Preliminary Examination: Classical Archaeology and Ancient History

Exciting changes transformed the Greek world during the late archaic period. The most well‐ known of these, narrated by Herodotus, is that during the second half of the sixth century B.C. Persia emerged as a young, vigorous empire and clashed with the Greeks of the Aegean. This interaction had a profound impact on Greek politics and art, but there were other internal dynamics and changes taking place too with equally momentous results, especially in the articulation and renegotiation of power between different groups. The central theme of the paper is to bring out the different perspectives that may be gained on the period by using the archaeological and written evidence in isolation and in combination.

Topics covered during the course typically include:

• All for One and One for Oneself: Archaic Tyrants and the case of Samos under Polykrates
• Aristocrats & Peisistratid Athens
• The power of drink: the Symposion
• Traditional power: Sparta
• Coining Power: Coinage & Trade
• Power and the divine: Sanctuaries
• Power to the people?  Kleisthenic Democracy
• Power struggles: Encountering the Mede.

The course studies the impact of the first emperors on the history and archaeology of Rome and its subject states in the period of revolution and transition from Late Republic to Early Empire. Some themes and topics are: Roman political culture in crisis, Republican war‐lords to Augustan princeps; emperor, senate, and the evolving administration; the Julio‐Claudian dynasty and court culture; the city of Rome, imperial building, and imperial representation; villas and villa culture – wall painting, marbles, gardens and suburban parks; municipal culture ‐ houses, amenities, tombs, and freedman art; land‐use and the countryside – estates, vici, and centuriated settlement; manufacture, trade, and natural resources – coins, amphorae, and quarries; the archaeology of the frontier armies; traditional religion and emperor cult.

Topics covered during the course typically include:

• Augustan Political Culture
• The Army and the Frontiers
• Municipal Culture
• Villas
• Julio‐Claudian Self‐Representation
• Manufacture, Commerce and Trade
• Romanisation and Colonisation
• Imperial Cult.

This subject comprises the archaeological history of the last centuries of the Minoan and Mycenaean world, and the first of the Greek Iron Age, the setting in which the Homeric poems were formed and which they reflect in various ways. This is where classical Greek culture and literature begin. The course covers the full range of material evidence and artefacts surviving from this period of which there is an excellent representative collection in the Ashmolean Museum.  An overall knowledge will be required of the archaeological evidence for the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age of the Aegean from 1550 BC to 700 BC.

Painted vases give the fullest visual account of life and mythology in ancient Greece and provide important archaeological data for refining and adding to our knowledge of various aspects of ancient culture. The course looks at the techniques and functions of painted ceramics as well as their subjects and styles, from the eighth to the fourth centuries BC. The Ashmolean Museum has a fine collection of painted pottery of the period covered by the course, and examples from the collection are used in classes and lectures.  

Greek statues and reliefs in marble and bronze retain today a strong visual impact, and our knowledge of the subject is being constantly improved and revised by dramatic new discoveries, from excavation and shipwrecks. The course studies the emergence and uses of large marble statues in the archaic period, the development of bronze as a large‐scale medium, and the revolution in seeing and representing that brought in the new visual system that we know as 'classical', in the fifth and fourth centuries. The Cast Gallery, located in the Ashmolean, has an excellent collection of plaster casts of major sculptures from this period. Practical classes are given in the Cast Gallery using the casts to illustrate ways of assessing and interpreting ancient statues and reliefs.  

Architecture was the Roman art par excellence, and Roman buildings provide some of the most impressive and best preserved monuments from the ancient world. The course studies the materials, technology, and functions of the buildings as well as their appearance and effect, from the Republic to the Tetrarchy, in Italy and the provinces as well as in Rome itself.

This paper explores the two Athenian revolutions and the democratic response. It aims to set the revolutions more broadly in the narrative history of the fifth century BC, considering their political and ideological contexts, as well as their relation to broader social and economic changes; it will also feature detailed analysis of two outstanding works of Classical Greek historiography, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon’s Hellenica. In a contemporary context of widespread concern about the resilience of liberal democracies, increasing social polarisation, and political crisis, the issues at stake in 411 and 403 have a particular urgency.

The paper concentrates on Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes to the battle of Salamis, including the rest of Book I, III, VII and VIII in translation beyond the parts studied in Greek. Some Persian and Egyptian texts and archaeological evidence from Persia itself will be relevant.

The paper explores the politics and society of Rome this decade, the last before the outbreak of the civil war. It looks in particular at the tensions between popular politics of appeal to the urban plebs and more conservative politics of military and judicial authority (not always synonymous with the labels of optimates and populares). It provides a glimpse into a society in transition. There was increasing pressure on traditional networks and political norms, which had a significant impact on how people lived their lives. Some of our central evidence for that is provided by the often intemperate attacks of the Roman orator Cicero on Clodius, culminating in the defence of Titus Annius Milo for Clodius’ murder. Cicero’s speeches, for all their usefulness in reconstructing a detailed picture of politics and society in the late republic, provide a one-sided view of the social and political issues of the day. Analysing his speeches, and comparing his evidence to the (often confused or incomplete) evidence of later writers, provides not only an introduction to the crisis of the Roman Republic, but also a training in critical approach to historical sources.

The paper’s central focus will be on moments of conquest and their immediate a ermath. It concentrates on Gaul in the first-century BC (from Caesar’s conquests to the symbolic construc on of the altar of the Three Gauls, consecrated to Rome and Augustus, at Lyon in 12 BC) and on Britain in the first-century AD (from the campaigns of Claudius to the rule of Trajan). But another strand of enquiry will be how Roman imperialism has been variously represented, admired and cri qued across ancient and modern contexts.

Ancient Greek and Latin languages are available for study at three levels (Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced), depending on your previous experience of studying the languages. Teaching in small classes is arranged by the Faculty of Classics. For further information about the syllabuses for the language papers, please see the most recent edition of the course handbook.