CLAS2131: Crisis of the Roman Republic

• CLAS1301 or CLAS1731

• None.

• None.

• To provide a second-year core of Roman republican history, which will build upon and extend the learning experience of the new core material at Level 1.

• The module covers the prolonged period of breakdown of Roman government from the mid second century BC.
• During the Roman republic, each citizen functioned as peasant, soldier, and voter.
• Prolonged warfare, imperial expansion, extension of the franchise, and political populism strained this system.
• Demands for participation led to successive civil wars and attempts at reform or repression and initiative was grasped by popular leaders who were also warlords.
• These recurrent factors are traced through the period which comprises the careers of Scipio Aemilianus, the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar, and the rise of Octavian-Augustus.
• Selected extracts from different types of source material will be studied in English translation; some visual and artefactual material will be addressed.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• A knowledge of the period of change and breakdown of Roman republican government from the mid second century BC to the rise of Octavian-Augustus, and an understanding of the chief contributory factors: prolonged warfare, imperial expansion, extension of the franchise, political populism with demands for participation and reform; civil wars and warlordism; an understanding of issues of scholarly debate in the area studied.

Subject-specific Skills:

• An understanding of the methodologies appropriate for evaluating and handling a range of evidence, including artefacts and visual material, as well a range of written texts (literary and otherwise), with greater awareness of problems inherent in using translated material; ability to engage with alien patterns of thought, culture, and expression; the ability to present a well constructed and well expressed written argument.

Key Skills:

• The skills needed to handle a variety of written, visual and artefactual material, and to analyse and evaluate a range of evidence by means of various methodologies; the capacity to construct a clear and well-structured argument in written form, showing some awareness of counter-arguments; the ability and self-discipline to work autonomously and to organise ones work so as to meet internal and external deadlines; ability to use key IT resources: in particular, the ability to use e-mail, word-processors, and online databases, with a grasp of the advantages and limitations of internet resources.

• Lectures are appropriate to the imparting of information and of methods of interpretation, of both ancient evidence and modern scholarship.
• Classes on source material provide engagement with varieties of historical evidence.
• Writing essays enables the assembling and evaluation of material and the formulation of logical and coherent argument, as well as skills in written English.
• Tutorials contribute to the critical handling of evidence and facility of discussion.
• Final examination tests ability to focus relevantly on historical issues and organise knowledge and argument appropriate to questions raised.
• The essay assesses students' understanding of the methodologies for handling artefactual, visual and written material, and their ability to organise knowledge and argument appropriate to questions raised.

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