COURSE DESCRIPTION
HSTAM 302 is an introduction to the history of the Roman world from its foundations as a small hut village to the development of its empire through the reign of Constantine. After a brief look at the Italian communities that grew alongside Rome during the 8th-6th centuries BCE, we will study Rome's first two wars with Carthage, the advent of empire in the second century BCE, and the social, economic, and cultural effects of empire that played a role in the transformation of Rome’s republican system of government to that of the rule of the princeps. We will consider the struggles that brought Augustus (the first princeps) to power, the development of imperial institutions, the growth of the emperor’s power, and the conflict between the emperor and the senatorial class. We will also look at Roman perceptions of barbarians (those outside the empire) and then turn to the means by which those inside the empire were ruled. We will look at social life within the empire—citizenship and privilege, family and social life, and religious practices. In the last weeks of the course, we will consider the role that Christianity played in the transformation of the Roman empire.
This class is asynchronous and fully online.
The standard late penalty for work is 0.2 per day off your original grade. For example, if you receive a 3.8 on your work, but it is 2 days late, you will receive a 3.4.
LIVE COURSE SCHEDULE
The schedule below is automatically generated for this course and contains a list of assignments and due dates in the table. The calendar located in the upper right hand corner of this page highlights the due dates of all the assignments. Hovering over that date will highlight the corresponding assignment in the Schedule table.