Lecture in Ancient History II

Lecture in Ancient History II

State-of-the-art lecture on research on the most important issues and processes in the field of history, culture and religion from the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin; facts, methodological concepts of research, specialist terminology and the most important contentious issues of historiography for particular periods of antiquity and their impact on modern societies. The course can be held in hybrid mode.

Compiling a student-oriented English modern bibliography on Roman history is not easy. Anglo-Saxon historiography – in spite of a number of first-rate monographies – long dragged behind (some would say: still drags behind) its Continental counterparts, and there are no good English textbooks. The present list is a very personal choice of works of different categories broadly covering Rome’s political, social and economic history from the Early Iron Age beginnings (10th century B.C.) to the sudden near collapse of the greatest empire the Western oikumene has ever seen in the 3rd century A.C.

Cambridge Ancient History2, Cambridge. 7.2: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C. (1990), 8: Rome and the Mediterranean to 133 B.C. (1989), 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146 – 43 B.C. (1994), 10: The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C. – A.D. 69 (1996), 11: The High Empire, A.D. 70 – 192 (2000); 12: The Crisis of Empire, A.D. 193 – 337 (2005). (classic, all-embracing, very uneven)

M. Beard, J. North, S. Price, Religions of Rome, Cambridge 1998. (indispensable for English-speakers though overpraised: too little substance, too much modern talk)

P. A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays, Oxford 1988. (epoch-making)

T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome. Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC), London–New York 1995. (the best you can find in English)

M. Crawford, The Roman Republic, Glasgow 1978. (very good, a bit too concise)

P. Garnsey, R. Saller, The Roman Empire. Economy, Society and Culture, Berkeley–Los Angeles 1987. (very good but slightly dated)

M. Gelzer, Caesar, Politician and Statesman, Oxford 1968. (originally published in 1921 but still the best)

W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome: 327 – 70 B.C., Oxford 1985. (revolutionary, at least in the so-called Western historiography)

J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion, Oxford 1979. (a bird’s eye view of problem signalled in the title)

J. Linderski, The Roman Questions. Selected Papers, Stuttgart 1995. (includes some of the most important texts ever written on Republican Rome)

A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the Roman Republic, Princeton 1967. (the best introduction to the vilest calendar humanity ever devised)

F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, Ithaca NY 1977. (grand and irreplaceable)

K. Raaflaub (ed.), Social Struggles in Archaic Rome. New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders, Berkeley–Los Angeles 19861, Oxford 20052. (a panorama of modern views on the inner history of Early and Middle Republic)

J. Rich, G. Shipley (eds), War and Society in the Roman World, London–New York 1993. (various aspects of the Romans’ experience of and attitude to war)

J. Richardson, Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, Cambridge 1986. (an analysis of a key aspect of Republican Rome’s history)

R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford 19391 (plus many others). (perhaps the most famous and most controversial – justly so on both accounts – twentieth-century book on Roman history)

R. J. A. Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome, Princeton 1984. (an exhaustive treatment of the institution which made the Roman Empire fundamentally different from others)

K_W02; K_W04; K_W05; K_W06; K_U09; K_K02.

No more than 3 absences in the semester are allowed. Absences 2 and 3 may result in additional assignments.