Classe seconda giornata

Buongiorno compagni di classe e professore Weber!


So class for day two is done and now it is time to reflect on what we learned and discussed. So ...

We read two poems by Thomas Hardy. "Rome: On the Palatine" describes how the speaker felt transported when looking at all the various ancient wonders and listening to music ... he felt as if he was standing in the middle of history, as if time did not exist and there was no separation between the past and the present.
 

In  "Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter," Hardy describes the ruins as skeletal, the broken remains of ancient structures that still have much to teach those who pay attention. Yet workers are erecting new buildings amidst these scattered remains ... buildings that he feels pale in comparison the the grand buildings that used to stand there.

We also talked about the chapters that we read in "Roman People," particularly about Chapter 3 which dealt predominantly with the life of Brutus and his ill-fated plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. He seems like a pretty self-interested and confused guy. There were two factions in Roman politics at that time: the optimates, who were interested in maintaining the traditional Republic (and their place of power in it) and the populares, who believed that change (and their rise to power) was needed. Brutus grew up stuck in the middle; his uncle, Cato, was a big-wig in the optimates camp and his mom was the mistress of Caesar, who was a leader on the populare end of the spectrum. Between the fairly common resentment of the new man in mom's life, the step-dad syndrome, and the fact that Brutus was educated by Greeks with a decidedly anti-tyranny bent, he ended up squarely on the side of his uncle and the optimates. But he didn't always stay there ... he married a woman from a family that was instrumental on the side of the populares and after his uncle committed suicide he briefly reconciled with Caesar and was given a position of power by him. He divorced his wife and married his cousin, Cato's daughter. Then he sides with Pompey, a man he hated for being responsible for his father's death, rather than siding with Caesar. 


It seems like he couldn't make up his mind but more than that, I think, is that he was selfishly seeking whatever he thought might best benefit him. Doesn't seem like a very nice guy. He was a money-lender that felt no qualms about extortion. He maintained connections on both sides so that he always had some ties to whatever side was winning at the time. He thought that he could bump off Caesar and be praised for it but he miscalculated ... people were pissed off not pleased by the assassination and by killing Caesar he actually contributed to the fall of the Republic.

Chapter  5 dealt with the beginning of the empire with Octavian Augustus and the eventual succession of his step-son Tiberius. Doesn't sound like a very nice guy either. He was not who Augustus wanted to succeed him but in the end, the choice was limited because everyone else had (conveniently?) died. He was kind of a downer and the people weren't crazy about him either. He spent a lot of time getting counsel from an astrologer named Thrasyllus ... at times the only person who seemed to be his friend, although Thrasyllus' fortunes were tied to Tiberius' success so he may have just been trying to get what he could out of the relationship. Mom is pushy, step-dad doesn't want you as heir, even your friends use you to make their fortune ... hard to blame him for being such a sullen guy.