Teaching Ancient Biography

by Margaret Cotter-Lynch, Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Original Text © 2005. Margaret Cotter-Lynch.

This unit on ancient biography is taken from an interdisciplinary, introductory humanities course taught predominantly to freshmen as part of their core distribution requirements. The theme of the course as I teach it is “Classical Heroes and Villains,” and in addition to Plutarch and Suetonius the syllabus includes readings from Homer, Aeschylus, Virgil, and Ovid. The course description and objectives as represented in my syllabus are included on the next page of this presentation.

The course as I taught it met for a large (100+ students) lecture twice a week, and in smaller discussion sections once a week. I have included my lecture notes, and lesson plans for sections. I have appended to some of my lecture notes suggestions for short (5-10 minute) in-class writing assignments, which I use as a way to check in on students’ engagement, comprehension, and attendence in large lectures.

Course Information

1) Description and Rationale
2) Course Aims and Objectives

Lectures:

1) Introductory lecture to unit on biography: literature and history as categories, Rome in the 1st century BCE
2) Brief Introduction to Roman History in the 1st Century BCE
3) Plutarch: “Life of Pompey”
4) Plutarch: “Life of Antony”
5) Plutarch: “Life of Caesar”
6) Suetonius: “Julius Caesar”
7) Suetonius: “Gaius/Caligula”
8) Suetonius: “Nero”
9) Suetonius: “Vespasian”

Discussion Sections:

1) Pompey and Antony
2) Two “Lives” of Julius Caesar
3) Caligula: Suetonius vs. “I, Claudius”
4) Nero, Vespasian, and conclusion

For my course, I use the following translations/editions of Plutarch and Suetonius. All quotations and page numbers included in lesson plans refer to these.

Plutarch, Roman Lives. transl. Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. transl. Robert Graves, revised by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin, 2003.