Classics Senior Integrated Projects
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This collection includes Senior Integrated Projects (SIPs, formerly known as Senior Individualized Projects) completed in the Classics Department. Abstracts are generally available to the public, but PDF files are available only to current Kalamazoo College students, faculty, and staff. If you are not a current K College student, faculty, or staff member, email us at dspace@kzoo.edu to request access to this material.
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Item Ancient Democracy and the Common Man : Civic Attitudes in Fourth Century Athens and Late Republican Rome(Kalamazoo, Mich. : Kalamazoo College, 2001-11-01) Seidl, Kathryn; Manwell, Elizabeth, 1968-The problem of comparing civic attitudes in Athens and Rome can be approached by examining each culture individually. By focusing on concerns and issues of importance to both cultures, both similarities and differences in their handling of these issues begin to emerge. It is necessary to examine in some detail the qualities that made a person truly Athenian or Roman, the qualities that caused his fellow citizens to accept him as a useful contributor to society. Each discussion will begin with a general overview of demographics and state institutions and move on to a discussion of ideology and cultural belief once this groundwork is established. Our exploration starts with Athens; the examination of fourth century Athenian political and civic attitudes begins with a summary of Athenian feelings about nondemocratic forms of government and discussion of several aspects of public life that led to fear of these governments. This section also studies the rule of law as a means of preserving the democratic structures that the Athenians valued and the cultural values that shaped their beliefs about government. Foremost among these is the ideal of e'Ji.Eujsefa for all citizens, and its various aspects are covered in some detail. Once we have dealt with some of Athens' underlying cultural values, we can move on to the political ideologies that the Athenians constructed to protect these values. The overriding ideology enforced by the Athenian state centered on the presumed equality of all citizens; this ideology was critical to the maintenance of the freedoms that the Athenians believed all citizens should enjoy, and it was formulated in several ways. The discussion of this ideology focuses on the ideas of autochthony and the placement of all citizens in the middle of a fluid societal spectrum. This section then discusses such topics as the myths of the timeless nature of Athenian democracy and the face-to face society. Finally, it explores the Athenian consciousness of history and its role in perpetuating civic myths. The final section that deals with Athens will focus on the ways in which Athenians attempted to enforce this ideology of equality, including the iJ;3e1; law and institutions to avoid a system of patronage; it also touches on aspects of Athenian life and values that threatened successful enforcement. These included social and economic hierarchies within Athens and the ease with which men could translate their wealth into political power. The section ends with a study of how ideology and society interacted to shape Athenian attitudes about the role of personal enmity in public life. Having explored Athenian attitudes and realities, we shift our focus to Rome. After a brief overview of the structure of the Roman state, the study of ideologies and attitudes toward government in the late Republic begins with the introduction of a basic Roman belief, the belief that not all citizens could contribute equally to the state. From here, the paper begins to outline the system by which Roman citizens selected men to govern them. It examines the qualities of character and background that the Romans looked for in their leaders and the attachment to the Roman past that deeply influenced ideas about the present world. In an effort to discover what qualities Romans looked for in their leaders, this thesis will discuss the old values that good men were believed to embody. This treatment of values opens with a discussion of the value of libertas and includes a brief comparison of Roman libertas with Athenian eAeuffeefa. It then examines the role of law as the guardian of freedom and the primary means by which the Roman people considered themselves equal. Distinctions are drawn between this conception of equality and order, with its reliance on hierarchy in political life and systems like patronage, and the Athenian belief in the ideal political equality of all citizens. The further values of liberalitas, dignitas, and virtus are discussed at this point, as are the moral ideals Romans led their leaders to. The examination of Roman attitudes ends with a discussion of the aristocratic competition that simultaneously kept the machinery of state running and posed a threat to the republican forms that ensured basic rights and freedoms for all of Rome's citizens. This section also includes an examination of Roman attitudes toward monarchy and the ways in which they attempted to prevent its rise and a brief look at the ways in which Rome tried to draw the best men from throughout the empire into the competition to serve the state through open citizenship policies. The bulk of this study, then, centers on individual explorations into ideological and practical aspects of Athenian and Roman society and civic structure in the periods in question~ it is clear, however, that no direct parallel approach will suffice for comparing such varied systems. For this reason, we must spend some time comparing the overarching ideas we have discovered and forming a coherent picture of the ways in which the societies overlapped and differed. We must try to discover individually the ways in which each culture expressed its beliefs and desires concerning its government and then attempt to draw useful conclusions without looking for one-to-one correspondences in our evidence. It is most important to discover what people wanted from government and how society attempted to fulfill the needs of the citizenry in its ideology and practice.Item Roma Aeterna: The Interpretive Issues of Prophecy in Books XIV and XV of Ovid's Metamorphoses(Kalamazoo, Mich. : Kalamazoo College, 2002-01-01) Graf, Michelle; Manwell, Elizabeth, 1968-In many ways, the Metamorphoses ran the risk of never receiving a fair assessment. Its timing was perhaps unfortunate, because any lengthy narrative, any even remotely historical publication, would have been doomed to be read in the shadow of Latin literature's authority, a work that almost surpassed the confines of the written word and had become, as James Solodow puts it, "a monument, a star in the firmament" (110). The pressure of knowing that this masterpiece of Vergil's Aeneid had become a backdrop against which any literary piece would be viewed, even some twenty-five years later, must have been intense. Vergil's writing had a profound effect on literature of that time, and his influence on Ovid's earlier poems is apparent. Ovid even lists knowledge of the Aeneid among qualities suitable in women: "And the exiled Aeneas, the beginnings of lofty Rome, no Latin work is more famous" (Ars. Ill 337-338). And yet nowhere in Ovid's poetry is the presence of the Aeneid more prominent than it is in the Metamorphoses. Not only does Ovid opt for a long hexameter narrative, but he also boldly tackles some of the very same content. That the Metamorphoses was an ambitious work is not an overstatement.Item An Introduction to Theognis : Selected Text and Commentary(Kalamazoo, Mich. : Kalamazoo College, 2023-11-01) Wilson, Nickolas; Manwell, Elizabeth, 1968-This SIP consists of translation notes and commentary for selected poems from the Theognidea, a collection of poetry attributed to Theognis of Megara. It is aimed at students with an intermediate understanding of ancient Greek: that is, students who have completed an introductory course series and textbook, with some experience using a commentary. For example, I would expect this commentary to be helpful to a student at Kalamazoo College who has finished Greek 20l and possibly taken one 400 level class within the discipline. That way, they have some practice with skills reading Greek in context, not just isolated in a textbook. It contains poems on a variety of topics discussed by Theognis, such as friendship, drinking, and poverty. I have provided notes on words which do not appear in the Dickinson College Commentaries list of core vocabulary and on sections where there is grammatical difficulty.Item The Monstrous Woman; An Examination of Classical Mythology and Patriarchy(2021-06-01) Hoehle, Samantha; Manwell, Elizabeth, 1968-This paper examines mythology's power to define behaviors, values, and people that are immoral, sexually indeterminate, or illegible through the creation and destruction of monsters. In particular, this paper demonstrates a plethora of ways in which women and queered bodies were othered. Using Ancient Greek and Roman sources, I examine the ways in which sexed differences were emphasized and dramatized by the patriarchal systems in power through laws, treatises, and myths in order to create the strict binary of man and woman. Using Pandora, I highlight how woman originates in the Greek cosmogony as an immediate evil to be controlled. History and myth went hand in hand to justify the social hierarchy, and those who stepped out of their designated bounds were to be feared and ostracized. Looking at Medusa, the Sphinx, the Amazons, and other feminine monsters, I examine how Greek men were able to simultaneously highlight and assuage their anxieties regarding the power of an unbound woman. Finally, I look into myths portraying queered identities, such as the stories of Tiresias, Iphis and Ianthe, and Caenis, examining their unique implications within Greek society.Item The Dynamics of Ceramic : An Analysis and Catalog of Marked Brick and Tile Recovered by the Gabii Project from the Gabii Archeological Site in 2022(Kalamazoo, Mich. : Kalamazoo College, 2023-03-01) Szakas, Clara; Evans, J. MarilynThis work examines the information that can be gained about the town of Gabii through analysis of a portion of the Gabii Project’s archeological findings in 2022. The history and social position of the town of Gabi is initially laid out, beginning with the foundation of the city, how it was perceived in Roman culture, and its current status as an archeological site under the administration of the Gabii Project. The focus then narrows to a single section of the site, Area J. In order to shed light on this recently excavated area, the work of the 2022 dig season is described, and artifacts from this space are presented. Ceramic bricks and tiles from Area J with signs of direct human or animal contact were cataloged and analyzed to provide a deeper understanding of the environment and historical context of Gabii. The selection of cataloged items was found to provide further information about the source of building material used in later Gabine structures, as well as indicating a range of time when new materials were still being brought into the city.