ANHS 2007 ROME 91BC-AD14 THE MAKING OF A WORLD-CITY
Semester 1, 2003
Ms Frances Muecke Dr Kathryn Welch 9351 2672 9351 4779 Room N285 Main Quad Room 301 Institute Building [email protected] [email protected] 2 LECTURE AND TUTORIAL TIMES AND LOCATIONS
Lectures Tuesday 12noon-1pm General Lecture Theatre N205 Wednesday 11am-Noon Merewether Lecture Theatre 1 (Rm 131) Tutorial times and places Tuesday 10-11am Quadrangle Building, Room S661 Tuesday 1-2pm Eastern Avenue Seminar Room 115 Tuesday 3-4pm Teachers College Tutorial Room U440 Tuesday 4-5pm Teachers College Tutorial Room U440 Wednesday 10-11am Quadrangle Building, Room S441 Wednesday 2-3pm Marjorie Oldfield Theatre (208a) Wednesday 3-4pm Marjorie Oldfield Theatre (208a) Thursday 2-3pm Teachers College Tutorial Room U440
CONSULTATION You are welcome to contact your teachers about any aspect of this course. Office hours (posted on our doors or on notice boards) would be the most convenient time to do this.
COURSE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Content: To view the development of Rome in the transition of Republic to Empire from the point of view of its history, its literature and its archaeological remains; to gain a knowledge of the architectural and literary ‘making’ of Rome in the period 91BC-14AD; an understanding of how leaders use the physical space and the metaphysical images of the city to reinforce their own power and structures; to understand how literary and historical accounts interconnect with the changing physical environment and how one medium of expression shapes and is shaped by another. Method: To learn to frame historical questions of the transformation of Rome in the First Century BC; to think analytically, to write lucidly.
COURSE DESCRIPTION ‘For the Romans, the extent of the City is the world’. So wrote Ovid late in the lifetime of Augustus. But Rome was not always a world city. It had to become one. The century in which the city established itself as the leading urban centre of the Mediterranean was one marked by civil wars and social upheaval. How did the political and social instability of Rome in the first century BC affect the development of urban space? How did the leading figures of the period use this space for their own political purposes? How did ideas of the City and what it stood for change to match the new conditions of the times? How did society change? Why was the image of Rome and being Roman such an important factor in the reconstruction brought about by Augustus. We focus in this course on the lives and careers of key figures, on contemporary works of literature and above all on the physical transformation of Rome into a world capital.
COURSE ASSESSMENT Examination: Formal exam 40% Classwork: Class paper 40% Participation 20% TOTAL 100%
3 LECTURE PROGRAM
THEME 1: CICERO AND HIS SOCIETY (WEEKS 1-3)
1. Tues. 11 March (KW) The city of Rome in the first century BC: an introduction 2. Wed. 12 March (KW) Sulla’s new Rome 3. Tues. 18 March (KW) Life between the civil wars: introduction to an age of violence 4. Wed. 19 March (FM) Cultural Revolution: Literature in First Century Rome
Tutorial Session 1 Sulla’s Rome
5. Tues. 25 March (KW) Pompey the builder and the city of Rome 6. Wed. 26 March (KW) Caesar the dictator: creator or destroyer?
Tutorial Session 2: ‘Libertas’ and Roman Space
THEME 2: CIVIL WAR IN LITERATURE (WEEKS 4-5)
7. Tues. 1 April (FM) Moral crisis and retreat from politics: the case of Lucretius 8. Wed. 2 April (KW) Cicero among the philosophers
Tutorial Session 3: The City and Pompey
9. Tues. 8 April (KW) Sallust Catiline and the destruction of the city 10. Wed. 9 April (FM) Sin, Guilt and Pessimism: Triumviral Poetry and Civil War
Tutorial Session 4: 46 BC: Cicero and Caesar and the Reconstruction of Rome
THEME 3: WOMEN AND THE CITY OF ROME (WEEKS 6-7)
11. Tues. 15 April (KW) The place of women in the City 12. Wed. 16 April (KW) Women and war: coping with the Triumvirate
Tutorial Session 5: Images of Women in Civil War Rome
Easter Break 18 April – 27 April
13. Tues. 29 April (KW) The family of Augustus and the ‘New Rome’ 14. Wed. 30 April (FM) The poetic mistress and the Augustan reality
Tutorial Session 6: Imperial Builders or Imperial Symbols: Women and the Reconstruction of Rome
4 THEME 4: ROMAN IMAGES AND THE SUCCESS OF AUGUSTUS (WEEKS 8-10)
15. Tues. 6 May (KW) Legitimacy in the new Rome: Cicero’s Philippics and their aftermath 16. Wed. 7 May (KW) The battle for minds and hearts: representing ‘the good Roman statesman’ and his opposite in the Triumviral period
Tutorial Session 7: Contemporary Writers on Augustus
17. Tues. 13 May (KW) Persuading the people: the politics of inclusion 18. Tues. 14 May (KW) Lost histories: what Asinius and Livy might have said
Tutorial Session 8: Propertius and Ovid: ‘Un-Augustan’ Vioces?
19.. Tues 20 May (FM) Literary reconstruction: the Augustan context 20. Wed. 21 May (FM) Horace vs Propertius: a debate among the poets
Tutorial Session 9: Lucan and the Epic of Civil War
THEME 5: TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE CITY (WEEKS 11-13)
21. Tues. 27 May (FM) Changing Rome: the Campus Martius 22. Wed. 28 May (FM) The Capitoline Hill and the Forum of Augustus
There will be no tutorials in this week
23. Tues. 3 June (KW) The Palatine Hill 24. Wed. 4 June (FM) Virgil and the idea of Rome
Tutorial Session 10: Agrippa the Builder and the Changing Nature of the Aedileship
25. Tues. 10 June (FM) Founding myths, place and poetry: the Augustan fashion for aetiology 26. Wed. 11 June (KW) Rome, past and present: the evolution of the ‘Eternal City’
Tutorial Session 11: Maecenas: the new Roman Politician?
KW: Kathryn Welch FM: Frances Muecke
5 TUTORIAL PROGRAM
Participation You should attend all tutorials. Explain any absences from class to your teacher.
Participation in tutorials is an assessable part of this course. Marks for participation may be gained in two ways: by asking questions and offering comments during the tutorial and by keeping a journal of works you have read and sharing your thoughts on the reading at the weekly tutorials. Both avenues ask you to think about issues. Marks are not reserved for brilliance or originality.
Material set for tutorials is placed in the Special Reserve of Fisher Library and in the Electronic Reserve where indicated (**). If you have trouble locating a text or a particular book or article, please contact your teacher. If you have trouble accessing the E-Reserve, contact both your teachers and library staff.
Reading journals should be kept on a weekly basis. They do not need to contain notes on everything you have read. Rather comment on one or two works in your weekly reading which you found interesting or disturbing. Brief critical appraisal is more important than mere description.
Written Tutorial Work You are required to write one tutorial paper of about 2500 words + a synopsis of 200 words. You may submit more than one paper if you wish, in which case the best mark will count towards your final assessment. Hand in the paper at the session in which the question is to be discussed. It will normally be returned at the following session. Late tutorial papers will not be accepted. If you cannot complete the paper in the week you have chosen, do a later topic. Special arrangements may be made if you have not completed a paper by the end of the semester to allow you to fulfil the course requirements, depending on documented excuse for being unable to do so.
Documentation is required. Indicate clearly where you have found your information and supply a bibliography of works used. You are reminded of the usefulness of having either Short Guide to the Writing and Presentation of Essays and Papers, available from the History Department on the 8th floor of the MacCallum Building or the Ancient History Home Page (http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/anchistory/shortguide.shtml).
Work must reflect your own work and thought. Plagiarism (ie. the stringing together of words or thoughts of others) is unacceptable, even if the original source is acknowledged. Blatant plagiarism, where there is a deliberate attempt to deceive, must be referred to the Head of Department.
For the University Academic Board’s policy on Academic Honesty, please consult: http://policy.rms.usyd.edu.au/000003f.pdf
Let your tutor know within two weeks which tutorial topic you intend to do.
6 NB: to find references to Cicero’s letters (ad Atticum, ad Quintum Fratrem, ad Familiares) use either the Shackleton Bailey collection (SB) in Penguin or Cambridge University Press or traditional collections which give book and letter numbers.
To find ancient texts Computers like simple bibliographical references. Referencing ancient sources via modern methods is not always easy. Don’t rely on the computer catalogue. Go to the eighth floor of the Research Library or the fourth floor of the UG and become familiar with those parts of the Library where texts are held. Your own knowledge and common sense will be of far more value to you than a computer reference which doesn’t always know if a text is in English or Latin (or both)!
THERE ARE NO TUTORIALS IN THE FIRST WEEK OF SEMESTER
* = In Course Reader ** = Electronic Reserve
7 SESSION 1
SULLA’S ROME
The Social War between Rome and its allies broke out in 91BC. This was followed by civil war in 88BC. In 82BC L. Cornelius Sulla returned from his war with Mithridates to do battle with his Roman and Samnite enemies and to reconquer Italy. His resignation in 79 and death in 78 put an end to years of trauma but the problems remained. This tutorial traces the memory of the civil war and the horror of Sulla’s solutions and asks what effect it had on the generation called the last of the Roman Republic.
QUESTION What kind of Rome was created by Sulla? What kind of imprint did his dictatorship leave on the Rome of the next generation?
Reading *Cicero Pro Roscio Amerino (Speech on behalf of Roscius of Ameria) Selections **Asconius Exposition: Pro Cornelio *Plutarch Life of Sulla, 27-36 Life of Crassus, 4-6 Life of Cato Minor, 2.1-3.4 Life of Lucullus, 4-6 *Sallust War against Jugurtha 95.3 The Conspiracy of Catiline 11.4 **Velleius Paterculus II.13-29
**Wiseman T.P. ‘The Senate and the populares 69-60 BC’ CAH vol 9 (2nd edn) 1996, 327-367 **Vasaly, A. Representations: images of the world in Cicero’s oratory, 1993, 60-80
If you are unsure of the narrative of the Sullan period, you should read Plutarch’s Life of Sulla or the relevant chapters in a reputable textbook (eg. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero or Seager’s narrative in the Cambridge Ancient History Vol. 9 2nd edition)
SESSION 2
‘LIBERTAS’ AND THE ROMAN CROWD
In 63BC the first speech Cicero gave as consul to the Roman People was against Servilius Rullus and the land reform law he proposed. Study the speech, its context, its setting and the ideology which Cicero espouses even when he is subverting it. What does it tell you about the relationship between the Romans and their politicians and the Romans and their city?
8 QUESTION What did the concept of libertas (freedom) mean to the people of Rome of the Late Republic? What does a study of public space contribute to our understanding of the concept?
Reading *Cicero De lege agraria, Speech 2 In Front of the People
**Millar, F The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic, 1998, 94-123 **Mouritsen, H. Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 2001, 38-62 **Nicolet, Cl. The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, ‘Libertas’ **Purcell, N. ‘Forum Romanum (Republican)’ in E.M. Steinby (ed.) Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae II D-G, 1995 **Purcell, N. ‘Rediscovering the Roman Forum’ JRA 2, 1989, 156-66 **Purcell, N. ‘The City of Rome and the Plebs Urbana in the Late Republic’, CAH vol 9 (2nd edn) 1996, 644-688 **Vasaly, A. Representations, Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory, 1993, 217- 243
SESSION 3
THE CITY AND POMPEY
Building for the people of Rome had been an honourable way to display one’s dignitas and virtus for a century before Pompey. Was his theatre/colonnade complex simply a part of this tradition or did it move Roman building into an entirely different mode?
QUESTION Was Pompey a good Republican Roman? What did he hope to gain from his theatre/colonnade project?
Reading *Cicero ad Fam. 15.1 *Pliny Historia Naturalis, 34.40; 36.114-115 *Plutarch Life of Pompey, 42 http://www.nyu.edu/its/humanities/ach_allc2001/papers/beacham/ for a reconstruction of parts of the theatre
** Coarelli, F. ‘Public building in Rome between the second Punic war and Sulla’, P.B.S.R., 45, 1977, 1-23 **Kuttner, A. ‘Culture and history at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA, 129, 1999. 343-73 (This article is essential reading for this topic) **Nicolet, C. Space, Geography and Politics in the early Roman Empire, 1991, 29- 56 **Richardson, L. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, 318-319; 383-385 **Wiseman, T.P. ‘Rome and the resplendent Aemilii’ in Roman Drama and Roman History, 1998, 106-120 **Zanker, P. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 1988, 5-31 9 SESSION 4
46 BC: CICERO AND CAESAR AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ROME
Much has been written on what different analysts thought Caesar might have done had he lived. This session concentrates on his plans for Rome and what his contemporary Cicero thought he should have done. Where Cicero concentrates on moral and political reconstruction, Caesar concentrates on the physical. We also have to look ahead and ask to what extent Augustus listened to both of them.
QUESTION What did Caesar do to reconstruct the state? What did Cicero think he ought to be doing?
Reading *Cicero Pro Marcello, esp. Chs 23-32 *Cicero Brutus, 248-258 *Cicero ad Att. SB 89.8 (4.16.8) ad Att. SB 330 (13.33a) ad Fam. To M. Terrentius Varro: SB 177 (9.2) To Servius Sulpicius Rufus: SB 203 (4.4) To Marcus Marcellus: SB 229-233 (4.7-11) *Plutarch Caesar, 55-59; Cicero, 39-40 *Suetonius Divus Iulius, 40-44 *Dio, 43.14-28, 49
**Favro, D. The Urban Image of Augustan Rome, 1996, 42-78 **Fuhrmann, M. Cicero and the Roman Republic, 1990, 145-163 **Gelzer, M. Caesar, politician and statesman, (trans. P. Needham), Oxford, 1968, 272-333 **Stambaugh, J. The Ancient Roman City, Johns Hopkins, 1988, Ch. 3 **Ulrich, R.B. ‘Julius Caesar and the Julian Forum’, AJA, 97, 1989, 49-80
SESSION 5
IMAGES OF WOMEN IN CIVIL WAR ROME
The civil war period was a time of great social upheaval for all sectors of society. Women of the elite classes suffered the loss of their menfolk but also gained opportunity to fill many of the social and political spaces left by their demise. Their visibility in literature and art allows us to ask: what were the expectations that Roman society had of its women? How well did the women of the civil war meet these expectations? Did they exceed them?
QUESTION What makes a woman ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in Triumviral and Early Augustan literature? Does the presentation of virtue and vice merely depend on the requirements of propaganda? 10 Reading **Appian Civil Wars, 4.17-35 *Cicero ad Att., SB 366 (14.12) *Cicero Philippics, 1.33; 2.11; 77; 94-95; 113; 3.4; 10; 16 *Dio 47.7-8; 48.4-17 *Florus Epitome of Roman History, 2.16 *Martial 11.20 *Plutarch Antony, 10, 30 **Propertius 4.11 **Velleius Paterculus 2.74-76 *The ‘Laudatio Turiae’ *Texts on Fulvia
**Lefkowitz, M. and Fant, M. (eds), Woman’s life in Greece and Rome, Duckworth, 1982, Documents 137; 138; 139, 153
**Hallett, J. ‘Perusinae Glandes and the changing image of Augustus’, AJAH, 2, (1977), 151-171 Williams, G. ‘Representations of Women in Literature’, in Kleiner, D. (et al), I, Clodia, 126-138 **Zanker, P. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Ann Arbor, 1988, Ch. 2
SESSION 6
IMPERIAL BUILDERS OR IMPERIAL SYMBOLS: WOMEN AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ROME
The first tutorial for this theme looked at images. In the second we` confront and try to test the reality of the power held by two, Octavia, Augustus’ sister, and Livia, his fourth wife, within the New Order.
QUESTION What role was there for Livia and Octavia in Augustus’ program of reconstruction? What role was there for them in Augustan Rome?
Reading *Horace Odes, 3.14 *Ovid Fasti, 1.497-538; 1.637-650; 5.148-158; 6.637-648 *Dio 47.7; 48.54; 49.38, 43; 50.23-30; 54.7, 16, 23, 35; 55.8; 14-22 *Pliny HN, 3.16-17; 36.15; 24; 22; 28; 34-35 *Plutarch Antony, 31 *Suetonius Augustus, 29; Claudius, 3-4 **Velleius Paterculus, 2.75 *Texts: Eumachia inscription and statue
**Flory, M.B. ‘sic exempla parantur: Livia’s shrine of Concordia and the Porticus Liviae’, Historia, 33, 1984, 309-330 11 **Flory, M.B., ‘Livia and the history of public honorific statues in Rome, T.A.P.A., 123, 1993, 287-308 **Herbert Brown, G. Ovid and the Fasti: an historical study, Oxford, 1994, Ch. 4: ‘Livia’ **Purcell. N. ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome’, PCPS, 32, (1986), 78-105 (NB This article is essential reading for this topic) **Rehak, P. ‘Livia’s dedication in the temple of Divus Augustus on the Palatine’, Latomus, 49, (1990), 117-125 **Richardson, L. ‘The Evolution of the Porticus Octaviae’, AJA, 80, (1976), 57-64 **Simpson, C.J. ‘Livia and the construction of the Aedes Concordiae: the evidence of Ovid’s fasti,’ Historia, 40, (1991), 449-455
SESSION 7
CONTEMPORARY WRITERS ON AUGUSTUS
In this session we look at a variety of responses to Augustus which survive from the Augustan period or very soon after it. Three write in Greek, three in Latin. Three are historians, one a biographer, one an architect and one a geographer/historian. Not one was born in Rome. How do they view Augustus? How do they view Rome with Augustus in control? How well do they illustrate the changing nature and concerns of their times?
QUESTION How do contemporary prose writers react to the Augustan regime? Are there any patterns?
You may concentrate on a selection of writers if you wish.
Reading *Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.1-9 **Livy, Preface; 1.33-41; Periochae, 117-142 *Nicolaus of Damascus, Life of Augustus, 1-18 *Strabo, Geography, 5.3.7-8 **Velleius Paterculus, 2. 89-93 *Vitruvius, libri decem de Architectura, preface and 1.1
**Dueck, D. Strabo of Amasia, 2000, 85-106 (Strabo) **Feldherr, A. ‘Livy’s Revolution: civic identity and the creation of the res publica, in Habinek, T. & Schiesaro, A. (eds), The Roman cultural revolution, 1997, 136-157 (Livy) **Gabba, E. ‘Augustus and the historians’, in Millar, F. & Segal, E., Caesar Augustus: seven aspects, Oxford 1984 **Galinsky, K. Augustan Culture: an interpretative introduction, Princeton, 1996, pp. 280-287 (Livy) **Wiseman, T.P. ‘Strabo on the Campus Martius’, in Roman Studies, Liverpool, 1987, 161-166 (Strabo) **Woodman, A.J. Velleius Paterculus: the Caesarian and Augustan narrative, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 250-281 (Velleius)
12 SESSION 8
PROPERTIUS AND OVID: ‘UN-AUGUSTAN’ VOICES?
Propertius, dispossessed in the civil war but part of the circle of Maecenas, writes of his hatred of war and his affection for tranquillity. Ovid, who loves the physical reality of Augustan Rome but appears uninterested in efforts at ‘moral reform’ is exiled to the Black Sea, never to see Rome again. Did these poets have a problem with Augustus? Did they have a problem with Augustan Rome? If so, was it the same problem?
QUESTION Both Propertius at the beginning of the Augustan period and Ovid at the end are seen as not quite fitting with the contemporary message. To what extent do they disagree with the moral majority? Are their disagreements the same or different?
Reading Amores I.2 'triumph' of love (see Mckeown's comm) Rem. Am. 151-98 Ars Am. I 31-4 I.99-134 Romulus and Sabine I 171-228 Ars Am. III 113-128
A. W-H, 'The Golden Age and Sin in Augustan Ideology ', Past & Present 95 (1982) 19-36 D. Kennedy, " 'Augustan' and 'anti-Augustan': Reflections on terms of reference' in (ed.) A. Powell, Roman poetry and propaganda in the Age of Augustus (1980) **Galinsky, K., Augustan Culture: an interpretative introduction, 1996 **Lyne, R.O.A.M., The Latin Love Poets (Oxford, 1980), Ch. 4 **Fantham, E., Roman Literary Culture, Johns Hopkins, 1996, 102-125
SESSION 9
LUCAN AND THE EPIC OF CIVIL WAR
QUESTION What do Pompey and Cato symbolise for Lucan in his Bellum Civile? Are there any traces of real history or are they moral exemplars for Lucan’s own time?
Reading **Braund, S. Lucan: Civil War, Oxford World’s Classics 1997 Book 7; Book 9 (Translation) **Appian Civil Wars, 2. *Dio Roman History, *Horace Odes, 1. 13 *Livy Periochae, *Plutarch Life of Pompey, Life of Cato Minor
**Ahl, F.M. Lucan : An Introduction, 1976 **Fantham, E. Lucan Book. II, 1992, 3-23 **Fantham, E.Caesar and the mutiny: Lucan’s reshaping on the historical tradition in de bello civile, 5.237-373, CPh, 80, 1985, 119-131 **Johnson, W.R. Momentary Monsters, 1987 **Leigh, M. Lucan : spectacle and engagement,1997 **Roller, M, Constructing Autocracy, 2001, 17-63
SESSION 10
AGRIPPA THE BUILDER AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF THE AEDILESHIP
In 33BC M. Vipsanius Agrippa, who had already been consul, took the less dignified office of aedile. What was the purpose of this office? How had politicians in the past used it? How would politicians of the past try to use it? Did Agrippa kill it?
QUESTION Compare the aedileships of Marcus Caelius Rufus (50 BC), Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (33 BC) and Marcus Egnatius Rufus (?21 BC). What was the same? What was different?
Reading *Cicero ad Att. SB 115.21 (6.1.21) ad Fam. Cicero to Caelius, SB 85; 90 (2.9; 11) Caelius to Cicero, SB 79; 82; 88 (8.3; 9; 6) *Dio 49.43-44; 53.23-24; 55.8 *Strabo 5.3.8 *Suetonius Augustus, 29; 42 *Frontinus de Aquis urbis Romae, 1.9-10; 2.76-77; 97-100 *Pliny Natural History, 36.104; 121-123 **Velleius Paterculus, 2.92-93
**Crook, J. Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 10, 2nd edn., 73-94 **Raaflaub, K and Samons, J. ‘Opposition to Augustus’, in Raaflaub, K. and Toher, M. (edd), Between Republic and Empire, 1990, 417-454 **Syme, R. The Roman Revolution, 1939, Ch 25 **Stambaugh, J. The Ancient Roman City, Johns Hopkins, 1988, 48-60; 102-119 **Nicolet, Cl. Space, geography and politics in the early Roman empire, 1991, 171- 188 **Zanker, P. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 1988, pp.135-143
14 SESSION 11
MAECENAS: THE VERY MODEL OF AN AUGUSTAN POLITICIAN?
QUESTION How might Maecenas have written his res gestae? How did others do it What problems would such compositions have held for the average Roman aristocrat?
Reading **Appian, 4.50; 5.53, 64, 92, 99,112 *Augustus, Res Gestae *Dio 51.3; 52; 54.2-3; 6; 30; 55.6-7 *Horace, Odes, 1.1; 1.20; 2.12; 2.17; 3.8; 3.16; 3.29 **Propertius, 2.1; 3.9 * Scipionic elogia: funerary inscriptions of the second century B.C. *Tacitus, Annals, 1.54; 3.30; 6.10-11; 14.53-5 **Velleius Paterculus, 2.88
**Crook, J., Consilium Principis, Cambridge, 1955, Chs.3, 9 *Crook, J., Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. X, 2nd edn., 1996, pp. 73-94 **DuQuesnay, I. ‘Horace and Maecenas’ in Woodman T. and West, D., Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus, Cambridge, 1984, pp. 19-58 **Griffin, J., in Millar, F. and Segal, E., Caesar Augustus: seven aspects, 1984 **Lyne, R., Horace: behind the public poetry, 1995: 102-131; Appendix: Maecenas, some facts and conjectures **Syme, R., The Roman Revolution, 1939, Chs.9, 18; 23; 24; 30 **Williams, G., ‘Did Maecenas fall from favor’? Augustan literary patronage’. in Raaflaub, K. & Toher, M., Between republic and empire, 1990, 258-276
15 COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY
This bibliography is by no means exhaustive. It is meant to help you with background to the lectures and, if you require it, with extra reading for tutorial topics. Don’t be afraid of those titles in foreign languages. They are placed there for those who can read them or even for those who wish to look at the excellent plates.
GENERAL Boardman, J., Griffin, J. & Murray, O. (edd), The Roman World, 1988 Brunt, P.A., Social conflicts in the Roman Republic, 1978 Cambridge Ancient History, volume 9, second edition, 1994; volume 10, 2nd edition, 1996 Edwards, C., Writing Rome, 1996 (recommended for purchase) Habinek, T. & Schiesaro, A. (eds), The Roman cultural revolution, 1997 Kent, J., Roman coins, 1978 Lintott, A., Violence in Republican Rome, 1968 Mazzolani, L. Storoni, The idea of the city in Roman thought, 1967, trans. 1970 Morley, N., Metropolis and Hinterland: the city of Rome and the Italian Economy 200BC-AD 200, 1996 Nicolet, Cl., The World of the citizen in Republican Rome, 1980 Nicolet, Cl, Space, geography and politics in the early Roman Empire, 1991 Raaflaub, K. & Toher, M., Between Republic and Empire: interpretations of Augustus and his empire, 1993 Syme, R., The Roman revolution, 1939 Talbert, R., The Senate in Imperial Rome, 1984 Zanker, P. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. A. Shapiro, 1988 (recommended for purchase)
CICERO AND THE LATE REPUBLIC Barnes, J. & Griffin, M., Philosophia togata, 1989 Barnes, J. & Griffin, M., Philosophia togata II, 1996 Bell, A.J., ‘Cicero and the spectacle of power’, JRS, 87, 1997, 1-22 Gelzer, M., Caesar: politician and statesman, trans. P. Needham, 1968 Gruen, E.S., The last generation of the Roman Republic, 1974 Kuttner, A., ‘Culture and history at Pompey’s Museum, TAPA, 129, 1999. 343-73 Powell, J.G.F., Cicero the Philosopher , 1995 Rawson, E., ‘Cicero the historian and Cicero the antiquarian’, J.R.S., 62, 1972, 33-45 Rawson, E., Cicero: a portrait, 1975, 2nd edn, 1985 Rawson, E., Intellectual life in the late Roman Republic, 1985 Rawson, E., Roman culture and society, 1991 Sedley, D., ‘The ethics of Brutus and Cassius’, JRS, 87, 1997, 41-53 Stockton, D., Cicero: a political biography, 1971 Vasaly, A., Representations: Images of the world in Ciceronian Oratory, 1993 Wiseman, T.P., Catullus and his world, 1985 Yavetz, Z., Julius Caesar and his public image, 1983
AUGUSTUS Cornell, T., ‘Aeneas and the twins: the development of the Roman foundation legend’, P.C.P.S., 21, 1975, 1-32 16 Barton, T., ‘Augustus and Capricorn: astrological polyvalency and Imperial rhetoric’, JRS, 85, 1995, 33-51 Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, Cambridge, 1993 Kuttner, A., Dynasty and Empire in the age of Augustus: the case of the Boscoreale cups, 1995, Stahl, H.P. Propertius: love and war; individual and state under Augustus, Evans, J.D., The art of persuasion, 1992 Favro, D., ‘Reading the Augustan city’ in Halliday, P.J., Narrative and event in ancient art, 1993 Favro, D., ‘Pater urbis: Augustus as the city father of Rome, Journal of the society for architectural historians, 51, 1992, 61-84 Favro, D., The urban image of Augustan Rome, 1996 *Galinsky, K., Augustan Culture: an interpretive introduction, 1996 (recommended for purchase) Galinsky, K., Aeneas, Sicily and Rome, 1969 Gurval, R., Actium and Augustus: the politics and emotions of civil war, 1995 Hofter, M. (ed), Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik, 1988 Kuttner, A., Dynasty and empire: the case of the Boscoreale cups, 1995 Millar, F. & Segal, E., Caesar Augustus seven aspects, 1984 Reeder, J. Clark, ‘Typology and ideology in the mausoleum of Augustus’, C.A. 11, 1992, 265ff Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The Golden Age and sin in Augustan ideology’, Past and Present, 95, 1982, 19-36 Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Rome’s Cultural Revolution’, JRS 79 (1989), 157-64 Wardle, D., ‘Agrippa’s refusal of a triumph in 19 BC’, Antichthon, 28, (1994), 58-64 Wiseman, T.P., Remus, 1995
CITY PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION Boyd, M.J., ‘The porticoes of Metellus and Octavia and their two temples’, P.B.S.R., 21, 1953, 152-159 Coarelli, F., ‘Public building in Rome between the second Punic war and Sulla’, P.B.S.R., 45, 1977, 1-23 Cornell, T. & Lomas, K., Urban society in Roman Italy, 1996 van Deman, E., ‘The Sullan Forum’, J.R.S., 12, 1922, 1-31 Evans, H.B., Water distribution in ancient Rome: the evidence Frontinus, 1994 Gowers, E., ‘The anatomy of Rome from Capitol to Cloaca’, J.R.S., 85, 1995, 23-32 Hall, P., Cities in civilization: culture, innovation and urban order, 1988, ch. 22 Marchese, R.T., Aspects of Graeco-Roman urbanism: esss on the classical city, 1984 Nippel, W., Public order in ancient Rome, 1995 Owens, E.J., The city in the Greek and Roman world, 1991 Rykwert, J., The idea of a town: the anthropology of urban form in Rome, Italy and the ancient world, 1976 Robinson, O.F., Ancient Rome: city planning and administration, Routledge, 1984 Shipley, G. & Salmon, J., Human landscapes in classical antiquity: enviornment and culture, 1996 chs 7-11 Stambaugh, J., The Ancient Roman City, 1988
LITERATURE Conte, G.B., Latin literature: a history, (trans. J.B. Solodow) revised ed. 1994 17 Clarke, K., ‘In search of the author of Strabo’s Geography’, JRS, 87, 1997, 92-110 Fantham, E., Roman literary culture, 1996 Feldherr, A., Spectacle and society in Livy’s History, 1998 Gabba, E., Dionysius and the history of archaic Rome, 1991 Griffin, J., Virgil, 1986 Habinek, T., The politics of Latin literature: writing, identity and empire in Ancient Rome, 1998 Hardie, P., Virgil’s Aeneid: cosmos and imperium, 1986 Lyne, R.O.A.M., The Latin Love Poets, 1980 Moxon, I, Smart J.D., and Woodman, A.J., (edd) Past Perspectives: studies in Greek and Roman historical writing, 1986 Rudd, N. (ed), Horace 2000: a celebration, 1993 Stahl, H.P., Propertius: love and war; individual and state under Augustus, 1985 Stahl, H-P, Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan epic and political context, 1998 Townend, G., ‘Literature and Society’ in Cambridge Ancient History, volume X, 2nd edn, 1996, pp. 905-929 Woodman, T. and West, D. (edd) Poetry and politics in the age of Augustus, 1984 Williams, G., ‘Poetry in the climate of Augustan Rome, JRS, 52, 1962, 28-46 Wiseman, T.P., Catullus and his world: a reappraisal, 1987
WOMEN Dixon, S., The Roman Mother, 1989 Evans, J.K., War, women and children in ancient Rome, 1991 Fantham E. (et al), Women in the classical world: image and text, 1994 Flory, M.B., ‘abducta Neroni uxor: the historiographical tradition of the marriage of Octavian and Livia, T.A.P.A., 118, 1988, 343-359 Flory, M.B.,’sic exempla parantur’. Livia’s shrine of Concordia and the Porticus Liviae’, Historia, 33, (1984), 309-330 Foley , H., (ed) Reflections of Women in antiquity, 1981 Hallett, J. & Skinner, M., Roman Sexualities, 1997 Hawley R and Levick, B., Women in antiquity: new assessments, 1995 Horsfall, N., ‘The so-called Laudatio Turiae’, B.I.C.S., 21, 1972 Kleiner, D. & Matheson, S. (Eds) I, Claudia: women in ancient Rome, 1996 Noy, D., ‘Wicked step-mothers in Roman society and imagination’, Journal of family history, 16, 1991, 345-362 Purcell, N., ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome, P.C.P.S., 32, 1986, 72-105 Perkounig,. C., Livia Drusilla- Julia Augusta: das politische protrat der ersten Kaiserin Roms, 1995 Richlin, A., ‘Approaches to the sources on adultery at Rome’, Womens Studies, 8, 1979
TOPOGRAPHICAL STUDIES AND PLANS Claridge, A., Rome, 1998 (recommended for purchase) Dickerson, S. & Hallett, J., Rome and her monuments: essays on the city and literature of Rome in honour of Katherine A. Geffcken, Wauconda II, 2000 Goldberg, S.M., ‘Plautus on the Palatine’, JRS, 88, 1998, 1-20 Hill, P., The monuments of Ancient Rome as coin types, 1989 Lanciani, R., The ruins and excavations of ancient Rome, 1897 Lanciani, R., Forma urbis Romae, 1901 Lanciani, R., Ancient Rome in the light of recent discoveries, 1889 18 Patterson, J., The city of Rome’, JRS, 82, 1992, 186-215 Platner, S.B., The topography and monuments of Ancient Rome, 1911 Platner S.B. & Ashby, T., A topographical dictionary of ancient Rome, 1929 Richardson, L., A new topographical dictionary of ancient Rome, 1992 Steinby, E.M., Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, 1996 (in English) Ziolkowski, A., The temples of mid-republican Rome and their historical and topographical context, 1992
BUILDING IN ROME — CAESAR TO AUGUSTUS
(with acknowledgement of Domenico Palombi, Enciclopedia Oraziana) FR=Forum Romanum, CM=Campus Martius
Built by Augustus Aedes Divi Iulii (FR) vowed 42, dedicated 29 (RG 19) Aedes Martis Ultoris, vowed by Caesar in connection with planned Parthian campaign? (Weinstock (1971) 130ff.), with Forum Augusti, dedicated 2 (RG 21) Aedes Apollinis Palatinus, vowed 36, dedicated 28 (RG 19) Bibliotheca Apollinis Palatini, 28 Arcus Octavii (Pal.), 28 Mausoleum Augusti (CM), 29-28 Stadium Augusti (in Campo Martio), 29-28 Apollo Sandalarius (Velia), date unknown Aedes Iovis Tonantis (Ca.), vowed 26, dedicated 22 Bibliotheca Porticus Octaviae, Curia Octaviae, Schola (CM), 23 on Milliarium Aureum (in capite Fori Romani), 20 ? Templum Martis Ultoris (in Capitolio), 20 (RG 29) Theatrum Marcelli (CM), probably begun 23, dedicated 13 or 11 Signum et Ara Vestae (Pal.), dedicated 12, see Herbert-Brown (1994) 63ff. Horologium et Obeliscus Augusti (CM), 10 Obeliscus Augusti in Circo Maximo, 10 Porticus Liviae (Esqu. on site of Servius Tullius’s palace?, Herbert-Brown (1994) 152ff.), begun 15, dedicated jointly by Livia and Tiberius, 7 Macellum Liviae (Esqu.), dedicated by Tiberius in 7 Naumachia Augusti (Tras.), 2 Ara Cereris Matris et Opis Augustae (Vicus Iugarius), AD 7
Completed, restored or reconstructed by Augustus Forum Iulii (begun 54), Templum Veneris Genetricis (vowed 48), completed by Octavian (RG 19) Rostra (FR), reconstructed by Caesar, inaugurated 44, restored by Octavian, perhaps after 31 Curia (FR), begun by Caesar 44, inaugurated (with Chalcidicum) by Octavian 29 (RG 19) Porticus Octavia (in Circo Flaminio), restored 33 (RG 19) (Plin. HN 34.13 a Cn. Octavio, qui de Perseo rege navalem triumphum egit…) Theatrum Pompei (CM) restored 32 (RG 19) ? Aedes Cereris Liberi Liberaeque (Forum Boarium) reconstructed after fire in 31 ? Aedes Spei (in foro Holitorio) reconstructed after fire in 31
19 Pulvinar ad Circum Maximum, 31 (RG 19) Porticus Octaviae (CM, on site of Porticus Metelli, Q. Metellus Macedonicus, triumph 146 ‘Fourth Maecedonian War’) 23? Aedes Iuventutis (near Circus Maximus), after fire in 16 (RG 19) Aedes Quirini (Porta Quirinalis) by ?16 (renovation begun by Caesar) (RG 19) Aedes Vestae (FR), 14-12 Basilica Iulia (FR) begun by Caesar 54, dedicated 46, completed by Augustus 12 Porticus Gai et Luci (FR), begun by Caesar, rebuilt after fire in 14 or 9 (Suet. Aug. 29) date unknown Hecastylon (CM) Lupercal (Pal.?) (RG 19) Porta Esquilina Aedes Deum Penatium in Velia (RG 19) Aedes Florae iuxta Circum Maximum Aedes Iovis Feretrii (Cap.) Aedes Iovis Libertatis (Av.) (RG 19) Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini (RG 20) Templum Iunonis Reginae (Av.) (RG 19) Aedes Larium in summa Sacra Via (RG 19) Aedes Veneris Erucinae (Porta Collina)
Built by family or friends of Augustus Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri (CM), 29 (Suet. Aug. 29), commander of land army at Actium Porticus Philippi (CM), surrounds restored Aedis Herculis Musarum, built by L. Marcius Philippus, son of A’s stepfather, 29 Pantheon (CM), built by Agrippa, 27 ( Dio 53.27) ‘recently dated by Coarelli to the earliest years of A’s reign and therefore linked with the mausoleum and the Temple of Apollo as part of his hellenistic phase’ Città e architettura 41-6 Basilica Neptuni (CM) built by Agrippa, 25 (Dio 53.27) Euripus and Stagnum Agrippae (CM), built and inaugurated by Agrippa, 25-19 Thermae Agrippae (CM), built and inaugurated by Agrippa, 25-19 Horrea Agrippiniana (Velabrum), Agrippa, 20-12 Theatrum and Crypta Balbi (CM), built by L. Cornelius Balbus after triumph in 19, dedicated 13 (Suet. Aug. 29) Porticus Vipsania (Campus Agrippae), begun by Vipsania Polla, unfinished 7, completed by Augustus; contained the world map, Plin. HN 3.16-17
Completed, restored or reconstructed by family or friends of Augustus, and others
Sed et ceteros principes viros saepe hortatus est, ut pro facultate quisque monumentis vel novis vel refectis et excultis urbem adornarent (Suet. Aug. 29).
Aedes Saturni (FR), restored by L. Munatius Plancus, Antonian who deserted in 32; triumph 43; temple restored 42 or ? 22 (CIL VI 1316, Suet. Aug. 29) Aedes Iunonis Lucinae (Esqu.), restored by Caesarian Q. Pedius, triumph 45, died 43 ? Aedes Neptuni (CM), restoration vowed between 42 and 38, carried out after 32 by Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Antonian, went over to Octavian just before Actium with Sosius, consul 32 (Plin. HN 36, 26) — but could be earlier member of family 20 Atrium Libertatis (Subura), restored by Asinius Pollio, who attached a library, 38 (triumph over Parthini, 39) (Suet. Aug. 29) Regia (FR), reconstructed by Cn. Domitius Calvinus, after triumph, 36 Basilica Paulli (FR), restored by L. Aemilius Paullus 54, inaugurated by L. Aemilius Lepidus Paullus, 34, reconstructed again 14 Villa Publica (CM), restored by C. Fonteius Capito (Antonian), 34 Aedes Dianae Aventinae, richly restored by L. Cornificius, friend of Octavian, triumph 32 ex Africa (Suet. Aug. 29) Aedes Apollinis (in Circo Flaminio), restored by C. Sosius (Antonian), vowed in connection with triumph 34, built ? 32-25, in the end decorative scheme celebrated Actium. Circus Maximus, restored by Agrippa 33, again after fire 31 Aedes Herculis Musarum (CM), restored by L. Marcius Philippus, suffect consul 38, triumph ex Hispania 33, 29 (Suet. Aug. 29) Saepta Iulia (CM), begun by Caesar, continued by Lepidus, finished and dedicated by Agrippa, 26 Pons Agrippa (CM), 25-12 Aedes Bonae Deae Subsaxanae (Av.), restored by Livia, before 16 (Prop. IV)? Aedes Castoris (FR), restored by Tiberius, 7, dedicated AD 6 Aedes Concordiae Augustae (FR), restored by Tiberius, 7, dedicated AD 10 (Kellum (1990)) Fortuna muliebris, restored by Livia
Built by Senate or magistrates Columna rostrata Augusti (FR), decreed by senate in honour of victory at Naulochus, 36 Columnae rostratae Augusti (FR), decreed by senate in honour of victory at Actium, inaugurated 29? Arcus Augusti (FR), as above Pons Fabricius, restored ex s.c. by Q. Lepidus and M. Lollius, 21 Arcus Augusti (FR), decreed by senate in 20 in honour of return of standards from Parthians Ara Fortunae Reducis (Porta Capena), decreed by senate in honour of Augustus, 19 (RG 11) Ara Pacis Augustae (CM), decreed by senate in honour of Augustus in 13 and dedicated in 9 Fornix Augusti (Forum Holitorium), built ex s.c. between 12 and 2 Arcus Lentuli et Crispini (Porta Trigemina), ex s.c. P. Lentulus Scipio and Q. Crispinus Valerianus AD
LECTURE READINGS
LECTURE 1: SULLA’S NEW ROME
1. Cicero de Officiis (On Duties) 1.109: There are others still who will stoop to anything, truckle to anybody (cuivis deserviant) if only they may gain their ends. Such we saw were Sulla and M. Crassus.
2.27: And so our government could be called more accurately a protectorate (patrocinium) of the world than a dominion (imperium). This policy and practice we had begun gradually
21 to modify even before Sulla’s time; but since his victory we have departed from it altogether. For the time had gone by when any oppression of the allies could appear wrong seeing the atrocities so outrageous were committed against Roman citizens. In Sulla’s case therefore an unrighteous victory disgraced a righteous cause. For when he had planted his spear and was selling under the hammer in the forum the property of men who were patriots (boni viri) and men of wealth (locupletes) and, at least, citizens, he had the effrontery to announce that he was ‘selling his spoils’. After him came one who in an unholy cause made an even more shameful use of victory; for he did not stop at confiscating the property of individual citizens but actually embraced whole provinces and countries in one common ban of ruin.
2. Sallust
Conspiracy of Catiline 11.4: But after Lucius Sulla, having gained control of the state by arms, brought everything to a bad end from a good beginning, all men began to rob and pillage. One coveted a house, another lands; the victors showed neither moderation nor restraint but shamefully and cruelly wronged their fellow citizens.
War with Jugurtha 95.3: Sulla then was a noble of patrician descent of a family almost reduced to obscurity through the degeneracy of his ancestors. He was well versed alike in Greek and Roman literature, of remarkable mental power, devoted to pleasure but more devoted to glory. In his leisure hours he lived extravagantly yet pleasure never interfered with his duties except that his conduct as a husband might have been more honourable. He was eloquent, clever and quick to make friends. He had a mind deep beyond belief in its power of disguising his purposes, and was generous in many things especially with money. Before his victory in the civil war he was the most fortunate of all men, but his fortune was never greater than his deserts and many have hesitated to say whether he was braver (fortior) than he was fortunate (felicior). As to what he did later I know not if one should speak of it rather with shame or with sorrow.
3. Velleius Paterculus
2.17.2: Sulla was a man to whom up to the conclusion of his career of victory sufficient praise can hardly be given and for whom after his victory no condemnation can be adequate.
2.22.1: No victory would ever have exceeded (Marius’) in cruelty had Sulla’s not followed soon afterwards.
2.25.3: So different was Sulla the warrior from Sulla the victor that, while his victory was in progress he was mild and more lenient than was reasonable, but after it was won his cruelty was unprecedented... The reason I suppose was that we might have a notable example of a double and utterly contradictory personality in one and the same man.
2.27.2: The terrors of civil war seemed nearly at an end when they received fresh impetus from the cruelty of Sulla. Being made dictator... Sulla now wielded with unbridled cruelty the powers which former dictators had employed only to save their country in 22 times of extreme danger. He was the first to set the precedent for proscription- would that he had been the last.
4. Plutarch, Life of Sulla
5.7: In other respects he seems to have been of a very uneven character and at variance with himself; he robbed much but gave more; bestowed his honours unexpectedly, as unexpectedly his insults; fawned on (therapeuein) those he needed but gave himself airs towards those who needed him; so that one cannot tell whether he was more inclined by nature to disdain or flattery.
30.1: However the survivors of both parties alike (from Antemnae) were collected by Sulla in the Circus (Flaminius) at Rome and then the senate was summoned by him to meet in the Temple of Bellona, and at one and the same moment he himself began to speak in the senate and those assigned to the task began to cut to pieces the six thousand in the Circus. The shrieks of such a multitude who were being massacred in a narrow space filled the air of course and senators were dumbfounded; but Sulla with the calm and unmoved countenance with which he had begun to speak ordered them to listen to his words and not concern themselves with what was going on outside for it was only that some criminals were being admonished by his orders.
33.1-2: But besides his massacres the rest of Sulla’s proceedings also gave offence. For he proclaimed himself dictator, reviving this particular office after a lapse of a hundred and twenty years. Moreover an act was passed granting him immunity for all his past acts and for the future, power of life and death, of confiscation and colonisation, of founding and demolishing cities, and of bestowing or taking away kingdoms at his pleasure. He conducted the sales of confiscated estates in such arrogant and imperious fashion, from the tribunal where he sat, that his gifts excited more odium than his robberies.
38.4: At any rate, his monument stands in the Campus Martius and the inscription on it, they say, is one which he wrote for it himself, and the substance of it is that no friend ever surpassed him in kindness and no enemy in mischief.
Moderns
1. ‘Sulla could not abolish his own example’ R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, p. 17
2. ‘The Sullan oligarchy had one fatal flaw: it governed with a guilty conscience’ E. Badian, ‘Lucius Sulla: the Deadly Reformer’, The Seventh Todd Memorial Lecture, University of Sydney, 11 September 1969, p. 30.
‘Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered’ Cicero, de Officiis, 2.24
LECTURE 2: INTRODUCTION TO AN AGE OF VIOLENCE
Val. Max, 6.2.8
23 Helvius Mancia of Formiae, son of a freedman and a very old man, was accusing L. Libo before the Censors. In the altercation, Pompeius Magnus said that he had been sent back from the Underworld to make his charge, casting his lowly station and old age in his teeth. ‘You do not lie, Pompey’, he said, ‘Indeed I come from the Underworld and I come as L. Libo’s accuser. But while I was there I saw Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus all bloody and lamenting that he, a man of the noblest birth, life unstained, a sincere patriot (amantissimus patriae) had been put to death by your order in the very flower of his youth. I saw M. Brutus, no less conspicuously distinguished, lacerated with steel, complaining that this happened to him first by your treachery, then too by your cruelty. I saw Cn. Carbo, the zealous defender of your boyhood and of your father’s property, bound by the chains which you ordered placed around him in his third consulship protesting that against all things lawful and unlawful he was slaughtered while holding the highest authority by you, a Roman knight. I saw Perpena, an ex-praetor, in the same guise and crying the same protest, cursing your savagery, all of them with one voice indignant that without judicial sentence they perished at your bidding, the stripling executioner (adulescentulus carnifex).’ A country townsman (municeps homo) smelling of his father’s slavery, unbridled by his temerity, intolerable in his presumption, was allowed to recall with impunity the gaping wounds of civil wars, now overlaid with shrivelled scars. So at that time it was at once very brave and very safe to insult Cn. Pompeius.
LECTURE 3: CULTURAL REVOLUTION: CICERO BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE
Vitruvius 9.1
17. Many also, born in time to come, will seem with Lucretius to investigate The Nature of Things, as it were face to face, or with Cicero, The Art of the Orator; many of our posterity will hold converse with Varro On the Latin Language; not less, also, many scholars deliberating much with the thinkers of Greece, will seem to hold secret converse with them. In a word, the ideas of scientific writers who are absent in a body, old yet ever new, come to our counseld and investigations; and all have greater weight than if they were present with us.
Cicero Academica I.9
When we were wandering and straying like visitors in our own city, your books brought us home and enabled us to realise at last who and where we were. You have revealed the age of our fatherland, its systems of chronology, its rules governing religious rites and priests, its civil and military institutions, the location of its districts and sites, and the names, the types, the functions and the causes of everything divine and human.
Nepos, Life of Atticus
(18.1) He was a leading follower of ancestral custom and lover of antiquity, which he had also thoroughly mastered, that he set it all out in the volume in which he placed the magistracies in order. (18.2) For there is no law or treaty nor important event in Roman 24 history which is not recorded therein under its date and ó this was very difficult ó he so worked on the origin of families that from it we can learn the offspring of famous men. (18.3) He did the same thing for individual families in his other books: thus at the request of Marcus Brutus he enumerated the Junian family from its origin to the present, recording who was whose son, what magistracies he held, and when.
Varro On the Latin Language VII 41 (189f.)
Where Rome now is, was called the Septimontium from the same number of hills which the City embraced within its walls: of which the Capitoline got its name because here, it is said, when the foundations of the temple of Jupiter were being dug, a human caput, ‘Head’, was found. This hill was previously called the Tarpeian, from the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, who was there killed by the Sabines with their shields and burned; of her name a reminder is left, that even now the cliff is called Tarpeian etc.
5.57 I have told what pertains to places and those things connected with them.
Cicero The Laws 1.1ff.
Atticus. Surely I recognise that grove yonder and this oak tree of Arpinum as those of which I have read so often in the Marius; if that famous oak still lives, this is certainly the same; and in fact it is a very old tree.
Quintus. That oak lives indeed, my dear Atticus, and will live for ever; for it was planted in the imagination.
Atticus. There has long been a desire, or rather a demand, that you [Marcus] should write a history.
Quintus. [We disagree on] the question of the period at which he should begin his history. I think it should be the earliest, for the records of that age have been written in such a style that they are never read at all. But he prefers to write of his own lifetime, in order to include those events in which he himself has taken part.
Atticus. Indeed I agree rather with him. For most important events have taken place within the memory of our generation. I would rather have him write of these events that of ‘Romulus and Remus’ as the saying is.
LECTURE 7: THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN THE CITY
Dionysius of Halicarnassus 8.38-61
Livy 2.40-12
Cicero, Att., 15.11 (SB 389)
25 I arrived at Antium before midday. Brutus was glad to see me. Then before a large company including Servilia, Tertulla and Porcia he asked me what I thought he ought to do. Favonius too was present. I gave the advice I had prepared, to accept the Asiatic corn commission. I said his safety was all that concerned us now; it was the bulwark of the republic itself. I was fairly launched on this theme when Cassius walked in. I repeated what I had already said whereupon Cassius, looking most valorous I assure you, the picture of a warrior, announced that he had no intention of going to Sicily. ‘Should I have taken insult as though it had been a favour?’ ‘What do you mean to do then?” I enquired. He replied that he would go the Greece. ‘How about you, Brutus?” said I. ‘To Rome’, he answered, ‘If you think it is safe.’ But I don’t agree at all. You won’t be safe there. ‘Well supposing I could be safe, would you approve?’ ‘Of course, and what is more I should be against your leaving for a province either now or after your praetorship. But I cannot advise you to risk your life in Rome.’ I went on to state reasons which no doubt occur to you why he would not be safe.
A deal of talk followed in which they complained, Cassius especially, about the opportunities that had been let slip and Decimus came in for some severe criticism. To that I said it was no use crying over split milk, but I agreed all the same. And when I began to give my views on what should have been done (nothing original, only what everyone is saying all the time) not however touching on the point that someone else ought to have been dealt with, only that they should have summoned the senate, urged the popular enthusiasm to action with greater vigour, assumed leadership of the whole commonwealth, your lady friend exclaimed, ‘Well, upon my word! I never heard the like!’ I held my tongue. Anyway it looked to me as though Cassius would go (Servilia undertook to get the corn commission removed from the decree) and our friend Brutus was persuaded to drop his empty talk about wanting to go to Rome
LECTURE 8: WOMEN AND WAR: COPING WITH THE TRIUMVIRATE
Cic., Fam. SB 8.5
Dearest, you tell me you are going to sell a row of houses. This is dreadful. What in the name of Heaven, what is to happen? And if no change in fortune is to come to my relief what is to become of our poor boy?... Just this I will say: if my friends are loyal. money will not be lacking; if not, you cannot achieve results with your money. For pity’s sake, pitiable that we are, don’t let our poor unfortunate boy be utterly ruined. If he has something to keep him above penury, he only needs a modicum of ability and a modicum of luck to gain the rest’.
Cic., Fam. 7 SB ‘What grieves me is that in your unhappy and impoverished state you should be contributing to any unnecessary outlay. If the thing goes through we shall win all. But if fortune stays my enemy are you going to throw away what poor little you have left? My darling, I beg you, where expense is concerned. let others bear it who can, if only they will; and do not overstrain that frail health of yours, if you love me. For you are before my eyes night and day. I see you shouldering every burden’.
26 Cic., Fam., SB 145
From Tullius to Terentia and from her father to Tullia, his two dear hearts and from Marcus to his best of mothers and darling sister, best greetings.
If you are well, we are well. The decision as to what you should do is now yours, not mine only. If Caesar is going to come back to Rome in civilised fashion, you can safely stay at home for the present. But if in his madness he is going to give the city over to plunder, I am afraid that even Dolabella’s protection may not be enough for us. I also have the fear that we may soon be cut off, so that when and if you want to leave you may not be able. There remains the question, on which you yourselves will be the best judges, whether other ladies in your position are staying in Rome. If they are not, you should consider whether you could do so without discredit. As things now stand. provided that we can hold this area, you can stay very nicely with me or on my properties in the country. There is also the danger of a food shortage in Rome in the near future. I should like you to discuss these points with Pomponius and Camillus and any others you think proper and, in fine, to keep stout hearts...
Cic., Fam SB 155
... I should give you words of encouragement to make you both braver than any man. And after all, I trust things are now in better train. you, I hope, will be as well off as possible where you are, and I shall at last be fighting for the res publica alongside my peers. First and foremost, I want you to take care of your health. Second, if you agree, please use the country houses which will be fatherest away from army units. The farm at Arpinum with the servants we have in towns will be a good place for you if food prices go up.
Cic. Fam. SB 173
I think I shall get to Tusculum either on the Nones (of October 47) or on the following day. Kindly see that everything there is ready. I may have a number of people with me, and shall probably make a fairly long stay there. If there is no tub in the bathroom, get one put in; likewise whatever else in necessary for health and subsistence. Goodbye.
Cic. Att. SB 227
The last thing I have to beg of you is if you think it right and it is something you can undertake, to talk to Camillus with a view to your both admonishing Terentia about her will. The signs of the times are plain to read. She should see that she does justice where it is due. One has heard from Philotimus that she is doing some really wicked things. It is hardly credible; but certainly if there is anything that can be done, steps should be taken in time.
Hortensia’s Speech: Appian 4.32-5
LECTURE 10: ELEGIAC WOMEN
Ovid The Art of Love I .67-88
27 Do you but saunter gently in the shade, At summer’s height, of Pompey’s colonnade, Or where, twin gifts of son’s and mother’s hand, Those halls of rich exotic marble stand. Nor shun the arcade for its old masters famed, By Livia founded and from Livia named, Nor where with falchion drawn fierce Danaus waits, While his daughters slay their hapless mates. Nor miss where Venus for Adonis weeps, Nor where the Jew his sacred Sabbath keeps. To white-robed Isis’ Memphian shrine recur, Who makes so many what Jove made of her. The law-courts too (who’d think it?) suit love’s game, Oft in the noisy courts he lights his flame. Where hard by Venus’ marble fane the spray Of Appian waters burst upon the day, There oft for counsel Cupid sets a snare, And takes the wary lawyer unaware. There oft he finds his eloquence has flown, And he must plead a novel cause his own; While Venus from her neighbouring shrine will mock The advocate translated to the dock.
A.D. Melville (trans)
Propertius
1.2.24ff. But a girl who pleases one man is smart enough— Especially as Phoebus gladly grants you his poetry And Calliope her Aonian lyre, And your delightful talk discloses unique grace— All things that Venus and Minerva approve. For these, while I'm alive, you'll always be most dear— So long as you've no taste for wretched finery.
2.3.9ff. It's not so much the face, fair as it is, that caught me (Lilies are no whiter than my mistress; Picture Maeotian snow vying with Spain's vermilion, And rose petals floating on pure milk;) Nor the well-groomed hair rippling over that smooth neck, Nor the eyes, those twin flares, my stars, Nor when she shimmers in Arabian silk (No, as a lover I'm hard to please), But that she dances beautifully when Bacchus is served, Like Ariadne leading a troop of Maenads. And that with the Aeolian plectrum she tries out tunes, Her skill a match for Aganippe's lyre, 28 And that she sets up her own against classic Corinna's writings And thinks Corinna's not up to her own.
Tibullus 1.1.51ff. O perish all the gold and every emerald in the world sooner than any girl weep as we march away! It is right that you, Messalla, campaign by land and sea to adorn your town-house with the spoils of war. But I am held a pris'ner, fettered by a lovely girl, and take my post as keeper at her cruel door.
1.2.7ff. O door, stubborn as your master, may the rainstorm lash you and launched at Jove's command may flash of lightning blast you. Please door — open just for me, moved by my complaining. But silence, as you swing on the slowly turning hinge! Let the curses light on my own head. It's right you should remember all my prayers and promises when I hung those garlands of flowers on your post.
You too, Delia: be bold and trick the guard.
1.6.5ff. [Love's] nets are spread against me, now that devious Delia in the secrecy of night hugs another man. True, she denies it strongly, but belief is difficult; she made the same denials to her husband about me. It was I, alas, who taught her how to fool the guard, and now I am the victim of my own device. She learned to find excuses for sleeping on her own, and to open creaking doors without a sound And use the herbs and simples that I gave her to remove the marks imprinted by the teeth of passion.
2.4.1-4 Slave to a mistress! yes, in recognition of my fate bidding now farewell to the freedom of my birthright I accept the harshest slavery — for I am held in chains & never to my sorrow, does Love relax the bonds.
27ff. Death to all dealers in green emerald, to all who dip the snow-white sheep in Tyrian murex. They & Coan silks & lucent pearls from the Red Sea — these are the incentives of avarice in girls. This is why they're faithless, why doors experience keys and why a dog keeps guard upon the entrance. 29 But if you bring big money, the guard makes no resistance nor do keys exclude and even the dog is dumb.
Propertius 2.24A.1-4
'Fine talk from you, when you're notorious for a book and your Cynthia's read throughout the Forum!' These words would raise the sweat on any free man's brow; the choice for him is decency or clandestine love.
Propertius 2.23
To me who would even avoid the unlettered public's paths water fetched from the public cistern now tastes sweet. Does any free man give another's slave a bribe to take a prior message to his mistress, Or ask repeatedly 'What portico today shelters her?' or 'In what park does she parade?' Then ,when you've undergone Hercules' famous labours, to have her write 'Is there a gift for me?' For the privilege of seeing the face of her glum keeper and hiding, when caught out, in a filthy hovel? At what cost once in a whole year your night comes round! ah, death to the men who like locked doors!
By contrast, she who walks out free with cloak thrown back, fenced by no fear of keepers is the one I fancy— Whose muddy slippers wear away the Via Sacra and whom one can accost directly. She'll never keep you waiting or talk you into giving what a tight-fisted father would deplore. She'll not say 'Quick! I'm scared. Please get up now. Worse luck! my man's due back today from the country. Give me the girls Euphrates and Orontes send; no virtuous love-intrigues for me! As every lover now must lose his liberty, every would-be lover's a willing slave.
Sulpicia: Six Poems
Translation Lee Pearcy.
1.
At last. It's come. Love, the kind that veiling will give me reputation more than showing my soul naked to someone. 30 I prayed to Aphrodite in Latin, in poems; she brought him, snuggled him into my bosom. Venus has kept her promises: let her tell the story of my happiness, in case some woman will be said not to have had her share. I would not want to trust anything to tablets, signed and sealed, so no one reads me before my love-- but indiscretion has its charms; it's boring to fit one's face to reputation. May I be said to be a worthy lover for a worthy love.
2.
Birthday's here and I hate it-- of all the days to be spent in gloom out in the dreary country without Cerinthus. What is sweeter than the city? Is a house in the country on the banks of that frigid stream in Arretine country, any place for a girl? Now Uncle Messalla, do take a rest-- you've always looked after me too well. There are times, you know, when travel's a bad idea.
I've been kidnapped I’ve left behind My mind my feeling violence Doesn't let me be my own mistress.
3.
You know the dreary trip contemplated for a girl? Now I can be at Rome for your birthday. May that day be celebrated by us all, which now comes, perchance, as no surprise to you.
4.
Thank you for taking such pains over me, for keeping me from making a fool of myself. I do hope you enjoy the bimbo. 31 Her flashy clothes do cast a subtly shabby light on SVLPICIA SERVI FILIA. (They are a little worried about me, afraid I might trip up, marry a nobody.)
5.
Do you think kindly of your girl, Cerinthus, now that a fever attacks my limbs? I wouldn't wish to get well except on one condition: that I could think you wished it too. But what would be the good in getting well, if you can bear my sickness with unfluttered heart?
6.
May I never be, o dawn of my life, as warm a care to you as I seem to have been a few days ago, if --fool that I am-- I've done anything in all my short life that I might admit to regretting more than leaving you alone last night-- passionate only to hide my passion.
LECTURE 12 Lucretius: against seeking wealth & power
Book 5 (1120ff. See whole passage) And yet, if a man would guide his life by true philosophy, he will find ample riches in a modest livelihood enjoyed with a tranquil mind… Far better to lead a quiet life in subjection than to long for sovereign authority and lordship over kingdoms.
Book 2 What joy it is, when out at sea the stormwinds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring! Not that anyone's afflictions are in themselves a source of delight; but to realise from what troubles you yourself are free is joy indeed. What joy, again to watch opposing hosts marshalled on the field of battle when you have yourself no part in their peril! But this is the greatest joy of all: to stand aloof in a quiet citadel, stoutly fortified by the teaching of the wise, and to gaze down from that elevation on others wandering aimlessly in a vain search for the way of life, pitting their wits against one another, disputing for precedence, struggling night and day with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth and power. O joyless hearts of men! O minds without vision! How dark and dangerous the life in which this tiny span is lived away! Do you not see that nature is clamouring for two things only, a body free from pain, a mind released from worry and fear for the enjoyment of pleasurable sensations… (1-19) 32 What matter if the hall does not sparkle with silver and gleam with gold, and no carved and gilded rafters ring to the music of the lute? Nature does not miss these luxuries when men recline in company on the soft grass by a running stream under the branches of a tall tree and refresh their bodies pleasurably at small expense.… (24-31)
If our bodies are not profited by treasures or titles or the majesty of kingship, we must go on to admit that neither are our minds. Or tell me, Memmius, when you see your legions thronging the Campus Martius in the ardour of mimic warfare, supported by ample auxiliaries, magnificently armed and fired by a common purpose, does that sight scare the terrors of superstition from your mind? Does the fear of death retire from your breast and leave it carefree at the moment when you sight your warships ranging far and wide? Or do we not find such resources absurdly ineffective? The fears and anxieties that dog the human mind do not shrink from the clash of arms or the fierce rain of missiles. They stalk unabashed among princes and potentates. They are not awestruck by the gleam of gold or the bright sheen of purple robes. (36-53)
Book 3 Consider too the greed and blind lust of power that drive unhappy men to overstep the bounds of right and may even turn them into accomplices or instruments of crime, struggling night and day with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth. These running sores of life are fed in no small measure by the fear of death. For abject ignominy and irksome poverty seem far indeed from the joy and assurance of life, and in effect loitering already at the gateway of death. From such a fate men revolt in groundless terror and long to escape far, far away. So in their greed of gain they amass a fortune out of civil bloodshed: piling wealth on wealth, they heap carnage on carnage. With heartless glee they welcome a brother's tragic death. They hate and fear the hospitable board of their own kin. Often, in the same spirit and influenced by the same fear, they are consumed with envy at the sight of another's success: he walks in a blaze of glory, looked up to by all, while they curse the dingy squalor in which their own lives are bogged. Some sacrifice life itself for the sake of statues and a title. (59-78)
Sisyphus too is alive for all to see, bent on winning the insignia of office, its rods and ruthless axes, by the people's vote and embittered by perpetual defeat. To strive for this profitless and never-granted prize, and in striving toil and moil incessantly, this truly is to push a boulder laboriously up a steep hill, only to see it, once the top is reached, rolling and bounding down again to the flat levels of the plain. (995- 1002)
Catullus 64 (383ff.) The end of the Heroic Age
Such strains once long ago, portending happiness for Peleus, sang the fates from prophetic breast. For formerly the gods in bodily shape used to visit 33 the pious homes of heroes and show themselves in mortal gatherings when religion was not yet despised. Oft the father of the gods enthroned in splendid temple, when his yearly rites came round with their festal days, beheld a hundred bullocks crumple to the ground. Oft roving on the topmost heights of Parnassus did Bacchus drive his Maenads shrieking with dishevelled hair, when the Delphians racing eagerly from all the town joyfully welcomed the god with smoking altars. Oft in the death-dealing strife of war did Mars or swift Triton’s mistress or the Amarynthian maid with their presence urge on the armed hosts of men. But when the earth was steeped in ghastly crime, and all men banished righteousness from their lustful hears, brother bathed their hands in brother’s blood, son ceased to mourn his parents’ death, father longed for the death of eldest son, that he might be free to enjoy a young wife’s beauty, and a wanton mother, coupling with her unwitting son, feared not, impious wretch, to pollute here family gods: then the mingling of all right and wrong in sinful madness turned from us the righteous will of the gods. Wherefore they deign not to visit such gatherings as ours nor let themselves be touched by the broad light of day.
34 LECTURE 13: CICERO AMONG THE PHILOSOPHERS
De finibus 5.2
For my own part even the sight of our Senate house at home (I mean the Curia Hostilia, not the present new building, which seems to me to be much smaller since its enlargement) used to call up to me thought of Scipio, Cato, Laelius and chief of all my grandfather; such powers of suggestion do places possess.
Fam. 2.12 SB 95
‘Stick to Rome, my dear fellow, and live in the limelight! Sojourn abroad of any kind, as I have thought from my youth upwards, is squalid obscurity for those who can win lustre in the capital.’
Att. 12.21 SB 260
You summon me to the Forum. That is a place I avoided even in my happy days. What is the Forum to me without the courts and the Senate House, with people crossing my path whom I can’t see without discomposure? You say people demand of me that I be present in Rome and are not willing to let me be absent or only allow it up to a certain point... Still I go no further than the best philosophical authorities allow me. Not content with reading all their writings to that purpose (which in itself was the behaviour of a brave invalid, to take one’s medicine) I have conveyed them into my own, which at any rate was not like a despondent, broken mind. Don’t call me away from these remedies back to your city hurly-burly or I may relapse’.
de Officiis 2.60 The expenditure of money is better justified when it is made for walls, docks, harbours, aqueducts and all those works which are of service to the community... out of respect for Pompey’s memory I am rather diffident about expressing any criticism of theatres, colonnades and new temples, and yet the greatest philosophers do not approve them.
De Lege Agraria 2.71-98
De Officiis 2.27-29
LECTURE 13: SALLUST’S CATILINE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY
Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 12.3
When you look upon houses and villas reared to the size of cities, to pay a visit to the temples of the gods built by our forefathers, the most reverent of men. But they adorned the shrines of the gods with piety (pietas), their own homes with glory (gloria), while from the defeated they took nothing but the power for doing harm. The men of today on 35 the contrary, basest of creatures, through the ultimates of crime, rob our allies of all those bravest of men had left them, though the victors. They act as though the one and only way to rule were to do wrong.
13 Why, then, should I speak of things which are incredible except to those who have seen them, that a host of private men have levelled mountains and built upon the seas? To such men their riches seem to me to have been but a plaything; for while they might have enjoyed them honourably, they made haste to squander them shamefully. There is more than this. There arose a passion for unlawful sex, gluttony and no less for all the other trimmings of luxury. Men allowed themselves to be treated as women; women held their pudicitia (chastity) up to the highest bidder; to please their appetites they scoured land and sea; they slept before they needed sleep; they did not wait to feel thirst or hunger or cold or tiredness but anticipated every need by self-indulgence.
Plutarch, Marius, 34.2
For at Baiae near Cape Misenum Marius owned an expensive house which had appointments more luxurious and more effeminate than became a man who had taken active part in so many campaigns. This house, we are told, Cornelia, the daughter of Sulla, bought for seventy five thousand drachmas; and not long afterwards Lucius Lucullus purchased it for two million five hundred thousand.
LECTURE 15: TRIUMVIRAL POETRY AND CIVIL WAR
Horace, Epode 7
Why this mad rush to join a wicked war? Your swords were sheathed. Why do you draw them now? Perhaps too little Latin blood has poured upon the plains and into Neptune's sea, not so that Rome could burn the lofty citadels of Carthage, her great enemy, or that the Briton, still beyond our reach, should walk the Sacred Way in chains, but so that Rome might fall by Roman hands and answer all the prayers of Parthia. This never was the way of lions or of wolves to shed the blood of their own kind. Is it blind madness or some deadlier force? Some ancient guilt? Give answer now. Silence and pallor on the face, minds numbed with shock. The case is made. It is harsh fate that drives the Romans, and the crime of fratricide since Remus' blameless lifeblood poured upon the ground— a curse to generations yet unborn.
Virgil, Aeneid I 291-6
36 Then shall the harsh centuries grow gentle and set wars aside. White-haired faith and Vesta, and Quirinus together with his brother Remus, shall be law-givers. Terrible in their iron bonds, the gates of War shall be shut; within, godless frenzy shall sit on savage weapons, and roar, hideous with bloody mouth, bound with a hundred brazen knots behind his back.
Horace, Epode 16.1-16
A second generation is ground down by civil wars, and Rome is falling, ruined by the might of Rome. What Marsian neighbours could never destroy, nor hostile armies of Etruscan Porsenna, nor Capua's ambitious courage, nor the bravery of Spartacus, nor false, rebellious Allobrox, nor savage blue-eyed warriors of Germany, nor Hannibal, so hated by our ancestors this city we, the doomed and godless generation shall destroy, wild beasts will soon take back the land, barbarian conquerors will stand upon the smouldering ash, their cavalry will pound the earth with sounding hooves and, jeering, scatter to the winds and suns—the sin is ours— the hallowed bones of Romulus.
Perhaps you are all asking, or the best of you, how we can free ourselves from this harsh fate?
Horace, Odes 1.35
Preserve Caesar as he prepares to go to remotest Britain, and preserve the new swarm of warriors to spread fear in the regions of the East and the Red Sea.
Shame on our scars, our crimes, our brothers! Our brutal age has shrunk from nothing. We have left no impiety untouched. Our young men have never stayed their hand for fear of the gods, but have polluted every altar. If only you would reforge our blunted swords to use against the Massagetae and Arabs. (29-49)
Virgil, Georgics 1
Thus it ensued that Philippi's field saw Roman armies Once again engaged in the shock of civil war; 37 And the High Ones did not think it a shame that we should twice Enrich with our blood Emathia and the broad plains of Haemus. Surely the time will come when a farmer on those frontiers Forcing through the earth with his curved plough Shall find old spears eaten away with flaky rust, Or hit upon helmets as he wields the weight of his mattock And marvel at the heroic bones he has disinterred. O Gods of our fathers, native gods, Romulus, Vesta Who mothers our Tuscan Tiber and the Roman Palatine, At least allow our young prince to rescue this shipwrecked era!
Long enough now have we Paid in our blood for the promise Laomedon broke at Troy. Long now has the court of heaven grudged you to us, Caesar, Complaining because you care only for mortal triumphs. For right and wrong are confused here, there’s so much war in the world, Evil has so many faces, the plough so little Honour, the labourers are taken, the fields untended, And the curving sickle is beaten into the sword that yields not.
There the East is in arms, here Germany marches: Neighbour cities, breaking their treaties, attack each other: The wicked War-god runs amok through all the world.(399-511)
Virgil, Georgics 2
Lucky is he who can learn the roots of the universe, Has mastered all his fears and fate's intransigence And the hungry clamour of hell. But fortunate too the man who is friends with the country gods-
Pan and old Silvanus and the sisterhood of nymphs: The fasces have no power to disturb him, nor the purple Of monarchs, nor civil war that sets brother at brother’s throat, Nor yet the scheming Dacian as he marches down from the Danube, Nor yet the Roman empire itself and kingdoms falling to ruin.
He has no poor to pity, no envy for the rich. The fruit on the bough, the crops that the field is glad to bear Are his for the gathering: he spares not a glance for the iron Rigour of law, the municipal racket, the public records.
Other men dare the sea with their oars blindly, or dash On the sword, or insinuate themselves into royal courts: One ruins a whole town and the tenements of the poor In his lust for jewelled cups, for scarlet linen to sleep on:
One piles up great wealth, gloats over his cache of gold; 38 One gawps at the public speakers; one is worked up o hysteria By the plaudits of senate and people resounding across he benches:
These shed their brothers' blood Merrily, they barter for exile their homes beloved And leave for countries lying under an alien sun. But still the farmer furrows the land with curving plough:... (490-513)
Roman Elegy
A type of poetry, mainly focussing on love, written in Rome by:
Cornelius Gallus (works lost) c.69BC - 26BC
Propertius (4 books) ?54/47BC - ?16/2 BC
Tibullus (2 books) ?55/48 BC - 19BC
Ovid (Love Poems: 3 books) 43BC - AD17 (The Art of Love: 3 Books) and other works…
LECTURE 19: LITERARY RECONSTRUCTION
Horace Odes 1.2
Young men will hear that citizen sharpened against citizen swords that should have slain our Persian enemies. They will hear— what few there are, thanks to the sins of their fathers— of the battles we fought.
What god can the people call to shore up their crumbling empire? What prayer can the Virgins din into the ears of Vesta who does not listen to their chanting?
To whom will Jupiter give the task of expiating our crime? (21ff)
Apollo?…Venus?…Mars?… or if you, Mercury, winged son of bountiful Maia, have changed shape and are imitating a young man on the earth, accepting the name of Caesar's avenger, do not return too soon to the sky. …
Here rather celebrate your triumphs. 39 Here delight to be hailed as Father and Princeps and do not allow the Medes to ride unavenged while you, Caesar, are our leader. (41ff.)
Horace Odes 3.24
Surely, if any man wishes to put an end to impious slaughter and the madness of civil strife if he wish his statues to be inscribed 'Father of Cities', let him have courage
to rein back our wild licence, and so win fame with posterity. With what meanness of spirit do we envy unblemished virtue, yet long for it when it is removed from our sight!
Why moan and grumble and still fail to punish vice by cutting it away? Laws are useless without virtue. What do they achieve, if nothing deters the merchant,…
and if the disgrace of poverty makes men do and suffer anything, and desert the steep path of virtue? If we truly feel remorse for our crimes
let us send our marble and jewels and useless gold, the very stuff of vice, up to the Capitol, urged on by the cries of eager crowds,
or throw them into the nearest sea. … (24-49)
Horace Odes 4.5
Offspring of the good gods and best guardian of the race of Romulus, too long have you been absent. You promised the sacred council of the Fathers a swift return, so return.
Give back your radiance, good leader, to your homeland. When your face shines like springtime on your people, the day passes more joyfully and the sun is brighter.
As a mother calls with vows and prayers and the taking of omens, upon her young son detained across the Carpathian sea…
40 so does your faithful homeland, stricken with longing, look for its Caesar.
The ox now wanders the fields in perfect safety. The fields are fed by Ceres and the kindly god of Plenty. Sailors fly across the peaceful sea. Truth shrinks from the shame of untruth.
The chaste home is unsullied by debauchery. Law written and unwritten has subdued wickedness. Mothers are praised for bearing true sons of their fathers. The presence of punishment prevents sin.
Who could tremble at the Parthian? At the chilly Scythian? At the shaggy brood that Germany produces while Caesar is safe? Who could think of war with the savages of Spain?
Every man weds the vine to the maiden tree and sees the sun go down on his own hills, then goes cheerily home to his wine and invites you, Caesar, as a god, to the second course.
To you he offers libation and many prayers and for you he pours neat wine from the chalice, joining your divine majesty to his household gods, as Greece remembers Castor and great Hercules.
'Good leader, grant, we pray, long days of ease to Hesperia,' so we say dry at dawn when the day is new, and not so dry when the sun is under the sea.
Propertius 3.13
You ask why greedy girls charge so much for their nights and wealth drained dry by Venus bemoans its losses? The cause of such disasters is clear beyond a doubt: The road to luxury is too wide-open. The Indian ant exports her gold from hollow mines and from the Red Sea comes the Shell of Eryx, And Cadmus' Tyre provides molluscan dyes and the Arab shepherd fragrant cinnamon. These weapons even storm secluded virtue and girls as fastidious as Penelope. The matron promenades wearing a spendthrift's fortune, parading dishonour's spoil before our eyes. There's no restraint in asking, no restraint in giving. or, if there is, cash cancels it at once.… (1-14) 41 But now the shrines are idle in forsaken groves; religion conquered, all men worship gold. Gold drives out honesty, justice is sold for gold, law goes for gold, next, lawless, honour too. (48-50)
I'll speak out—would my country thought me a true prophet! Proud Rome is rotten with her own prosperity. (59-60)
Horace Odes 2.15
Huge palaces will soon leave few acres for the plough. On every side fishpools broader than the Lucrine lake will meet the eye and the bachelor plane will push out the elm. The myrtles and beds of violet and everything the nose could desire will then sprinkle perfumes where the old farmer had his fertile olive groves.
The dense laurel will then block the fiery shafts of the sun. This is not what was prescribed by the auspices taken by Romulus and bearded Cato and by the rule of the ancients.
Their private wealth was small. Their public wealth was great. No portico laid out by ten-foot rod caught the dense northern shade for private citizens.
The laws commanded them not to despise the turf beneath their feet, but to beautify at common cost their towns and the temples of their gods with freshly quarried stone.
Horace Odes 3.29 Abandon your fastidiousness and luxury and your huge pile whose neighbours are the soaring clouds. Stop admiring the splendour of Rome, its smoke, its wealth, its noise. (9-12)
Ovid, Fasti 6.637ff. The Empress Livia dedicated a splendid shrine to Concord, which she provided her beloved husband. Listen to this, you ages to come: where Livia's colonnade is now, once was covered with a vast house. That single house on the scale of a city took up more room than the walls of many a small town. 42 It was levelled to the ground, not to punish an act of treason, but its extravagance seemed a bad influence. The Emperor put up with tearing down such a hulk of a building, and wrecking such a property bequeathed to him. That's how the censorship is run, that's how examples are set, when the disciplinarian practices what he preaches.
LECTURE 20: HORACE VS. PROPERTIUS
Horace, Epist. 2.2.91ff.
I compose odes, he elegies. 'A work marvellous to see, engraved by the nine Muses.' See first with what haughty airs, what effortful striving we stare around Apollo's temple bare of Roman bards. Later, if you have the time, follow us and eavesdrop on what each claims, why each entwines a garland for his head. We belabour each other and wear out the enemy blow for blow, regular Samnite gladiators in a long drawn out contest till the lights are brought. His vote makes me an Alcaeus; and what does mine make him? What but a Callimachus?
Horace Odes 3.14
You have just heard, O people of Rome, that Caesar has sought the laurel whose cost is death, but now, like Hercules, he returns victorious from Spain to the gods of his home.
Let the wife of the great leader, rejoicing in the husband who is her all-in-all, come forth worshipping the just gods, his sister with her, and, adorned in the ribbons of suppliants, the mothers of maidens and of young men whose lives have just been saved. And you, boys, and you, girls who have not known a husband, beware of ill-omened words.
This holy day will truly drive away all my black cares: I shall have no fear of war or violent death while Caesar is master of the world.
Go, boy, and bring me fragrant oils, and garlands, and a cask of wine that remembers the Marsian War, if there is a jar anywhere that escaped the wandering Spartacus.
And tell the clear-voiced Neaera to waste no time but put the myrrh on her hair and tie it up. If the troublesome slave at her door makes any difficulty, 43 just come away.
Greying hair mellows the spirit that once relished disputes and violent quarrels; I wouldn't have stood for this in the heat on my youth when Plancus was consul.
Propertius 3.4
Caesar the God plans war with wealthy India, to furrow with his fleet pearl-bearing seas. Big booty for his men. The world's end offers Triumphs. Tigris and Euphrates will flow under his rule. Belatedly Ausonian rods will gain a province; Parthian trophies will get used to Latium's Jove. Go speedily, spread sail, you prows proven in war! Armed cavalry, lead on—your usual duty! The signs, I foretell, are lucky. Wipe out Crassus' defeat. Go and stand up for Roman History!
O Father Mars and Holy Vesta's fateful flame, Let come, I pray, before my death the day When I see Caesar's axles heavy with spoil and his horses halt at the mob's cheers, And resting on a dear girl's bosom I start to watch and from their labels read the captured towns, The flying horse's missiles, the trousered soldier's bows, and captive leaders sitting under their armour.
Venus, save your offspring. Let this visible stock descended from Aeneas live for ever. The spoil be theirs whose hardships have deserved it; I'll be content to applaud on the Sacred Way.
Propertius 2.1
You ask me how it is I write so often of love and how my verses come so soft on the tongue.…
But if the Fates, Maecenas, had given me the power to lead heroic troops to war, I would not sing of Titans and Ossa on Olympus piled for Pelion to make a sky-road, Or ancient Thebes or Pergama of Homeric fame or the joining of the two seas at Xerxes' order, Or Remus' first realm or the pride of lofty Carthage, the Cimbrian menace and Marius' good deeds: No, I'd record your Caesar's wars and works, and you would be the second theme to mighty Caesar. 44 For when I sang of Mutina or Rome's graveyard Philippi or the war at sea with Sicilian refugees And the overthrow of the hearths of the old Etruscan race and the captured shores of Ptolemaic Pharos Or of Egypt when the Nile was dragged into the city and limped along, his seven channels captive, Or of gold fetters clinking on the necks of kings and Actian prows sailing the Sacred way, My Muse would always weave you into these exploits, a headman true alike in peace and war. … But those Phlegrean broils of Jove and Enceladus thunder not from Callimachus' narrow breast, Nor have I the heart to trace back Caesar's name in rugged verse to Phrygian ancestors.(1-42)
2.7.1-6
Cynthia, how pleased you were when that law was withdrawn whose issue some time since caused both of us to weep Long, lest it part us— though to separate two lovers not even jove has power against their will. 'And yet Caesar is great.' Yes, Caesar is great in war but conquered nations mean nothing in love.
Horace Odes 2.12
Long wars in fierce Numantia, Hannibal iron-hard, the Sicilian sea purpled with Punic Blood— you would not wish these themes set to the soft measures of the lyre. nor savage Lapiths, nor Hylaeus ungovernable in his cups, nor the defeat at the hand of Hercules of the warrior sons of earth, whose threats shook the gleaming house of old Saturn. You will do better yourself, Maecenas, by speaking in prose histories of Caesar's battles and menacing kings dragged through the streets by their necks.
As for me, the Muse has wished that I should speak of the sweet songs of lady Lycymnia, her eyes brightly shining, her heart truly faithful to a requited love.
She was not disgraced in the chorus of dancers or contest of wit, or playing arm in arm 45 with shining maidens in crowded temple on Diana's holy day. (1-20)
Horace Odes 3.30.7-9
My fame will grow, ever-renewed in time to come, as long as the priest climbs the Capitol with the silent Virgin.
LECTURE 22: THE PALATINE HILL
Propertius 2.31
You ask why I have kept you waiting? Phoebus’ golden Portico was opened by great Caesar, Ranged to spectacular effect on punic pillars, Between which stands old Danaus’ female throng. I saw there truly a Phoebus finer than himself, In marble, mouthing a song to a mute lyre; And round an altar stood his cattle, Myron’s work, Four lifelike images of oxen. Then in the midst arose a temple of bright marble Dearer to Phoebus than his native Ortygia. Above its pediment stood the sun god’s chariot And its noble doors were Libyan ivory; One leaf bewailed the Gauls hurled from Parnassus’ height. The other the dead daughter of Tantalus. Beyond, between his mother and sister, the God himself As Pythian in long robe is making music.
LECTURE 24: VIRGIL AND THE IDEA OF ROME
Virgil, Aeneid 9.447-9
No day will ever steal you from the memory of time as long as the house of Aeneas remains by the Capitol's immovable rock and the father of the Romans still keeps his empire.
Horace Odes 2.16.13-16, 33-40 A man lives well on little if his father's salt-cellar shines on his modest table, and if fear and sordid greed do not disturb his easy sleep.…
Round you are lowing a hundred herds of Sicilian cattle. For you is neighing the mare fit for a four-horse chariot. You are clad 46 in wool twice dyed by African shell-fish. To me Fate, untreacherous, has given a small farm and the modest breath of a Greek Camena and allowed me to despise the malice of the mob. Propertius 3.1.1-20
The poet's Greek masters and his achievement
Shade of Callimachus and sacrifices of Coan Philetas, pray grant me admission to your grove. I enter first as priest of a pure fountainhead to offer Italian mysteries in Greek dances. Say in what grotto did you refine your song? On what foot entering? What water drinking? Ah, farewell whoever holds Phoebus back in armour! Verse should move with finish of fine pumice; For which Fame lifts me high above the ground, the Muse Born of me triumphs with garlanded steeds, And with me in the chariot little Cupids ride, A crowd of writers following my heels.
Why vainly loose your reins competing against me? It's no broad road that runs to the Muses. Many will add your praises to their Annals, Rome, Singing of Bactra as the Empire's future bound. But my page has brought down this work from the Sisters' mount By a new-found path for peactime reading. Vouchsafe your poet, Pegasids, a soft garland; No heavy wreath will suit my head.
Virgil, Aeneid 7.170ff.
A sacred building, massive and soaring to the sky with a hundred columns, stood on the highest point of the city. This was the palace of Laurentine Picus, a building held in great awe because of an ancestral sense of the presence of the divine in the grove that surrounded it. Here the omens declared that kings should receive their sceptres and take up the rods of office for the first time. This temple was their senate-house, this the hall in which they held their sacred banquets and here the elders would sacrifice a ram and sit down to feast at long tables. Here too, carved in old cedar wood, stood in order in the forecourt the statues of their ancestors from time long past: Italus and Father Sabinus planter of the vine, still holding in effigy his curved pruning knife, old Saturn, the image of Janus with his two faces, all the other kings since the foundation of the city and with them the men who had been wounded while fighting to defend their native land. Many too were the weapons hung on the posts of the temple doors, captured chariots, curved axes, crests of helmets, great bolts from the gates of cities, spears, shields and beaks broken off the prows of
47 ships. Here too with his short toga and the augural staff of Quirinus, a shield in his left hand, sat the Horsetamer, Picus himself…
LECTURE 25: ROMAN AETIOLOGY
Prop. 4.1.69 I'll sing of rites and days and the ancient names of places
Ov. Fasti 1.1-2 The dates - and their origins - arranged through the Latin year, stars setting and rising - of that I'll sing.
Prop. 4.2 origin of statue of god Vertumnus, also of street near Forum 'Vicus Tuscus'
Prop. 4.4 Origin of name 'Tarpeian rock'; Tarpeia betrayed Rome on Rome's birthday
Prop. 4.6 origin of Temple of Apollo on Palatine - Actian victory
Prop. 4.9 Hercules founds the Ara Maxima - why it must never be open to worship by any girl (he is shut out of rites of Bona Dea)
Prop. 4.10 Jupiter Feretrius and the spolia opima
Ovid, Fasti
1.507ff. (11 Jan.) prophecy of Carmenta (including Hercules and Cacus - Hercules sets up Ara Maxima for himself) - Livia (535-6) 1.587ff. (13 Jan.) On that date too all power was restored to the people and your grandfather got the title 'Augustus' 1.637ff. (16 Jan.) Temple of Concord 1.709ff. (30 Jan.) dedication of Altar of Peace Peace, thy dainty tresses wreathed with Actain laurels
2.55ff. (1 Feb.) dedication day of Temple of Juno the Deliverer. Where is it now? It collapsed from the effects of time. Our hallowed leader's far-sighted concern has taken measures to keep the rest from toppling with a similar crash. 2.119ff. (5 Feb.) Augustus called 'Father of his Country' comparison with Romulus - 'Romulus, take second place' 48 2.267ff. (15 Feb.) origin of rites of Luperci and the Lupercal - Romulus Remus and the wolf 2.475ff. (17 Feb.) Qurinus' day - deification of Romulus
3 Intro. Mars 9ff. Mars as father of Romulus and Remus - Romulus founds city, calls first month after Mars - concern of Caesar and Augustus with the calendar 3.415ff. (6 March) Augustus Pontifex Maximus
4. 621ff. (13 April) Hall of Liberty (14 April) Mutina - Octavian hailed Imperator but ovid doesn't mention this 4.721ff. (21 April) Parilia - anniversary of foundation of Rome - death of Remus 4.43ff. (28 April) Vesta welcomed into palace of kinsman Augustus
5.148ff. (1 May) Livia restores Good Goddess 5.419ff. (9 May) ghost of Remus returns 5. 545ff. (12 May) Mars descends for festivities to temple in Forum of Augustus
6.395ff.(9 June) Vertumnus 6.637ff. (11 June) Porticus Liviae 6.797ff (30 June) Hercules Musarum - restored by L. Marcius Philippus, son of A's stepfather
Ovid Fasti 5.551ff.
The Avenger himself is descending from heaven for his own festivities to his eye- catching temple in the Forum of Augustus. The god and the structure are both impressive, just the way Mars should dwell in his son's city. This shrine is fit for housing spoils taken from the Giants. From here it suits the Marcher to start fierce wars, whether someone from the Eastern world treacherously provokes us, or someone from the land of sunset must be subdued. The patron of war surveys the gables of his tall structure and approves the presence of Victories at the top. He surveys the weapons of various shapes on the doors and armour of the world which his troops have won. From re he sees Aeneas loaded with a priceless burden and so many ancestors of the noble Julian line. From here he sees Romulus shouldering spoils from a general, and exploits inscribed beneath a row of statues. He examines the name of Augustus bordering the temple. From reading 'Caesar,'he thinks the structure even greater. The young man vowed this temple when he dutifully took up arms: he had to make such a start as our leading citizen. Gesturing to the loyalist forces standing on one side, the conspirators on the other, he made this vow: 'If my 49 father, Vesta's priest, is my inspiration for going to war, and if I intend to avenge the divinity of them both, be with me, Mars, glut my sword with the criminals' blood, and back the better cause with your support. If I am victorious, you'll get a temple and be called the Avenger.' After this, he returned exultant from the rout. It wasn't enough for Mars to have earned that epithet just once: he pursued the standards held captive in Parthian hands… Temple and epithet are rightly given to the twice avenging god and this well-earned tribute discharges the vow.
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