Enrollment year
2016/2017
Academic discipline
L-ANT/03 (ROMAN HISTORY)
Department
DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES
Course
CLASSICAL AND ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN STUDIES
Period
1st semester (26/09/2016 - 11/01/2017)
Lesson hours
36 lesson hours
Prerequisites
A background knowledge of Greek and Roman history and historiography.
Learning outcomes
The module aims to provide a hands-on approach to the sources of different nature on the history of Egypt during the first three centuries of Roman rule. The lectures will take into consideration literature, historiography, epigraphy, papyrology and archaeological evidence on the status and life of Egypt in the Roman imperial period, with special attention to the documentary texts written on papyrus, an extraordinary body of evidence which makes Egypt the best documented province of the empire.
The students will be gradually introduced to the discipline of papyrology and to the reading of ancient texts, relevant and helpful for the comprehension of the subject.
At the end of the module, students will be able to approach independently and critically the existing resources that are available both in the library and online for the study of Roman Egypt.
Course contents
Title of the monographic course: Intellectuals and religion in Roman Egypt.
Syllabus:
Week 1.
1. Gods and conquerors. Egypt under Cleopatra.
2. The Augustan revolution.
3. Sources on Augustan Egypt.
Week 2.
4. Germanicus in Egypt cognoscendae antiquitatis.
5. Apion and the image of Egyptians and Jews under Tiberius.
6. The Letter of Claudius and the Acts of the Pagan Martyrs.
Week 3.
7. Nero, Poppaea and Egypt.
8. The Flavians and Serapis.
9. Egyptian intellectuals of the Neronian and Flavian periods.
Week 4.
10. Trajan and the Diaspora Revolt.
11. Hadrian, the Greeks, the Jews and the Egyptians. 12. The portrait of Hadrian in the papyri.
Week 5.
13. Alexandria. The Museum intellectuals and power.
14. Egyptian intellectuals.
15. Alexandrian intellectuals.
Week 6.
16. The Severans in Egypt.
17. The rise of Christianity in Egypt.
18. Christian Documents.
Teaching methods
There will be three two-hour meeting a week. The first two will be frontal lectures. The third will take the shape of a discussion on materials that will be previously circulated. All materials will be handed out in the course of the lectures. Because of the interactive character of the module, students are strongly advised to attend all lectures.
Reccomended or required readings
NB: This list is by no means exhaustive. Further materials and bibliographies will be furnished in the course of the lectures.
Core handbook:
Bowman, A.K., Egypt after the Pharaohs: 332 BC – AD 642: from Alexander to the Arab Conquest (2nd paperback edn), London, British Museum Press, 1996. (available in Italian and English)
Other reference works:
Montevecchi, O., La Papirologia. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1998 (see the 'historical chapters' only.
Riggs, Ch. (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, Oxford: OUP 2012.
Assessment methods
One oral exam on the material delivered during the lectures.
Further information
One oral exam on the material delivered during the lectures.
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