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MATSEC IM Classical Studies study materials
MATSEC IM Classical Studies study resources

MATSEC IM Classical Studies: Greek and Roman History and Civilisation

MATSEC IM Classical Studies · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Greek and Roman History and Civilisation

What the domain tests

MATSEC IM Classical Studies asks you to explain how Greek and Roman communities organised power, status and daily life, and to use ancient evidence rather than isolated dates. Strong answers connect institutions to chronology and to the limits of the surviving sources.

Core rules and concepts

  • Chronology: know the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greek periods, and the Roman Republic, Principate and Late Empire. Use termini such as the Persian Wars (490–479 BCE), the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), Augustus' settlements (27 and 23 BCE) and the Edict of Caracalla (212 CE).
  • Athenian democracy: the ekklesia voted on policy; the boule of 500 prepared business; most offices were filled by lot; strategoi were elected. Citizenship excluded women, slaves and metics. Ostracism was a political exile, not a criminal trial.
  • Roman Republic: two annual consuls held imperium and could veto each other; the Senate supplied auctoritas, finance and foreign policy; assemblies elected magistrates and passed laws; tribunes were sacrosanct and could veto. The Twelve Tables (mid-fifth century BCE) symbolised written law.
  • Principate: Augustus combined tribunicia potestas, imperium maius and control of legions and provinces with republican forms. The Res Gestae presents this as restoration, not monarchy.
  • Society: patronage, slavery, citizenship grades, taxation and grain supply shaped politics as much as constitutions did.

Worked example

Question: “How far did the Roman Republic balance power?” Begin with the consuls: annual and collegial, so no one held permanent executive power. Add the Senate's financial and diplomatic weight, the assemblies' legislative role, and the tribunes' veto. Explain that this was a mixed system, not a separation of powers. Then show strain: the Gracchi, Sulla's dictatorship, Pompey and Caesar. Conclude that the balance depended on convention and elite competition, not a written constitution.

Traps that cost marks

Avoid calling Athenian democracy universal suffrage; avoid treating the Senate as a modern parliament; avoid using “emperor” for Augustus as if the title existed from 27 BCE; and avoid citing a source's claim without asking who wrote it, when, and for whom.