Author: OwenPitts

According to Wikipedia, “Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.” He was born on December 8, in the year 65 BC in the city or Venosa, Italy. He died on November 27, in the year 8 BC in the city of Rome, Italy. Horace wrote many good works, one of which is Odes, “The Art of Poetry”. He wrote lyric poetry, which is, according to Wikipedia, “Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.” In his works, Horace writes to the person reading it specifically and tells them things that will mentally stick to them forever. His simple concept of cause and effect is that the person should stay in the “golden mean”. According to Wikipedia, “The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic maxim “nothing in excess” and emphasized in later Aristotelian philosophy.” He tells the person to expect no more and no less that the middle, which he says is healthy.

In his Odes, Horace tells us that the only major thing in the lives of man, is death. Death comes to every human being at some point. With this end from which we can never escape from, men are equal during and after our final breath. Therefor, men are equal throughout their entire lives. The amount of riches and wealth a man receives will not mean anything after that person dies. A person can work hard to obtain riches, but it does not change their position. But, you can not just not work or live in poverty, so Horace says to live the golden mean, or the medium type of life. He says to live a balanced life.

He also says to avoid disappointment. If they live in a medium life, then they will not encounter big disappointments.

He even provides the example of the ant from the Bible. Proverbs 6:6-8 says “⁶ Go to the ant, you sluggard;
    consider its ways and be wise!
⁷ It has no commander,
    no overseer or ruler,
⁸ yet it stores its provisions in summer
    and gathers its food at harvest.

Throughout the entire book (or whatever it is called) he points towards the golden mean. He said we should live like the ant, which is a balanced lifestyle, not too much, and not too little. He also makes the point, why have a lot of gold if you are not going to take it with you if you die? The answer is, to live by the golden mean, a balanced lifestyle (or at least that is his answer).

Death is something that no one can escape from, however, Horace says that if you live in the golden mean, you will have satisfaction. What Horace calls the balanced lifestyle we call today the middle-class-lifestyle. He says that the rich and poor and everyone in-between are equal because they will all encounter death.

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.

Cicero’s full name is Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC). He was a statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic in the Roman society. It is believed by a lot of people that Cicero was one of the greatest rhetoric (According to Google, rhetoric means “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques”) masters in history. He had a very unusual kind of power. This pow.er was that in the arguments in which he participated in, he was very persuasive. This is a very unusual kind of power. He was also a lawyer and a politician. While he was a lawyer, he had a verbal confrontation in which he attacked a guy. His name was Catiline. Catiline at that time was a part of the Roman senate. However, he had his very own organizations. It was because of this that there were suspicions drifting through the city that he might overthrow the city.

In this political orientation delivered by Cicero, he used his rhetoric skills to address Catiline. The goal of Cicero in this orientation was to make Catiline want to leave the city, though he does not make this obvious in this speech. The entire orientation was focused on this one point. With a master of rhetoric being a lawyer and “attacking” people must have really intimidated them. If I were Catiline, then I would try to persuade Cicero to believe why I did what I did, which in this case is building his own organization. Cicero made accusations against Catiline which may or may not have been true. But, basically, Cicero considered Catiline a huge threat toward the Romans and the Roman Republic. Cicero’s accusations against Catiline were actually not specific nor direct. In this way, he did not refer specifically to any wrongdoings that Catiline might have done. If I were Catiline, then I would try to get Cicero to specify his accusations and provide solid proof for them.

I wonder why Catiline never never tried to change the mind of Cicero. Maybe because they were true. Maybe because they did have solid proof and there was nothing that he could have done. Maybe because they never gave him to talk and defend themselves. There were multiple things that he could have done to defend himself, yet he did not use any of them. There were also multiple things that Cicero could have done to make Catiline not able to talk, or just not want to talk. Or maybe Catiline thought it would just be best if he remained silent.

After he was banished along with his army, some time later he attacked Rome which was what he was going to do anyway.

The reasons for Catiline’s silence is unknown to us because it was not recorded in the text. If I were in Catiline’s place, then I would confront Cicero and ask of what proof they have. And depending on the answer, things would go from there.