Assignment for Monday, February 9:

Read: Livy, Preface (pp. 29-31), Book 1.1-34 (pp. 31-74 in Penguin, founding of Rome down through the reign of Ancus Martius)

Mary Jaeger’s Livy’s Written Rome, pp. 1-56 (copy on our reserve shelf in Odegaard). NB: if you plan to write the short paper this week, read Jaeger after you write your paper!

‘One hr. or two-page paper’: After reading the Preface to Livy’s History (and before you read Jaeger) summarize what Livy believes to be the aim of his work. If time/space allows, what is strikingly different (or similar) about this aim in comparison to that of Herodotus, Thucydides, or Polybius? (or if the mood strikes you, that, rather than simple summary, may be the aim of your paper).

Things to think about:

• Jaeger writes at some length about the Rape of the Sabine women episode in Livy. Be prepared to summarize the gist of her argument or interpretation. I’d like to spend a good deal of time talking about this seminal event in Roman…tradition.
• If memory is ‘tradition’ (as some scholars would have it), then how is what you’ve read thus far in Book 1 a reflection of Roman memory?
• One eminent scholar of Livy has dismissed Book 1 as a ‘collection of fairy tales’ – i.e., not real ‘history’. Would you agree with that? Be ready to defend your position on this point.