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Unadvertised / special / experimental coursework opportunity.

Date: August 15, 2011

If there is sufficient interest, Profs. Anderson and Pazdernik propose to organize a this-semester-only, one credit discussion group on the so-called "year of the four emperors," 69 CE, which witnessed the death by suicide of the emperor Nero and the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, followed by a civil war among rival claimants for the throne, one of whom, Vespasian, emerged as the founder of the Flavian dynasty.

We would organize the group as a one credit CLA 499 Independent Study course that would meet at a mutually agreeable time on Friday mornings. Discussion will focus especially upon the description of these events in Tacitus' Histories and efforts in modern scholarship to understand and reconstruct the period.

(It was Tacitus who called Galba, one of Nero's successors, "in the judgment of everyone capable of being emperor, if only he had never been emperor" [omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset].)

The discussion group would naturally complement LAT 350 and GRK 380, which will be reading parallel accounts in Suetonius and Plutarch respectively. However, one does not need to be enrolled in those courses in order to participate in the discussion group. All assigned materials for the latter will be in English.
 
Participants will be expected to attend the discussion group each week and to be prepared to discuss the assigned material. There will be a brief, take-home writing assignment at the end.

Interested persons should write to Prof. Anderson with your name and contact information, any prior coursework you've done in Classics or ancient civilization, and an indication of your availability on Friday mornings. Participants will need to complete a CLA 499 Independent Study contract and obtain a permit in order to enroll.

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