Detailed Assignment for Week 8 (19-23 Feb.)

NB: Remember that the 'Sight Translation' assignment is due Tuesday, 2/20 by 11:00 PM

Another NB: Also remember that there is no class meeting on Monday, 2/19 (Presidents' Day).

Read

☞Book 15.38-44 (Latin); 45-47 (Woodman)

Ponderanda

This week's reading is not terribly long...but it covers one of the more celebrated episodes in the Annals, Tacitus' account of the great fire of 64.  A couple of things to think about:

• Tacitus clearly considers the fire to be an exceptionally grievous event.  But why?  What, specifically, does he seem most worked up about?
• A common question asked of Tacitus' narrative is: does T. hold Nero responsible?  What evidence -- for or against -- can you locate in the text?  
• Contained in this narrative is an unusual amount of detail about buildings/places in Rome, including the Domus Aurea Nero constructed in the aftermath of the fire.  Why do you suppose T. includes such details?  

Legenda ad libitum

• The account of the fire is a good place to return in slightly more depth than we have thus far to the question of 'religion in Tacitus'.  As I've mentioned previously, Kelly Shannon-Henderson's recent Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals (Oxford 2019) is an excellent study of the subject.  Tellingly, she entitles the chapter on Nero 'A Narrative in Prodigies' (Chap. 7, pp. 285-349). Although the entire chapter is worth reading, you might find particularly useful at this point the section of Chapter 7  called 'The Horrible Year AD 64' (315-26), which is largely about T.'s account of the fire (and the 'religious' aspects of that account). The book is available electronically through the UW Libraries.
• If you'd like to know more about the fire per se, you could do no better than A.A.Barrett, Rome is Burning: Nero and the Fire That Ended a Dynasty (Princeton 2020).  Ebook available through UW Libraries.