LATN 350: Seminar in Latin Literature: The (Mostly) Latin Epigram (HC)

Offers a broad survey of ancient political thought from Archaic Greece through Late Antiquity. Examines political ideas within historical context and contemporary debate.

Explores the extraordinary phenomenon of Rome's rise to empire to reveal the impact which this had on her subject peoples and on the Romans themselves. Analyses how Rome's internal affairs and international relations reacted on each other, sometimes with violent results, why some lands were annexed but others ignored or given up, and the ways in which Rome's population and power elite evolved as former subjects, east and west, became Romans and made their powerful contributions to Roman history and culture.

We possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty or forty years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions in which the discipline might proceed.