Assignment for Wednesday, February 25:
Read: Tacitus, Annals,
Book 14.13-15.32 (Penguin, pp. 320-59)
Presentation: Jeff (ÒThe Summi Viri are Dead!? Exemplary
Evidence in Annals XVÓ)
Things to think about:
- Boudicca
is one of the most celebrated characters in Roman (and thus in TacitusÕ)
history. Why does T. bother
with her? In what ways is his
account sympatheticÉ.or not?
- Read
carefully the speech of Cassius on pp. 333ff. Why would T. bother to quote this comparatively long
speech? relevance to rest of
narrative?
- Who
are the ÔgoodÕ characters in todayÕs readingÉand what makes them ÕgoodÕ?
- Think
comparatively about Octavia and LivyÕs Lucretia. What do they have in common? Is there any sense in which it seems obvious that T. is evoking the memory of the latter in
his narrative of the former?
Optional entertainment: You might find Denis FeeneyÕs
lecture this Friday ÒTransitions into history: founding, and refounding, the
city of RomeÓ (3:30 PM, 216 Denny Hall) of some relevance to things weÕve been
thinking about lately. (Great
scholar, current Sather Lecturer at Berkeley)