Format: the exam (15% of the course grade) will consist of 3 sections:
(1) matching (names, terms)
(2) commentaries on passages selected from your reading of Roman authors since Exam #1
(3) essay
Part I, matching [ca. 35% of total exam points]. You will be asked to match items listed with a brief description of them.
possible items for the matching section:
Nero
apotheosis
Crassus
Julius Caesar
Magnus/Pompey
Julia
Rubicon
Sulla & Marius
Battle of Massilia
Battle of Pharsalus /Pharsalia
Thessaly
Erichtho
necromancy
Sextus Pompey
Cornelia
Troy
principate
Octavian/Augustus
Caligula
"If only the Roman people had a single neck"
Agrippina
"What an artist dies in me"
Great Fire (64 CE)
Golden House (Domus Aurea)
munus (plural munera)
ludi
Colosseum/Flavian Amphitheater
lanista
retiarius
missio
Circus Maximus
Diocles
Alypius
venatio
bestiarius (plural bestiarii)
sparsio
ad bestias
Orpheus
naumachia
Seneca
Part II: Passages for Commentary [ca. 35% of total exam points]. You will be given passages from a Roman literary work we have read since Exam #1*** and asked to provide the following:
(1) identify the author;
(2) identify the title of the work from which the passage is taken;
(3) identify the speaker(s) of the passage (i.e. character(s) if relevant, or the author);
(4) briefly describe the context in which the passage occurs;
(5) write a carefully organized paragraph commenting on the broader significance of the passage in light of our course themes (horror, terror, violence, and trauma) and the work’s particular treatment of any of these themes (this is the most important part of your commentary and the majority of commentary points fall here)
***works we have read from which passages will be taken:
Lucan, Civil War
Suetonius, Caligula
Suetonius, Nero
Part III, essay. [ca. 30% of total exam points]. You will be asked to write a thoughful and coherent essay based on the following question:
In what ways could Roman imperial monarchy seem to be rooted in horror, terror, violence, and trauma? For free subjects of an emperor like Caligula or Nero how could life become like slavery? What sorts of cultural trauma could vicious emperors inflict on the populace at large?