Due: Monday Nov. 21 in class. The TA for your discussion section will be grading your papers; any special arrangements should be made with him/her. When you turn it in, make sure your paper is clearly marked with your name, and the name of your TA.  Papers can be accepted by e-mail only by prior arrangement with the instructor.

Lateness policy: One full letter grade will be deducted for each day (not counting weekends) the paper is late, unless you have a valid excuse: medical (get a note from the Health Center) or serious family emergency.

The main purpose of this assignment, as before, is to teach you to work with primary sources, which is what we call texts written during the period we’re studying. Your experience of history will be much more interesting and rewarding when you listen to the ancients in their own words, instead of just reading about them in a textbook.

Please write a 4-6 page (typed, doublespaced) essay on one of the following topics.

1. Discuss the process of Romanization.  How did people in the provinces “become Roman” under the empire?  How, and for what reasons, did some groups resist Romanization?  Could Jews be “good Romans?”  Why or why not?

2.  Was Rome "decadent?" What did the Romans think about the moral state of their own society: what, if anything, had gone wrong, and what should be done to fix it? To what extent did these moral criticisms reflect political agendas?

3. Compare and contrast Roman political thought with that of the Greeks. Do texts such as Plato’s Republic help explain the problems of the late Roman Republic and its transition to the Roman Empire under Augustus? What about Roman-period texts such as Cicero, Tacitus or Dio Cassius?

4. Discuss the role of violence in Roman society. What connections, if any, can be made between war, foreign policy, civil war and political conflict, and other forms of violence such as gladiatorial games? What did the Romans themselves think about violence and its consequences – what forms of violence were justified and what were not?

These are very broad questions, and there are any number of ways you could answer each. That is to say, I am not looking for any particular "right" answer. The important thing is that you decide which interpretation makes sense to you, make a clear argument, and support it by referring to evidence.

***Please note: each of the assignments given above REQUIRES you to make use of primary sources (ancient texts, from Bailkey or the xerox reader, or assigned online.) You may also refer to Nagle or to my lectures for background and context, but it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to turn in a paper based solely on textbook and lectures.