HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: history

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Matthias Schmidt

Coordinator Email: matthias.schmidt@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Mondays 14:30 - 16:00

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Matthias Schmidt

Course/Module description:
The seminar offers a comprehensive survey of the ancient and modern debates surrounding the Roman Republic. Reading and discussion will focus on three aspects: (a) How ancient authors of the 1st century BCE onwards remembered, understood and reconstructed the ‘old’ Republic; (b) How Caesar Augustus established his monarchical system as a reconstruction of the Republic through creative memory and contemporary concepts; (c) How modern historians from the 19th century onwards described and reconstructed the republic - from the tradional ‘orthodox’ view that the republic was in fact a dominantly oligarchic and aristocratic political form until the recent argumentation that the Roman republic’s political culture was essentially democratic in nature, stressing the central role of the ‘sovereign’ people and their assemblies.The seminar covers a host of topics, including the Roman value system; the senatorial aristocracy; competitors in war and politics within this aristocracy; the symbolic language of public rituals and ceremonies, monuments, architecture, and urban topography.

Course/Module aims:
Students will get acquainted with the historical and historiographical discussions surrounding the nature of the Roman republic in antiquity and modern times. They will learn to differentiate between the few actually known facts about the republican system and the conceptualisation of this political system and its functionalization by ancient historians, authors and politicians as well as modern historians for their own needs. Students will familiarize themselves with the ideological elements concerning the reconstruction of politics, ethos and culture of the Roman republic, and will understand how our knowledge about Roman politics is rooted in abstract ideas, political actions and social ideology of their respective times. They will learn to develop different models of the Roman Republic from the given literary and archaeological sources, and will collect and interpret solutions to the permanent crisis of the republic offered by the historical protagonists. They will realize that the concept of the Roman republic is the result of a certain political ideal in different periods. Since no ancient author before Cicero has actually written explicitly and theoretically about the res publica, students will realize how our modern understanding of the “old” republic depends on our knowledge gained implicitly about the establishment of monarchy in the disguise of a “restored republic”. Students will analyse relevant source material, discuss methodological problems and research approaches as well as historical evaluations of the republic and the Augustan enterprise. They will understand how modern perceptions of the Roman state depends primarily on the contemporary social and political context of historians. They will learn how to use a variety of primary sources (texts, archaeological findings, art objects, archictecture) to reconstruct and interpret the republican system, its ideal and its moral ethos. They will differentiate between available facts and much wider distributed fiction to get acquainted with the main scholarly questions aired over the last generations. In addition they might themselves develope new directions for discussion of this subject matter.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
- Examine and evaluate the historical and political discussions about the nature of the Roman republic
- Analyse a variety of available source material for the reconstruction of the republican system
- Assess the accuracy, credibility and objectivity of ancient and modern authors concerning the questions under discussion
- Validate the political, social, cultural, military and economic changes in the transition from Republic to Monarchy
- Evaluate the Augustan system in historical perspective and discuss the ambivalent approaches towards the principate as a “restored republic’ in ancient and modern historiography
- Identify, date and describe different modern approaches towards the political system of Rome
- Develop different explanatory models for the political systems and the political ethos of ancient Rome
- Differentiate between facts and concepts in history
- Realize the variety of possible interpretations of ancient source material and their consequences for modern discourse
- Understand the functionalization of ideas by contemporary and modern authors for their own political needs
- Realize the interdependence between contemporary political thinking and interpretation of ancient sources by modern historians
- Synthesise material from lectures and recommended primary sources and secondary literature to use in oral and written discussion of set topics

Attendance requirements(%):
90%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Lectures, power point presentations, movie clips, analysis of different source material (text, maps, art, archaeology), interpretation of source material, discussion of research literature, student presentations

Course/Module Content:
1. Introduction
1.1 Principle questions 
1.2 Aims of the seminar: aspects and contents and methodology
1.3 Terminology, definitions, concepts, sources
1.4 The research problem: The Roman state between aristocracy, democracy and monarchy

2. The reconstruction of the Roman Republic by ancient authors (1cent BCE - 2cent CE)

2.1 Historiographers and Intellectuals of the 2nd and 1st Centuries BCE
2.1.1 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De re publica V 1
2.1.2 Polybios, Histories VI 11-18
2.1.3 Marcus Tullius Cicero, De re publica I 39
2.1.4 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Sestio 136f.
2.1.5 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Ad Quintum fratrem II 3,2
2.1.6 Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Catilinam I

2.2 Historiographers of the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE:
Livius, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Appian, Dio Cassius 

3. The Self-Representation of the Roman Aristocracy and the Monumentalization of Political Culture in the Roma urbs as instruments for the reconstruction of the Republic
3.1 Political and religious rituals as reflection of the political culture
Pompa Funebris - Polybios, Histories VI 53ff
Pompa triumphalis - Plutarch, Pompeius
Pompa circensis and other religious festivals
3.2 Urban texts and semantics of political culture
3.3.1 The reconstruction of the Republic through the urban development of City 
3.3.2 Public and private spaces, temples, buildings, urban texture

4. The Roman Constitution - Values, Concepts, Provisions and Arrangements

5. The establishment of the Augustan regime as the reconstruction of the republic

6. The modern debates surrounding the Roman Republic - An Evaluation
6.1 The ‘oligarchic orthodoxy’ of the 19th and 20th century
6.2 The ‘democratic’ approach of the 21st century

Required Reading:
Mary Beard, SPQR. A History of Ancient Rome, London: Profile Books, 2015.

Walter Eder, “Republicans and Sinners. The Decline of the Roman Republic and the End of a Provisional Arrangement”, in: R. W. Wallace, E. M. Harris (eds.), Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History 360-146 B.C., in honor of E. Badian, Norman-London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, 439-461.

Walter Eder, “Who Rules? Power and Participation in Athens and Rome”, in: Anthony Molho, Kurt Raaflaub, Julia Emlen (eds.), City-States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991, 169-196. - DF 285 C57

Walter Eder, “Augustus and the Power of Tradition: The Augustan Principate as Binding Link between Republic and Empire”, in: Kurt A. Raaflaub, Mark Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford: University of California Press, 1990, 71-122.

Andrew Feldherr, “Livy’s revolution: civic identity and the creation of the res publica”, in: Thomas Habinek, Alessandro Schiesaro (eds.), The Roman Cultural Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 136-157.

Erich S. Gruen, “The Exercise of Power in the Roman Republic”, in: Anthony Molho, Kurt Raaflaub, Julia Emlen (eds.), City-States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991, 251-167.

Erich S. Gruen, “The Roman Oligarchy: Image and Perception”, Jerzy Linderski (ed.), Imperium sine fine. T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1996.

Karl-J. Hölkeskamp, “History and Collective Memory in the middle Republic”, in: Nathan Rosenstein, Robert Morstein-Marx (eds. ), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006, 478-495.

Christian Meier, “C. Caesar Divi filius and the Formation of the Alternative in Rome”, in: Kurt A. Raaflaub, Mark Toher (eds.), Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, Berkeley, LA: University of California Press, 1990, 54-70.

Fergus Millar, “Politics, Persuasion, and the People before the Social War (150-90BC)”, in: JRS 76, 1-11 (&eq; Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East. Vol 1: The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, ed. Hannah M. Cotton, Guy M. Rogers, Chapel Hill, NC; London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002, 143-161.

Fergus Millar, “Political Power in Mid-Republican Rome: Curia or Comities?”, in: JRS 79, 138-150 (&eq; Fergus Millar, Rome, the Greek World, and the East. Vol 1: The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, ed. Hannah M. Cotton, Guy M. Rogers, Chapel Hill, NC; London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002, 85-108.

Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Born to be Wolves? Origins of Roman Imperialism” in: R. W. Wallace, E. M. Harris (eds.), Transitions to Empire. Essays in Greco-Roman History 360-146 B.C., in honor of E. Badian, Norman-London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, 273-314.

Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Between Myth and History: Rome’s Rise from Village to Empire (the Eighth Century to 264), in: Nathan Rosenstein, Robert Morstein-Marx (eds. ), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006, 125-146.

Nathan Rosenstein, “Aristocratic Values”, in: Nathan Rosenstein, Robert Morstein-Marx (eds. ), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006, 365-382.

Susan Walker, “The moral museum: Augustus and the city of Rome”, in: J. Coulston, Hazel Dodge, Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal City, Oxford University School of Archaeology: Oxford 2000, pp. 61-75.
Alexander Yakobson, “Popular Power in the Roman Republic”, in: Nathan Rosenstein, Robert Morstein-Marx (eds.), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006, 383-400.

Additional Reading Material:
צבי יעבץ, אוגוסטוס - נצחונה של מתינות, תל אביב: דביר, 4991.

משה עמית, תולדות הקיסרות הרומית, הוצאת ספרים ע‘‘ש י‘‘ל מגנס, ירושלים, 2002, חלק ראשון: תקופת אוגוסטוס, עמ‘ 1-240.

רחל פייג וישניא, בחירות, בוחרים ונבחרים ברפובליקה הרומית העתיקה, אוניברסיטת תל אביב, ההוצאה לאור, תל אביב 2008



Mary Beard, Michael Crawford, Rome in the late Republic. Problems and Interpretations, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Mary Beard, SPQR. A History of Ancient Rome, London: Profile Books, 2015.

Klaus Bringmann, A History of the Roman Republic, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007 (dt. Geschichte der römischen Republik: Von den Anfängen bis Augustus, Beck: München, 2002.)

T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome. Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 - 264 BC), London: Routledge, 2002.

Werner Eck, The Age of Augustus, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003ץ

Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An interpretive Introduction, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Erich S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, Berkeley, Los Angeles London: University of California Press, 1974.

Fergus Millar, Erich Segal (eds.), Caesar Augustus. Seven Aspects, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.

J.R. Patterson, “Survey Article. The City of Rome: from Republic to Empire” in: Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992), pp. 186-215.
Kurt A. Raaflaub, Mark Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate, Berkeley Los Angeles Oxford: University of California Press, 1990.

Nathan Rosenstein, Robert Morstein-Marx (eds. ), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006.

Alexander Yakobson, Elections and Electioneering in Rome. A Study in the Political System of the late Republic, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999.

Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 5 %
Project work 95 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
In this seminar classical literature and sources are studied in English or Hebrew translations. Knowledge of Greek and Latin is not required.