A340 Block 1 Unit 1 Flashcards
1.2 Searching for the Classical - ‘The Classical World’
What is it?
A claimed value judgement
The world inhabited by Greeks and Romans between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD, the literature that has acquired ‘Classic’ (indicative of its time) status in western civilisation, the archeology of that world
It also refers to two particular cultural groups: The Greeks and Romans
‘Classical period’ (capital C and different from the ‘Classical World’) is used to define a Very Specific Period of GREEK HISTORY, 5th and 4th centuries BCE - DO NOT use it in sources or contexts in your work as is out of this module’s period
Unit 1.1 Roman Discoveries The Staffordshire Moorlands Pan
Mid-second century CE, coloured enamel, copper alloy, 9w 5h, base and handles missing
Celtic style ornament inlaid with turquoise, blue, red and yellow, non classical ‘curvilinear scrollwork, balanced design, swirling six-armed whirligigs
Roman bronze pan (trulla)
Classical Latin inscription listing the four forts at the western end of Hadrian’s wall and an individual Aelius Draco (Pitts and Worrell 2003)
1.3 Meet the Romans I
What does ‘Roman’ really mean?
REVELL’s proposition
Mattingly’s rant
A person or the material culture of a person who lived within the confines of the Roman Empire following the annexation of that area - for natives outside = pre-Roman or non-Roman REVELL’s Use
Use Roman-ness not the legacy Romanitas (little used by the Romans) - REVELL’s Use
Mattingly’s - ‘discrepant (a lack of compatibility or similarity native - Roman) identities’
1.3 Meet the Romans II
What does ‘Roman’ really mean? - OU Emma-Jayne Graham
C G E I
Chronological - anything that was produced or used and anyone who lived in a place during the period when the location was under Roman rule
Geographical - any territories under formal Roman rule
Evidence - material culture, written sources or evidence produced or used by people within this chronological period/geographical area
Identity/ethnicity - those who called themselves Roman, possessed Roman citizenship or demonstrated a lifestyle associated with Roman ideals
1.3.4 The period we are studying in this course
The ‘core period of the ‘Roman Empire’
Roman people, places and things between the reign of the first emperor, ‘Augustus 27BCE - The Third Century Crisis
1.4 The Empire Strikes Back 1
What is an empire? Three interpretations
Scarre 2009 - A state that absorbers other states transforming them to provinces with partially devolved governments tasked with taxation or other tribute e.g. Providing troops
Mattingly 2011 - geopolitical manifestation of relationships of control imposed by a state on the sovereignty of others
Woolf 2013 - the conquest of other people’s or states, with grand capital cities and rich court ceremonial, with rule over a great swathe of territory
1.4 The Empire Strikes Back 2
What is an empire?
E J Graham’s version Dom, Pol, Uni + -
OU E J Graham 2015
Domination of stats and peoples
Development of a system of political control or government + bureaucracy
A degree of political/economic unification
Periods of growth/collapse
1.4 The Empire Strikes Back 3
Motivations for empire?
Economic gain
Extension of personal/dynastic/state power
Maintaining security
Ideological/religious purposes
1.4.2 Empire or empire?
Empire = period e.g. Roman Empire = Augustus - Romulus Augustus ‘the emperor Hadrian lived during the Roman Empire’
empire = territory or entity ‘The emperor Hadrian ruled over the Roman empire
1.4.4 Principate and Dominate
The Principate:- from the reign of Augustus to the beginning of the time conventionally known as late antiquity c. 284 CE (princeps - ‘first man of the state’
The Dominate:- the period from c. 284 CE to the very end of the Roman Empire (aka ‘late antiquity’ or ‘the late Roman Empire’ or ‘the late Roman period’
1.6 Thinking about Chronology
The start and the finish of the empire
Augustus’ reign followed a long period of bloody civil war
Founding of the city 753 BCE (mythical nature)
Establishment of the Republic 509 BCE
End? Woolf - sometime in the middle of the 7th century, or it could have been 455 CE, The sack of Rome by the vandals, the seige of Constantinople by the Arabs 717 CE, historians can and do differ
Woolf chapter 1
Aug, Car, poly
The money (of the empire) and the loyalty of the soldiers was kept firmly in Augustus’ hands
Augustus’ real success was that he was able to pass on most of his powers to a series of successors, weak and incompetent individuals could not now discredit the system
Emperor Caracalla’s edict in the early 3rd c 212CE enfranchised everyone and Roman law suddenly embraced everyone
Polytheists (those who worshiped > 1 God) blamed Christianity for the 5th c disasters (as did Edward Gibbons later)
