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Study Guide for SECOND Test: History of Rome
CLAS 333
Please feel free to email me with any questions: blibby@amherst.edu
Names, terms, and concepts (possible ID’s or topics for a short-answer question):
Evocatio
Pax Deorum
Prorogation (proconsul, propraetor)
Publicani
Equites
Quaestio de rebus repetundis (court for extortion charge against provincial governors)
Latifundia
Ager publicus
Carneades
Tiberius Gracchus
Land reform and grain dole
Gaius Gracchus
Optimates
Populares
Gaius Marius
Jugurtha
Marius’ military reforms
Lucius Cornelius Sulla
Saturninus
91-88 Social War
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Mithridates of Pontus
Cinna
Proscriptions
Freedmen (liberti)
Sulla’s reforms
Cicero
M. Licinius Crassus
Gnaeus Pompey (the Great)
Julius Caesar
Main contrasts between slavery in Ancient Rome and slavery in American history?
What are two different types of slave experience in Roman Empire?
Catiline
insulae
collegia
Catullus
Circus
Societal and political importance of Circus and gladiatorial games?
Sertorius
Caesar’s commentarii on his Gallic campaigns
Helvetii
Clodius Pulcher
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Dates: if in bold, you should learn exact date—otherwise approx. is fine (i.e. mid-1st cent.)
133 BC: tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus
104-100 BC: (Marius’ 5 consecutive consulships)
91-88 BC: Social War
88 BC: Sulla’s first march on Rome
87 BC: Cinna and Marius march on Rome
82 BC: Sulla’s second march on Rome. Decisive victory at Battle of Colline Gate
78 BC: Death of Sulla
73-71 BC: Third Servile War: Spartacus
63 BC: Catilinarian Conspiracy
70 BC: first time Crassus and Pompey are consuls—overturn Sulla’s reforms
60 BC: First Triumvirate
59 BC: Caesar’s first consulship
56 BC: Conference at Luca
53 BC: Battle of Carrhae
49 BC : SCU ordered: Pompey in command vs. Caesar; Caesar given ultimatum
Possible questions for a short essay (mainly taken from reading guides):
1) How does Cato the Elder react to the growing presence of Greek culture in Rome?
How does his attitude reflect more general views on Greek influence at Rome?
2) What are the sides that emerge in the civil unrest in Roman Republic from 133 BC on?
How would they characterize each other? (Be sure to offer a few specific examples.)
3) Some point to Marius as the figure who ushered in the end of the Republic. Why?
4) Do you think that Sulla’s extreme measures were necessary? Or was his use of violence
counterproductive?
In other words: if you wanted to argue that Sulla was a savior of Rome, how would you
do it? And if you wanted to argue that he was the worst and most corrosive influence yet
on Rome, how would you do it?
(DO NOT CHOOSE THIS ESSAY IF YOU WROTE IT FOR YOUR RESPONSE PAPER!)
5) What can we learn from Catullus’ poetry as historians?
(DO NOT CHOOSE THIS ESSAY IF YOU WROTE IT FOR YOUR RESPONSE PAPER!)