Roman Civil War between History, Memory, and Representation

Undergraduate / Graduate

Civil war (bellum civile) looms large in studies of Roman history, involving some of Rome's most well-known historical protagonists (Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian-Augustus, to name a few). In this seminar, we will explore the broader role that civil war played in shaping major political, social, economic, religious, and cultural developments in the Roman world, with a particular focus on the late Republic, as well as the various ways in which ancient Romans encountered, commemorated, and grappled with the trauma of civil strife (and its legacies) in the textual and material record. To what extent can we speak of a Roman "culture of civil war" during the first century BCE? Can we describe the impacts of these upheavals-not only on political life, but also on social identities and hierarchies, literature, religion, and art-as a "Roman Revolution"? To what extent was civil war embedded within Roman cultural memory? In considering these questions, we will read ancient literature in both prose and verse as well as modern scholarship; additionally, we will draw on the evidence of ancient coins, inscriptions, and material culture. This course will also incorporate an in-class role-playing game, in which students will embody various Roman personae during a particular sociopolitical flashpoint of the mid-first century BCE.