Download summer teaching institute continuing education student questions

SUMMER TEACHING INSTITUTE
CONTINUING EDUCATION STUDENT QUESTIONS.
DAY ONE: WARS, TYRANTS, AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME/SZABO
DIRECTIONS: PLEASE ANSWER EACH OF THE FOLLOWING IN A PARAGRAPH.
THUCYDIDES, HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
1. Discuss the contrasting portraits of individuals presented by Thucydides. How are these individuals presented and
what do their dialogues reveal? How do these individuals shed light on Thucydides’ perceptions both of history and
of war? Does he feel individuals are the appropriate focus of history, or something else (greater)?
2. Which city – Athens or Sparta - does Thucydides admire most? Which polis should win the Peloponnesian War
and why? Use Thucydides’ speeches, narrative, underlying message, and your own interpretation to argue that
Thucydides in fact sees Sparta or Athens as the strongest city-state. Does the strongest city-state win? Should it?
Why doesn’t it?
3. Consider Thucydides’ approach to history and his use of speeches. How can we dissect Thucydides’ thoughts on
human society and human nature through these speeches? What patterns do you notice in his presentation and
juxtaposition of speeches, or sets of speeches?
4. Thucydides speaks frequently about laws of behavior and laws that govern human nature. In his famous Melian
dialogue, his Athenians admit: “Given what we believe about the gods and know about men, we think that both are
always forced by the law of nature to dominate everyone they can. We didn’t lay down this law, it was there – and
we weren’t the first to make use of it. We took it as it was and acted on it, and we will bequeath it as a living thing to
future generations, knowing full well that it you or anyone else had the same power as we, you would do the same
thing” (V, 105). How do these laws shape Thucydides’ narrative? With 2500 years of hindsight, was Thucydides
correct in his diagnosis of the human condition?
PAUL ZANKER, THE POWER OF IMAGES IN THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS
1. The age of Augustus is an era of contrasts, namely “traditional” Roman values versus the currency and fashion of
Greek culture. How does Augustus embody this cultural war, both in his own person and in his propaganda within
the Empire?
2. How does Augustus use architecture and art to bring peace back to war-ravaged Rome? What messages does his
“publica magnificentia” convey?
3. Which object or motif seems to best embody the new cultural program of Augustan Rome?
4. Zanker’s work became a classic in Roman historiography, but more recent historians have taken his analysis to
task, accusing him of oversimiplifying a complex series of cultural messages. Where do you take issue with Zanker
and his analysis? Where do you think he oversimplifies, misleads, or ignores important ideas?