(Thanks to Leofranc for correcting my remark about chronology). I have been thinking recently about the message to his own time which Syme wished to convey: the dedication 'Parentibus patriaeque' suggests that there certainly is a message. The Roman Republic/British Empire both stand menaced by dictatorships. Caesar, the dictator with overt emergency powers, seems rather to resemble Hitler; Stalin, the dictator who so sickeningly disguised his work with a liberal constitution, seems to resemble Augustus in Syme's portrait. It seems that the enemy who uses deception is more to be feared than the enemy who uses sheer force. The message seems to be conservative in that the Mos Maiorum in the end looks better than any of the revolutionary alternatives. So the Romans should have stood, and the British now (1939) should stand, by their traditional values. Above all we sould be deaf to the kind of blandishments whereby the Romans (think of the vain Cicero, and of what happened to him) were corrupted and betrayed. There is something worrying here, in that the British Empire had appealed so much to Augustan, and particularly to Virgilian, ideas: yet these ideas are presented simply as the blandishments and lies whereby Augustus kept his grip on power. Much turns, I think, on whether we accept Syme's view that Augustus is portrayed (rather as Bernard Shaw portrayed Stalin, perhaps, mutatis mutandis) as the Restorer of the Republic. For my money, this isn't right. Augustus is portrayed by V as a king. - Martin Hughes
On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, David Wilson-Okamura wrote: > At 09:43 AM 9/14/98 -0500, you wrote: > >By conservative, I take it you mean Galinsky's position that Augustus's > >takeover was basically a Good Thing, as opposed to Syme's linkage of > >Augustus's rise to power with the way Hitler and other '30's dictators > >came to power? Or do you mean conservative in some other sense? > > No, that's about what I meant, though after thinking about it for a few > days, I probably ought to have picked an adjective that is subject to less > variation over time and distance. > > > Also, I don't know what kind of course you have in mind, but for a > >narrative history of the early empire, why not have students read > >something straight from the horse's mouth, such as Tacitus's _Histories_ > >and _Annals_? Tacitus's dissatisfaction with Augustus certainly offsets > >the Galinsky perspective. > > Most of the primary sources are in fact available online now at the Ancient > History Sourcebook <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html>, a > phenomenal resource I learned about this evening from N. S. Gill's Ancient > History newsletter <http://ancienthistory.miningco.com/msub19.htm>. > > Having said that, I'm still looking for a more synoptic approach to the > period. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > David Wilson-Okamura http://www.virgil.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] > University of Chicago Online Virgil discussion, bibliography & links > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. > Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message > "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You > can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
