Roman Literature and Roman Tyranny

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This class considers the figure of the autocrat in the literature of the late Republic and Early Empire as it develops from a rogue figure of loathing, to a necessary evil, to a wicked overlord or benevolent father. Questions to be considered include: what is tyranny? autocracy? What makes autocracy an evil or a good when and why? How do attitudes towards autocracy link to other social and political issues and crises? Texts to be considered include: the Verrines of Cicero, which attack the high-handed abuses of a provincial governor; Cicero's de lege Manilia, which contemplates an ideal commander; the "Caesarian speeches," where Cicero tries to fashion a voice to talk to Caesar, now dictator; the Satires and Odes of Horace, which contemplate the politics and ideology of life under an autocracy; the Georgics of Vergil, which use the tropes of didactic poetry to meditate on the price of establishing order; Satire 1.4 of Juvenal, a mock-epic attack on the emperor Domitian; and the Panegyricus of Pliny, a praise of the virtues of Trajan. Some selections from these works will be read in Latin and the remainder in English.