AGENDA
Sunoikisis Summer Latin Seminar
Curriculum Planning for Literature of Neronian Rome
Day I: History and Memory
Session 1: General Introductions, Overview, and Feedback
Session 2: History and Memory in the Neronian period
Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, trans M. Grant pp. 284-299, 304-9; 312-24, 332-344, 360-397
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, “Nero” (Oxford World Classics, trans Catharine Edwards) pp. 195-227
Champlin, Nero, Chapters 1&2
Session 3: Remembering the Republic I
Lucan BC 2.1-66 (panic at Rome at Caesar’s approach); 67-232 (memories of civil strife between Marius and Sulla)
Jamie Masters Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile Ch1 Caesar at the Rubicon (1-10); Ch. 2 Massilian compilation (11-42)
Matthew Roller, Constructing Autocracy Ch 1, ‘The ethics of civil war’ (pp. 17-63)
Session 4: Remembering the Republic II
Seneca: 86 (Scipio’s villa); 90.37 ff. (primitive simplicity)
J. Henderson, Morals and villas in Seneca’s letters: Places to dwell (Cambridge 2004), 1-5; 53-61, 139-170
Roller, M. Constructing Autocracy, Ch. 2 ‘Ethics for the principate’ pp. 64-126
Petronius Cena 26-34
Bodel, J. The Cena Trimalchionis, in H. Hofmann, Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context (Routledge, New York, 1999), 38-51.
Day II. Virtue and Vice
Session 1: Seneca as moralist
77 Suicide of Marcellinus; 27 Sabinus, wealthy freedman; 47 life with slaves; 65 refuse to be the body’s slave; 83 drunken banquets
R. Coleman, ‘The artful Moralist: a study of Seneca’s epistolary style’ CA 24 (1974) 276-89
C. Edwards ‘Self-scrutiny and self-transformation in Seneca’s letters’ G&R 44 (1997) 23-38
Yun Lee Too ‘Educating Nero: a reading of Seneca’s moral epistles’ 211-224 in Reflections of Nero ed Elsner and Masters
Session 2: Lucan as moralist?
BC 2. 293-391 Cato
Seneca 104 on Cato
Session 3: Petronius as moralist?
Cena 40-46 (freedmen)
Auerbach, E. ‘Fortunata’ in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in western Literature, trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton), 24-49
Bacon, H. H. The Sibyl in the Bottle’ Virginia Quarterly Review 34 (1958) 262-76.
Arrowsmith, W. “Luxury and death in the Satyricon’ Arion 5 1966 304-31.
J. P. Sullivan, Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero, pp. 153-79: ch. 4 ‘Court Politics and Petronius’
Zeitlin, F. I. ‘Petronius as Paradox: Anarchy and Artistic Integrity, TAPA 102 (1971) 631-84
Session 4: Virtue and vice in the material world
Jas Elsner, ‘Constructing Decadence: the representation of Nero as imperial builder,’ in Reflections of Nero, 112-127
E. W. Leach, The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples, Ch. 5 The style of Luxury 156-185
Day 3: Spectacle, Power and Death
Session 1
BC 2. 392-438
Seneca 41 contemplation of nature; Seneca 7 on games; 70 German gladiator
C. Edwards, ‘The Suffering body: philosophy and pain in Seneca’s letters’ in J. I. Porter ed (1999). Constructions of the classical body (Ann Arbor) 252-68
Matthew Leigh, Spectacle and Engagement, Ch. 1 ‘Gaius Cornelius and the Caesarian Vates’ (BC 7.185-213); and pp. 292-306 ‘Epilogue -- Ecstatic vision and the Tyrant’s spectacle’
Most, G. ‘The rhetoric of dismemberment in Neronian poetry’ in Hexter and Selden, Innovations of Antiquity
Session 2
Champlin, E. Nero, Ch. 4 The power of myth, 84-111
M. Wyke, ‘Make like Nero’ in Reflections of Nero 11-28
C. Edwards, C. ‘Beware of Imititations: Theatre and the subversion of imperial identity’ in Reflections of Nero 83-97
Cena 71-78 Trimalchio plans his funeral
Rimell, V. Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction (Cambridge 2002)
Bodel, J. Trimalchio’s Underworld, in J.Tatum, ed. The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore 1994), 237-59
C. Connors, Famous last words: authorship and death in the Satyricon and in Neronian Rome’ in Reflections of Nero 225-235
Session 3: Lecture Topics and Discussion Questions
Session 4: Overview and Final Preparations
• Discussion of the lecture topics and lecturers
• Setting the calendar for examinations