Vistopia
Cover of The Rise and Fall of an Empire: Readings from Ancient Rome
The Rise and Fall of an Empire: Readings from Ancient Rome
Four centuries of Roman literature record one long failure
Completed · 76 episodes
Buy for ¥168.00
Audio in Chinese
Yang Zhao: Past Civilizations Were Actually “Fresher” Than Ours Xu Ben: Reading Roman Literature Means Reading One Long Failure 1. Popular Comedy as Roman Entertainment | Plautus's The Brothers Menaechmus 1 2. A Roman Story in Greek Dress | Plautus 2 3. A Humanistic Reading of Classical Comedy | Plautus 3 4. Where and Why Did Early Roman Drama Arise? | Terence's The Brothers 1 5. The Headache of Educating Children | Terence 2 6. Elite Politics and Cultural Division | Terence 3 7. Practical Roman Philosophy | Lucretius's On the Nature of Things 1 8. Epicureanism and Ancient Didactic Poetry | Lucretius 2 9. Seeking Pleasure and Avoiding Pain Is Not Hedonism | Lucretius 3 10. Poetry and Politics | Catullus's Poems 1 11. Love's Sweetness, Sourness, Bitterness, and Grudge | Catullus 2 12. What Kind of Lyric Is a Love Poem? | Catullus 3 13. Hellenization and the Roman Republic | Cicero's Age 14. Brilliant Orator, Failed Politician | Cicero's Career 15. A State Is More Than Huddling for Warmth | Cicero's On the Republic 16. Human Reason and Just Legislation | Cicero's On the Laws 17. Political Corruption and Lost Civic Virtue | Sallust 1 18. Exporting Corruption and Checkbook Diplomacy | Sallust 2 19. National Character and Civic Custom | Sallust 3 20. Classical Republic and Civic Freedom | Sallust 4 21. Roman Literature in Augustus's Golden Age | Virgil's Aeneid 1 22. Leader Worship and National Epic | Aeneid 2 23. The Marriage of Writers and Power Politics | Aeneid 3 24. How Does a Poet Who Backed the Wrong Side Show Loyalty? | Horace's Satires 1 25. How Do Intellectuals Position Themselves in a “New Society”? | Horace 2 26. Self-Mockery and Jokes in Satire | Horace 3 27. Humor and Helplessness in Life's Wisdom | Horace 4 28. Serving the Ruler Is Serving a Tiger: Ovid and Augustus | The Art of Love 1 29. Erotic Verse in Latin Literature | Ovid 2 30. Heavy Transformations in Light Myths | Ovid's Metamorphoses 1 31. Human–Animal Bodies under Sexual Violence | Metamorphoses 2 32. From Ovid's Metamorphoses to Kafka's | Part 3 33. Roman Moral Decline and Traditional Virtue | Livy's History of Rome 1 34. Legends as Moral Education | Livy 2 35. How Should We Think about Republican Corruption? | Livy 3 36. Can One Remain Clean under Corrupt Politics? | Seneca's On Anger 1 37. Life in Chaos and Stoicism | Seneca 2 38. How Can One Admonish a Tyrant? | Seneca 3 39. Anger and Cruelty | Seneca 4 40. Anger Is the Heat of the Soul | Seneca 5 41. Women's Violence and Cruelty | Seneca's Medea 42. Literary Satire under Tyranny | Petronius's Satyricon 1 43. Streetwise Entrepreneurs and Nouveau-Riche Culture | Satyricon 2 44. Contented Decadence and Urban Wandering | Satyricon 3 45. Rhetoric and Education | Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria 1 46. Knowledge and Politics | Quintilian 2 47. Intellectual Evasion and Hidden Writing under Despotism | Quintilian 3 48. Good People Cannot Thrive in a Bad System | Tacitus's Annals 1 49. How Does One Live under Despotism? | Tacitus 2 50. A Moral Dump under Despotism | Tacitus 3 51. The “Tacitus Trap” and History's Duty to Record Good and Evil | Tacitus 4 52. Why and How to Read Plutarch | Life of Cato the Younger 1 53. Cato's Death and Stoic Philosophy | Plutarch 2 54. Cato as a Symbol of Freedom and Morality | Plutarch 3 55. Roman Republic and Roman Virtue | Plutarch 4 56. Cato the Younger and Cicero | Plutarch 5 57. Appetite and Moral Decline | Juvenal's Satires 1 58. Parvenus and Privileged Heirs | Juvenal 2 59. Bad Women, “Young Men,” and Satirical Criticism | Juvenal 3 60. Urban Poor and Bread and Circuses | Juvenal 4 61. A Roman Novel for High and Low | Apuleius's The Golden Ass 1 62. “Witchcraft” and “Witches” in Male Imagination | Golden Ass 2 63. Religious Cult as an Escape for the Soul | Golden Ass 3 64. Roman Virtue and Stoic Ethics | Epictetus's Discourses 1 65. Good Philosophy for a Bad Age | Epictetus 2 66. Training Refined Submission: Stoicism and Cynicism | Epictetus 3 67. A Wise Ruler Follows Nature and Restrains Himself | Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 1 68. State Religion and Religious Persecution | Meditations 2 69. Changes in Roman Religion since Marcus Aurelius | Meditations 3 70. Tyrants Kill and Wise Rulers Persecute | Meditations 4 71. Why Did Marcus Aurelius Fear Christianity? Reasons beyond Philosophy 72. The Marcus Aurelius Moment in Rome's Decline 73. An Ethical and Cultural Journey between China and the West 74. Epilogue: Rome's Fortunes and Literature's Rise and Fall