I notice that St. John's at Santa Fe reads Books I-VI of Tacitus' Annals. On the face of it, that presents a problem, as that only takes the Roman history out to 37 AD. The rest of the Annals covers up to 66 AD, and then if you throw in his History, you can go all the way out to 70 AD. Of course, relying on Tacitus omits all the early history of Rome. But St. John's doesn't have any Livy. You can get all the Roman early history in Livy (including Hannibal and all that good stuff...), but, like Tacitus, it's pretty voluminous.
SO...the question is: how should the sweep of Roman history be covered? In an ideal world, shouldn't a serious great books student read just about all of Livy's Early History and all of Tacitus? Yes, that would be about a thousand pages. But shouldn't that be the starting point, or is that way overkill?
If that is too much, how much should be cut out? I am inclined to think that if six books of Tacitus is sufficient for St. John's (an excellent program!), then surely it is sufficient? Is that logic valid?
THANK YOU in advance for any advice on this front.....
Gibbon, or, as it was called in my experience, “The Gibbon”—
“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Leads to so many ancient books and writings of all kinds.
Horrendous. Hard. Complex. And masterful.
Our college had a couple of planned interactions with the
St John's student body back then in an effort to build good will since we were both in the same city.
I forwarded your question to my son who is a junior at St. John’s Annapolis. Where is your college? Can you say?
Not a student at these schools, but have a 50 year amateur interest in Roman history.
For the sweep of the history of the Monarchy and the Republic there is no substitute for Livy.
For the crisis of the Republic the best source is Appian. The relevant chapters of Plutarch draw great character studies. Caesar and his supporter Sallust explain things from the viewpoint of the populares.
For the Emperors of the 2nd century the best source is Cassius Dio.
Ammianus Marcellinus has some good material from the middle of the fourth century ending at the Battle of Adrianople.
One simply cannot cover the whole sweep of history in 4 years. What one can attempt is to stir the interest and the critical abilities of students so that those who want to get the pre-Augustus - Caesar dynasty Roman history can do their own snooping around.
In related news, a lot of us sixties Johnnies were indeed hippies, but as the program worked on us we became conservatives.
I do think that many make it through the program able to maintain their intellectual core untouched. I was recently in a most unpleasant conversation with more recent Johnnies and I was stunned to find them close-minded and uncritical worshippers of the left. It was as if they had never learned the self-questioning requisite for serious thought.
I suppose, of course, that it really depends on your reasons for reading Roman history. Do you want a sweeping survey of the events of Roman history? Do you want more focus on one era than on another? Do you want them to learn what certain Romans thought about the Roman enterprise? Do you want them to learn what later men thought of Rome? Or what these men thought history itself to be? Does historical study include poetical and philosophical reflections upon historical events? Some or all of the above?
Some of this could be gotten from various textbooks, but that’s clearly not what you’re after. I can tell you what’s done at Thomas Aquinas College, much of which was taken directly from the program at St. Johns, some of which departs from it. Roman history is touched upon in various parts of the program, but much of it is concentrated near the beginning of the Sophomore Seminar. The following books are read; some are histories themselves, some provide ethical and/or political context for history, and some provide poetical and/or philosophical reflections on the men and events of history and some even on the nature of history itself:
Livy [Bk I, Bk II (in part)]
Plutarch [Marcellus, the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Caesar, Cato the Younger, Brutus]
Cicero [de Officiis]
Tacitus [Annals, Penguin ed., Chs 1-8 (thru AD 37)]
Lucretius [de Natura Rerum]
Virgil [Aeneid]
Machiavelli [Discourses on Livy]
Gibbon [Decline & Fall, Womersly ed., prefaces, chs 1-3, 15, 23-24, 28, General observations]
With such brief selections from some of the more robust histories (Livy, Tacitus, Gibbon), this is clearly not meant to provide a complete history of Rome. But it does provide, as much as is possible within the larger scope of the program, a context for the discussion of the nature of the Roman enterprise, of politics in general, and of the nature of history.