History 91r: The Comparative Cultural Histories of the Greek

and Roman World with particular focus on political, military,

gender and religious issues
Student: Kathleen Fitzgerald
Professor: Emma Dench

Description of Topics Studied

A selection of themes from the cultural history of the Greek and Roman
world, emphasizing a comparative approach towards political, military,
gender and religious issues. We read and discuss ancient material and
modern debates on: ancient tyranny, democracy and empire in
classical Athens, inclusion and exclusion in classical Athens, the
Romans and their beginnings, Roman Republican politics, control and
lack of it in the Roman imperial world, Roman individuals and Roman
social units, and a special subject chosen by the student.

Practical Information
A 10+ page research paper covering my chosen topic—the gender,
sexual, and political importance of Rome’s Vestal Virgins—will be
submitted by the end of the semester, following a class presentation
on the same subject. A book report on a related text will also be due
before the Spring Break recess. During finals period, either a 30-
minute oral exam or a full-length written final exam will be
administered depending on the professor’s choice at that time.

General Works

The Oxford Classical Dictionary (third revised edition, edited by S. Hornblower and A.
Spawforth)
O. Murray, Early Greece (2nd ed. 1993)
R. Osborne, Greece in the Making (1996)
G. Shipley, The Greek World after Alexander (2000)
Joint Association of Classics Teachers, The World of Athens
The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edition), volumes 3, ‘The expansion of the Greek
world , Eighth-sixth centuries BC’, 4 ‘Persia, Greece and the western Mediterranean’, 5
‘The fifth century BC’, 6 ‘The fourth century BC’, 7, 1 ‘The Hellenistic World’, 7, 2
‘The Rise of Rome to 220 BC’, 8 ‘Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 BC’, 9 ‘The Last
Age of the Roman Republic’, 10 ‘The Augustan Empire’, 11 ‘The High Empire’, 12 ‘The
Crisis of Empire’
G. Woolf (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World (2003)
T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (1995)
M.H. Crawford, The Roman Republic (2nd ed. 1992)
H. Flower (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (2004)
M. Beard and M.H. Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic (1985)
C. Wells, The Roman Empire (2nd ed. 1992 or 1995)
M. Goodman, The Roman World 44 BC-AD 180 (1997)
A. Cameron, The Later Roman Empire AD 284-430 (1993)
Peter Stewart, Roman Art (2004)
M. Beard, J. North, S. Price, Religions of Rome (1998)
C. Scarre, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (1995)
N. Morley, Writing Ancient History (1999)
N. Morley, Ancient History: Key Themes and Approaches (2000)

Syllabus and specific bibliography

1. Tyranny: an ancient model of power

Selections from; Archilochus, Solon, Aristotle, Ath. Pol., Herodotus
A. Andrewes, The Greek Tyrants (1956), chs. 2, 5 and 7
J. McGlew, Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece (1996), chs. 1, 2
and 6.
D. Steiner, The Tyrant’s Writ (1994), chapter 4.
S. Lewis‘The tyrant’s myth’, in C.J. Smith and J. Serrati (eds), Sicily from
Aeneas to Cicero (2000) 97-106.
J. Salmon, ‘Political Hoplites?’ JHS 97, 1977, 84-101

2. Democracy and Empire in Classical Athens

E. Robinson (ed.), Ancient Greek Democracy
J. Ober, The Athenian Revolution (1996), ch. 1 ‘Introduction’, ch. 2, ‘Models
and paradigms’, ch. 8, ‘The nature of Athenian democracy’.
P.J. Rhodes, Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology (2003), chapters 3-6
(‘Democracy: fashions in scholarship’, ‘Athenian democracy and us’, and
‘How to study Athenian democracy’)
Robin Osborne, The Athenian empire , LACTOR 1, 2000 (4th edition)

D. Boedeker and K. Raaflaub (eds.), Democracy, empire and the arts in

fifth-century Athens (1998)

PJ. Rhodes, The Athenian empire , 1985.

M. Finley, ‘The Athenian empire: a balance sheet' in his Economy and

society in Ancient Greece , 1981, p. 41-61.

3. Inclusion and Exclusion in Classical Athens

[Xenophon] The constitution of the Athenians; Aeschylus, The Oresteia;
Euripides, Medea.
D. Ogden, Greek bastardy in the classical and Hellenistic periods
(1996)
N. Loraux, The Children of Athena (1993)
J. Gould, ‘Law, custom and myth: aspects of the social position of
women in classical Athens’, in Journal of Roman Studies 100, 1980.
T. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (1981)
P. Garnsey, Ideas of slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (1997)

4. The Romans and their beginnings

(Love and war; Rome as an expansionist society
Gender in Roman beginnings)
Livy Books 1-5
T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (1985)
G. Miles, L.I.V.Y: reconstructing early Rome (1995)
Chapters on early Rome in Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edd.), vol.
7, 1
J. Arieti, ‘Rape and Livy’s view of Roman history’, in S. Deacy and K.
Pierce (eds.), Rape in Antiquity (1997), 209 ff.

5. Roman Republican politics

(e.g. ‘democracy’, assemblies, citizenship)
F.G. B. Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the late Republic (1998), chapters 1
and 8.
H. Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic (2001), chs. 1
and 6.
R. Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman
Republic (2004), chs. 1, 6 and 7.
A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship (2nd ed. 1973)
J. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen (1993)
A. Vasaly, Representations: images of the world in Ciceronian oratory
(1993)

6. Control and lack of it in the Roman imperial world

(including religious/moral and social control; keeping order in domestic
and international contexts)
W. Nippel, Public order in ancient Rome (1995)
Brian Campbell, War and Society in imperial Rome (2002)
B. Shaw, ‘Bandits in the Roman Empire’, Past and Present 105, 1984,
3-52.
A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Mutatio morum: the idea of a cultural revolution’, in
T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution
(1997), 3 ff.
S. Treggiari, ‘Social status and social legislation’, in Cambridge Ancient
History 10 (2nd ed. ) 873 ff.
R. Gordon, ‘Religion in the Roman Empire: the civic compromise and its
limits’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds.), Pagan Priests
G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ‘Why were the early Christians persecuted?’ Past
and Present 1963

7. Writing Roman Individuals/Imperial Court

(e.g. Caesar/how to be a good general; Livia)
K. Hopkins review of F.G.B. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World in
Journal of Roman Studies 68, 1978, pp. 178-86.
A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Civilis Princeps: between citizen and king’, Journal of
Roman Studies 72, 1982, 32-48
S. Bartsch, Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Double-Speak from
Nero to Hadrian (1994), chapters 1 and 5.
A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The imperial court’, in Cambridge Ancient History vol.
10 (2nd ed.)
N. Purcell, ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome’, Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 32, 1986, 78 ff.

8. Roman social units (home/family and military)

A. Goldsworthy and I. Haynes (eds.), The Roman Army as a community
(1999)
O. van Nijf, The Civic world of professional organizations in the Roman
East (1997)
B. Rawson and P. Weaver (eds.), The Roman Family in Italy: Status,
sentiment, space (1997)
J. Gardner, Family and familia in Roman law and life (1998)
A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum
(1994)

9. Vestal Virgins
(bibliography to be prepared by student)

10. Ancient Military History

(bibliography to be prepared by student)