Courses and Schedules

The most up to date course listings are available in PDF form on the Classical Studies Course Catalog page. Schedules for each semester can be found on the Registrar's page. Below are the courses listed in the 2009-2010 Catalog.

Department of Classical Studies

Professor: Marvin, Starr, Rogers, Dougherty (Chair)
Assistant Professor: Gilhuly, Burns, Young

Classical Studies explores ancient Greek and Roman culture across the Mediterranean basin, from the second millennium BCE to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. The organizing idea of the field is not a single method or a discipline, but the study of Greco-Roman antiquity (and its influence up to the present day) in all its richness and diversity, its familiarity and its strangeness: languages and literatures, archaeology, epigraphy, history, art history, politics, law, science, philosophy, religion, and mythology. In this respect, Classical Studies is the original and most wide-ranging of interdisciplinary fields; it can stand alone as a dynamic and challenging field of study or can complement almost any other major in a liberal arts program.

The Department of Classical Studies offers three closely related major programs: Greek, Latin, classical civilization. Majors in Greek and Latin are based entirely on courses in the original languages while the classical civilization major combines work in the original languages with courses taught in English on the history, literature, society, and material culture of the ancient world. A related, interdepartmental major, classical and Near Eastern archaeology, brings together courses in classical studies with course work in other departments. Classes in Greek and Latin are conducted in English and encourage close analysis of the ancient texts, with emphasis on their literary and historical values.

The department reserves the right to place a new student in the course for which she seems best prepared regardless of the number of units she has offered for admission. The department requires its own placement test for students interested in enrolling in Latin courses other than LAT 101/102.

Qualified students are encouraged to spend a semester, usually in the junior year, on study abroad. Limited departmental funds are available for foreign study. Excellent programs are available in Rome and Athens.

Classical Civilization

AN INTERDEPARTMENTAL MAJOR

The major in classical civilization offers the opportunity to explore the ancient world through an integrated, cohesive program of courses worked out by the student and her advisor. Individual programs are tailored to meet students’ specific interests, such as classical literature, ancient theater, ancient philosophy and political theory, ancient religion, and the classical tradition.

CLCV 102 Uncovering the Ancient World: An Introduction to the Worlds of Greece and Rome
Burns

This course will introduce students to the worlds of Greece and Rome through the lens of archaeology to learn what the physical remains of the ancient world can tell us about how the Greek and Romans lived as well as about people living in the communities transformed by the spread of Greek and Roman cultures across the Mediterranean. We will compare artistic representations and literary texts with the material excavated from cities, sanctuaries, and tombs in our attempt to reconstruct the lives of citizens, slaves, and rulers alike.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Historical Studies or Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 125/WRIT 125 Dining in Ancient Greece and Rome
Gilhuly

Plato‘s Symposium provides one window into the culture of dining in antiquity, revealing how people gathered in ancient Greece to entertain and be entertained, to perform music and exchange ideas, to form political ties, and to share food and drink as well as other bodily pleasures. Written texts have provided a primary source of evidence for scholars investigating the social relationships and cultural symbols of ancient Greece and Rome. In this course, we will consider literary materials together with visual and archeological materials to under stand these cultures. Writing assignments will ask students to assess and make arguments, based on the cultural records, about how these cultures expressed themselves through the distribution of food at the symposium in ancient Greece and the cena in Rome. This course satisfies the Writing 125 requirement and counts as a unit toward the Classical Studies major. Includes a third session each week.
Prerequisite: Prerequisite: None. Open only to first-year students.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 205/305 Ancient Spectacle

Burns

The games of the Roman amphitheater were more than entertainment for the masses, just as the Athenian productions of tragedy and comedy commingled theater with religion and politics. This course examines the spectacle of competitive performances and rituals of pow er that helped shape ancient Greek and Roman society. Students will investigate ancient writings alongside art-historical and archaeologi cal evidence to consider how social values and identities were constructed through these shared experiences. We will also consider how the modern performances of ancient texts, the Olympic Games, and cinematic representations have emphasized the splendor, drama, and gore of antiquity. This course may be taken as either 200 or, with additional assignments, 300.
Prerequisite:Prerequisite: 200 open to all students; 300 by permission of instructor
Distribution: Historical Studies
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 220/CPLT 220 Introduction to Comparative Literature
Young

Topic for 2009-10: Afterlives of Antiquity. Taking up one of the major concerns of Comparative Literature as a field, this course looks at how texts move, tracing several works of Greek and Roman literature as they travel through centuries and across continents. We will begin with the troubled notion of a classic and explore questions of canonicity. Case studies will include texts Sophocles‘ Antigone and the poems of Catullus and Sappho. With the help of readings in reception and translation theory, we will look at these works as they change over time, asking how they have contributed to modern discourses and practices including colonialism, post-colonialism, psychoanalysis, feminism, contemporary pop-culture, and modernist avant-gardes. Students may register for either CLCV 220 or CPLT 220 and credit will be granted accordingly.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 243 Roman Law
Starr

Ancient Roman civil law; its early development, codification, and continuing alteration; its historical and social context (property, family, slavery); its influence on other legal systems. Extensive use of actual cases from antiquity.
Prerequisite: None
Distribution: Historical Studies or Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 245/345 Slavery and Society in the Graeco-Roman World
Rogers
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

Some historians have argued that the development of democracy in ancient Athens depended upon the existence of slave labor in Athens. In Republican Rome, where the children of freed slaves could become Roman citizens, scholars have claimed that the majority of Roman citizens were the descendants of slaves by the end of the first century B.C.E. How was slavery defined in the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world? What were the political, social, and economic effects of slavery upon the Greek city-states and Rome? How did the Romans incorporate ex-slaves into Roman society? Was there any opposition to slavery? In this seminar we will briefly examine slavery in the ancient Near East and then trace the development of slavery in Greece and Rome from the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. until the fourth century C.E. This course may be taken as either 245 or, with additional assignments, 345.
Prerequisite: 245 open to all students; 345 by permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Historical Studies
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 250 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 250H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

CLCV 350 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 350H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

CLCV 360 Senior Thesis Research

Prerequisite: By permission of the department. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

CLCV 370 Senior Thesis

Prerequisite: 360 and permission of department.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology

AN INTERDEPARTMENTAL MAJOR

Director: Marvin

The purpose of a major in classical and Near Eastern archaeology is to acquaint the student with the complex societies of the Old World in antiquity. The program for each student will be planned individually from courses in the Departments of Anthropology, Art, Classical Studies, History, Philosophy, and Religion as well as from the architecture and anthropology programs at MIT. The introductory course in archaeology (ANTH 206) or its equivalent is required for all archaeology majors.

Students who concentrate in classical archaeology must normally have at least an elementary knowledge of both Greek and Latin, and take both Greek and Roman history as well as Greek and Roman art. Students who concentrate on the ancient Near East must have at least an elementary knowledge of one ancient Near Eastern language. Attention is called to Hebrew 101-102 and 201-202 and to the Brandeis exchange program. Students should plan for at least one summer of excavation and/or travel.

CNEA 350 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission to juniors and seniors.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

CNEA 360 Senior Thesis Research

Prerequisite: By permission of Director. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

CNEA 370 Senior Thesis

Prerequisite: 360 and permission of department.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

Major in Greek

A major in Greek provides an opportunity to learn about the ancient Hellenic world directly through the study of ancient language and to examine the authors’ original idiom and expression in historical context.

GRK 101 Beginning Greek I
Gilhuly

An introduction to ancient Greek language. Development of Greek reading skills.
Prerequisite: Open to students who do not present Greek for admission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

GRK 102 Beginning Greek II
Dougherty

Further development of language skills and reading from Greek authors.
Prerequisite: 101 or equivalent
Distribution: None
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 201 Plato
Dougherty

Study of selected dialogues of Plato. Socrates in Plato and in other ancient sources; Socrates and Plato in the development of Greek thought; the dialogue form, the historical context. Selected readings in translation from Plato, Xenophon, the comic poets, and other ancient authors.
Prerequisite: 101 and 102 or two admission units in Greek or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

GRK 202 Homer
Burns

Study of selected books in Greek from Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey with emphasis on the oral style of early epic; further reading in Homer in translation; the archaeological background of the period.
Prerequisite: 201
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 250 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 250H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

GRK 301 Archaic Lyric Poetry
Dougherty
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

In Greece down through the fifth century everyone sang and knew songs, and there was a highly elaborate system of songs for different occasions – marriage, athletic victory, a farewell to a friend. We will read the lyric poetry of Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar together with the elegies of Archilochus, Solon, and Theognis in an effort to appreciate the “song culture” of the archaic period. What are the generic characteristics of different kinds of song? At what kinds of occasions were they performed?
Prerequisite: 202 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

GRK 302 Greek Historical Prose
Rogers

Readings from Greek historians including but not limited to Herodotus, Thucydides, and, Xenophon. Close reading combined with analysis of both primary and secondary sources. Texts will be considered in their broader social, political and literary contexts.
Prerequisite: 202 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

GRK 303 Euripides
Staff
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

Close reading and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright, Euripides. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional readings of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political and cultural contexts.
Prerequisite: 202 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

GRK 304 Sophocles
Dougherty
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

Close readings and discussion of a play (or plays) from the extant works of the Athenian playwright, Sophocles. Translation and discussion of the Greek text will be supplemented with additional readings of Greek dramas in translation as well as secondary readings on issues relating to the plays and their broader literary, social, political and cultural contexts.
Prerequisite: 202 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

GRK 305 Greek Comedy
Gilhuly

Readings from Greek comic poets such as Aristophanes and Menander. Close reading of the Greek combined with analysis of both primary and secondary sources. Texts will be considered in their broader social, political and literary contexts.
Prerequisite: 202 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 350 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 350H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

GRK 360 Senior Thesis Research

Prerequisite: By permission of the department. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

GRK 370 Senior Thesis

Prerequisite: 360 and permission of department.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

Major in Latin

A major in Latin provides an opportunity to learn about the ancient Roman world directly through the study of ancient language and to examine the authors’ original idiom and expression in historical context.

LAT 101 Beginning Latin I
Staff

Introduction to the Latin language; development of Latin reading skills.
Prerequisite: Open to students who do not present Latin for admission or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

LAT 102 Beginning Latin II
Starr

Further development of Latin reading and language skills.
Prerequisite: 101
Distribution: None
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 200 Intermediate Latin I: Introduction to Roman Literature and Culture
Starr

After reviewing Latin grammar in as much detail as necessary, we’ll start to make the transition from Latin grammar to Latin literature and Roman culture. Selections in Latin from such authors as Catullus (poetry), the emperor Augustus (The Deeds of the Divine Augustus), and Perpetua (one of the earliest known women Latin authors). Topics to be studied might include social status and identity (what defined you? might your status/identity change, whether for better or worse?) and Rome’s relation to Greece, which Rome conquered but which long dominated Roman culture, or the nature and function of literature in Roman life.
Prerequisite: 102 or or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

LAT 201 Intermediate Latin II: Vergil and Augustus
Staff

Vergil’s Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues in their literary context of both Greek poetry (Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Euripides) and Latin poetry (Ennius, Lucretius, Catullus, Horace) and in their historical context in the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Readings in Latin from Vergil and in translation from other ancient works. Use of Internet resources on Vergil and Rome.
Prerequisite: 200 or or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 250 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 250H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

LAT 307 Catullus
Young

Tormented lover, urbane jester, obscene abuser, political subversive, poetic revolutionary – the personae of Catullus are as varied as the poems that produce them. This course is a topical investigation of Catullus’ poetry and its Roman contexts. Topics will include: poetry and biography; allusion, aesthetics and the ‘New Poetry’; social performance and self-representation; Roman masculinity and femininity; obscenity and invective; sex, poetry and power. Readings will draw on a variety of theoretical orientations that inform Catullan criticism: biography, psychoanalysis, intertextuality, feminism, New Historicism.
Prerequisite: 201 or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 309 Roman Elegy
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

Indebted to their Greek predecessors in so many genres, the Romans nevertheless claimed the erotic elegy as their own innovation. Catullus, Gallus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid developed the form which became the predecessor of the love language and literature of Europe.
Prerequisite: 201 or permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

LAT 310 Roman Historical Myths
Starr

Romans based their history in myth and made their history into myths. This course includes reading from major authors such as Livy, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, and Tacitus, focusing on historical myths such as “Romulus and Remus,” the “Rape of the Sabine Women,” “Tarquinius Superbus,” and “Hercules and Cacus.” We will then examine how later Romans reworked those myths to serve current political purposes, and how they transformed historical events into powerful myths.
Prerequisite: 201 or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature or Historical Studies
Semester: Fall
Unit: 1.0

LAT 311 Satire
Starr
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

The Romans claimed satire as the only uniquely Roman literary genre. Its subjects varied widely from philosophy and morality to dinner parties, love affairs with gladiators, and the details of everyday life; its tone ranged from Horace’s smiling critiques to Juvenal’s outrage. Focusing in Latin on Horace’s and Juvenal’s Satires, we’ll also read extensively in other satirists in translation and in modern scholarship as we examine how satirical writing developed in Rome and what it reveals about the Romans.
Prerequisite: 201 or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor. Not open to students who took this course as LAT [319] in spring 2005.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

LAT 314 Pliny’s Letters
NOT OFFERED IN 2008-09.

This course treats the concepts and practices that structured Romans’ lives: including personal relationships (e.g., friends, children, and parents); attitudes toward work, leisure, and recreation (e.g., literature, popular entertainment, banquets); and citizenship. Readings from selected Latin authors of the Republican and imperial period including especially Pliny the Younger.
Prerequisite: 201 or a 300-level Latin course or Wellesley’s Placement Exam and permission of the instructor.
Distribution: Language and Literature
Semester: N/O
Unit: 1.0

LAT 350 Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 350H Research or Individual Study

Prerequisite: Open by permission.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 0.5

LAT 360 Senior Thesis Research

Prerequisite: By permission of the department. See Academic Distinctions.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

LAT 370 Senior Thesis

Prerequisite: 360 and permission of department.
Distribution: None
Semester: Fall, Spring
Unit: 1.0

• Contact: Pat Bois, pbois@wellesley.edu
• Created By: Rebecca Kayes '07
• Created: June, 2007
• Last Modified: November 2, 2009
• Expires: September 1, 2009