Roman Civilization

CMS 206 /History 206

Midterm Study Guide

(for material through Week 4, Class 1)

Types of Questions

factual and essay

Factoids

  1. Describe the offices of the Roman republican constitution.
  2. Define "secessio"
  3. Define "pomerium"
  4. Where did the Senate usually meet? Describe the site.
  5. Where did the comitiae usually meet?
  6. What was the Latin League.
  7. Define "socius"
  8. Define "colonia"
  9. Define "amicitia"
  10. Who was Hannibal?
  11. Who was Pyhrrus?
  12. Who was Cato the Elder?
  13. Who was Scipio Africanus?
  14. Who was Philip the V of Macedon
  15. Who was Flamininus?
  16. Who was Perses of Macedon?
  17. Who was Masinissa?
  18. What was the "ager publicus"?
  19. Who were the Gracchi?
  20. Describe the office of the republican plebeian tribunate.
  21. Who was Attalus III?
  22. Who was Scaevola?
  23. P. Scipio Nasica
  24. Who was Cornelia?
  25. What does the term "patrician" mean?
  26. What does the term "equite" mean?
  27. What does the term "plebs" mean?
  28. Who was M. Livius Drusus?
  29. Who was Opimius
  30. What was the senatus consultum ultimum?
  31. Who were the optimates? Give some examples.
  32. Who were the populares? Give some examples.
  33. Give today's date in English. How would a Roman have described today's date?
  34. Define "Kalends," "Nones," and "Ides."
  35. What was the difference between a "nundinum" and a "nundina"?
  36. What did the letter "F" on a Roman calendar mean?
  37. What did the letter "C" on a Roman calendar mean?
  38. What did the letter "N" on a Roman calendar mean?
  39. What did the letters "EN" on a Roman calendar mean?
  40. What did the letters "NP" on a Roman calendar mean?
  41. What were the three kinds of feriae celebrated by the Roman state?
  42. What was the difference between the "dies religiosi" and "dies atri?"
  43. What were "ludi"?
  44. What was the difference between the "dies fasti" and a "dies festi"?
  45. When was the Fornicalia? What happened on it?
  46. Who was in the college of curiones? What did they do? How was it different from what members of a collegia funeraticia did?
  47. Describe four Roman holidays preoccupied with honoring the dead.
  48. What was a columbarium?
  49. Pick a Roman tomb we have studied. Describe it.
  50. What happened on the Lupercalia?
  51. What was the Campus Martius? Why do we care?
  52. Describe a Roman legion at the time of the 2nd Punic War.
  53. What was a maniple?
  54. What was a corvus?
  55. What was the chain of command in a Roman army?
  56. How did Marius reform the Roman army?
  57. How did Augustus reform the Roman army?
  58. How did the terms of service in the Roman army differ from Scipio Africanus' day to Augustus' day?
  59. What happened on the Feriae Marti?
  60. Who were the Salii? What did they do?
  61. What was the Regia? Why did the Romans care about it?
  62. What did you have to do to get a triumph?
  63. If you got one, what happened?
  64. Some important activities in Rome happened on the Capitoline hill. Describe two.
  65. What was the cursus honorum?
  66. Who belonged to the comitiae? What could they do?
  67. Describe what happened at the salutatio.
  68. What was imperium? Who had it? Why did they?
  69. What was the Lapis Niger?
  70. What was the rostra? Why was it called the "rostra?" What happened at the rostra?
  71. Who were the Galli?
  72. Who was Lucretius?
  73. Who was Catullus?
  74. Who was Ovid?
  75. Who was Antiochus of Syria and why did the Romans care?
  76. Why and where did the Romans worship Castor and Pollux? Describe the site.
  77. Who were the publicani?
  78. Who were the negotiores?
  79. What is a iugera?
  80. What was a paidagogus?
  81. Describe, in general terms, the education of a wealthy Roman boy.
  82. Who was Sallust?
  83. Who was Lucllus?
  84. Who was Marcus Licinius Crassus?
  85. Who was Gaius Longinius Cassius?
  86. Who was Spartacus?
  87. Who was Horace?
  88. Who was Caelius?
  89. Who was Maecenas?
  90. Who was the Bona Dea? Where, when and how was she worshipped.
  91. Who was Publius Clodius?
  92. What was the Curia? Where was it? What did it look like? What happened there?
  93. What were latifundia?
  94. Where was the Temple of Concord? Describe the site and its history.
  95. What was a compitum and why was it so special?
  96. What were Lares and how were they honored?
  97. Name two Roman religious rituals that may recall a tradition of human sacrifice.
  98. Who was Vesta?
  99. How did you become a priestess devoted to the worship of Vesta?
  100. What is in the Temple of Vesta?
  101. Who was Petronius?
  102. What did Horace's father do for a living?
  103. Why do Roman historians have difficulty documenting the lives of ordinary Romans?

go to top

Essay Questions:

  1. Discuss the way the study of parades and processions can help us define Romanitas.
  2. What were the consequences of Rome's imperial expansion for Romanitas.
  3. Some scholars believe that Rome's imperial expansion was the result of a conscious, well-thought out plan. (Try the essay, "The Roman Conquest of Greece," for an example - note, you may disagree with the analysis.) Romans would have told that they only fought pia bella (wars they took up after having been attacked). Whom do you think has the better argument and why. Do you think the Romans sought or stumbled into their empire?
  4. Which values characterize the "new man" in Roman politics, and how is he different from the other candidates who also ran for power?
  5. What was the conflict of the orders? Was it ever resolved? How?
  6. What do the Etruscans have to do with Rome?
  7. Describe the constitution of Carthage? How was it like and different from that of Republican Rome.
  8. Consider the Gracchan programs. How did they differ? Would they have solved the social problems facing Rome? Why did the Gracchi fail? What were the consequences of their activities?
  9. What caused the Social Wars? Could the Romans have avoided fighting them?
  10. How did the Romans honor their dead?
  11. Consider the funerary inscriptions contained in RCiv, v.1, #183, p. 519 (the Laudatio Turiae) and RCiv, v.1, #184. What do they tell us about Roman values? What problems do they present as historical evidence? What advantages do they have as historical evidence?
  12. Some scholars believe that we can read religious rituals as "texts" and from them decipher a lot about the culture in which they are celebrated. Why do you agree or disagree with them?
  13. Describe the ways in which Roman civic and military identity were linked but separated.
  14. How was the Magna Mater honored at Rome? What are our sources for her worship? What does the celebration of rites in her honor tell us about Romanitas.
  15. What was the Roman policy towards the Greeks in the 2nd century BCE? How and why did it change?
  16. How did Rome's imperial expansion effect her constitution?
  17. How did the lex Claudia reflect and affect Romanitas?
  18. Describe the causes and effects of latifundia style agriculture.
  19. F. Scott Fitzgerald once observed of the American elite, "The rich are different than you and I." To which Heminway was said to have responded, "yeah, they've got more money." How were wealthy Romans different than ordinary Romans (besides the fact that they had more money)?
  20. Describe the attributes of a patron-client relationship. Give concrete examples.
  21. How did Romanitas conceive the role of women in Roman culture. Give specific examples.
  22. Is the Satyricon an elite burlesque at the expense of ordinary Romans, or a burlesque of Romans of elite status which uses carictures of ordinary Romans?
  23. What was the symbolic significance of the fact that the Romans thought the "Temple of Vesta," was a house, and not a temple?

go to top

Roma Page / Course Description / Course Requirements / Resources / Calendar / Imber's Home Page