How "Democracies" Die: The Collapse of the Roman Republic

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Contemporary commentary and scholarship is rife with warnings of Democratic decline in the United States and around the world. This course addresses similar themes through a very different lens by examining the factors that contributed to the collapse of the Roman Republic and the establishment of the principate. Students will engage with primary source material, secondary historical analyses of this period, and political science scholarship on democratic decline and political revolution to better understand this pivotal period in Roman history.