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Roman History

The following sample list offers choices of required reading for the M.A. Classical Antiquities Comprehensive Exam in Roman History.

Select three of the following areas of concentration. You must select I or II (or both). All sources may be read in English.

1. Roman Republic: Political and Military History
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Livy Histories books 5, 6, 20, 21, 37, 39
      • Polybius Histories books 1-6
      • Caesar Gallic Wars
      • Cicero Verrine Orations
      • Cicero Catilinarian Orations
      • Sallust Catiline and Iugurtha
   2. Secondary: select three of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • A.E. Astin et al. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 8, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1989).
      • E. Badian Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, 1958).
      • E. Badian Publicans and Sinners (Ithaca, 1972).
      • P.A. Brunt The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford, 1988).
      • P.A. Brunt Italian manpower, 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford, 1971).
      • J.A. Crook et al. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 9, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1994).
      • E. Gruen The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley, 1984).
      • H.H. Scullard Roman Politics, 220-150 B.C (Oxford, 1973).
      • R. Syme The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939).
      • Ward, Heichelheim and Yeo A History of the Roman People, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, 1998) chs. I-XXIV
2. Roman Empire: Political and Military History
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Tacitus Annals books 1-4
      • Suetonius Lives of the Caesars
      • Historia Augusta
      • Dio Cassius Roman History books 50-56
      • Herodian History of the Empire
   2. Secondary: select three of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • A.K. Bowman et al. eds. The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 10, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1995).
      • 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).
      • M. Rostovzeff The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1957).
      • H.H. Scullard From the Gracchi to Nero (London, 1959).
      • R. Syme Tacitus (Oxford, 1958).
      • R.J.A. Talbert The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, 1984).
      • Ward, Heichelheim and Yeo A History of the Roman People, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, 1998) chs. XXII-XXXV.
3. Social History
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Pliny the Younger Letters
      • Cato and Varro On Farming
      • Petronius Satyricon
      • Juvenal Satires
      • Apuleius The Golden Ass
      • Seneca Letters
      • Catullus
      • M. Fant and M. Lefkowitz Women in Greece and Rome 2nd ed. (London, 1982).
   2. Secondary: select three of the following in consultation with your professor
      • R. Duncan Jones The Economy of the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 1974).
      • K.R. Bradley Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1987).
      • P. Garnsey and R. Saller The Roman Empire. Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley, 1987).
      • P. Garnsey Famine and Food Supply in the Greco Roman World (Cambridge, 1988).
      • K. Hopkins Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1977).
      • R. Saller Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge, 1994).
      • J.E. Stambaugh The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore, 1988).
      • G.E.M. de Ste. Croix The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca, 1981).
      • S. Treggiari Roman Marriage (Oxford, 1991).
      • P. Veyne Bread and Circuses (London, 1990).
4. Roman Law
   1. Primary
      • Gaius Institutes or Justinian Institutes
   2. Secondary: select three of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Borkowski A Textbook of Roman Law (London, 1994).
      • 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).
      • F. Jolowicz Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law (Cambridge, 1962).
      • A. Watson Roman Slave Law (Baltimore, 1987).
      • A. Watson International Law in Archaic Rome: War and Religion (Baltimore, 1993).
5. Religious History
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Cicero On Divination
      • Cicero On the Nature of the Gods
      • M. Beard, J. North and S. Price Religions of Rome, vol. 2. A Sourcebook (Cambridge, 1998).
      • E. Lane and R. MacMullen Paganism and Christianity, 100-425 C.E.: A Sourcebook (Minneapolis, 1992).
      • Eusebius History of the Church
      • J. Gager Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford, 1992).
      • Ovid Fasti
   2. Secondary: select three of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • M. Beard, S. Price and J. North Religions of Rome, vol. 1. A History (Cambridge, 1998).
      • M. Beard and J. North Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World (Ithaca, 1990).
      • G. Dumezil Archaic Roman Religion (Chicago, 1966).
      • G. Fowden The Egyptian Hermes (Princeton, 1986).
      • W.H.C. Frend The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia, 1984).
      • R. Lane Fox Pagans and Christians (New York, 1986).
      • S. Price Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1984).
      • R. Turcan The Cults of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1996).
6. Provinces
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor
      • N. Lewis and M. Rheinhold Roman Civilization 3rd ed. vol. II ch. 4
      • Josephus Jewish Wars
      • Pliny the Younger Letters book 10
      • Aelius Aristides Orations, especially To Rome
      • Dio Chrysostom Orations
      • Apuleius The Golden Ass
      • A. Bowman The Vindolanda Writing Tablets (London, 1994)
      • J. Reynolds Aphrodisias and Rome (London, 1989).
   2. 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).
      • D. Magie Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton, 1950).
      • D.J. Mattingly Tripolitania (Ann Arbor, 1994).
      • 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).
      • G. Woolf Becoming Roman. The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge, 1998).
7. The Roman Army
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor.
      • Polybius Histories book 6
      • Caesar The Gallic Wars
      • Anonymous De rebus bellicis
      • Frontinus Stratagemata
      • Vegetius De re militari
   2. Secondary (select three of the following in consultation with your professor)
      • A. Birley The Roman Army Papers, 1929-1986 (Amsterdam, 1986).
      • J.B. Campbell The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 BC-AD235 (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).
      • 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).
8. Cultural History
   1. Primary: select two of the following in consultation with your professor
      • Suetonius Lives of the Grammarians and Rhetors
      • Virgil Aeneid
      • Horace Odes and Satires
      • Propertius Elegies
   2. Secondary (select three of the following in consultation with your professor)
      • G. Bowersock Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 1990).
      • E. Gruen Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca, 1992).
      • W.V. Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, 1989).
      • H.I. Marrou A History of Education in Antiquity (Madison, 1956).
      • R.A. Kaster Guardians of Language (Berkeley, 1988).
      • E. Rawson Roman Culture and Society (Oxford, 1991)
      • E. Rawson Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Baltimore, 1985).
      • A. Wallace-Haddrill Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, 1994).
9. Late Antiquity
   1. Primary (select two of the following in consultation with your professor)
      • Ammianus Marcellinus Histories books 14-31
      • Procopius Histories of the Wars and Secret History
      • Augustine Confessions
      • Eunapius Lives of the Sophists
      • Symmachus Relationes
      • Eusebius Life of Constantine
      • Gregory of Nazianzen Or. 43: Funeral Oration on the Life of Basil
      • Socrates Scholasticus History of the Church
   2. Secondary (select three of the following in consultation with your professor)
      • T.D. Barnes Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, 1981).
      • P. Brown The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1981).
      • P. Brown Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley 1967).
      • J.B. Bury History of the Later Roman Empire (New York, 1958).
      • A. Cameron The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity (London, 1993).
      • A. Cameron et al. ed. The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 13, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1998).
      • G. Fowden From Empire to Commonwealth (Princeton, 1994).
      • P. Heather Goths and Romans 332-489 (Oxford, 1991).
      • A.H.M. Jones The Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1964).
      • J. Matthews The Roman Empire of Ammianus (Baltimore, 1989).
      • J. Matthews Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364-425 (Oxford, 1975).