Undergraduate

Exploring the classical world

On this page

• Summary
• Course content
• Entry
• Qualifications
• If you have a disability or additional requirement
• Course materials
• Teaching and assessment
• Students also studied
• Future availability
• How to register

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This course is available for study in the countries shown.

Summary

This course is for anyone interested in classical Greece and Rome. You will investigate a wide range of topics (such as the world of Homer; political uses of theatre; art and rhetoric in Athens; the origins of Rome and the history of the Republican period; Latin poetry and Roman social history), studying sources as varied as poetry, drama, history writing, art, architecture, archaeology, inscriptions, and philosophy. Whether your interest in the classical world is long-standing or new, this course will give you both a fresh perspective, develop your skills in analysis and evaluation and lay a firm foundation for further exploration.

Course content

The civilisations of classical Greece and Rome are in many respects far removed from our own, but are nevertheless highly relevant to modern western culture.

This broad introduction to the classical world begins with an introduction to the overall geography and history of the era. This will give you a framework in which you can situate the individual cultures and periods that you will study in this course. It will also provide background knowledge for further courses in classical studies that you may wish to take in the future.

After this introduction, the course is organised historically, allowing you to study a range of different topics in chronological order, moving from Greece to Rome. However, it isn't simply a survey course, as you will engage, in depth, with a selection of particularly interesting aspects of the classical world. The common theme running throughout the course is an exploration of what made different places and times culturally distinctive, and how we can try to understand them so many years later. The course is divided into six sections.

Introduction The introduction has two main aims. It will help you think about the methods that we can use to study the classical world, and introduce you to the sources at our disposal. It will also let you familiarise yourself with key features of Greek and Roman geography and history.

Block 1 Homer and the Greek Dark Age This block focuses on one of the earliest periods of classical history, the time of the Greek epic poets, especially Homer. Aspects of both the Iliad and the Odyssey are studied at some length, building up to a picture of Homeric society and artistry. A close look at vases will add a further dimension to your understanding of the period.

Block 2: Classical Athens This block looks at Athens in the fifth century BCE. You will study four sources: Aeschylus' tragedy, the Persians; arts and buildings on the Acropolis; oratory; and Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata. These sources have a shared focus: the Athenians' understanding of their own identity as Athenians.

Block 3: The Roman Republic This block starts with an introduction to the second half of the course, linking the Greek world studied in Blocks 1 and 2 with the study of cultural developments in Italy. This starts with the experience and physical remains of Greek colonisation of southern Italy. The central part of the block investigates politics and power in the city of Rome in the Republican period. A concluding section considers how the various kinds of literature produced at the time contribute to a distinctive Roman culture.

Block 4: Rome – City and People This block turns to social history. You will learn about the population of Rome, how it was organised socially and what daily and family life in Rome was like. Your main sources will include the letters of Pliny the Younger and of Cicero, the philosophy of Seneca and inscriptions on tombstones.

Block 5: Revision and Retrospection This block introduces a small amount of new material. It will help you to look back and pull together the threads which run through the course. It also serves as a preparation for the end-of-course examination.

As you go through the course, you will:

• acquire a broad knowledge of the political, social and cultural history as well as the geography of the classical world
• acquire a broad knowledge and understanding of the various disciplines that make up classical studies, and develop your ability to practise the methods of enquiry used by these disciplines
• develop your ability to examine critically different kinds of ancient material and modern interpretations of this material
• develop skills to communicate your knowledge and understanding in an appropriately scholarly manner.

In addition to the printed material you will use other media. You will regularly use audio CDs, and sometimes do exercises incorporating these CDs. You will also regularly use DVDs; these DVDs have simple intuitive navigation menus comparable to those of standard commercial DVDs of feature films. Finally, you will occasionally use a networked computer. The vast majority of the teaching relies on the printed materials, audio CDs and DVDs, but at times, the course will direct you to external websites (to look at images of ancient art, for instance). It also provides its own user-friendly website, including maps and timelines of the ancient world, and an audio pronunciation guide of ancient names. The use of all these materials is straightforward and carefully introduced in the course.

Entry

You are not necessarily expected to have taken an Open University course before this one. No knowledge of the classical world is assumed. However, this is a Level 2 course and builds on the skills developed in Level 1 courses such as The arts past and present (AA100). AA100 develops the study skills necessary for A219, in particular logical thinking, clear expression, essay writing, and the ability to select and interpret relevant material.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Preparatory work

No preparatory work is required. If you have not taken a Level 1 course in the arts, you will find it useful to have The Arts Good Study Guide (E. Chambers and A. Northedge, The Open University), which will help you to develop your study skills.

Qualifications

A219 is an optional course in our

• BA (Honours) Humanities (B03)
• BA (Honours) Humanities (B03) (with Classical Studies)
• BA/BSc (Honours) European Studies (B10)
• BA (Honours) History (B01)
• Diploma in Classical Studies (D31)

It can also count towards most of our other degrees at bachelors level, where it is suitable for a BA. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this course can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

Brief descriptions of key visual material are available. The course materials are available in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Large print versions of the course material can be provided on request. However, parts of this course are focused on visual sources, such as ancient art and architecture, and visually impaired students are strongly recommended to arrange for a sighted assistant. The sighted assistant will be particularly important for a short unit of map work in the Introduction, for one week in Block 2 (on the Acropolis), for some short segments of Block 3, and for some of the DVD tracks (spread across the course, mostly little longer than 30 minutes each). The books are available in a comb-bound format. Written transcripts are available for the audio-visual material. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.

If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our booklet Meeting your needs which you can download or request from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

You can also find information about accessible course materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.

Course materials

What's included

Course books, other printed material, DVDs, audio CDs and course website.

You will need

DVD and audio CD players.

Computing requirements

This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.

You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2002 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will have a tutor who will help you with the course material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. We may also be able to offer group tutorials and day schools that you are encouraged, but not obliged to attend. Where your tutorials are held will depend on the distribution of students taking the course.

Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.

Assessment

The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.

You can choose whether to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) on paper or online through the eTMA system. You may want to use the eTMA system for some of your assignments but submit on paper for others. This is entirely your choice.

The CMAs don’t count towards your final result.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Culture, identity and power in the Roman empire (AA309)
• Exploring history: medieval to modern 1400-1900 (A200)
• From Enlightenment to Romanticism c.1780-1830 (A207)
• World archaeology (A251)

Future availability

The details given here are for the course that starts in October 2009. We expect it to be available once a year.

How to register

To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.

About this page

An undergraduate course in Arts and Humanities.

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