CLA 83 — Uncertain Times: Literary Voices from the Falling Roman Republic
Quarter: Winter
Instructor(s): Christopher Krebs
Date(s): Jan 14—Mar 18
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $560
Refund Deadline: Jan 16
Unit(s): 2
Status: Closed
Quarter: Winter
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jan 14—Mar 18
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $560
Refund Deadline: Jan 16
Instructor(s): Christopher Krebs
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Closed
After the assassinations of Caesar and Cicero, Rome was briefly governed by a triumvirate: Octavian (later Augustus), Mark Antony, and Lepidus. However, ambition and jealousy strained their alliance, and Lepidus soon dropped out; as a result, Rome faced yet another civil war.
“Where, where are you rushing, you wicked men,” begins Horace’s “Epode 7,” one of many brilliant works composed during this period of heightened uncertainty. In the same decade, he worked on two collections of satires, while the Roman historian Sallust produced The Catilinarian Conspiracy, The War Against Jugurtha, and The Histories. How do these two authors refract and reflect the tension, turmoil, war, and anxiety of those years? Do they share worries, hopes, and criticisms? Is the poet reading the historian?
In this course, we will read selections from these works and reflect on the paradox that some of Rome’s greatest literature was written during years of political turmoil. We will also cover the historical background of Rome’s transition from a republic to an autocracy.
“Where, where are you rushing, you wicked men,” begins Horace’s “Epode 7,” one of many brilliant works composed during this period of heightened uncertainty. In the same decade, he worked on two collections of satires, while the Roman historian Sallust produced The Catilinarian Conspiracy, The War Against Jugurtha, and The Histories. How do these two authors refract and reflect the tension, turmoil, war, and anxiety of those years? Do they share worries, hopes, and criticisms? Is the poet reading the historian?
In this course, we will read selections from these works and reflect on the paradox that some of Rome’s greatest literature was written during years of political turmoil. We will also cover the historical background of Rome’s transition from a republic to an autocracy.
CHRISTOPHER KREBS
Gesue and Helen Spogli Professor of Italian Studies, Professor of Classics and, by courtesy, of German Studies and of Comparative Literature, Stanford
Christopher Krebs studied Classics and philosophy in Berlin, Kiel, and Oxford and taught at Harvard before coming to Stanford. He is the author of A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich and Caesar: Bellum Gallicum Book VII as well as the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Horace, Persius , & Niall Rudd(Trans.), Satires and Epistles (ISBN 978-0140455083)
(Required) Horace, David West (Trans.), The Complete Odes and Epodes (ISBN 978-0199555277)
(Required) Sallust, A.J. Woodman(Trans.), Catiline’s War, The Jurgurthine War, Histories (ISBN 978-0140449488)
(Required) Horace, David West (Trans.), The Complete Odes and Epodes (ISBN 978-0199555277)
(Required) Sallust, A.J. Woodman(Trans.), Catiline’s War, The Jurgurthine War, Histories (ISBN 978-0140449488)