Art and Literature in the Late Republic

  1. Introduction: links to sources at end of this page
    1. All the writers of the late republic, Cicero, Lucretius, Catullus lived in an age marked by great civic uncertainty: civil war, confiscation of property, the collapse of the old order. A sense of moral decline was pervasive. It was also a period of intensive cultural growth for Rome: the writers of the two generations that lived in the last seventy years BC were responsible for Rome's greatest intellectual achievement.
    2. Though Hellenic influences were pervasive, the Romans had become sufficiently self-conscious of their own potential to advance a distinctly Latin literature. The forms owe much to Greek models, but the content and message are distinctly Roman.
  2. Hellenic influences:
  3. Literacy and the administration of the empire. Expressed in the textbooks and handbooks that make up much of the literature of the period
    1. Based on growing needs of governmental bureaucracy..
    2. Varro. Wrote 620 volumes. His Annales, a chronological survey of history, provide the basis for our understanding of the ancient world. Also wrote on the nature of the gods (as did others), on agriculture in the form of sensible advice for the gentleman farmer. The latter is systematic and experimental in character with chapters on soil, cultivation, animal husbandry, and bee keeping. Most interestingly, he wrote a number of handbooks on senatorial procedures designed to help new senators who, in the confusion of the times, had come to power.
  4. High Literature: In general: some, like Cicero, turned to political philosophy to find a solution for the many problems facing Rome. Others, like Catullus, having become disenchanted with politics and uncertain about the future of Rome, turned to cynicism, despair and overindulgence. Still others turned to the philosophies of disengagement to find spiritual peace in a world turned upside down.
  5. Cicero: we know more about him than about any other figure until the invention of the printing press.
    1. As a politician
      1. as homo novus (that is he had no inherited clientele or consular ancestors)..
      2. He was distinctly pro-Italian, favored the equestrian order and sought the support of Pompey, who military achievement (Cicero believed) complemented his civil ones. As his career advances, he became the foremost advocate of optimate ideas, the defense of order and stability.
      3. He understood the constitutional crisis facing Rome and, though his many treatises, sought to restore the integrity of the constitution.
    2. As a man of letters: defined the Latin language; made Greek philosophy accessible in Latin, critical for the many educated Romans who did not learn Greek and of fundamental importance to the Renaissance. Esp. noteworthy and influential was 'on moral obligations':
      1. preservation of life and property bring humans together; by working together, humans fulfill their natural potential. Anything that contributes to this process is a 'good'.
      2. or, to achieve anything (good), human must cooperate: that is they must life together (in cities); to cooperate means to fulfill obligations. By meeting obligations, we find it easier to live together and find fulfillment as humans; hence, fulfilling obligations is the highest good.
      3. the more one can accrue obligation (i.e., place others under obligation) the more work can be organized; the more that work can be organized, the greater the achieved good. Hence, moral goodness equals the ability to place others under obligation.
      4. status is a reflection of one's contribution to society, namely your ability to obligate others. The degree to which one can place others under obligation reflects one's ability to allocate resources and defines one's authority.
      5. How to accrue obligation: just dealing; not doing harm. Generosity.
      6. As the protection of property and life is what brings men together, it follows that any attack on either is morally 'bad'.
  6. Poetry:
    1. Very strongly influenced by Hellenistic models. A mixture of academic and the very personal; love poetry and the intensity of feelings that can still evoke in Catullus's famous odi et amo:
    2. Role of poetry in a society that does not have books.
    3. The role of the literary salon.
    4. Catullus (from Verona). Begins a political career; uses poetry to satirize Caesar and other politicians. Affair with Lesbia (wife of a consul, witty, charming, amoral, promiscuous: note what he says about her in 58). In the Greek tradition, it is women who feel uncontrollable passion; with Catullus it is the man. Passionate love has nothing to do with marriage(!!!). The more academic side is best represented by poem 61 and both other poems not given in the collection;
  7. Lucretius: de rerum natura (on the nature of things). Written in verse (as is common in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy (Plato however banned Homer and poetry from his ideal society of philosophers because poetry inflamed the passions). Develops the materialistic (or atomistic) philosophy of Epicurus (opposed by Cicero because Epicurean philosophy encouraged withdrawal from civic life). Religion is mere superstition; divinity places virtually no role. Soul is mortal, nothing to fear in death (esp. III)

Selections on Latin Literature:
--Cicero,on the republic; on rhetoric;
--Catullus: read numbers 1, 2, 5, 85, 86, 93
--Lucretius Book 1

Art and Architechure
--Basilica Aemelia: reconstruction and today
--Tabularium
--Capitoline: via sacra and today; the Tarpeian Rock
--Largo Argentina: overview; temples
--Sulla
--Pompeius: theater in Rome; the Roman map of the ancient city; reconstruction;