Ancient History

Core Modules

• Sources and Methods in Ancient History

  This module will introduce you to the disciplines, methodologies, and problems that may be encountered when engaging in research in the area of ancient history. You will cover a range of topics from epigraphy and papyrology to general issues of method in ancient history. You will become equipped with the knowledge, skills, and bibliography that will enable you to develop a research project and pursue it successfully. You will give a presentation about your dissertation topic at an intercollegiate dissertation symposium in the summer term.

• Dissertation in Ancient History

  You will produce an extended piece of original work of between 10,000 and 12,000 words in the field of ancient history. You will choose a topic in consultation with staff members with appropriate expertise, and be assigned a supervisor. You will be supported through the process of gathering research materials and organising your work both through intercollegiate and departmental workshops. During Spring and Summer Term, dissertation supervisors arrange periodic meeting with you every two to four weeks, as needed, to discuss progress, solve issues and review drafts. Over the summer, you will prepare a draft of the dissertation which your supervisor will offer feedback on, allowing you to make improvements, amendments and revisions before submission in September. You will develop your skills in employing relevant research methodologies at an advanced level, engaging with existing scholarship to situate your project within context of current debate.

• Academic Integrity

  This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.

   

Optional Modules

There are a number of optional course modules available during your degree studies. The following is a selection of optional course modules that are likely to be available. Please note that although the College will keep changes to a minimum, new modules may be offered or existing modules may be withdrawn, for example, in response to a change in staff. Applicants will be informed if any significant changes need to be made.

• Built Environment in Ancient Greece

  In this module you will develop an understanding of the practice of architecture and construction in the Greek world. You will look at the development of architectural orders, the role of architects,
  the design process, building techniques, the sources and supply of materials, town planning, and religious, civic, domestic and funerary building types. You will consider how to interpret primary architectural data using appropriate scholarly and theoretical frameworks, and examine the archaeological significance of architectural remains and their potential in studying ancient built environments and landscapes. You will learn how to create a three-dimensional photogrammetry model.

• Who Owns the Roman Past?

  In this module you will develop an understanding of the political and ethical questions surrounding Roman archaeology in the modern world. You will look at the history of the discipline, the impact of modern conflict, archaeology in national and international law, museums and museum display, and the use of archaeology in historical fiction, film and TV. You will consider the issues and problems in the presentation and preservation of Roman archaeology and examine the practical and theoretical aspects encountered when attempting to answer who own the Roman past.

• Understanding Pompeii and Herculaneum

  This module provides you with the opportunity to engage in an-depth study of the material remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum (and the villas at Stabiae, Oplontis and Boscoreale) and assess their special value – but also their limitations – as primary sources for archaeologists and cultural historians. You will analuse general issues of preservation, excavation, chronology, and presentation of the sites to the public as well as a range of topics relating to the specific types of evidence for which the Vesuvian sites are renowned.

• The Archaeology of Water

  This module aims to explore the varied roles that water played in ancient lives. During the module, you will look at the various technologies that were employed in the capture, supply and management of water in the ancient world, examining both the technological and social implications of these methods. In the first part of the module, you will investigate the key technologies (e.g. aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, bathhouses) in both rural and urban settings via a series of in-depth case studies of particular sites and regions. In the second part of the module, you will explore the social meanings behind these technological choices, drawing on material from Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies, and setting them within the wider context of debates on the ancient economy and supposed technological stagnation in the ancient world.

• The Archaeology of the Roman Near East

  This module will take you through the major sources of archaeological evidence we have for life in the Roman Near East. In the first term, you will get the opportunity to develop your understanding and knowledge of the archaeology of the Roman Near East, including an overview of the periods prior to the Romans. Topics to be covered in this term will include Roman urbanism, rural settlement and agriculture, water supply and religion. In the second term, you will explore some of the key theories, methods and approaches related to the Roman Near East, for example different ways of looking at 'Romanization' as well as theories and practices related to material culture. In addition, you will engage with themes related to who owns the past and how that past is presented in different settings and for different audiences.

• City of Athens

  The urban centre of ancient Athens was a modest town from antiquity until the nineteenth century when it became the capital of the newly independent state. The city has grown phenomenally over the last two centuries and the preservation of the archaeological remains is varied. The course will combine classroom teaching with an excursion to Athens where the relationship between the modern city and the primary material at the archaeological parks and museums can be studied at first hand. The lectures and seminars will provide a methodological and chronological framework for studying the material remains of the ancient city. Several themes will run through the course and they include, for example, the following: How are the religious and burial customs reflected in the archaeological record of Athens? What types of manifestations did the administration and politics of the polis have in architecture? How did the city prepare for war? What was the urban environment like?

• City of Rome

  In this module you will develop an understanding of the sources and modern analytical methods which can be used to study the City of Rome. You will look at the topography of ancient Rome and consider its relevance to Roman political, social and cultural history.

• Greek Law and Lawcourts

  Our main evidence for the Athenian democracy in the fourth century are the speeches composed for delivery in court. At the same time, the speeches also offer a unique insight into Athenian social relations and social values through the stories told by individual litigants to their audiences consisting of large number of ordinary citizens who were serving as judges. This module offers an opportunity to study the ways in which the lives of the inhabitants of late fifth and fourth century Athens – citizens, resident aliens, and slaves – were regulated by the city's laws, and equally important how this normative framework could manipulated and sometimes even subverted by members of the community. The module will also offer an introduction to classical Athenian rhetoric, and the seminars will focus on the rhetorical strategies adopted by Athenian litigants in a wide variety of contexts. A broad range of Athenian lawcourt speeches in translation will be complemented by the study of texts (also in translation) by Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes.

• Homer’s Iliad

  In this module you will develop an understanding of a broad range of philological issues associated with selected books of Homer's Iliad. You will read significant sections from selected books in the original Greek and examine key issues such as literary criticism, philosophy, anthropology and the study of oral traditions pertaining to the Iliad.

• Homer's Odyssey

  In this module you will develop an understanding of a broad range of philological issues associated with selected books of Homer's Odyssey. You will read significant sections from selected books in the original Greek and examine aspects of higher criticism, including literary, philosophical and anthropological approaches and discussions of general critical theory pertinent to the study of the Odyssey.

• Tacitus on Being Roman: Defining Identity

  In this module you will develop an understanding of Roman identity and the ways in which Tacitus seeks to define what it means to be Roman under the early Principate. You will read selected excerpts from Tacitus' Agricola, Historiae and Annales, considering the key features of Tacitus' literary technique and examine the relationship between literary form and content.

• Tacitus on Being Roman: Experiencing Identity

  In this module you will develop an understanding of Roman identity and the ways in which Tacitus seeks to represent the experience of being Roman under the early Principate. You will look at key features of Tacitus' literary technique, considering the relationships between literary form and content in Tacitus Agricola, Historiae and Annales.

Intercollegiate modules available at our University of London partner institutions:

• Places, Artifacts and Images, Digital Approaches
• Digital Classics: Linking Written and Material Culture
• Beginners' Ancient Greek for Research

  In this module you will develop an understanding of the basic grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of Attic Greek. You will become proficient in reading unseen simple passages of Greek without assistance and gain confidence in handling Ancient Greek texts in their original form.

• Intermediate Ancient Greek for Research

  In this module you will further develop your understanding of the Ancient Greek language to the point where you are able to read substantial texts. You will carry out grammatical exercises, including some translation from English into Greek, as well as preparing to translate passages from Greek to English. As your confidence increases, you will increasingly focus on the translation and interpretation of texts.

• Tacitus and Nero
• Latin Epigraphy
• Medieval Latin Literature

  The module is in two parts. The first term is exploratory: you will read selected texts from the whole medieval period - from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages - in a variety of genres (theology, poetry, history, law, etc.) In the second term you will learn how to edit a medieval Latin text.

• Skills for Medievalists: Palaeography

  The aim of this module is to train you to read, date and describe Latin manuscripts from AD 500 - 1500 and to understand manuscript culture and the circumstances in which texts were transmitted from the Middle Ages to modern times. It consists of a survey of the history of Latin handwriting from antiquity to the Renaissance. You will also be taught how to describe a manuscript book and will be introduced to codicology.

• Introduction to Greek Epigraphy
• Alexandria and the Poetry of Callimachus
• Persepolis
• Archaic and Classical Painting
• One God, One Sea: Byzantium and Islam, 600-800

  This module covers the transitional period which preceded and followed the Arabic conquest of large parts of the Byzantine empire in the seventh century. Initially, Byzantium struggled to contain the Arabic expansion in the East and the Slavic settlement in its European provinces. Numerous administrative reforms testify to this effort, and perhaps equally, one of the most emblematic theological debates to be associated with the Eastern empire, that of Iconoclasm. In this module you will look closely at how the Byzantines faced these threats to their stability and follow the historical course up to the onset of gradual economic, political and cultural revival in the late eighth century.

• Classical Frontiers: Northern Black Sea in Antiquity
• Science and Empire
• Late Antique Magic

  This module will introduce you to the history of magic in late antiquity (from the third to fifth centuries CE) through the close and contextualized study of a number of magical texts, with a particular focus on the Greek Magical Papyri, and some comparative consideration of magical texts in Demotic, Coptic, Syriac and Latin. You will read a range of these texts (in translation), from curses and erotic magic to spells of healing and exorcism, and learn to analyse them in their social, political and cultural contexts. You will explore the literary, material and visual qualities of magical texts and objects, as well as considering their ritual functions. This module will develop your ability to analyse and critique the varied contemporary interpretations of magical texts and practices, and to formulate and substantiate your own research questions related to late antique magical practices and magical texts.

• Roman Mosaics: Making and Meaning
• Living in Byzantium I: Material Culture and Built Environment in Late Antiquity

  This module provides an introduction to the varied physical remains left behind by Late Antiquity, primarily in the eastern Mediterranean (4th to 7th century). The selection of material and issues examined range from the urban and rural landscapes, fortifications, palaces, houses, monasteries and churches, to monumental decoration and small scale objects. This wide range of topics will be investigated thematically from a primarily functional and practical point of view, in order to trace and highlight the significant changes that occurred in this period, signalling different stages in the transformation of the Roman heritage. Each subject will be approached on the basis of case studies that exemplify the nature and problems of the evidence.

• Exhibiting Classical Antiquities
• Alexander's Afterlife
• Queer Connections: Male-Male Desire and the Classical Past
• Ancient Rome on Film: From Pre-Cinema to the 1950s
• Cicero: Rhetoric and Politics
• Ancient Philosophy and Literature
• Ovid
• Greek Papyrology

  In this module you will be introduced to the study of Greek papyri, documentary as well as literary. The texts are studied from facsimiles and are chosen to illustrate the development of Greek bookhands and cursive scripts. You will also learn to examine formal aspects of the transmission of Greek literature on papyrus, and familiarise yourself with the range of documentary types available as sources for the history of Graeco-Roman Egypt.

• Lived Ancient Religion in Hellenistic Greece
• Hellenistic Encounters with Egypt
• Change and Continuity in the Ancient Near East
• Aristotle
• The Mediterranean World in the Iron Age
• Ancient Italy in the Mediterranean
• Making and Meaning in Ancient Greek Art
• Making and Meaning in Ancient Roman Art
• The Transformation of the Roman Mediterranean