This course studies how Greeks and Romans defined their own identity and those of others. Based on the reading of ancient texts (in translation) and the analysis of iconographic material, students reflect on the concepts of race and identity.
This course explores ancient sports and games in their historical, political, social, religious, and cultural contexts. Archaeological, iconographical, epigraphical, and literary evidence are studied to understand athletics in Greece and games in Rome and to debunk misconceptions about these activities.
"No city has existed in the whole world that could be compared with Rome for size," wrote Pliny the Elder during the first century AD. He would have been equally correct to add that the other three or four main cities of the Roman Empire were also bigger than anything seen before. What is more, […]
The course examines the historical value of archaeological evidence by applying archaeological theory and method to the excavation of a late-Iberian/early-Roman site of Cabrera de Mar, Barcelona, Spain.
The course traces the development of gladiatorial presentations, chariot-races, and other public spectacles in Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the Roman Empire from c. 200 B.C. to A.D. 400. It concentrates on their changing nature, scale, and socio-cultural function. Themes explored include: the social, political, cultural, religious, and penal importance of public spectacles in […]
A reading of selections from Apuleius, Metamorphoses and/or Petronius, Satyricain the ORIGINAL LATIN.
At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from the snows of Scotland to the sands of Egypt. A population of around sixty million people lived and died within its frontiers. It endured for hundreds of years, with few serious challenges. It was, in short, a stunning phenomenon that demands explanation. In this course, we shall […]
The slow decline of the Roman Republican system offers historians one of, if not the, greatest and most detailed pictures of a government's collapse. In this course, we will study that collapse and what it can teach us about political compromise, competition, and conflict. Taking as a starting point the functioning Republic of the Punic […]
Sport occupied an important place in the highly competitive society of ancient Greece. This course explores the history of Greek sport from its first appearance in the poems of Homer down into the Roman period, but with a concentration on the Archaic and Classical periods and on the Panhellenic games. Throughout the course sport is […]
This course studies Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, concentrating on social and economic structures and institutions.