Assignment for Monday, 01-26-15

Dear Roman Readers,

For Monday, January 26, please do the following:

(1) Get acquainted with the online interactive topography guide. Click every number on the map and read every narrative. Try to memorize the names of all seventeen features in preparation for our quizzes next week.

(2) Read, in the Blue Guide's Historical Sketch, the section entitled "Origins of the City" (pp. 9–10). Also have a look at the list of Rome's seven Kings in the Rulers of Ancient Rome section (p. 595). (Or look them up online if you don't yet have the Guide.)

(3) Download, print, and read the factsheet on Livy, our first Roman author.

(4) Download, print, and read these selections from Livy's History of Rome from its Foundation.

Some notes on Livy, beyond  the factsheet. We'll read the following excerpts:

• Livy's Preface, in which he lays out his task.
• The legend of Romulus and Remus. (We pick up after the arrival of the Trojan hero, Aeneas, in Italy, and the reign of his son, Ascanius. What's essential in the first paragraph of page 37 is the trouble between the brothers Numitor and Amulius.)
• The rape of the Sabine women.
• The treachery of the Vestal Virgin, Tarpeia, when the Sabine men retaliate.

Some of these stories are rather unpleasant, especially in their attitudes toward women, so they should probably come with a trigger warning.

Those of you new to Rome or historical writing or both, do not obsess over every detail. We're not using Livy for historical "truth" so much as a recorder of Roman memories and the ideologies behind those memories. The excerpts are brief, so you should have time to read them deeply. Note any questions along the way, and come prepared for discussion on Monday.

DC