Please note: you are viewing unit and programme information
for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Viewing the City of Rome |
| Unit code |
CLAS12357 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
C/4
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Hales |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None
|
| Co-requisites |
None
|
| School/department |
Department of Classics & Ancient History |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit introduces the topography and architecture of Rome, antiquity's greatest city, and assesses its visual impact, touring the leisurely lands of the Campus Martius, the wealth of the Palatine, the Capitoline's patriotism and the Suburan slums. Alongside the city's most famous monuments, the Pantheon and the Colosseum, it visits sewers and backstreet insulae. Romans imagined their city largely by reference to its buildings, which governed every aspect of a Roman's life, whether public or private, on business or at leisure, at worship or in pursuit of vice. As a result, this unit does not just look at the form of these buildings but at how they reflected and affected the activities taking place inside and around them. How do the buildings and space of Rome help us understand its society and culture and what insight do they offer into how Romans thought about themselves and their place in the world?
Aims:
- To enable students to recognise the major architectural forms and the topography of ancient Rome.
- To offer students a basic understanding of the relationship between architectural form and the use of space.
- To explore the ways in which Romans’ perception of themselves and their city and empire related to and was inscribed in or contradicted by the physical form of the cityscape.
- To develop students’ skills to use the knowledge acquired in class and through their own reading to construct coherent, relevant and persuasive arguments on the built environment of the city of Rome.
Intended Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit students will:
- have gained a basic understanding of the relationship between architectural form and the use of space.
- have an ability to recognise the major architectural forms and the topography of ancient Rome.
- be able to use the knowledge acquired in class and through their own reading to construct coherent, relevant and persuasive arguments on the built environment of the city of Rome.
- have had the opportunity to develop their communication skills in class discussion and in the composition of written work at a standard appropriate to level I
Teaching Information
1 x 1 hour lecture and 1 x 1 hour seminar per week
Assessment Information
1 x essay of 2,000 words (50%) and 1 x 90 minute exam (50%). Both test ILOs 1-4
Reading and References
- Claridge, A. Rome (Oxford Archaeological Guides) (Oxford) 1998
- Coulston, J & H. Dodge eds. Ancient Rome: the Archaeology of the Eternal City (Oxford) 2000
- Dupont, F.Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford) 1992
- Edwards, C. & G. Woolf eds. Rome: the Cosmopolis (Cambridge) 2003
- P. Erdkamp ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge) 2013
- Stambaugh, J.E. The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore) 1988
