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UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Board of the Faculty of Classics School of Archaeology
Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
Prelims Handbook
2014
Faculty of Classics Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies
66 St Giles’ Oxford OX1 3LU
www.classics.ox.ac.uk
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About this Handbook
The information in this handbook applies to those students beginning their course in October 2014. A Final Honour School Handbook will be issued in Hilary Term 2015, which will include information on second and third year options. On any question the Examination Regulations (‘the grey book’) is the final word.
Dates of Full Terms
Michaelmas 2014: Sunday 12 October – Saturday 6 December 2014 Hilary 2015: Sunday 18 January – Saturday 14 March 2015 Trinity 2015: Sunday 26 April – Saturday 20 June 2015
Data Protection Act 1998
You should have received from your College a statement regarding student personal data, including a declaration for you to sign indicating your acceptance of that statement. You should also have received a similar declaration for you to sign from the Faculty. Please contact your College’s Data Protection Officer or the Classics Faculty IT Officer, (whichever is relevant) if you have not. Further information on the Act can be obtained at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/dp/index.shtml.
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Vitally Important Deadlines
The following is a list of the most important deadlines that you MUST meet. YEAR 1 Michaelmas Term
Week 3, Wed: Special subject choices to Academic Support Officer (email: [email protected])
Week 8, Fri: Prelims exams entry forms due
Hilary Term
Week 3, Wed: Fieldwork choices (form CAAH01) to Academic Support Officer, Ioannou Centre
Trinity Term
Week 3, Wed: Second and third year subject choices (form CAAH05) to Academic Support Officer, Ioannou Centre
Week 5, Fri: Signed travel insurance and risk assessment forms (CAAH02) to Facilities & Events Officer, Ioannou Centre
Week 8, Fri: Fieldwork grant claim form (CAAH04) to Academic Support Officer, Ioannou Centre
Forms relating to CAAH students can be found in WebLearn at: https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/content/group/classics/undergraduate/Forms/CAAH/.
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Contents
Dates of Full Terms; Data Protection Act 1998 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Vitally Important Deadlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of Aims and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Introduction to Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Course Structure: An Outline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Prelims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Final Honour School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
PRACTICALITIES
4.1 Your Tutor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2 Teaching expectations: Tutorials, Classes, Lectures and Collections. . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3 Language Classes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4 Essays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5 Bibliographies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.6 Lectures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.7 Joint Consultative Committee for Undergraduate Matters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.8 Students with Disabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.9 Complaints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.10 Illness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.11 Crises. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.12 Vacations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.13 The Ioannou Centre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.14 The Administration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.15 Libraries and Electronic Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.16 Bookshops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.17 Information Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.18 Classical Greek and word processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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4.19 Museums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.20 Societies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.21 Scholarships, Prizes and Grants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.22 Examinations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.23 Past Papers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.24 Marking Conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
FIRST YEAR: COURSE DETAILS
5. First Year Teaching Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6. Classical Archaeology and Ancient History: First Year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.1 Integrated Class for Greek Core. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2 Special Subject Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.3 Prelims Entry Forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.4 Fieldwork Requirement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.5 Fieldwork Opportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.6 Fieldwork Grant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.7 Fieldwork Health and Safety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.8 Fieldwork: Brief Reports and Directors’ Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.9 Language Options in Second Year and Summer Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.10 Second and Third Year Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.11 Summary for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Year 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
7.1. Core Subjects: Approaches to Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. . . . . 28
Aristocracy and democracy in the Greek World 550-450 BC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Republic to Empire: Rome 50 BC to AD 50. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.2. Special Subjects and Languages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.1. Homeric Archaeology and Early Greece from 1550 to 700 BC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.2. Greek Vases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.3. Greek Sculpture c. 600-300 BC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.4. Roman Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
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B.1. Thucydides and the West. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
B.2. Aristophanes’ Political Comedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
B.3. Cicero and Catiline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
B.4. Tacitus and Tiberius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
C.1. Beginning Ancient Greek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
C.2. Beginning Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
C.3. Intermediate Ancient Greek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
C.4. Intermediate Latin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
C.5. Advanced Ancient Greek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
C.6. Advanced Latin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.3. Fieldwork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
GUIDELINES AND GENERAL INFORMATION
8. Picture Questions: Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
9. Ancient History Text ‘Gobbets’: Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
10. Plagiarism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
11. List of Officers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
12. Examination Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
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1. Statement of Aims and Objectives Aims
The principal academic aims of the degree are to study and interpret the complex cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world through their extensive textual, material, and visual remains. Its principal broader educational aims are as follows: 1. To stimulate and encourage intellectual confidence in students, working independently but
in a well-guided framework. 2. To use the study of key texts, artefacts, images, and issues systematically to examine and
compare other cultures in an interdisciplinary way. 3. To use such study to engender in students a thoughtful and critical attitude to major issues
in their own cultures. 4. To deliver to students a sustained and carefully-designed course which requires effort and
rigour from them and which yields consistent intellectual reward and satisfaction. 5. To train students in research and analytical skills to the highest possible standards. 6. To train students to think critically, to formulate good questions, and to recognise bias and
angle in written and visual representations. 7. To produce graduates able to deal with challenging intellectual problems systematically,
analytically and efficiently, suitable for a wide range of high-grade occupations and professions.
Objectives
The more specific objectives of the degree are as follows: 1. To provide expert guidance over a very wide range of options in challenging fields of study
within the ancient Mediterranean world. 2. To give students the skills to assess, summarise, and select key aspects from
considerable amounts of material of diverse types. 3. To develop effective skills in students' written and oral communication. 4. To foster the organisational skills needed to plan work and meet a variety of demanding
deadlines. 5. To encourage the use and application of information technology to academic study at all
levels. 6. To provide a teaching environment in which close and regular criticism and evaluation of
the work of individual students and continuous monitoring of their academic progress are key features.
7. To make full and effective use in our courses of the wide range of expertise in our subject area and the excellent specialist resources and collections available in the University.
8. To encourage students in extra-curricular but course-related activities which set the subject in a broader context.
9. To produce graduates who will maintain and expand Oxford's international pre-eminence in the fields of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology.
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2. Introduction to Classical Archaeology and Ancient History This honours degree is for anyone interested in the challenge of studying the history, archaeology, and art of the 'classical world' in an integrated way, and is designed to make study of that world more widely accessible. The course is concerned with the study of the societies and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world through material, visual, and written evidence and has at its centre the cultures of Greece and Rome. Among the central themes are the dialogue of the Greek and Roman cultures with other Mediterranean and European societies and the endurance and transformation of classical cultural forms in new contexts far beyond their points of origin. The extensive choice of further subject options encourages wide-ranging study of neighbouring cultures, from the Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages, from the Near East to Northwest Europe. The course does not require the study of ancient languages, but offers opportunities to use and learn them. The University's resources for this combined subject are excellent, in terms both of library facilities – much of the Sackler Library collections are built around ancient history and classical archaeology – and in the range and number of faculty members in the two fields. The degree is unique in offering parallel and integrated courses in both archaeological and historical approaches to classical Mediterranean cultures. While still deploying distinctive skills and bodies of evidence, the two disciplines have come increasingly to converge and to complement each other. Studied together, the two registers of evidence produce a richer, more broad-based account of ancient cultures and societies and of their distinctive characteristics. A novel feature of the degree's teaching is the 'knitted' classes led by two Faculty members, one archaeologist and one historian, designed to ensure a thorough interdisciplinary integration in papers that deliberately combine archaeological and historical questions and evidence – something of real value from the points of view both of the students and of the teachers. The degree is administered from the Classics Office (66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU) and is overseen by a Standing Committee composed of members of both the Classics Faculty and the School of Archaeology.
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3. Course Structure: An Outline The degree is a three-year course, and is divided into a first year, whose end-of-year examinations are called the Preliminary Examination or 'Prelims', and two further years leading up to the Honour School Examinations or 'Finals'. Prelims
In Prelims you take four papers. Two are core papers on relatively short but revolutionary periods, one Greek and one Roman, that integrate history and archaeology and introduce you to different approaches to the subject and to the different kinds of evidence and the questions that they can answer. Two further papers are Special Subjects, one archaeological and one historical, chosen from lists of options. In place of one of the Special Subjects you may take an option to learn either Ancient Greek or Latin. The structure of Prelims then is as follows:
Fieldwork
Fieldwork and training in excavation techniques and recording are a requirement fulfilled by participation in an excavation during the summer vacation after Prelims, either Oxford's own excavation at Dorchester, or another approved field project.
Final Honour School
In your second and third years, leading up to Finals, you build on the work done in Prelims and expand your range in time and theme. You take six papers, including at least one integrated history and archaeology class, and at least two core papers in Greco-Roman subjects, as well as writing a site or museum report (equivalent to one paper). Of the six options, at least two must be in ancient history and at least two in archaeology, unless you take further Latin or
I-II. TWO CORE SUBJECTS I. Aristocracy and Democracy in the Greek World, 550 - 450 BC II. Republic to Empire: Rome, 50 BC - AD 50 III-IV. TWO PAPERS FROM THE FOLLOWING SPECIAL SUBJECTS AND LANGUAGES A. Special subjects in Archaeology 1. Homeric Archaeology and Early Greece from 1550 to 700 BC 2. Greek Vases 3. Greek Sculpture, c.600 - 300 BC 4. Roman Architecture B. Special subjects in History 1. Thucydides and the West 2. Aristophanes' Political Comedy 3. Cicero and Catiline 4. Tacitus and Tiberius C. Ancient Languages 1. Beginning Ancient Greek 2. Beginning Latin 3. Intermediate Ancient Greek 4. Intermediate Latin 5. Advanced Ancient Greek 6. Advanced Latin
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further ancient Greek, which can count towards either total. Different combinations allow emphasis, according to preference, more on Archaeology or on History, and on different areas and periods, while ensuring that breadth is maintained. The site or museum report (max. 15,000 words) is the result of work based upon your own study of a site, of an excavation, or of a body of images or objects from one context or category of artefacts. You may also offer, if you wish, an additional, optional thesis on an agreed topic within the field of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology (again, max. 15,000 words). The following sections offer information and advice on some aspects of undergraduate life.
4.1 Your Tutor Whatever course you are taking, you will be meeting your college tutor during the first few days. He or she will have made arrangements for your tutorials and the various classes you will be taking, and will discuss your options with you and your timetable for studying them. When you have concerns or doubts, particularly if they are of an academic nature, your tutor will normally be the first person to consult: you should not hesitate to do this. It will probably be a rule of your college that you call on college tutors at the beginning of each term to arrange tuition, and at the end of term to arrange vacation reading and next term's subjects. In any case it would be wise to pay such calls, if necessary on your own initiative. Colleges have different rules about when term 'begins', but academic collections are usually set for the Friday and Saturday of 0th week (the week before full term), so you should plan to be back by Thursday of 0th week at the absolute latest. You should try to ensure that by the Thursday you know who your tutors for the term will be, have met or corresponded with them, and have been set work and assigned tutorial times by them. If you feel that you need a change of tutor, do something about it. Take the problem to someone else in your college - your College Adviser, the Senior Tutor, the Dean, the Women's Adviser, the Chaplain, or even the Head of College, if necessary. Most such problems arise from a personality-clash that has proved intractable; but since in a university of Oxford's size there are likely to be alternative tutors for nearly all your subjects, there's no point in putting up with a relationship which is impeding your academic progress. In these circumstances you can usually expect a change, but not necessarily to the particular tutor whom you would prefer. In the unlikely instance of any problems arising which you do not wish to discuss with your college tutor, you should get in touch with the Chair of the CAAH Standing Committee, who for 2014-15 is Dr Thomas Mannack (Ioannou Centre, 66 St Giles’). Most colleges have a system of feedback whereby you can comment on your tutorials (including your own performance within them) and your tutors: this is normally done by a written questionnaire, though the format varies considerably. Please do use these questionnaires: confidentiality can always be assured if you wish, and comments (even if made anonymously) are extremely useful both to the college and to the tutors themselves. At the end of each term you can expect a formal report, perhaps with the Head of College and usually in the presence of your tutors. These are intended to be two-way exchanges: if you have concerns about your work or your tuition, do not hesitate to say so. Both University and colleges also have networks of welfare and pastoral care: details are given in the Essential Information for Students (Proctors’ and Assessor’s Memorandum), and in the literature which will have been given you by your college. See also Section 4.11 Crises.
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4.2 Teaching expectations: Tutorials, Classes, Lectures and Collections In preparation for Prelims, students can expect to have eight small classes on each of the Core papers and eight tutorials for the special subjects (or small classes if you take a language option instead), and at least one course of lectures on each of these papers will be laid on. One of the functions of your college tutor(s) is to advise you about how to maximise your learning from different formats, and how to use the teaching / instruction provided in each format in an integrated way. One main focus of teaching throughout your time in Oxford will be tutorials. A tutorial is a meeting between the tutor and a single undergraduate, a pair, or a trio; a larger group is normally defined as a class. You can expect to have one or two of these tutorial encounters each week with one of your college tutors, or somebody else chosen by them for the particular option you are studying. There is great variety in the ways that tutors approach tutorials, and that is a strength of the system. Given this variety, do not worry if your peers in other Colleges seem to be doing things differently for any given paper; your own College Tutor knows how best to prepare you for Prelims. Your core subjects in Prelims are team-taught in 90 minute-long classes of 6-8 by an archaeologist and an ancient historian. You will have one of these classes each week in the first two terms, and you will be asked to produce written work for them, as for a tutorial. The more you bring to a tutorial or class, the more you will gain from it. Tutorials are an opportunity for you to raise the issues and ask the questions which are troubling you, and to try out your own ideas in discussion with someone of greater experience; classes are an opportunity to explore issues together. Do not be afraid to speak up when something strikes you: those who contribute little in class get correspondingly little benefit from them. Before starting tutorials on a particular paper you will need to do some preparatory reading. If you have not received guidance from your tutor, you should consult the WebLearn site (https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/site/classics), which contains bibliographies (with notes on preliminary reading) for each of these papers. Once you have finished a paper, you will also need to do some further work in the following vacation, normally in preparation for a collection. For most tutorials and classes, you will be asked to produce written work, and a good deal of your time will be spent writing and preparing essays on topics suggested by your tutors. They will normally direct you towards some secondary reading. However, you should be careful not to let reading the bibliography detract from reading the primary texts and assessing the archaeological evidence, or to allow other scholars' writings to dictate the order of presentation of your own essays. The examination and the course are about the subjects and the works prescribed in the Examination Regulations, not about the modern books in bibliographies. Most colleges set at least one 'collection', i.e. a practice examination paper, at the beginning of each term; many set two, and some expect a vacation essay as well, particularly in the long vacation. Collections will normally be on the reading which you will have covered over the vacation: on the importance of such vacation reading, see Section 4.12. There may also be faculty language collections: see Section 4.3.2. It is reasonable to expect written comments on any work a tutor takes in; but it is rare for tutors to put marks on written work, except for collections. If you are left uncertain of the general quality of your work, do not hesitate to ask.
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4.3 Language Classes 1. Beginning Ancient Greek and Beginning Latin
These are intensive elementary language classes running throughout the first two terms of Prelims for those wishing to begin Greek or Latin. The language teachers will be contacting those who have expressed an interest in Noughth Week (the week before term) to let you know which group you are in and where and when to attend. For your first two terms, you will have three hours of language teaching each week, and you will be expected to do a substantial amount of homework. The language teaching team will be happy to discuss any problems. Do not hesitate to consult them.
2. Faculty Language Collections
Those taking the elementary language classes will be set collections to test their progress at 2.00 p.m. on the Thursday of the week before the start of both Hilary and Trinity terms. You will be given details of these collections in due course.
4.4 Essays Work on a class or tutorial essay involves library searches, reading, thinking, and writing. Read attentively and thoughtfully, skipping bits that obviously do not bear on your topic: one hour of concentration is worth many hours of 'summarising' paragraph by paragraph with the music on. As your reading progresses, think up a clear structure for your essay. Use essays to develop an argument, not as places to store information. Include background material only when it is relevant for the question you have been asked: avoid the sort of essay which begins ‘Cicero was born in ……’ (if you were asked the time, you would not begin by saying where your watch was made). You will learn a lot if you share ideas with fellow students, and if you chance your arm in class and tutorial discussion. Remember that classes and tutorials are not designed as a substitute for lectures, or for accumulating information, but to develop an ability to articulate and the capacity to think on one's feet, and to tackle specific difficulties and misunderstandings. There are arguments for and against word processing. On the one hand it makes one's notes and essays more 'inviting' to read later, and in writing an essay it becomes possible to postpone commitment to all the stages in an argument until the very end of the essay-writing process. On the other hand there is a danger of getting out of practice in writing time-limited examinations, especially University examinations, in which word processing is not allowed. Oxford trains you as a writer to deadlines; so equip yourself with a writer's tools – at least a dictionary, such as the Concise Oxford Dictionary, and, unless you are very confident, a thesaurus and a book such as H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Spelling, punctuation, and literate English style do matter.
4.5 Bibliographies Detailed faculty bibliographies are prepared regularly for most of the subjects on the course. You can download them from https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/site/classics.
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4.6 Lectures Lectures for CAAH will be found on the Classics Lecture list. The most up to date version of this is at http://rbll.classics.ox.ac.uk/. Your tutors will have advice on which lectures to attend, and if you are in doubt you should consult them before the lecture course begins. Lectures start on Monday of First Week of each term. Make sure you know where those you should attend take place. The lectures for your core courses are essential, and you should also attend any introductory lectures offered on Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. You should also start attending lectures for the special subjects of your choice. Those taking a language would be well-advised to 'shadow' the lectures for a second special subject for the first few weeks in case they have a change of heart about studying the language (firm choices do not need to be declared until Third Week). Do not expect lectures on a subject to coincide with the term in which you are writing essays on that subject. Important lectures may come a term or two before your tutorials; even so, you should read in advance any texts which are being lectured on. Equally, do not expect lectures to be repeated every year; In the first year, you should attend lectures in your first and second terms for the special subject you will be taking in your third term, and you should plan to attend lectures in your second year that are relevant to courses you will take in your third year.
4.7 Joint Consultative Committee for Undergraduate Matters Each faculty or department has a Joint Consultative Committee for Undergraduates (JCC). The JCC is your forum, where Faculty officers will keep you informed of developments in the Faculty. Typical agenda items include proposals for change to the syllabus, lecture arrangements, library provision and IT. Senior members will be looking to you for comments and suggestions, which may bring beneficial changes. The JCC is also the forum in which you should raise any matters of concern to you relating to the organisation and content of the course (though matters relating to your actual tuition are more a college matter: see Section 4.2). The JCC contains several Senior Members and although colleges are asked to appoint representatives, any undergraduate in CAAH, Classics, and Ancient & Modern History is welcome to attend. The committee meets once a term, and may make recommendations to the Sub-faculties, or through them to the Faculty board. It appoints two of its undergraduate members to attend Sub-faculty meetings as observers. A questionnaire is circulated regularly by the JCC for you to fill in with your comments on the course and on the lectures you have attended. It is important to fill this in because lecturers (who are given an indication of the comments), and indeed the Faculty as a whole, like to know whether they are providing what people need, and also because it strengthens the arm of the JCC in seeking changes and innovations. The comments made will remain totally anonymous, and only the Lecture List Secretary and the undergraduate compilers of the yearly report will see the actual returns. A sample questionnaire is printed in this Handbook (Section 17).
4.8 Students with Disabilities The Faculty is committed to ensuring that disabled students are not treated less favourably than other students, and to provide reasonable adjustment to provision where disabled students might otherwise be at a substantial disadvantage. For students who have declared a disability on entry to the University, the Faculty will have
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been informed if any special arrangements have to be made. Students who think that adjustments in Faculty teaching, learning facilities or assessment may need to be made should raise the matter first with their college tutor or contact the Academic Administrative Officer at the Ioannou Centre. General advice about provision for students with disabilities at Oxford University and how best to ensure that all appropriate bodies are informed can be found on the University Disability Services website at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop.
4.9 Complaints 1. The University, the Humanities Division and the Classics Faculty all hope that provision made for students at all stages of their programme of study will make the need for complaints (about that provision) or appeals (against the outcomes of any form of assessment) infrequent. 2. However, all those concerned believe that it is important for students to be clear about how to raise a concern or make a complaint, and how to appeal against the outcome of assessment. The following guidance attempts to provide such information. 3. Nothing in this guidance precludes an informal discussion with the person immediately responsible for the issue that you wish to complain about (and who may not be one of the individuals identified below). This is often the simplest way to achieve a satisfactory resolution. 4. Many sources of advice are available within colleges, within faculties/departments and from bodies like OUSU or the Counselling Service, which have extensive experience in advising students. You may wish to take advice from one of these sources before pursuing your complaint. 5. General areas of concern about provision affecting students as a whole should, of course, continue to be raised through Joint Consultative Committees or via student representation on the faculty’s committees. Complaints
6. If your concern or complaint relates to teaching or other provision made by the faculty, then you should raise it either with the JCC or the Chair of the CAAH Standing Committee. Within the faculty the officer concerned will attempt to resolve your concern/complaint informally. 7. If you are dissatisfied with the outcome, then you may take your concern further by making a formal complaint to the University Proctors. A complaint may cover aspects of teaching and learning (e.g. teaching facilities, supervision arrangements, etc.), and non-academic issues (e.g. support services, library services, university accommodation, university clubs and societies, etc.). A complaint to the Proctors should be made only if attempts at informal resolution have been unsuccessful. The procedures adopted by the Proctors for the consideration of complaints and appeals are described in the Proctors and Assessor’s Memorandum (www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/pam) and the relevant Council regulations (www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/regulations). 8. If your concern or complaint relates to teaching or other provision made by your college, then you should raise it either with your tutor or with one of the college officers, such as the Senior Tutor. Your college will also be able to explain how to take your complaint further if you are dissatisfied with the outcome of its consideration. Academic appeals
9. An appeal is defined as a formal questioning of a decision on an academic matter made by
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the responsible academic body. 10. For undergraduate courses, a concern which might lead to an appeal should be raised with your college authorities and the individual responsible for overseeing your work. It must not be raised directly with examiners or assessors. If it is not possible to clear up your concern in this way, you may put your concern in writing and submit it to the Proctors via the Senior Tutor of your college. As noted above, the procedures adopted by the Proctors in relation to complaints and appeals are on the web (www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/regulations). 11. Please remember in connection with all the cases in paragraphs 9-10 that:
(a) The Proctors are not empowered to challenge the academic judgement of examiners or academic bodies. (b) The Proctors can consider whether the procedures for reaching an academic decision were properly followed; i.e. whether there was a significant procedural administrative error; whether there is evidence of bias or inadequate assessment; whether the examiners failed to take into account special factors affecting a candidate’s performance. (c) On no account should you contact your examiners or assessors directly.
12. The Proctors will indicate what further action you can take if you are dissatisfied with the outcome of a complaint or appeal considered by them.
4.10 Illness If illness interferes seriously with your academic work, make sure that your tutors know about it. If at all possible choose a Fellow or Lecturer of your college in whom to confide; otherwise it will be difficult for the college to help. Help may involve: excusing you from tutorials for a period; sending you home; asking the University to grant you dispensation from that term's residence (to qualify for the BA you must reside and study in Oxford for nine terms - or six if you have Senior Status - and a term for that purpose means forty-two nights); or permitting you to go out of residence for a number of terms, with consequent negotiations with your funding body. If illness has affected you during an examination, your college must report the fact to the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors, who will pass the information to your examiners 'if, in their opinion, it is likely to assist the examiners in the performance of their duties.' Your college also reports to the Proctors if illness or disability has prevented you from attending part of a University examination, or makes it desirable that you should be examined in a special place or at a special time. The college officer concerned is the Senior Tutor. You, therefore, must deal with your Senior Tutor, never with the examiners. Give the Senior Tutor as much notice as possible; in particular, examinations specially invigilated in a special place (usually your college) take a lot of organising. If you anticipate difficulties (e.g. in the case of dyslexia), you should inform your tutor at the beginning of the term of the examination, or preferably before. You will probably need a medical certificate; college doctors have the right University forms.
4.11 Crises You will often hear people talking jocularly about their 'essay crisis'; you may even hear your tutor talking about his or her 'lecture crisis'. But if you find yourself in real difficulties with your work, or any other difficulties, do not hesitate to contact your tutor (or any other tutor, especially your college adviser or 'Moral Tutor' if your college appoints one). They may look busy, but they will not be too busy to discuss your problems, many of which may get miraculously better just by being discussed with someone sympathetic. 'Nightline' (16 Wellington Square, Tel: 270270) offers a confidential source of advice for the small hours, and both University and Colleges offer many other channels of help, comfort, and care: further
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details are given in the Essential Information for Students (Proctors’ and Assessor’s Memorandum).
4.12 Vacations British degree courses are among the shortest in the world. They hold their own in international competition only because they are full-time courses, covering vacation as well as term. This is perhaps particularly true of Oxford, where the official terms occupy less than half the year. Vacations have to include holiday time too; and everyone recognises that for many students they also have to include earning money. Nevertheless vacation study is vital, and for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History the long vacation is particularly important. It is also when you should fulfil your fieldwork requirement. In term you will mostly rush from study of one particular site, monument or section of a text to another, from one article or chapter to another, pick their bones, and write out your reactions. Vacations are the time for less hectic attention to complete books, ancient and modern. Tutorials and classes break a subject up, vacations allow consolidation. They give depth and time for serious thought, and they are vital for the full reading of set texts and of key secondary works for the following term's tutorial work.
4.13 The Ioannou Centre The Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies in located at 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU. The Classics Office and some Research Projects are based in the building, including the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama. There is also a common room, seminar rooms and lecture theatre.
The Classics Office
The Classics Office is in the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, and is the administrative section of the Classics Faculty. Office hours are 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., Monday to Friday (Tel: 288388 or email [email protected]). The Classics Office can provide information about scholarships, grants, prizes, study tours, summer schools, conferences and seminars in and outside Oxford.
Entry to the Ioannou Centre
You can operate the doors to the Ioannou Centre with your University card. Your card should already be registered for entry to the Ioannou Centre, but if you experience any difficulties please contact Reception via the intercom at the entrance, by telephoning 288372 or emailing [email protected].
4.14 The Administration The administration of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History lies with the Board of the Faculty of Classics. Like other Faculty Boards in the University, it is elected by and from members of the Faculty. The Classics Faculty comprises the Sub-faculties of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology and Classical Languages and Literature. Classical Archaeology is also part of the Sub-faculty of Archaeology. The members of the Sub-faculties are, roughly, those employed in teaching or research within the University. The Faculty Board meets twice each term, and the Sub-faculties meet once or twice each term.
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4.15 Libraries and Electronic Resources In comparison with most universities, library provision at Oxford is generous. OLIS, the University’s online library information service, contains catalogues of many University and some college libraries. It is accessible from any workstation on the University network (http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/). Your college library will probably have a wide range of borrowable books and a narrower range of periodicals. Find out how to suggest new purchases. You have no access to college libraries other than your own. There are many different University libraries. The most useful to you will be the Sackler Library, which contains the Classics Lending Library, and the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian Libraries website is the most useful place to find information on using the library system: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The Sackler Library was formally opened in September 2001. It is located at 1 St John Street, close to the Ashmolean Museum: the entrance is through a doorway in a rotunda almost immediately on your right as you enter St John Street from Beaumont Street. Within its walls have been gathered a massive collection of books originally housed separately in several different libraries. It is an open shelf lending library indispensable to anyone studying Ancient History, Archaeology and Art; it is also extremely useful to those studying Literature or Philology. The Sackler Library also houses the Classics Lending Library, specifically intended to provide for the coursework needs of undergraduates in Classical Literature, Ancient History and Archaeology. Library hours are 9.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays, 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on Saturdays. To be admitted to the Sackler Library you must register by producing your University Card. Self-service photocopiers are available. You may borrow up to nine items at a time from the combined collections but no more than six from each category/collection. The loan period for books and articles is one week and for periodicals is two days. From the Thursday of Eighth Week, books and articles from the Classics Lending Library may be borrowed for the following vacation. In order to use the Bodleian Library, you must be admitted: admission is through your college office, normally when you first arrive. Much of what you want will be on the open shelves, primarily in the Lower Reading Room of the Old Bodleian. This is open Mondays to Fridays 9.00 a.m. - 10.00 p.m. (7.00 p.m. in vacations) and Saturdays 10.00 a.m. - 4.00 p.m., except for closed periods of about ten days at Christmas, four days at Easter, the day of Encaenia in late June, and the weekend at the end of August. There are numerous other reading rooms, each with a selection of books and periodicals on open shelves. Most of Bodley’s holdings, however, are kept in stacks. Works may be ordered from stack to any reading room, but delivery time is likely to be two to three hours; so advance planning is recommended. You must show your University Card to gain access to any part of the Bodleian. The Bodleian is not a lending library. Copyright Law
The copying of books and journals and the use of self-service photocopiers are subject to the provisions of the Copyright Licence issued to the University of Oxford by the Copyright Licensing Agency for the copying (from paper on to paper) of: up to 5% or one complete chapter (whichever is the greater) from a book; up to 5% or one whole article (whichever is the greater) from a single issue of a journal; up to 5% or one paper (whichever is the greater) from a set of conference proceedings.
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Electronic Resources
Oxford University subscribes to a substantial number of electronic datasets and periodicals (including the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, L’Année Philologique, the Gnomon bibliographische Datenbank and many others). Access to electronic resources is provided by an interface known as Solo (Search Oxford Libraries Online); the address is http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk. Solo is a search and discovery tool for the Oxford Libraries collection of resources including OLIS – http://library.ox.ac.uk (Oxford's union catalogue of printed and electronic books and journals), ORA – http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk (Oxford University Research Archive), a title link to 1,000+ databases on OXLIP+ – http://oxlip-plus.bodleian.ox.ac.uk and access to OU E-Journals (over 28,000 e-journals). Note that not all databases can be cross-searched from SOLO, so you will need to consult OXLIP+ for a full listing of databases. Many datasets are easily accessible through a web-browser on a computer connected to the University network and access is through single-sign on whether on or off campus. Some restricted resources will require a VPN (virtual private network) connection to the University network if attempting to access them from off campus. For information on how to install and configure VPN see www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/vpn and to set a remote access password to use with VPN visit https://register.oucs.ox.ac.uk/self/index. University-wide library information may be found at www.lib.ox.ac.uk Many of the Oxford Research Projects offer a wealth of digitised images and information. Investigate the following sites – some of which offer databases you may search or browse online: The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama – www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk The Beazley Archive – www.beazley.ox.ac.uk The Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents – www.csad.ox.ac.uk The eScience and Ancients Documents Project – http://esad.classics.ox.ac.uk The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names – www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk The Oxford Roman Economy Project – http://oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk The Oxyrhynchus Papyri – www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk The Research Archive for Greek and Roman Sculpture – www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/casts The Sphakia Survey – http://sphakia.classics.ox.ac.uk
The Classics at Oxford website (www.classics.ox.ac.uk) provides a number of useful pages, including links to indices of Classics websites, online bibliographies, pdf versions of handbooks, and lecture lists. You will also find a number of useful resources on WebLearn, the University’s virtual learning environment (www.weblearn.ox.ac.uk). You can access WebLearn only if you are connected to the University network or using a University remote access account.
4.16 Bookshops The main bookshops for ancient history and classical archaeology are Blackwell's on Broad Street and Oxbow Books (10 Hythe Bridge St): they both have second-hand departments. The Classics Bookshop which specialises in secondhand books is now in Burford (www.classicsbookshop.co.uk). It may be possible to buy useful items from students in the years above you.
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4.17 Information Technology Computing Facilities and Training
Most colleges have a computer room, with software for word processing and other applications, connections to the central University machines and the Internet, and printers. Many also have network connections in college accommodation. Most libraries have power-points for laptop computers. If you wish to connect your own computer to the University network using a network point in your college room or office, you should consult your College IT Officer who will be able to advise you. The University’s Virtual Private Network service (VPN) allows computers that are connected to the internet but not to the Oxford University network a virtual connection to the network so that you can use restricted web pages and services such as OxLIP, WebSPIRS and Oxam. Many of the classics specific online journals are only accessible this way. The VPN pages are at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/vpn. Please note that if you wish to connect your own computer to the University network it must be properly maintained. You must ensure that all relevant patches and updates for your machine have been applied and that your virus protection is up-to-date. If you have a computing problem, the Oxford University IT Services Help Centre, located at 13 Banbury Road, provides a single point of contact for all-front line user support (Tel: 273200 or email [email protected]). You may also wish to brush up your computing skills on some of the free training courses IT Services offer. For current information, check the website at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk.
Classical Archaeology and Ancient History students are required to consult their university email account at reasonable intervals, that is, daily Mon - Sat in Full Term, as official communications may be sent to it. If you have another account as well (e.g. Hotmail) you should still check your university account daily.
The Data Protection Act
You should have received from your college a statement regarding personal student data, including a declaration for you to sign indicating your acceptance of that statement: please contact your college's Data Protection Officer if you have not. Further information about Data Protection within the University can be found at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/dp/index.shtml.
4.18 Classical Greek and Word Processing Word-processing and handling electronic documents are essential skills for all classicists today. For years undergraduates were content to leave blanks in their work and write in by hand Greek characters with breathings and accents, because of the difficulty of including them electronically, but Greek is now easy to incorporate into essays and this is a skill which all students should acquire. The precise method depends on what kind of computer you are using: Apple Macintosh computers function very differently from PCs. Because of this the Faculty recommends that students use the international standard method of incorporating Greek into documents, namely
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Unicode, which is a cross-platform standard (making your documents equally readable on both PCs and Macs). This standard is supported by most modern word-processing packages, including recent versions of MS Word, and operating systems (for PCs from Windows 98 onwards, and for Macs from OS X onwards). In order to use Unicode Greek on your own computer, you need two things. The first is a font, so that you can actually view the Greek. Not many fonts include a complete set of Greek characters including accents and breathings, but some common fonts do (e.g. New Athena Unicode, Palatino Linotype, Arial Unicode). There are also freeware fonts you can find online that contain the necessary characters, one popular such font is Gentium (which has an alternative version GentiumAlt with ‘proper’ circumflex accents). Any of these fonts will be able to display Greek and you can change the format of text between these fonts and they remain the same. [This is the great advantage of the Unicode standard, since in older encodings, changing the font usually scrambled the text entirely and left it as unreadable nonsense.] The second thing you need is some easy method to enter the Greek characters. You could of course use the character map or insert symbol commands of your word-processor to do it, but this is time-consuming and inefficient even for a single word. Instead, there are various keyboard utilities available which allow you to use your normal keyboard as if it were a Greek keyboard (e.g. so that you type [a] and you get an alpha). These also allow you to access the accents and breathings, usually by typing a key before the vowel in question (e.g. so that typing [2] then [i] gives an iota with a smooth breathing and acute accent). Some of these utilities work only in specific word-processing packages, while others will work with any. Two popular Greek input keyboards are Antioch (for Windows) by Ralph Hancock www.users.dircon.co.uk/~hancock/antioch.htm and GreekKeys (Mac & Windows) http://apagreekkeys.org/AboutGK2008.html from the American Philological Association. There is a small cost involved in purchasing fully functional licenced versions of these applications. Further information on IT in Classics, including questions of fonts etc. can be found on WebLearn: https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/humdiv/classics/page/home.
4.19 Museums The Ashmolean Museum in Beaumont Street is second in the UK only to the British Museum in its collections of vases, sculpture (including a famous Cast Gallery), coins, and other objects: these are well worth getting to know whether or not you are doing one of the special subjects for which they are essential.
4.20 Societies There is a University Classical Society, and a University Archaeology Society. Details of their meetings will be sent to members each term. The Classical Drama Society also has meetings and puts on plays in the original languages and in English.
4.21 Scholarships, Prizes and Grants After Prelims, you will be eligible for a scholarship or exhibition from your college, on academic criteria which the college decides and applies. The University administers a number of trust scholarships. All are listed in the University’s Statutes and Regulations and in a supplement to the University Gazette (www.ox.ac.uk/gazette), which is published at the beginning of Michaelmas Term. You can consult these in your college office or a library. Grants for special purposes such as research travel, or for hardship, are available from many
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colleges to their members. There are also two more general schemes: Access Funds are provided by the state to give financial help to full-time
'home' undergraduates and postgraduates where access to higher or further education might be inhibited by financial considerations, or where students, for whatever reasons, including disabilities, face financial difficulties. Application should be made to your college.
The University's Committee on Student Hardship makes grants and loans
for the relief of financial hardship in cases where this was unforeseeable at the time of admission. The Committee meets once a term, and the application forms, which are held in your college office, must be completed and handed in to the designated college officer, probably the Senior Tutor, by the deadline, usually in Fourth Week (First Week in Trinity Term).
4.22 Examinations Each year a board of examiners is drawn from the Faculty to examine Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Prelims and Finals. The examiners are assisted by a number of assessors, also members of the Faculty, who spread the load and deal with some of the specialised subjects. It is chance whether any of your own tutors examines you. If that happens, the convention is that the tutor takes no part knowingly in deciding your result; but since scripts are anonymous, the convention is rarely operative. It is your personal responsibility to enter for University examinations, and if you enter after the due date, or change your options after submitting your entry, you must pay an administration fee. All students who are currently registered in their first year of the CAAH course will automatically be sent an exam entry form via their college. Colleges will receive exam entry forms approximately two weeks before each entry date, and your completed form, indicating which papers you intend to offer, should be submitted by 12 noon on the specified entry deadline. You will probably be given an earlier date for returning the form to your College Office in time for them to forward it to the appropriate authorities. The exam entry deadlines are published at http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/exams/entry/. Soon after you have submitted your exam entry, you will be able to check which papers you have been entered for by logging into Student Self Service, and should report any errors immediately to your college office. The examiners issue a timetable a few weeks before the examination; it is published at http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/exams/timetables/. The Examination Schools also sends each candidate a personalised copy of the timetable. About a month before the exam, the examiners send a memorandum to all candidates about the conduct of the examination. When planning your examination strategy, it is sensible to keep before your mind the nature of the examination method which the University uses (the conventional method in British higher education over the last two centuries). If the examiners allowed you to set the questions, you could prepare good answers in a few months; by setting the questions themselves, they ensure that a candidate cannot be adequately prepared without study over the whole course. They will therefore not be interested in answers which in any way are off the point, and they will severely penalise 'short weight' - too few properly written out answers. The examiners are looking for your own ideas and convictions. When you have selected a question, work out what it means and decide what you think is the answer to it. Then, putting pen to paper, state the answer and defend it; or, if you think there is no answer, explain why not. Abstain from background material. Do use examples to back up your arguments and suggestions, for without such evidence they become mere assertions. Don't write too much: many of those who
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run out of time have themselves to blame for being distracted into irrelevance. Good examinees emerge from the examination room with most of their knowledge undisplayed. At University examinations you must wear academic dress with 'sub-fusc' clothing. Academic dress is a gown, and a regulation cap or mortar board (must be mortar board for men). Sub-fusc clothing is: 1. Dark suit with dark socks, or dark skirt with black tights or stockings, or dark trousers with dark socks 2. Dark coat if required 3. Black shoes 4. Plain white collared shirt or blouse 5. White bow tie, black bow tie, black full-length tie, or black ribbon. There are special University regulations on the typing of illegible scripts (NB 'the cost of typing and invigilation shall not be a charge on university funds'), on the use of typewriters in examinations, on visually-impaired candidates, on candidates unable to take papers on certain days for religious reasons and on the use (where permitted) of computers in examinations; see the Examination Regulations. If your native language is not English, you may request to use your own bilingual dictionary during examinations. The request must go to the Proctors through your college, usually your Senior Tutor. The exam results (both the overall classification and marks on individual papers) are posted on Student Self-Service. If you have any problems connected with University examinations which you want to take further, never approach the examiners directly: always communicate through your Senior Tutor. This applies to complaints too (although every student has a statutory right to consult the Proctors directly on any matter at any time in their Oxford career). The regulations for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History are set out in the Examination Regulations, and are reproduced at the end of this Handbook.
4.23 Past Papers Past papers can be found online at https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/oxam.
4.24 Marking Conventions The conventions for marking and for assigning classes will be circulated to you some time before the examination, in a 'Circular to Candidates'. Each Board of Examiners takes over the practice of its predecessors and normally follows it closely, but some adjustment or modification is bound to take place over the years, as a result of changes in examination structure or in the interest of greater fairness.
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5. First Year Teaching Structure In your first year, the first two terms follow the same pattern. In the first term (MT), you do the integrated Archaeology-History Greek core class (8 joint-taught classes), and half of the teaching for your chosen Ancient History Special Subject (4 tutorials). (Please note: you need to have chosen both your Special Subjects and reported them to the Standing Committee at the latest by Fourth Week of MT. See below, Section 6.3.) You will also have weekly stand-alone classes on Approaches to History, Archaeology and Ancient Greek in the first few weeks of term. In the second term (HT), you do the Roman core class (8 classes) and the second half of your chosen Ancient History Special Subject (4 tutorials). There will also be an Introduction to Latin to accompany the Roman Core class. Those doing a language instead of one of the Special Subjects will be doing it alongside the core classes in both these terms. It is important for you and your College tutor to understand that this is your full workload in your first two terms and that you should not be doing further tutorials and/or essay-writing on top of it. Those giving the integrated classes will cover your academic development but will not be able to give individual personal guidance. You should arrange to see your College tutor at fairly regular intervals to discuss your progress and any difficulties you are having with the material and work from the core classes. In the third term (TT), you do your other chosen Archaeology Special Subject and revise the work you did in MT and HT for your Prelims exams. If you are doing a language and choose a History special subject rather than an archaeology one, you will also do that special subject in this term, not in MT-HT. The long summer vacation after your first year is the time you fulfil your fieldwork requirement.
6. Classical Archaeology and Ancient History: First Year The following sections describe in broad chronological sequence a number of varied events, obligations, and deadlines that you will have to meet during your first year, including information about your fieldwork requirement. They are summarised in Section 6.12. Note that the three terms of the academic year have the following local names and abbreviations which are widely used here. First term = Michaelmas Term (MT); Second term = Hilary Term (HT); Third term = Trinity Term (TT).
6.1 Integrated Class for Greek Core The first, preliminary meeting for the joint-taught core class ('Aristocracy and Democracy in the
SUMMARY OF TEACHING STRUCTURE FOR THE FIRST YEAR
Michaelmas Term Greek Core (8) Ancient History
Special Subject (4) or Language
Hilary Term Roman Core (8) Ancient History Special Subject (4) or Language
Trinity Term Archaeology Special Subject (8) Revision Long Vacation Fieldwork
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Greek World, 550-450 BC') is essential and takes place before term proper starts, usually on Thursday of Noughth Week. Look out for the circular telling you precisely where and when it takes place. You absolutely must attend this meeting. Be punctual! Those of you doing a language should also check in Noughth Week, through your tutor, what your class timetable will be and what the Language teachers expect of you. Alongside the Greek core class there will be weekly stand-alone sessions in the first half of term on the approaches to working with historical and archaeological material, and texts in the Greek language, which are intended to support your work in the class. The Greek session(s) will not require you to know – or learn! – the language in any depth, but are intended to give you some familiarity with the script and some tools to deal with the short words and phrases you will come across on vases, grave markers, and so on. These sessions are compulsory.
6.2 Special Subject Choices You need to start thinking early about which of the special subjects you would like to study in your first year, one in Ancient History, one in Archaeology. And you need to have reached a firm decision by Wednesday of 3rd week of your first term (Michaelmas Term), by when you must inform the Academic Support Officer ([email protected]). You should also start attending lectures for your special subjects in the first term (See Section 4.6).
6.3 Prelims Entry Forms These are the forms on which you are entered for the proper exams at the end of your first year. They indicate your various choices of subject, should be checked and discussed with your tutor, and submitted through your college to the Academic Records Office. The forms must be submitted by the deadline published at http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/exams/entry/.
6.4 Fieldwork Requirement Classical Archaeology and Ancient History students are required to attend for at least two weeks EITHER the training excavation at Dorchester, directed by Prof. Chris Gosden, OR another field project approved by the Standing Committee. This fieldwork should be carried out in the first summer vacation after Prelims, that is, this coming summer. Requests to defer all or part of the fieldwork requirement will only be entertained when circumstances beyond your control (e.g. illness, family bereavement, cancellation of project) have prevented you from carrying it out in the summer after Prelims. You need to have found your field project and been accepted for it by Wednesday of 3rd week in Hilary Term - the date by which you must submit your choice to the Academic Support Officer (on form CAAH01) for approval by the Standing Committee.
6.5 Fieldwork Opportunities There are a number of Oxford-based archaeological projects that accept CAAH students as volunteers; these opportunities vary by year, so look out for more information nearer the time or ask your tutor, CAAH Standing Committee Chair, or Core Class teachers at the beginning of Hilary Term. Worthy of particular note in the UK is the University of Reading's Silchester excavations, directed by Prof. Mike Fulford, who has for many years welcomed CAAH students on the project, and abroad the Sangro Valley project (www.sangro.org) where many CAAH students have trained in the past. There are also many other fieldwork possibilities, both
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in the UK and abroad, which are most easily explored first through the websites and publications listed below. The most useful and comprehensive resources are: (1) Archaeology Abroad, published by the Council for British Archaeology, and (2) Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin, published twice a year by the Archaeological Institute of America. The second is now available online (see below). The following are some of the most useful institutions, publications, and websites:
Council for British Archaeology:
www.britarch.ac.uk Produces listings in the CBA Briefing, either paper or online, with link to:
Archaeology Abroad: www.britarch.ac.uk/archabroad Their bulletin, published twice a year, lists opportunities for fieldwork. A copy is available for reference at the help desk in the Sackler Library.
American Institute of Archaeology: www.archaeological.org
Their Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin lists opportunities for fieldwork throughout the world. A copy is available for reference as above and is now available online at www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10015. See sidebar ‘how to find fieldwork’.
Current Archaeology: www.archaeology.co.uk The website of the publication Current Archaeology with links, articles, and a searchable database ('data centre') for excavations and fieldwork opportunities.
6.6 Fieldwork Grant In planning your fieldwork, you should know that the University allocates a sum (currently £500) per student for individual expenses related to your course. Up to this amount can be spent on your fieldwork project (for example, for travel to the site) or on a combination of fieldwork expenses and expenses associated with researching your site or museum report, which you will do in your second and third years. You should also apply to your college for any travel funds available to undergraduates (look out for your college's deadlines for such grants). As a precondition of receiving your fieldwork grant, you must submit a completed travel insurance and risk assessment form (form CAAH02, see section 6.7 below) to the Facilities & Events Officer in the Classics Office. To avoid any delays in your grant being paid into your bank account, you should submit form CAAH02 by Friday of Week 5 of Trinity Term, and your grant application (form CAAH04) by the end of Trinity Term.
6.7 Fieldwork: Health and Safety The University Safety Office advises that all students doing fieldwork as a mandatory part of their course must fill in a Health and Safety form, including the Risk Assessment that is part of the form. You should use the CAAH Travel Insurance Application And Risk Assessment Form (CAAH02), which is available in WebLearn at https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/content/group/classics/undergraduate/forms/CAAH/. You should fill in as much of it as you reasonably can. For help with the kind of things that might be listed in the Risk Assessment (Section Two) and how they might be assessed, please see www.admin.ox.ac.uk/safety/policy-statements/s5-07/. Keep your entries simple! For the projects most of you will be going on, the risks are likely to be at the 'Low' or 'Negligible' end of
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the spectrum. Your completed form should be submitted to the Facilities & Events Officer in the Classics Office, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU, preferably by 12 noon on Friday of 5th week of Trinity Term. Please do not be affronted by this piece of bureaucracy! The main ideas of the form are (a) to have on central file accurate details of where you are, and (b) to get all of us – students, tutors, project directors – to think seriously about safety issues.
6.8 Fieldwork: Brief Reports and Directors’ Reports All students are required to send the Standing Committee a report on their fieldwork of 1,000 (minimum) to 1,500 (maximum) words. You should devote most space to describing: (a) the nature of the site you went to, (b) the nature of the research project investigating the site and its main questions and most significant results, and (c) the role you played in the project and the work you did on the site. You should include a short bibliography of the most important publications of the project. You may also describe, more briefly, any particular good or bad things about the project that the Standing Committee and future students might usefully know. Your report should be sent as a file attachment by email to the Academic Support Officer in the Classics Office ([email protected]) by Friday of Week 0 of Michaelmas Term following the vacation in which the fieldwork was done. All students are also required to submit a satisfactory report on their work and progress on site from their field director or project director. A standard form (CAAH03) can be obtained from WebLearn at https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/content/group/classics/undergraduate/forms/CAAH/; please take a copy of the form with you to your fieldwork project and ask the director to complete it before you leave your site. Form CAAH03 should also be returned to the Academic Support Officer in the Classics Office by Friday of Week 0 of Michaelmas Term. The reports will be read by the Standing Committee, and unsatisfactory fieldwork reports will be returned for improvement. Although not an examined part of your degree, these reports are an integral part of your fieldwork requirement.
6.9 Language Options in Second Year and Summer Schools If you think you would like to do one of the language options in the second year of the course, it is a good idea to prepare for it by attending a language Summer School in the long vacation. This should be discussed with your tutor, and the decision to take a language needs to be made in time to enrol for a Summer School by their deadline. The deadline for applications for the Language Summer Schools is usually in March.
6.10 Second and Third Year Choices Towards the end of your first year, the Standing Committee needs to do detailed planning for the teaching of the core courses and special subjects in your second and third years. Therefore, in your third term (Trinity Term) you need to have thought about your firm or probable choices for years 2 and 3, and you need to submit them on form CAAH05 (available in WebLearn) to the Academic Support Officer ([email protected]) by Wednesday of 3rd week of Trinity Term. The Finals Handbook with details of the courses and options will be available at the beginning of Trinity Term.
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6.11 Summary for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Year 1 This calendar summarises the main events, obligations, and deadlines described above in Section 5. Deadlines are marked in bold.
First Term (Michaelmas) Week 0 Preliminary meeting for Greek Core class Week 1 Mon: Lectures start Week 3 Wed: Special subject choices to Academic Support Officer Week 8 Prelims exam entry form due in (see
http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/exams/entry/ for deadline) Second Term (Hilary) Week 3
Wed: Fieldwork choices (form CAAH01) to Academic Support Officer
March Applications for language summer schools Third Term (Trinity) Week 3 Wed: 2nd and 3rd Year subject choices (form CAAH05) to
Academic Support Officer Week 5 Fri: Travel insurance and risk assessment form (CAAH02) to
Facilities & Events Officer Week 8 Fri: Fieldwork grant claim form (CAAH04) to Academic
Support Officer Week 9 Mon-Fri: Prelims Exams.
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Course Descriptions
7.1 Core Subjects: Approaches to Classical Archaeology and Ancient History These core subjects look at two periods of revolution and rapid re-orientation, one Greek, one Roman. The periods are approached simultaneously from historical and archaeological perspectives, and are designed to introduce the methods and materials available for the study of the ancient world and to cut across and between periods studied in Finals. Opportunity is taken to introduce the history of the two converging disciplines of ancient history and classical archaeology, and attention is paid to methodology and the complementary nature of written, material, and visual evidence. The broad subjects engaged are the effects of two quite different historical upheavals on the political, social, material, and visual environments of Early Greece on the one hand and Late Republican Rome on the other – as well as their effects on the forms and character of the surviving historical and archaeological records of the two periods and the ways they can be studied. Both these courses are taught in small classes led by an ancient historian and an archaeologist together.
I. Aristocracy and democracy in the Greek world 550-450 BC Exciting changes shook and transformed the Greek world during the late archaic period. The most well-known of these, narrated brilliantly by Herodotus, is that during the second half of the sixth century B.C. Persia emerged as a young, vigorous empire and clashed with the Greeks of the Aegean. The impact of this interaction was profound in political, material, and artistic terms, but there were other internal dynamics and changes taking place too with equally momentous results, especially in the articulation and renegotiation of power between different groups. The central theme of the classes is to bring out the different perspectives that may be gained on the period by using the archaeological and written evidence in isolation and in combination. Class topics: 1. All for One and One for Oneself: Archaic Tyrants and the case of Samos under Polykrates; 2. Aristocrats & Peisistratid Athens; 3. The power of drink: the Symposion; 4. Traditional power: Sparta; 5. Coining Power: Coinage & Trade; 6. Power and the divine: Sanctuaries; 7. Power to the people? Kleisthenic Democracy; 8. Power struggles: Encountering the Mede. (Convenor: Dr M. Stamatopoulou, Lincoln) II. Republic to Empire: Rome 50 BC to AD 50 The course studies the impact of the first emperors on the history and archaeology of Rome and its subject states in the period of revolution and transition from Late Republic to Early Empire. Some themes and topics are: Roman political culture in crisis, Republican war-lords to Augustan princeps; emperor, senate, and the evolving administration; the Julio-Claudian dynasty and court culture; the city of Rome, imperial building, and imperial representation; villas and villa culture – wallpainting, marbles, gardens and suburban parks; municipal culture - houses, amenities, tombs, and freedman art; land-use and the countryside – estates, vici, and centuriated settlement; manufacture, trade, and natural resources – coins, amphorae, and quarries; the archaeology of the frontier armies; traditional religion and emperor cult. Typically, there would be classes on 1. Augustan Political Culture; 2. The Army and the Frontiers; 3. Municipal Culture; 4. Villas; 5. Julio-Claudian Self-Representation; 6. Manufacture, Commerce and Trade; 7. Romanisation and Colonisation; 8. Imperial Cult. (Convenor: Dr J. Quinn, Worcester)
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7.2 Special Subjects and Languages You choose two special subjects, one from each group below, or one special subject from either group and an ancient language.
A. SPECIAL SUBJECTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Archaeology: The subjects are concerned with the most characteristic products of several broad periods – the Bronze and Dark Ages to 700 BC, the Archaic and Classical periods, and the Roman period. Any one of these courses provides a good foundation in the materials and methods of Classical Archaeology. You learn here how to interpret monuments, images, and artefacts, how to relocate them in their ancient contexts and their own evolving traditions, and how they can be made to do broad historical work. These subjects provide training in the handling of material and visual evidence.
A.1. Homeric Archaeology and Early Greece, 1550-700 BC This subject comprises the archaeological history of the last centuries of the Minoan and Mycenaean world, and the first of the Greek Iron Age, the setting in which the Homeric poems were formed and which they reflect in various ways. This is where classical Greek culture and literature begin. The course covers the full range of material evidence and artefacts surviving from this period of which there is an excellent representative collection in the Ashmolean Museum. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. (Convenor: Dr L. Bendall, Keble).
A.2. Greek Vases Painted vases give the fullest visual account of life and mythology in ancient Greece and provide important archaeological data for refining and adding to our knowledge of various aspects of ancient culture. The course looks at the techniques and functions of painted ceramics as well as their subjects and styles, from the eighth to the fourth centuries BC. The Ashmolean Museum has a fine collection of painted pottery of the period covered by the course, and examples from the collection are used in classes and lectures. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions (Convenor: Dr T. Mannack, Beazley Archive, Ioannou Centre).
A.3. Greek Sculpture, c. 600-300 BC Greek statues and reliefs in marble and bronze retain today a strong visual impact, and our knowledge of the subject is being constantly improved and revised by dramatic new discoveries, from excavation and shipwrecks. The course studies the emergence and uses of large marble statues in the archaic period, the development of bronze as a large-scale medium, and the revolution in seeing and representing that brought in the new visual system that we know as 'classical', in the fifth and fourth centuries. The Cast Gallery, located behind the Ashmolean, has an excellent collection of plaster casts of major sculptures from this period. Practical classes are given in the Cast Gallery using the casts to illustrate ways of assessing and interpreting ancient statues and reliefs. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. (Convenor: Prof. R.R.R. Smith, Cast Gallery).
A.4. Roman Architecture Architecture was the Roman art par excellence, and Roman buildings provide some of the most impressive and best preserved monuments from the ancient world. The course studies the materials, technology, and functions of the buildings as well as their appearance and effect, from the Republic to the Tetrarchy, in Italy and the provinces as well as in Rome itself. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. (Convenor: Dr J. DeLaine, Institute of Archaeology).
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B. SPECIAL SUBJECTS IN HISTORY
B.1. Thucydides and the West The course studies the history of the Greek cities of Sicily and South Italy and their relations with mainland Greek states in the 5th century BC through the lens of Thucydides' penetrating account of the Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415 BC. Topics include: the earlier diplomatic and military involvement of Athens in the west; Syracuse and Syracusan politics; the background in Athenian politics and religion and the affairs of the Herms and the Mysteries; and Thucydides' presentation of individuals, especially Nicias and Alcibiades, compared with their presentation in Plutarch. The prescribed text for study in translation is Thucydides VI and VII (from M. Hammond (tr.), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)). Candidates will also be expected to be familiar with Plutarch, Nicias. (Convenor: Dr J. Prag, Merton).
Translation: Thucydides VI and VII: M. Hammond (tr.), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) [Plutarch, Nicias (Loeb)]
B.2. Aristophanes' Political Comedy The course studies Athenian politics and culture in the later fifth century BC as represented in the comedies of Aristophanes. Its subject is Old Comedy as a distorting mirror of the major events and currents of the day – the new-style politicians (Cleon and others), the new intellectuals (the 'sophists'), strains in traditional religion, the roles of women, the Peloponnesian War, and social conflict in the city and countryside. Compulsory passages for comment will be set from Wasps and Knights. Candidates will also be expected to be familiar with Lysistrata and the 'Old Oligarch' writing on the 'Athenian Constitution'. (Convenor: Dr L. Kallet, Univ). Translation: Knights, Lysistrata, Wasps: A.H Sommerstein, Aris and Phillips. The ‘Old Oligarch’: J. L. Marr, P. J. Rhodes (trans.), The 'Old Oligarch': The Constitution of the Athenians Attributed to Xenophon. Aris & Phillips Classical Texts. Oxford: Aris & Phillips, 2008 B.3. Cicero and Catiline
The course studies Catiline's conspiracy against the Roman state in 63 BC and Cicero's controversial role in its suppression. Topics covered include the following: the social and economic problems in Italy, particularly from the period of Sulla onwards, that contributed towards support for the conspiracy; the political and ideological background, particularly the Sullan constitutional reforms and subsequent struggles over them; the more immediate political background, notably the careers of Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, and Catiline himself; the events of early 63; the relation of the revolutionary leaders to each other; the problem of the senatus consultum ultimum and the debate on the fate of the conspirators. The texts relating to the conspiracy are abundant and detailed but also biased and sometimes contradictory. Students learn the ways of Roman political and historical rhetoric. The texts prescribed for study in translation are: Sallust, Catiline; Cicero, In Catilinam I-IV, Pro Sulla; Asconius, In orationem in toga candida. (Convenor: Dr E. Bispham, Brasenose).
Translations: Sallust, Catiline (Loeb) Cicero, In Catilinam I-IV (Loeb) Cicero, Pro Sulla (Loeb) Asconius, In orationem in toga candida, in Asconius, Commentaries on Speeches by Cicero, ed. R.G. Lewis, Oxford 2006
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B.4. Tacitus and Tiberius Why did Tacitus, writing a century after the events he was describing, choose to begin his history of early imperial Rome with a long and jaundiced account of the grim Tiberius, rather than with the reign of the much-admired Augustus? The course studies Tacitus' representation of Tiberius against the background of surviving contemporary evidence, and particular emphasis will be given to recently discovered inscriptions on bronze – the Tabula Siarensis, the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone patre, and the Senatus Consultum from Larinum. Topics include the attitudes of both the Senate and Roman people towards Tiberius and to the imperial family as a whole. The text prescribed for study in translation is Tacitus, Annals I-VI, with gobbets to be set from books I and III. (Course convenor: Dr K. Clarke, St Hilda’s). Translations: Tacitus, Annals, I, III [and II, IV-VI]. A.J. Woodman, tr., The Annals of Tacitus, Indianapolis, Hackett, 2004
C. ANCIENT LANGUAGES
C.1. Beginning Ancient Greek (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in ancient Greek above GCSE-level or equivalent.)
The course will allow takers to read simple, if probably adapted, prose texts. Candidates will be required to show knowledge of some of the main grammatical structures of ancient Greek and of a small basic vocabulary. The paper will consist of prepared and unprepared prose translations, with grammatical questions on the prepared texts. Course book: (parts of) John Taylor: Greek to GCSE (Bristol Classical Press, 2003), in addition to extra material supplied in classes.
C.2. Beginning Latin (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above GCSE-level or equivalent.)
The course will allow takers to read simple, if probably adapted, prose texts. Candidates will be required to show knowledge of some of the main grammatical structures of Latin and of a small basic vocabulary. The paper will consist of prepared and unprepared prose translations, with grammatical questions on the prepared texts. Course book: John Taylor, Essential GCSE Latin (Bristol Classical Press, 2006), in addition to extra material supplied in classes. C.3. Intermediate Ancient Greek (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in ancient Greek above AS-level or equivalent.)
Candidates will be required to show an intermediate level knowledge of Greek grammar and vocabulary (including all syntax and morphology, as laid out in Abbot and Mansfield, Primer of Greek Accidence).
The set texts for the course are: Xenophon, Hellenica I (Oxford Classical Text) and Lysias I (Oxford Classical Text). The paper will consist of a passage of unseen prose translation, three further passages for translation from the two prescribed texts, and grammatical questions on the prescribed texts. Useful editions with commentaries: Xenophon, Hellenika I-II.3.10, ed. P. Krentz (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1989); Lysias: Selected Speeches, ed. C. Carey (Cambridge: CUP, 1989).
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C.4. Intermediate Latin (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above AS-level or equivalent.)
Candidates will be required to show an intermediate level knowledge of Latin grammar and vocabulary (including all syntax and morphology, as laid out in Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer). The set texts for the course are: Cicero, letters in D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero: Select Letters (Cambridge, 1980), nos 9, 17, 23, 27, 39, 42-3, 45; Tacitus, Agricola (Oxford Classical Text); Pliny, letters in A. N. Sherwin-White, Fifty Letters of Pliny, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1969), nos 25, 29. The paper will consist of a passage of unseen prose translation, three further passages for translation from the prescribed texts, and grammatical questions on the prescribed texts. Useful editions with commentaries: Cicero: Select Letters, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge: CUP, 1980); Cornelii Taciti, De Vita Agricolae, eds R. M. Ogilvie and I. RicMDond (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967); Fifty Letters of Pliny, ed. A. N. Sherwin-White, 2nd edn (Oxford: OUP, 1969).
C.5. Advanced Ancient Greek (This subject is available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above AS-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be expected to be familiar with An Anthology of Greek Prose ed. D.A. Russell (Oxford University Press 1991), Nos. 17, 18, 23, 24, 33, 40, 44, 66, 78, from which a selection of passages will be set for translation, in addition to a passage for unseen translation. Candidates will also be expected to translate from TWO of the following texts: (i) Herodotus I.1-94 [ed. Hude, OCT]; (ii) Plutarch, Life of Antony 1-9, 23-36, 71-87 [ed. Pelling, Cambridge University Press, 1988]; (iii) Euripides, Bacchae [ed. Diggle, OCT].
C.6. Advanced Latin (This subject is available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above AS-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be expected to be familiar with An Anthology of Latin Prose ed. D.A. Russell (OUP 1990), nos. 7, 12, 22, 23, 34, 52 and 63, from which a selection of passages will be set for translation, in addition to a passage for unseen translation. Candidates will also be expected to translate from TWO of the following texts: (i) Cicero, Pro Caelio [ed. OCT]. (ii) Pliny, Letters 1.6, 9, 13, 19; VII.21, 24, 26, 29; VIII.16, 17; IX.6, 12, 15, 27, 33, 39; X.31, 32, 96, 97 (ed. M.B. Fisher and M.R. Griffin, CUP 1973) (iii) Ovid, Metamorphoses 8 (ed. A.S. Hollis, OUP 1970)
These courses will be taught by Faculty classes, for three hours per week during Michaelmas and Hilary Terms. (Convenor for Ancient Language Courses: Ms J. Kerkhecker).
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7.3 Fieldwork Students are required to participate for at least two weeks in a fieldwork project approved by the Standing Committee, where they will be given training in excavation techniques and recording. Attendance and satisfactory participation (unclassed) are to be confirmed in writing by the relevant project director. The fieldwork should normally be carried out in the first summer vacation after Prelims. See above Sections 6.5-6.9.
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8. Picture Questions: Guidelines 1. Introduction. There are compulsory picture questions set in many of your archaeology exam papers. These guidelines offer ways of approach, aspects that might be discussed, and a sequence in which they might be addressed. Others are possible. 2. Not primarily an identification test. A crucial sentence in the rubric governing all picture questions says they will be of things "of which you are not expected necessarily to have prior knowledge". In other words, the pictures may show familiar things that you may quickly recognise, or they may equally show things that you are unlikely to have seen before. There are so many objects that some candidates might have come across, others not, that Examiners are not thinking in terms of what should or should not be recognised. So: Identification is not the main point of the picture question. Examiners want to see you bring wide knowledge of the subject to bear in assessing a single specific example, and to see how you can use a specific example to make telling general points. 3. Aspects, headings. The following headings and aspects might be covered, some briefly, some more fully. A: TITLE. Give a brief summarising title to your answer. If you recognise the item, give its familiar title and state quickly anything else you can remember of its material, subject, date, provenance, and current location: 'Artemision Zeus, over life-size bronze statue, ca. 470 BC, from Cape Artemision, Athens National Museum'. If you don't recognise the item, give a plain descriptive title, perhaps mentioning a preliminary assessment of its broad date and likely place of manufacture, if you know them, which you might come back to in your discussion: ‘Athenian black-figure cup, 6th century BC’. ‘Marble portrait bust of bearded man, 2nd century AD’. After the title, you might need to say what kind of picture you have been set: photo, photo detail, drawing, reconstruction. Drawings of sites and buildings are of course different: state plan, restored plan, elevation, section, reconstruction. B: OBJECT (material, scale, function). What is it? What kind of object or structure is shown? What is it made of? Gold earring, silver drinking cup, bronze helmet, terracotta statuette, marble temple. What was its function, what was it for? Often this is self-evident (helmet, earring) or obvious enough to be quickly stated: ‘black-figure krater for mixing wine and water’, ‘marble grave stele’, ‘amphitheatre for gladiatorial games and beast hunts’. Sometimes function requires discussion: a marble statue might be, for example, a cult, votive, or funerary figure, or a piece of Roman villa decor. Function might lead to discussion of contexts of use and to the effect of such an object in a sanctuary, cemetery, or villa. C: SUBJECT (iconography). If the item is figured, what does it represent? Give a brief description of the subject, its iconography: pose, action, clothes, hairstyle, action, attributes of a statue; the action, participants, subject of a narrative scene. How do you recognise the figure(s), what is the action, occasion, setting represented, how is the story told? For non-figured artefacts and structures, briefly describe their form and main components: a pebble mosaic floor with alternating black and white lozenge pattern, an engaged tetrastyle Ionic tomb facade with brightly painted red and blue pediment and akroteria. Learn and use the appropriate professional terminology – for example, for pot shapes or parts of classical buildings. This is not exclusionary jargon but a way of being accurate and concise. In describing a temple, 'amphiprostyle' is shorter and clearer (once you have learned it) than 'has columned porches on both short ends but no columns on the long sides'. If you do not recognise the subject or the building type, you will spend longer here providing a careful description of what you see. Remark on any interesting details: show you have looked. D: STYLE (with technique, date, place). How is the subject represented, how is the figure styled, how was the object or structure made? This can be shorter or longer, but the key is to
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find good descriptive words and to find one to three parallels or comparanda between or beside which the item in question can be placed. From this process you should deduce a precise or broad assessment of its place and date of manufacture. Style and technique are usually among the most time- and place-specific aspects. Do not be more precise than you can sustain from your knowledge or than the category of object in question can sustain. Remember not all things can be dated or placed with equal precision. Sometimes we may say confidently 'Corinthian aryballos, c. 650 BC'. Other times we must be broad: 'marble statue, probably 4th century BC'. If unsure, give a broad specification. Any points of interest that you know or can see in the picture that relate to technique, craft, or manufacturing aspects can be discussed with style. They are often closely connected to stylistic effect, and often carry indications of date. For example, white-ground lekythoi with 'second' white belong 480-450 BC. Roman portraits with drilled eyes belong after c. AD 130. E: SIGNIFICANCE. If you have recognised the object or have been able quickly to diagnose its function, subject, date, and place, you will spend most time on this aspect. You will score higher the more you can make your points come out of observation or assessment of the specific item to hand. You might think about the object's significance in relation to one or more of the following overlapping questions. How typical or unusual is it? How typical is it of other things like it? How does it fit in to a larger category? If not typical now, how unusual was it in antiquity? Remember few things that survive can have been unique. If we have one or two, there were once lots. So beware the charge – much levelled at data-rich classical archaeology – of taking what we have of antiquity as typical of what there once was (the 'positivist fallacy'). What was the original effect of the object compared to the state we see it in now? What needs to be restored – limbs, attributes, attachments, colours, pedestal, base, explanatory inscription? What were the contexts of use – public, private, political, religious, in public square, sanctuary, house, symposium room bedroom, grave? How do the contexts of use affect our assessment of the object? Can we reconstruct any activities or rituals associated with it that gave the object its meaning? What aspects of life in its place and period does it answer to – social, political, cultural, religious? What does this particular example add, if anything, compared to others like it? For example, some pieces, such as the Riace bronzes, were typical (high-quality lifesize bronze statues), but for us add a level of production and startling effect we didn't have before. Other things can be simply typical of well-attested categories. A few things were genuinely unusual, such as the Vix krater and Trajan's Column. What was the social level of the object, who commissioned and paid for it, with what target audience in mind? How would the object's social level affect our assessment? For example, classical temple projects were aimed at the whole community. Roman funerary monuments aimed often at a particular social group – fellow freedmen, for example. What ideas, values, aspirations did it articulate for its user group? What kinds of things would ancient viewers/users do or say around this object, image, or structure? What kinds of scholarly interpretation have been proposed for this object or for the category to which it belongs? Do you agree with them, find them persuasive? What weaknesses do they have? Are other views possible, better? What do you think is the important point? 4. SAMPLE A: ITEM RECOGNISED. Artemision Zeus, bronze statue, over-lifesize, ca. 460 BC, from the sea off Cape Artemision (N. Euboea), Athens National Museum. The statue was probably a major votive in a sanctuary. It represents a naked and senior god, in striding pose, left arm held out, aiming, right arm bent holding a missile, now missing. The
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missile was either a trident (for Poseidon) or a thunderbolt (for Zeus). The best parallels in small bronzes from the late archaic and early classical periods (good example in Berlin) as well as the latest scholarship all suggest a thunderbolt and Zeus. The square head, regular features, and above all the long hairstyle wound in a plait around the head, visible in the back, indicate a senior god (rather than hero or mortal). The strong, simplified features, the hard-muscled body, and the organic pose and proportions all indicate a date in the 460s alongside the Olympia sculptures. The large eyes, now missing, were inlaid and were vital to the effect of the figure. The twisted left foot looks damaged and affects the fluency of the composition. The statue belongs in the period after the Persian wars, when the hard, new realistic-looking style we know as 'Severe' was created in big votive figures like this one, set up in sanctuaries of the gods often as thank offerings paid for from Persian wars booty. The figure is a powerful fifth-century-BC visualisation of a warring Hellenic divinity imperious, all-seeing, potentially devastating. It belongs in the same environment as the Riace bronzes and the statuesque figures on the large pots of the Niobid Painter and his group. 5. SAMPLE B: ITEM NOT RECOGNISED. Reconstruction drawing of terrace sanctuary. Probably central Italian. Probably later second or first century BC. The drawing shows a huge raised platform (c. 130 by 70 m, according to scale), terraced against a steep slope that falls away to the left (north). The terrace is supported here on tall, buttressed sub-structures, which are cut away in the drawing to show they are made up of parallel, no doubt concrete, vaults. The mouth of a tunnel emerges from the sub-structure at front left and is shown as a road or passageway (?) running under and through the substructures from front to back. The terrace is enclosed on three sides by complex, triple-aisled, two-storeyed stoas or portico buildings. The drawing seems to show these stoas have three aisles at terrace or ground level, stepped back to two aisles in the upper storey with a flat roof/walkway (?) above the outer first-storey colonnade – an architectural configuration hard to parallel(?). The temple is shown as prostyle hexastyle (order not specified in drawing) set on a tall podium with a tall flight of steps at the front only, flanked by cheek walls to each side. The front (west) side, in front of the temple, is open and looks out over the surrounding country. The massively engineered temple platform suggests a terrace sanctuary of the late Republic, like those at Praeneste and Terracina, built in central Italy in imitation of (and in competition with) Hellenistic terraced sanctuaries such as those at Kos, Lindos, and Pergamon. The scale, concrete vaulting, strict axiality of the plan, and the prostyle design of the temple are all typical Italian-Roman features – as also is the small theatre sunk into the front of the terrace. The money and ideas for such sanctuaries came from the new business and cultural opportunities opened by the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic east. 6. Conclusion. Your task is to use careful description and relative comparison to make the item shown speak or look as it did for its ancient audience and users. You need to use your knowledge of the subject to create a useful context for it and so bring out its significance. If you know what the item is, do not waste time pretending you do not recognise it! This will be counterproductive. If you do not know what the item is, do not guess – look, describe, compare, deduce!
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9. Ancient History Text ‘Gobbets’: Guidelines A gobbet is a passage of text on the content, the context and the significance of which you are asked to comment.
1. Context. This can have two parts. The first (always relevant) is where you locate the passage in the historical work in which it appears. (This shows an agreeable familiarity with the work in question.) The second (relevant if an event is at issue) is where you locate the episode in its historical context, with attention to chronology, geography, and the like. (This shows agreeable familiarity with the historical setting.)
2. Content. This is where you explain details necessary to the understanding of the passage, e.g. identify (briefly) named individuals, anyone or anything referred to by pronouns, any interesting places; explain constitutional details referred to and the like.
3. Significance. This is where you explain why and how this particular passage is interesting/important. The passage might reveal something about the method, or whatever, of the historian; it might offer interesting comparison with one or more other ancient accounts, inscriptions, monuments, or artefacts; it might contain material central to the understanding or interpretation of the actions/policy/ ..... of some or all of the characters involved; it might contain a chronological problem; it might well do more than one of the above or other similar things besides. In any case, what difference does this passage and its interpretation make to our understanding of something?
It is not expected that people will have extensive recall of all that is to be found in Commentaries. This is not what is being looked for. What is being looked for is, rather, familiarity with prescribed texts and ability to deal, in an informed and perceptive way, with significant passages from those texts.
DO read the passage carefully. DO focus your response on the passage in question. DO NOT spend time simply paraphrasing the passage. Specimen gobbet 1
This extract comes from Cicero’s speech to the people in the forum late in the afternoon of the 3rd December 63 BC. In this speech he reported the events of the previous night, when Volturcius was captured at the Mulvian Bridge while trying to leave Rome with the Allobroges, and of the meeting in the senate the following day, when the urban conspiracy was revealed thanks to the evidence of the Allobroges and Volturcius. This passage describes how, on the morning of the 3rd December, while the senate was assembling (interea, l.1), Cicero instructed the praetor Gaius Sulpicius to search the house of C. Cornelius Cethegus. When challenged before the senate to explain the presence of so many weapons in his house, Cethegus supposedly claimed that he had always enjoyed collecting good metalwork. Apart from the letters from the conspirators to the Allobroges and
Atque interea statim admonitu Allobrogum C. Sulpicium praetorem, fortem virum, misi qui ex aedibus Cethegi si quid telorum esset efferret; ex quibus ille maximum sicarum numerum et gladiorum extulit. In the meantime, following the advice of the Allobroges, I immediately sent that gallant man, the praetor C. Sulpicius, to get from the house of Cethegus any weapons that were there, and he brought out a very large number of daggers and swords.
(CICERO, In Cat. 3.8)
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Lentulus’ letter to Catiline, this cache of arms was virtually the only hard evidence Cicero had for the urban conspiracy. Cicero elsewhere describes Cethegus as violent and impetuous; he is said to have been appointed to oversee the massacre of the senate. Cicero also says that although the other conspirators wanted to wait until the Saturnalia before launching the massacre, Cethegus wanted to bring the date forward. He was one of the five conspirators executed on the night of the 5th December. The Allobroges were a tribe from Transalpine Gaul. They were heavily in debt to Roman businessmen at this period, and the envoys appear to have been sent to Rome to petition the senate for debt-relief. If they hoped for more favourable treatment through their betrayal of the conspirators, they were disappointed; the following year the Allobroges were driven to open revolt by the pressure of debt. It is interesting to find a praetor engaged in searching the house. Cicero made much use of the urban praetors in the course of his suppression of the conspiracy. Their main responsibility at this period was to preside over the law-courts, but they could also serve as the consul’s immediate ‘enforcers’ at a time of crisis. Cicero sent two praetors with an armed force to arrest Volturcius on the 2nd December, and at the start of November, as Sallust tells us, two more praetors had been sent out at the head of armies to quell unrest in other parts of Italy. Specimen gobbet 2
This passage is taken from Cicero’s third speech against Catiline. His four surviving speeches against Catiline are our main contemporary source for the Catilinarian conspiracy. The speeches as we have them may not represent exactly what was said by Cicero at the time, since we have evidence for Cicero revising his speeches later for publication (as in the case of the pro Milone, as reported by Asconius). Here Cicero describes how, on the information of the Allobroges, he sent the praetor C. Sulpicius to bring whatever weapons he could find from the house of Cethegus, one of the conspirators. He is said to have found a very large number of daggers and swords, proving that Cethegus was involved in the conspiracy and that a massacre was being planned at Rome. However, it is not certain whether Catiline was actually involved in this plot or whether this was an independent conspiracy, as Seager has argued. Sulpicius is described as a ‘gallant man’ (fortem virum). Cicero must have been grateful to him for taking on this task, which might have been very dangerous. No-one knew how far the conspiracy went, and Cethegus could have tried to resist when Sulpicius searched his house. The mention of the Allobroges is interesting. They were Gallic tribesmen whom Cethegus and others had tried to bring into the conspiracy. Their decision to betray the conspiracy to Cicero was crucial to the uncovering of the plot, and they were later rewarded for this. Cethegus was convicted of involvement in the Catilinarian conspiracy, and was executed after the debate in the senate on the 5th December. The execution of Cethegus and the others brought Cicero great unpopularity in later years, since despite the passing of the SCU
Atque interea statim admonitu Allobrogum C. Sulpicium praetorem, fortem virum, misi qui ex aedibus Cethegi si quid telorum esset efferret; ex quibus ille maximum sicarum numerum et gladiorum extulit. In the meantime, following the advice of the Allobroges, I immediately sent that gallant man, the praetor C. Sulpicius, to get from the house of Cethegus any weapons that were there, and he brought out a very large number of daggers and swords.
(CICERO, In Cat. 3.8)
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(senatus consultum ultimum) he was perceived to have acted unconstitutionally. This passage suggests that Cicero had some justification for his actions, since the cache of arms at Cethegus’ house proved that a major plot against the state was underway. Comments:
Specimen gobbet 1 would normally expect to receive a good first-class mark; Specimen gobbet 2 a low-ish 2:2 mark. Why? Paragraph 1. Both candidates provide general context. But Student 1 provides in the very first sentence four pieces of information which could not be gained simply by reading the passage: (1) to the people (2) in the forum (3) late afternoon [after the meeting of the senate] (4) 3rd Dec. 63 BC. In the rest of the paragraph, Student 1 accurately summarises enough of the content of the speech to make sense of the passage at hand (uncovering of conspiracy thanks to Allobroges), and shows that she remembers the name of the crucial figure (Volturcius). Student 2, however, in her first sentence says nothing which couldn’t be learned by reading the reference (CICERO, In Cat. 3.8) at the bottom of the passage. The second and third sentences look at first sight somewhat more impressive, but in fact could be used for any gobbet from any part of the Catilinarians - hence they get no credit. Paragraph 2. Student 1 situates the passage precisely in time (reference of interea). Writing Gaius Cornelius rather than C. Cornelius takes half a second longer and shows that she knows what C. stands for. She remembers Cethegus’ defence against the accusation of hoarding arms (shows pleasing knowledge of the rest of the speech). Student 2 summarises the whole passage, which Student 1 rightly doesn’t bother to do. The final sentence of Student 2’s paragraph 2, on Catiline and Seager, again looks superficially impressive, but is in fact completely irrelevant to the passage at issue (could be inserted into almost any gobbet on any of the Catilinarians!). Paragraph 3. Student 1 tells us what else she knows about Cethegus. Not much detail, but that’s ok: does at least show that she has read the sources carefully enough to remember who’s who. Student 2 knows nothing else at all about Cethegus, so guesses (incorrectly) that the examiner might be interested in her views on the phrase fortem virum, which are all too obviously based on no knowledge whatsoever. This kind of ‘arguing from first principles’ is very characteristic of desperate exam candidates whose knowledge has run out two sentences into the gobbet... Paragraph 4 in both cases is a bit pointless: with a richer gobbet to work with, you could omit this altogether. Once again, Student 1 provides relevant argument (why the Allobroges got involved in the conspiracy, and why they betrayed it); Student 2 provides summary of events (what the Allobroges did). Paragraph 5. It doesn’t matter that Student 1 can’t remember any names here (an examiner would probably need to look them up too) - the point is that she shows she has been paying attention while reading the set texts. Student 2 has patently run out of information, and piles in some random information (the SCU, described in two different ways to fill space), before guessing at the ‘significance’ of the passage. In general: Student 1 can do names, dates, places, content of the speech, what happens immediately before and immediately afterwards. Student 2 has absolutely nothing to work with but the passage itself and a broad and general knowledge of the conspiracy as a whole. Student 1 knows what a praetor is and does, and worries about whether praetors usually got involved in house-searches; this leads her on to speculate (relevantly!) about what the praetors’ role might have been in the suppression of the conspiracy. Student 2 evidently thinks: praetor, quaestor, censor, proctor, whatever.
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10. Plagiarism 1. Plagiarism is the use of material appropriated from another source or from other sources with the intention of passing it off as one’s own work. Plagiarism may take the form of unacknowledged quotation or substantial paraphrase. Sources of material include all printed and electronically available publications in English or other languages, or unpublished materials, including theses, written by others. You should be aware that there are now sophisticated electronic mechanisms for identifying plagiarised passages. The Proctors regard plagiarism as a serious form of cheating for which offenders can expect to receive severe penalties, possibly including disqualification from the examination process. Plagiarism in tutorial essays or other work which is not formally examined is a disciplinary matter for Colleges, who may choose to apply a range of severe penalties, including rustication or even sending down. You should also be aware that anyone writing a reference for you in the future, who is aware that you have plagiarised work, may feel obliged to mention this fact in their reference. Unintentional plagiarism, that is improper or sloppy working practice which leads to failure to acknowledge properly the sources of your ideas or information, may also be penalised by the Examiners. 'Unintentional plagiarism' is recognised as a specific offence by the Proctors.
2. Your work will inevitably sometimes involve the use and discussion of critical material written by others with due acknowledgement and with references given. This is standard critical practice and can be clearly distinguished from appropriating without acknowledgement material produced by others and presenting it as your own, which is what constitutes plagiarism.
3. A thesis or report is essentially your view of the subject. While you will be expected to be familiar with critical views and debates in relation to the subject on which you are writing, and to discuss them as necessary, it is your particular response to the theme or question at issue that is required. 4. When you read the primary texts that you will be discussing, it is a good idea to find your own examples of episodes, themes, arguments, etc in them that you wish to discuss. If you work from your own examples, you will be much less likely to appropriate other people’s materials. 5. When you are taking notes from secondary sources, a) Always note author, title (of book or journal, and essay or article title as appropriate), place of publication (for books), and page numbers. b) If you copy out material word for word from secondary sources, make sure that you identify it as quotation (by putting inverted commas round it) in your notes. This will ensure that you recognise it as such when you are reading it through in preparing your thesis. c) At the same time always note down page numbers of quoted material. This will make it easier for you to check back if you are in doubt about any aspect of a reference. It will also be a necessary part of citation (see 6 below). 6. When you are writing make sure that you identify material quoted from critics or ideas and arguments that are particularly influenced by them. There are various ways of doing this, in your text and in footnotes: see the Site/Museum Report Guidelines above. If you are substantially indebted to a particular scholar’s arguments in the formulation of your materials, it may not be enough to cite his or her work once in a footnote at the start or the end of the essay. Make clear, if necessary in the body of your text, the extent of your dependence on these arguments in the generation of your own – and, ideally, how your views develop or diverge from this influence. You should also take care to allow readers / examiners to form a judgement as to the full
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extent of your engagement with particular sources or published discussions. In other words, you should flag the point at which your discussion begins to depend heavily on a published work, and the point(s) at which you introduce ideas or hypotheses derived from different published material. For example, you if you have a five-page discussion which is based on, or engages with, Source A, you should indicate this at the start of, and where appropriate, during, those five pages; it is misleading to cite Source A only at the end of the discussion based on it. In addition, it is not sufficient to simply to lift citations of relevant earlier literature from a recent discussion, and is a form of plagiarism to give the impression that you have read a number of scholarly items when you have only lifted them from a footnote in the text you are using. You need to go and investigate them yourselves. Equally you should not cite publications unless you have read them. It is acceptable to refer the reader to the existence of older literature, or literature in a language other than English, which you have not read, as long as you make it clear that you have not read it (this can be denoted by saying 'not seen', or in Latin, 'non uidi'). It is acceptable to say, for example, "the first significant discussion of the relationship between the consuls and the Senate was by Th. Mommsen (1887)"; but not to cite Mommsen's discussion as if you have read it, e.g. "the Senate was very much as an advisory body to the consuls (Mommsen 1887)". 7. Example: This is a passage from P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1988), pp. 210-11, discussing the sculptural programme in the Forum Augustum: ‘But the most original and suggestive aspect of the whole program was that the counterpart to this Julian family portrait gallery, to the right of the temple, was a row of carefully selected great men of Rome (summi viri: Historia Augusta Alexander Severus 28.6). These stood beside Romulus and the kings of Rome in the opposite colonnade. The juxtaposition of the two portrait galleries thus justified the position of the princeps’ family in the new Rome by proclaiming its unique historical importance. The reality of competition between Rome’s leading families stretching back for centuries, all the ups and downs, and the relative insignificance of the Julii from the fourth to the second centuries B.C. were all thereby utterly obscured. In this version, the Julii had always been Rome’s most important family, for this family would produce her savior. A similar interpretation was already to be found in the poetry of Virgil.’ A. Plagiarism: ‘Augustus’ sculptural programme in his Forum is very interesting. Along the colonnade to the left of the temple were statues of Augustus’ ancestors, the Julian family. The most important aspect was that a row of carefully selected great men (summi viri) were placed opposite the statues of the Julian family, in the colonnade to the right of the temple. Next to them were Romulus and the kings of Rome. This juxtaposition justified the position of the princeps’ family in the new order by proclaiming its unique historical importance. The line of statues of the Julian family made it look as though Augustus came from a line of important historical figures going right back to Aeneas, even though some of them had really been insignificant; they were instead equated with the great heroes of Roman history. Virgil’s poetry shows a similar view of history.’ This version adds almost nothing to the original; it mixes direct appropriation with close paraphrase. There is no acknowledgement of the source; the writer suggests that the argument and the development of it is his or her own. B. Legitimate use of the passage: ‘The sculptural programme in the Forum Augustum played an important part in Augustus’ self-projection aimed at legitimating his rule. At one end of the Forum stood the Temple of Mars Ultor; the flanking colonnades held lines of statues and the exedrae within them contained statues of Romulus and Remus to the right of the temple, and Aeneas and Ascanius/Iulus to the left. Zanker points out that the juxtaposition of
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the ancestors of the gens Iulia on the left side and the line of Rome’s past heroes or summi viri on the right set up a historical equation for the viewer, suggesting that all of Augustus’ ancestors were themselves great men and that the gens Iulia was always the leading family of Rome.1 But the programme does more than merely proclaim the greatness of Augustus’ ancestors within the context of a history stretching back to the mythical past; as with the Fasti triumphales and Fasti consulares, it emphasises Augustan continuity with the history of the Republic, supporting Augustus’ claim to have restored the Republic and glossing over the transition to monarchical rule. In Virgil’s Aeneid (Book VI, lines 756-853) Anchises shows Aeneas an analogous parade of the great men of Roman history, from mythical figures through the great Republican heroes up to Augustus and other members of his family. Virgil died in 19 B.C. and the Forum was not dedicated until 2 B.C.; conceivably therefore the sculptural programme could have been directly inspired by the Aeneid, but it is perhaps more likely that both the Aeneid’s procession of heroes and the Forum Augustum reflect a common ideology developed in circles close to Augustus.’ _____________________________________________________________________________
1 P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor 1988): 210-11.
This version uses an acknowledged paraphrase of part of the passage in forming a wider argument, with some fresh ideas and developing the point about Virgilian poetry which Zanker made only in passing. (The footnote is sound scholarly practice, but its omission would not be a matter of plagiarism, as the source is indicated in the text.) For further help and information, see www.admin.ox.ac.uk/epsc/plagiarism and www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/info/pam/section9.shtml#_toc95
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11. List of Officers This list gives the names of the various members of the Faculty who are holding major administrative jobs, some of whom are referred to in the course of this Handbook. Standing Committee for Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
Chair: Dr Thomas Mannack, Ioannou Centre, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU Secretary: Academic Support Officer, Ioannou Centre, 66 St Giles’, OX1 3LU Sub-faculty of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology
Chair: Dr John Ma, Corpus Christi College Secretary and Lecture List Secretary: Dr Jonathan Prag, Merton College Harassment Officers
Dr Gail Trimble, Trinity College Dr Ed Bispham, Brasenose College Schools Liaison Officer
Dr Anna Clark, Christ Church If you need to contact any of them, you can do so either direct by mail to their colleges or via the Classics Office. Contact details for academic staff can be found at www.classics.ox.ac.uk/faculty/directory. Email addresses and telephone numbers for the whole University are available at www.ox.ac.uk/contact.
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12. Examination Regulations Special Regulations for the Preliminary Examination in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
A The subjects of the examination shall be under the supervision of the Board of the Faculty of Classics.
B Every candidate shall offer four papers [of three hours each] as follows: I. Aristocracy and democracy in the Greek world, 550-450 BC The paper studies the history and archaeology of the changing culture of the Greek polis states between the aristocracies in the later sixth century and the emergence of the new demos culture in the first half of the fifth century. Areas of emphasis will include: aristocracy, tyranny, and the history of the interacting archaic states; Achaemenids and the Greek collision with Persia; competing models of social and political culture after the Persian invasion; the archaeology of sanctuaries and cities; and the visual revolution in art and representation. II. Republic to Empire: Rome, 50 BC to AD 50 The paper studies the impact of the first emperors on the history and archaeology of Rome and its subject states in the period from Late Republic to Early Empire. Areas of emphasis will include: Roman political culture from the Republican war-lords to Augustan princeps; emperor, senate, and the evolving administration; the Julio-Claudian dynasty and court culture: wallpainting, marbles, gardens and suburban parks; municipal culture: houses, tombs, and freedman art; land and countryside: estates, vici, and centuriated settlement; manufacture, trade, and natural resources; the archaeology of the frontier armies; traditional religion and emperor cult. III, IV. Two papers from the following groups, provided that not more than one paper may be chosen from any one group: A. Special subjects in archaeology: 1. Homeric archaeology and early Greece, 1550-700 BC Evidence on the composition and history of the poems provided by extant archaeological remains, with special emphasis on burial practices, architecture, metals, and the world outside the Aegean. An overall knowledge will be required of the archaeological evidence for the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age of the Aegean from 1550 BC to 700 BC. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. 2. Greek vases The study of the general history of Greek decorated pottery from c.800 BC to c.300 BC, including study of the Attic black-figure and red-figure styles and of South Italian Greek vase painting. Knowledge will be required of the techniques used in making Greek pottery and in drawing on vases, also of the ancient names for vases and the shapes to which they refer. Candidates should in addition study the subjects of the paintings and their treatment by painters as compared with their treatment by writers and should be familiar with actual vases, for example those in the Ashmolean Museum. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. 3. Greek sculpture, c.600-300 BC The major monuments of archaic and classical Greek sculpture - their context and purpose as well as their subjects, styles, and techniques. Candidates will be expected to show some
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knowledge of the external documentary evidence, such as literary and epigraphic texts, on which the framework of the subject depends, and to be acquainted with the major sculptures of the period represented in the Ashmolean Cast Gallery. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. 4. Roman architecture The subject comprises the study of Roman architecture from the Republic to the Tetrarchy in Italy and in the provinces, looking at public buildings, private housing, and imperial palaces. Particular attention is paid to developments in building materials and techniques, the evolution of architectural styles and ideas, and the ways in which different provinces show variations on a common theme as Roman influences interacted with local culture. The examination will consist of one picture question and three essay questions. B. Special subjects in Ancient History: Note: All texts are studied in translation (see Course Handbook for details of the prescribed translation). 1. Thucydides and the west The prescribed text is Thucydides VI and VII. Compulsory passages for comment will be set from these books (from S. Lattimore (ed), The Peloponnesian War (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1998). Candidates will also be expected to be familiar with Plutarch, Nicias. 2. Aristophanes' political comedy The prescribed plays are Knights, Wasps and Lysistrata. Compulsory passages for comment will be set from Wasps and Knights. Candidates will also be expected to be familiar with Lysistrata and the 'Old Oligarch'. 3. Cicero and Catiline The prescribed texts are Sallust, Catiline; Cicero, In Catilinam I-IV, Pro Sulla; Asconius, In orationem in toga candida (in Asconius, Commentaries on Five Speeches of Cicero, ed. S. Squires, Bristol Classical Press, 1990). Compulsory passages for comment will be set from these. 4. Tacitus and Tiberius The prescribed text is Tacitus, Annals I and III. Compulsory passages for comment will be set from these books (see Course Handbook for details of the prescribed text). Candidates will also be expected to be familiar with Annals II and IV-VI. C. Ancient languages: 1. Beginning Ancient Greek (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in ancient Greek above GCSE-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be required to show knowledge of some of the main grammatical structures of ancient Greek and of a small basic vocabulary. The paper will consist of prepared and unprepared translations, with grammatical questions on the prepared texts. 2. Beginning Latin (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above GCSE-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be required to show knowledge of some of the main grammatical structures of Latin and of a small basic vocabulary. The paper will consist of prepared and unprepared translations, with grammatical questions on the prepared texts.
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3. Intermediate Ancient Greek (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in ancient Greek above AS-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be required to show an intermediate level knowledge of Greek grammar and vocabulary. A detailed specification and prescribed texts for the paper will be published in the Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Prelims handbook not later than Monday of Week 0 of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination. 4. Intermediate Latin (This subject is not available to candidates with a qualification in Latin above AS-level or equivalent.) Candidates will be required to show an intermediate level knowledge of Latin grammar and vocabulary (including all syntax and morphology). A detailed specification and prescribed texts for the paper will be published in the Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Prelims handbook not later than Monday of Week 0 of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination. 5. Advanced Ancient Greek This paper is designed for those with AS or A2 level Greek. Candidates will be expected to show an advanced level of knowledge of Greek grammar and vocabulary (including all syntax and morphology, as laid out in Abbot and Mansfield, Primer of Greek Accidence). There will be one three-hour paper comprising passages for translation from set texts, grammatical questions on the prepared texts and unseen translation. A detailed specification and prescribed texts for the paper will be published in the Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Prelims course handbook not later than Monday of Week 0 of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination. 6. Advanced Latin This paper is designed for those with AS or A2 level Latin. Candidates will be expected to show an advanced level of knowledge of Greek grammar and vocabulary (including all syntax and morphology, as laid out in Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer). There will be one three-hour paper comprising passages for translation from set texts, grammatical questions on the prepared texts and unseen translation. A detailed specification and prescribed texts for the paper will be published in the Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Prelims course handbook not later than Monday of Week 0 of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination. The Examiners may award a distinction to any candidate of special merit who has satisfied the Examiners in all papers at a single examination. Candidates who fail one or two of papers I, II, III, and IV above may resit only that subject or subjects at a subsequent examination; candidates who fail three or four papers will be required to resit all four papers at a subsequent examination.