LAT 215 Politics in the Age of Cicero
In this course, our primary goal is to improve our reading comprehension of Latin prose. The second goal of this course is to explore the relationship between politics and public speech in late republican Rome. We will accomplish these goals by reading selections from Cicero’s speeches, including In Catilinam I, in which Cicero accuses a fellow senator, Catiline, of conspiring to violently overthrow the government in 63 BCE. We will discuss and analyze Cicero’s speeches to learn how Romans in the late republic envisioned good governance and viewed their relationship to law and authority in a polarized and violent political climate. These ideas about government and law still resonate today in the modern American legal and political system.