Set O: Getting started in Ancient History

The Teachers' Notes for the Ancient History options all plunge straight into the topic in question. This may well be appropriate for A2, but at the beginning of AS most students will need some preliminary orientation. The notes that follow offer some ideas for what to do in the first lessons.

1. Encouragement

What do you say when someone asks you why on earth you are doing Ancient History at A level? The flyer 'Why Study Ancient History at AS and A Level?' provides some ideas. Answers might focus on:

a) Greek and Roman civilisation being the roots of the modern western world: epic poetry, athletics, politics and democracy, tragedy and comedy, philosophy, rhetoric, history, classical architecture, pictorial space, mathematical astronomy, law (Roman)

b) ancient history exploring issues that remain pressing in the modern world: political rhetoric/spin-doctoring (Persian Kings, Augustus), foreign policy-ethical or not (Melian Dialogue), ethnic conflict and the formation of an underclass (Messenian helots), internal conflict and its settlement by foreign powers (Athens and Corcyra), relationship of army to government (400 at Athens; year of the 4 emperors), the politics of religious affiliation (Constantine), the politics of the economy (Diocletian), differential roles of men and women

c) ancient history as multi-cultural history: the problems of a cosmopolitan city (Piraeus, Rome), Greece and the Persians, Rome and the Greeks, polytheistic tolerance and its limits (comedy, Socrates, Jews, Christians), Romanisation (e.g. in Britain), its nature and limits

d) ancient history as 'do it yourself' history: limited quantities of written source material, source material all available in English, sources of high quality, which themselves demonstrate how to do history

e) ancient history as embedded history: history not just a succession of political events but involves literary analysis, understanding of philosophical issues, use of archaeological evidence

2. Orientation

a) What is Ancient History? Conventional name for Greek and Roman History. Greece and Rome are the first states of which we can write proper history, since they were the first to have historians (see below)

b) When is Ancient History? Last millennium BC and first half of first millennium AD.

Timeline

c) Where is Ancient History?

It makes sense to provide a map which primarily shows places which will be prominent in the first option to be studied (that is, a map focused on Rome and its empire for Roman History and Roman World options, and a map focused on Greece for Greek history options; the map offered below is more suitable for some options than for others). It is useful both to provide photocopies to all students for them to keep at the front of their files, and to project the same map by an overhead projector so that places can clearly be indicated to all students at the same time.

d) How do we know anything about Ancient History?

History was first written by Greeks, that is, Greeks were the first to attempt to find out about the past by making extensive enquiries involving use of oral and written sources and to analyse the causes of historical events, rather than simply listing one event after another. Many histories written in Greece and Rome were histories of current or recent events: Herodotus writing on the Persian Wars fought when he was very young; Thucydides writing about the Peloponnesian War, in which he himself played a part as a general; Polybius writing about the growth of Rome's empire, in which he was himself involved, both in the resistance to Rome and as a hostage taken to Rome; Tacitus writing of the events of his own lifetime (he was a Roman senator) and of the generations immediately preceding his; Ammianus writing mainly about fourth-century AD affairs, in which he himself had a part as a member of the imperial service. The works of historians and other ancient literature survives largely because they were copied and preserved in libraries (usually associated with monasteries), and partly because ancient papyri thrown away in the sands of Egypt have been excavated and read.

Political speeches and speeches given in the law-courts survive from both Classical Athens and late Republican Rome.

Classical Athens and also Rome and the cities of its empire recorded public decisions in inscriptions, thousands of which survive. Individuals also put up inscribed monuments to celebrate their achievements or commemorate their deaths. Some of the texts that survive are not monumental but ephemeral: messages written onto fragments of pots (ostraka), political slogans painted on the walls at Pompeii, letters written on wooden tablets (Vindolanda).

Literary texts which allude to contemporary politics and society, whether directly (Aristophanes and other comic poets, Petronius, Juvenal) or more obliquely (Athenian tragedies; Virgil's Aeneid).

Numerous buildings still stand that were erected from the sixth century BC onwards-temples, public buildings, churches.

Excavation and surface survey have revealed enormous amounts of ancient material (metalwork, coins, pottery, buildings, roads, field-systems, etc.) and have given us quite a detailed idea of where and how people lived and of the material basis of life.

Ancient works of art that have been excavated (statues, reliefs, painted pots etc.) themselves show individuals and scenes and reveal much about the dress and lifestyle of Greeks and Romans.