Latin

Together in this seminar we will investigate several famed conspiracies in Roman history to consider how conspiracy narratives expose what is often left unsaid in a society, how they serve to reenforce social order and the expectations for "good" citizens, and how marginalized figures like women, slaves, and foreigners often play important roles in opening up the private words and deeds of the conspirators to public knowledge. Our attention this semester will be doubled, considering the narration of moments when conspiracies sought to topple power, and also how political conversation and action becomes tagged and narrated as conspiratorial. That is, we’ll be reading historical narratives as an insight into Roman history, literature, and culture; we will also be using Roman narratives as evidence for better understanding the phenomena of conspiracies themselves.