The Bibliotheke

August 22: Seneca, Apocolocyntosis

1. What does Seneca seem most inclined to condemn Claudius for? What successful elements of his reign is he at greatest pains to minimize?
2. What do Seneca seem to regard as the characteristics and traits of a good emperor? 
3. What does this show about the nature of Roman ruler cult? Is it just a joke, or does Seneca allow that some rulers become divine? If so, what merits divinity?
4. A key feature of Menippean Satire is the mixture of prose and poetry. What are the poetic portions of the Apocolocyntosis for, and how effective are they? 
5. Is this piece just a joke, or do you find more serious purposes?

August 27: Tacitus on Nero 1

1. How does Claudius promote Nero as his heir? 
2. What role do the freedmen (Pallas, Narcissus, Callistus) have to play under Claudius according to Tacitus, and how does he feel about this?
3. How is the first part of Nero’s reign intended to contrast with the end of Claudius’s?
4. What are Nero’s actions on becoming emperor and how are they meant to shore up his legitimacy?
5. Why does Nero kill Britannicus, and why is he able to get away with it so easily?
6. What role do Seneca and Burrus have to play? Does Tacitus regard them as particularly effective?
7. How does Tacitus give a theatrical quality to Nero’s reign? How does he depict Nero himself as an actor or director in this drama (as opposed to when Nero himself is playing an actor)? Watch out for explicit references to the stage.

August 31: Tacitus on Nero 2

1. The Neronian books have several powerful female figures - Agrippina, Poppaea, Boudicca. How do they contrast with each other, and what do they show about the role of a woman in Roman life. How do other minor female figures (Octavia, Seneca’s wife) fit into this? How is Boudicca different as a non-Roman?
2. How do non-Romans (ie, Britons) contrast with the Romans in Tacitus?
3. What are Nero’s cultural pretensions and what does Tacitus think about them?
4. What can we infer about Nero’s popularity in Rome and abroad from Tacitus? 
5. Why do you think Tacitus emphasizes the particular crimes at 14.40ff? How does he use them to illuminate Nero’s reign?
6. Why does the Pisonian conspiracy form? What sort of Romans are involved, and does Tacitus portray them positively or negatively?
7. Why does Tacitus lavish so much attention on the death of Seneca and what does it show about Nero’s reign?
8. How does Thrasea Paetus resist Nero, and what does Tacitus think about it? What does Tacitus seem to think is the proper role for a senator under a bad emperor?

September 5: Suetonius on Nero

1. Why does Suetonius go into such detail about Nero’s ancestry on his father’s side? What does this show about how Suetonius understands a person’s character?
2. Suetonius thinks Nero probably started the fire, Tacitus does not. What does this show about how the two authors understand Nero, and also about their use of sources? Who do you believe and why?
3. What does Suetonius think about Nero’s cultural pretensions? What information about them does he give that Tacitus does not?
4. In antiquity, the manner of a person’s death was often thought to show a great deal about who they were. How does Suetonius depict Nero’s death?
5. Suetonius says that people were leaving flowers and performing other acts in support of Nero long after he died. Why might this be? Reading between the lines of both authors, are there reasons that Nero might have been more popular with some classes than they let on?
6. Overall, how does Suetonius’s attitude towards Nero differ from Tacitus?

September 10: The Millionaire's Dinner Party

1. How does Encolpius want his audience (the readers) to perceive him? How successful at this do you find him? Do you think he is a reliable narrator (or meant to be seen as a reliable narrator)?
2. What is Trilmachio’s house like? How do the different decorations reflect his personality and his ambitions, and how do they reflect the author’s commenting on the same?
3. What sort of topics are discussed at Trilmachio’s dinner? How do they form part of the commentary of the novel itself?
4. Can we relate Trilmachio’s dinner to anything we know about Nero and his entertainments and domiciles?
5. How does Trilmachio relate to the freedmen who are described in Tacitus and Suetonius, and indeed to Nero himself? 
6. Obviously, Trilmachio is a parody but can you construct what a more "legitimate" Roman dinner party might look like? Are there any hints of this in Tacitus or Suetonius?

September 12: Sex and Scandal

1. Several of the characters we meet in the novel are intellectuals of one sort or another, particularly Agamemnon and Eumolpus. How are these characters portrayed - are they similar to any other types of characters we meet elsewhere?
2. What is the role of Giton in the novel so far? Is he just a sexual plaything or is there more to him?
3. How are different sections of the novel like a stage-play or theatrical piece? How might this relate to the more “theatrical” scenes we discussed in Tacitus?
4. How is the conflict with Lichas resolved? How does this fit development of the character of Encolpius and the larger themes of the novel? What does it show about Eumolpus? What does Petronius seem to be satirizing at this point?
5. At 111-112 Eumolpus tells a story about a woman from Ephesus. How does this fit into the overall themes of the novels, and why is it singularly appropriate (or inappropriate) for this point?

September 14: Poets, Frauds, and Legacy Hunters

1. How do the various poems, especially the long ones of Eumolpus but also the shorter bits, within the novel contribute to its overall mood? Do they comment in some way on the action, or are they completely disconnected (and how does that then become a sort of comment)?
2. What can we learn about the role of sex and sexuality in Roman life from Encolpius’s misadventures? How is it connected to religion?
3. How does the desire for legacies and the general kissing-up for them fit into the age of Nero as we have seen thus far?
4. How might the novel have continued? Speculate wildly!
5. Look again at Tacitus’s description of the death of Petronius - how fitting does it seem to be for the author of the novel?
6. How else can we relate the novel to the historical era described by Tacitus and Suetonius? 
7. What modern works of entertainment does the Satyricon remind you of?

September 19: Seneca, On Providence and On Anger

1. What, according to Seneca, are the characteristics of a good man?
2. What is Seneca’s conception of “god” and its role in the lives of men?
3. Seneca gives a number of examples of anger from different Greeks, Romans, and “barbarians” (non-Greeks, usually but not always Persians). How do the barbarians differ from the Greeks and Romans, particularly the barbarian kings? Is Seneca perhaps thinking of certain Roman emperors?
4. What is Seneca’s advice for dealing with an angry person, and how might this apply to dealing with an emperor?
5. What is Seneca’s advice for a leader dealing with his own anger, and how might he be directing this at Claudius and/or Nero?
6. What are Seneca’s overall prescriptions for dealing with anger, and how realistic do you think they are?

September 21: Seneca, On the Happy Life and On the Shortness of Life

1. What does it mean to be happy, according to Seneca? What is virtue and how do we achieve it?
2. What are the various tenets and positions that Seneca attacks under the heading of Epicureanism? How do they differ from Seneca’s stoicism, and Seneca’s defense of wealth?
3. How does Seneca defend his own position as a wealthy Roman? Is it compatible with the definitions of virtue and happiness laid out earlier? Does he convince you, or is he a big hypocrite?
4. What does Seneca mean exactly by “leisure?” How is one to achieve this ultimate state?
5. How well do the various non-leisure activities described by Seneca compare with what we have seen elsewhere, especially in the Satyricon? Is Seneca trying to comment indirectly on life in Nero’s Rome?
6. How practical does Seneca’s advice seem to be? Is he really serious? How well does he practice what he preaches?

September 24: Seneca, On Mercy

1. What does this essay show about where Seneca believes a king/emperor derives his power?
2. Why would Seneca think this topic was especially important or relevant for Nero? Reading between the lines, what does Seneca think of Nero’s reign so far? 
3. How consistent is Seneca in this essay addressed to the emperor and in the other essays addressed to friends? How would you sum up Seneca's Stoic beliefs, and which are the most important?
4. Can we square the Seneca of the dialogues with the Seneca of the Apocolocyntosis? With the historical Seneca and his death as described by Tacitus?
5. How might Petronius be mocking or attacking Seneca’s philosophy in the Satyricon? How might Seneca feel about Petronius? Are the two authors completely different, or can you relate them to the same period?

September 28: Lucan, Civil War 1-4

1. Do you think Lucan is being sincere in his praise of Nero at the start of the poem or not? Either way, what does this tell us about the place of the emperor in the Roman world and how people need to approach him? For comparison, look at the opening of Seneca’s On Mercy.
2. How does Lucan build up an overall air of doom and gloom across the first book of the poem? Is this similar to the way Tacitus and Suetonius present the reign of Nero?
3. How do Caesar and Pompey transcend the world and even nature itself? What might this symbolize about Rome and the Roman empire?
4. How is Cato’s wife Marcia and her relationship with her husband depicted? How does this compare to the Neronian women?
5. What role does Lucan assign to Fortune? Is it a literary trope, an active force directing events, or something else entirely?
6. What is the point of the long digression about Hercules and Antaeus in book 4? How does it contribute to the mood of the poem and the characterization of the principles?

October 3: Lucan, Civil War 5-8

1. There are a number of mythological digressions - Antaeus at 4.620, the Delphic Oracle at 5.80, et al. How do these contribute to the mood and themes of the poem? 
2. According to ancient biographies of Lucan, the first three books of the Civil War were published and then Nero forbade further performances of the work. Do you detect any change in tone after book 3, and if so, what exactly?
3. What role does Lucan assign to the gods (excluding Fortune) in the Civil War? What role do the individual characters feel or want the gods to play?
4. Lucan has a long passage about Rome’s destiny starting at 7.460 - how does he define freedom or liberty here, and how well are things borne out by Lucan’s own time?
5. How is the Roman Republic of old contrasted with the time of Caesar and Pompey? How can Lucan use this to comment indirectly on his own times?
6. Throughout the poem several ways of foretelling the future are described - Arruns practices haruspicy and Figulus astrology in book 1, the Delpic Oracle in book 5, Erichtho’s necromancy in book 6 - how effective are these and how do they contribute to the overall poem? Can we relate them to Lucan’s own times (might want to think about Tacitus here)?

October 5: Lucan, Civil War 9-10

1. Lucan gives his own eulogy of Pompey at the end of 8 and also allowed Cato to give one in 9. How do these differ in tone and content, and what does it reveal about the character of Cato?
2. How is Caesar depicted in these later books? Does his characterization change at all? 
3. Virtue comes up a lot in the later books - what defines Virtue for Lucan? How does this compare with what we saw in Seneca?
4. Two more women are prominent in these books - Cornelia, wife of Pompey, and Cleopatra. How are they portrayed and how does this compare to Marcia? Is there a contrast between the Roman woman and the Macedonian woman? 
5. Cato the Elder is very prominent towards the end of the Civil War - Does Lucan paint Cato as a hero, an anti-hero, a martyr, a villain, or something else?
6. What is the point of the description of the long march through the desert and the mythological digressions (Medusa, Ammon) that accompany it?

October 8: Summing up Lucan (and Nero so far)

1. Should we read the Civil War as an anti-Nero poem, given how Lucan’s life turns out? How can we read it as a more complex expression of the Age of Nero
2. Compare Eumolpus’s poem on the Civil War in the Satyricon (given as an appendix in your Lucan) with Lucan. What themes are similar, what themes are different? Is Petronius parodying Lucan, is he critiquing him? 
3. What makes Cato a Stoic? How does his stoicism compare to that of Seneca? How about Brutus in the poem?
4. Do we find traces of Stoicism elsewhere in the poem (remember, Lucan was Seneca’s nephew)?
5. What other ways do we find the same themes of the age in the three authors we have read so far? So far do they seem compatible with the picture painted by Tacitus and Suetonius?

October 12: Seneca's Letters, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 36, 41, 44, 47, 51, 53, 54, 55, 57-63

1. What are the qualities of a wise man according to Seneca? Is he presenting himself as such a person? If not, why not?
2. What can we tell about Lucilius from this correspondence? What is he worth to Seneca?
3. What does Seneca’s understanding of the concept of “God” seem to be?
4. What does Seneca reveal about the role of the Stoic in politics or public service in general? What is his opinion of Cato the Younger (Uticensis)?
5. Do we find echoes of any other themes or characters from the literature of the Neronian period in Seneca’s letters?
6. What is virtue according to Seneca, and what actions are virtuous? What actions are not?
7. What other problems regarding philosophy, learning, and self-improvement does Seneca address that you find interesting?
8. How do Seneca's Letters compare to the essays we read earlier? 

October 19: Seneca's Letters 65, 68, 70, 73, 77, 78, 79, 82, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 97, 110, 118, 124

1. What does Seneca reveal about the role of the king, and the role of subjects and philosophers under a king, even a bad one? Does this fit his actions under Nero?
2. What is the purpose of wealth, and how does Seneca defend his own wealth? Is it convincing, or does he protest too much?
3. What does Seneca tell us about fate or fortune, and how closely can this be related to Lucan?
4. What is Seneca’s advice for coping with disease - how does it fit into his larger philosophy, and how practical is it?
5. What other problems regarding philosophy, learning, and self-improvement does Seneca address that you find interesting?
6. Why does Seneca feel the need to address the origins of civilization (letter 90)? How does this fit into his larger philosophy?
7. How are we to deal with death according to Seneca, and how well does his own death fit his prescriptions?
8. What does Seneca reveal about the role of the Stoic in politics or public service in general? What is his opinion of Cato the Younger (Uticensis)?
9. Do we find echoes of any other themes or characters from the literature of the Neronian period in Seneca’s letters?

October 24: Neronian Science. Seneca, Natural Questions, Book 6: On Earthquakes (in the Dialogues and Essays volume); Pliny the Elder: Natural History: Preface; Book II - Astronomy; Natural History: Book VII - Man; Book X - Birds; Book XV - Olive Trees; Book XXVI - Diseases and their Remedies 

1. How does Seneca’s understanding of the natural world fit into his larger Stoic philosophy?
2. Why does Seneca think we should study and try to understand earthquakes even though we can’t prevent them?
3. What does Seneca’s detailed account of different theories on earthquakes show about how ancient thinkers tried to understand the world? What approaches did they have?
4. What does Seneca think is the cause of earthquakes? What does Pliny think is the cause of earthquakes? 
5. How does Pliny’s dedication to Emperor Titus differ from the dedications we’ve seen to Nero (Seneca, On Mercy, Lucan)? Do we need to reinterpret those earlier addresses?
6. Why does Pliny write the Natural History? What does he reveal about his readers in the Roman world? What value comes from studying astronomy?
7. What, according to Pliny, can mankind know about the nature of “God” and how can mankind discover the truth?

October 26: Neronian Science. Pliny the Elder: Natural History: Book XXX - Magic; Book XXXV - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture; Book XXXVII - Precious Stones

1. How does Pliny define the Romans through the implicit (and some times explicit) comparisons with the other peoples he describes? What qualities does Pliny particularly admire about the Romans and about others (especially the Greeks) and what qualities does he seem to condemn?
2. Pliny talks a lot about fortune - how does he understand it? How does it compare with what we saw in Lucan?
3. What purpose does the natural world (like birds or olive trees) serve? How does Pliny show the usefulness for men, and what does it illustrate about man’s ingenuity versus nature’s beneficence?
4. What does Pliny reveal about the Roman upper class - consider the sections on painting and gems in particular, but there are interesting bits throughout the work. 
5. How does Pliny think mankind and civilization progress? Compare to Seneca’s views (Letter 90).
6. How does Pliny differentiate between magic, superstition, and genuine religious ritual?
7. How does Pliny situate Italy as the greatest of all countries?
8. How does Pliny critique or comment on Nero's reign now that it is over?

October 29: Neronian Satire: Persius

1. What does Persius reveal about his intended audience?
2. What, according to Perseus, are the chief faults of the Roman elite?
3. What do the Satires say about contemporary Roman taste? Do they seem comment at all on other works we have read?
4. Like Seneca, Persius was a Stoic. How is his stoicism similar to Seneca’s, and how is it different? 
5. What is Persius’s conception of “God” and how does this relate to other texts we have read?
6. How serious are we to take these satires, and how much are they satirizing themselves?
7. How, according to Persius, can we enjoy life? What is his conception of freedom?

October 31: Neronian Pastoral: Calpurnius Siculus and Einsiedeln Eclogues

1. How do the panegyrics to Nero (or Caesar) in these poems compare to the openings of Lucan and Seneca’s On Mercy? Do they force us to rethink those other works? What qualities is Nero being praised for?
2. What seem to be the defining traits of the pastoral world in these poems? How realistic do they seem to be?
3. Who are the principle inhabitants of the pastoral world, and what are their chief concerns and worries? 
4. How is the world of the countryside being contrasted with Rome, both implicitly and explicitly?
5. What are the characteristics of the Golden Age that these works purport to describe or predict?
6. What kind of audience do these poems seem to presuppose and what was that audience looking for?

November 2: Neronian Didactic: Columella, Prologue and Book 1

1. How does Columella justify himself as an authority on agriculture, and why should we prefer him over the other authors he cites?
2. What us Columella’s ideal farmer, and what does this show about his audience?
3. According to Columella, how is landholding related to politics, and how does he compare his own time with the Republic? What does he critique his own time for, explicitly and implicitly?
4. At the time when Columella was writing Italy had to import the vast majority of its food from overseas - why is he so interested in farming?
5. How does Columella idealize the countryside? Is this similar to what we saw in the pastoral poetry?
6. What does this show about the complexities of the Roman economy? Based on what you know from Seneca, Petronius, and others, how realistic is Columella’s vision of farming?
7. What does Columella show us about slavery? How does this compare to what we saw in Seneca and Petronius?

Senecan Tragedy: General Questions

1. How do the characters articulate (or deny) Stoic principles?
2. How do the various choral odes function? Are they merely mythical digressions, or are they serious commentaries on the plays and the larger issues involved? Be prepared to discuss individual odes.
3. How does sky/astronomical/zodiac imagery figure into the plays?

Senecan Tragedy: Phaedra 

1. Are we supposed to sympathize with Phaedra or Hippolytus? 
2. What role does the nurse play? Is she just a passive character, or does she have a more sinister part?
3. How are the gods described in the play? How seriously should we take these descriptions?
4. How does the play distinguish between love and lust? Which is Phaedra consumed with? Is Cupid a real thing, a metaphor, or just an excuse?
5. How is Phaedra reminiscent of the Julio-Claudian women we met in Tacitus and Suetonius?

Senecan Tragedy: Oedipus

1. What does the play show about the role of the king, his authority, and his relationship with his subjects?
2. What is the point of the long description of a sacrifice? What does it show about the world?
3. In the famous Oedipus of Sophocles Tiresias already knows everything when he meets Oedipus - how does making him ignorant change the focus of the play?
4. How does the necromancy scene (530ff) compare to the scene in Lucan? 
5. Why does Oedipus blind himself? How does this compare with Sophocles (if you’ve read his Oedipus)?
6. What is the nature of Oedipus’s guilt?

Senecan Tragedy: Medea

1. How does Medea introduce herself? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for her?
2. How does Medea compare to Phaedra? How does she compare to the Julian-Claudian women?
3. What does this play reveal about fault, about crime, about responsibility? Are we supposed to find Jason’s arguments or Medea’s arguments more convincing?
4. What characterizes Medea as a witch? How might this be particularly significant with regards to Stoic beliefs? How does she compare with Erichtho in Lucan?

Senecan Tragedy: Trojan Women

1. How is death presented in the play? How does this conform (or not conform) with Seneca’s Stoicism, especially in the Letters to Lucilius?
2. What does the play show about the nature of war, about revenge, about justice?
3. What does the play tell us about pain and suffering?
4. How are the various Greek commanders (Agamemnon, Ulysses) depicted? Are they villains, or is there more to them?
5. The Romans believed they were descended from the Trojans - does this affect how we read the play?

Senecan Tragedy: Hercules Furens

1. How is Hercules a Stoic hero?
2. What does this show about how Seneca views the gods and their relationship with man?
3. What is the nature of Juno’s anger? How does it compare with what Seneca wrote in the On Anger that we read? 
4. How does Lycus compare to the other Senecan rulers so far (Creon, Theseus, Oedipus)? Do any of them seem to be commenting on the Julio-Claudians?
5. How does Theseus’s description of the underworld fit into Stoic belief? How does it contradict it?
6. Is this play a Stoic allegory?
7. What does the play show about culpability? About how we deal with adversity? How does this compare with the other plays, especially the Oedipus?

Senecan Tragedy: Thyestes

1. What does this play show about how Seneca views sin, guilt, crime, and punishment?
2. Does the traditional punishment of Tantalus described here fit Stoic beliefs?
3. What elements of this story might particularly resonate during the age of Nero? How might they have been understood?
4. What does this show about the power and responsibility of the king? How does Atreus compare with the other monarchs we’ve seen in Seneca?
5. What is the role of suffering in the play? Of revenge? How do they compare to the other plays?
6. How should we interpret the lack of punishment for Atreus in the play?