European History, 776 BC - AD 69

Course Material 2021/22
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Bronze statuette of running girl probably from Sparta

This paper covers the history of the ancient world in the Mediterranean region over eight centuries. There are two main points of focus: Classical Greece of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and Republican and early Imperial Rome from the turn of the third century BC to the mid-first century AD. Topics that are specifically Greek include Athenian democracy and culture, Spartan politics, society and foreign policy, Greek religion and Alexander the Great. Topics that are specifically Roman include Roman imperialism, the politics and constitution of the Republic, the establishment of the Principate by Augustus, and the organisation of the Roman Empire. A range of social history topics span both Greek and Roman history including the life-course, gender and sexuality, and slavery.

As with other Part I papers, core lectures in the Michaelmas Term will provide an outline of Greek or Roman history and introduce you to key themes and interpretations in the paper. Otherwise you will be expected to attend a sensible selection of the more focused thematic lecture series depending on whether you are focusing on Greek or Roman history and your particular interests. For 2020-21 these lecture courses cover: ‘Living and Dying in the Ancient World’, Early Greece and Rome’, ‘Sparta’ and ‘Ruling the Roman Empire.  

Lectures are delivered by the Classics Faculty, and further details can be found on Moodle and on the Classics Faculty website. 

Introductory Reading

Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (New York, 2015)

Emma Dench, Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2018)

Judith Evans Grubbs and Tim Parkin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and

Education in the Classical World (Oxford, 2013).

Mogens Herman Hansen, Polis: An Introduction to the Greek City State (Oxford,

2006)

Henrik Mouritsen, Politics in the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2017)

Robin Osborne (ed.), Short History of Europe, vol I Classical Greece (Oxford, 2000).

Kostas Vlassopoulos, Unthinking the Greek Polis: Ancient Greek History beyond

Eurocentrism (Cambridge, 2007)  

Greg Woolf, Rome: An Empire’s Story (Oxford, 2013)

 

Section notice

This material is intended for current students but will be interesting to prospective students. It is indicative only.