Ancient Rome: the city, society and infrastructure

This course describes ancient Rome as the Romans saw it - not as stone ruins, but as a vibrant, living city. We see how the people of the largest metropolis on the planet in AD 200 were fed, governed and entertained; who the ancient Romans were and how they lived.

Aims of the course:

1. To introduce ancient Rome as a living city rather than interesting ruins. To show how a large city functioned with low technology and a very different social system
2. To get participants to think about urbanism as a phenomenon and how the different elements of a city must be integrated into a single organic whole. To consider which aspects of an ancient city were planned and which grew organically, and to implicitly compare this with the modern approach.

Course content overview:

• The course will ask participants to define a city, and identify its key components. They will look at aspects of Roman urbanism such as housing, roads and water supply, and who lived in the ancient city and why. It will also examine how such people organized their society, and how they worked, ate and played.
• Finally participants will be challenged to design an ancient city for themselves - as indeed Roman city planners often did from scratch at a new site.

Schedule:

Induction Week: 3-9 June 2013

Teaching Weeks: 10 June-14 July 2013

Feedback Week: 15-21 July 2013

Try a free 'taster' version of this course

A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.