01009 - Roman History

Learning outcomes

After completing the course the student is able to analyze critically issues relating to the history and the institutions of the Roman world, considering historical and documentary sources, read in the original language. He has a good knowledge of the key issues, events, phenomena in the history of the Roman world. He is able to organize specific problems in a broader contexts and to evaluate the results on the basis of scientific criteria, he possesses a precise geographical and chronological framework, knows the main tools for research, in digital form too. He can read historiographical texts in at least one language besides Italian and is able to communicate orally using the proper terminology of the discipline.

Course contents

The programme consists of two parts: a first introductory part dealing with the object of study of the discipline and the sources useful for reconstructing Roman history; a second part structured in modules that address transversal themes through the analysis of ancient documentation and comparison with modern historiographical debate.The lectures will be structured as follows:

• Course presentation (about 2 hours)

• The object of Roman history (about 6h)
  1. The limits of Roman history (about 2h)
  2. Brief history of studies up to the 1970s (about 2h)
  3. Roman history today (about 2h)
  

• The evidence for reconstructing Roman history (about 14h)
  
  1. The common characters of the sources for Roman history (about 2h)
  2. Literary sources (about 3h)
  3. Epigraphic sources (about 3h)
  4. Numismatic sources (about 2h)
  5. The evidence of papyri (about 2h)
     
  6. Archaeological sources (about 2 h)

• Institutions and forms of government: emic vision and etic (about 10h)
  1. Polybius and Republican Institutions (about 5h)
  2. The constitutional debate in the 1st century BC and the rise of the Principate (about 3h)
  3. From Principate to Dominate (about 2h)
  
  
• Roman society in Republican and Imperial periods (about 11h)
  1. The élites (about 4h)
  2. The plebs (about 3h)
  3. The slaves (about 2h)
  4. The women (about 2h)

• The role of cities in roman history (about 8h)
  1. The city, base unit of the Roman world (about 4h)
  2. The different statutes of the cities in the Roman world (about 4 h)
  
  
• The impact of Roman history on the recent past of the Western world (about 7h)
  1. American and French revolution (about 3h)
  2. Roman imperialism and the empires of the 19th century (about 2 h)
  3. The fascist "Romanità" (about 2h)
  
  
• Fake news and roman history (about 2 h)

Readings/Bibliography

For attending students:

1. For the key events of Roman history, from its origins to the fifth century AD:

• G. Geraci – A. Marcone, Storia romana, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2002 or later edition [available at the library of the Department of Storia Culture Civiltà – Sezione di Storia Antica, via Zamboni 38, 2nd floor, under the signatures ESAMI CONS 0082, ESAMI PRES 0016, ESAMI PRES 0094] or G. Geraci – A. Marcone, Storia romana. Editio maior, Firenze, Le Monnier Università – Mondadori Education, 2017 [at the same library, under the signatures ESAMI CONS 0056 and ESAMI PRES 0051].

• G. Geraci – A. Marcone, Fonti per la storia romana, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2006 [a the same library, under the signatures F. RACC 201 and ESAMI CONS 0082].
  

2. Further Essays on the History of Rome in the Republic and Principate Periods:

• Federico Santangelo, Roma Repubblicana. Una storia in quaranta vite, Roma, Carocci 2019 (only 20 biographies) [at the same library, under the signatures ESAMI PRES 0089 e ESAMI PRES 0089bis].
  
  
• One of the following volumes (the relevant sections will be available through the course website on the platform Virtuale):
  

  - D.S. Potter (ed.), A Companion to the Roman Empire, Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, pp. 175-280 (Part III: Administration).

  - P. Faure, N. Tran, C. Virlouvet, Rome, cité universelle. De César à Caracalla (70 av. J-C.- 212 apr. J.-C.), Paris, Belin, pp. 659-746 (Chapitre X et XI).

  - K. Christ, Geschichte der römische Kaiserzeit, München, Beck, 2002, pp. 434-480 (Ziele und Mittel imperiales Politik).

  - J. Guillen, Urbs Roma. Vida y costumbres de los Romanos, II, La vida pública, Salamanca 1995, pp. 137-205.

3. For the topics discussed in class, attending students will count, as well as on personal notes, on the slides projected during the lessons, which will be published on the website of the course, on the platform Virtuale.

 

For non attending students:

1. For the key events of Roman history, from its origins to the fifth century AD:

• G. Geraci – A. Marcone, Storia romana. Editio maior, Firenze, Le Monnier Università – Mondadori Education, 2017 [at the same library, under the signatures ESAMI CONS 0056 and ESAMI PRES 0051].

• G. Geraci – A. Marcone, Fonti per la storia romana, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2006 [a the same library, under the signatures F. RACC 201 and ESAMI CONS 0082].
  

2. Further Essays on the History of Rome in the Republic and Principate Periods:

• Federico Santangelo, Roma Repubblicana. Una storia in quaranta vite, Roma, Carocci 2019 (only 25 biographies) [at the same library, under the signatures ESAMI PRES 0089 e ESAMI PRES 0089bis].
  
  
• One of the following volumes (the relevant sections will be available through the course website on the platform Virtuale):
  

  - D.S. Potter (ed.), A Companion to the Roman Empire, Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, pp. 175-280 (Part III: Administration).

  - P. Faure, N. Tran, C. Virlouvet, Rome, cité universelle. De César à Caracalla (70 av. J-C.- 212 apr. J.-C.), Paris, Belin, pp. 659-746 (Chapitre X et XI).

  - K. Christ, Geschichte der römische Kaiserzeit, München, Beck, 2002, pp. 434-480 (Ziele und Mittel imperiales Politik).

  - J. Guillen, Urbs Roma. Vida y costumbres de los Romanos, II, La vida pública, Salamanca 1995, pp. 137-205.

 

Finally, the use of a good historical atlas is recommended for all students. The lecturer will provide some plates from the Atlante Enciclopedico Touring vol. 4: Storia Antica e Medievale on the Virtuale.

 

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures introducing the object of study of Roman history and the methodological problems inherent in the sources for the reconstruction of this historical period; frontal lectures on case studies on some transversal themes of Roman history. In the course of these lectures, numerous textual (in Italian translation, sometimes focusing on the specific meaning of some Greek and Latin terms) and iconographic sources will be read.

 

In agreement with prof. M. Vitelli Casella, responsible for the teaching of Roman History (M-Z) for the degree in History, and prof. A. Cristofori, responsible for the teaching of Roman History (A-L) for the degree in History, the course participates in the University's teaching experimentation project according to the Integrative Digital Teaching (DDI) model. The project is aimed at students who do not have the opportunity to attend lessons in person and who will compose a sort of virtual classroom

The project involves recording the lectures through the Panopto application; the interaction with the students will be ensured by the opening of a Forum (one of the tools provided by the platform Virtuale) for each of the scheduled lessons, in which students who will follow the course in this mode will be able to ask the teachers questions on the subject dealt with; the questions and the relative answers will thus be visible to the whole virtual class.

Also through Virtuale, not only the slides with the guidelines of the lessons are made available, but also additional in-depth materials intended explicitly for the virtual class.

A preliminary remote meeting is planned, through the Teams application, with all participants in the virtual class before the start of the lessons, to illustrate this experimental project to interested students; the date of the meeting will be announced on the News page of the teachers' websites. From lesson to lesson, simple activities to verify learning on the subject matter will also be proposed, through Virtuale; completing these activities will allow students to continue attending the course.

At the end of the course there will be a meeting, at distance too, to verify the effectiveness of the chosen method (the meeting which will also be accompanied by an anonymous questionnaire, with the same purpose) which will certainly be of great use for adjustments in a possible re-edition of this experiment.

Students in the virtual classroom who have successfully completed the learning assessment activities, thus demonstrating that they have followed the course carefully, will be considered attending students and will be able to take the related program to the exam.

Assessment methods

For attending students, the assessment (oral examination of about 40 min.) will consist in:

• a question on monarchical and republican history (from the origins to 31 BC);
• a question on imperial history from the origin of the principate to the end of the late antiquity (Augustus to Justinian);
• a question about the essays on the Republican and Imperial Age;
• a question on the topics covered during the lectures;
• knowledge of the sources (provided in translation) collected in the volume "Fonti per la storia romana" will also be required.
  
  

For non-attending students, the assessment (oral examination of about 40 min.) will consist in:

• a question or two on monarchical and republican history (from the origins to 31 BC);
• a question or two on imperial history from the origin of the principate to the end of the late antiquity (Augustus to Justinian);
• a question about the essays on the Republican and Imperial Age;
• knowledge of the sources (provided in translation) collected in the volume "Fonti per la storia romana" will also be required.

 

If the student achieves a complete and detailed vision of the topics discussed in class and required for the discipline, provides an effective critical commentary, shows mastery of expression and of the specific language, he or she obtains excellence in the evaluation (28-30L).

Those students who demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the main topics of the subject, basic skills of analysis and synthesis, and a correct command of the language, will be given a good mark (25-27).

Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic (and/or non-exhaustive) knowledge of the subject with a more superficial skills of analysis and synthesis, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a satisfactory mark (22-24).

A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a ‘pass’ mark (18-21).

A student will be deemed to have failed the exam if he displays significant errors in his understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the subject, together with a poor command of the appropriate terminology (< 18).

Teaching tools

During the course, PowerPoint slides will be displayed. Virtuale , the University's repository for sharing teaching support tools, will be used to share the power points discussed during the lessons and the proposed readings.

Office hours

See the website of Simone Ciambelli