ANCH 021. Roman Society and Identity: Food and War

(Cross-listed as CLST 021)
This class will examine the interconnected roles of food and war in ancient Roman society. The first part of the semester will focus on the practicalities of the Roman diet. Building on this knowledge, we will explore how food and war together shaped the Roman sense of identity. Finally, we will study how food drove Roman military and political policy. The last seven weeks of the term will involve detailed case studies considering how issues directly related to food shaped the decisions and actions that enabled Rome to expand from the Italian peninsula to a Mediterranean empire in only 100 years, and then later tear itself apart in civil wars, only to emerge as a stable empire. This class will combine social, political, and military history while looking at a variety of sources of evidence.
Social Sciences.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Classics
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/classics

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