1.   What does it mean when we say the earlier Romans lived by austere, agrarian values?
2.   What do the legends of Mucius Scaevola, Cincinnatus, and Horatius tell us about the earlier Romans?
3.   Who were the Etruscans?
4.   What were patricians and plebeians?
5.   What is the significance of the date 509 BC in Roman history?
6.   What were the main institutions of the Roman government under the Republic?
What were the relationships among these institutions? What made the Roman Republic
a republic?
7.   Who were the Gauls? Of what modern peoples are they the ancestors?
8.   Explain how the Roman wars with the Greeks of southern Italy began.  Discuss the wars themselves -- the role of Pyrrhus, the style of fighting exhibited by the Romans, etc.
9.   The Punic Wars were perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the Romans during
the era of the Republic. What happened in the first? The second? The third?
10.  What were latifundia?
11.  Who were the Gracchi Brothers? What was the impact of their political careers on the
 Roman Republic?  Were they good guys or bad guys?
12.  What were populares and optimates (Political Groups)
  Panem et circenses? (Bread and Circuses)
13.  What was Jugurtha’s famous comment on the state of Roman politics around 110
BC? Who was Jugurtha?
14.  Who was Marius? Sulla? What was the “daily list?”
15.   Discuss the main features of the revolt of Spartacus. Why would he be a meaningful hero to us today?
16.  Who defeated Spartacus? Who got more and who less of the credit?
17.  Who were the three members of the First Triumvirate? What was it all about?
18.  What Roman leader got things off to a very bad start with the Jewish people of palestine? How?
19.  Explain what Caesar’s Commentaries were all about.
20.  What is the importance of the Battle of Pharsalus?
21.  How did it come to pass that the great library in Alexandria was burned up in Caesar’s time?
22.  Why was Caesar assassinated? What is the story about et tu, Brutus?
23.  Who were the three contenders for power in the Second Triumvirate? What were their strengths and weaknesses?
24.  Discuss the demise of Cleopatra.
25.  What reforms did Octavian (Caesar Augustus) make as the first emperor?
26.  What is the importance of Teutoberg Forest? 4, BC?
27.  Explain the careers of Caligula and Nero.  Which one was the worse emperor?
28.  Vespacian, Massada, the diaspora.  What are they all about?
29.  What were the major events in the reigns of the “Five Good Emperors?”
30.  What troubles began to erode the strength of Rome at the end of the second century?
31.  Should Diocletian be regarded positively or negatively in the history books? What did he do?
32.  What did Constantine, Julian, and Theodosius I have to do with the rise of Christianity? What other new religions had appeared in the Roman Empire at the time
Christianity had begun to become a distinct faith? What philosophies were also rivals with some of the religions?
33.  Did Rome fall? What is the case that it lived on long after the fifth century?
34.  Who were the barbarians that invaded and toppled the Western Roman Empire?
35.  What do the dates 324, 410 and 476 have to do with the late history of the Roman Empire?
36.  It is a bit of a stretch, but how can one say the modern troubles between Israel and  the Arab World began in Roman times?***
37.  Explain how the Roman Republic was destroyed between 133 and 31 BC.  What political leaders and factors caused its demise?***
38.  What lessons might the experiences of ancient Rome teach us? What were their positive accomplishments as well as their negative ones?***