Teaching code

4S007531

Teacher

Credits

6

Also offered in courses:

• Roman History (i) of the course Bachelor’s degree in Humanities
• Roman History (i p) - I MODULO PARTE (I) of the course Bachelor’s degree in Humanities
• Roman History (i) of the course Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Heritage
• Roman History (i p) - I MODULO PARTE (I) of the course Bachelor's degree in Philosophy

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-ANT/03 - ROMAN HISTORY

Period

Sem. 1A dal Sep 24, 2018 al Nov 10, 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 political and institutional transformations during the last century of Republican Rome. The analysis will focus on texts and documents describing the strife among political parties and their reasons.
Critical analyses of documentary sources (either archaeological or literary or epigraphical) will be proposed to the 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 and the attitude of the Romans to other Italic societies and their ability in integrating different peoples.
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.
The understanding skill should be improved, as well, 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 end of the Roman Republic
1) Texts to read: Plutarch, Lifes of the Gracchi, of Sulla, of Cicero, Caesar, and Anthony (an edition with commentary);
2) the passages and texts read and commented during the classes;
3) study of a handbook of Roman history such as A. Momigliano, Manuale di storia romana, a cura di A. Mastrocinque, Torino, UTET, 2011 (the final part, pp. 242-252, can be omitted); or Storia di Roma dalle origini alla tarda antichità, Catania, Edizioni del Prisma, 2013 (one can omit the final part starting from chapter V of section IX).
The use of a historical atlas is recommended.
Erasmus students who are unable to study the aforementioned literature are requested to discuss the problem with prof. Mastrocinque and obtain a partially different programme.

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