Part I – Identifications (8 points each, 48 points total)
Chaerea: the impulsive young ephebe of Terence's Eunuchus; sees Pamphila on the street, and with his family slave Parmeno devises a plan to impersonate a eunuch (in a play-within-the-play) in order to get access to Pamphila and rape her; an example of a young man who degradingly enslaves himself to desire/love.
Perusine War: the internal struggle between Second Triumvirate members Antony and Octavian in 41-40 BCE that resulted in Octavian's siege and strangulation of Perusia (where victims of his land confiscations had gathered), followed by summary execution of 300 senators and equestrians; the slaughter was not forgotten by poets with local connections such as Propertius, and no doubt many other victims of this brutal act.
Casina: 16 yrs. old "Cinnamon Girl", the object of the men's desires in Plautus' Casina; she does not appear in the play, but remains a disembodied and unattainable scent for the lustful men; prologist makes grim joke about actors and prostitution in connection with her character.
pater patriae: "Father of the Fatherland"; title taken by Augustus once he had secured autocratic power as the first Roman emperor; it reflects the idea that the emperor has the power of a paterfamilias over the entire state, which stands in quasi-servitude to him.
Roman Revolution: the process by which the Roman Republic was transformed into an empire by the unconstitutional and increasingly autocratic actions of powerful politicians (beginning with Julius Caesar and Pompey); this process culminates in the installation of Octavian/Augustus as the first Roman emperor, though he skillfully maintained the pretense of preserving constitutional rule by monopolizing offices and previously shared powers.
Caligula: perhaps the most frightening example of autocratic rule among the Julio-Claudians; Caligula's rule lasted only four years (37-41 CE) and was marked by abuse of power, erratic behaviors, violence against his personal enemies, and claims to divinity (even in Rome).
Cleostrata: the matrona of Plautus' Casina, wife of lecherous old Lysidamus; she avoids "slavish" deception and acting by assuming a directorial role over the play-within-the-play and its slave-actors, whereby her husband's sexual aspirations are frustrated and he is publically humiliated.
principate: "rule by first man", Augustus' official description of his rule to avoid charges that he was a monarch; a princeps is the first citizen, as if "first among equals"; part of the grand illusion manufactured by Augustus that he was preserving constitutional government.
Great Fire of 64 CE: catastrophic fire during Nero's reign that effectively destroyed over 2/3 of the city; since he built/expanded his lavish home and gardens on part of the burned land, rumors persisted that the autocratic and megalomaniacal emperor had deliberately set the fire (though historians doubt this); Nero then cruelly scapegoated early Christians as the culprits behind this civic and humanitarian disaster..
Part II – Commentaries (20 points each, 80
points total)
1. [Plautus, Casina 948ff.]
(1) Plautus
(2) Casina
(3) after being humiliated in the "honeymoon" offstage, Lysidamus appears onstage in disarray and fear
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. Lysidamus continues his inept style of mastery as a paterfamilias who is afraid of his wife and even fearful of entering his own house;
b. the idea of elite male enslavement to desire/love, in this case an elderly paterfamilias who enslaves himself to his desire to rape a 16yrs. old slave (destined to be his daughter-in-law!);
c. the extraordinary social inversion, whereby the humiliated paterfamilas here figures himself as a fugitive slave making a desperate appeal to spectators for help.
2. [Propertius, Elegies 2.13]
(1) Propertius
(2) Elegies
(3) the poet imagines his death
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. Propertius' obsession with death as the result of the compete surrender of himself to his mistress – love for him is a matter of life and death;
b. the poet's animus toward traditional patriarchy and Roman constructs of elite male gender (see esp. the details of his simple funeral) as a result of self-enslavement to his mistress;
c. the poet's proposed epitaph highlights his "unmanly" slavery to love/his beloved and offers a surprising gendered twist on the Roman ideal of a woman being devoted to one man.
3. [Ovid, Amores 1.2]
(1) Ovid
(2) Amores
(3) the poet imagines a Roman-style triumph by Cupid
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. the poet's complete surrender to Cupid/his love, here figuring himself as a POW who offers no resistance to his conqueror (and so to his enslavement);
b. the absurd and parodic idea of Cupid as a Roman triumphator, here leading hordes of deluded/defeated lovers in a mock Roman triumph such as that celebrated by generals (and grandly so by Augustus himself);
c. the seemingly subversive swipe at the emperor's moral legislation in this parodic triumph (note the defeat of Conscience and Shame among the captives).
4. [Suetonius, Augustus 27]
(1) Suetonius
(2) Augustus
(3) a discussion of Augustus' supposed religious and power restraints
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. the emperor's efforts to not appear as a god/divine and omnipotent ruler by allowing himself to be worshipped outside Italy only in conjunction wth Rome (i.e. the city goddess);
b. Augustus' complete refusal to be acknowledged as a god in Rome itself, despite the willing adulation of its population, and his equally shrewd/politic refusual of a dictatorship such as that bestowed on his adoptive father (Julius Caesar);
c. again, to preserve the illusion of constitutional/republican government, Augustus refuses to accept the title of dominus ("Master"), which describes the paterfamilas as master of his enslaved household – which in fact is what Augustus was in relation to the state, even if one accepts the image of him as a benevolent/paternalistic master (à la Seneca, Letter 47)
5. [Suetonius, Caligula 52]
(1) Suetonius
(2) Caligula
(3) a discussion of the emperor's disruptive social habits
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. Caligula's wide-sweeping disruption of social norms as emblematic of his autocratic and whimsical style of rule;
b. the specific boundaries crossed and eliminated here: male/female, human/divine, citizen/slave;
c. the emperor's willingness to assume the attributes of gods (Mercury, Venus!) and the divine-ruler Alexander, in contrast to the restraint promoted by Augustus.
6. [Suetonius, Nero 23]
(1) Suetonius
(2) Nero
(3) description of Nero's love of theater and performance
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. an illustration of the effects Nero's megalomaniacal rule might exert on the populace as a whole, as people are forced to endure his performances against their will;
b. Nero's transformation of Roman life into theater ("all the world's a stage"), as people are forced to "play along" as actors in an absurd civic drama of subservience and pretense;
c. the rigged theatrical contests demonstrate how competition and autocracy simply don't mix (cf. the impossibility of fair and equal sporting events where autocrats are involved, as these recent golf tournaments in Florida illustrate).
7. [Terence, Eunuchus 877ff.]
(1) Terence
(2) Eunuchus
(3) Thais and Chaerea discuss their situation after the rape is revealed
(4) some sample points for elaboration:
a. Thais' difficult legal and personal situation, especially as a free and independent brothel operator without Athenian citizenship, as she works toward a positive outcome for both herself and Pamphila;
b. despite Thais' anger at Chaerea – he has raped her "slave", a girl she regards as a sister – she is forced to negotiate with him for a pragmatic solution, and so resorts to the comic convention that Chaerea's violence can be dismissed as a young man's falling under "the power of love";
c. already a "slave of love", Chaerea further degrades himself by declaring this non-citizen woman to be his "patron" – as if Thais will still holds power over him in the manumitted, i.e. married, state Chaerea now believes he will be in.
Exam Total: 48pts. + 80pts. = 128 points