Great Books Program

Ancient Roman Year

  • Second year of our four-year Great Books Program
  • High school or college credit options
  • Read & discuss the finest works of Western civilization
  • Our faculty are highly experienced online moderators
  • Weekly, online classes with students from around the world
Each of our Great Books Program online classes begin with a poem and a short discussion of poetry related to the week’s reading. Complete list of poetry can be found in our Great Books Study Guides.

Poetry for Week 3 of the Ancient Roman Year

The Roman Road, by Thomas Hardy

THE Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of Now and Then,
And delve, and measure, and compare;
Visioning on the vacant air
Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear
The Eagle, as they pace again
The Roman Road.

But no tall brass-helmeted legionnaire
Haunts it for me. Uprises there
A mother’s form upon my ken,
Guiding my infant steps, as when
We walked that ancient thoroughfare,

Ancient Roman Year Samples

For this class these Roman year students have read selections from Thomas à Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ.” The conversation opens with a question about similarities and differences between what the students’ have encountered in the Imitation and what they read previously from Plato, Cicero, St. Augustine, Plotinus, Aristotle, and others who gave counsel about how one ought to live. This moderators for this class are Dr. Heather Erb and Mr. Stephen Bertucci.

In Cicero’s work “On Duties” he discusses the question, “Is the immoral ever expedient?”  As the students discuss this question the conversation turns to the topic of a hierarchy of duties; do some duties come before others?  Are one’s obligations to the family primary or are those obligations below obligations to the State?  What is the common good and how is it best achieved?  The class is moderated by Dr. Christopher Morrissey and Mr. Stephen Bertucci.

Choose from one of our three track options. 

High School Credits

Easier workload compared to the AA/BA track
Students from any high school or homeschool can join
Ages 14 and up

Associate’s Degree Track

90 credits total
48 credits from GBP
12 credits from Theology Online
30 credits from Catholic International University

Bachelor’s Degree Track

120 College Credits
48 credits from GBP
12 credits from Theology Online
60 credits from Catholic International University

Great Books of the Ancient Romans Weekly Readings
Great Books of the Ancient Romans
First Semester
Great Books of the Ancient Romans
to the Early Middle Ages
Second Semester
Weekly ReadingsWeekly Readings
Week 1
Aeneid - Virgil
Week 17
New Testament; St. Matthew
Week 2
Aeneid - Virgil		Week 18
New Testament, St. John
Week 3
Livy*		Week 19
New Testament; Acts of the Apostles
Week 4
Plutarch: Romulus, Numa Pomulus,
Coriolanus, Caesar		Week 20
Confessions - Augustine
Week 5
Conquest of Gaul -Caesar		Week 21
Confessions - Augustine
Week 6
Plutarch: Brutus, Cicero		Week 22
Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius
Week 7
On Friendship, On Duties – Cicero		Week 23
City of God* - St.Augustine
Week 8
Annals* - Tacitus
Week 24
City of God* - St.Augustine
Week 9
On the Nature of Things* - Lucretius
Week 25
Qu’ran* - Muhammed
Week 10
Discourses*- Epictitus
Meditations* - Marcus Aurelius		Week 26
History of the English People - Bede
Week 11
Plutarch: Cato the Younger, Antony		Week 27
Sir Galahad - Tennyson
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Week 12
On the Natural Faculties - Galen 		Week 28
Imitation of Christ -Kempis
Week 13
Thanksgiving week, no classes		Week 29
Spring Break – April 4-12
Week 14
Enneads* - Plotinus
Week 30
Guide for the Perplexed - Maimonides
Week 15
Old Testament -Genesis, Job		Week 31
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Week 16
Oral Exams
Week 32
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Week 33
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Week 34
Oral Exams
*Selections

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