (Website) 2. Aldrete, Daily Life in the Roman City, chapter 10 (website) 3. Frankfurter, Traditional Cult (Website) 4. Woolf, chapter 8 Suggested Reading 1. Rives, Imperial Cult and Native Tradition in North Africa (website) October 25 Gods of the Provinces: Egyptian and Syrian Cults 1. Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess (Website) 2. Translation of the Chronicle of Sarapieion A (Website) 3. Alvar Ezquerra, Romanising Oriental Gods: myth, salvation and ethics in the cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras, 63-73; 165-191 (Website)

***Short Paper Due in Class***

October 30 Magic, Holy Men, and Popular Religion 1. Plutarch, Concerning Superstition (Website) 2. Lucian, On Sacrices (Website) 3. Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, selections (Website) 4. Belayche, Religious Actors in Daily Life: Practices and Related Beliefs (Website)
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November 1 The Rise of Christianity 1. Luke/Acts, selections (Website) 2. Lucian, Passing of Peregrinus (Website) 3. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Website) 4. Woolf, chapter 16 Suggestions: 1. Boatwright, chapter 6

Part V: The Lives of Ordinary Romans November 6 Women in the Empire 1. Knapp, chapter 2 2. Dixon, Roman family relations and the law. The Roman Family, 36-58 (Website) November 8 Sex and Medicine 1. Galen (selections) (Website) 2. Thomas Lacquer, Making Sex, chapter 2 (Website) 3. King - Greek and Roman Medicine (Website) November 13 Representing the Roman Family 1. Dixon, The family through the life cycle. The Roman Family,133-159 (Website) 2. Bradley, Dislocation in the Roman family. Discovering the Roman Family, 125-155 (Website)
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November 15 Slavery in the Empire 1. Knapp, chapter 4 2. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, chapter 1 (Website) 3. Woolf, chapter 6

November 20 Death and Dying 1. Hope, Facing mortality. Roman Death: the Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome, 17-40 (Website) 2. Heyn, Gesture and identity in the funerary art of Palmyra. 631-661 (Website) 3. Petersen, The baker, his tomb, his wife and her breadbasket: the monument of Eurysaces in Rome, 230-257 (Website) Thanksgiving Break November 27 Roman Art: The Augustan Program 1. Zanker, The Great Turning Point: Intimations of a New Imperial Style and The Augustan Program of Cultural Renewal. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 79-101, 101-166 (Website) November 29 Roman Art: Art and Architecture under the Good Emperors 1. Clarke, Trajans Forum and the New Imperial City Art in the lives of ordinary Romans. Visual representations and non-elite viewers in Italy, 100 BC-AD 315, 29-56 (Website) 2. Boatwright, Hadrians Mausoleum and the Pons Aelius. Hadrian and the city of Rome, 161-181 (Website) Part VI: On Beginnings and Endings: Toward a Conclusion
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December 4 Beginning at the End: Roman Origin Myths 1. Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch on the founding of Rome (Website) 2. Emma Dench, Romulus Asylum (Website) 3. Woolf, chapter 3

***Declamation / Design Project Due in Class ***

December 6 Ending at the End: Constantine, Diocletian, and the Tetrarchy 1. Kampen, Tetrarchs and ctive kinship. Family ctions in Roman art, 104-122 (Website) 2. Woolf, chapters 13 and 15 ***Tuesday, December 11, 2-5 pm*** Final Exam

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