LAT 288 - Transition to Empire

The political upheaval of late 1st century BCE Rome remains one of the best-documented periods of Greco-Roman history.  Caesar gives us on side in de Bello Civili (49-48 BCE) while Cicero gives us glimpses of the other in his letters (62-43 BCE).  At the end of his life (14 CE), the Princeps (civil first citizen) and Imperator (military commander-in-chief Augustus had the Res Gestae– the definitive version of his accomplishments–engraved on bronze pillars in front of his mausoleum and distributed throughout the Roman Empire.  In between we can listen to the voices of the poets and tease out their relation to the changing regime. Were they complicit, subversive, or some more complicated version of the two?  This course will survey, in Latin with English supplements, the rich literature of Rome’s transition from dying republic to empire.

Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.