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Finis Rei Publicae | |||
Eyewitness to the End of the Roman Republic: Intermediate Latin Text 2003 • 1-58510-079-X • paper • 170 pages • 8 ½ x 11 • $28.95 Finis Rei Publicae draws on eyewitness accounts to provide students with a compelling narrative outlining the history of Rome during the late Republic, while carefully reinforcing and introducing advanced grammar and syntax. | About the Authors | Table of Contents | Ancillaries | Preface | | |||
For intermediate Latin courses, this text combines a close reading of selections of late Republican prose with a thorough grammar review. The readings provide a connected historical narrative. The readings are genuine Latin, and exercises throughout use the readings to develop a secure grasp of grammar. Caesar's Civil War forms the core of the reading material; excepts from letters of Cicero, Hirtius' treatment of the period just before the outbreak of war, and some other readings supplement Caesar's narrative. The text challenges students to read carefully and to think critically about this fascinating period of Roman history while providing them with the tools to do so. Designed to be a first reading course for college students, Finis has also been used successfully at the high school level. The text is accompanied by an exercise manual which has structured tear-out sheets. Features:
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Robert Knapp is professor and chairman of the department of Classics at UC Berkeley. He earned his PhD from University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include nuministics and Roman History, Culture, and Literature, and the Roman Experience in Iberia Pamela Vaughn is professor and chair of the Department of Classics and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. She earned her PdD from University of California Berkeley and has special interests in Roman Literature and history.
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Acknowledgements SECTION ONE SECTION TWO SECTION THREE SECTION FOUR SECTION FIVE SECTION SIX SECTION SEVEN SECTION EIGHT SECTION NINE SECTION TEN SECTION ELEVEN SECTION TWELVE SECTION THIRTEEN SECTION FOURTEEN SECTION FIFTEEN SECTION SIXTEEN SECTION SEVENTEEN SECTION EIGHTEEN SECTION NINETEEN SECTION TWENTY SECTION TWENTY-ONE SECTION TWENTY-TWO SECTION TWENTY-THREE SECTION TWENTY-FOUR SECTION TWENTY-FIVE SECTION TWENTY-SIX SECTION TWENTY-SEVEN SECTION TWENTY-EIGHT SECTION TWENTY-NINE SECTION THIRTY SECTION THIRTY-ONE SECTION THIRTY-TWO SECTION THIRTY-THREE SECTION THIRTY-FOUR SECTION THIRTY-FIVE SECTION THIRTY-SIX SECTION THIRTY-SEVEN SECTION THIRTY-EIGHT SECTION THIRTY-NINE SECTION FORTY APPENDICES | |||
Workbook 2003 • 1-58510-080-3 • paper • 126 pages • 8 ½ x 11 • $16.95 Answer Key (for Instructors) 2003 • 1-58510-082-X • paper • 22 pages • 5 ½ x 8 ½ • $9.95
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The two years between about the middle of 50 BC and the middle of 48 BC saw a series of events that to contemporaries as to later observers seemed a watershed in the history of the Romans. Although the final battle for political control of the Roman state was not fought for another three years, and although the formalization of a new order did not take place for another half-generation, in these two years a dagger was driven through the heart of the Republican Roman political system. While the end of the political organization we call the “Republic” did not mean the end of much, even most, of Roman culture and society as it had developed over the previous two hundred years, it was a violent reordering of the power structure of the state: rule by an oligarchic aristocracy gave way to the rule of a single aristocratic warlord. The “end of the Roman Republic” was in essence a political event. That is to say, the way the society was organized to rule itself was changed fundamentally. Although at the beginning of Roman history the state was ruled by kings who subordinated a kinship-based aristocracy to their wishes, that aristocracy grew tired of the constraints and abuses of the kings, and succeeded in driving the last king, Tarquin the Proud, into an exile from which he never returned. The Republic was the political order which the aristocracy then established to ensure their leadership in the Roman community, and to assure the survival of that community in the face of the unremitting hostility of its neighbors. As the success of the Roman military establishment moved the Roman state to a position of greater and greater preeminence in, first, Italy and then, later, the Mediterranean basin, the ruling oligarchic aristocracy began to suffer the strains of empire: the distribution of social capital in terms of prestige, glory, and fame became ever more uneven within the group, as did the distribution of the material benefits of successful war after successful war. In particular, after the defeat of Hannibal in the Second Punic War (202 BC), the aggrandizement of the Romans sowed the seeds of the destruction of the oligarchic governing system. As more and more wealth and power translated into more and more possibilities for the exercise by an individual of excessive power in society, the unified stance of the oligarchy against the emergence of a single or a few “great men” crumbled. Military exigencies and military reforms of the end of the second century BC created the agent for the emergence of warlords able to overcome opposition within the oligarchy in a drive for more and more personal prestige and power. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar—the names are familiar. These men outgrew and circumvented the constraints of the current oligarchic system, and when that system tried to thwart what they perceived as their just and proper deserts, they used the armies at their backs to establish their will in the state. Reeling from the ravages of Marius and Sulla in the eighties BC, the oligarchy had barely reestablished itself when first Pompey and then Caesar emerged as new threats. This time the battle was, as Cicero correctly perceived, over “who would be king.” This time there was no re-establishment of the oligarchic way; this time the Republican governmental structure did, finally, come to an end in the fact of Caesar’s overwhelming will and power. Eyewitness accounts remain of this critical period in Roman history. The most spectacular is, of course, Caesar’s own recounting of events in his Bellum Civile (Civil War), supplemented by the “ghost written” material by his aide Aulus Hirtius in the final book of the Bellum Gallicum (War in Gaul). To add to and somewhat control this material we have a number of letters from Cicero, including copies of letters of main actors like Pompey and Caesar themselves. But much has been lost. For example, Asinius Pollio, an eyewitness, wrote a history of the civil wars which has perished, although its contents are to some extent reflected in the later, second century AD, history by Appian. A myriad of letters and documents and accounts of course existed at one time, but no longer survive. Finis Rei Publicae portrays the drama of the final years of the Republic from the material of the eyewitnesses. This approach produces a lively and challenging account which must be read with perception and care—but it rewards study with a new understanding of what men like Caesar and Cicero were about, what they were hoping for, fearing, and enduring during these crucial years. At the same time, the prose provides an excellent text to review and practice the principles of Latin grammar and syntax learned in an introduction to the language: Caesar is relatively straightforward and Cicero, while more difficult, is well worth the effort to read. The goal of Finis Rei Publicae is, therefore, to combine the intrigue and excitement of a critical moment in western history with a program for solidification of a reading knowledge of Latin prose. Vale! | |||
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Finis Rei Publicae 2/e
