The Roman World

Ancient Rome and its culture still exerts an enormous influence on modern culture, particularly in the west. Through media such as film, literature, art, architecture, law codes and political institutions we are still influenced by Rome and we continue to reuse and reinvent Roman forms.This lecture considers some of the ideas which are transmitted when we tell narratives of Rome (for example in the films Gladiator or The Life of Brian) or make reference to ancient Rome in buildings, paintings and even in the classroom. While Rome is still alive for us, we can see that each historical era has reconfigured ancient culture to suit its own ends and remade Rome in its own image.
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Although the Aeneid is set in the remote, mythical past, it deals with Vergil's present, most prominently in books 6 and 8. In book 6, Aeneasvisits the Underworld, and, after meeting figures from his past, sees a parade of future Roman heroes, who are, for the contemporary reader, leaders from Roman history and recent past. This history is again depicted in book 8, this time in artistic form, as a design on the divine shield made for Aeneas, which showcases Augustus' victory over Cleopatra VII as its centrepiece.

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Amphitheatres are notorious as the places where the Romans held their more gruesome forms of "entertainment", including gladiatorial fights, executions of condemned prisoners, and wild beast hunts. As such displays grew more complicated and imaginative in their staging and special effects, so too did the design of the amphitheatres in order to accommodate elaborate performances and the Colosseum in Rome represents the culmination of this architectural development. However, Roman amphitheatres were not just about entertaining the masses: the structures and the events held in them were tightly linked to Roman society and especially to the careers of prominent Romans, who used this form of entertainment as a way to claw their way up the political ladder - and to stay there. This lecture also deals with the wildly popular horse and chariot racing in the circus, a form of entertainment even more closely tied to political factionalism and with huge popular appeal.
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The fall of Troy might be the most famous myth from Classical antiquity. In the second book of the Aeneid, Aeneas himself tells the story of Troy's destruction, as a first hand account to Dido, in Carthage. This lecture investigates the Greek antecedents for this myth in Homeric epic, and what it tells us about the fate of Troy and Aeneas himself.

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Vergil's Aeneid is one of the highlights of Roman literature, and its influence over all later Roman writing, as well as post antique European literature, is immeasurable. Composed during the Augustan era, it is a multilayered text: it persistently engages with contemporary Roman politics and society, even though it is an epic poem set in the remote, mythical past, narrating the fate of Aeneas, a refugee from Troy, who seeks a new home in the Mediterranean after the fall of his city. This lecture introduces Vergil, his poetry and the themes of the Aeneid as set out in Book 1 of this 12 book epic.

Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.