UCD School of Classics

This seminar module looks at ancient warfare in its social contexts from the era of Homeric warriors to the decline of the Roman legions, c. 800 BC – AD 300. The focus will be on current areas of debate among modern scholars and extensive use will be made of written primary sources (in translation) as well as archaeological and artistic material and comparative material from other ancient societies.

The topics studied may include piracy and predatory warfare, the impact of warfare on the lives of non-combatants such as women, children and slaves, command and leadership issues in different ancient communities, the significance of ethical and religious considerations in warfare, and the nature of ancient imperialism. The precise contents of the module will, however, depend in part on the preferences of those students who have chosen to take it. They will be consulted prior to the commencement of the course to establish a syllabus that reflects their interests.

Preliminary reading:  

• Philip de Souza ed., The Ancient World at War: a global history (Thames & Hudson, 2008)
• Harry Sidebottom, Ancient Warfare: a very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2004)

This module will introduce graduates to aspects of the reception of Classical Antiquity in Renaissance Italy. We will explore a range of different engagements with the literature and material culture of Antiquity. These will include responses to the Classical world in Renaissance poetry and prose literature, political and historical writing, and developments in archaeology. The traditional tendency to ‘purify’ the Classical world along Christian lines and the incipient move to view all things Classical in their original antique contexts will also be examined. 

Recommended reading:

Philip Jacks, The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge University Press, 1993

Christopher S. Celenza, The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and Latin's Legacy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.

At the height of its success as a sophisticated urban society, Romans looked back to their austere agrarian beginnings for the roots of their national identity and traditional morality. Roman moralists wrote of a Golden Age in the past where traditional morality appeared to grow from closeness to nature and the land: the question of how to live ‘in accordance with nature’ in an increasingly extravagant culture troubled Rome ’s elite. This module explores the ideas about the natural world that emerge from Roman writings on nature and on the land. We will examine the theories about nature and the universe that emerge form the writings of Lucretius, Seneca and Pliny, and the approaches to farming and country life that are discussed by Cato, Varro and Columella. As we will explore, ideas about what is ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ and the relationship of nature to culture are crucial to deep-seated problems about identity, morality and the question of how best to live in a complex society.

This course examines a defining period in the history of the Late Roman Republic. Gaius Marius (157-86 BC) was a successful general who reformed the Roman Army and a homo novus who rose from humble origins to hold the consulship seven times. But the end of his life was defined by failed ambitions, exile, and the violence of civil war. Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC) started out as Marius' protege, but his career was defined by conflict with his former mentor. Sulla was a respected general, and a constitutional reformer, but above all he is associated with civil war and violence: he was the first to march an army on Rome, and the first to institute proscriptions. The age of Marius and Sulla witnessed tremendous social and political change, but is not well documented. The study of this period therefore provides training in key methods of ancient history, e.g. coinage, constitutional history, family history, and problems of chronology. The comparative study of Marius and Sulla highlights changes and trends in Roman politics, e.g. in public image, generalship, or strategies for political success. It is also possible to study the comparative reception of Marius and Sulla, positive and negative, from the Republic to the Empire, even from the Renaissance to the present. The age of Marius and Sulla occupies a pivotal position in the history of the fall of the Roman Republic. Its importance has long been recognized, yet it is understudied and remains problematic.

Classical historiography was seen by the early Christian historians as a series of wars. It is not difficult to see why: Herodotus said he would show why the Greeks and barbarians fought each other; Thucydides’ subject was the war between the Athenians and the Spartans; Polybius thought every intelligent person would want to know how Rome subjugated most of the known world in less than 53 years; Appian structured his history around Rome’s acquisition of territory, and historians writing in Latin were no less exercised by the topic of war. The commonplace ‘history is written by the winners’ would seem difficult to contradict and yet it is possible to find criticism of the undisputed winners, the Romans, in writers such as Diodorus who observed:

‘The Greeks, after witnessing in person the butchery and beheading of their kinsmen and friends, the capture and looting of their cities [by the Romans], the abusive enslavement of whole populations, after, in a word, losing both their liberty and the right to speak freely exchanged the height of prosperity for the most extreme misery.’ 32.26.2

This course will look at the writing of history, what ancient authors were trying to do, why their work survived, and how the topic of war is presented in it. Possible topics will include studies of individual ancient historians, and also the origin of Greek historiography, history and historia, characterisation in history, speeches, readers and reception, the different genres (war monograph, continuous histories, universal histories, church history), internal and external wars, fiction and history, biography and history. The subject of how modern authors have approached ancient historiography is another fruitful area, perhaps best approached first through the writings of Arnaldo Momigliano. The precise and final appearance of the course would depend on the interests of the students participating.

Two recent books are good starting points for those interested:

• A companion to Greek and Roman historiography 2 vols edited by John Marincola, Blackwell, Oxford 2007
• Historians on History 2^nd edition, edited by John Tosh, Pearson, Harlow 2009

The immense undertaking that was Virgil’s Aeneid provided a mythical and historical perspective on the equally immense undertaking that was Augustus’ refashioning of Rome, and established epic as the benchmark genre for later eras to offer mythological perspectives on contemporary events. In this module we shall examine a range of classical and post-classical epics, in order to ascertain how they engage with the Virgilian archetype and how they adapt these classical motifs to their own political, social or religious ends. From the ancient world, we will read Lucan’s Civil War and Statius’ Thebaid in order to see how motifs of civil strife undermine the conciliation and closure of the Civil War years that the Aeneid is working towards. Dante’s Inferno will show us how the genre adapts itself to the Christian world-view. Camoes’ Lusiads will demonstrate how the Age of Exploration allows epic to broaden its totalising scope to encompass the whole world. Finally, reading Derek Walcott’s Omeros will show us how in the contemporary world epic serves to bridge the gap between Western literature and the culture of the colonial world.

Students interested in this course would find the following books a useful introduction to the material we will cover:

• Hardie, P.R. The epic successors of Virgil: a study in the dynamics of a tradition. Cambridge 1993.
• Quint, D. Epic and Empire: politics and generic form from Virgil to Milton . Princeton 1994.
• Sklenar, R. The Taste for Nothingness: a study of Virtus and related themes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Ann Arbor 2003.

Greek tragedy has had particular importance for Irish dramatists, and an understanding of the Classical background is essential for a full appreciation of their work. This module will examine both the use made of Greek tragedy by Irish dramatists and the light which these modern versions cast on the Greek plays themselves. We shall begin with Synge’s use of the Oedipus myth in The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and Yeats’s versions of Sophocles’ King Oedipus (1926) and Oedipus at Colonus (1927). Sophocles’ Antigone has been especially influential for its treatment of the relationship between the individual and the state, and we shall be examining Tom Paulin’s The Riot Act (1985), Brendan Kennelly’s Antigone (1986), and Seamus Heaney’s The Burial at Thebes (2004).

Euripides’ Medea is a key text for the representation of women in drama, and has been exploited in several Irish plays including Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998). Classical themes are prominent in the work of Brian Friel, especially his reworking of the Hippolytus myth in Living Quarters (1978). Greek tragedy has retained its fascination for contemporary Irish dramatists, and UCD’s writer-in-residence Frank McGuinness has written powerful versions of Sophocles’ Electra (1997) and Euripides’ Hecuba (2004).