The essay is a writing exercise. Accordingly, you should compose your answer in narrative format. Not bullets. Not an outline. Not a high-schoolish FRQ. Instead well-constructed paragraphs that conform to the rules of English style and composition.

Your essay should be argumentative. Stake a claim early in your essay, formulate it clearly as a thesis statement, and then spend the rest of the essay defending that claim with specific reference to the course texts and lectures. Remember that a blank sheet of paper is worth zero points. Your task is to fill it up with points.

You will be given a choice between two of the following and asked to write on one.

1. Myths are stories about the past that nations tell themselves to remember who they are.  We have encountered numerous myths in this course including Troy, the Oresteia, Aeneas & Dido, Lucretia, Cincinnatus, and Beowulf.  Select two of these myths and explain the purpose of those stories.  What values or events do they commemorate?  What do they tell us about the society in question?

2. From the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution, agriculture was the principal occupation in Europe and the Mediterranean.  The form of agriculture tells us much about a society.  Consider, e.g., the free farmer of Archaic and Classical Greece and the ideal of self-sufficiency (autarkeia). First, sketch the features of the Mediterranean agricultural system, including some of the problems or challenges that emerged in the course of Greek or Roman history. Finally, explain what the system reveals about Mediterranean civilization.

3. Like agriculture, a civilization’s style of warfare reflects its social organization and its values.  Compare the hoplite soldier of Archaic and Classical Greece with the warrior of either Bronze Age Greece, the Germanic tribes (e.g. Beowulf), or medieval Europe.  Who did the fighting? What does the manner of warfare reveal about each civilization?

4. Over the course of a thousand years, Christianity went from a persecuted Roman mystery religion to the medieval papal “monarchy.”  Discuss some of the major stages in the development of the Church as a political, social, and religious institution.

5. After the collapse of Roman administration in the fifth century, European civilization went through a number of political transformations that culminated in the formation of the national monarchies by the thirteenth century.  Discuss some of the major stages in that process.  Then consider: what forces supported the centralization of power under a monarch?  What forces of fragmentation inhibited centralization?

Rivers
Danube River
Rhine River
Seine River
Rhone River
Thames River
Tiber River

Water
Atlantic Ocean
North Sea
English Channel
Mediterranean Sea
Black Sea
Aegean Sea
Adriatic Sea

Countries
England
Ireland
Netherlands/Holland
Luxembourg
Belgium

Chronology