User talk:Ancient History Presentation

PART 1 ANCIENT HISTORY ORAL PRESENTATIONS SEMESTER 1

All students are expected to give a brief assessed oral presentation. The final mark awarded for the oral presentation will be made up of both the students’ (50 %) and the tutor’s (50%) mark. These oral presentations will give you an opportunity to study a subject in more detail and also to develop transferable skills such as teamwork and speaking in public. It is important that you bear the following points in mind:

Content: •	The other members of your seminar group will not be familiar with the material you are presenting. Make sure that you give an adequate introduction and summary. •	Make sure to address the questions asked for each topic. Sticking to these questions may also help you to structure your presentation.

Form:

•	Planning and teamwork are an important part of this exercise. You will need to meet up several times before your presentation to allocate subjects for each individual speaker and maybe also to rehearse your talks. This would also give you an opportunity to check that you are keeping to the time limit. It may therefore be useful to swap telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. •	Each group has 10 minutes to give their presentation; this is followed by 5 minutes for questions. It is an important part of this exercise that you manage to stick to this time limit. You will have to decide as a group how much time each speaker has. If your group is quite large, for example, it may be helpful to designate one person to be in charge of visual aids. In general, it is important however that as many people as possible make a contribution to the group. •	Non-attendance (unless accompanied by medical certificate or for serious family reasons) will result in the individual student being awarded no marks at all. Non-attendance by a student is also likely to seriously affect the whole group as it will probably not be possible for the other members of the group to cover all the issues. Attendance is therefore very important both for yourself and for your fellow students.

PRESENTATION TOPIC 1: Peasant Wisdom? Practical Advice from Hesiod

Read Hesiod Works and Days ll. 695 – end (texts to be provided). 1)	What kind of advice does Hesiod offer his audience? Who do you think his target audience might be? 2)	What does the advice tell us about social values and relationships in the archaic Greek world? 3)	Explain the Greek calendar system of months and days (see suggested reading) 4)	What picture of Greek life do we have from Hesiod’s list of taboos and lucky days? Why does he think it is important to know these matters?

For the Greek calendar the following may be useful: M.L. West (ed.) Hesiod: Works and Days. A. Lardinois, ‘How the Days fit the Works in Hesiod’s Works and Days?’ American Journal of Philology 119, 1998, 319-336. A.E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Classical Antiquity (1972)

PRESENTATION TOPIC 2: Homer and Greek Tragedy

Plays are assigned according to group and tutor Euripides’ Orestes; Sophocles’ Ajax; Aeschylus’ Agamemnon; Euripides’ The Trojan Women; Euripides’ Helen; Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis; Sophocles’ Philoctetes; Euripides’ Hecuba

Copies of each play are available in the Library, the Sheila White Library and from your tutor. Read your chosen play carefully. The Greek tragedians composing in the 5th century BC took many of their themes from the Trojan War stories and adapted them for their own purposes. Construct an oral presentation based on the following: 1)	Explain the play to your group: plot, setting, characters, action and message. 2)	The play uses the same characters and events as Homer in the Iliad and in the Odyssey. Some are set in the Trojan War, some a little later. How similar is your play to Homer? Are the characters portrayed in the same way? How had the writer adapted his material? For what purpose? 3)	How would you adapt the play to the cinema screen (an optional question time permitting)

PRESENTATION TOPIC 3: Glory and greed: the values of the Roman aristocracy

Your group should read the following passages:

Polybius 6.53 on aristocratic funerals (Roman History sourcebook no. 17) Epitaphs of Scipio Barbatus and Lucius Metellus (Roman History sourcebook no. 18-19) Polybius 6.39 on the rewards of valour (Roman History sourcebook no. 31, p. 65, section 39) Pliny 7.29: the bravest Roman (text to be provided) Livy 39.6-7 on the triumph of Manlius Vulso (text to be provided) Cicero on the importance of observing omens (Roman History sourcebook no. 93) A temple dedication by L. Mummius (Roman History sourcebook no. 102)

Questions 1)	In what ways could aristocratic Romans win glory? 2)	How was success celebrated and commemorated? 3)	What constraints were there on the pursuit of glory? Do you think that Polybius is right to suggest that the Romans were obsessed with military glory?

PRESENTATION TOPIC 4: Gladiators, Games and Politicians in Rome

This group should read the passages listed below, copies of which will be provided. I)  Cicero, For Sestius sections 115-119, 127-129 (text to be provided) II)  Cicero, Letters to his Friends, 7.1 (from Cicero to Marcus Marius; text to be provided) III) Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 39 IV) Passages from the Roman History sourcebook no. 71-73, 75-6

Explain to your fellow group members the nature of the gladiatorial shows and briefly discuss the issues raised in the passages and the following questions.

1)	Why did the magistrates spend so much of their money on these shows? Why were they so popular? Why did Caesar (passage III) exceed his predecessors in the number and length of his shows when he was dictator? 2)	Is Cicero making a plausible case (passage I) when he claims that the shows were the best place to assess public opinion on contemporary politics? 3)	What do the passages suggest were the attitudes of the wealthy elite towards these forms of entertainment?