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 12h)
  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 Myth of Rome and the Atlantic Revolutions (18th-19th centuries) (about 7h)
  
  

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].

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].

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 [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.

 

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.
  
  

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.
  

 

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.

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students.

Office hours

See the website of Simone Ciambelli