Due Date: Saturday, February 20th, 1999, 5 p.m. in the Faculty mailboxes in Eliot.

Length: 1500 words.

Write on one of the following questions:

1. The conception of the father (pater familias/father of the family, pater patriae/father of the country) is central to both Virgil's representation of Aeneas and Augustus' self-portrayal. Compare the ways in which the Aeneid and the Res Gestae define and make use of the idea of the "father."

2. Compare Livy's account of the wanderings of Aeneas with Virgil's. What is the significance of the differences for Livy's and Virgil's historical or political narratives?

3. Choosing one of the following relationships between "secondary" characters in the Aeneid (Pallas and Evander, Lavinia and Amata, Nisus and Euryalus), write an analysis of its place and significance in the epic as a whole.

4. Aeneas seems to exemplify both pietas and furor. What are the consequences of this pairing for your interpretation of the end of Aeneid?

5. At the end of Chapter Two in Rome in the Late Republic, Beard and Crawford write: "As we have seen, the late Republic had witnessed the development of an elite culture drawing on both Greek and Roman traditions; this development was crucial to the functioning of the relatively complex structure of the Roman Empire. For the shared culture and values of the governing class not only served to identify it, but also provided it with a political and moral language which enabled it to govern." In your analysis of one of the following texts, evaluate the key terms of the "political and moral language" that enabled the ruling class to govern: Book 2 or 5 of Livy's The Early History of Rome; the Res Gestae; Suetonius' biography of Augustus.

6. With the approval of your instructor, write on a topic of your own devising.