ANCW20019: Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic

Written essay (2500 words) worth 50% due somewhere mid semester, final exam (40%), and 10% from tutorial attendance.

After the census date passed I pretty much thought I screwed up choosing this subject. Having never done a history subject before, it seemed to me that there was a hell of a lot of stuff to remember (dates/names/places etc). Everything went better than expected though. The lectures are not recorded so I went to every single one. In retrospect, there was not much point given the format of the exam. The tutorials are once a week and contribute to 10% of your final grade so you should make sure to attend. At the end of each tute you have to hand in an attendance sheet with whatever notes you wrote for that session. I just wrote random stuff he said to other people's questions/skimmed the book beforehand. These tutes involve a round the table discussion of something you found interesting from the current week's lecture or readings. I.e. if you skim the lecture notes or the readings beforehand you can easily find something to talk about without having really done either. This also means the book itself is not necessary although it is useful for the essay. The readings are from the book but the tutes are a Q&A by the student to the teacher so you don't need to know the answers to anything at all.

The written essay was new and exciting, worth 50%. On the plus side, it used to be like 3500 words. On the downside I was unused to the format. Before I forget, it's important to read the course syllabus. It lists the due dates of everything but also tells you how to write the essay and some tips on citation etc (Fred doesn't tell you to start writing your essay/explain it, it's expected that you've read the syllabus and thus already know the details of the essay). The essay involves choosing between a pair of like 10-12 people and then comparing them in a "Parallel Lives" (Plutarch) manner. You can compare their virtues (fides, virtus etc) or their upbringing, political strategies etc. Alternatively you can discuss a specific theme from the Ancient Rome book (in which case you'll have to buy the book) such as women in Rome, slavery, religion etc. Citation isn't too bad. Fred gave us like four sample essays from previous students who did well. Since I had no clue how to write a history essay I picked the ones that were similar to my topic and copied the format and also their citation style. One thing is to use at least 3 secondary sources. I only used one and lost marks for that. Also for the virtues don't only focus on similar types of virtues. I chose virtues mostly to do with military which lost me marks (no religion etc). If you need primary sources there are plenty of free translations on the web.

The exam is worth 40%. What's wonderful about the exam is that 10% is essentially guaranteed (although pretty sure I messed up lol). This 10% involves a blank map of the Mediterranean and a list of 10 cities/rivers/places that you have to locate and label. You can google the maps (ancient Rome) or just look through the lecture notes (which is what I suggest). This is a good buffer if you didn't do so well on the essay. The other 30% is an essay. Prior to the exam you will be given two lists of 10 questions. One set consists of period specific questions and the other set is broader, involving how something affected Rome in the long term. This is good for people who prefer to focus on one topic or like getting a general idea of things. Out of these 20 questions, one question from each set will be chosen for the exam. If you only focus on one set you can ignore the other 10 questions entirely. If you have a good memory you can cram without having gone to any of the lectures. I suggest you still attend some though because certain things in the lecture notes may seem vague. Reading the readings for the tutes is completely unnecessary unless you're genuinely interested in them. Far too detailed for the exam. Note that the essay cannot exceed 3 pages or it won't be read.
Frederick himself is an excellent lecturer. You can tell he is genuinely enthusiastic about his subject. He is also the sole lecturer/tutor so getting your essays back might take a while. The lack of lecture capture kinda sucked but one lecture a week isn't that hard to attend unless you had a late night out. Overall this is a pretty good breadth subject and provided you put in some effort getting a decent grade shouldn't be too hard.

No.

Frederik Vervaet

Not sure. We were given a list of the final exam questions though so there is no need for past exam papers.

4 Out of 5

The readings for the tutorials are all from "Ancient Rome: From the Early Republic to the Assassination of Julius Caesar" but the book itself isn't strictly needed. It can be a useful secondary source for the essay though.

1x 1.5 hour lecture per week, 1x 1 hour tute per week.

2013, semester 1.

H1 (82)