Roman History M.A. Reading List

READING LIST FOR M.A. COMPREHENSIVE EXAM - ROMAN HISTORY

The following list offers required readings and choices for the M.A. in Classical Antiquity, Special Field examination in Roman History. Students are expected to consult with the Chair of the Examination Committee and finalize a list which will form the basis of their special field examination.

Select three of the following areas of concentration. Your selections must include either I or II, but may also include both. All sources may be read in English.

I. Roman Republic: Political and Military History

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.
Livy Histories, Books 5, 6, 20, 21, 37, 39 Polybius Histories, Books 1-6

  • Caesar Civil Wars
  • Appian, Civil Wars
  • Cicero, Verrine Orations
  • Cicero, Catilinarian Orations
  • Sallust, Catiline and Iugurtha
  • Plutarch, Lives of Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Cato the Elder, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Sertorius, Brutus, Mark Antony

B. Texbook

Read chapters 1-8 from the following:

  • M.T. Boatwright, D. Gargola, R. Talbert The Romans: From Village to Empire (Oxford, 2004)

C. Secondary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • A.E. Astin et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 8, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1989).
  • E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, 1958).
  • P. A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic (Oxford 1988).
  • J.A. Crook et al. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 9, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1994).
  • H. Flower The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2004)
  • E. Gruen The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley, 1984).
  • A. Lintott The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford, 1999)
  • F. Millar The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Berkeley, 1998)
  • T. Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol. 1, trans. W. Dickson (Cambridge, 2010).
  • R. Syme The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939).

II. Roman Empire: Political and Military History

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • Tacitus, Annals, Books 1-4
  • Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars
  • Historia Augusta
  • Dio Cassius, Roman History, Books 50-56
  • Herodian, History of the Roman Empire

B. Texbook

Read chapters 9-13 from the following.

  • M.T. Boatwright, D. Gargola, R. Talbert The Romans: From Village to Empire (Oxford, 2004)

C. Secondary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley, 2000)
  • A.K. Bowman et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 10, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1995).
  • A.K. Bowman et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 11, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2008).
  • A.K. Bowman et al. *eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 12, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2008).
  • P.A. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes (Oxford, 1990).
  • E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire chapters 1-16.
  • F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (Ithaca, 1977).
  • D. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180-395 (New York, 2004)
  • R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford, 1958).

III. Social and Economic History

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • Pliny the Younger, Letters, Books 1-9
  • Cato, On Agriculture and Varro, On Farming
  • P.G. Walsh, M. Tullius Cicero: Correspondence, English Selections (Oxford, 2008).
  • Petronius, Satyricon
  • Apuleius, The Golden Ass
  • Seneca, Letters
  • M. Fant and M. Lefkowitz, Women in Greece and Rome 2nd ed. (London, 1982).

B. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • R. Duncan Jones The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies (Cambridge, 1974).
  • K.R. Bradley Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge, 1994).
  • S. Dixon, Reading Roman Women: Sources, Genres and Real Life (London, 2001)
  • J. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London, 1986).
  • P. Garnsey and R. Saller The Roman Empire. Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley, 1987).
  • K. Hopkins Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1977).
  • P. Horden and N. Purcell The Corrupting Sea, A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000)
  • R. Saller Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge, 1994).
  • W. Scheidel et al. eds. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco Roman World (Cambridge, 2008)
  • S. Treggiari Roman Marriage (Oxford, 1991).
  • P. Veyne Bread and Circuses (London, 1990).

IV. Roman Law

A. Primary

  • Gaius Institutes or Justinian Institutes

B. Textbook

Read entire:

  • P. DuPlessi Borkowski’s Textbook on Roman Law, 4th ed. (Oxford, 2010).

C. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • E. J. Champlin Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Princeton, 1989).
  • J.A. Crook Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (Ithaca, 1995).
  • J. A. Crook Law and Life in Republican Rome (Ithaca, 1967).
  • J.F. Gardner Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (Oxford, 1998)
  • A. Riggsby Crime and Community in Ciceronian Rome (Austin, 1999).
  • A. Watson Roman Slave Law (Baltimore, 1987).
  • A. Watson International Law in Archaic Rome: War and Religion (Baltimore, 1993).

V. Provinces

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • N. Lewis and M. Reinhold (eds.), Roman Civilization 3rd ed. (New York, 1990) Vol. II, ch. 4.
  • Josephus, Jewish Wars
  • Pliny the Younger, Letters, Book 10
  • Aelius Aristides, Oration to Rome
  • Dio Chrysostom, Orations
  • Apuleius, The Golden Ass
  • A. K. Bowman and J. D. Thomas, The Vindolanda Writing Tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses II) (London 1994).
  • J. Reynolds Aphrodisias and Rome (London, 1989).

B. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with your professor.

  • S. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece (Cambridge, 1993).
  • A. Bowman, Egypt After the Pharaohs (Berkeley, 1986).
  • A.H.M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Oxford, 1971).
  • M. Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its Cities (Baltimore, 2004)
  • F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC - AD 337 (Cambridge, 1993).
  • S. Mitchell, Anatolia (Oxford, 1993).
  • A. Mocsy, Pannonia and Upper Moesia (London, 1974).
  • P. Salway, The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain (Oxford, 1994).
  • M. Sartre, The Middle East Under Rome (Cambridge, MA, 2005)
  • G. Woolf, Becoming Roman. The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge, 1998).

VI. The Roman Army

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • Polybius, Histories book 6
  • Caesar, Gallic Wars
  • Anonymous, De rebus bellicis
  • Frontinus, Stratagemata
  • Vegetius, De re militari

B. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • A. Birley, The Roman Army Papers, 1929-1986 (Amsterdam, 1986).
  • A. K Bowman, Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier (London, 1994).
  • J.B. Campbell, The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 BC-AD 235 (Oxford, 1984).
  • H. Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350-425 (Oxford, 1996).
  • E. Gabba, Republican Rome, the Army, and the Allies (Berkeley, 1976).
  • A. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200 (Oxford, 1996).
  • L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire (Totowa, 1984).
  • J.E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven, 2005).
  • E. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1976).
  • M. Speidel, Roman Army Studies (Amsterdam, 1984).
  • C.R. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1994).

VII. Cultural History and Education

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • Cicero, On the Orator
  • Suetonius Lives of the Grammarians and Rhetors
  • Quintilian, The Orator’s Education
  • Seneca the Elder, Declamations
  • Eunapius, Lives of the Sophists
  • Macrobius, Saturnalia
  • M. Joyal, I. McDougall, J. Yardley Greek and Roman Education: A sourcebook (New York, 2009)

B. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • S. F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley, 1977).
  • G. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990).
  • R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind (Princeton, 2001).
  • E. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca, 1992).
  • W.A. Johnson and H.N. Parker, eds. Ancient literacies : the culture of reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford 2009)
  • H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (Madison, 1956).
  • R.A. Kaster, Guardians of Language (Berkeley, 1988).
  • R.A. Kaster, Emotion, restraint, and community in ancient Rome (Oxford, 2005)
  • E. Rawson, Roman Culture and Society (Oxford, 1991)
  • E. Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Baltimore, 1985).
  • A. Wallace-Haddrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, 2008).

VIII. Late Antiquity

A. Primary

Select two of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories
  • Procopius, Secret History
  • Augustine, Confessions
  • Symmachus, Relationes
  • Eusebius, Life of Constantine
  • Socrates Scholasticus, History of the Church
  • A.D. Lee, Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook (London, 2000)

B. Secondary

Select three of the following in consultation with the Chair of the Examination Committee.

  • P. Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1981).
  • P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA, 2003)
  • J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (New York, 1958).
  • A. Cameron et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 13, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1998).
  • A. Cameron et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 14, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2008).
  • G. Fowden, From Empire to Commonwealth (Princeton, 1994).
  • W. Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (Philadelphia 2006)
  • P. Heather, Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe (Oxford, 2010).
  • J. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (Baltimore, 1989).
  • B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford, 2005).

Approved by the Graduate Committee (10/22/2010)