Course Itineraries | Ancient History

The study of Ancient History covers an exceptionally broad intellectual, methodological, and evidentiary field. No two students will find themselves pursuing exactly the same course itineraries. Nevertheless, there are some anchors around which those itineraries can be arranged. The 20 units of a student’s career through coursework are distributed in the following way, with courses and teaching integrated in the second and third years:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
8 courses (4/semester)	6 courses (3/semester)	6 courses (3/semester)
	2 courses taught (1/semester)	2 courses taught (1/semester)

First year students will also audit the undergraduate introductory survey courses in the ancient societies relevant to their research and pedagogical interests, and undertake a course of readings that will be developed in collaboration with the instructor of the relevant course. In subsequent years, course choices are made in consultation with the Graduate Group Chair, However, methodology, historiographical problems, and direct, unmediated engagement with primary texts remain the foundation of a student's course of study. We believe that, together, these courses provide an essential foundation for the practice of Ancient History, both as a scholar and as a pedagogue.

Students should make themselves aware of graduate courses in departments to which faculty members of the group are affiliated: Anthropology, Classical Studies, History of Art, Religious Studies, History, the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. We also strongly encourage students to explore graduate courses in other fields and other disciplines, which will extend and enhance their capacity to ask scholarly questions about the ancient world. Depending on the language(s) deemed most appropriate to a particular course of study, students might find themselves taking these courses in Classical Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Religious Studies, or Linguistics.

Course choices are made in consultation with the Graduate Chair. A sense of the range of possible courses of study can be obtained from the following course itineraries, grouped according to the broad field of the doctoral dissertation that emerged from the course of study:

Historiography/Literature Interest:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
Problems in Greek History	Greek Sanctuaries Sacred Law	Greek Epigraphy
Post Baccalaureate Greek	Greece Anatolia and East	Historical Greek Grammar
CLST Proseminar	Herodotus	Tacitus
Latin Poetry and Poetics
Rome’s Medn Economy	Power, Money, GDR Athens	Latin Historical Documents
Latin Literature Survey	Polybius and Livy	Ind Stud
Issues in Folklore Theory Dionysus and Greek Drama	Cicero’s Dialogs [Bryn Mawr]	Greek Civic Culture of Roman Asia Minor

Material Culture Economic History Interest:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
CLST Proseminar	Ancient Economies	Roman Architect & Topog
AAMW Proseminar	Papyrology	Greek Epigraphy
Advanced Greek Survey	Advanced Latin Survey	Tacitus
Latin Poetry: Exemplary Trad
Methods in Roman History	Ancient Medicine	Roman Epigraphy
Roman Architect & Topog	Ind Stud	Architecture of Rome
Homer	Greek East Roman Era [Princ]	Ind Stud
Advanced Latin Survey

Cultural/Social History Interest:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
Greek Epigraphy	Advanced Greek Survey	Roman Letters
CLST Proseminar	Religion Late Antique Syria	Religion Magic Rome [Princ]
Hellenistic Imperial Historiog Advanced Greek Survey	Caesar	Judaism/Christianity among Greeks and Romans

Problems in Roman History	Biblical Hebrew	Center/Region Anc Med [Princ]
Greek Prose Composition	Second Sophistic	Problems Greek History
Ind Stud: Greek	Papyrology	Origins Middle Ages [Princ]
Latin Poetry

Political History/Epigraphy Interest:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
AAMW Proseminar	Intro Archaeology Ceramics	Greek Poetry
CLST Proseminar	Polybius	Greek Epigraphy
Roman Letters	Latin Prose Composition	Indo-European Grammar
Argonaut Myth
Aegean Bronze Age	Problems in Roman History	Ancient Seafaring
Hellenistic Imperial Historiog	Greek Epigraphy	The Greek Polis
Greek Prose Comp	Latin Historiography: Ammianus/SHA	Indo-European Grammar II
Ind Stud: Latin

Religious/Historiographical Interest:

Year One	Year Two	Year Three
Polybius	Problems in Greek History	Greek Sanctuaries
CLST Proseminar	Greek Historiog [Princ]	Rabbinic Narrative
Advanced Greek Survey	Hellenistic Judaism: Josephus	Tacitus
Judaism/Christianity: Identity and Polemics
Problems in Roman History	Jews in Greek/Roman World	Ind Stud
Greek Epigraphy	Ancient Economies	Josephus as Historiographer
Rabbinic Judaism: Messianism	Greek Prose Composition	Identity/Self-Definition Judaism and Christianity
Ind Stud