CLAS 2250 Multiculturalism in the Roman Empire

From its beginnings as a small city-state in central Italy, Rome built a vast multicultural empire stretching across the entire Mediterranean and much of Europe. We will travel through this empire, visiting such different peoples and provinces as the Germans and the Jews, Britain and Greece. How did those people remain loyal to their origins while also becoming Roman? How did the different cultures included within the empire transform who "the Romans" were and what it meant to be Roman? How did the emperors--those larger-than-life figures like Augustus and Nero--use the diversity of the empire to craft their public images as conquerors or as...Greek actors? We'll use a combination of written sources, archaeological evidence, and even visual art to investigate these questions and to explore the ever-expanding melting pot of the Roman world.