CLASSICS
219: THE ROMAN EMPIRE
CLA
219 - Paper 1
Choose one of the passages / documents/
coins from the primary sources below. In a brief (2 pages, typed,
double-spaced) essay:
- summarize the main points of the piece;
- consider how the nature of the source affects
its historical value (coin, inscription, poem, history, biography);
- and explain its significance in relation to
some of the larger themes of the course.
You might want to consult notes from
lecture and readings, particularly on similar documents, but no outside
research is necessary.
'
The paper is due in your preceptor's
mailbox in the Classics Department Office, 141 E. Pyne, by 5:00 PM, Friday,
October 21st.
Select ONE from the following list:
1) Numismatic: silver denarius of
Augustus, reference RIC 207. Click here for images and descriptions:
http://tinyurl.com/3eyag
NB: the 3 specimens are identical. (For
sanity sake we use a compact URL.)
2) Numismatic: silver denarius of
Augustus, reference RIC 252. Click here for images and descriptions:
http://tinyurl.com/yr6gq
(For reference, the main catalogue is
here:
http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/cml/rcape/vcrc/catalog-sidebar.html
The Augustan coinage can be selected by clicking the appropriate link in
the menu on the left.)
3) Res Gestae, chapter 34:
In my sixth and seventh consulates
(28-27 B.C.E.), after putting out the civil war, having obtained all things
by universal consent, I handed over the state from my power to the dominion
of the senate and Roman people. And for this merit of mine, by a senate
decree, I was called Augustus and the doors of my temple were publicly
clothed with laurel and a civic crown was fixed over my door and a gold
shield placed in the Julian senate-house, and the inscription of that
shield testified to the virtue, mercy, justice, and piety, for which the
senate and Roman people gave it to me. After that time, I exceeded all in
influence, but I had no greater power than the others who were colleagues
with me in each magistracy.
Click here for full text on-line:
http://classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html
4) Virgil, Aeneid, VI.1129fff:
For other peoples will, I do not
doubt, still cast their bronze to breathe with softer features, or draw out
of the marble living lines, plead causes better, trace the ways of heaven
with wands and tell the rising constellations; but yours will be the rulership
of nations, remember, Roman, these will be your arts: to teach the ways of
peace to those you conquer, to spare defeated peoples, tame the proud.
5) Virgil, Aeneid XI.140ff:
Latins, what shameful fate so tangled
you in such a war that now you fly from us, who are your friends? You seek
peace for the dead and those cut down beneath the chance of battle? But I
would give that to the living too. I should not be here if the fates had
not made this my home and place. I do not war against your nation. But your
king abandoned our friendship; he preferred to trust himself to Turnus'
sword. It would have been more just had Turnus risked the death that took
your comrades. If he intends to end this war by force to drive the Trojans
out why, then, he should have faced me here with arms. One of us would have
lived: that one to whom the gods or else his own right hand had given life.
Now go, light fires beneath your luckless countrymen.
6) Tacitus, Annals I.2.
After laying down his triumviral title
and proclaiming himself a simple consul content with tribunician authority
to safeguard the commons, he first conciliated the army by gratuities, the
populace by cheapened corn, the world by the amenities of peace, then step
by step began to make his ascent and to unite in his own person the
functions of the senate, the magistracy, and the legislature. Opposition
there was none: the boldest spirits had succumbed on stricken fields or by
proscription lists; while the rest of the nobility found a cheerful
acceptance of slavery the smoothest road to wealth and office
7) Suetonius, Claudius 4-5:
He gave many gladiatorial shows and in
many places: one in yearly celebration of his accession, in the Praetorian
Camp without wild beasts and fine equipment, and one in the Saepta of the
regular and usual kind; another in the same place not in the regular list,
short and lasting but a few days, to which he was the first to apply the
name sportula, because before giving it for the first time he made
proclamation that he invited the people as it were to an extempore meal,
hastily prepared.
Now there was no form of entertainment at which he
was more familiar and free, even thrusting out his left hand (instead of
keeping it covered with his toga) as the commons did, and counting aloud on
his fingers the gold pieces which were paid to the victors.
