Marcus Aurelius

Online: Select and read one book (out of twelve) from Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations.”

See:  http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html     

Prepare: Write an informal essay, 75-250 words, that reflects on your overall impression of the section of the “Meditations” that you read. Your essay should also include one saying or quote from the text that you examine in more detail. Your essay should conclude by comparing and contrasting Marcus Aurelius’ thoughts with Christianity.

Please post this essay on the blog.  

Hadrian's Wall

Vindolanda Letters Project: After watching the previous documentary. Please have a look at one of the more complete documents from this list:

Once you have found a fairly complete document, read through the English translation. Think about the letter, place it into context, and imagine who wrote it and why. Then, add further context by filling out the remainder of the letter fragment in authentic style (i.e. flesh out the words into a complete letter). Once you have done that, then imagine who received the letter and write a response to it from an imaginary correspondent (use the original letter as evidence when you write your response).

Step-by-Step:

1. Go through the lists of fragments on the website above.
2. Choose one of the fragments from the site, it should be long enough to get a sense of its intent.
3. Think about the intention of the fragment.
4. Flesh out the fragment into a complete letter
5. Write another letter responding to your fleshed out version of the fragment.

Documents: http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/

Particularly good example

Trajan: http://www.roman-empire.net/highpoint/trajan.html
Hadrian: http://spartacus-educational.com/ROMhadrian.htm

Quiz Update

There will be a quiz this week, it will cover the readings and the blog, it is open notes. Happy Easter!