Classical Studies (CLSS)

This course will introduce students to the Greek and Roman precedents behind the institutions, architecture, monuments, and symbols of the nation’s capital city, as well as the debates and controversies they inspire. Topics to be examined include: Roman models for the political institutions of the American republic as well as for slavery; L’Enfant’s plan for Washington DC and its approach to public space; the origins of war memorials and public portrait statues; and Greek and Roman precedents for today’s ‘monument wars’ over issues such as the lack of diversity in public monuments. Assignments will include short papers and a final project. Classroom work will be supplemented by visits to buildings and museum collections in DC.

This course offers both a chronological survey of ancient Greek material culture and an introduction to the methods of discovery and analysis employed by Classical (Greek and Roman) archaeologists. Most class meetings will focus on the major monuments, archaeological sites, art works, and other artifacts of the ancient Greek world from Bronze Age prehistory through to the Archaic (ca. 600-480 B.C.), Classical (ca. 480-323 B.C.), and Hellenistic (ca. 323-30 B.C.) periods. In addition to considering major sites such as Knossos, Mycenae, Athens, Delphi, and Olympia, we will trace the development of Greek architecture, sculpture, city planning, painting, and other art forms over time. We will also consider the nature of the archaeological evidence for the ancient Greeks and the relationship of Classical archaeology to other disciplines such as art history, history, and the classical languages. Midterm and final exams will be based upon slides seen in class and available through Powerpoint presentations; students will research and write two short papers.

This course examines ancient Roman innovations in architecture, engineering, city planning, and the visual arts. Lectures trace the development and transformation of Roman material culture from the Iron-Age origins of the city of Rome to the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century A.D. Students will learn to identify artifacts, monuments, and sites from across the Empire and to understand their cultural, political, and social significance. Highlights include: the Colosseum; aqueducts; marble sarcophagi; the Pantheon; portraits that appear true to life; the Library of Celsus at Ephesus; and the archaeological wonders of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We will discuss the theory and methods of classical archaeology and explore new directions in the interpretation of the ancient Roman past through its material remains.

In this course we will study ancient Greek history from the 8th century B.C. through the conquest of the Greek mainland by Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. Major themes explored will include: the definition of Greek identity, the relationships between Greeks and Persians, the conflict between Athens and Sparta, and the internal dynamics of the Greek polis. We will read and consider in class accounts of the important events in Greek history written by the Greeks themselves (Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon). A major goal of the course is to explore how present-day ancient historians use sparse and sometimes conflicting literary sources, in combination with inscriptions and archaeological evidence, to arrive at an understanding of the distant past. Most class meetings will consist of a combination of informal lecture by the professor and close examination of the assigned readings. Assignments will include two exams and two short papers.

This course offers a historical survey of the classical world, from the lifetime of Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) and the establishment of new kingdoms by his successors on to Rome’s liquidation of these kingdoms and establishment of a massive empire in western Europe. Particular topics of concern include comparisons between the rise of two superpowers, Macedon and Rome; the consequences of aggressive imperialism for the traditional city-state culture of the ancient Mediterranean, as well as the enduring significance of major social institutions and cultural practices (including the gymnasium, the drinking party, theatrical performance, public oratory, and religious cults); the writings of Cicero as a mirror for the Roman Republic. Class sessions will consist of lecture as well as discussions of major written sources (primary and secondary).

For centuries the Roman empire allowed millions of people, from Scotland to the Middle East, to live in peace and prosper. The empire also enslaved millions. In this class we explore how, looking at the figure of the emperor and the imperial court; war and diplomacy; the everyday lives of rich and poor; mass entertainments in the city of Rome and the provinces; law, individual rights, and slavery; emperor-worship, the growth of Christianity and stories of the martyrs. Evidence examined includes classics of ancient historical writing such as Suetonius’ lives of the emperors as well as original documents and the material remains of cities, country estates, and army forts. Some attention is also paid to the legacy of Rome, from the empires of Charlemagne through to those of Spain and Great Britain.

This course surveys ancient Greek literature from the Archaic period down to the Roman period (ca. 750 B.C. to A.D. 400), with special attention to authors such as Hesiod, Homer, Sappho, Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Callimachus and Theocritus. In particular, the course will focus on the features of various prose and poetic genres such as epic, hymn, tragedy, comedy, history and pastoral. A central theme of the course will be the profound importance of the Homeric poems (both the Iliad and the Odyssey) as both works of art in their own right and culturally definitive artifacts, and we will consider in detail what various Greek reactions to and interpretations of these poems reveal about the cultural and literary history of the ancient world.

A survey of ancient Latin literature from the late republic and early empire (c. 200BC- 150 AD) and its reception. Authors such as Caesar, Livy, Horace, Ovid, and Apuleius will be covered in detail, focusing on themes such as religion, gender and politics in light of artistic strategies. A major topic of the course will be the profound importance of Vergil's Aeneid: we will study the poem itself, its literary background, and then consider subsequent reactions to and interpretations of it, and what those points reveal about Roman literary strategies and thought. In the process, we will pay attention to formal aspects of the works that are common to so much literature.

This course surveys the wide variety of Latin literature written between the waning of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. A particular theme will be the massive influence exercised by Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. We will read some epic poems as well as love poetry; prose genres will include philosophy (Boethius), history, and letters by major scholars and clerics that reveal much about daily life. The course will end with a consideration of Latin works written by the three crowns of Florence: Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. All assigned texts will be read in English translation; no knowledge of Latin or Classical literature is required or assumed.

In this class we will read the literature of the Byzantine tradition (in English translation), from the foundation of the city of Constantinople in AD 330 to AD 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks (thus ending the Byzantine era). In other words, a thousand years of medieval writing! Byzantium is little known among modern students, in part because it has been seen as a derivative and decaying society by historians since the time of Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) and his influential Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1176–1788). To quote a recent scholarly article on the subject, “It used to be thought that Byzantium was a society without a literature, or that if it had a literature, it was without a readership, without literary merit, without poetry, without fiction” (Margaret Mullett in the Blackwell Companion to Byzantium). In recent years, however, the study of Byzantine culture has witnessed a great resurgence of activity, and aspects of the society that were once viewed as staid and unworthy of close attention have become active topics of research and debate. In this class we will focus on three types of surviving texts in particular: historiography, hagiography, and hymnography (the “Three Hs”). Historiography is the best known of the three, because modern historians often mine Byzantine historical texts for information about the Crusades and other topics. Our goal will be to read Byzantine historiography on its own terms and to consider the role of the author in shaping his or her narrative. Hagiography is the general category of texts having to do with saints and their marvelous lives and works. We will read several of these texts and consider how the different Lives reflect (or subvert) the dominant strains of Byzantine culture and politics. Finally, we will read hymns from Byzantium in order to understand better how poetry could be a medium of both self-expression and communal identity formation in the Byzantine Church. Of course, some texts that we will read do not fit into the “Three Hs”, such as the medieval Greek novel Drosilla and Charikles, or the unique manual on How to Run the Empire by the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. These examples, when taken together, will provide a sweeping grand narrative of Byzantine history as expressed in its dynamic and rich literature.

Myths are some of the longest-lasting and most powerful stories that humankind has created. They shape our understanding of transitions and crises: right and wrong, life and death, the natural and the supernatural. They are also playful, exuberant, and highly entertaining. This course introduces students to the myths of Greece and Rome, with comparative material drawn from other ancient texts. Throughout the course we will also think about the role of mythology today, and the way that we use stories to come to terms with ourselves and our world.

As the continuation of CLSS 1099 Beginning Sanskrit Language, this course completes the systematic introduction to the grammar of the Classical language as presented in our first semester textbook. The course proceeds to readings from Epic Sanskrit and then the Rigveda, which constitutes the most ancient stratum of Old Indic literature. As we make progress, we will continue to address questions of Sanskrit’s cultural context, etymological riches, and structural development from Proto-Indo-European, the language also ancestral to Greek, Latin, and English.

The reign of the emperor Nero, who reportedly “fiddled while Rome burned,” captures the popular imagination more than any other period in Roman history. How can we separate fact from fiction in the salacious stories of a ruler as notorious for his cold-blooded murders as he was for his megalomania? In this course, we will scrutinize images of Nero in biographies, histories, portraiture, and plays, from antiquity to the present day. We will be equally concerned with the masterworks of the so-called Neronian Renaissance, which yielded some of Rome’s greatest achievements in literature, architecture, and art. Ancient sources (read in translation) will include texts by Suetonius, Tacitus, Seneca, Petronius, Lucan, and Persius.

This course investigates Shakespeare’s lifelong engagement with the literatures and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. We will give careful attention to six plays – Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline – as well as considering the larger role of classical antiquity in Shakespeare’s development and achievement as a poet and dramatist. How did Shakespeare adapt his sources to explore the most urgent social, political, and aesthetic questions of his own era? The class includes film screenings, tickets to a live performance of Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Theater Company, and a visit to the Georgetown Rare Books Collection.

Ancient Greek religion has often been characterized as a religious system fueled more by ritual practice than by belief: there was no central sacred text comparable to the Bible or the Koran, and no body of dogma to which worshippers subscribed. The most important religious ritual was animal sacrifice. Both the ritual practices and the underlying motives and beliefs of Greek religion were complex, giving evidence of a long historical development and significant local variation. In this course, we will explore this complexity through readings from important recent scholarship on a variety of topics to include the following: the theory and practice of animal sacrifice, sacred laws governing the behavior of worshippers, the role of the Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia and Delphi, religious festivals, priests and priestesses, the role of women in Greek religion, oracles, and mystery cults.

This course examines the most significant archaeological sites of the ancient Greek world from their beginnings in the Geometric period (ca. 900–700 B.C.) through the Roman imperial period and late antiquity. Some of the sites to be studied in detail are the sanctuaries that hosted oracles (Delphi and Dodona), athletic festivals (Olympia, Isthmia, and Nemea), and mystery cults (Eleusis), as well as the sanctuary of the healing god Asklepios at Epidauros. We will also survey the archaeological evidence for some of the most important ancient Greek cities, among them Athens, Corinth, Rhodes, Priene, Alexandria, and Pergamon. At the end of the course, we will follow the spread of Greek culture and civic life to the eastern fringes of Alexander the Great’s empire (Dura Europos in Syria, Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan) and consider the Romanization of the Eastern Mediterranean (Aphrodisias in Asia Minor). Developments in town planning and building programs are studied both architecturally and on a more theoretical level as responses to important Greek institutions such as colonization and democracy. Readings will be drawn from excavation reports and specialized studies of ancient Greek religious practices, athletics, city planning, and civic life.

Athens in the fifth and early fourth centuries BCE was the locus of some of the most vibrant and important cultural production in human history. This class will study that production—literary texts, philosophy architecture, art—in its cultural, ideological and historical context. The organization of the class is synoptic rather than historical, though will and end by considering the defining military events that marked Athenian ascendancy and defeat, and that, broadly speaking, define the Classical period in Athens. Students who complete the class will understand the culture of this period through a variety of lenses—ideological, historical, literary-historical—and will be able to think responsibly rather than anachronistically about the aftermath of the fifth century, including the fourth-century philosophical texts (Plato, Aristotle) that dominate so much of subsequent Western thought.

This course traces the development of Athens from its earliest history in the Bronze Age through the present day. We will pay special attention to the archaeology of the Acropolis, the sanctuary of Athena which underwent a major building program under the leadership of Pericles and the sculptor Phidias in the second half of the fifth century B.C., and the Agora, Athens’ ancient marketplace and city-center, in use from the Archaic period (ca. 600-480 B.C.) onward. In addition to studying the archaeological evidence for ancient Athens in its heyday in the Classical period (ca. 480-323 B.C.), we will also look at the development of city under Roman rule, during the middle ages, and in the 19th century when it became the capital of the modern Greek state. Further topics to be explored through illustrated class lectures and assigned readings will include: life in the countryside of Attica, the port of Athens (the Piraeus), sanctuaries and religion, mining and the marble industry, and the results of ongoing excavations and archaeological surveys of the city and its territory. In addition to midterm and final exams, students will write a short research paper on an individual topic.

“I desire you!” What did these words mean to the ancient Greeks, both in terms of physical acts of sex and in terms of the emotion and sense of possession that are also part of the experience? What was the etiquette of desire and how did the rules of this game map onto other social structures, such as marriage, friendship, service to the state, or even warfare? When the ancient Greeks looked at the human body, what struck them as desirable? What struck them masculine or feminine—what we might call today gender codes? What were other social, religious and moral codes that informed the ancient Greek construction of sexuality? This course studies such questions in the belief that sexuality is an excellent window into ancient Greek culture—a means for understanding how the Greeks thought about themselves in relation to others. And we pursue these questions through readings and material objects drawn from all periods of Greek history, including the early Archaic poems of Homer, to the philosophic and theoretical meditations on desire of the Classical period, to the Hellenistic poetry and medical writings. We also study modern theory of sexuality and gender. This course involves explicit material and language, and if you are uncomfortable with such content, this is not the course for you. We treat this material, however, in an academic manner, and students are expected to frame discussions and papers with appropriate scholarly discourse.

D.C. lives under the shadow of an “Egyptian” obelisk made in America. Why? What did ancient Egypt signify to nineteenth-century Americans? What social, historical, and political factors shaped their cultural taste? To understand D.C.’s Egyptomania, we will first examine the long history of Greeks and Romans exploring, representing, conquering, and appropriating Egypt, from Archaic Greece to Ptolemaic Egypt to the Roman empire. The literary and material culture we investigate will then inform our study of local sites including the Washington Monument, Library of Congress, House of the Temple, and Freer-Sackler Gallery. Class visits will take place, health guidance permitting.

What was it like to witness the fall of Rome? How do we tell if a civilization is collapsing and what insights can be applied to our own society? How does the conflict between Christianity and paganism color our interpretation of the transition from the classical world to the Middle Ages? This course will explore such questions primarily through the lens of the Roman literature of late antiquity (fourth to sixth centuries) but with an eye to the transformations that occurred in the seventh and eighth centuries, the so-called Dark Ages. Assigned readings in translation will be drawn from a host of sources ranging from well-known Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Jerome, to lesser-known secular masters such as Macrobius and Rutilius Namatianus.

Who is the “femme fatale” in ancient Egyptian literature? How did “love spells” work? What did ancient Egyptian women write about in their private letters? This course guides students to explore the lives of queens, elite women, and ordinary people by reading the words written by these women and the words written about them. We will explore how ancient Egyptians conveyed sexual differences and established gender norms. We will then investigate the exceptional circumstances under which these norms are challenged. This class relies on textual sources, material cultures, and archaeological evidence from ancient Egypt. It supplements the discussion with relevant theories in gender studies.

Our understanding of any society is enhanced by an awareness of how it thinks about sexuality. The sexual act itself is often categorized in polar terms—such as “(un)natural” or “culturally constructed”—that reveal much about a society’s political, religious, and moral codes. Ancient Rome was no different. This course will examine ways in which ancient Roman society slotted sexual behavior into such categories, and/or used (or did not use) these extreme polarities as a way to formulate codes of social and sexual behavior. By the end of the course, students will have a clearer understanding of large dynamics of ancient Roman culture, and perhaps even of their own world. This course will involve explicit language and content. If such material will make you uncomfortable, this course will not be for you. On the other hand, this is an academic pursuit, and as such I expect that you will frame your discussions and papers in ways that reflect an appropriate level of scholarly discourse.

The Ancient City of Rome is a three-credit (undergraduate or graduate) study-travel course, which offers an introduction to the archaeology and history of the ancient city of Rome, capital of a vast empire that stretched for thousands of miles, and still the seat of the Catholic Church. The course can also count for the History major or minor or for the Art History major or minor, and can also count as one of the options for the HALC requirement. Sites to be visited in Rome include the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the palace of the emperors on the Palatine Hill, the imperial baths, the Forum, and several churches. Students will also examine finds in the numerous museums in Rome that house antiquities, including the Vatican Museums. There will additionally be field trips to examine the imperial port of Ostia as well as Pompeii, the city buried in AD 79 by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. By the end of the course students will have a thorough knowledge of the topography of ancient Rome and the major monuments that have survived from it. They also will have gained a sense of what daily life was like in the city, how the Roman empire made use of art and architecture to hold onto power, and how from the fourth century AD onwards the Christian church gradually gained control of the city of Rome and reshaped its destiny.

The city-state (polis) was both an institution at the heart of ancient Greek culture and the point of origin for the western concept of politics. This course offers an introduction to the Greek polis in all of its political, social, historical, and physical manifestations from the eighth century BCE through the fifth century CE. Major topics we will consider include: the origins of the polis, warfare, democracy, colonization, city planning, gender, identity, cross-cultural contact, decline, and transformation at the end of antiquity. We will spend class time discussing assigned readings from recent scholarship; assignments will include a short independent research paper.

In 427 BCE, the Sicilian orator Gorgias arrived in Athens and changed the art of persuasion forever. He defined rhetoric as “the greatest good, the cause of freedom to mankind, and also for each person the source of rule over others.” This class will examine the art and science of rhetoric in Greece and Rome from the 5th century BCE through the early Roman Empire (1st century CE). The texts read will range widely across time, space, and genre and will include rhetorical handbooks and theoretical works, such as Aristotle’s Rhetoric, philosophical dialogues, and examples of persuasive rhetoric by the greatest ancient orators, including Demosthenes and Cicero.

Upon entering the "House of Millions of Years" of the Great Rameses, located on the west bank of Luxor, visitors become enveloped in a labyrinth of towering columns and the shadows they cast. The weathered reliefs whisper the tales of ancient glories while the shattered colossi lie strewn across the ground. Ancient Egypt evokes a sense of "eternity" yet simultaneously serves as a poignant reminder of the inevitability of death and oblivion.

In this course, we will delve into the ancient Egyptians' view on death and their preparations for the afterlife. Topics for study encompass the treatment of the body, the crafting and decoration of coffins, the selection of burial goods, and the construction of ideal tombs. The course will then focus on several case studies, including the burials of the royals, courtiers, provincial leaders, artists, and foreigners. Assessments consist of quizzes, essays, and a final presentation centered on one specific burial. Throughout the semester, students will have hands-on experiences in compiling, describing, and analyzing funerary practices and material cultures from ancient Egypt while reflecting on the individuality of the burial's owner. They will also discuss museums’ duties in ethically caring for human remains.

What makes an effective leader? How does a leader set priorities and build support? Should a leader ever put expediency ahead of morality? What training have the most effective leaders received, and how has it helped them handle extraordinary crises? This class, co-taught by faculty in Classics and Government, examines these and related questions through case-studies of leaders from antiquity – including Persian kings, politicians in the Athenian democracy, and Roman emperors – as well as modern leaders whose writings powerfully frame the challenges of leadership, especially Elizabeth I, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Students will gain familiarity with the individual leaders studied; use the case-studies to develop and test broader theories about how leaders succeed and fail; and learn how study of past leaders can be a tool for leadership today.

Roman military dominance in the Mediterranean was never a foregone conclusion. The rising city-state prospered in a world of capable generals and kings possessing the will and resources to challenge and overcome the might of Rome. The story of Roman supremacy in the Mediterranean entails more than the resilience and prowess of the legions, it must necessarily take into account the multivalent environment in which the Romans operated with opportunities to alter the course of history that were not endemic to Rome. This course attempts to achieve a measure of coherence in understanding the contestation of power that involved Rome, Carthage, and Hellenistic powers. Above all, the course reveals the uncertainties and lack of inevitability that punctuated the shifting balance of power in the ancient Mediterranean, and it serves as a lesson in historical contingency germane to any nation or period of history.

An introduction to the historical figure of Julius Caesar and the stories and debates surrounding the man, in his own lifetime and beyond. We examine his early successes in politics, while also exploring the problems facing the Roman Republic; then look at Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul and the horrific civil war that followed, both of which he recounted in his own spellbinding prose; and finally consider his last years as dictator and his assassination. Was Caesar to blame for the Republic’s fall? Or was he the statesman who saw more clearly than any other that the Roman empire had to take a new shape? Classes are mostly discussions, focusing on the ancient evidence as well as classic works by modern historians of Rome.

This class offers a study of the rise to power of Rome’s first emperor Augustus and the ways in which he consolidated his power and created new institutions such as a professional army that endured for centuries afterwards. We consider key interventions in politics by allies of Augustus as well as his opponents. Emphasis is also placed on how a wide range of Romans and provincials forged a new imperial culture in literature, the visual arts, and other media that lent support to the rule of Augustus and his family. Some comparisons will be made with Alexander the Great and his successors and there will also be consideration of the reuse of Roman imagery in later times, including the Napoleonic Empire and the early United States.

Roman law is remarkable not only for its complexity and specification, but also its pragmatism; the rules it set out expressed core cultural values while also fostering an efficient and complex system of exchange. This class examines Roman law through a close reading of its primary texts. We will focus on two distinct areas of Roman law; the law of delict—analogous to modern tort—and Roman family law, including marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Students will learn not only how Romans addressed legal questions in these spheres, but also what sort of intellectual or ideological apparatus encouraged them to look to the state to solve these sorts of problems. Primary readings will come mostly from the collection of legal texts known as the Digest, accompanied by papyri and inscriptions. All readings will be in translation. Assignments will include short response papers and a research paper. Comments: this is a new course title and new description

How can we write a history of migration in the Roman empire? This course introduces students to a host of issues stemming from this question, with a chronological focus spanning the history of the Roman empire, from the foundational stories of Aeneas’ flight and Romulus’ asylum to the forced migration of “Romans” from Rome in the later Roman empire by other migrating peoples. Contemporary definitions of mobility, such as displacement and migration, and persons on the move (asylum seeker, refugee, migrant, immigrant) will be scrutinized for their applicability to the Roman world. Students will assess how Rome’s foundational stories were mustered by the Romans themselves (e.g., in Livy or Vergil), outsiders and others after them (e.g., in post-Revolutionary Haiti or colonial Australia), to specific ends in debates over origins, citizenship, asylum and nation building. Attention is also given to forced migrations, such as sentences of exile and mass deportations of the enslaved.

This class takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of empires of the ancient and early modern worlds, with a special focus on empires and their cultural expressions. Topics include cultures of conquest and occupation, provincialism, slavery, resistance, critiques and celebrations, and legacies, as we explore how empires were created, challenged, sustained, and dismantled in the past. The class is discussion-based and incorporates excursions in Washington, including a visit to Dumbarton Oaks and a walking tour. This class is cross-listed by the Classics and History Departments.

What's Athens got to do with Jerusalem? That's a question early Christian writers asked, suggesting that the new religion meant a total rupture with the idolatrous past. But we are taught to speak of "Western civilization" as a happy synthesis of Greek, Roman, and Christian (or Judeo-Christian) contributions. So who really are "our" cultural ancestors? Augustine of Hippo, the most learned, prolific, and influential early Christian writer after Paul and the evangelists, will be our guide. We will read his City of God and explore its context, meaning, and influence, while discussing as well the place of such classic texts in the modern age of 140-character profundity; each student will write a research paper exploring issues raised by the course.

Ovid’s epic poem, which chronicles the history of the world through stories of metamorphosis, has been one of the most influential texts written in Latin. Like its subject matter, it is a poem that is protean and difficult to pin down, defying any single interpretation. For this reason it has inspired a wide range of artists, writers, and thinkers ever since its publication in the first years of the Roman Empire. The first part of this course will be dedicated to the close reading of the whole Metamorphoses, with particular attention to its place within the tradition of Greek and Latin epic poetry. The second part will focus on some of the many responses this poem has inspired, including its influence on the visual arts, the way it has shaped our modern understanding of myth, and its conscription into contemporary societal debates.

From the Pantheon to the Colosseum, from triumphal arches to aqueducts: Roman architecture is among the most lasting and influential legacies of classical antiquity. This course traces the evolution of Roman construction and design from the sixth century BCE to the third century CE. Students learn to identify characteristic forms, materials, and techniques, and thus acquire skills in visual analysis. Class discussion explores issues of function, access, movement, and the organization of space in temples, theaters, baths, tombs, palaces, and other buildings across the Roman Empire. Special emphasis is placed on the inheritance and adaptation of Etruscan and Greek methods, as well as on the relationship of architecture to culture. Course readings include ancient texts in translation (particularly Vitruvius’ De architectura), architectural and archaeological scholarship, and relevant works of modern architectural theory.

Languages, like people, can be genetically related, forming families derived from a common source. By comparing languages whose similarities can only be explained by appeal to shared ancestry, it is possible to reconstruct not only their parent language but also aspects of its speakers’ culture and world. In this course, we will examine the grammar and vocabulary of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the language ancestral to Greek, Latin, and English itself, and go on to survey the chief historical developments of these and other such daughter languages in both linguistic and cultural terms.

Students read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, as well as other examples of epic poetry about heroes and gods, such as Hesiod’s Theogony and the Homeric Hymns, that are part of an oral tradition. Through reading this early poetry, students are introduced to an archaic understanding of immortality and to fundamental narrative structures, especially anger, withdrawal, mourning, the journey and return, and epiphany. We also consider a fundamental dichotomy within the epic oral tradition: the trauma of a “beautiful death,” which permeates the Iliad, and the dangers of return, which infuse the Odyssey. Why was it that violence, both physical and psychic, undergirded great heroic poetry? Students also study the nature of an oral tradition: what does it means to say a poem is "oral" and "traditional"? What are the poetics of oral poetry: how is it composed and what makes the poet's job easy or hard? These oldest poetic narratives in the western tradition powerfully influenced later literary and historical genres and continue to move readers as different as contemplatives wishing to know the roots of their intellectual heritage, poets and writers tackling the journey as an adventure of the human spirit, and soldiers traumatized by their experiences in war and return.

This course examines Greek tragedy in its cultural setting, the polis of fifth-century Athens. At the heart of an important religious festival, the Greater Dionysia, tragedy was a prism that refracted complicated layers within Athenians’ understanding of themselves, their gods, and their past. Students read plays by the three extant tragedians, Aeschylus,Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as selections from modern scholarship selected to introduce major critical perspectives on Attic tragedy. Two primary goals for students are first, to understand the form and conventions of Attic tragedy as an illustration of how a genre constrains its artists and how they in turn work within such constraints to create great art follow; and second, develop an understanding of the tragic visions of the three playwrights, including how each represents markers of Athenian norms and attitudes, such as women, youths and the aged, and warriors.

Alexander of Macedon lived an unbelievable life. He conquered from Greece all the way to India, forever changing the world as the Greeks knew it. Along the way, he became the son of Zeus and even a god. Who was Alexander? How did he view the world, and the world him? Together we will analyze the ancient narratives of Alexander’s life and the afterlife, discerning as best we can his worldview, how others responded to and made sense of him, and how he shaped our institutions and imagination. Our reading includes: Arrian, Plutarch, Curtius, Hellenistic historiography, and the Alexander Romance.

This course is a study of impact of the life and campaigns of Alexander the Great on the cultural production of the period that followed his death. It begins with a survey of Alexander’s life and the complexities posed by the sources for it. The bulk of the class will focus on the way in which the art and literature of the period that followed his death (the so-called Hellenistic period) responded to and engaged the political, social, and cultural changes wrought by his campaigns. Topics will include, among others, the tension between cultural continuity and change; the representation of the ruler and his relationship to the gods; artists’ engagement with inherited generic conventions; and the treatment of (the nature of) heroism. Students will read the complete corpora of poets like Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, and Theocritus, as well as select passages of Aratus, Lycophron, and others; some works of late Classical and Hellenistic philosophy, including selections of Aristotole and Epicurus; and a series of philosophical texts. Some attention will also be paid to the plastic and graphic arts.

The Colosseum, ultimate symbol of Rome and its empire, emerged from a context of chaos brought about by the Great Fire, the death of Nero, and the civil war that followed. Alongside numerous other outstanding works of art, literature, and architecture from Rome, Pompeii, and the empire at large, the Colosseum simultaneously represents a resurgence of Roman ancestral values and optimism for the future. In this literature and archaeology course, we will examine the complex political and cultural landscape of this period of rebuilding. Through analysis of poems, historical accounts, paintings, sculpture, villas, civic architecture, and more, we will develop an understanding of how values that defined Rome and Romans were reconfigured in lasting ways during the Flavian dynasty (69-96 CE).

Since most of English is not originally English but borrowed from Greek and Latin, it follows that familiarity with the Classical legacy in English vocabulary will significantly contribute to one’s ability to understand our conceptual and social world in light of the words that have shaped it historically. Focusing solely on vocabulary, its historical context, and general features of language history, this course is designed to provide students with greater awareness of the nature and structure of English words derived from Greek and Latin. Topics to be addressed include: principles of historical linguistics; history of English in relation to Greek and Latin; the sounds of Greek and Latin; the Greek, Latin, and English alphabets; Greek and Latin roots and word- formation; domains of word meanings, such as politics, law, medicine, science, philosophy, and religion, and the forces in culture and cognition that condition their development.

What are the origins of drama? How did tragedy and comedy develop? Why do ancient plays continue to fascinate audiences across the world today? In this course, undergraduates engage with the diverse dramatic art of Ancient Greece. We read plays drawn from the many performance genres of the ancient Mediterranean, including works by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes (all in English translation). In discussing these plays, we examine the conventions of tragedy and comedy; the social, economic, and political context of drama throughout its history; costumes, masks, and set design; music and dance; the art of translation; and the continuing relevance of theatrical performance today. More than two millennia after its invention, Greek drama continues to thrive on the world stage.

Travel in the ancient world was a problem: travel by land was tedious and dangerous, and travel by sea took somewhat less time but was even more dangerous. The original traveler and explorer, Odysseus, demonstrates just how hard it could be to get where you were going. But he also represents how the world could be opened up through exploration, as he encounters new lands and different societies. In addition to the Odyssey, we will read Herodotus’s Histories, built upon the author’s travels within Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and accounts of travel and exploration during the campaigns of Alexander the Great and under the Roman Empire.

This course will be a cultural history of Greece and Rome through the lens of athletic competition. Sports were fundamental to ancient thought about mythology, religion, warfare, politics, and even the very structure of the calendar. The course will examine events that took place at religious sites such as Olympia from early periods of Greek history to the ‘fall’ of Rome, and will consider how athletics illuminate, for example, political changes and the role of the athlete as a hero for his (and her) local community. Attention will be paid to actual competitions, but the focus of the course will be on a range of historical and philosophical sources as well as the writings of brilliant poets such as Pindar. Students will leave the course with an enhanced understanding of broad aspects of ancient literature, history, and culture.

Slavery was an important feature of the Roman world. This course attempts to better understand the people who served as the labor force of ancient Rome, often under brutal conditions. We will examine ancient slavery using a variety of sources; while enslaved voices are rarely preserved directly, we can see their traces throughout Roman culture. Students will not only learn about the lives of enslaved people under the Roman empire but will also assess the methodological problems inherent in studying non-elites through records of elite activity. Students will be tested on this material with a midterm exam in addition to a short and a long paper.

For the Greeks and Romans, 'knowledge' was one cohesive concept that combined scientific awareness and literary proficiency, and no educated person could forsake one without endangering their access to the other. In this course we will examine some texts by the most important authors in the Greek and Roman tradition who conveyed scientific contents through literary work or expanded their literary creations with the infusion of scientific concepts. These will include scientists such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, Archimedes, and Ptolemy; but also poets such as Homer, Vergil, and Ovid; philosophers such as Empedocles and Plato; rhetoricians such as Cicero; and many more. The last few classes will be devoted to the continuation of the synergic relationship between science and literature through the Modern Age, also trying to see developments in more recent time (for instance, Primo Levi or Albert Einstein).

This course will explore the rich history of political treatises meant to instruct future rulers and statesmen from classical antiquity to the Renaissance. The genre, often known by its Latin name, specula principum (mirrors of princes), became especially popular in the late Middle Ages—not long before Machiavelli wrote what is probably the most famous instance of this genre. Authors read will include Cicero, Seneca, Dhuoda, John of Salisbury, Erasmus, and Machiavelli. The texts will be read in English translation, but since most were originally written in Latin, the course will also provide an overview of Latin literary history through the lens of a single genre.

We live in the Anthropocene, a geological age defined by humanity’s dominant influence on climate and the environment. But there remains much debate as to when exactly the Anthropocene begins. This debate matters, as it puts into perspective our current environmental crises and the significance of human-environment interaction across time. This course will reflect on this significance over the short- and long-term by casting an environmental lens on the archaeology and history of the Roman Empire. Along the way, we will draw from diverse paleo-environmental, archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence to: interrogate Roman mentalities towards the environment; examine Roman technologies and organizational systems which enabled the Romans’ ability to bring about enduring environmental transformations; and explore the confluence of socio-political events and environmental calamities. Course content will be organized in three thematic modules: first, Fragmented Landscapes: students will explore how the Mediterranean basin both connected and separated people in antiquity; second, Environmental Mentalities and Management: students will explore how Roman mentalities of nature reflected and/or affected the Romans’ management of the environment; and third, (Un)natural Calamities: students will explore what role, if any, the Romans played in bringing about environmental catastrophes. The primary goal of this course is to learn the role of the environment in the history of Rome, and vice versa. In addition, students will compare Rome’s relationship with the environment to our own, in particular how ideas, tools, and institutions bring about or obstruct transformation. Questions will include: In what ways were the interactions between humans and the environment during Roman antiquity similar to or different from today? How is this reflected in the changing character of the environment in ancient historical and archaeological research? And does such comparison reveal an essential relationship between humans and the environment?

In 64 BC Marcus Tullius Cicero was elected consul of Rome, the first man in a generation to hold the office who was not from Rome’s hereditary ruling class. Representing influential Romans in both civil and criminal cases, Cicero owed his unusual political success to his skills as a lawyer. In this seminar we study together the surviving transcripts of Cicero’s speeches to reconstruct how the courts of Rome worked. Attention will also be paid to the prominence of public speaking in the Roman Republic and the value of Cicero’s speeches and letters as a source for political history and thought. In addition to participating in weekly discussions students develop and execute an original research project that draws on Cicero’s writings.

The Romans built one of the greatest empires in history but how advanced was their economy? Students in this seminar read and discuss recent scholarship addressing this question, while also examining textual and material sources, ranging from the letters of Roman senators and law codes to shipwrecks and blown glass. Particular attention is paid to relating the economy to other major institutions (e.g., law, the imperial government, the household) as well as the physical environment. A major goal of the course is for each student to develop an original research project relating to some aspect of the Roman economy.

Why obey an emperor? The Roman state answered that question in two ways: one obvious—otherwise he’ll kill you—and one not. Throughout the Principate, the state encouraged obedience with ruthless force, but also with constant propaganda. Emperors were portrayed as benevolent, divinely favored paragons of virtue; their subjects, as loyal citizens collaborating with their ruler on projects of imperial greatness. This seminar will examine the theory and practice of Roman propaganda. Students will read secondary sources on theories of state communication and legitimation, while examining primary sources in a variety of different media to see how Rome and its emperors marketed themselves. In addition, students will develop a major research project focusing on one aspect of imperial self-representation and legitimation.

How do we write the history of an ancient age group? This seminar examines a variety of possible answers to this question through the age category of “youth” in ancient Rome, from the Middle Republic down to the emperor Hadrian. The applicability of modern theoretical approaches to youth, drawn from disciplines such as cultural anthropology and performance studies, will be assessed alongside previous approaches in Roman studies. Equal emphasis will be placed on analysis of the ancient textual and visual evidence, such as comedy, oratory, elegy, historiography, biography, law, graffiti, coins and portraiture. Seminars will revolve around weekly discussion of thematic topics, such as demography and early death, gendered notions of youth, intergenerational conflict in Roman politics, the historical development of a youthful aesthetic, and the differences between elite and non-elite experiences of youth, among others. Students will write a major research essay throughout the semester that will be work-shopped in different formats in the class.

Athletic events shaped basic concepts of Greco-Roman culture from basic elements such as the calendar to abstract ideas such as communal and national ideology. This course will survey various periods of Greek and Roman history primarily from the 8th c. BCE to the 2nd c. CE (though we will consider the end and then reinvention of the Olympic games) from the lens of sports and games in order to better understand broader aspects of cultural history such as political power, religious thought, as well as the creation of various forms of art (literature, sculpture).

Ancient Egypt has always occupied a prominent place in the global imagination. This course examines the reception and reinterpretation of ancient Egypt from Classical Antiquity to the present, with examples demonstrating how this ancient civilization has inspired Western monarchs, Egyptian nationalists (notably the Wafd), artists, and spiritual practitioners around the world. Students will dive into a mesmerizing world where Egypt's antiquity is both appreciated and appropriated. Against this background, students will critically engage with the complex intersections of cultural heritage, colonialist histories, and global inequalities through class discussions, case studies, a research presentation, and a research paper.

As the current controversy over Confederate statues shows, commemorative monuments matter. As we will discover in this course, public commemoration was a politically charged issue already in Greek and Roman antiquity, and monuments did not remain static. We will examine selected Greek and Roman monuments with an eye toward their symbolic vocabularies, political messages, and evolving physical contexts. Topics will include: Greek commemorations of the Persian Wars; honorific portraits of individuals; monuments of Roman emperors; and the removal of monuments. Class meetings will feature discussion of assigned readings (50-100 pages per week). Students will write short preliminary papers and serve as discussion co-leaders. Each student will choose an individual research topic; during the final weeks of the semester, students will give oral reports on their topics to the class, and at the end of the semester each student will submit a 20-page final paper. Comments:

This course will examine the material and intellectual pathways by which ancient Greek and Roman literary culture has survived to the present day. We will study the evolving technology that made this transmission possible, from scroll to codex to printed book, as well as the history of writing and scripts. We will also consider how changing tastes, values, and religion impacted which texts were preserved and which would become lost forever. We will read medieval and early modern literary responses to classical texts, and we will learn how the ancient texts we can so easily access today were produced by generations of scholars working from dozens, or in some cases, hundreds of manuscripts. No knowledge of Latin or Greek is required.

Ancient Roman buildings were vibrantly colorful, thanks to wall paintings decorated with elaborate imagery, including mythological pictures, landscapes, and scenes that reflected viewers' lived experiences. An abundance of Roman wall paintings have survived from the sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae, which were buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. In this seminar, we will examine the archaeology and chronology of these paintings, their sources of inspiration, and the powerful meanings they had for the people who lived among them. Students will learn to consider and reflect upon a variety of visual media as well as to understand literary sources that illuminate the central role that paintings played in ancient Roman life and thought,

Rome at the height of its supremacy rivals any of the great powers that have existed in human history. The influence of Rome invites questions concerning peoples and nations on the opposite end of Roman hegemony, and it consequently creates space for discussing Rome as an incubator of resistance and rebellion. This course serves as an investigation into the modes of resistance available to inhabitants of the Roman empire and analyzes comparanda within modern contexts in order to better understand the successes, failures, and techniques of rebels in ancient Rome. A primary objective of the class is to explore the Roman milieu as a springboard for counteraction by closely examining ancient sources and secondary scholarship, with the hope that we might gain greater insight into not only Rome as a site of resistance but also the world in which we live today.

Classics majors who carry out an internship related to Classics can enroll in a three-credit internship class (CLSS 201 in fall, CLSS 202 in spring) once in their time at Georgetown. Acceptable internships must consist of approximately 10 hours of work per week and also must require significant academic work, including research and writing. Possible internships might include a position as a docent or researcher at a museum (e.g., Walters Art Gallery, Dumbarton Oaks); an administrative internship at the Center for Hellenic Studies; an internship at the Georgetown University Library or the Library of Congress. Students must petition to participate in the internship class. To do so, at the start of the semester any interested student must submit to the internship coordinator a description of the internship work and a statement of how the work fits in with the student’s overall academic trajectory. Internships must take place during the fall or spring semesters; credit is not given for summer internships. It is the student’s responsibility to secure an internship; faculty will offer what help they can. As part of the internship class, each student will have a regular meeting (probably monthly) with the internship coordinator to discuss the internship work. At the end of the semester, each student will produce a paper (8-10 pages) summarizing the internship work and offering a reflection on the experience as a whole and the relationship between it and the student’s academic work. The internship coordinator will also request a statement from each student’s supervisor confirming successful completion of the internship.

Classics majors who carry out an internship related to Classics can enroll in a three-credit internship class (CLSS 201 in fall, CLSS 202 in spring) once in their time at Georgetown. Acceptable internships must consist of approximately 10 hours of work per week and also must require significant academic work, including research and writing. Possible internships might include a position as a docent or researcher at a museum (e.g., Walters Art Gallery, Dumbarton Oaks); an administrative internship at the Center for Hellenic Studies; an internship at the Georgetown University Library or the Library of Congress. Students must petition to participate in the internship class. To do so, at the start of the semester any interested student must submit to the internship coordinator a description of the internship work and a statement of how the work fits in with the student’s overall academic trajectory. Internships must take place during the fall or spring semesters; credit is not given for summer internships. It is the student’s responsibility to secure an internship; faculty will offer what help they can. As part of the internship class, each student will have a regular meeting (probably monthly) with the internship coordinator to discuss the internship work. At the end of the semester, each student will produce a paper (8-10 pages) summarizing the internship work and offering a reflection on the experience as a whole and the relationship between it and the student’s academic work. The internship coordinator will also request a statement from each student’s supervisor confirming successful completion of the internship.

After the assassination of Cicero in 43 BCE, Mark Antony ordered the great orator’s tongue and right hand be cut off and nailed to the speaker’s platform in the center of Rome, in retribution for Cicero’s vituperation. Antony was just one of many powerful individuals in the ancient world, and, as Cicero’s story demonstrates, it mattered how you spoke to them. This class will focus on a range of Greek and Latin authors, their relation to powerful figures, and how they navigated that dynamic in their writing. We will read a variety of texts, including Hellenistic court poetry, Cicero’s attacks on Antony, and Lucan’s ambiguous praise of the emperor Nero. Discussions will focus on the primary texts, but we will also consider modern scholarly interpretations of these works, the range of which shows just how fine a line many of these authors walked between self-expression and safety.

In this course, we will consider the Greek and Roman precedents for the institutions, architecture, monuments, and symbols of the nation’s capital city, as well as the debates and controversies they inspire. Topics to be examined include: the Greek origins of war memorials and commemorative ceremonies for the war dead; the role of ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian monuments in the debates about how to commemorate George Washington; L’Enfant’s plan for Washington DC and its approach to public space; and Greek and Roman precedents for today’s ‘monument wars’ over issues such as the lack of diversity in public portraits and what to do with monuments to the Confederacy. Throughout the course students will be encouraged to explore sites and museums related to the material we study in class. Short written assignments will culminate in an independent research project in which students will bring together the Classical past (Greek, Roman, Egyptian) and Washington DC.

For classical archaeologists, the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. is a perverse event. In the same moment that the volcano ended lives and obliterated cities, it also preserved what would become one of the most fabulous archaeological sites in the world: Pompeii. Pompeii offers a unique laboratory for the exploration of ancient Roman culture. Considering the archaeology of Pompeii along with literary evidence and inscriptions, we will devote careful attention to Pompeii’s streets, shops, temples, baths, houses, theaters, and amphitheater. This seminar will consider the ways in which inhabitants and visitors to the town of differing genders, ethnic origins, and social stations moved through its buildings and public spaces. Pompeii may appear to showcase Roman society in microcosm. Yet our goal will be to discover what set Pompeii apart from nearby cities such as Herculaneum—and the Bay of Naples region apart from Rome.

For approved senior honors thesis students only.