Unit name | Literary Sources for Greek and Roman History |
---|---|
Unit code | CLAS12320 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | C/4 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Sandwell |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Greek and Roman literary sources were the major source for ancient history until the study of archaeology, epigraphy and other 'non-literary' sources developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This unit is designed to provide students with knowledge of some of the most important genres of literary sources for the history of the Greco-Roman world, and to introduce students to different ways of analysing these texts as part of their own historical research. We will be looking at a wide range of Greek and Roman writers, from historians and biographers to rhetoricians and philosophers, considering their aims and techniques and exploring the ways in which they may reveal different aspects of the ancient world.
On completion of the unit students will have acquired and developed:
Two hours per week: a mixture of lectures and seminar discussions based on particular texts.
One essay of 2000 words (worth 50%) and one written examination (worth 50%) comprising two passages for comment (from a choice of four) and one essay (from a choice of four).
Herodotus, Histories, trans A. de Sélincourt (Penguin 1954) or A. de Sélincourt with J. Marincola (2003).
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. R. Warner (Penguin 1954, revised in 2000).
Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. M. Grant (Penguin 1956, New edition, 2003).
C. Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian, 2000
L. Pitcher, Writing Ancient History: An Introduction to Classical Historiography, 2009.