Seminar Paper:

To earn credit for the required history seminar or for seminar credit in another department [e.g., Classics] students will complete the regular work in the course and also write a significant research paper.

Depending on the subject selected, students may work with any one of us [Nicols, Jaeger, Andrade or Blum]. As the term is short we will meet with the students on Thursday, 8 January, and review the process and options. Thereafter depending on the subject students can meet with their immediate advisor on a schedule to be negotiated.

The paper must be based on source material, and not on modern compilations.

Some suggestions:

• The early treaties between Rome and Carthage
• The authenticity and significance of the so-called Philinos-treaty [before the First Punic War; did it create recognized 'spheres of influence' which Rome or Carthage might have violated?]
• The chronology of the battle at the Longanos [1st Punic War; Mamertines and Syracuse, the event that precipitated the war; or the battles of Cannae or of Zama]
• Sardinia and Rome
• Rome and the Illyrians
• Rome and her Italian allies during the second punic war
• Spain during the 2nd Punic War
• The Carthaginians in Roman literature
• Polybius and Livy on the causes of the 2nd Punic War.
• The Punic Wars in Roman Poetry
• Plutarch on Fabius Maximus
• Historiographical: How did educated Europeans of the early 20th Cent. perceive the conflict between the Aryan Romans and the Semitic Carthaginians?
  • The Perception of the Punic Wars in Nazi Germany...reading knowledge of German required.
  • The Perception of the Punic Wars and War Guilt in British historiography of the pre WW2 period.