Humanities 110
Spring Semester, 2002
Paper Topic #1
Due Date: Saturday, February 16, 2002, 5 p.m. in the Faculty mailboxes in Eliot.
Length: 1500 words.
1. In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had put an end to the civil wars, having attained supreme power by universal consent, I transferred the state from my own power to the control of the Roman senate and the people. For this service of mine I received the title of Augustus by decree of the senate...and a golden shield was set up in the Julian senate house, which, as the inscription on this shield testifies, the Roman senate and people gave me in recognition of my valor, clemency, justice, and devotion. After that time I excelled all in authority, but I possessed no more power than the others who were my colleagues in each magistracy (Res Gestae, 34).
What is the distinction between power and authority that Augustus is drawing? Explore the relations between power and authority in the self-representation of Augustus in the Res Gestae and Livy's representation of Camillus.
2. At Aeneid VI.851, Anchises says: "....remember, Roman, these will be your arts: to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer, to spare defeated peoples, to tame the proud." Does Aeneas fail to live up to the ideals of Roman leadership in killing Turnus?
3. Both Aeneas and the narrator of Propertius’s poems are made to confront the demands of love. How do their responses to these demands help deepen our understanding of these characters?
4. What are the most significant differences between Virgil and Livy in their use of myth? How are these different uses of myth connected to their different purposes in writing about the foundation of Rome?
5. Examine the ways in which the pictorial program of the Ara Pacis serves Augustus’s political purposes.
6. In consultation with your conference leader, write on a topic of your own devising.
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