The Ancient City of Rome

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The Ancient City of Rome is a three-credit (undergraduate or graduate) study-travel course, which offers an introduction to the archaeology and history of the ancient city of Rome, capital of a vast empire that stretched for thousands of miles, and still the seat of the Catholic Church. The course can also count for the History major or minor or for the Art History major or minor, and can also count as one of the options for the HALC requirement. Sites to be visited in Rome include the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the palace of the emperors on the Palatine Hill, the imperial baths, the Forum, and several churches. Students will also examine finds in the numerous museums in Rome that house antiquities, including the Vatican Museums. There will additionally be field trips to examine the imperial port of Ostia as well as Pompeii, the city buried in AD 79 by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. By the end of the course students will have a thorough knowledge of the topography of ancient Rome and the major monuments that have survived from it. They also will have gained a sense of what daily life was like in the city, how the Roman empire made use of art and architecture to hold onto power, and how from the fourth century AD onwards the Christian church gradually gained control of the city of Rome and reshaped its destiny.