History 334

Provinces of the Roman Empire

Spring 2003

Please note: This syllabus is still somewhat incomplete. Some readings and other things need to be confirmed or detailed. It should, however, suffice for planning purposes. I will notify you (and delete this notice) when it is finalized. My apologies and thanks for your patience.

Meeting Times: T Th 11.20-12.35 

Meeting Location: Seabury 23A

 At its height, the Roman empire stretched from Britain to the Euphrates and embraced hundreds of different ethnic and linguistic groups. The empire was constructed over centuries on the basis of Roman administration of Italy built in the fourth and third centuries BC and then on models of provincialization in Sicily, Spain, and the East over the next several centuries. While it is clearly impossible to do justice to such a sprawling phenomenon in the course, there are a few unifying aspects of Roman rule in the provinces, especially in the three centuries after Augustus (31 BC - AD 14), which will serve as anchor points for our explorations. We end with more detailed examination of three regions: Roman Britain, North Africa, and the Euphrates.

The following books have been ordered for the bookstore:

Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Oxford University Press.

Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania. Viking Press.

A. K. Bowman, Vindolanda: Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier. Routledge.

Martin Millett, The Romanization of Britain. Cambridge University Press.

The Letters of Pliny the Younger. Viking Press.

These books by no means exhaust the reading for this course. There will be additional material on reserve (marked in the list of assignments below with a boldface R) and occasional xeroxed handouts (marked in the list of assignments below with a boldface H). 

In addition, there are some standard reference books that will be very useful to you:

 OCD = Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3^rd edition, ed. Simon Hornblower (Oxford 1995). This book can be found in the Reference Collection in the Library; it is non-circulating. Your first resource for information about anything. I will expect everyone to have read the relevant articles for each meeting of the class.

Barrington Atlas = Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, edited by Richard Talbert (Princeton 2000). The best place now to go for maps. I will expect everyone to have looked through it by the second meeting, and to consult the relevant maps for each subsequent meeting.

1.        Source. Each student will be assigned a major primary source. You will need to read the source (or, if it is very long, substantial parts of it), read in the most important secondary literature about the source, and give a brief report (c. 10 minutes) early in the semester about the source according to a schedule to be set in the first or second class meeting. Across the semester I will expect you to intervene in our discussions with information from your source relevant to our topic. The sources are:

      Cassius Dio, with  Fergus Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford 1964). Josh

Scriptores Historiae Augusti, with Ronald Syme, The Historia Augusta Papers (Oxford 1983), and Emperors and Biography. Studies in the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1971). Will

Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, with Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius. The Scholar and his Caesars (New Haven 1984) and/or Barrry Baldwin, Suetonius (Amsterdam 1983). Alex

Tacitus, Annales, with Ronald Syme, Ten Studies in Tacitus (Oxford 1970) and Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford 1958). Joe

Tacitus, Histories, with Ronald Syme, Ten Studies in Tacitus (Oxford 1970) and Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford 1958). Dan

Dio Chrysostom, Orations, with C. P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge. Mass. 1978). Liam

Lucian, Satires, with C. P. Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass. 1986). Alexis

Herodian, with G. Alfoldfy, “Herodian’s Person,” Ancient Society 2 (1971) 202-233 and Harry Sidebottom, “Herodian's Historical Methods and Understanding of History,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt II, 24, 4 (Berlin-New York 1998) 2775-2836. Jake

Strabo, with Katherine Clarke, Between Geography and History. Hellenistic Constructions of the Roman World (Oxford 1999) 193-336. Genna

Apuleius, The Metamorphoses (or, the Golden Ass), with S. J. Harrison, Apuleius. A Latin Sophist (Oxford 2000). Christian

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, books 15-20, with Tessa Rajak, Josephus. The Historian and his Society, 2^nd ed. (London 2002). Ellen

Aelius Aristides, with Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50-250 (Oxford 1996) pp. 254-297 and Suzanne Saïd, "The Discourse of Identity in Greece Rhetoric from Isocrates to Aristides" in Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, ed. Irad Malkin (Wasington, DC 2001) 275-300. Emily

Plutarch, "Precepts of Statecraft", Moralia vol. 10, pp. 159-299 with Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50-250 (Oxford 1996) pp. 135-186. TBA

Caesar, Gallic Wars, with Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter. The War Commentaries as Political Instruments, eds. Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell (London 1998); Christian Meier, Caesar (New Yotk 1995). Ed

Petronius, Satyricon, with Edward Courtney, A Companion to Petronius (Oxford 2001). Johnny

2.        Discussion. Everyone will be expected to participate in discussion in every meeting we have that includes time for discussion.

3.        Examples of types of sources. For the first several weeks of the semester we spend 15-20 minutes of each class examining different types of sources. You will be expected to read (or look at) these beforehand and come prepared to discuss them.

4.        Reaction papers. Each student will present two (2) short (4-5 pp.) papers reacting to class meetings/discussions. Those papers are due no later than one week after the class to which the paper reacts. At least one paper must react to a class between February 4 and March 6; the second paper may react to any class between February 4 and April 17. Because these papers are written on your schedule, there can be no extensions. Failure to produce a paper on schedule will result in an “F” for that paper.

5.        Final paper and presentations. Each student will prepare a research paper of 15-18 pp. on a topic chosen in consultation with me on the following schedule: (1) meet with me during the week of February 17-21 to decide on a topic; (2) present your topic, sources, and thesis, and turn in a written thesis statement and a bibliography on February 27; (3) turn in optional draft no later than April 3 or 10; (4) give final presentation on April 24 or 29; (5) turn in finished final written version on Friday, May 2, by noon in my box in the History Department Office.

   I. The Making of an Empire. Overview of Roman expansion from c. 200 BCE to 200 CE

 Roman expansion began early in the Republic, first locally in Latium and later throughout the Italian peninsula. The two Punic Wars of the third century BCE marked the start of Roman expansion outside Italy, and were followed by operations in the East, culminating in the conquest of the Mediterranean basin and much of the modern Middle East up to the Euphrates river, and in the West, particularly Spain, Gaul (modern France), and Britain. It is sometimes said that Roman expansion ended with the collapse of the Republic and the reign of Augustus (Octavian). In fact, however, expansionist operations continued in many parts of the empire into the third century CE.

Jan 21 (T). Introduction

Jan 23 (Th). From Italy to Syria.

Jan 28 (T). Augustus to Septimius Severus: The Empire of Rome. Source: Augustus, Res Gestae. Source Reports: Cassius Dio (Josh) and Herodian (Jake).

II. The Technology of History

 Jan 30 (Th). Resources for research in the Roman empire. Source: Philo, Embassy to the Emperor Gaius. Source Reports: Scriptores Historiae Augusti (Will) and Suetonius (Alex).

 Prosopography

Prosopographia imperii romani

CIL and AE

Using L’Annee philologique

III. Knowing the Empire

How did the Romans “know” their empire? To what extent was imperial power linked (as it is in modern empires) to knowledge? The following two weeks constitute an exploration of some ways in which the Romans sought to obtain, preserve, and disseminate information about the provinces they controlled.

Feb 4 (T). The Stoa of Agrippa in Rome. Pliny the Elder, Natural History (volume I), Book 3, chap. 17 (R); Diane G. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), pp. 116, 233-227 (R); Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991), pp. 95-122 (R). Source: The dendrophoroi coins: Louis Robert, Documents d’Asie Mineure (Paris 1987) 35-46, esp. 36 fig. 15 (R). Source Reports: Tacitus, Annales (Joe), and Apuleius (Christian).

Feb 6 (Th). Pliny the Elder, Natural History (volume I of the translation), Book II, chap. 113 (pp. 147-150: sources), Book III, introduction (pp. 151-153), chap. 1-5 (pp.153-174: Spain), Book IV, chap. 30 (pp. 350-353: Britannia), Book V, chap. 1-6 (pp. 374-403: North Africa), 13-21 (pp. 423-447: Syria and adjacent regions), 28 (pp. 455-458: Lykia). (R). Source: the Rhosos inscription (IGLS III 718) (H). Source reports: Strabo (Genna) and Lucian (Alexis).

Feb 11 (T). Pliny the Younger, Letters, Book X, pp. 260-301. Sources: E. G. Turner, JRS 40 (1950) 57-59 (H); Fink, Roman Military Records pp. 183-188 no. 47 (R); Bowman, Life and Letters p. 127 no. 21;  Select Papyri. Public Documents, eds. A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar (Cambridge, Mass. 1934), pp. 79-89 no. 212 and 341-343 no. 313 (R); Naphtali Lewis, The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters. Greek Papyri (Jerusalem 1989) 65-70 no. 16 (= P. Yadin 16) (H). Source Reports: Dio Chrysostom (Liam) and Tacitus, Histories (Dan).

Feb 13 (Th). The Lykian tax law from Myra (H). Source: Trajan’s Column: Lynne Lancaster, "Building Trajan's Column" AJA 103 (1999) 419-439 (R); Penelope J.E. Davies, "The Politics of Perpetuation: Trajan's Column and the Art of Commemoration" AJA 101 (1997) 41-65 (R). Source Reports: Josephus (Ellen) and Aeliius Aristides (Emily).

Meet with me week of February 17-21 to decide on paper topics

IV. Making Them Romans?

Feb 20  (Th). Library session

Feb 25 (T): Trinity Days: No class

V. Presentations I

Feb 27  (Th). Initial paper presentations

VI. Enemies on the Border

Mar 4 (T). Germanic tribes. Tacitus, Germania.

Mar 6 (Th). The Persians from Arsacids to Sasanians. Res Gestae Divi Saporis (H, from the edition of: P. Huyse, Die dreisprachige Inschrift Šabuhrs I. an der Ka'ba-I Zardušt (ŠKZ) (Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum III.1.1). 2 vols. [London 1999] ). The Babylonian Astronomical Diaries (last volume) (Reger will bring to class). Z. Rubin, "The Roman Empire in the 'Res Gestae Divi Saporis' -- the Mediterranean World in Sasanian Propaganda" in Ancient Iran and the Mediterranean World. Proceedings of an International Conference in Honour of Professor Jozef Wolski, held at the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, in September 1996, ed. Edward Dabrowa (Krakow 1998) 177-185 (R).

VII. Three Provinces: Britain, North Africa, and Syria

We devote a week each to surveys of three provinces, looked at through different lens. In each case, one day considers the process of conquest and incorporation, the other the effect locally of Roman authority. The lens is typically an important primary source, sometimes amplified by a major monograph. In each case, we can no more than scratch the surface of what might be explored.

VII A. Britain

Resources:

Julius Caesar, Gallic War.

Suetonius, Life of Caesa; Life of Gaius (Caligula); Life of Claudius.

Tacitus, Annals.

R. G. Collingwood, Roman Inscriptions of Britain, 10 vols. (Oxford 1965-1995).

A. R. Birley, The Fasti of Roman Britain (Oxford 1981).

Journals: Britannia

Mar 11 (T). Tacitus, Agricola; Millett, Romanization, pp. TBA

Mar 13 (Th). Vindolanda tablets. Bowman, all; Vindolanda. The Latin Writing Tablets, pp. TBA and The Vindolanda Writing Tablets, pp. TBA (R).

Mar 18 and 20: Spring Break: No classes

VII B. North Africa

Resources:

Corpus inscriptionum latinarum (CIL) vol. VIII.

Mar 25 (T). David Cherry, Frontier and Society, pp. 1-74, 101-161 (R).

Mar 27 (Th). Inscriptions (H)

VII C. Syria

Resources:

Cicero, Pro Cn. Pomp..

Appian, Mithridatic Wars.

Robert O. Fink, Roman Military Records on Papyrus (Cleveland 1971).

Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie (a very large series, but still not complete).

Journals: Syria

Apr 1 (T). Pompey: Robin Seager, Pompey the Great. A Political Biography² (Oxford:  Blackwell Publishing, 2002), pp. 53-62 (R).

Apr 3  (Th). Doura Europos material. Fink, Roman Military Records, pp. TBA.

VIII. Rome on the Euphrates

The name of this section of the course is borrowed from the title of Freya Stark’s book Rome on the Euphrates. The Story of a Frontier (New York 1966). Between the reigns of Trajan (90-117) and Caracalla (213-217) the Romans tried on several occasions to extend their empire across the Euphrates river at the expense of the Arsacid empire, one of whose capitals who Ktesiphon, on the Tigris. Ultimately unsuccessful in the larger sense, these campaigns led to the creation of new client kingdoms in the region (notably at Edessa – the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion) and laid the groundwork for an ongoing struggle in the region that debilitated the empire and contributed, over the long haul, to the loss of most of the Middle East to Muslim Arab conquerors in the seventh century.

Apr 8 (T). Trajan and Hadrian

Apr 10 (Th). Septimius Severus and Caracalla

Apr 15 (T). Middle Euphrates documents (H)

Apr 17 (Th). Edessa. Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa (London and New York 2001), pp. TBA (R).

IX. Final Paper Presentations

The last three classes are devoted to paper presentations. I go first – with a draft of a paper I am writing for a book on the economy of Roman Asia Minor. The following two sessions permit a 15-minute presentation for each student of his/her paper.

Apr 22 (T). Gary’s paper presentation: “Trade and Commodity in Roman Asia Minor”

Apr 24 (Th). Paper Presentations I.

Apr 29 (T). Paper Presentations II.