Vergil, Æneid
LLT 180
Spring MMXIII
P. VERGILIVS MARO
Vergil (70 BC-19 BC)
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Author of the Æneid and other pöms.
Well-off Roman dude who would rather write than fight
Wrote the Æneid at Augustus’s personal request
Æneid: pöm about how Aeneas basically founded Rome
Thinly veiled poem about how Augustus basically saved Rome
Æneid was regarded as historically correct
Æneid was regarded as Rome’s greatest cultural work
His pötry conveyed
His pötry conveyed
His pötry conveyed
The Roman Republic
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Founded April 21, 753 BC by Romulus and Remus
Rome = small city on hills overlooking a ford on the Tiber
Captured all Italy by 264 BC
100 years = 3 Punic Wars = Carthage as evil empire
By 44 BC included Spain, France, Greece, Ancient Egypt
Got too big to run with republican Roman institutions
Seven civil wars in the first century BC alone!
First Triumvirate = Julius Caesar, Pompey, Crassus
Rise of the warlord with his client army
The Roman world not big enough for all three
By 48 BC, Julius Caesar ruled the whole Roman world
But how could he rule the whole Roman world well?
Rome, 44 BC
The Roman BRAND
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The old Roman ways are the best ways = mos maiorum
Jupiter loves the Romans since he loves the old Roman ways
All Romans, male and female, are bad a55e5
Romans kicked their kings out in 509 BC = mos maiorum
The Roman Republic founded 509 BC = mos maiorum
Republic worked well for running a city-state in 509 BC
Roman empire kept getting bigger and bigger
Republic kept working less and less well
Rise of the warlord with his client army
The Roman world not big enough for all three
By 48 BC, Julius Caesar ruled the whole Roman world
Experimented with making himself king ≠ mos maiorum
The Ides of March, 44 BC
Gaius Octavius in 44 BC
How Octavius Saved Rome
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44 BC to 31 AD = civil war vs. Second Triumvirate
The old Roman ways are the best ways = mos maiorum
Jupiter loves the Romans since he loves the old Roman ways
Romans kicked their kings out in 509 BC = mos maiorum
Julius became a human pincushion in 44 BC = mos maiorum
All the power of a monarchy with the façade of a Republic
Called it the PRINCIPATE – Octavius is merely the prince
PRINCIPATE gave the Roman world 300 years of peace.
Octavius rebrands himself as Augustus Caesar
Augustus = savior of the mos maiorum
Relentless public relations campaigns glorifying Augustus
Augustus = greatest Roman ever. Hands down. No kidding.
Son of the God Julius
Templum Martis Vltoris
Augustus F. Caesar in 20 BC
Augustus Caesar as Pontifex Maximus
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
πράξεις τε καὶ δωρεαὶ Σεβαστοῦ θεοῦ
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Rome’s PVBLIC AFFAIRS MISSION
Vergil, Æneid 6.847-853
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore voltus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos
Others will forge breathing bronzes more smoothly, I believe,
and draw forth living features from marble. They will plead lawsuits better and trace the sky’s movements with a rod and
describe the rising stars.You, Roman, govern the nations with
your power- remember this! These will be your arts – to impose
the ways of peace, to show mercy to the conquered and to
subdue the proud.
Reading the Æneid to Augustus