Make sure you have a thesisthat is answer the question specifically as an argument and you support that argument referring to historical texts and figures. (About 5-6 paragraphs)
2. The Greek and Roman citizen: from areté to virtus.
The ancient Greeks spearheaded the idea of the citizen and his relationship to the polis. The career of Alexander the Great ending with his death in 330 BC has been considered the end of the Hellenic Age and the beginning of the Hellenistic Age significantly changed the definition of the areté as the Greek citizen was transformed into a subject. Alexander’s cosmopolis replaced the traditional Greek polis. Like the Hellenistic world both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were also driven by ideas of the universal oikoumene/ecumene. Virtus, though a direct translation of areté, was a different concept in the Roman world and citizenship was also defined differently. Write an essay in which you argue how the idea of “virtue” affected the civilizations from classical Greece to the Roman Empire during the Pax Romana. Make sure you compare and contrast the Greek and Roman versions of virtue and citizenship and address the issue of universalism. Use examples from the lectures and readings to make your points.
