Friday, May 1, 2020

Dear Imperial Roman Prose students,

The exam on Tacitus’ Agricola is below, and it is due Monday, May 4th at noon Central. 

Please send me an email with the subject line “LATN 403 Midterm 2: Your Last Name, Your First Name”. The email will contain these three items: 

• The Sewanee Honor Code pledge typed out by you.
• A list numbered one to fifteen with your answers to the grammar questions.
• Your Essay of at least 250 words on Tacitus’ Agricola.

Any questions? Email me, and if you like, we can set up a face-to-face chat over Zoom, Facetime, WhatsApp, or just talk on the phone. 

It has been a bizarre semester, and I am sorry we had to end it the way we did. But I am convinced, after my conversations with you, that you have all done a good job of keeping up with reading Tacitus and thinking about the issues he raises. You should be proud of yourselves. 

Have a great summer. May it be filled with relaxation and good health.

Yours sincerely,

CMcD

A. SEEN PASSAGES

Scilicet illo igne vocem populi Romani et libertatem senatus et conscientiam generis humani aboleri arbitrabantur

1. igne. What is the case and why?
2. vocem. What is the case and why?

Iam vero principum filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent.

3. concupiscerent. What tense and mood?
4. Why this mood?

Agricola expulsum seditione domestica unum ex regulis gentis exceperat ac specie amicitiae in occasionem retinebat.

5. expulsum. What part of speech is this?
6. What tense and voice?
7. seditione. What is the case and why?

Sed nulla iam ultra gens, nihil nisi fluctus ac saxa, et infestiores Romani, quorum superbiam frustra per obsequium ac modestiam effugias.

8. quorum. What part of speech is this? What is its antecedent?
9. effugias. What is the tense and mood?
10. Why this mood?

B. SIGHT PASSAGE

Feel free to consult the Dickinson commentary on Agricola 46.

Si quis piorum manibus locus [est], si … non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae, placide quiescas, nosque domum tuam ab infirmo desiderio et muliebribus lamentis ad contemplationem virtutum tuarum voces, quas neque lugeri neque plangi fas est.

11. Explain the form of quis.
12. What tense and mood is quiescas?
13. Why this mood?
14. What kind of condition is this?
15. What part of speech is quas? What is its antecedent?

C. ESSAY

In an essay of 250 words or so, please respond to the following observation made by Myles Lavan, “Slavishness in Britain and Rome in Tacitus’ Agricola,” Classical Quarterly 61 (2011) p. 303:

“… the Agricola’s Roman and British narratives are structured around a shared set of polarities – compliance and resistance, silence and speech, passivity and action, masculinity and effeminacy, self-indulgence and self-control, oblivion and memory – which can be encompassed within a broader, governing opposition between slavishness and freedom. No reading of the Agricola can afford to ignore the interweaving of the two narratives.”