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21H.331

Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic

3-0-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Ancient Rome from 133 to 27 BC. Explores political, social, and economic factors commonly offered to explain the fall of the Roman Republic: growth of the territorial empire, increased intensity of aristocratic competition, transformation of the Italian economy, growth of the city of Rome and dependence of the urban plebs, changes in military recruitment and dependence of soldiers on their generals. Emphasis on the reading of ancient sources in translation, including Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, Augustus, Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided. Taught in seminar format with emphasis on class participation. Limited to 15.

Spring 2016

Topics

  • Introduction: Rome’s City-state Empire
  • The Constitution of the Roman Republic
  • Impact of Empire: The Elite and the Peasant-soldier
  • Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
  • The Gracchi as Watershed
  • Marius the ‘New Man’: Sallust’s Jugurthine War
  • Marius, the Army, and the Politics of Land
  • The Social War and the Unification of Italy
  • Civil War I: Marius and Sulla
  • The Dictatorship of Sulla
  • Pompey and the Special Command
  • Cicero Saves the Republic: The Conspiracy of Catiline
  • The Three-headed Monster: Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar
  • Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul
  • The Urban Plebs and Publius Clodius
  • Pompey the Great
  • Civil War II: Crossing the Rubicon
  • The Roman Revolution
  • Opposing Caesar: Cato & Marcellus
  • Plutarch’s Caesar
  • The Ides of March
  • The Villain of the Piece: Marc Antony
  • Civil War III: Antony and Octavian
  • The Emergence of the Augustan Principate
  • Fall of the Republic: Revolution, Crisis, Transformation
  • Conclusion

Readings

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None U (Spring) 3-0-9 units. HASS-H

Sources