While we today consider Rome of the Late Republic "ancient," the Romans of this period conceived of themselves as a "modern" society and engaged in complex negotiations with their own "ancient history," struggling to refashion accounts of Rome's past in terms of contemporary conditions and ambitions. In this course we will read selections from various genres-from theoretical texts like Cicero's de oratore, histories like Sallust's de catilina, Cicero's forensic speeches and the letters he exchanged with men like Caesar and Pompey-in order to examine the dynamic tensions in the discourse of historical memory in the Late Republic. These writers, most of them also towering public figures, sometimes manipulated their accounts of Rome's past merely to promote their immediate agendas. But they also explored, in various ways and with visions for Rome which exceed those agendas, both the constraints and the liberating potential of the Roman past. While examining historical memory as variously registered in these texts, students will be encouraged to ponder how, and to what ends, we today engage in constructing our own collective past(s). Format: recitation/discussion. Evaluation will be based on class participation, at least one presentation to the class, a mid-term, a ten-page paper and a final exam. Prerequisites: Latin 202 or permission of instructor. Students who took the previous version of Latin 402 may enroll in this course. Enrollment limit: 12 (expected: 6-10).

Hour: MANOLARAKI