The city of Rome was a space for individual competition during the Republic. Triumphant generals dedicated public buildings such as temples or basilicas as a means of preserving the memory of their victory, as well as transferring glory to their descendants. But Roman monuments and sculpture was always a delicate balancing act between respecting tradition and incorporating innovative elements. This lecture introduces the language of visual culture at Rome and explores some of the significant monuments of the Republic, and tracing the way that the struggle between Caesar and Pompey was manifested in their portraiture and rival building programmes. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The city of Rome was a space for individual competition during the Republic. Triumphant generals dedicated public buildings such as temples or basilicas as a means of preserving the memory of their victory, as well as transferring glory to their descendants. But Roman monuments and sculpture was always a delicate balancing act between respecting tradition and incorporating innovative elements. This lecture introduces the language of visual culture at Rome and explores some of the significant monuments of the Republic, and tracing the way that the struggle between Caesar and Pompey was manifested in their portraiture and rival building programmes. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Cicero was the most prominent orator of his day and a significant political figure in the late Republic. However his success was anything but expected: Cicero did not come from a well-known elite family, and he prided himself on achieving political power by his own talents as a great speaker and law advocate. Paradoxically Cicero backed the conservative forces of the aristocracy in Rome’s power struggles, and was on the losing side in the civil war, but he never quite fitted in and his life and literary works are an important testament to the complex political structures of late republican Rome and how they were being gradually broken down. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Cicero was the most prominent orator of his day and a significant political figure in the late Republic. However his success was anything but expected: Cicero did not come from a well-known elite family, and he prided himself on achieving political power by his own talents as a great speaker and law advocate. Paradoxically Cicero backed the conservative forces of the aristocracy in Rome’s power struggles, and was on the losing side in the civil war, but he never quite fitted in and his life and literary works are an important testament to the complex political structures of late republican Rome and how they were being gradually broken down. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Cicero was the most prominent orator of his day and a significant political figure in the late Republic. However his success was anything but expected: Cicero did not come from a well-known elite family, and he prided himself on achieving political power by his own talents as a great speaker and law advocate. Paradoxically Cicero backed the conservative forces of the aristocracy in Rome’s power struggles, and was on the losing side in the civil war, but he never quite fitted in and his life and literary works are an important testament to the complex political structures of late republican Rome and how they were being gradually broken down. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Cicero was the most prominent orator of his day and a significant political figure in the late Republic. However his success was anything but expected: Cicero did not come from a well-known elite family, and he prided himself on achieving political power by his own talents as a great speaker and law advocate. Paradoxically Cicero backed the conservative forces of the aristocracy in Rome’s power struggles, and was on the losing side in the civil war, but he never quite fitted in and his life and literary works are an important testament to the complex political structures of late republican Rome and how they were being gradually broken down. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

The last hundred years of the Republic saw tensions between competing military and political leaders at Rome, out of which grew urban violence, politically-motivated murders and brutal civil war. Today we trace the historical background of the years 133-44 BCE, beginning with the Gracchi brothers' revolutionary attempts to deal with the urban poor, and concluding with the dictatorship and assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

A timeline of Caesar's life.

The last hundred years of the Republic saw tensions between competing military and political leaders at Rome, out of which grew urban violence, politically-motivated murders and brutal civil war. Today we trace the historical background of the years 133-44 BCE, beginning with the Gracchi brothers' revolutionary attempts to deal with the urban poor, and concluding with the dictatorship and assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

Comic plays are the earliest complete literary texts we have from Rome, and the comedies of the mid-Republican poet Plautus have been enormously influential on European drama. In this lecture we look at what Plautus takes from Greek New Comedy, what is especially Roman about his plays, and how he plays with convention in the Pseudolus. Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.