University of Georgia CLAS4300/6300 Death in the Ancient World Spring 2009 T/TH 2:00-3:15

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1 University of Georgia CLAS4300/6300 Death in the Ancient World Spring 2009 T/TH 2:00-3:15 Professor Mario Erasmo 235 Park Hall Office Hours: T/TH 1:00-2:00 Course Description: The primary focus of the course is on funeral rituals in ancient Rome: actual practice and figurative recreations/interpretations. We will examine literary and archeological evidence from the ancient world chronologically and thematically. Modern funerary practices will provide theoretical models for analyzing ancient rituals. In addition to a class visit to the Old Athens Cemetery on Jackson Street, we will have guest speakers as part of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Faculty Seminar Program grant that I received with landscape architect Josh Koons from the UGA School of Environment and Design. Guest lectures will focus on aspects of ancient and modern burial ritual from Roman tombs to modern monument design and carving. Course Outline: This is a lecture and discussion course. Reading assignments (not on the list of Required Texts) and powerpoint presentations will be available on WebCT. The reading assignments from Required Texts are listed in bold. In addition to 2 brief writing assignments, students must write a term paper (12 pages, double spaced with bibliography, DUE on the last day of class: April 28th), and take a mid-term and final examination (each with image identification,short answer and essay questions). If you are not in class or contributing to class discussions, then you are not participating! The class is accessible to students with disabilities. Please see me if special arrangements are needed in seating, reading or test taking. Required Texts: Mario Erasmo, Reading Death in Ancient Rome. Ohio State University Press Valerie Hope, Death in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook. Rutledge, J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World. Johns Hopkins Press Reprint Ken Warpole, Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West. Reaktion Books Grading: Brief writing assignments; 10 Participation

2 Mid-term 30 Term Paper 30 Final Examination UGA policy statements: All academic work must meet the standards contained in "A Culture of Honesty." Students are responsible for informing themselves about these standards before performing any academic work. The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.

3 Schedule of Assignments: Jan 08: Introduction: Death, Dying, and Disposal. Jan 13: Landscape of Death: definining death and burial (inhumation/cremation) in ancient Rome; figurative readings of death ritual. Maureen Carroll, Spirits of the Dead: Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe (Oxford, 2006) " Memory and Commemoration" 30-85; Catharine Edwards, Death in Ancient Rome (New Haven, 2007), "Introduction: Dying a Roman Death" Erasmo (2008) "Introduction" Robert Pogue Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead (Chicago, 2003), "Hic Jacet" Hope (2007) "Dying" Toynbee (1996) "Roman Beliefs About The Afterlife. Cremation and Inhumation" Warpole (2003) "Introduction" 7-13; "Living with the Dead" 15-35; "Landscapes and Meanings" Jan 15: Greek funerary rituals in literature. Homer, Funeral of Patroklos: Iliad (anointing of Patroklos' body); (lamentation); ff. Herodotus, Histories 2.86 (Egyptian embalming methods). Thucydides, Pericles' funeral oration: History of the Peloponnesian War Plato, Menexenus Armando Petrucci, Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in the Western Tradition (Stanford, 1998) "The Order of the Text" Bronwen L. Wickkiser, "Speech in Context: Plato's Menexenus and the Ritual of Athenian Public Burial" RSQ 29 (1999): Jan 20: Greek tombs, funeral monuments, and epitaphs. Powerpoint presentation S.C. Humphreys, "Family Tombs and Tomb Cult in Ancient Athens: Tradition or Traditionalism? JHS 100 (1980), John H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge, 2004) "Introduction/ Fifth Century Athenian Funerary Ritual" Graham Oliver, "Athenian Funerary Monuments: Style, Grandeur, and Cost" in G.J. Oliver, ed., The Epigraphy of Death: Studies in the History and Society of Greece and Rome (Liverpool, 2000): Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1979) "Creatures of the Day: The Stupid Dead" Jan 22: Etruscan burials (Tarquinia; Cerveteri).

4 Film: The Etruscans Toynbee (1996) "Etruscan Antecedents" Warpole (2003) "Cities of the Dead" Jan 27: Etruscan sarcophagi, urns, grave goods/ Archaic Roman burials (The Roman Forum; Palatine). Filippo Coarelli, Rome and Environs: An Archeological Guide (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2007) "The Roman Forum: The Archaic Cemetery" 91-92; "The Western Palatine" Jan 29: Early Republican tombs and funeral monuments. Lecture: Dr. Penelope Davies, University of Texas, Austin Feb 03: Late Republican Roman tombs and funeral monuments (roadside memorials; funerary altars; funerary gardens; tituli; cippi; urns) Carroll (2006) "Selecting a Monument" Hope (2007) "The Cemetery" Michael Koortbojian, "In commemorationem mortuorum: text and image along the 'streets of tombs'" in Jaś Elsner, ed., Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 1996), Toynbee (1996) "The Layout of Cemeteries and Ownership of Tombs. Walled Cemeteries. Funerary Gardens" ; "Selected Types of Tombs I" Feb 05: Republican Roman funerary rituals - aristocratic funerary rituals. John Bodel, "Dealing with the Dead: Undertakers, executioners and potter's fields in ancient Rome" in Valerie M. Hope and Eireann Marshall, eds., Death and Disease in the Ancient City (London and New York, 2000), John Bodel, "Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals" in Bettina Bergmann and Christine Kondoleon, eds., The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven, 1999), Anthony Corbeil, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 2004) " Blood, Milk, and Tears: The Gestures of Mourning Women" Harriet I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford, 1996), "Ancestors at the Funeral: The Pompa Funebris" ; "Praising the Ancestors: Laudationes and other Orations" Hope (2007) "Funerals" Hugh Lindsay, "Death-Pollution and Funerals in the City of Rome" in Hope and Marshall, eds., (2000), Toynbee (1996) "Funerary Rites and the Cult of the Dead"

5 Feb 10: Staging funerals/corpse as actor. Julius Caesar's Funeral; Augustus' funeral as political propaganda; Agrippina Major and the ashes of Germanicus; Pertinax/Antoninus Pius Edwards (2007) "Death as Spectacle: Looking at Death in the Arena" Erasmo (2008) "A Cast of Corpses" Geoffrey S. Sumi, "Impersonating the Dead: Mimes at Roman Funerals" AJP 123 (2002), Feb 12: Staging death: funerary ritual in Roman tragedy. Seneca's Troades; Erasmo 2008 "Staging Death" Eric R. Varner, "Punishment after death: mutilation of images and corpse abuse in ancient Rome" Mortality 6 (2001), Feb 17: Cremation: Twelve Tables regulations; ustrina; ossilegium; urns; columbaria; modern practices. Powerpoint presentation Seneca's Phaedra; David Noy,"'Half-Burnt on an Emergency Pyre': Roman Cremations Which Went Wrong" G&R 47 (2000), Erasmo (2008) "Reassembling the Dead" Michel Polfer, "Reconstructing funerary rituals: the evidence of ustrina and related archeological structures" in John Pearce, Martin Millett, and Manuella Struck, eds., Burial, Society, and Context in the Roman World (Exeter, 2000), Worpole (2003) "The Disappearing Body" Feb 19: Cremation in epic poetry (Vergil, Ovid). Erasmo (2008) "Disposing the Dead" Feb 24: Midterm Examination Feb 26: Cremation in epic poetry (Lucan, Statius); mourning dead birds. Erasmo (2008) "Disposing the Dead?" Mar 03: Imperial funerary monuments and altars (Caesar's ustrinum in Forum); Augustus' Mausoleum; Hadrian's Mausoleum; Trajan's Column; Antoninus Pius' ustrinum.

6 Penelope J. E. Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, 2000) "The Monuments" 13-48; "An Image of Things Achieved" Diana E.E. Kleiner, Roman Imperial Funerary Altars With Portraits (Rome, 1987) "Funerary Altars and Funerary Art" Toynbee (1996) "Selected Types of Tombs II" Mar 05: Imperial sarcophagi (Severan; Constantinian). Michael Koortbojian, Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1995) "Introduction" Toynbee (1996) "Gravestones and Tomb Furniture" Mar 09-13: Spring Break Mar 17: Funerary Sculpture: Portraiture; Funerary monuments as art: Venus and Mars. Eve D'Ambra, "The Calculus of Venus: Nude Portraits of Roman Matrons" in Natalie Boymel Kampen, ed., Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy (Cambridge, 1996), Erasmo (2008) "Mark the Spot?" D.E.E. Kleiner, "Second-Century Mythological Portraiture: Mars and Venus" Latomus 40 (1981), Mar 19: Freedmen funerals and monuments. Petronius, Satyricon "The Dinner of Trimalchio" Erasmo (2008) "Playing Dead" Mar 24: Christian and Jewish burials (immediate burials; catacombs; early symbols; martyr burials; Ostia synagogue; the Ghetto in Rome). Edwards (2007) "Laughing at Death? Christian Martyrdom" Mar 26: Epitaphs and the (self) representation of the dead. Carroll (2006) "Conveying a Message" Erasmo (2008) "Animating the Dead" Hope (2007) "Mortality and Memory" Petrucci (1998) "The Tomb and Its Signs" 1-4; "From the Sign to the Text" 5-9.

7 Worpole (2003) " Libraries in Stone" Mar 31: Epitaphs. Brief Writing Assignment #1: Write your own epitaph for class presentation (today) and analyze it by comparing/contrasting it to ancient eptiaphs. Apr 02: Illusory Epitaphs (literary) Erasmo (2008) "Illusory Epitaphs" Teresa R. Ramsby, Textual Permanence: Roman Elegists and the Epigraphic Tradition (London, 2007), "Introduction" Apr 07: Conversing with the dead. Basil Dufallo, The Ghosts of the Past: Latin Literature, the Dead, and Rome's Transition to a Principate (Columbus, OH, 2007) "Introduction: The Dead as the Living" Erasmo (2008) "Reviving the Dead" Apr 09: American/Modern Funerary rituals: Personalizing death ritual - theme funerals; Cyber Dead and internet funerary rituals. Powerpoint Presentation. Newspaper articles Brief Writing Assignment #2: Analyze an aspect of American/modern funerary ritual by using a newspaper/online article as the basis of your analysis. Apr 14: Lecture: Mike Jones, Monument Carver. Apr 16: Lecture: Janine Duncan, UGA Campus Planning Coordinator: Old Athens Cemetery, Jackson Street. Excursion: Meet at the Jackson Street entrance of the Cemetery. Apr 21: American/Modern Burial rituals: cemetery aesthetics and functions; restoring African American cemeteries; roadside memorials; natural burials; recycling corpses: green cemeteries (South Carolina). Powerpoint Presentation. Marilyn Yalom, The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds (Boston/New York, 2008) " Distancing the Dead" 42-51; "The Southern Way of Death: South Carolina and Georgia" Warpole (2003) "A Place at the End of the Earth"

8 Apr 23: Class Presentations (CLAS6300). Apr 28: Concluding Lecture and Discussion Term Papers Due! May 05: Final Examination: 3:30-6:30.