Latin 520 ('Schooling the Emperor'):
Assignment for Week 7 (9-15 May)
Tacitus, Dialogus 1-23.
In contrast to the Quintilian, you should easily be able to read all of this in Latin!
Please make sure you read thoroughly Mayer's Introduction, pp. 1-50.
For Monday, we'll begin by translating together Dial. 1-5.2. And then we'll do something exciting (more exciting, that is). We'll have a debate, as follows:
Team Aper (Dial. 5.3-10.8): Megan, Luo, Danny
Team Maternus (Dial. 11-13): Chad, Emma, Anna
You'' be responsible for a) summarizing and presenting the chief points of your speech and b) defending yourself against or refuting points made by your 'opponent'. You should also know something about yourself (who are you? where are you from? oh yes, and how old are you? do you even know these things?). I'll give you a few minutes to gather your thoughts and delegate responsibility!
For Wednesday: the central issue here will be Aper's Big Speech at 16.4-23. We'll translate vast chunks of it (I hope), but make sure you are able to summarize his key points.
As I mentioned in class, I'd like you to read the Dialogus especially with an eye to how it relates to what you've read in Quintilian. So be on the lookout for issues and topics raised in the Dial. that were also covered in the IO, and in particular those where what you read in T. seems to contradict or quality what you've read in Q. For this week see if you can zero in on one such issue/topic, and be able to point to the relevant passage(s) in Q. Most likely we'll get to the this on Wednesday.
Quite a bit has been written about the Dialogus, and much of it centers on the issue I mentioned above in Ponderanda. One scholar who has been especially interested in this is C.O. Brink, who wrote an important article on 'Quintilian's De causis corruptae eloquentiae and Tacitus' Dialogus de oratoribus' Classical Quarterly 39.3 (1989) 472-503. Please have read this for Wednesday. It is available through JSTOR: click here. As usual, you'll need to get to this through the UW system. If the link doesn't work for you or you have trouble, let me know asap.