Module CLAS3321: URBS ROMA

Department: CLASSICS AND ANCIENT HISTORY

CLAS3321: URBS ROMA

Prerequisites

• Monuments and Memory (CLAS1301).

Corequisites

• For students in the Classics Department, please refer to the Regulations for your degree programme. For students from other Departments, there are no corerequisites.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To equip students with an understanding of the city of Rome in the republic and early Empire in its historical and cultural context.
• to provide experience of evaluating different types of ancient evidence and modern historical discussions.
• and to enable them to form independent conclusions relating to the material studied.
• using a combination of lectures, texts classes, and essay tutorials.
• Knowledge and evaluative skills are tested in a submitted portfolio and by written examination.

Content

• The module, intended for students with some previous knowledge of Roman society, approaches the study of Rome as a city, regarded as a physical entity, a cultural phenomenon, and an ideal.
• This thematic topic involves both historical and literary approaches to a wide range of evidence drawn from the republican and imperial periods.
• Aspects covered include Rome's foundation.
• its topography, communications and defences.
• its administration and (self)-definition.
• how the physical, social and spiritual needs of its inhabitants were managed.
• its literary identities in authors ranging from Polybius to Virgil.
• its celebration and idealisation.
• Visual material and selected extracts in translation from various sources (literary and epigraphic) are studied.

Learning Outcomes

• A knowledge of the chief city of the Roman world over a time span of some 400 years, based on an acquaintance with the varied range of evidence (visual and literary) which pertains to it; a grasp of Roman self-awareness in relation to their city as a cultural monument; sophisticated ability to handle issues of scholarly debate in the areas studied.

• An ability to handle the methodologies appropriate for a sophisticated understanding of the diverse range of evidence that exists for the history of antiquity: in particular written texts (literary and otherwise), artefacts, and the visual culture; an ability to synthesise these different forms of evidence in reconstructing a coherent and plausible picture of the culture of the Roman world; the ability to present ideas and arguments in written form according to the conventions of academic writing.

• The skills needed to analyse, evaluate, and synthesise a wide range of evidence, and to select and apply the methodologies appropriate in different cases; the capacity to sustain a clear, well-structured, and well-defended argument in written form; the ability and self-discipline to work autonomously, and the capacity for organisation required to meet deadlines and to negotiate competing claims on finite resources; facility with key IT resources: in particular, the ability to use word-processors and online databases; also the ability to make fruitful use of internet resources.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures are appropriate to the imparting of information and of methods of interpretation, of both ancient evidence and modern scholarship.
• Classes on source material provide engagement with varieties of historical evidence.
• Writing essays enables the assembling and evaluation of material and the formulation of logical and coherent argument, as well as skills in written English.
• Tutorials contribute to the critical handling of evidence and facility of discussion.
• Final examination tests ability to focus relevantly on historical issues and organise knowledge and argument appropriate to questions raised.
• The portfolio assesses students' understanding of the methodologies for handling artefactual, visual and written material, and their ability to organise knowledge and argument appropriate to questions raised.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Two essays, 1500 words. No collections.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University