ROMES GOLDEN AGE

1
ROMES GOLDEN AGE

• Orators, Playwrights, Poets, Philosophers, and
  Statesmen

2
Roman Religion

• Focus on ritual, not moral code
• Pantheon of gods merged with that of the Greeks
• Religious officials
• Pontiffs
• Augurs
• Religious festivals

3
Roman Law

• The Twelve Tables and ius civile
• Foundation of legal system
• Many corrections and additions
• Ius gentium dealt with foreigners
• Ius naturale universal divine law

4
Roman Values

• Mos maiorum traditions of ancestors
• Pietas fulfillment of duty to family (esp.
  paterfamilias), citizens, the gods, and THE STATE
• Shift in ideals in 2nd century B.C.
• Affluence
• Status
• Cato and the Greeklings

5
Influence from the Greeks

• Greek teachers free and slave
• Imitation of Greek art and sculpture
• Acquired knowledge from the Greeks
• Science
• Philosophy
• Medicine
• Geography

6
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43)

• Greatest Roman orator, Latin stylist
• De Inventione
• De Oratore
• Popularizer of Greek philosophy
• Political theorist
• De Republica
• De Legibus
• De Officiis

7
Roman Theater

• Roman attitude toward theater
• Imitative of New Comedy
• Plautus (254-184)
• Terence (195-159)

8
Lyric Poets

• Catullus (84-54)
• Influenced by Hellenistic styles
• Most famous for love poems Clodia/Lesbia
• Horace (65-8)
• Greatest Roman lyric poet
• Odes and Epodes love, friendship, simple life
• New genre the satire
• Translated into English more than any Roman poet

9
Vergil (70-19)

• Greatest Roman poet
• Early poetry
• Eclogues (Christian?)
• Georgics (On Farming)time flies
• Patronized by Maecenas, then Augustus

10
The Aeneid

• The Roman epic, second only to Homers in its
  influence on the West
• Commissioned by Augustus
• Modeled on Iliad and Odyssey
• Themes of duty, fate