ClCv 246/HonP 206R: THE GOLDEN AGE OF ROME
Eric D. Huntsman , Classics and Ancient History

ClCv246/HonP206 Fall 2002 Syllabus

• Summary of Roman Civilization (periods)
  
• Directions for the writing assignment  

Course Outline and Presentation Links

• Background
• Unit 1 : Great Men of the Late Republic
• Unit 2 : Cicero and Caesar
• Unit 3 : Augustus and His Imitators
  

Related courses
   ClCv 307: Roman History Survey
    Clscs 430R: Julio-Claudians
    Clscs 430R: Imperial Rome

Sources for Roman history
    abbreviations
    major authors and works
    a summary

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Writing assignment due dates have been revised:

• OPTION 1: Write an 8–12 page research paper on a historical, literary, or artistic topic.  Due Monday, April 15.
• OPTION 2: Write 3 short papers (3–4 pages) in the general format of an Honors Great Work Response.  Students should do two literary and one artistic or one literary and two artistic responses.  Due Monday, February 25; Monday, April 1; and Saturday, April 20.
  

Links

---

Fall 2001 Presentations, Handouts, and Reviews

ClCv 246 Presentations

- If using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, clicking the small projection screen in the lower left will allow viewing of full presentations as viewed in class
- Netscape and other browsers may not reproduce the presentations with ideal formating
- In most browsers, the outline can be "expanded," allowing for quick viewing of bullet points

Printing presentations with Microsoft Office and Explorer

• Open presentation in Internet Explorer
• Click file and then Edit with PowerPoint
• Microsoft's PowerPoint will start and open the presentation in that format
• Save to your local drive
• Do not click the print icon button; rather use the print command in the file pull-down menu.  Then select print as handout, notes, or outline
  

---

• Introduction
• Course description
• Readings and  subject material
• Periodization and its problems
• Phases of  Roman history
  

---

BACKGROUND

• Roman Politics and Statecraft
• Origins of the Roman state
• Roman monarchy
• the Res Republica
• assemblies, magistrates, senate
• nature of the Roman oligarchy
• Struggle of the Orders
• The Final Roman Constitution

• Early Culture and Literature
• Italy and its peoples
• Etruscan culture
• Greek colonies
• Early Roman art
• Early Roman Writers
• Roman comedy
• Comic antecedents
• Plautus and Terence

• Acquisition and Effects of Empire
• Roman Expansion
• Roman Italy
• Punic Wars Against Carthage
• The Roman West
• The Balance of Power in the East
• Roman Administration
• Results of Imperialism
• The Roman Revolution
• The Gracchi: the first Roman demagogues\

Unit 1: Great Men of the Late Republic

MARIUS AND SULLA

• The Historical Writings of Sallust  
• C. Sallustius Crispus, his life and background
• Historiography: Sallust's antecedents
• Greek historical writing
• Roman historiography
• Sallust and History
• The Jugurthine War
• Preface: moralizing and programmatic sections
• Historical context
• The Roman picture
• The war commences
• Tribunician politics at Rome
• Metellus and Marius
• The end of Jugurtha
  

• Marius  
• Sources for Marius' career
• Plutarch's Life of Marius
• Marius' career
• background
• early politics
• first consulship and the Numidian victory
• the dilectus (levy) of the capite censi
• command against the Cimbri and Teutones
• repeated consulships
• political blunders
• Marius and the populares
• Saturninus
• The Social War (91-88 B.C.)
• M. Livius Drusus, tr. pl. 91 B.C.
• Three men, three paths: Pompey, Cicero, Catiline
• Sulpicius Rufus
• Marius and the Mithridatic command
• Sulla's march on Rome

• Sulla
• Plutarch'sLife of Sulla
• Sulla's background and character
• Sulla and the Mithridatic War
• Marius and Cinna at Rome
• Marius' seventh consulship; his death
• The return of Sulla
• dictator rei publicae constitutendae
• the "restorationist" government
• Sulla and the arts
  

CONVERGING CAREERS

• Crassus and Pompey (and the entry of Cicero)
• Crassus, exploiter of opportunities
• Pompey's unusual rise
• Cicero's different path
• Converging careers
• Spartacus' revolt, 73-71 B.C.
• Consulship of Pompey and Crassus, 70 B.C.
• Cicero's trial of Verres

• Pompey Ascendant (and Cicero's oratory)
• Tribunician legislation and Pompey's commands
• lex Gabinia, 67 B.C. against the pirates
• lex Manilia, 66 B.C. against Mithridates
• Cicero, a Pompeian booster . . .
• dilemma of navigating between Pompey and the boni
• Cicero and Classical rhetoric
• Greek background
• Latin oratory
• Three branches of oratory 
• deliberative, forensic, epideictic
• Three styles of rhetoric
• plain, middle, grand
• Schools of oratory
• Attic, Asianic, Rhodian
• The Roman Speech
• Arrangement
• Invention (types of proof)
• Figures
• Delivery
• Cicero's de Imperio Cn. Pompeii

CULTURE IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

• Lucretius and Catullus
• Hellenistic schools of philosophy
• Academy
• Peripatetic
• Cyncicism
• Stoicism
• Epicureanism
• T. Lucretius Carus
• background
• De rerum naturam
• Hellenisitic Poetry at Rome
• Alexandrian figures and genres
• the "Neoteric" poets
• C. Valerius Catulus
• life and background
• Catullus and Roman society
• the provincial tour
• final years
• the poetry of Catullus

• Late Republican Art and Architecture
• Changing tastes in sculpture
• verism: almost brutal realism
• Eastern glorification of the individual
• grand pretensions: Pompey's imitation of Alexander the Great
• Tombs and funerary sculpture
• Tomb of Caecilia Metella: money and status, but lessening power
• imitations of the newly rich: funeral portraiture of the liberti
• Roman building
• characteristics and technical advancements
• the role of Senate and government, or lack therof
• Sulla's example: Fortuna Primagenia, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the Tabularium
• Pompey's building program: theater, porticus, curia, house
• Domestic architecture
• literary evidence for the houses and villas of Lucullus
• republican extravagance (Zanker quote)
• Roman painting
• review of Italian or "plebeian" style; First Pompeian style
• Second Pompeian style
• Roman mosaics

Unit 1 Review

---

Unit 2: Cicero and Caesar

• Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy (in progress)
• Sources
• Chronology
• The Pivotal Year: 63 B.C.
• The Accounts of Sallust and Cicero (forthcoming)

• Caesar  
• Suggested titles for further reading
• Caesar's background
• Early career
• Rising prominence
• Caesar's consulship
• Caesar's provincial command
• the conquest of Gaul
• events at Rome
• The descent to civil war
• Caesar's Bellum Civile
• the commentarii
• Caesar as author and orator
• the decisive moment: three views
• civil war in Italy, 49 B.C.

• Cicero the Humanist 
• Cicero's retirement during the Caesarian Regime
• Personal and Political Disappointments
• Cicero's view of humanism
• Cicero and Roman education
• Pro Archia the benefits of a liberal education
  
• Cicero and Philosophy
• Roman views of Greek philosophy
• On the Orator: qualities and training of the statesman
• "Deam of Scipio" from On the Republic: a classical cosmology
• Discussions at Tusculum 5: philosophy on ethics, emotions, and immortality

• The Fall of Caesar and Its Aftermath 
• The End
• The Assasination of Julius Caesar (Suetonius and Plutarch versus Shakespeare!)
• Caesar revaluated: his plans, the dilemma of the late Roman Republic, and his contradictions
• The Aftermath
• Parties after the assassination
• Antony's compromise
• Sir Ronald Syme's Roman Revolution and modern historiography
• The rise of Octavian
• Posthumous adoption: C. Octavius becomes C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus
• Cicero's Philippics
• Cicero's break with Antony
• First Philippic, an actual speech
• Second Philippic, an invective pamphlet
• Confusion at Mutina
• The Triumvirate
• the death of Cicero
• Battle of Philippi, 42 B.C.
• Octavian's difficulties
• Perusine War, 41-40 B.C.
• Pact of Brundisium
• Antony' marriage to Octavia
  
• Problem of Sex. Pompey
• Pact of Misenum, 39 B.C.
• Octavian's "tilt" towards the aristocracts
• Marriage to Livia Drusilla
• Pact of Tarentum with Antony, 37 B.C.
• Battle of Naulochus, 36 B.C.
• Antony and the East
• Growing influence of Cleopatra
• Octavian's improving position
• Illyrian campaigns, 35-34 B.C.
• Octavian and Agrippa's building program
• Octavian consul II, 33 B.C.
• The Pivotal Year 32 B.C.
• Driving out of the Antonian consuls
• Declaring war on Cleopatra
• Cassius Dio's History
• Background
• Nature of his history
• Battle of Actium, 31 B.C.: Octavian supreme

• Octavian to Augustus
  

Unit  2 Review

---

Unit 3: Augustus and His Imitators

• The Augustan Regime
• Augustus' positions and honors
• The Principate in 27 B.C.
• Growing tensions
• Constitutional settlement of 23 B.C.
• Constitutional adjustment of 19 B.C.
• Final honors
• Consititutional position summarized
• Augustus and the upper classes
• Augustus and the provinces
• Augustan Ideology
• Traditional values
• Religion in the Age of Augustus

• Augustan Program and Image
• Augustan Sculpture
• Imperial portraiture
• Augustus as priest
• Augustus from Prima Porta
• The sculptural program of the Ara Pacis
• Livia's portraiture
  
• Augustus' building program
• Agrippa and the Campus Martius
• Forum of Augustus and Temple of Mars Ultor
• Augustan Painting
• Development of the Second Pompeian Style
• Livia's Garden Room at Prima Porta
• Livia's House on the Palatine
• Third Pompeian Style

• Augustan Literature  

• After Augustus: The Julio-Claudians

• The Neronian Age  

• Imperial Transitions

• The High Empire (in progress)