Friends, Romans, Students!

The object of this course is for you to learn what it is like to be a Roman. To do so we will investigate what made the Romans revolutionary in their time and of lasting influence thereafter. It is not a history course, though we will be covering 1,000 years of Roman history, parts of it in some significant detail. Still less is it a literature course or an art history course, though we will be reading some of the greatest literature ever written and studying the sculptural and architectural monuments that gave shape to the European tradition, mediating the Greek achievement to what we now call the West. Think of it instead as a moral orientation to Roman republicanism. What do we mean by “moral” or “republicanism,” or for that matter “Roman”? Fourteen weeks from now you will know!

Overview of the Course: The course culminates in a three-week role playing game, in which you will embody a particular Roman persona on a particular occasion in the Senate of 63 BCE. For the previous eleven weeks you study for your part in this game by learning Roman history from the 7^th century bc to the 4^th century ad and by learning how a Roman, specifically your Roman, might think and talk about this material and about other things. Also, separate from the game, you will spend a week living like an Epicurean or a Stoic. Implicit in this exercise and in the game is a critique of modernity in its political, ethical, rhetorical, and in the broadest sense cultural forms.

Thus by the summer, with any luck, you will have won some insight into what it is to be a 1^st century bc Roman and also what it is to be a person living in the 21^st century CE. Along the way we’ll touch in ways large and small on concepts like…

family	slavery	duty	character	education
religion	leisure	literature	empire	philosophy
business	friendship	punishment	law	spectacle
rhetoric	military	liberty	architecture	virtue