Early Rome and Greece, 2020

Although conventionally we tell the story of Greek and Roman history as if

Rome had no history before it became embroiled in Greek affairs at the end of
the third century, in fact the early history of Rome and the early history of
Greece are contemporary. Not only that but writing early Greek history and
writing early Roman history poses very similar problems – in both cases we
have strong later traditions that relate only speculatively to the evidence
surviving from the period. In this course we look at what we can know from
contemporary evidence, both literary and archaeological, about what was
happening in Greece and at Rome from the eighth century to the end of the sixth
century, and at what later tradition claimed and why it made such claims. The
course exploits both the evidence of Greek and Roman epic that is being studied
in the literary papers and a range of other poetry and prose and just a little
archaeology. It serves as a background not only, in different ways, to Greek and
Roman epic poetry but also to the constructions of the past in classical Greek
and late Republican and Augustan Roman literature. The twelve lectures will
be:

Lectures: Mondays and Tuesdays at 11.00 in G.19

Course schedule:

1 (2 May) Rome’s foundation stories: Romulus, Remus, Aeneas and more (MB)

2. (3 May) Digging up the birth of Rome: archaeology and the early history of
Rome (MB)

3. (9 May) The epic history of the Greek city-state 1: the politics of Iliad and
Odyssey (RO)

4. (10 May) The epic history of the Greek city-state 2: the gift of mobility (RO)

5. (16 May) Creating the just city: Hesiod's Works and Days (RO)

6. (17 May) Sex and the city: Archilochos, Semonides, Alkman and Sappho
(RO)

7. (23 May) Et tu Brute? Rome: the rape of Lucretia and the fall of the kings.
(MB)

8. (24 May) The invention of the Roman Republic: what price virtue? (MB)
9. (30 May) Creating the just Greek city: law-givers and tyranny (RO)

10. (31 May) The Greek city state becomes rational: from Cleisthenes of Sicyon
to Cleisthenes of Athens (RO)

11. (6 June) Class war: patricians versus plebeians, and the beginnings of
Roman law (MB)

12. (7 June) Before ‘expansion’: Rome and the outside world (MB)

Preliminary reading: R. Osborne Greece in the Making c.1200–479 (2nd edn.

London 2009); T. J. Cornell Beginnings of Rome: from the Bronze Age to the
Punic Wars (London, 1995).

Passages for comment in the examination will be drawn from the following
texts, but candidate will also be expected to use knowledge drawn from the texts
set for the epic module of the literature papers.

Iliad 2.211–277 (Thersites), 18.478–608 (shield of Achilles); Odyssey 2.1–223

(assembly on Ithaca), 4.589–620 (Menelaus’ gifts to Telemachus), 24. 412–66
(assembly on Ithaca); Hesiod Works and Days 27–41, 225–47, 618–62 (trans.
Most, Loeb); Archilochos 196a (Cologne epode; trans. Gerber, Loeb);
Semonides 7 (trans. Gerber, Loeb); Sappho 22, 23, 27, 98 (trans. Campbell,
Loeb); New brothers poem, trans. Obbink ZPE 189 (2014) 39–40; Alkman frg.
1 (Louvre Partheneion) trans. Campbell, Loeb); Herodotos 5.66–9 (Cleisthenes
and Cleisthenes of Sicyon), 5.92 (Cypselos and Periander) (trans. Godley, Loeb;
with commentary by Hornblower); Meiggs and Lewis Greek Historical
Inscriptions no.s 2 (Dreros), 5 (Cyrene), 8 (Chios) (trans. Fornara Translated
Documents of Greece and Rome Vol. 1 From Archaic times to the end of the
Peloponnesian War no.s 11, 18, 19).

Cicero De Republica II 17-22, 25-30; 32-37; Dionysius of Halicarnassus,

Roman Antiquities III 46 – 3.49.1; Livy I 1-7.3, I 56-60, II 28-29 & 31.7-33.3,
III 30-34, III 50-54; Vergil Aeneid VI 756-853, VIII 313-369; Ovid Met.
XIV.581-622 & 772-851 (with commentary by Myers); Plutarch Life of
Romulus 1-13

(The original authoritative version of this, which I believe I have copied

accurately, is on the Faculty website: https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/student-
information/undergraduate-students/part-ib-1/ib-paper-7 In case of any doubt,
double check there.)