Roman History Exam Papers
Contents:
Roman Republican History (8739/3189) June 1993
Time : Three hours
(In addition, candidates are allowed ten minutes before the examination begins to read the paper)
Answer Question 1 and any other THREE questions.
Each question carries an equal number of marks
1. Comment on any TWO of the following passages:
a) In ancient times, whenever it was necessary for the populus to give its vote upon a matter referred to by the senate, the consuls, after first offering up the legally required sacrifices,summoned the comitia centuriata. The people then would assemble before the city on the Field of Mars, in military formations, under their centurions and standards.They did not vote all at the same time, but each by their respective centuries, when each century was called upon by the consuls.
(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 7.59)
b) For they (the consuls of 95 B.C.) passed during their consulate that law...on the restoration of allies to their citizenships. For since the peoples of Italy were gripped by an intense desire for the Roman citizenship and as a result a large number of them were behaving as if they were Roman citizens, a law seemed necessary to restore everyone to his own due citizenship. But the loyalties of the upper classes of the peoples of Italy were so alienated by that law that it was perhaps the chief cause of the Social (or Italian) War which broke out three years later.
(Asconius 67C)
c) Despite finding affairs in the cities in such a disastrous state, Lucullus in a short time relieved those who were being wronged of all their ills. For first of all he laid down that the maximum rate of interest was to be 12% per annum, secondly he disallowed all interest which exceeded the capital, thirdly, and most important, he decreed that the money-lender should take a quarter of the revenues of the debtor. And anyone who had added unpaid interest to the capital was deprived of the entire sum he was owed. As a result all debts were settled in less than a space of four years and property was returned unencumbered to its owners. The loan as a whole was the result of the fine of 120 million denarii imposed on Asia by Sulla; those who had lent in fact recovered double what they had lent; as a result of the interest, the sum owed to them had reached 720 million denarii. So they attacked Lucullus' reputation at Rome, regarding themselves as hard-done-by.
(Plutarch, Lucullus, 20)
d) (L.Catilina) then indeed said that there were two bodies politic; one weak and with a poor head on its shoulders, the other strong and with no head; but, as long as he was alive, he would be its head.
(Cicero, Pro Murena, 51)
e) Marcus Cato often said and even swore on oath that he would bring Caesar to trial, as soon as he had disbanded his army; and it was widely asserted that if he returned as a private individual he would, like Milo, have to plead his case before the jurors with troops stationed round about (to secure a conviction). Asinius Pollio lends weight to this view by reporting that when he saw his enemies dead or scattered at the battle of Pharsalus he said in these very words, 'This was their will; I, C.Caesar, should have been condemned despite my great achievements, if I had not sought protection from my army.'
(Suetonius, Divus Julius 30)
f) Eventually Augustus broke his friendship with Mark Anthony which had always been a tenuous one and in continuous need of patching; and proved that his rival had failed to conduct himself as befitted a Roman citizen, by ordering the will he had deposited at Rome to be opened and publicly read. It listed among Anthony's heirs the illegitimate children fathered by him on Cleopatra.
(Suetonius, Augustus 17)
2. Did Tiberius Gracchus meet with strong resistance from his opponents because there was something wrong with his proposals, or were there other reasons?
3. Why, in your view, did Gaius Gracchus transfer control of the law- courts to the equites?
4. Slavery no doubt brought misery to the people who were enslaved. In what way did it also affect Roman society and politics?
5. Briefly compare the careers of Marius and Sulla. Highlight the similarities as well as the differences between them.
6. Why were special commands (such as Pompey's against the pirates) important in the history of the late Republic?
7. To what extent was it mere hypocrisy which made Cicero give such a high value to libertas in his political thought?
8. Do you think that C.Julius Caesar sought to rule Rome in imitation of Hellenistic monarchs? By what other concerns instead of, or in addition to this one, might he have been motivated?
9. How did Augustus attempt to conceal his autocratic power?
10. Compare the histories of Sallust with the letters of Cicero as a source of knowledge about the fall of the Republic.
Roman Imperial History (9437/5830) November 1993
Time : Two and a half hours
(In addition, candidates are allowed ten minutes before the examination begins, to read the paper)
Answer Section A and TWO questions from Section B
SECTION A
1. Answer the questions on two of the following passages:
a) It is of the utmost importance that children be raised in the correct manner even if this means harsh discipline. We must be careful not to allow them to have fits of anger, but we must also be careful not to stifle their individual personalities...Unlimited freedom creates an intractable personality, total repression produces an abject personality. Praise lifts the spirit and makes a child self-confident, but too much praise makes him insolent and bad-tempered. We must therefore steer a middle course when raising a child, sometimes checking him back, sometimes spurring him on... Don't let him whine and pester you for treats; give rewards only for good deeds or for promised good behaviour. When he is thrust into competition with children of his own age, don't let him sulk or become angry... When he wins or does something laudable, he should be praised, but not allowed to become excessively elated, for joy tends to exultation, and exultation leads to a swollen head and an inflated opinion of oneself. We should allow a certain amount of leisure, but never let this develop into idleness and sloth, and never let the child become accustomed to a soft and easy life... For the child who has been denied nothing, whose tears an anxious mother always dried, who always had his own way with the paedagogue - this child will be unable to cope with the harsh realities of life.
Seneca the Younger, An Essay about Anger 2.21.1-6
i. What is the author's main point?
ii. What argument(s) does he use to support his case?
iii. What assumptions are being made and what value priorities are evident?
iv. How might the pressure of slaves in the household affect the rearing of children?
b) I write to you with a very heavy heart: the younger daughter of our friend Fundanus is dead. No young girl has ever been more charming than she, or more lovable, or, as I think, more worthy not just of a longer life, but even of immortality. She had not yet completed her thirteenth year, and yet she had the judgment of a mature woman and the dignity of a matron, but the sweetness of a little girl and the modesty of a young maiden. How lovingly she put her arms around her father's neck! How affectionately and respectfully she embraced us who were her father's friends! How she adored her nurses, her paedogogues, and her teachers, each for the special guidance that he or she had offered her! How diligently and how perceptively she used to read! How rarely and how demurely she played! With what composure, with what patience, indeed with what courage did she endure her final illness! She obeyed the doctors, she comforted her sister and father, and even after the strength of her body failed her, she hung on by the strength of her mind. And this strength remained with her right to the very end; neither the length of her illness nor fear of death could weaken it. She had, therefore, because of her courageous attitude, left us even greater and graver reasons to feel loss and grief. O sad and quite untimely death! Indeed, I find the untimeliness of her death more cruel than the death itself. She had already been engaged to a fine young man, the day had now been set for the wedding, and we had just received our invitations. Now our joy has turned to sadness. I cannot express in words what great anguish I felt when I heard Fundanus himself making arrangements for the money he had intended to spend on his daughter's wedding clothes, pearls and jewellery to be spent instead on funeral incense, ointments and perfumes.
Pliny the Younger, Letters 5.16.1-7
i. What evidence does this passage provide for family life at Rome?
ii. Comment on the attitudes of the writer and of the people he refers to
c) Do you wonder where these monsters come from? In the good old days, poverty made our Latin women chaste; small huts didn't provide opportunities for immoral behaviour. Hard work, lack of sleep, hands rough and callused from working wool, Hannibal near the city, their husbands performing militia duty - these things just don't allow vices to develop. Now, however, we are suffering the ill effects of a long peace. Luxury, more destructive than war, threatens the city and takes revenge for the lands we have conquered. No crime or lustful act is missing, now that traditional Roman poverty is dead ... Obscene wealth brought with it foreign customs, and unmanly luxuries and ugly affluence weakened each generation.
Juvenal, Satires 6.286-295,298-300
i. What is the author's main point?
ii. What supporting argument(s) does he use?
iii. What assumptions are being made and what value priorities are evident?
iv. What do you think was the most important factor affecting the quality of married life amongst the elite?
d) What a shocking story I have to tell you, and one worthy of more than just a simple letter. Larcius Macedo, a man of praetorian rank, suffered a terrible fate at the hands of slaves. (Admittedly he was an arrogant and cruel master who remembered too little or perhaps too well that his own father had once been a slave). He was bathing in his villa at Formiac. Suddenly his slaves surrounded him. One began to strangle him, another punched him in the face, yet another beat him on the chest, stomach and even (it makes me sick to report) the genital area. When they thought he was dead, they threw him onto the red-hot floor to see if he was still alive. He, whether unconscious or pretending to be, lay stretched out and still, confirming their opinion that death had come. Finally they carried him out of the bath as if he had been overcome by the heat. His more faithful slaves took his body, and his concubines ran up, wailing and shouting. But then awakened by their voices and refreshed by the cool air, he raised his eyelids and moved his body to indicate that he was still alive (since it was now safe to do so). The treacherous slaves fled in all directions, but many were caught, although a few are still being sought. He himself, although barely kept alive for a few days, nonetheless did not die without the satisfaction of revenge since the slaves were punished while he was still alive in the same way that murderers are punished. Do you realize how many dangers, how many injuries, how many abuses we may be exposed to? And no one can feel safe even if he a lenient and kind master. Slaves are ruined by their own evil natures, not by a master's cruelty.
Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.14
i. What is Pliny's main point?
ii. What contradictions or paradoxes do you think are present?
iii.What further information would you like to have about this incident?
iv. What assumptions and value priorities are evident?
v. All slaves owners may not have been as bad as Macedo. but if not, why not? What might restrain them? Briefly, what factors might humanise the slave-master relationship?
SECTION B
2. What was the role of the Senate in the government of Rome in the Principate? Did the emperors need the Senate? What did senators expect of emperors?
3. By what means did Roman emperors in general seek to ensure their power and popularity? Choose one specific emperor and show how he went about this.
4. 'Electricity would have been wasted on the Romans'
Consider the view that Romans too readily accepted that mass poverty was inevitable.
5. 'A study of Roman autocracy shows not just that emperors were corrupted by power, but that they were overwhlemed by the vastness of their task'
Discuss. Do you agree the job was too big for one man?
6. What are the main difficulties we face in trying to determine just what happened in Roman imperial history? To what extent does reading Suetonius ullustrate those difficulties?
7. The Roman imposed a more of less unbroken peace on the Roman world. Do you think this peace was the result of military efficiency or genuine appreciation by provincials of the benefits of Roman rule?
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