Roman Culture Exam: Roman Society, Greek Influences, and Roman Literature - Prof. Corriga, Study notes of Classical Philology

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Intro  Mare Internum: Mediterranean, Italy  Mountains, vegetation, rivers  Built roads bc rivers were to unstable to navigate
Seasons: winter with wind storms, rainy cold spell, summer is long, hot dry. Crops: olive, fig, grapes, cereal grains. Ate fish

Neolithic period: house of Romulus on Palantine(framing poles), village culture, round houses w/ central hearth and thatched roofs
Bronze Age: Terramore in north Italy- used bronze tools, potter, rectangular and round houses, town planning(crossroads). Practiced cremation. Appenine in central Italy- black pottery, inhumation- bury dead.
Iron Age: Villanovan, “new settlement.” Cremation and urns
Early Rome  Etruscans from Etruria in Tuscany region. o Uncertain origin: either indigenous or eastern. Possible from Turkey or Anatolia. Art is eastern. Language has no affinity with Italian, Latin, or Greek. Slight affinity with Hiltite. o Had a 12-city league. Not sure of form. Had lucumon- means king. Had power over 12 cities. Paramount chief or each city had lucumon. o Had advanced metallurgy, timber, fleet, and export trade o Aristocratic republics during 6th and 5th centuries. Oligarchy o Conquered by Rome during 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. Series of wars
Influences on Rome  Religion o New gods: Juno, Minerva o Rites for auspices- predicting the future  Hepatoscopy: look at liver of an animal  Augury: watch the flight of birds  Right hand was the lucky aucus hand  Left hand was unlucky o Cult statues of gods o Temple design, e.g. Capitline temple dedicated to triad. Not parastile. Had porch or columns across the front. Triad was Zeus, Juno, Minerva  Politics o Ceremonial expression o Lictors with fasces. Fasces symbolize power of magistrates. Lictors carry fasces o Senate pattern o Army phalanx o Gladiatorial games/combat and festival and funeral games  Dead person needed to be escorted, so the gladiator who died was essentially the sacrificed human escort  Social o Patron-client system o Gens: extended family o Position of women: rather liberated; could own property  Economy o Small-scale but intensive productivity and trade o Metallurgy: iron, weapons o Timber for ship building Roman Literature Works 09/13/2011 0 Livy's History of Rome  Amulius usurps Numitor and kills all his sons o Makes Numitor’s daughter Rhea Silvia a Vestal Virgin  She couldn’t have kids. If pregnant, would be buried alive  Rhea was found preggers by Roman god Mars, supposedly. Had Twins: Romulus and Remus  Babies thrown in a basket in a flood. Managed to outride flood. Babies landed at sacred fig tree called Ficus Ruminalis. Nursed by a she-wolf, Lupa, which also is the slang word for prostitute  Shepherd Faustulus took twins when he found them nursing the wolf and gave them to his wife Larentia, who was a prostitute.  Romulus and Remus wanted to build a city where they were abandoned. Had an ancestral curse of greed for power. Decided to let gods decide who the city would be named after and ruled by. Remus saw 1st sign of 6 vultures. Romulus saw 2nd sign of 12 birds. Fight ensued over timing or number of birds. Remus was killed in melee. o Alternate version of story: Remus jumped over wall which Romulus was building and Romulus struck him down in wrath, with words: “So dies anyone who scales my walls.”  Romulus opened up Rome as an Asylum for men who wanted a new start. But he needed women o Tried to ask nicely for women. That didn’t work. So they put on games for all surrounding cities and then kidnapped the Sabine women while they were distracted with the games. While fathers of women and their new husbands fought in battle, women rushed to the middle of the battle field and pleaded for truce. They got it.
Roman Drama  Roman Tragedy o Fabula cothurnata: Greek boot called froyedes o Fabula praetexta: toga/ Roman dress; historical plays  Roman Comedy o Early form of literature, no theater performance until later o Roots in Greek Comedy  “Drawing Room Comedy,” situational, blind chance, coincidence o Comedies presented at festival games  Less professionals  Simo knows his son is in love with a prostitute and wants him to steer away from Glycerium. He and Sosia come up with a plan to convince Davus and Pamp that Pamp’s getting married to Chremes’ daughter. Davus knows it’s a bluff and tells Pamp to go along with it. Then, Simo convinces Chremes to give his daughter in marriage. Charinus wants to marry Chremes’ daughter though. Davus and Mysis place the baby of Pamp and Glycerium on a step and talk about it in front of Chremes, who then decides to not let his daughter marry Pamphilus. Mysis has been claiming for some time that Glycerium is Athenian. Crito shows up and confirms this and it turns out Glycerium, aka Pasibula, is Chremes’ long lost daughter. So Pamp can marry her and Chranius can marry Chremes’ other daughter.
Lucretius’ de Rerum Natura or On the Nature of Things  Dedicated to Memmius  6 books and 3 dyads o Books 1&2: Microcosm o Books 3&4: Anthropology o Books 5&6: Macrocosm o Begins with a prologue in each book and ends with an extended passage o In each dyad, the 1st book is systematic and the 2nd book is descriptive  The philosophy is technical and complicated o Many terms lacking in Latin for concepts o Suitable poetic diction lacking to match the tone of the subject  No long discursive paragraphs  Has a Roman slant  MAIN THEMES: o Gods have no effect on the universe o Death has no consequences  Begins with an invocation to Venus o Epics always invoke a god or goddess o Venus was a good choice because:  Works on Mars to bring men peace  Associated with love and sex (pleasure)  Founder of the Roman race  Goddess of fertility  Chief goal was to bring men peace  Lucretius points out that people do terrible things in the name of religion: o Agamemnon’s oldest daughter sacrificed so he could sail to Troy. Lied to wife and said she was gonna marry Achilles o Priests say things to scare people to keep them under their power Men must learn not to fear death, then wrong doings of priests and religion would be fixed and no longer exists  He is trying to rationally allure Romans from what they believe  Attributes man’s problems to property  Gods are formed in men’s dreams: men dream of a man that is trouble free and deem this sage a god. The gods observe man, but don’t care about man
Suetonius’ Julius Caesar from The Twelve Caesars  Caesar was arrogant and power hungry.  Caesar became pontifix maximus, the chief priest  He, Pompey, and Cicero form the 1st Triumvirate  He becomes consul and has a 5 year command in Gaul  Caesar takes over as dictator. He neutralizes Pompey’s army in Spain and goes after Pompey in Greece. Caesar defeats Pompey’s army even though he is way outnumbered. He chases after Pompey to Egypt, where he was presented with Pompey’s head. He stays in Egypt and fights in the Alexandrian wars. He gets Cleopatra preggers and leaves her the throne instead of her brother.  Caesar defeats Pompey’s senators and sons and then offered dictatorship for LYFE. He’s allowed many king-like things but refuses the diadem Mark Antony offers him. The senators don’t like him as dictator and stab him to death on the ides of March in 44. Brutus and Cassius led the assassination. The common people then rebel.
Cicero’s Scipio’s Dream  Main Themes: o Real life is the After Life o Cannot get to good after life by suicide, must be “released” by the god who put you on earth o Loyal conservative Romans have a special place in heaven (the optimates) o Most important virtues: Loyalty and justice o Spheres:  1) God and heaven  2) Saturn  3) Jupiter  4) Mars  5) Sun  6) Venus and Mercury  7) Moon  Earth at the center  Seeing Jupiter was a good omen but Mars is hateful o Music: rotation spheres create music, people go deaf to music because it’s constant o Earth= tiny. Individual man is tiny and insignificant compared to the immensity of God o The community is what counts, not personal ambition o Zones: Temperate zones: only place where men can live. Rome is only a tiny part of Northern Temperate Zone o Ancestors don’t matter o Big picture!
On the Chief End of Man  Apporetic work- based on an exploration of the 3 philosophies