DSBcB27 The Unrelenting World: Labour, Violence, and Death in Ancient Roman Society

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2023
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Taught in person.
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Tereza Antošovská, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Tereza Antošovská, Ph.D.
Department of Classical Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Jitka Erlebachová
Supplier department: Department of Classical Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
each odd Monday 16:00–17:40 A21
Prerequisites (in Czech)
! DSBcB027 The Unrelenting World
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 40 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 27/40, only registered: 0/40, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/40
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the dark side of the ancient world and to the reality of everyday life. A part of the course will be also a work with relevant primary texts for the purpose of approaching the perspective of the ancient citizen and of practicing the student’s ability to analyse historical sources.
Learning outcomes
Students will get practical experience with primary sources and analysis of historical sources. This experience they excercise in final essay (with the excercise of the abilities of interpretation, argumentation and writing skills).
Syllabus
  • Work, violence and death belong to the fundamental phenomena of every human society, but their perception and meaning differ in each society. What was the concept of labour in the Roman society? How did the world of work and leisure varied – conceptually as well as in fact – for the elite and common people, adults and children, free citizens and slaves? What do we know about the perception, function and prosecuting of violence in a society which had public killing as a popular form of entertainment? And finally, how were dying and death perceived, as a human faced them due to the high mortality rate already from tender age and more often than today?
  • 1) The idea of work and profession (attitudes to manual x intellectual work, view and “professions” of an elite society, concept of “free time”)
  • 2) A silent majority: labour from childhood to old age (apprenticeship, free citizens x slaves, city x countryside)
  • 3) Brutality around: public violence (crime and punishment, games, wars)
  • 4) Domestic violence: boundaries of acceptable physical punishments and brutality
  • 5) On a way to death: health, disease and dying
  • 6) Culture of death: perception of death and afterlife
Literature
    required literature
  • NUTTON, Vivian. Ancient medicine. London: Routledge, 2005, xiii, 486. ISBN 0415368480. info
    recommended literature
  • The murder of Regillaa case of domestic violence in antiquity. Edited by Sarah B. Pomeroy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007, 249 p. ISBN 0674025830. info
  • Rome at warfarms, families, and death in the Middle Republic. Edited by Nathan Stewart Rosenstein. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004, x, 339 p. ISBN 0807828394. info
  • Spectacles of death in ancient Rome. Edited by Donald G. Kyle. New York: Routledge, 1998, xii, 288 p. ISBN 0415096782. info
  • Geschichte des privaten Lebens. Edited by Paul Veyne - Holger Fliessbach. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1989, 621 s. ISBN 3100336313. info
    not specified
  • Hope, V. (2009). Roman Death: the Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome. London & New York: Continuum. Hope. V. (2007) Death in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge
  • n Hope, V.M. & Marshall, E. (eds.). Death ad Disease in Ancient City. London, New York: Routledge
  • Temin, Peter. “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34, no. 4 (2004): 513–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3656762.
  • Work, labour, and professions in the Roman world. Edited by Koenraad Verboven - Christian Laes. Leiden: Brill, 2017, xv, 353. ISBN 9789004331655. info
  • The Oxford handbook of Roman law and society. Edited by Paul J. du Plessis - Clifford Ando - Kaius Tuori. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xvi, 728. ISBN 9780198728689. info
  • The topography of violence in the Greco-Roman world. Edited by Werner Riess - Garrett G. Fagan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016, 1 online. ISBN 9780472121830. URL info
  • Violence in late antiquity : perceptions and practices. Edited by Jacob Latham - H. A. Drake - Emily Albu - Susanna Elm - Michael Maas -. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016, 1 online. ISBN 9781351875752. URL info
  • GARNSEY, Peter, Richard P. SALLER, Jaś ELSNER, Martin GOODMAN, Richard GORDON, Greg WOOLF and Marguerite HIRT. The Roman empire : economy, society and culture. Second edition. London: Bloombsury, 2014, xviii, 328. ISBN 9781472524027. info
  • Disabilities in Roman antiquity : disparate bodies a capite ad calcem. Edited by Christian Laes - C. F Goodey - Martha L. Rose. Leiden: Brill, 2013, xiii, 318. ISBN 9789004248311. info
  • TEMIN, Peter. The Roman market economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, xii, 299. ISBN 9780691147680. info
  • SCHEIDEL, Walter. The Cambridge companion to the Roman economy. 1st pub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, xii, 443. ISBN 9780521726887. info
  • LAES, Christian. Children in the Roman empire : outsiders within. English ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, xv, 334. ISBN 9780521897464. info
  • The Cambridge world history of slavery. Edited by K. R. Bradley - Paul Cartledge. 1st pub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, xi, 620. ISBN 9780521840668. info
  • The Oxford handbook of social relations in the Roman world. Edited by Michael Peachin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, xvi, 738. ISBN 9780195188004. info
  • Women in antiquity : new assessments. Edited by Richard Hawley - Barbara Levick. London: Routledge, 1995, xix, 271. ISBN 0415113695. info
Teaching methods
Lectures, reading primary texts and interpreting them
Assessment methods
Active participation; essay/presentation on chosen topic
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
The course is taught once in two years.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2019, Autumn 2020, Autumn 2021.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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