History of Rome/Ancient Italy

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course surveys the history of ancient Rome and Italy. Focus will be on the origins and metamorphoses of Rome from its archaic foundations as an Italic-Latinate kingship. The course will examine the establishment, expansion, and conflicts of the Republican period and the political and cultural revolution of the Augustan "Principate" to the rise and decline of the Empire. Readings (in translation) include the writings of Polybius, Livy, Virgil, Cicero, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Marcus Aurelius, with some consideration of Roman art and architecture.