HIST 388: Topics in European History
HIST 388-DL1: The Ancient City
(Spring 2027)
Online
Section Information for Spring 2027
Greek and Roman civilization contributed substantially to developing the concept of urbanism in antiquity. To the Greeks, the city represented order and reason; to the Romans, civilization could not exist without the city. This course will examine the theoretical constructs behind Greco-Roman cities while focusing on the physical remains of Roman urban spaces. Spanning the Mediterranean basin and extending into Europe and North Africa, the Roman Empire included a wide variety of urban spaces. We will examine what it meant to be a city in this vast empire, with particular attention paid to Rome as capital of that empire. As such it established prototypical monuments which were exported outward. During the Imperial period, motivated by a sense that the city was not appropriately grand, Emperors from Augustus to Constantine intervened in the fabric of the city with the intention of creating a capital suitable to the glory of their empire. Against the backdrop of Hellenistic Greek cities like Pergamon and Alexandria in Egypt, Rome strove to create its own cosmopolitan urban identity. Sites like Ostia, port city of Rome, and Pompeii, with its extensive preservation, reflect the developments in architecture and design in the capital while offering glimpses into a working-class city and a small but prosperous town, respectively, that offer insight into different strata of Roman society. By examining the individual architectural elements and organization from ancient cities, we will observe the inherited characterists of Greeks cities as well as the standard forms of urban Romanitas (“Roman-ness”) and its significant variations. This is an asynchronous online course that will include regular reading assignments with submissions keyed to them, online exams, and at least one written project.
This is an online asynchronous section.
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Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 3
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.
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