1. What does Vegetius see as the most important qualities of a soldier in the Roman army?
2. What military challenges facing the Roman Empire made the recruitment and training of soldiers essential?
3. What does Tacitus praise, and what does he criticize about Germanic warriors, food, houses, and child rearing?
4. Tacitus's work was written in part to criticize his fellow Romans, whom he saw as becoming weak from the influx of wealth into the empire. How does this inform his description of Germanic customs? How might such attitudes shape the way Romans responded to the barbarian migrations?
5. How would you describe this depiction of war? How does the artist show Roman superiority over the barbarians through the placement, dress, and facial features of the soldiers?
6. How does this funeral sculpture reinforce or challenge what you have learned about Roman expansion and the Romans treatment of the peoples they conquered?
7. According to Gregory what gives relics their power and why should they be venerated?
8. The veneration of relics involved both public display for community devotion and personal ownership for private needs. What examples of each do you see in Gregory's text?
9. What were the various ways a person could become a slave and how were their actions limited once this had happened?
10. Every slave system must balance the notion of slaves as property and slaves as persons. How is this balance achieved here, and how does this reflect larger Roman values?