AA309 Culture, identity and power in the Roman empire

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What will I study?

By studying this course, you’ll gain a knowledge and understanding of the culture of the Roman Empire (until the beginning of the third century AD) through a combination of disciplines, such as literature, archaeology, and art, using a variety of teaching media. You’ll consider culture, identity and power as they were shaped by social factors such as religion, gender, status and economy, in selected contexts. These contexts provide the case studies that form the six blocks of study material, and in which we also consider how the cultures of the Roman Empire are presented and interpreted in the post-colonial culture of today.

An introduction sets out the central issues and the ancient sources available as evidence, and outlines some of the historical factors in the emergence of the Roman Empire. Then the first block presents short case studies to consider the role of the Roman emperor. The other five blocks examine issues of culture, identity and power in different parts of the Empire, chosen to raise a variety of questions.

In Block 2 you’ll look at Roman Italy and how the expansion of the Empire affected the peninsula outside the city of Rome. For example, it asks the questions: What was ‘Roman’ about the towns of Italy, their way of life and their populations? What was the power relationship between Rome and Italy, and between Italy and the Empire?

In Block 3 you’ll consider Roman Greece and Asia Minor, in particular Athens and Ephesus. Looking at the intellectual phenomenon known as the ‘second Sophistic’, it examines how the culture of the Roman Empire was related to the traditions of the Hellenic world.

In Block 4 you’ll study Britain. This gives you an opportunity to consider the effect of military conquest and occupation on a land with a non-classical indigenous culture. This block also introduces questions about how images of Romans and the British have been received and treated in post-classical British culture, including their presentation in museum displays.

In Block 5, you’ll study economic links and trade between Rome and Roman North Africa, and the establishment of identity through material and literary culture.

The last block asks you to reflect on what the Roman Empire may have meant across the multiplicity of cultures and identities that it covered, drawing together some themes that have run through the course and offering cases of countercultures and criticism of the Empire. The block begins with a case study on constructions of the Roman Empire in New Testament writings, which introduces some non-elite points of view. This is followed by revision.

By the end of the course you will have:

• developed skills required for independent learning at third level
• developed skills in analysing and evaluating sources of evidence for the ancient world, and in particular for how culture, identity and power operated as factors in various parts of the Roman empire
• developed an awareness of some debates in modern scholarship about this period, and an ability to approach them critically.