HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION I
HISTORY 101

Topic Nine:  Roman Civilization 

History 101 First Page  I  Syllabus and Study Guides  I  Requirements  I

Identifications:
Identify and discuss the importance of the following items.
Etruscans, Romulus and Remus, Phoenicians, centuriate assembly, Struggle of Orders, Punic Wars, Scipio the Elder, paterfamiliae,

Baccanalia, Cumae, forum, plebeian, consul, Twelve Tables, Hannibal, Zama, patrician, tribune, Cato, Tarquin the Great, Paterfamilias, Greater Greece,  Optimates, Spartacus, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, Cicero, Pompey, Mark Anthony, Battle of Actium, Ovid, Trajan, Tacitus, Tiberius Gracchus, GaiusMarius, First Triumvirate, Octavian (Augustus,), Virgil, Nero, Hadrian, Plutarch, Sulla, Julius Caesar, Second Triumvirate, Horace, Vespasian, Tacitus, Colonni, latifundia, princeps

Essay

1.  Compare and contrast the political life of the Athenian polis and the Roman city.  Which was more democratic and why?
2.  Discuss the similarities and differences of the military empires of Macedonia and Rome.
3.  Relations between patricians and plebeians changed substantially in the course of the Roman Republic.  Discuss the nature of these changes and assess the nature of the social relations in second-century Rome. 
4.  What factors are responsible for the transition from the Republic to Empire.
5.  Why was civil conflict endemic in the Roman world before the pax Romana?  What mechanism contributed the reestablishment of order?
6.  Augustus was concerned about the erosion of traditional Roman values and sought their restoration.  What are some of those values?  Was Augustus right in trying to reintroduce these values?

Reading Assignment