The fifth chapter covers the broad span of prose and poetic Latin literature that intends to instruct. But didactic works are never simply technical: even those that seem clunky to us were written with an eye to style, at least in parts. On the other hand, some of those that seem purely ornamental have in fact been found genuinely useful by some readers. We discuss the genre’s origins in Greek literature, and explore primary prose and poetic exemplars: Cato, Varro, Cicero, Lucretius, Vergil and Ovid.

The fourth chapter introduces several ‘personal voices’, immediately complicating our understanding of how personally to take them: the authors discussed here seem to offer us an unmitigated look at their inner lives, but Latin literature does not, for the most part, work like that. Through discussions of Lucilius, in-depth treatment of Catullus, and exploration of the letters of Cicero, we show the public nature even of what seems most personal.

Throughout Varro’s fragmentary corpus is a seeming obsession with textual afterlives, his own as well as of others. This was not merely a literary trope, but an idea grounded in Neoptolemus of Parium’s ars poetica and its counter-intuitive definition of ‘poet’. In his theory of poetry, ‘poet’ refers not to the historical poet who creates a poem, but to the meaning or ‘mind’ of a poem, and this ‘poet’ (the poet scriptus) acquires an immortality denied to the flesh-and-blood poet (the poet scribens). Varro’s approach to literary history is informed by this definition of ‘poet’, and when he writes about Rome’s literary past, his interest is less in biographical data about historical poets than in poetic self-preservation through mimesis. An examination of fragments from the De poetis, the De poematis, the De comoediis Plautinis, and the poetic epitaphs preserved in Gellius demonstrates how Varro’s interest in literary immortality and mimesis was misread as literary history in the narrow sense.

In the two loci classici about Roman satire, Quintilian and Diomedes famously draw a bifurcation of the history of the genre into two strands, which often comes in handy for modern scholars. This chapter argues that this bifurcation is the result of a stratification of, and compromise between, at least two different views: a communis opinio held by most authors of satire of the Republican period and their readers, and the single but ‘authoritative’ view of Horace, who established meter as a formal criterion to define satire. This chapter traces the origins of both views by discussing the relevant sources, and shows how Horace’s Satires appropriated pre-existing ideas about the nature and history of the genre, innovated on key aspects of them, and became a source of original ideas in turn. A similar scheme applies to Quintilian and Diomedes too: their perspective combines previous stances, but this combination itself represents an innovation which influences our own view of Roman satire in turn. Thus, while focusing on Roman satire, this chapter discusses a more general dynamic in the creation of literary histories.

The concepts of progress and decline play a dominant role in ancient views on literary history. Roman culture inherited from Aristotle the idea that the arts gradually mature. Whereas archaic and classical Greek literature was generally known to the Romans as a corpus of canonical works that represented the acme of each genre, Latin literature gave the Romans the image of a long march of advancement towards the Greek models’ perfection. From Aristotle onwards, progress is conceived as an addition of pertinent procedures. The attainment of maturity does not entail decadence, but rather the possibility of creating works fully corresponding to the nature of the genre. If an acme is thought to have been reached, later authors may aim at what they regard as a more authentic acme; the process thus continues. Various Latin texts show that a continuous progress towards an ideal perfection is not excluded. The idea of decadence, in Cicero’s Brutus and in post-Augustan texts, relates to reasons that do not concern ‘internal’ dynamics of artistic development, but the distrust in the conditions and prospects of politics and morality in the ‘external’ context, including the lack of self-discipline in an excessive display of increasingly sophisticated formal virtuosity.

Chapter 2 considers how Cicero responded to the model of the body politic proposed by Catiline. Rejecting the head of state metaphor, his oratory describes a civic healer capable of diagnosing and curing the ills of the Republic. This idea drew upon a well-established moralizing tradition that identified vice as a contagion that had infected the res publica. Whereas Varro, Sallust, and Lucretius employed such imagery to indict Rome’s governing class for its ambitio and avaritia, Cicero used it to justify the extralegal execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. Although he sought to protect a constitution under threat, his medically inspired language helped legitimize violence as a tool of political engagement. Identifying Clodius and his allies as new malignancies in need of amputation, he contributed to a corrosive cycle of civic conflict that culminated in Pompey’s sole consulship and Caesar’s dictatorship, two constitutional innovations justified as curative remedies. In the end, his rhetoric proved susceptible to appropriation by those less invested in collegial governance than he.

Chapter 2 focuses on the dialogue’s intellectual filiations. It begins by examining the preface’s (1–25) insistence on remaining silent about the civic crisis even as the interlocutors' exchange of written texts incessantly circles back to the accomplishments and struggles of the Roman state. Atticus’ Liber Annalis and Brutus’ de Virtute inspired the Brutus, but to what extent and to what purpose remains initially unclear. In aligning their texts with de Republica and the Brutus, Cicero creates a complex web of learned exchange in the service of the republic. The chapter then considers other potential intellectual predecessors: Varro’s writings on literature, the history of the dialogue genre, and Cicero’s own works. The Brutus draws together several intellectual currents and promises significant innovations in how to document and conceptualize the literary past.

When Horace first published the Odes in 23 BCE, in an edition comprising the eighty-eight poems of books 1–3, Ode 3.30 stood as a self-reflexive epilogue in which the poet surveyed his work and announced the achievement of his own goals. Its clear and confident claims to poetic immortality resonate pointedly in form and tone with Horace’s earlier statements. The first two lines of the poem are particularly forceful, and feature one of the collection’s more memorable images and more durable phrases.

The chapter explores efforts to answer how a community premised on a dislocation from the past, but comprised of people who bring with them their own pasts, locates itself in time. How does a community constituted by other pasts not simply blur into those pasts? I argue that in both Rome and the United States a particular type of Stranger, the corrosive Stranger, is constructed in response to this question. The corrosive Stranger is not defined against some preexistent purity, but is used to construct an imagined purity that gives a community a genealogy that distinguishes it from other communities and also posits a notion of true belonging that is different from juridical membership. I look at the different efforts by Cato the Elder, Cicero, and Varro for the Romans and then by Noah Webster for the United States to craft a genealogy of national identity that is defined against the threats of the corrosive Stranger. I then look at attempts by W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington to confront the burden of memory reflected in the Stranger marked by race who carries America’s own memory.

The opening chapter examines the forebears of Cicero’s notion of will in Greek thought and Roman usage in the period before his birth, with special attention given to the playwrights Plautus and Terence. There was no “will of the people” in classical Greece. The demos wielded power not by delegation but in active, autonomous decision. There is no special discourse of representation in classical Athens, because in classical democracy (unlike today) there is no permanent governing class. In the Republic, Plato proposes that reason and appetite reside in different parts of the soul; though we succumb to appetite despite “knowing better,” in a harmonious soul as in a just city, reason must rule. Plato’s star student is the first to propose a full theory of human action, but neither Aristotle’s boulesis (the desire for ends) nor his prohairesis (the choice of means) map onto the faculty that Latin speakers would call voluntas. It is the Stoics, and particularly Epictetus, who have been credited by some as inventors of the will due to their intense focus on regulating our inner responses to events and forming the correct intention.

This chapter examines Varro’s depictions of teasing and banter in his dialogue De Re Rustica, with particular reference to issues of im/politeness. In many cases, this banter involves some kind of provocation of the addressee, and so risks being construed as impolite. In most instances, however, the witty phrasing conveys a playful intent, which ensures that the remark does not cause offence. The end result is usually heightened rapport among the participants. In several cases Varro’s teasing involves ‘collaborative’ banter, in which both participants contribute to the construction of a playful conceit. In other instances, however, the teasing quips are one-sided, with no response reported. In such cases the emphasis seems to be on the display of quick-witted inventiveness for its own sake. This energetic interaction differs from the highly conventionalized language of social negotiation typically used by the Roman elite. Indeed, it is significant that Cicero’s real-life epistolary relationship with Varro was marked by a degree of formality that eschewed the use of banter. In this respect, the right to tease was one extended only to a privileged sub-set of personal acquaintances

Chapter 3 marks the transition of Augustine’s argument in The City of God from politics to philosophy, by means of the civil religion of ancient Rome. In books VI and VII, Augustine endeavors to unmask counterfeits of virtuous humility – conventions propagated by civic and philosophic elites, including in some respects Varro and Seneca – and to exhort people to live and worship only in accord with their true dignity.

Discussion of Cicero’s quotations from Roman comedy in the context of contemporary trends of Roman scholarship which used comedy as the site of linguistic and philosophical analysis. Discussion of Cicero’s preference for Terence over Plautus. Discussion of the influence of Lucius Aelius Stilo’s scholarly methods upon his students, Cicero and Varro. Discussion of Cicero’s use of Roman comedy to define “good Latin”, and to establish philosophical definitions in Latin.

The chapter seeks to identify the triple historicity of Cicero’s relationship to philosophy. The first part presents Cicero the historian, who sought to clarify the history of philosophy and its reception in Roman society, as well as to analyze the resistance of his contemporaries to the practice of philosophy, which was considered incompatible with political action. The second part describes the intellectual revolution, under the designation of “reason,” which some of the Roman elite developed as a remedy to the crisis of the Republic; Cicero appears there as the witness par excellence of this intellectual experience in the service of the city. The third part of the chapter examines Cicero the philosopher himself, actor of this revolution. The analysis of his work allows us to see the multiple facets of this man who was also reader, translator, and disseminator of texts and ideas, and to identify his place in relation to his literary milieu, and in particular to his friend Varro.

This chapter examines the cultural status of ritual song and dance in the Roman Late Republican and Augustan periods. By applying the modern theoretical work of Paul Connerton on the social reproduction of memory, the chapter explores several strategies through which two of the most iconic religious associations in Rome – the Salian priesthood and the Arval Brethren – stored and transmitted their cultural traditions. The hymns of these collegia, as well as their performances, constitute unique artifacts for understanding the interconnected processes of writing and embodiment – what Connerton defines as “inscription” and “incorporation”– in the production of ancient musical memories.

Chapter 2 focuses on the dialogue’s intellectual filiations. It begins by examining the preface’s (1–25) insistence on remaining silent about the civic crisis even as the interlocutors' exchange of written texts incessantly circles back to the accomplishments and struggles of the Roman state. Atticus’ Liber Annalis and Brutus’ de Virtute inspired the Brutus, but to what extent and to what purpose remains initially unclear. In aligning their texts with de Republica and the Brutus, Cicero creates a complex web of learned exchange in the service of the republic. The chapter then considers other potential intellectual predecessors: Varro’s writings on literature, the history of the dialogue genre, and Cicero’s own works. The Brutus draws together several intellectual currents and promises significant innovations in how to document and conceptualize the literary past.

This chapter examines the discursive role of plaustrum, first plotting out its reliable representation in Latin literary texts as the sturdy uehiculum par excellence, repeatedly defined as a functional tool for agricultural (and other) hauling. It then moves on to unpack the different versions of two crucial episodes in which the conveyance is represented delivering much more, for the Roman republic – even saving it from disaster: first, before the Gallic occupation of Rome after the battle of the Allia in 390 BCE, Albinius’ legendary lending of his plaustrum for the delivery of the very religious life of the city; and second, in 311 BCE, the dramatic walk-out of the tibicines, and their drugged recovery by means of plaustra. In particular, Ovid’s version of the tale in the Fasti serves as an entrée to the final section of the chapter, which investigates the deep-seated metapoetics of this clunkiest and lowest of Roman vehicles.

Pliny, Gellius, Plutarch, and Athenaeus each give a religious frame to their miscellanies, and the most consistently cited deities are the Muses. This is no empty rhetorical convention but an attempt to connect their work to a tradition where the Muses preside over revelation of things hidden. Different strands of the Muse tradition are taken up, including revelation to the studious, solitary lucubrator and philosophical revelation where philosophy is the highest form of mousikê. The miscellanists develop forms of social and ascetic discipline to participate more deeply in the spirituality of this tradition, by refraining from sleep, food, or certain kinds of talk and by practising their labours by night or alone. Clement shows his intention to respond to this Classical tradition by framing his project in Christian paideia with allusions to the Classical tradition of mousikê. But he displaces Apollo (Muse-leader) with Christ, the bee (symbol of the Muses) with the Christ-Logos and either omits or debunks the Muses at every opportunity.