Review Post #2: Schools open on Wednesday; Quiz in 1st block as scheduled

Make sure you review your "Jeopardy" sheet. Most of the ID/significance questions will come from that sheet. There will be 25, not 35 multiple choice questions.

Because of the flood delays, the potential third quiz will be a take-home matching quiz.

See you all tomorrow morning!

Review Post #1: Roman Republic Unit Quiz 2

Good morning.

The format of Monday's quiz will be the same as Quiz #1: 35 multiple choice questions and 8 out of 10 identify/give significance terms.

As I said on Friday, we will have a third quiz, which will be to your advantage. The format of the third quiz will be a matching exercise featuring short excertps from primary documents that you will have to match with the author/situation.

Here are some tips for Monday:

As you go through your "Jeopardy" clues, think of the multiple choice question format. For example, here is an easy MC question based on that review sheet:

1. Members of the cavalry who were initially not permitted to hold high political office were known as:

a) nobiles

b) equites (equestrians)

c) patricians

d) plebians

First of all, you should rule out (c) and (d), because the question is very specific in its description of the group's circumstances. You now have to choose between (a) and (b). Who were the nobiles? If you remember our discussion about nepotism in Roman politics, you will remember that the nobiles dominated the consulship during the 2nd century B.C. Thus, if they were consuls, they would not be barred from office. Detailed information for the correct answer, (b), can be found on the Civil War power point, which you took notes on in class last week. The equites are mentioned in the slide "Division of the Aristocrats." NOTE: This question is "easy" because it involves memorization of a term.

Although you should have notes from this power point, I will try to upload it to this blog if I figure out how to do it.

Now let's look at a medium-difficulty multiple choice question:

2. In the Verrine Orations, Cicero:

a) denounces the corrupt Catiline, who wanted to use the spoils of war to pay off Rome's debts

b) accuses the Roman senate of changing the nature of Roman politics

c) condemns the actions of Sicily's governor, an avaricious man who used his wealth to bribe officials

d) celebrates the honor and virtue of Rome's political establishment

Hopefully you threw out (d) immediately, since we have been studying an era in which politics reached a low point. Although (a) is correct regarding Cicero's achievements, it does not have to do with the Verrine Orations, since these speeches are named for Verres, not Catiline (see the introduction to the primary document we discussed in class). Choice (b) may describe something Cicero believes, but, again, is not specific and does not relate to the reading in question. Therefore, choice (c) is correct. NOTE: This question is medium because it requires that you paid attention in class as we read through Cicero and that you did the assignment at the bottom of page 2 of that handout.

And now, a "hard" question:

3. Which is not a contemporary Roman explanation for a decline in values in the late Republic?
a) there were no strong enemies left after Carthage, which led to a lax attitude regarding virtue
b) the Romans were overwhelmed by affluence
c) the Romans were no longer religious
d) the influence of Greek ideas and practices

This is a handful of difficult questions on the quiz (5 or so). It is an analytical question that assumes you have paid attention in class discussions. You have had to pay attention to and write down the definition of an important word that has been mentioned several times this year, "contemporary." People think that word means "modern" or only "pertaining to right now," but what it usually means when studying history is "occuring in the same period of time." Therefore, a Roman in the late Republic would not have thought about (a), because Romans were a belligerent people who went to war whether there was a reason to or not. Choice (c) is factually incorrect, as evidenced by Julius Caesar's ambition to be Pontifex Maximus. We have to choose between (b) and (d). The problem with (b) is that affluent Romans would not have seen their wealth as "overwhelming" but rather deserved and overall a positive development. Greek ideas (d), however, were attacked by Cato the Elder, arguably the most conservative public figure of his time. He embodied sober gravitas in telling his son that the "Greeklings," with their feminine airs and lavish lifestyles were tainting Roman values and introducing immorality and hedonism. This is a convenient excuse for a person who did not want to see that his fellow countrymen were changing due to their own corruption and imperialism just as much, if not more so, than by foreign ideas.

Check back later for Review Post #2.

In the meantime, continue identifying/giving significance of terms in the manner we discussed at the end of Friday's class.