Humanities 110 Paper Topic #2

Due Date: Saturday, March 13, 1999, 5 p.m. in the Faculty mailboxes in Eliot.

Length: 1500 words.

Write on one of the following questions:

1. To what extent do you see Seneca's ethical principles as informing Ovid's Metamorphoses? Although your discussion of Ovid may range through all the assigned reading, it should focus on two episodes in particular.

2. Elsner emphasizes the pervasiveness and power of public and private images in the construction of Imperial Roman culture. Compare his evidence for this argument to that presented by Tacitus in his account of Nero's reign.

3. In his letter on suicide, Seneca suggests that in controlling our deaths, we control our lives. How does Seneca's conception of suicide compare to the function Tacitus assigns to suicide in the Annals? Focus on two or three descriptions of suicide (for example, Epicharis at Annals 15.57; Seneca at 15.62-64; Petronius at 16.18-20; Lucan at15.67).

4. How do you account for the differences between Garnsey and Saller's description of family life (Chapter 7) and Tacitus' account of the relations between either Claudius and Messalina or Nero and Agrippina?

5. Lucretius suggests a number of arguments for the immortality of the soul in Book III of De Rerum Natura (The Way Things Are). Which are the strongest of these arguments and why?

6. In consultation with your conference leader, write on a topic of your own devising.