Mastering Ancient Rome

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Catharine Edwards
• Assessment: coursework of 1000 words (20%) and a 4000-word essay (80%)

In this module we explore a range of approaches to the study of ancient Roman cultural history, looking at literary texts as well as material culture, and considering Roman interaction with other cultures.

Indicative syllabus

• Ethnicity and multiculturalism in Hellenistic Egypt
• Marxism and the ancient historian
• Lucretia and myths of early Rome
• Cicero: biography and history
• Cleopatra: Roman images of 'Foreign' Women Rulers
• The politics of Latin literature: Ovid and Augustus
• Perceptions of Empire
• Slavery in the Roman world
• Hadrian and the Second Sophistic
• Religion and society in late Roman Egypt

In addition to the detailed study of relevant ancient sources, you will also explore questions of cultural and historical context, and the major critical discussions of these issues through reading modern scholarship.