Preliminary Syllabus Spring 2018

CLA 64:

Teaching the Past: The Roman Historian Livy

Dates: Apr 9—May 14 Time: 7:00—8:50 pm Instructor: Christopher Krebs

After a prolonged ascendency, Rome had fallen. In the preface to his historical work, begun at the twilight of Augustus’s reign, Livy (59 BCE –17 CE) wonders whether his own periled presence might still be rescued. While he trusted that the past had plenty to teach, he doubted that in his own time there remained enough of an interest in learning. Regardless, if nothing else, he himself at least would derive succor from his historical studies, stretching from the founding of Rome and Romulus’s killing of his brother to the end of the Roman republic and the rise of Augustus. Along the way, Livy lingers to flesh out his exemplary protagonists: Lucretia, the beacon of virtue, Brutus, the founding father of the Republic, and Scipio, who freed Rome from Hannibal. They all move Rome forward on its path to grandeur in Livy’s colorful textbook, which Machiavelli admired and Shakespeare studied.

Over six weeks, we will read selections from Livy’s work, develop his influential idea of history, uncover his own presence in his presentation of the past, and reflect on what, if anything, he still might have to teach us some 2,000 years after his death.

Schedule 04/09 The Honey of History? The Teacher of the Present? ––Livy’s idea of history–– Please read Livy, Book 1; with esp. attention to: the preface, Lucretius, Brutus; Clark, introduction + chapter one; if you have time: Moles, ‘Livy’s Preface.’ 04/16 Mirroring the Present? ––Writing History from the Viewpoint of the Now–– Please read Livy, Book 5; with esp. attention to Camillus (and Augustus); Clark, ch. 2+3; if you have time: Gärtner, ‘Livy’s Camillus and the Political Discourse of the Late Republic.’ 04/23 Whose voice? The Past as an Unstable Entity ––Dialogism and Polyphony in Livy–– Please read Livy, Book 6; with esp. attention to the Anti-Hero, Manlius Capitolinus; Clark, ch. 4+5; if you have time: Krebs, ‘M. Manlius Capitolinus: the metaphorical plupast and metahistorical reflections.’ Preliminary Syllabus Spring 2018

04/30 What if? ––Livy’s imaginary comparison of Alexander’s and the Roman Empire–– Please read Livy, Book 9, with esp. attention to Livy’s comparison of Alexander and Rome; Clark, 6+7; if you have time: Morello, ‘Livy’s Alexander Digression (9.17-19): Counterfactuals and Apologetics.’ 05/07 The Roman’s Great Men Theory and Republicanism ––Hannibal and Scipio–– Please read Livy, Book 20-21; Clark 8; if you have time: Feldherr, ‘Livy’s Revolution: Civic Identity and the Creation of the res publica.’ 05/14 Livy’s Afterlife. Please read Livy 1 on Lucretia; Ovid Fasti II; Shakespeare; Machiavelli, Discorsi, Book 1; if you have time: Clarke, ‘The Virtues of Republican Citizenship in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy.’

Bibliography:

• Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V (Penguin Classics), Aubrey De Selincourt (Translator), Stephen Oakley (Preface). • Livy: Rome and Italy: Books VI-X of the History of Rome from its Foundation (Penguin Classics) Betty Radice (Editor, Translator), Robert M. Ogilvie (Introduction) • Livy: The War with Hannibal: The History of Rome from Its Foundation, Books XXI-XXX (Penguin Classics), Aubrey De Selincourt

I also recommend:

• Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn.