CLASSICS 219: THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Precept 6: City Life

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Readings
• Juvenal, Satires 1, 2, and 3; plus Satires 8, 9 [trans. N. Rudd, on reserve in Firestone]
• L&R pp. 61-63, 116-117, 135-137, 140-150, 155-158, 183-189, 231-278
• Ward, pp. 353-376.

Juvenal was the last great Roman satiric poet, writing sometime during the later years of Trajan and under Hadrian (c. 115-130). Most of his 16 satires deal to some extent with life in the city of Rome. Juvenal poses not as a philosopher but as an ordinary man, one who feels things have gone wrong but can offer only protest, not remedy. Keep in mind that he is writing as a satirist, not a reporter.

The topic this week is the Roman city which was so central to the maintenance of the empire. Civilization means city-life, and cities differentiate us from barbarians. What exactly was a Roman city and what emotions did it evoke in its inhabitants? A second century travel-writer, Pausanias, gives a good starting point, in his description of Greece:
From Chaironeia, two and one-half miles bring you to the city of Panopeus in Phokis: if you can call it a city, when it has no public buildings, no training-ground [gymnasium], no theater and no market square, when it has no running water at a water-head and they live on the edge of a torrent in hovels like mountain huts. Still, their territory has boundary stones with its neighbors, and they send delegates to the Phokian [regional] assembly.

1. What are the essential and distinguishing features and activities of a Roman city?
2. How does it compare with a modern city, and are the similarities and differences important?
3. What are the advantages of living in a Roman city?
4. What are the disadvantages?
5. What are the main changes in the Roman Empire under the Severan dynasty?

N.B.: Paper number 2 is due in your preceptor's mailbox by 5:00 PM, Friday, November 18th . Click here for details

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Last Updated: 2005-11-07

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