The Core Blog

On Tuesday, February 15 2022, Professor Swen Voekel gave his lecture on monumentalism in Ancient Rome. This lecture was given to CC102 students as historical context to their current assigned text, Virgil’s Aeneid. Along with his presentation, Professor Voekel provided a list of what he described as “some really entertaining, visually stimulating stuff that is also very good in terms of scholarly content.” Interested in how a Roman teenager would spend their day? What about seeing the layout of the land around the Colosseum not as it is today, but as it was during the rule of Constantine? This compilation of educational materials range from TED Talks to articles to interactive virtual recreations of Rome circa 320 CE. All of Professor Voekel’s generously provided audio-visual resources are listed below for any Aeneid readers, or anyonesimplycurious about Ancient Rome, to peruse.

Videos:

Ancient Rome in 20 minutes–an entertaining crash course video by Arzamas.

History vs. Augustus: The Roman Emperor on trial–visionary leader or tyrant? Excellent Ted-Ed cartoon debates a key figure in Roman history.

Augustus:Rome’s Greatest Emperor–from Biographics, this video has nearly 2 million views.

Classics Summarized: The Aeneid. By Overly Sarcastic Productionsname says it allentertaining, but take it with a grain of salt.

A day in the life of a Roman soldier – Robert Garland TED-Ed cartoon, by leading classical scholar Garland.

Four sisters in Ancient Rome Ray Laurence – TED-Ed cartoon, good on the roles (or lack thereof) of women in Rome

A glimpse of teenage life in ancient Rome Ray Laurence – TED-Ed cartoon.

Meet The Romans with Mary Bearda series by Timeline: World History Documentaries, with leading ancient Roman historian Beard.

Les Nocturnes du Plan de Rome: Le Capitole (Capitol Hill)excellent tour of lovingly reconstructed virtual Rome by two French professors (tour itself begins about half-way through video(note: Professor Voekel mentions that “there are many of these virtual tours, all very entertaining and scholarly. In French, but I could follow it with my shaky intermediate grasp of the language.”

Compilations:

Videos and articles from Khan Academy on ancient Rome.

Smarthistory Ancient Rome from the Center for Public Art Historytons of video and short, accessible articles on the art, architecture and history of ancient Rome.

Avery interesting discussion of the statue Augustus of Prima Porta, also from Smarthistory.

Virtual Tours:

An especiallycool virtual tour of Rome in 320 CE.

Digital Augustan Rome: interactive map of the city c. A.D. 14.(this link doesn’t seem to be working)

Interactive Models of Archaic and Imperial Rome from the Museo della Civilt Romana via Google Arts and Culture (part 1)

Interactive Models of Archaic and Imperial Rome from the Museo della Civilt Romana via Google Arts and Culture (part 2)

All of these great sources from Professor Voekel gives students a wide variety of supplementary materials on Ancient Rome to benefit from. Let us know which of these was your favorite, or if you have any other content you’d like to share!