Month: January 2022

According to Wikipedia, “Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.” In the year 8 AD, he was banished by Emperor Augustus to the Black Sea region. It was there that he wrote his book the Metamorphoses. This book is just a series of poems that tell about his view of the god’s ethical performance.

Ovid made it very clear in his book the Metamorphoses that he has a view of the gods ethical performance even if he did not believed it. He included the ethical process of the gods and how they inflict negative and positive sanctions according to it.

On of the main themes in the Metamorphoses is pride. The gods were very prideful beings and so were men. When the gods make ethical decisions, their pride is the key factor of when they did this. It was said in the book that if anybody challenged or denied a gods pride, then the outcome would have extremely negative and very bad consequences.

There is a story based on pride in this book. It is in book number six. It is called “Rustics changed to frogs”. The story is when a god named Latona gives birth to twins, both of which are gods. After birth, she becomes very thirst and goes to a pond to get a drink of water. However, men at the pond resisted her and did not let her by. Latona thought that because she was a god, she should do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, in this case, it is to get a drink of water. She is being prideful. The men were also prideful because they thought that they had the power to stop a spiritual being from doing what she wanted, which is get a drink. They thought that this made them powerful. Latona tried many times to get a drink, but was rejected every time. Finally, she prayed and all the men there turned into frogs. They could no longer have a relationship with the gods. they were objects of nature, just like the animals. The problem in this story is pride. The men were turned into frogs because they were prideful. They were prideful because they thought that they had the power to stop a god from doing what she wanted to do. Because of this, they were punished by being turned into frogs.

Ovid also explains that in his book, it is possible for man to become a god. For example, Venus asked Jupiter to let Aeneas become a god. Jupiter answers this request by letting Venus take Aeneas to the river Numicius to cleanse him of all his immortality and to make him become a god. Another situation in which this happens is when Mars asked Jupiter to let Romulus (the founder of Rome in Roman mythology) become a god. Jupiter says yes and Romulus becomes a god. The way for humans to become a god, as Ovid explains in his book, is not for man to ask, but to do what they say and make them happy.

Livy, also known as Titus Livius, was a Roman Historian, which means he wrote about Roman History.   Some of Livy’s works include some accounts of Rome that expand over seven hundred years. Sadly, some of those accounts did not survive to this day. He provides us with insight on Early Rome, but we cannot fully rely on them. If he cannot tell us much on ancient events or he does not know what happened, he either leaves out that part, or he fills in the blanks with his own thoughts of what happened.

Ovid, also known as Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, was a Roman poet. He lived during the reign of Augustus. He also wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people”. This is titled Ab Urbe Condita. Sometime in 8 BC, Ovid was banished to the Black Sea region by Augustus. About the same time he began writing a book called Metamorphoses. In this book, he tells of the story of creation (the way he thinks it goes), all the way through time up to the death of Julius Caesar. There is a main theme in this book. It is the “change of the gods”.

Both of these authors start the story with creation and provide background to it. Later, they use this background to describe how Rome came to be an important part of western  civilization. They both added their own accounts of origins of the city of Rome. Although their accounts are different, there are some similarities. Their stories of creation are basically the same as the great poet Hesiod’s in his book the Theogony. They are not exactly the same, however, they do follow the same storyline as the Theogony. They both include the corruption of man, but they follow different paths. Each of the author’s books each explained different ways of dealing with the corruption of mankind, but in different ways, however, they both end up in building up great hope for Rome.

Livy wrote his own account of the foundation of Rome. He explains that there was once two brothers, abandoned, and alone. Their names were Romulus and Remus. All they had, was each other. They were eventually found as baby’s  by a mother wolf. They were raised in her protection and care as her own. They one day, they two brothers left the wolf and set out to build their own city. Not long after they left, they found the perfect place to build a city, but there was only enough room for one city. They soon decided that one of them could build and name the city, but the other brother would have to help the other one. After a long time of arguing about who should name the city, Romulus grew tired of the arguments and killed Remus. He therefore named the city Rome. In Ovid’s story, the god Jupiter saw the wickedness of man and sent a flood to destroy them all. The only survivors were two people named Deuclion and Pyrra. They repopulated the Earth by tossing stones over their shoulders which then turned into human beings.

In both stories, the basis for an optimistic view is hope.

 Livy, also known as Titus Livius, was a Roman Historian, which means he wrote about Roman History.   Some of Livy’s works include some accounts of Rome that expand over seven hundred years. Sadly, some of those accounts did not survive to this day. He provides us with insight on Early Rome, but we cannot fully rely on them. If he cannot tell us much on ancient events or he does not know what happened, he either leaves out that part, or he fills in the blanks with his own thoughts of what happened.

Ovid, also known as Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, was a Roman poet. He lived during the reign of Augustus. He also wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people”. This is titled Ab Urbe Condita. Sometime in 8 BC, Ovid was banished to the Black Sea region by Augustus. About the same time he began writing a book called Metamorphoses. In this book, he tells of the story of creation (the way he thinks it goes), all the way through time up to the death of Julius Caesar. There is a main theme in this book. It is the “change of the gods”.

Both of these authors start the story with creation and provide background to it. Later, they use this background to describe how Rome came to be an important part of western  civilization. They both added their own accounts of origins of the city of Rome. Although their accounts are different, there are some similarities. Their stories of creation are basically the same as the great poet Hesiod’s in his book the Theogony. They are not exactly the same, however, they do follow the same storyline as the Theogony. They both include the corruption of man, but they follow different paths. Each of the author’s books each explained different ways of dealing with the corruption of mankind, but in different ways, however, they both end up in building up great hope for Rome.

Livy wrote his own account of the foundation of Rome. He explains that there was once two brothers, abandoned, and alone. Their names were Romulus and Remus. All they had, was each other. They were eventually found as baby’s  by a mother wolf. They were raised in her protection and care as her own. They one day, they two brothers left the wolf and set out to build their own city. Not long after they left, they found the perfect place to build a city, but there was only enough room for one city. They soon decided that one of them could build and name the city, but the other brother would have to help the other one. After a long time of arguing about who should name the city, Romulus grew tired of the arguments and killed Remus. He therefore named the city Rome. In Ovid’s story, the god Jupiter saw the wickedness of man and sent a flood to destroy them all. The only survivors were two people named Deuclion and Pyrra. They repopulated the Earth by tossing stones over their shoulders which then turned into human beings.

In both stories, the basis for an optimistic view is hope.

 Cicero’s full name was Marcus Tullius Cicero. According to Wikipedia, “Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.” He was born on January 3rd, in the year one hundred and six BC. Catiline’s full name was Lucius Sergius Catilina. According to Wikipedia, “Lucius Sergius Catilina, known in English as Catiline, was a Roman patrician, soldier and senator of the 1st century BC best known for the second Catilinarian conspiracy, an attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic and, in particular, the power of the aristocratic Senate.”

How important was the rhetorical Context of Cicero’s orations: his listeners’ fear of Catiline’s conspiracy and army? Rhetorical means “relating to the art of rhetoric”. Rhetoric means “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.” Rhetoric was actually very important in Cicero’s speeches. If he did not use rhetoric in his speeches, then he would not have impacted the world as he did with rhetoric. So the rhetoric he used in his speeches impacted the world in his day some-what. It was said that he was one of the most efficient users of rhetoric in history and he was regarded for his rhetoric abilities. Cicero was a Roman politician and served as counsel in the year sixty-three BC. In his speeches, he was consistent with a goal that he delivered in his speech and the speech was pretty much based off of that one goal. The victim was entirely outmatched against Cicero’s rhetoric and every victim knew that he or she was defeated even before the accusations began. Cicero was a powerful man just by his very unique rhetoric. Just the thought of being pursued by this man made the victim daunted.

In one of Cicero’s accusations, he confronted a man named Catiline. It was believed that Catiline was attempting to overthrow the city, which he was. He even considered Catiline as being the source of all evil in Rome and he said it in front of the Roman senate. He actually delivered four, completely different orientations, all of which hade a different goal, but they were all focusing on the one goal of getting rid of Catiline and all his followers and his conspiracy from the city forever.

In this speech, Cicero used rhetoric as he did in any other speech. In this speech, he used his rhetoric to emotionally move and persuade his audience so that they will take action against Catiline and his conspiracy. In his speech, Cicero used rhetoric to persuade Catiline to leave Rome, which he did. Not by force, but by the persuasion of Cicero’s rhetoric.

If it was not for Cicero’s rhetoric, then Catiline would have been successful in his attempt to overthrow the city. Cicero’s rhetoric was indeed unique and it was because of this that may have saved the lives of lots of people.