The Romanisation of Italy - 20 credits (HST028)
This module covers the history and archaeology of Italy from the pre-Roman to the early imperial era (c. 400 BC–AD 14), a period which saw its transformation from separate groups of very different peoples into the centrepiece of the Roman Empire. It begins with a survey of the evidence for the peoples of Italy before the Roman conquest, and then covers the means by which the Romans came to assert their control over these peoples and to organise their relationship with Rome. Particular attention will be given to the way in which the forms that this process took were determined both by local situations and by the conceptions of the Romans themselves. The last part of the course looks at the impact of the conquest in terms of the changes and continuities in the political, economic, social and religious organisation of the Italian peoples. Assessment is by an essay of 4,000 words.