Latin 103 Cicero’s Pro Caelio

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Lesbia Weeping (1866)

Required Texts

Everitt, Anthony. Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician. New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN 978-0375758959 (Used copies are available for under $5 with free shipping on abebooks.com.)
Dyck, Andrew R. Cicero: Pro Caelio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1107643482

Optional Texts

Skinner, Marilyn. Clodia Metelli: The Tribune's Sister. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0195375015 (This one will be on reserve in McHenry, and I’ll also leave a copy in the Classics Library.)
Traupman, John. The Bantam New College Latin and English Dictionary. Third edition. New York: Random House, 2007. ISBN 978-0553590128 (If you don’t have a dictionary, this is an excellent and inexpensive choice.)

In this course, we will read much of Cicero’s Pro Caelio, a speech delivered in defense of Marcus Caelius Rufus in 56 BC. Caelius was accused of having conspired to murder the philosopher Dio, who had come at the head of a group of Alexandrian ambassadors to Rome to ask the senate not to restore Ptolemy XII Auletes to the throne. In the course of his speech, Cicero blackens the reputation of Clodia, the wife of Metellus (consul 60, died 59), who was a witness for the prosecution.

We will also read a few poems of Catullus (who addresses a Caelius identified with our Caelius, and whose Lesbia may be Clodia Metelli), and a few of Cicero’s letters and passages from his speeches that will help to put the Pro Caelio and its characters in context.

Grading

Grades will be based on in-class and online quizzes (20%), in-class tests (25%), a final paper due (25%), and class participation and preparedness (30%).

ADA Info

If you qualify for classroom accommodations because of a disability, please get an Accommodation Authorization from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) and submit it to me in person outside of class (e.g., office hours) within the first two weeks of the quarter. Contact the DRC at 459-2089 (voice), 459-4806 (TTY), or http://drc.ucsc.edu for more information on the requirements and/or process.