TTC - Famous Romans

TTC - Famous Romans
24 lectures of 30 minutes - 150 mb - mp3
by J. Rufus Fears

In this companion course to Famous Greeks, Professor Fears retells the lives of the remarkable individuals, the statesmen, thinkers, warriors, and writers, who shaped the history of the Roman Empire and, by extension, our own history and culture.

Hannibal, he points out, caused the Second Punic War personally, much as Adolf Hitler caused World War II.
All of history would be different if Pompey had been as aggressive as Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus.
Marcus Aurelius, that most noble and philosophic of rulers, may have hastened the Empire's decline by tolerating the wicked cruelty of his heir.

In these lectures you will meet or gain greater insight into a succession of individuals who can be considered great and famous not only in Roman history, but in all of history. They include:

* The Roman "Duke of Wellington." Like the Duke of Wellington and U.S. Grant, Publius Cornelius Scipio the Elder (236-183 B.C.) is among the great generals in history. His victory over Hannibal at the North African town of Zama in August, 202 B.C.one of the most decisive battles in history—earned him the title "Africanus," or Conqueror of Africa.

* The Roman "John and Robert Kennedy." Tiberius (163-133 B.C.) and Gaius Gracchus (153-121 B.C.) were both strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy and its teaching that all men are created equal. Each tried to initiate bold reforms designed to counter corruption that resulted from the Roman Republic's growing wealth and power. Like the Kennedys of the 1960s, both were murdered, and their efforts initiated forces that would ultimately end the Republic.

* The Roman "Winston Churchill." First regarded as a "shady" politician, and known as a drinker and womanizer, Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) is perhaps the greatest evidence that individuals make and change history. He proved himself both a military genius—along with Alexander the Great one of the two greatest generals in history—and a man of political vision in his understanding that Rome needed to expand its reach beyond the Mediterranean world. Like Churchill, he was a brilliant writer: his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars is one of antiquity's greatest works of history.

* The greatest statesman in history. The adopted heir of Julius Caesar, Gaius Octavius (63 B.C.-14 A.D.), known to history as Augustus ("The Messiah") rose from a little-known youth of no discernable ability to an unequaled political leader who would best the likes of Cicero, Brutus, and Marc Antony. He saved and regenerated Rome, received the title "Father of His Country" ("Pater Patriae") in 2 B.C., and died at 77, having outlived almost all his contemporaries and detractors.

* A teacher to equal Socrates and Jesus. Stoicism was a philosophy based on the Greek thinkers Zeno and Socrates. It was one of the great intellectual currents of the 2nd century A.D., and Epictetus (c. 50-120 A.D.), the son of a slave, was one of its greatest teachers. He taught that "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thomas Jefferson ranked Epictetus with the New Testament as a source of moral inspiration.

Course Lecture Titles
1. Publius Cornelius Scipio
2. Hannibal
3. Gaius Flaminius
4. Quintus Fabius Maximus
5. Scipio Africanus the Elder
6. Scipio the Younger
7. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
8. Crassus
9. Gaius Julius Caesar
10. Caesar and Vercingetorix
11. Pompey the Great
12. Cato the Younger
13. Brutus and the Opposition to Caesar
14. Cicero
15. Augustus
16. Vergil
17. Claudius
18. Nero
19. Trajan
20. Hadrian
21. Epictetus
22. Apuleius
23. Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus
24. Marcus Aurelius