Humanities 110
Paper Topic # 1
Spring 2006
Length 1500 words

Due Saturday, February 11th, 5 P.M. in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox. 

1. During the late Republic, politicians and generals often looked to Alexander as a model of the ideal leader.  Compare the representation of Alexander in the “Alexander Mosaic” (House of the Faun, Pompeii, ca. 100 BCE) to the representation of Augustus in the Res Gestae or the Prima Porta Augustus.  You should pay attention to not only thematic but also formal elements.  How is the ideal leader presented in each?  What do the differences suggest about the change in the perception of the ideal leader between 100 BCE, when the mosaic was made, and the Age of Augustus?
   
   Images of both works of art are available online at http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/Hum110/PaperImages.html
    
2. To what degree does Augustus' presentation of his achievements in the Res Gestae conform to Livy's portraits of Republican Roman heroism in his account of Rome's foundation?
    
3. Compare the representations of Roman religion in Lucretius' On the Nature of Things and Livy's The Rise of Rome.  What implications might these views have for the relationship between the Roman citizen and the Roman state in the first century BCE?
    
4. Fertility and death are both themes in the Ara Pacis.  Discuss the relationship between the two with respect to specific examples. Be sure to address both formal and thematic elements.
   
   Images of the Ara Pacis are available online at http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/Hum110/PaperImages.html
    
5. In consultation with your instructor, devise a topic of your own.

Free tutoring! Reed College Writing Center, ETC 112. Hours: Sunday-Thursday 7-9 pm. Extended Hours: Thursday & Friday 7-10 pm before Hum 110 Papers are due.

Also see the Doyle O.W.L. online at http://academic.reed.edu/writing