1 00:00:05,318 --> 00:00:10,420 We're now going to jump 500 years from classical Athens into classical Rome. 2 00:00:10,420 --> 00:00:12,910 We're looking at a very different culture now. 3 00:00:12,910 --> 00:00:17,000 And for some people, you will have learned early on in your study of myth that yeah, 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,440 that Romans borrow all the Greek myths and change the names and 5 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:22,430 adopt the stories for themselves. 6 00:00:22,430 --> 00:00:27,110 There's some truth to that, the Greeks preexisted the Romans, for the most part, 7 00:00:27,110 --> 00:00:28,770 their literary traditions did. 8 00:00:28,770 --> 00:00:32,220 But it's probably a little more accurate to say that both Greeks and 9 00:00:32,220 --> 00:00:35,640 Romans were working from a common pool of Mediterranean materials 10 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:38,390 that they each put their own spin on. 11 00:00:38,390 --> 00:00:42,960 And it's not quite right to look at the Romans as being derivative of the Greeks, 12 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:44,440 that doesn't quite work out right. 13 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:46,370 They have their own ways of doing things and 14 00:00:46,370 --> 00:00:49,110 we'll see as we track them out, just what those are. 15 00:00:49,110 --> 00:00:50,174 They're interesting and 16 00:00:50,174 --> 00:00:53,328 fascinating differences with the materials that we've already looked at. 17 00:00:53,328 --> 00:00:57,000 We're going to turn to a new question when we enter into this 18 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,130 first stage of our study of Roman material with Virgil. 19 00:01:01,130 --> 00:01:03,120 That's going to be a question that's deeply, 20 00:01:04,310 --> 00:01:07,530 carefully bound up with the question of history. 21 00:01:07,530 --> 00:01:11,930 When we were studying the text that we've looked at so far, we mostly could make 22 00:01:11,930 --> 00:01:15,630 only very meager references to the historical context in which they grew up. 23 00:01:15,630 --> 00:01:16,920 That's true for Homer, 24 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:21,060 even true of the cases where we have some more information in classical Athens. 25 00:01:21,060 --> 00:01:26,450 The amount of historical material we can reference is not all that robust. 26 00:01:26,450 --> 00:01:29,770 By the time we get to Virgil, though, it's a very different story. 27 00:01:29,770 --> 00:01:33,600 Virgil is writing myth within history. 28 00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:36,850 He's doing something different than what we've seen up until now. 29 00:01:36,850 --> 00:01:41,460 This is a historical time, by which I mean we have lots of evidence around for 30 00:01:41,460 --> 00:01:44,290 the historical context in which Virgil was writing. 31 00:01:44,290 --> 00:01:49,060 So to some extent up until now, the materials that we've been reading, 32 00:01:49,060 --> 00:01:50,950 they've gotten a free pass on history. 33 00:01:50,950 --> 00:01:52,440 We can as I say, and 34 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:57,260 we've try to bring specific historical context where they're relevant to bear. 35 00:01:57,260 --> 00:02:00,150 For example when we read The Oresteia or pieces of Homer. 36 00:02:00,150 --> 00:02:03,950 But up until now we've only been able to make quite meager references to 37 00:02:03,950 --> 00:02:04,800 the historical context. 38 00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:07,490 That's going to be very different when we turn to Virgil. 39 00:02:07,490 --> 00:02:11,170 We know a lot about the historical background that he's working in and so 40 00:02:11,170 --> 00:02:14,380 it shows us a different kind of context. 41 00:02:14,380 --> 00:02:17,320 Myth is now being made within historical time. 42 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:19,380 It's I think a higher degree of difficulty. 43 00:02:20,910 --> 00:02:23,840 Homer's free pass is no more. 44 00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:27,893 He can't just, Virgil can't just extend himself out into mythic 45 00:02:27,893 --> 00:02:31,960 cloudiness and tell a story 46 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:36,570 in some abstract way that's completely divorced from his historical context. 47 00:02:36,570 --> 00:02:40,430 Instead of we're going to be able to bring it to bear on understanding him. 48 00:02:40,430 --> 00:02:44,000 Now we've looked at myth as an important component of understanding identity 49 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,700 up till now and up till now we focused on individual identity, 50 00:02:47,700 --> 00:02:51,470 especially that in the case of Odysseus getting rebuilt through the Odyssey. 51 00:02:51,470 --> 00:02:55,400 And we also talked about in the materials from last week, identity is 52 00:02:55,400 --> 00:02:59,810 getting dissolve before our very eyes in a case of Oedipus and Pentheus. 53 00:02:59,810 --> 00:03:03,140 So identity up till how has been mostly focused on individuals. 54 00:03:03,140 --> 00:03:06,590 When we get to Virgil, identity is now going to be looked at through a new lens, 55 00:03:06,590 --> 00:03:09,840 we're going to look at the identity of a nation as a whole. 56 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,450 Now some of us will nod our heads and say, well sure, myth does that. 57 00:03:12,450 --> 00:03:15,060 It spells out the identity of a nation as a whole. 58 00:03:15,060 --> 00:03:19,030 But if we're used to that idea, it's because Virgil was successful. 59 00:03:19,030 --> 00:03:22,945 What we've seen up till now, none of the poets we've seen specifically have been 60 00:03:22,945 --> 00:03:27,940 self-consciously trying to craft some identity of Greek-ness for us. 61 00:03:27,940 --> 00:03:31,050 That's something that we can see in their stories but 62 00:03:31,050 --> 00:03:35,168 it's not at all the case that any of our poets up till now have self consciously 63 00:03:35,168 --> 00:03:40,510 been trying to craft some larger Greek identity for everybody. 64 00:03:40,510 --> 00:03:43,690 Instead they're talking about great stories about individuals. 65 00:03:43,690 --> 00:03:46,180 When we get to Virgil, very different story. 66 00:03:46,180 --> 00:03:50,080 We're looking now to national identity. 67 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:51,768 What is it to be a Roman? 68 00:03:51,768 --> 00:03:55,105 That's going to be looked at through the lens of specific identity in the case of 69 00:03:55,105 --> 00:03:56,070 Aeneus. 70 00:03:56,070 --> 00:03:59,340 But, Virgil's much more self conscious about looking to myth 71 00:03:59,340 --> 00:04:04,010 as a way of articulating the identity of a whole nation. 72 00:04:04,010 --> 00:04:06,640 Now, individual identity has it's own ways of working. 73 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:08,730 It's mostly a biological continuity. 74 00:04:08,730 --> 00:04:09,840 That's a good place to start. 75 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:10,650 Where do I come from? 76 00:04:10,650 --> 00:04:12,780 Where are my connections to my past? 77 00:04:12,780 --> 00:04:15,220 We start with biology as a way of connecting that. 78 00:04:15,220 --> 00:04:17,840 In terms of a nation, well, what's the continuity going to be? 79 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:22,814 It's not quite biological, although Virgil is going to spin it that way for us. 80 00:04:22,814 --> 00:04:27,717 Instead, there's a sort of shared sense of Roman-ness that gets passed on 81 00:04:27,717 --> 00:04:31,562 crucially through this form of narrative, through myth. 82 00:04:31,562 --> 00:04:38,860 Myth I think is probably the very stuff of what national identities are made up of. 83 00:04:38,860 --> 00:04:41,930 And it takes the place of biology for individuals. 84 00:04:41,930 --> 00:04:43,640 It's the way you can look back to 85 00:04:45,380 --> 00:04:50,120 where the lineage is actually going to go through some sort of mythic storytelling. 86 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:51,820 Now, we enter into the question of history, 87 00:04:51,820 --> 00:04:55,870 there are twin dangers like Scylla and Charybdis when considering history. 88 00:04:55,870 --> 00:04:59,090 This is going to be in very broad strokes, those of you historians out there 89 00:04:59,090 --> 00:05:00,820 are already much more sophisticated than this but 90 00:05:00,820 --> 00:05:02,940 let's just get this out on the table. 91 00:05:02,940 --> 00:05:06,350 The twin dangers of considering history, what I'm calling the Scylla and Charybdis, 92 00:05:06,350 --> 00:05:08,955 is that on the one hand the history is just there, 93 00:05:08,955 --> 00:05:12,980 school, history is just there, all we do is just discover it. 94 00:05:12,980 --> 00:05:15,855 Sometimes people try to change it maybe. 95 00:05:15,855 --> 00:05:21,675 But there's some reality, real thing, just a fact back there that happened. 96 00:05:21,675 --> 00:05:25,165 That's a little bit too narrow of a view. 97 00:05:25,165 --> 00:05:29,449 The problem there is that the past is actually a very big place. 98 00:05:30,870 --> 00:05:34,780 What counts as being just the facts of what happened in history 99 00:05:34,780 --> 00:05:37,680 depends on what people want to focus on, which things they're going to look at. 100 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:39,960 For example, if I told you that, 101 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:45,050 let me give you the whole history of what happened yesterday, I might start off and 102 00:05:45,050 --> 00:05:47,860 talk about I woke up in the morning and started brushing my teeth. 103 00:05:47,860 --> 00:05:52,620 I patted my dog, put on one black sock and by mistake one blue sock, so 104 00:05:52,620 --> 00:05:54,530 I had to go back and change my socks. 105 00:05:54,530 --> 00:05:55,910 Now at this point you're already bored. 106 00:05:55,910 --> 00:05:57,720 Wait a minute, that's not history. 107 00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,540 Let's talk instead about grand political events that happened, 108 00:06:00,540 --> 00:06:04,190 let's talk about family dynasties, let's talk about big historical events, so 109 00:06:04,190 --> 00:06:06,260 right away you can say to yourself, okay. 110 00:06:06,260 --> 00:06:10,520 So, a person that's going to try to tell the history has to talk about 111 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:15,190 a story that's relevant for more than just a single person who's narrating it. 112 00:06:15,190 --> 00:06:19,850 It's got to be relevant for some particular we, some group out there. 113 00:06:19,850 --> 00:06:21,910 Now, who is the group you're telling the story for? 114 00:06:21,910 --> 00:06:24,500 That's a critical part of what history is all about, 115 00:06:24,500 --> 00:06:26,980 it guides the process of editing. 116 00:06:26,980 --> 00:06:31,070 So we've got this huge profusion that might as well be functionally infinite, 117 00:06:31,070 --> 00:06:35,480 of stuff that's happened in the past in order to tell a history we have to weed 118 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:41,010 out functionally, almost of it and tell just a very narrow piece 119 00:06:41,010 --> 00:06:46,920 of what it is that we are going to deem to be most relevant to some group, some we. 120 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:49,780 So, the history is just there and it's only just a fact, 121 00:06:49,780 --> 00:06:51,190 waiting to be discovered. 122 00:06:51,190 --> 00:06:56,260 Doesn't quite to understand that there's a very, that this idea of the past is huge, 123 00:06:56,260 --> 00:06:58,810 and rich, and requires us to edit. 124 00:06:58,810 --> 00:07:02,630 And how we edit depends on a lot of normative kind of questions. 125 00:07:02,630 --> 00:07:05,770 Who's the we involved, what counts as being relevant for that group? 126 00:07:05,770 --> 00:07:09,340 Secondly, the second twin manger here is the idea that 127 00:07:09,340 --> 00:07:11,670 history is just totally made up. 128 00:07:11,670 --> 00:07:14,320 Sometimes people will say history's made up by the winners. 129 00:07:14,320 --> 00:07:16,600 Well, okay, fine, I mean that's a little bit cynical. 130 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:17,350 But sure, 131 00:07:17,350 --> 00:07:22,760 it's the case that those who have certain kinds of political power, they do 132 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:27,500 have an ability to make their own version of events the more authoritative one. 133 00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:32,090 But really we can't just all say that we'll toss out willy-nilly the idea that 134 00:07:32,090 --> 00:07:35,000 what happened in the past is totally up for grabs and 135 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,340 anyone's account of the past is just as good as anyone else's. 136 00:07:38,340 --> 00:07:45,100 I think that's a very pernicious road to go down too, built around cynicism. 137 00:07:45,100 --> 00:07:48,890 History is not totally fabricated nor is history just there. 138 00:07:48,890 --> 00:07:50,380 It's somewhere in between. 139 00:07:50,380 --> 00:07:55,560 To try to get at how we make a historical narrative out of this 140 00:07:55,560 --> 00:08:00,710 profusion of events in the past, we have to talk about editing and how we do it. 141 00:08:00,710 --> 00:08:04,210 I think, yeah, we have to, first of all, ask a question about accuracy. 142 00:08:04,210 --> 00:08:09,240 So have we told accounts and represented them in an accurate way? 143 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:11,770 Furthermore, we're going to have to get into this, now, 144 00:08:11,770 --> 00:08:15,480 judgment about whether the storyline that's being told 145 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:19,135 is a fair enough representation of the past for some group, 146 00:08:19,135 --> 00:08:23,420 some collective we that we're talking about in order to be representative of it. 147 00:08:23,420 --> 00:08:25,360 Does it actually function for 148 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:30,620 the group as a whole as a fair representation of the past? 149 00:08:30,620 --> 00:08:32,610 Accuracy, that's the first order of question. 150 00:08:32,610 --> 00:08:37,050 We have to say are the events that were being narrated actually happen 151 00:08:37,050 --> 00:08:41,620 in some historical past, fine, then we have to say is focusing on 152 00:08:41,620 --> 00:08:47,360 these particular events a fair representation of the past. 153 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:49,960 There's an example here that I could just toss out. 154 00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:53,580 Some people might claim that looking at 155 00:08:53,580 --> 00:08:58,550 the whole of the great conflict of the middle of the last century, World War II. 156 00:08:58,550 --> 00:09:01,940 A person could look at the whole thing and say to themselves yes, 157 00:09:01,940 --> 00:09:06,650 it's true that in World War II there were atrocities on both sides. 158 00:09:06,650 --> 00:09:09,220 Okay, fine I suppose someone would go ahead and 159 00:09:09,220 --> 00:09:13,100 could say that's factually accurate, there were indeed atrocities on both sides. 160 00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:17,080 But does that actually work out to be fair and adequate representation of what 161 00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:20,520 happened in that grand conflict in the middle of the last century, World War II? 162 00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:21,470 Probably not. 163 00:09:21,470 --> 00:09:22,940 And most historians would come along and 164 00:09:22,940 --> 00:09:25,310 say, actually that's a gross distortion of the facts. 165 00:09:25,310 --> 00:09:28,260 That may be factually accurate, but it doesn't fairly and 166 00:09:28,260 --> 00:09:31,470 adequately represent the largeness of this past. 167 00:09:31,470 --> 00:09:33,780 When we get to the question of Virgil's history, 168 00:09:33,780 --> 00:09:35,860 getting out of our thought experiments for the last century. 169 00:09:35,860 --> 00:09:38,802 When we get to the question of Virgil's engagement with history, we're going to 170 00:09:38,802 --> 00:09:43,460 have to continuously be asking ourselves surely some questions about accuracy, but 171 00:09:43,460 --> 00:09:46,670 the more interesting ones are going to be questions about fairness. 172 00:09:46,670 --> 00:09:51,590 Is Virgil pulling out a thread that represents Roman-ness 173 00:09:51,590 --> 00:09:53,740 in some kind of fair way. 174 00:09:53,740 --> 00:09:56,900 As I say, this is a new thing for us. 175 00:09:56,900 --> 00:10:00,090 We haven't had a chance really to hold our 176 00:10:00,090 --> 00:10:04,240 mythological storytellers feet to the fire when it comes to historical accuracy. 177 00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:06,696 Virgil's a very different kind of case. 178 00:10:06,696 --> 00:10:10,860 So, we're going to get ready to hear his stories about who this we is, 179 00:10:10,860 --> 00:10:13,286 who the Romans are, what their past is. 180 00:10:13,286 --> 00:10:15,200 And, we're going to have to make judgements on whether we think, 181 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:20,260 in the end, Virgil has used this genre of myth fairly and 182 00:10:20,260 --> 00:10:24,208 accurately in order to construct an identity of this national group. 183 00:10:24,208 --> 00:10:26,700 We're going to agree at some points, we'll disagree at others, 184 00:10:26,700 --> 00:10:30,180 I think there'll be lively conversations on the discussion forums about this. 185 00:10:30,180 --> 00:10:34,865 Let's get a closeup look next at Virgil's engagement in 186 00:10:34,865 --> 00:10:38,387 this process of building a nation of Rome.