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These next few entries are drawn from a review I did for my Roman Hellenism class in 2019. I was tasked with working on a Roman literature review that was also intended to be a chapter of a book that never materialized. It was a review that was to be focused particularly on socio-political discourse in Roman literature and how it is related to the NT. That will explain many of the references I take from the primary sources and why the scope of this introduction may not be as broad as expected. But I think this material has a more general relevance even without the framework of the intended chapter in place, and I would like to share it with my readers.
First, we need to clarify what is meant by “Roman literature.” I am referring specifically to Latin literature written during the time of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. But since we are concerned with the relevance of this literature for the NT, we ought to restrict the scope further. Some literature written after the NT era may still be relevant to reflecting the political and social realities of the world in which the NT authors lived and wrote. But the worlds of both the Roman Empire and early Christianity were different enough by ~200 CE from what they were in the NT era that literature written beyond 200 CE would be of questionable relevance.1 As such, this survey of literature concerns literature written in Latin—specifically by non-Christians—before 200 CE that is relevant to the Roman socio-political world. We will explore this literature in four parts. The first part provides references for orientation, such as where to find Roman literature and some introductory books to read. The second part reviews the genres of history and biography, of which there are many representatives in our designated era. The third part reviews the genres of legal rhetoric, political rhetoric, letters, and novels. The fourth part reviews epic poetry, hymns, poetry, political philosophy, moral philosophy, and satire.
Finding Roman Literature
Scholars of classical literature are regularly producing their own translations of the primary texts (often with commentaries) and I cannot list all of them here. Some of these translations will be critical editions that provide both the Latin texts and the receptor language translations. For research purposes, it is best to have access to the Latin text and to the translation (our focus here is on English translations).2 As such, although one can find several websites with incomplete collections of translations of Latin texts, we focus here on places to find collections of Roman literature that include the original Latin and the translation.
LCL The best source to use for this purpose is the collection of the Loeb Classical Library (hereafter LCL), which is available both in print and online (https://www.loebclassics.com/). The LCL divides into Greek works and Latin works, including in the browsing feature on its website, and its individual volumes include critical introductions to the texts, which are then presented in the original languages on one page and in the English translation on the opposite page. The website offers further benefits of being able to search through the volumes by author, individual LCL volumes, and language (which further subdivides into searches by author, form of the text, century, and genre). If the user has difficulty with using the website or understanding it, the website also provides a guide to using the library.
Perseus If one does not have access to the LCL, another helpful online resource is the Perseus collection administered by Tufts University. The collection is broader than the LCL, but the Greek and Roman materials is the portion of the site that is most relevant to our subject (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman). This source provides less precise textual divisions than the LCL, but it also presents the text in more digestible form as it breaks down texts by sections. It also lists texts by author rather than by any of the other categories listed by the LCL. Unlike the LCL, it provides separate links to the Latin text and the English translation. These translations are public domain and thus old, sometimes to the point of being outdated. Although this collection is easier to use than the LCL, one must use caution in relying on its translations of the primary texts.
Orientations to Roman Literature
Conte, Gian Biagio. Latin Literature: A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow. Revised by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Conte’s history is comprehensive in examining the developments of Latin literature in its contexts from its origins to the beginning of the medieval era (although his histories of reception for the various authors sometimes extend to the twentieth century). This book is especially helpful for students because it contains marginal notes throughout that identify when Conte is addressing a subject and because it features appendices that define key concepts, identify prominent individuals, and juxtapose developments in Roman culture, Roman history, and the Greek parallels of the same in one chart.
Copley, Frank O. Latin Literature: From the Beginnings to the Close of the Second Century A.D. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1969.
Copley’s work has an emphasis on accessibility for readers without a background in Latin literature, and it has the added benefit of covering the same timeframe as our review. He labels his chapters by the authors discussed therein and he even provides a brief bibliography at the end of the book for each of the authors, although his sources are now quite dated.
Fantham, Elaine. Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Like Copley, Fantham’s work covers the same timeframe as our review, although she arranges it more by chronology than by author. She is also more helpful for understanding the historical and social contexts of the literature as well as how the literature shaped those contexts.
Galinsky, Karl, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
The relevant chapters of this edited volume analyze both the historical/ideological background that shaped Augustan literature (especially epic and lyrical poetry) and the role that literature plays in shaping history and ideology. Most notable are ch. 12 by Alessandro Barchiesi, wherein he connects this literature with some other realia, and ch. 15 by Karl Galinsky, wherein he observes the ideological shaping of the Aeneid and Metamorphoses to function as “world literature” (as opposed to strictly provincial Roman literature). Each chapter features an annotated list of suggested readings for further study.
Habinek, Thomas N. The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Habinek considers the larger political function of Latin literature, in terms of both the political themes embodied therein and the political purposes of upholding the values of aristocracy exercised in the act of writing (at least, in the cases that he notes). While the scope of his analysis is restrictive and arguably too selective, he provides an important perspective on socio-political discourse, especially in his thesis of why Latin/Roman literature was invented: the Romans did not produce literature merely because of their contact with the Greek tradition; Roman literature emerged when it did (around the end of the Second Punic War) in the way it did because Rome (especially its ruling classes) was facing an identity crisis in its transition from a city-state to an empire.3
Kenney, E. J., and W. V. Clausen, eds. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Vol. 2: Latin Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
This edited volume presents the most comprehensive general guide to Latin literature, but it is less user-friendly than Copley’s or Conte’s books. The work is divided into parts by historical eras and the chapters are variously arranged by genre or by author. For all of the differences in presentation, each of the contributors provides guidance to historical/biographical context, prominent literary features (including themes, motifs, and structures), and content summaries.
With these orientation points established, we will look next time at the actual literature.
Part 3: Rhetoric, Letters, and Novels
Part 4: Poetry, Philosophy, and Satire
For example, while Macrobius’s Saturnalia (4th century CE) is an essential resource for someone entering the debate over the origins of Christmas, its subject matter and setting are too far removed from the NT to be relevant for the purposes of this project.
The more advanced student with sufficient facility in Latin and interest in mapping terminology across multiple authors and texts will find the Packard Humanities Institute Classical Latin Texts database useful (https://latin.packhum.org/). One can search the database by author or by word. What is especially helpful about it for the purposes of this review is that its scope is currently restricted to Latin texts written before 200 CE. Another helpful database that functions as the largest Latin dictionary available (with a subscription required) is the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL; https://www.degruyter.com/view/db/tll?lang=en).
For a helpful pushback against this view of the origins of Roman literature, see Denis Feeney, “Review Article: The Beginnings of a Literature in Latin,” JRS 95 (2005): 226–40.