Teaching code

4S02144

Teacher

Credits

6

Also offered in courses:

• Roman History (p) of the course Bachelor’s degree in Humanities
• Roman History (i p) - II MODULO PARTE (P) of the course Bachelor’s degree in Humanities

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-ANT/03 - ROMAN HISTORY

Period

Sem. IB dal Nov 13, 2017 al Jan 20, 2018.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

To show the organization of the course that includes this module, follow this link:  Course organization

Learning outcomes

The course is aimed at improving the students’ knowledge of the relationship between religion and politics during the Imperial Age, and of the fundamental principles which the Roman society and the Roman religion were based on. Texts and documents concerning persecutions, spread, and triumph of Christianity will be taken into account. The critical analysis of the documentary sources (either archaeological or literary or epigraphical) will be introduced to students. This analysis is meant to allow students to distinguish and understand the peculiar features of the different kinds of documentation and subsequently, to put them in comparison one to another; it is also meant to single out and describe the principles which the Roman social life was based on, the Roman capability of integrating the foreigners into their society and politics, and the Roman attitude of repressing or, at the contrary, promoting cultural features of foreign peoples during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries.
Students will be able to evaluate autonomously some testimonies to Roman history by means of comparisons between different authors or between authors and different kinds of documentation, in order to evaluate the reliability of each document.
Students are expected to improve their communication skill by expressing their opinions or even their doubts concerning the dealt topics and by receiving answers and directions about how to organize their speech.
Also the understanding skill should be improved by means of a critical reading of historical texts and the study of images of monuments and other iconographies.
At the end of the teaching activities a student should be able to show that he has understood the most important problems discussed in the classes, that he is able to analyse in a critical manner both the sources and the iconographies taken into account. A student should explain this following a logical series of points, clearly and on the basis of the fundamental documents.

Program

The Christianization of the Roman Empire
1) First: classes devoted to selected topics;
2) Second: Eusebius of Caesarea, The Life of Constantine, Milano, Rizzoli, BUR, 2009 (an English translation is available online); 2) Libanius, In defence of temples; suggested edition: Libanio, In difesa dei templi, ed. by R.Romano, Naples, D'Auria, 2007). Knowledge of the original, Greek text is not mandatory.
3) Third: knowledge of passages from classical authors and monuments which will be read and commented during the course;
4) The use of a historical atlas is recommended.

Further readings (their reading is not mandatory):
Marta Sordi, Il Cristianesimo e Roma, Bologna, L. Cappelli, 1965
Gli imperatori Severi : storia archeologia religione, ed. by Enrico Dal Covolo and Giancarlo Rinaldi, Rome, LAS 1999
Umberto Roberto, Diocleziano, Rome, Salerno ed., 2014


Didactic method.
The course is divided into two parts:
- the first consists in the classes, devoted to the above mentioned topics. Students will be provided with images and texts thanks to powerpoint files with images of archaeological documents and historical texts, which will be at their disposal also online.
- the second part consists in the personal study of the above mentioned works.
At the end of each lesson a short debate is possible in order to clarify what could have been eventually difficult to understand.

Students who are unable to attend every class may use the E-Learning site of the University of Verona, where they may find the recorded lessons, the images and texts which are necessary for studying.

Examination Methods

oral exam. Questions will be posed in order to ascertain what learning and knowing level is reached. Eventually, the questions could go further in deep by focussing on texts and/or monuments discussed during the course.