Annotation
Roman rule in the ancient Mediterranean brought into being a period of greatly heightened human mobility.
Indeed, many of the most heavily-studied historical developments of the era rested upon the movement of peoples: the diffusion of Latin, the spread of Roman material culture in the widest sense, and the spread of cults, to say nothing of the mere practice of government. Until quite recently, however, scholarly inquiry into human mobility in antiquity focused nearly exclusively on state-sponsored endeavors, meaning for all intents and purposes, colonization and what has long been interpreted as clear and consequential manifestation of Roman culture: temple architecture and votive material, the orthogonal street grid, and the diffusion of black-gloss pottery. Recent work has revealed how the culture and religion of colonies often relates as much to their local context as to Rome.
Instead of entirely Roman fortresses made up of mono-ethnic settlers from Rome and Latium, it is now apparent that colonial populations were often cosmopolitan and closely linked to the surrounding peoples. Using archaeological evidence from sites in Latium, Etruria, Umbria, Samnium and other regions of ancient Italy, the purpose of this course is to consider the archaeological evidence for Roman expansion and to explore how recent approaches are changing our view of the topic. Should we entirely reject earlier models of a Rome-centred process, and replace them with new concepts such as the ‘Middle Ground’ (Malkin), or ‘hybrid zones’ (Terrenato)?
Or are the Romanising features of Roman colonies still the primary characteristic of interest?
Assessments:
Students will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
Grade Breakdown 20% attendance and participation 10% written review and presentation 20% second presentation 40% final paper
Written review
You will be invited to review a book/article of your choice relevant to the course (from the reading list); your review should be 500/800 words in length; we will discuss your preliminary ideas in class before you hand in your final review.
Presentations 1.The first presentation will be a short discussion (10/15 minutes) of a book/article chosen by the students. This presentation will form the basis for the written review. 2. The second presentation will be longer (25/30 minutes), and it will touch upon a topic chosen by the student.
These presentations should, ideally, form the basis of your research paper, which will be submitted by the end of the semester. Each presentation will be followed by a discussion of the contents with the other students.
Final paper:
Students are invited to select a project that corresponds to their own interests and which will result in a final of paper of 15/20 pages to submit at the end of the course. The topic of the final project should be about any aspect of
Roman colonization and its relations with the peoples of ancient Italy.