This module aims to provide students with knowledge of the body of evidence for the history and archaeology of resistance to Roman rule.  The course will examine the history, archaeology and ideology of a chronological series of rebellions and revolts against Roman power from the Late Republic to the 3^rd century AD. We will finish with an investigation into the reception of these rebellions and explore both how they engaged the Roman imagination and also remain a key part of local and national identities today.  The course strives to provide students with a broad picture of Roman power and the resistance to it, and to what degree we can understand local identities, nationalist movements and resistance in the narrative and evidence for these rebellions.  The course will cover aspects as diverse as colonialism, post-colonialism, religion, trade, politics and warfare across the Roman Empire from Britain to the Near East.  The aims include furthering understanding of how the study of Roman imperialism and local resistance has advanced in recent scholarship; of the history of local identities and their importance for the political, social and cultural history of the ancient world.  We will also look at the theoretical implications for the study of ancient concepts of empire and the enemy.  It will encourage student research and the pursuit of specific personal interests within the remit of the module topic.  Students will therefore be required to engage with political theory, cultural, social and economic ideology as well as military and religious history

• Knowledge of the historiography of the Roman Empire
• An understanding of the role of local identities across the Empire.
• A grasp of the narrative history from the 1^st c. BC to 3^rd AD
• Concepts of resistance and acculturation across the period
• An ability to analyse the context and bias of ancient literary authors, and the politics of their composition
• An ability to synthesize and reconcile different types of ancient source material, including epigraphy, archaeology, and numismatics.
• The capacity to provide argumentation in support of a thesis, supported by the critical incorporation of primary and secondary sources
• Critical engagement in seminar discussions, and the ability to communication an argument orally.
• An ability to discuss these issues in written work with coherent and logical arguments, clearly and correctly expressed.

This module will be delivered through 10, 2hr sessions that comprise of a mix of lecture and discussion and presentation of primary source material throughout the term. Students will choose their own topic for the creative project in consultation with the module coordinator and develop their work throughout the term.  There will be one revision session, one coursework session and also the compulsory viewing of two films (Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and Monty Python’s Life of Brian

• assimilating and synthesising complex information and ideas
• critical thinking skills, such as analysing and evaluating evidence, critiquing interpretations or arguments, and challenging assumptions
• constructing and defending arguments based on evidence
• clear, accurate and effective communication of ideas and arguments in writing and in debate
• employing basic skills and conventions in the presentation and use of literary and material evidence
• bibliographic and referencing skills
• contributing to group discussions
• using IT resources effectively
• independent working and time management

The module will be assessed through a creative project (50%), and a 2000 word essay (50%).

Creative Project: The project is very open to student ideas but must involve a journalistic report or social media presentation (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) of one of the main rebellions of the period covered.  The project will capture the essence of one particular rebellion and how it is read in the sources and allow scope for imagining how it might be covered today.  The means of delivery is entirely up to the student: magazine format, newspaper article, video reporting or social media, but the details, accuracy of information, creativity and effort will all be assessed. 

Essay: A 2000 word essay will be prepared from a list of subjects that will engage with the broader themes of the course and will require a critical approach and the use of comparative evidence.

Students who fail the module will normally be expected to resit the failed component(s) in the summer resit period.

• Pax Romana and the limits of power
• Understanding rebellion in the Roman sources: acculturation and identity
• Mithridates and a Pan-Hellenic resistance
• Reading an Italian revolt: the Social War
• Spartacus: slavery and the slave economy
• Roman visual culture of the enemy and defeated
• Tiberius and the troubles of transition: rebellions from Africa to Gaul
• Boudicca, Britain and Nero
• The First Jewish War and the Flavians
• Josephus as a Jewish Historian
• The Diaspora Revolt, Bar Kokhba Revolt and the 2^nd century Near East
• Zenobia, Palmyra and the rise of the Arabs
• The reception of Roman rebellions

Required General Reading:

Alcock, S. et.al (eds.) Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History, (Cambridge, 2001)

Ball, W., Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, (London and New York 2001)

Bloom, J., The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, AD 66-135, A military analysis, (North Carolina 2010)

Bradley, K.R. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 1989

Brunt, P.A., Roman Imperial Themes (Oxford 1990)

Hopkins, K. Conquerors and Slaves, 1978.

Mattingly, D., Imperialism, Power and Identity: Experiencing the Roman Empire (Princeton, 20

Morris, I., and Scheidel, W. (eds.) The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium (Oxford 2009)

Woolf, G., ‘Provincial Revolts in the Early Roman Empire’ in Popovic, M. (ed.), The Jewish Revolt against Rome; Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Brill, 2012)

Rich, J and Shipley, G. (eds.) War and Society in the Roman World (Routledge, 1993)

Adler, Eric. ‘Who's Anti-Roman? Sallust and Pompeius Trogus on Mithridates.’ The Classical Journal 101, no. 4 (2006): 383-407

Ando, C., Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley, 2000)

Berlin, A. M. and Overman, J. A., eds. (2002) The first Jewish revolt: archaeology, history and ideology (New York, 2002).

Black, E.W., The First Century Historians of Roman Britain. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 20 (2001) 415–428

Braund, D., Ruling Roman Britain: kings, queens, governors and emperors from Julius Caesar to Agricola  (London, 1996)

Brunt, P.A. ‘Reflections on British and Roman Imperialism’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 7 (1965) 267-288

Champion, C., Roman imperialism: Reading and Sources (Blackwell, 2004)

Dyson, S. ‘Native revolts in the Roman Empire’. Historia, 20 (1971) 239–74.

Dyson, S. ‘Native Revolt Patterns in the Roman Empire’ ANRW 2.3 : 138-175

Fentress, E. ‘Romanizing the Berbers’, Past and Present 190 (2006): 3–34.

Finley, M.I. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 1980.

Finley, M.I. Slavery in Classical Antiquity, 1968.

Gleason, M., ‘Greek Cities Under Roman Rule’ in D. Potter (ed.) A Companion to the Roman Empire (Blackwell 2006): 228-249

Goodman, M. ‘Trajan and the origins of Roman hostility to the Jews.’ Past and Present 182 (2004): 3–29

Grunewald, T. Bandits in the Roman Empire: myth and reality, trans. J. Drinkwater (London 2004).

Heyn, M. ‘Gesture and Identity in the Funerary Art of Palmyra.’ American Journal of Archaeology 114, no. 4 (2010): 631-61

Kaizer, T. The religious life of Palmyra, (Stuttgart, 2002).

Kopff, E.C. ‘Cicero and Tacitus on Empire: Roman Tradition and American Conceptions of Foreign Policy’ Foreign Policy Research Institute (Philadelphia 2007)

MacMullen, R. Enemies of the Roman Order. Treason, unrest, and alienation in the empire (London 1992)

Mattern, S.P. Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy of the Principate (Berkeley 1999)

Mayor, A., The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates (Princeton 2009)

McGing, B. The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus (Leiden 1986)

McGing, B. ‘Subjection and Resistance: To the Death of Mithridates’ in A. Erskine (ed.) A Companion to the Hellenistic World (Blackwell 2006): 71-89

Mennen, I. Power and Status in the Roman Empire, AD 193–284 (Brill, 2011)

Millar, F. The Roman Near East, 31BC–AD 337  (Cambridge 1993)

Richardson, J.S. Language of Empire: Rome and the Idea of Empire from the Third Century BC to the Second Century AD (Cambridge 2008)

Roberts, M. The revolt of Boudicca and the assertion of libertas in Neronian Rome’, American Journal of Philology 109 (1988) 118–32.

Schafer, P. (ed.). The Bar-Kokhba war reconsidered: new perspectives on the second revolt against Rome (Tubingen, 2003)

Schneider, E. Septimia Zenobia Sebaste (Rome, 1993)

Sidebottom, H. ‘Roman imperialism: the changed outward trajectory of the Roman Empire’ in Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 54 (2005.), 315–330

Shaw, B., ‘Rebels and Outsiders’ in A. Bowman, P. Garnsey and D. Rathbone (eds.), CAH vol. 9, The High Empire AD 70-192 (Cambridge 2000) 361-403

Southern, P. Empress Zenobia: Palmyra’s rebel queen. (London, 2008)

Stoneman, R. Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia’s Revolt against Rome (Michigan, 1994)

Williams, C. Boudica and her stories : narrative transformations of a warrior queen (University of Delaware Press, 2009)

Webster, G. Boudica: the British revolt against Rome AD60 (London, 1978)