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Roman Architecture

In class today we went over ancient roman artitecture and its importance of how we studying and see the hidtory of Rome today. This class reminded me of my time in Rome and I was able to visit the Palentine hill, the Collesuem and the Forum. I knoe the Collesuem was no built until after the time that was discussed in class but it help visualize the size of acient rome compared to modern day Rome. Since the Collesuem is relatively intact you can see how massive the games and the city of Rome was during that time. When visting the Palentine hill I was also able to see the scope of Rome. In relativeity to each hill the seven hill are pretty close to one another. I was surprised becuase of the different tribes that formed on each hill seemed clsoe to each other. I was also able to see the ancient city/village that was on the hill. The ruins made me realize how old and tribal the begining of Rome was and how much progress the city has made into an empire. Finally the forum which is still barley intatct showed all the important events that happened around rome during that time period. I specifically rememeber going to the temple of ceasar and seeing his altre with the follwers on in and it helped me bring the history of Rome into real life. I enjoyed going to these locations becaus eit helped me realize and understand Roman history in a deeper way. 

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Catullus

We went over Catullus in class and discussed his writing and poems. I enjoyed hearing the fact of his connections to typical love literature by growing up in the same town that Romeo and Juliet took place. But Catullus has a very different way of discussing love compared to the Romeo and Juliet story. Catullus discusses sex and love in a very graphic way. I kind of felt uncomfortable reading his work at some points because I was not expecting how much detail he would get into. I honestly found the lecture pretty funny because I did not expect Professor Kish to use terms like Face fuck in a academic lecture. But this was the style of writing that Catullus Incorporated and it is important to see how history and poems where different depending on the style of writing of the writer. 

I am looking forward to the lectures after spring break to discuss Caesar dictatorship and the civil war that he faced when he was in charge. Caesar is a very well know figure in Roman History and I look forward to go in depth and read his works and works about him.      

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Rome and Civil Wars

We are now starting to get into another Roman Civil war in my rise of Rome class and I cannot be more excited to learn about this topic. I am not going to lie some of the more recent topics have not really allowed me to focus on what is happen but now two prominent Roman figures are involved in a civil war and I am excited. It kind of like two famous boxers fighting in their prime to see who is the best, but instead of a belt at the end of this war it is the power of Rome. In Lucan epic poem about this civil war he discussed about Rome lustful obsession over war with itself. Lucan mentions how Pompey and Caesar the two military combatants are technically are bothers through marriage and how this war is fratricide. The theme of Roman brothers fighting over the power of Rome is the most powerful theme that Rome is built upon. Example would be Romulus and Remus. Now I do not believe the story about these two are completely true, being raise by a wolf and Romulus eventually killing his brother to found Rome does seem a little far fetched. But I believe the reason the foundations of Rome story is told this way is to speak about what Rome is about. It is a military state that depends on brothers killing brothers to reinvent the way the government is run. That is why Romulus killed Remus to found Rome, and now Lucian is mentioning two brothers fighting for the power and glory of Rome.      

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Livy and Rome Rivals

In my Rise of Rome class we are starting to get into Roman conquest outside of Italy. Livy starts writing about the Punic wars between the Romans and Carthage. The beef between Carthage and Rome started because of the conquest of Sardinia, Where Rome took territory away from Carthage. In our class we discussed how writer like Livy or Cicero add or may sometimes embellish certain aspects of their writing. For intensive purposes these accounts of Roman history were read for propaganda or entertainment. It was very interesting though to see Livy’s portrayal of Rome’s adversaries. Specifically in Carthage his portrayal of Hannibal the master tactician of that era. Livy come from the perspective of Roman glory. He holds Rome in a very high Regard, talks about how amazing and dominate Rome was, he is a Roman patriot. With every war opposing sides view each other rather negatively. In the case of Hannibal, Livy describes him as a tyrant general who is demonic on how he controls his troops and is vicious toward his enemies. Livy also mentions the Gal negatively calling them lazy and out of shape. It is fun to see the insight Roman people had on their enemies. It reminds me of the WW2 museum in New Orleans and it showed American and Japanese propaganda during the war. Both sided would dehumanize their opponents and leaders create a greater divide between the two countries. It really shows that negative stereotypes of opponents have been around since war has been a part of our history.                      

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Shakespeare and Roman History

In class today we were able to see a modern adaptation of a Shakespeare play. The play was adapted by the story of Marcius Coriolanus during the time of strife between the Plebs and the plebeians. It was very interesting to see how a modern movie and play come from a real life event in Roman history. The slide presented today in class of other Roman inspired works from Shakespeare gives a new perspective on where these stories came from. Two of the four stories mentioned in the slides to be inspired by Roman history are quite obvious. First the story of Julius Caesar well know leader of the Roman empire. The play is about Caesar life and rule as emperor. The play also has had modern adaptations in films. The other story of Marc Antony and Cleopatra is a story that has been replicated many times over. The tale of a forbidden love is a story and theme that has been seen many times over throughout literature. Again a story taken from the past and dramatized for entertainment for a lot of people to experience. These adaptations of Roman stories shows the cultural influence Rome has had on Western Culture. For stories like these to last for a few thousand years and still make prevalent storytelling, really shows how influential Rome was.             

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History or Storytelling???

Roman history in the early stages is not very concrete in the real world. The mention of divine interaction between mortals and gods seem to happen more frequently than expected for a historic text. I made me think are we just studying a book made for entertainment. As mentioned before in our class very popular historians in the ancient times were almost like celebrities. People would read their work and want to go meet them. I learned that a man from Spain traveled all the way to Italy just to meet his favorite writer Cicero. When was the last time a modern day historian had a fan? To the majority of modern day people their preferred historian is Wikipedia. My point is there had to be some type of entertainment or “art” added into the pages to get people’s attention and excited about the writing. I just find it interesting that the explanations for certain things in Roman reads more like a lore book to the Avengers compared to history writing now. Of course not everything in these stories are false, but I think the celebrity or entertainment aspect of these stories gives another insight on what vessel we are actually studying history.     

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Lost in Translation

In the beginning of my Rise of Rome class we started discussion on how history is written on how simple translations of old texts have potentially changed over time. I thought that was a great way to introduce a history class, because not everything we read is an exact play-by-play of the event that occurred. Especially in more ancient times when mythology and history mix together like Troy or the founding of important civilizations. Basically when reading we need to be aware of the situation and take it in with a grain of salt.

We talked about potential twisting of the truth or history in our discussion during our Friday class. When Cicero was sending a letter to his friend about how should he write about Cicero life. There was a joke or request to embellish Cicero's life and accomplishments. Specifically when he over threw a scheme to over take him as consul. This embellishment of the truth can cause translations of the past to differ over time. Potentially to muddy the waters of truth even more as we move through history. It is an interesting thought about how narrative can change how we look at the past even if that narrative could be a little different from the actual events that took place.