Themes in Previous TMAs and Exams

Homer

Hospitality

Homecoming

Techniques for characterisation

role of the Gods

Techniques for contrasting war and peace

Relating material artefacts to:

the late bronze age,   or the dark age,    or the time of composition

Relating the society depicted to:

the late bronze age,   or the dark age,   or the time of composition

Athens

Sources as evidence for:           history

                                                society, or some aspect of society

                                                women

                                                Greek and non-Greek

                                                Attitudes to the democracy

                                                Acropolis as a “conscious programme of display”

Republic

Causes and factors in the collapse of the republic

Roman culture and Greek culture

Poetry and politics

How the present influences writing about the past

Empire

Social status

Reconstructing the experience of theatres, baths, etc

Mourning, as ideal and reality.

Patronage

Centres of social life

Further themes

Homer

Bards;

genealogies;

sons & fathers;

disguise and recognition;

deception;

narrative techniques; 

use of formulae;

virtues;

use of speeches;

similes;

gender roles; 

type of hero

Athens

In what ways are the sources typical of their type?  

Religion & drama;

drama today & drama then; 

the ideal and the reality in the sources;

political role of drama

Republic

Greek colonies;

Etruscans;

problems of the imperium;

ancestors & genealogy;

Forum

political system as balance; 

sources of power;

role of an individual, e.g. Cicero;

collapse due to persons or structures? 

Augustan settlement

Empire

Family; 

houses; 

philosophy

dining