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CLST 277-WI The World of Late Antiquity
Fall Semester 2006
Dr. Jacqueline Long
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Study Guide for Exam II
Format
The exam will have three parts; you will be offered some choice
within each part:
- cut-and-dried identifications: basic factual information (small
credit per item, and a small component of the exam)
- primary-source selections: given a short passage from a late-antique
documentary or literary text we have studied, explain what knowledge and
understanding of late antique history and culture this passage helps you
to arrive at, and how - include pertinent facts about the source's
context and nature, but focus on the passage itself and how you can best
use it to pursue historical inquiry (each passage will yield a medium-sized
quantum of credit, but the passages together add up to a major component of
the exam)
- essay: explore a historical problem, setting forth relevant, specific,
concrete evidence from late antique sources, explaining how to derive knowledge
and understanding from the evidence, and showing how the knowledge and
understanding inform your answer to the problem (the largest single item of
credit; a major component of the exam)
Things to study
An effective approach to understanding what is important to focus on as
you review for an exam -in any course- is to think about how the different
elements of the course-work serve the course-design. Think about the
objectives highlighted in the syllabus and in
class discussions, and as you review the assigments
and your notes, think about how the things you have done each help realize
some of those goals. Ask yourself, "what was that about?" Your answers will
guide you in your studying. If you want to talk about some of the connections,
please come see me - I want us to be on the same page, working toward the same
outcome -your learning- not at cross-purposes. Having thought now, in review,
about how assigments and objectives fit together, keep thinking about
their relationship as we continue moving forward into new material.
Terms and items you should be able to identify, to comment upon, or to
refer to in a historical essay include, for example:
- geographical locations of important events and centers of significant
communities and activities: e.g., Gaul, Amida, Antioch, Thagaste, Carthage, Milan
- institutions of the Roman state and concepts and practices relating
to them: e.g., authority of the pontifex maximus, administration of justice,
public entertainment, the army
- different kinds of communities within the Roman state and distinctive concepts
and practices relating to them: e.g., city councils or senates, riots, schools,
congregations
- important titles, terms, and concepts connected with Roman emperors: e.g.,
Augustus, Caesar, usurper, dynasty
- important buildings and monuments in Rome, and their types as important
in Roman cities generally: e.g., amphitheater, circus/hippodrome, palace,
forum/agora, temple, basilica, church, triumphal arch, honorific column, obelisk
- important religious terms: e.g., supplication (as a technical
term), libation, sacrifice, passion, martyr, confessor, deacon, catechumen, bishop
- literary texts we have used as sources, their authors, and other information
that helps assess the texts: e.g., Ammianus, Julian,
Misopogon,
the "Beard-Hater", Augustine,
Confessions,
Claudian, and
Basil of Caesarea,
To Young
Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature
- documentary and material sources we have used and information that helps
assess them: e.g., Julian's Rescript on Christian Teachers, Julian's
"bull" coins, church canons relating
to women's religious activity,
Selected
Recipes of Apicius, imperial laws against Manichaeans
- major historical forces and actors we have traced, including social, intellectual,
and cultural history: e.g., religion, market-shortages, imperial paranoia, social class,
war, Neoplatonism, education, gender, visual art, individual emperors, usurpers,
warriors, Christians, and Manichees (as you review your notes from the readings and
from class, make a list)
Note: don't
hang up on memorizing technical terms. It is convenient to be able to identify
items swiftly, by name, but it is far, far more important to be able to
recognize, understand, and EXPLAIN CLEARLY how historical ideas, events, and forces
functioned in the late antique world, and how we can use the evidence that exists
in order to understand them.
Recommended
strategy: when you are thinking of big historical trends and developments, think of
specific facts that illustrate them, and when you are thinking of specific facts
and figures and pieces of evidence, think where they fit in to big historical
developments. Be able to explain how the big picture and the particular item connect
to one another, citing concrete evidence and demonstrating its importance. Reflect
on how you know what you know, so that you can always explain your historical inquiry
clearly.
Moments, fields of
activity, and developments to follow - see also daily Study Questions from
before and after the mid-term break):
- fortunes of the Constantinian dynasty after Constantine
- usurpations and their consequences; imperial fears of usurpation and their consequences
- ideals and expectations relating to Roman rulers
- operations of the Roman armies: specific campaigns and general tactics
- capital cities of the Roman empire and urban culture in them: specific incidents, and
facilities and practices relating to more general types of experience
- social class: categories and the opportunities and expectations associated with each
- formal education in late antiquity
- Neoplatonism: fundamental concepts, intellectual background, and implications for pagans
and Christians
- families: social organization, relationships, and expectations current in late antiquity
- gender: late antique understandings, expectations, and standards of behavior for men and women
- demands Christian identity did or didn't put on attitudes to traditional Greek and Roman culture
- aesthetic values in late antique literature and art
- Manichaeanism: development of the faith, fundamental concepts, attitudes to Christianity,
to traditional paganism, and to the secular world
