Weekly Journal Update Six
February 16, 2017: From 11:10am to 12:30pm, I attended class which began with a quiz. Then, Dr. Sandridge began a discussion about Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great became a king at the age of 18 and conquered most of the ancient world by the age of 32. The class then looked at the Alexander Mosaic and described and compared the images of Alexander and Darius. We also discussed Alexander the Great’s anastole, which is his signature hairstyle. He has been described as leonine because his locks resembled the mane of a lion. In comparison, Heracles was also described as leonine for slaying the Nemean lion and wearing its skin. Alexander the Great claimed that Heracles’s father, Zeus, was also his father and often identified with the two.
The class read and discussed the first chapter of J.J. Pollitt’s Art in the Hellenistic Age, which is about Alexander the Great’s features in art. Such features included his liquid/melting gaze, anastole, mouth, and brow. We then viewed and discussed the Augustus of Primaporta. Augustus’s hair in the sculpture looks much shorter than Alexander the Great’s and he also has a smaller, less noticeable anastole. The sculpture also has Cupid riding on a dolphin and touching Augustus’s leg, emphasizing the claim that his lineage derived from the goddess Venus (Cupid’s mother). Dr. Sandridge then asked the class to look of Donald Trump’s profile picture on twitter and compare it to Barack Obama’s picture. Trump’s picture exhibited a piercing gaze/direct look of eyes, pursed lips, dyed hair, and a serious/stiff expression. In comparison, Obama’s picture exhibited a huge smile, approachable look, and cool/relaxed expression. We then discussed the pros and cons of each politician’s picture. For example, Trump may be portrayed as having a “resting b**** face” and Obama may be portrayed as looking weak. Dr. Sandridge asked the class what our ideal portrait would look like. I would want my portrait to be me in an eloquent red dress with no makeup and with my hair naturally styled in front of a waterfall with the sun and a rainbow shinning above it.
February 20, 2017: From about 1pm to 7pm, I read and took notes on the “A Political Thriller (c. 63 BCE)” module. The focus of this module was the role of rhetoric leadership in the Catilinarian Conspiracy. The two main individuals discussed are Marcus Tullius Cicero and Lucius Sergius Catiline. The Catilinarian Conspiracy was a plot concocted by Lucius Sergius Catiline to overthrow the Roman Republic in 63 BCE. The conspiracy was foiled by Cicero who publically exposed the plot in a senate meeting. Cicero was very skilled in the art of rhetoric and used his skills to convince the senate that Catiline was up to no good.
Cicero was a legal advocate, a novus homo (“new man”), a praetor in 66 B.C., a supporter of Pompey the Great, and was famous as an orator and for “saving” Rome from the Catilinarian Conspiracy. Catiline was known to have a scandalous lifestyle, was a praetor in 68 B.C., a governor of Africa in 66 B.C., a supporter of Sulla, and was famous for attempting to overthrow the Roman Republic and the aristocratic power of its senate. During their time, Rome experienced internal issues that had stemmed from troubles developing in the eastern provinces. Catiline was near bankrupt and conspired for the purpose of eliminated all debt from Roman citizens. His conspiracy included assassinating several elected officials and burning down the city. Cicero was informed of the conspiracy by Fulvia, the mistress of Quintus Curius. When Cicero publically accused Catiline of conspiring, he denied everything but called for an uprising later on and escaped the city the following night with three hundred supporters. The conspiracy resulted in five of Catiline’s biggest co-conspirators (Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, Gabinius, and Caeparius) being put to death without a trial. It was Cicero who suggested that the conspirators be immediately executed and his suggestion was supported by the senate despite Caesar being against the decision. Catiline and his army were caught as they tried to escape across the Apennine Mountains, resulting in the defeat and death of Catiline.
Cicero was a persuasive leader who developed his theories of speech from Aristotle. Aristotle believed that rhetoric may include ethics (ethos), logic (logos), and/or emotion (pathos). Other great rhetoric leaders, such as Socrates and Plato, differentiated sophists from arguers. They believed that sophists were not as wise as they appeared but were just very persuasive. Plato’s appeals also included the components of ethos, logos, and pathos. Cicero composed his own unique form of rhetoric known as the “five canons of argument,” which were invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Cicero also contributed to the teaching of rhetoric by translating Greek philosophy into Latin and Roman culture.
The module discussed how Stoicism, a popular philosophical movement, was the aftermath of Aristotle and conflicted with another popular school of philosophy known as Epicureanism. Also, the features of ancient Roman oratory were mentioned, which included emphasis in voice, deliberate pauses for dramatic silence, and a range of hand gestures. The possibility that Cicero was more of a villain than a victim was also discussed in the module. According to some historians and writers, it is possible that Cicero was a violent aggressor against Catiline and framed him with the conspiracy. It is possible that Catiline only joined the revolt as a defensive action against Cicero. The module also covers how Obama is compared to Cicero because of his effective oratory through decorum. Decorum requires a speaker to use words that appropriately relate him/herself, the subject-matter, the circumstances/occasion, and the audience. After watching Obama’s 2009 Notre Dame Commencement address, I consider him a master of rhetoric. He congratulated the students at the event in a very respectful and proud way, gave encouraging advice, praised the distinguished faculty of the school, and was not afraid to discuss the controversy of his appearance due to political matters.
February 21, 2017: From 11:10am to 12:30pm, I attended class. We discussed several great orators, such as Cicero, Aristotle, and Demosthenes. Dr. Sandridge brought up the idea that in the ancient world, it was public speaking that made males “full men.” In other words, men would win glory by speaking well at assemblies or public gatherings just as they would win glory in a war or battle by fighting well. Just as a man could be humiliated for losing a fight, he could be humiliated for being a poor speaker. The class also discussed the idea of fragile masculinity and pondered why even today, womanhood does not seem as fragile as manhood. Some common ways that men are believed to have lost their manhood is by being castrated, losing their testicles from testicular cancer, losing their job, and losing or backing down in a fight or argument. In contrast, ways that some people consider women to lose their womanhood are to experience menopause, to have breast cancer, or to not be able to bear children.
Dr. Sandridge discussed Aristotle’s three kinds of rhetoric, which are forensic rhetoric, epideictic rhetoric, and deliberate rhetoric. Forensic rhetoric typically occurs in court or in a trial and involves questioning whether a person is guilty or innocent. Epideictic rhetoric is speech that praises or blames someone and questions if someone is a good or bad person. Deliberate rhetoric usually occurs in assemblies or social gatherings and involves deciding what to do or what not to do. The class then discussed how these types of rhetoric were used by or for individuals discussed in previous modules, such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Nestor, Antony, and Socrates. One specific example that was brought up was Antony’s famous eulogy for Julius Caesar. When Dr. Sandridge mentioned that eulogies were typically done by family members, I asked if Antony and Caesar were related because I remembered that Antony’s mother was “Julia of the house of the Caesars” and that Antony had agreed to have Lucius Caesar (Antony’s uncle on his mother’s side) killed for the sake of his alliance with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. After searching online for the familial relation between Antony and Julius Caesar, I discovered that Antony’s mother was a distant cousin of Julius Caesar.
February 22, 2017: From about 10pm to 11pm, I wrote answers to some of the questions in the module, which are the following:
· Cicero may have needed to use the five individual parts of rhetoric to speak to the citizens of the Roman Republic because he wanted to effectively grasp the attention and concern of his listeners. In order to be a respected leader, it was essential for Cicero to be able to relate to and persuade the public and his parts of rhetoric were an appropriate strategy to do so.
· Establishing a stopping point would be useful to a leader if his or her audience have mixed or opposing feelings about a subject-matter. It is important to establish common ground in an argument in order to rationally advocate one’s ideas toward a particular side.
· In Cicero’s First Catilinarian Oration, Cicero characterizes himself to be an aggressive fighter for justice and devoted supporter of Rome. I believe that he was trying to elicit anger and fear from the senate members toward Catilinarian.
· Cicero’s and Obama’s speeches are similar because they both confronted issues that threatened the ways of people. Cicero discussed protecting the livelihood of Rome and its form of government, while Obama discussed respecting the beliefs of American cultures and religions.
In addition, I completed the assignment that Dr. Sandridge gave in the previous class. Dr. Sandridge asked us to pick three or four passages from Cicero’s first Catilinarian speech that we found very compelling or persuasive. I believe that passages 1, 5, and 13 fit this description. In the first passage, Cicero demonizes Catiline as violent person who is trying to bring destruction to the Roman government. This passage is compelling because Cicero speaks in a fearless and confident way. In passage 5, Cicero insists that he and Rome would be safer if Catiline left the city. I believe that this passage is persuasive because Cicero seems to be sincerely concerned with the safety of the Roman citizens. He also speaks persuasively by mentioning that the destruction of the city means the destruction of the temples of deities, which probably affected many of the officials listening to him because religion was taken very seriously in the ancient world. Passage 13 is very compelling because Cicero uses an interesting metaphor that describes Catiline as a disease that Rome must get rid of in order to survive. Cicero characterizes Catiline as impious and insists that he be banished in order to keep Rome safe. In my opinion, Cicero used pathos in these three passages in order to make his listeners feel as though they were in danger and needed to take action.