I love listening to her. Always liked to go to lectures at university. At my university in Germany there were so many people that didn’t visit the lectures and stayed home to learn for the final exam of the semester at the end of the semester that I was always astonished who else took officially part in the lecture, because I didn’t see them all semester long. Even though it was officially allowed to be absent to maximum 3 times. So sad. Students in Germany were very only into passing something and getting a job to make money.
While I appreciate hearing Mary Beard's marvelous lectures, I would like the even more if they would show the slides to viewers as they are shown by Prof. Beard during her lecture.
When I first learned the story of Lucretia, I assumed she “consented” in order to survive the rape so she could report the truth. Afterwards she realized the assault upon her would cause great danger for her husband and father, as they would be faced with confronting the son of the King. She sacrificed herself to save her husband and father from the wrath/denial/blameshifting of the ruling family. Hers was a noble act. This is the interpretation of a 20th Century woman, who views her own sex as noble and intelligent. Sadly not surprised by the various interpretations presented.
I would’ve liked to hear Mary’s view on the reputation of clodia pulcher the sister of the famous clodius whose death caused the destruction of the senate
Strange to hear that people argue over Lucretia's suicide. It's obviously a way to make her male relatives experience a tragic loss (and perhaps share in some of the feeling of vulnerability of being female). Otherwise the story can't work; if she just got raped and stayed alive, they'd be pissed off, but would she inspire a civic revolt?
Think again: you got a king. Tyrannical. You are fed off....having a king... having a tyrannical king. Then to topple it all the king's son - and possible next king - feels entitled to get any woman he pleases, married or not ? So....how would you feel: you work, has your properties, richness but anytime some brute crowned guy can come to your house and rape your wife or daughters. Something is faulty in a system like this. Isn't it better to overthrown the royal family and make another system ?
I don't know about oratory, but in one of the episodes of Ultimate Rome, Pf. Beard tours a series of public government erected sculptures that depict the different Roman provinces as women being raped by the emperors at the time of their conquest, i. e. the very first depiction of Brittania is as a naked woman being thrown down and raped by Claudius. I've also read in works on Roman sexuality that they didn't think in gay or straight, rather that penetration, dominance and conquest was ALWAYS defined by the masculine, and to be penetrated, dominated and conquered was ALWAYS defined as feminine. So it's my personal opinion that, in the Roman mind, to conquer and destroy the kings of Rome is the EXACT male on male equivalent of raping Lucretia. That in stories where the control of the Roman state, or any land the Romans conquered, a raped woman becomes the symbol of the state because, by succumbing to the conquest of it's new masters, the state has symbolically taken on that permanently feminine role of being penetrated, dominated, and conquered. I think Lucretia, the Sabine women, and Verginia are all part of one mythological heritage because any time the Roman political system changed hands, the state itself HAD to be represented by a violated female because it had succumbed, female, to a new dominating force, male. The thing that really surprises me is that there's no big rape story to go along with the transition from Republic to Empire, though Caesar literally being penetrated by dozens of stab wounds MIGHT count, but he retained his masculinity, so???? That one confuses me.
Fama and Famae: surely th distinction between good and bad news is by context and description as per Virgil Aeneid (VI I think): Fama malum qua non aliud velicius ullum= Nothihg travels faster thanj bad news.
This story of Lucretia is a part of the Roman founding myth. Therefore it got universally known both during the Roman time and beyond. Lucretia has been a moral hero for more than two thousand and five hundred years. But the moral context changed over this period and for many times. And moral examples get challenged, no wonder that the moral image of Lucretia got challenged too. For the pagan Romans a suicide like this is heroism, for St. Augustine it's a sin. St. Augustine needs to show the raped nuns in a favourable light because they hadn't killed themselves. The Renaissance people had different moral appoaches as well as those who speculated about the story later. Even Livy and Ovid are removed from the foundation of the republic far enough. According to the Ancient Roman law a woman was relieved from the liability for adultery if she was screaming for help. Lucretia wasn't and that's because Sextus Tarquinius had threatened her into that. Had she cried for help, Crown Prince Sextus Tarquinus would have presented him as someone who had stopped her adultery in progress by killing her and her presumed slave lover. The version of a Crown Prince would have not been challenged, his father the king was the supreme judge after all. So Lucretia was to lose her reputation and it was a top priority for the people of that time as they lived in small communities. She gave in but she couldn't live with that. Ovid presents it that she couldn't forgive herself. Her suicide a) properly punished her sin, b) winned her credit for moral heroism c) proved her case before her husband, father, and the whole of the community. Therefore they saw that the Tarquinii's regime had robbed them of justice and they overthrew it. It takes a hero to die to spark a revolution. My opinion on why Ovid calls her a "puella" is that Sextus Tarquinius fell in love with her. She's "beloved" and female therefore she's a "puella". That's enough, she needs not to be loving for that. Latin is hardly a murky language because it's synthetic. Professor Dame Mary Beard might have additional difficulties because her mother tongue is English that is an analytical language, but the real reason for the problem of understanding isn't that. Latin is an ancient language, without good textbooks by native speakers and modern second language learners don't get enough usage practice.
Lucretia's problem was that she was too good, too conventionally feminine. If she had gossiped a little more, she would have found out that Tarquin was a mean one and if she had been strong minded enough, she wouldn't have let him stay in her house. All the cubicula are being painted, there's a nice hotel down the street, etc. But she was too sweet, too blind to the bad side of life, too conventionally feminine to be strong minded, something considered most unattractive in women, then and now. Women are shafted either way. If they are conventionally virtuous, they are too weak to survive in the world. If they develop less feminine qualities, they survive better in one way but are less likely to be socially acceptable. Tarquin was attracted by her goodness and resentful of it at the same time. It made him look and feel bad, and made it impossible for him to excuse his badness by saying that everyone else was bad too. He wanted to make her less perfect and of course, to prove her husband wrong and himself right. I think her beauty was a nice extra but not the main reason for his attack on her. So be moderate in conventional goodness as well as conventional badness. They can both be problems. Life is a balancing act and the more awareness, the better.
In this instance, Roman mythology has CREATED fact. To say that Pf. Beard, or any of the commentators, are suggesting that a real Lucretia really got raped is ludicrous. But there is a direct line from those types of stories to all the antique, medieval and Renaissance commentators talking about her enjoyment, her consent, how she might have invited it, to modern ideas about consent, blame and what does and does not constitute rape, which ideas create facts about who gets blamed, who gets prosecuted, who gets convicted. Of course there is an agenda: to help people understand that there is a direct heritage of ideas that shape how we think about things today. You'll find it difficult to change something if you don't understand where it originated from. People drastically underestimate the influence Roman thought has on modern Western culture.
Livy included it in his History of Rome, if there was an agenda it was part of roman society and Augustine politics. They believed or claimed this stuff was the origin of their society.
At 2:37 she prefaces the lecture by saying she's discussing mythology, although that's often implied when discussing classical antiquity as the lines between myth and history can be blurred. The rape of Lucretia is accepted as the reason for the fall of the Roman monarchy; whether that's historically accurate isn't really relevant to the points she makes.
I have to say, terrible captioning aside, it is amusing and gratifying to see Sextus Tarquinius transcribes as "sexist Tarquinius". Mary Beard is wonderful as always!
I love starting my day with a Mary Beard lecture. More Mary please!
Yvt
I love listening to her. Always liked to go to lectures at university. At my university in Germany there were so many people that didn’t visit the lectures and stayed home to learn for the final exam of the semester at the end of the semester that I was always astonished who else took officially part in the lecture, because I didn’t see them all semester long. Even though it was officially allowed to be absent to maximum 3 times. So sad. Students in Germany were very only into passing something and getting a job to make money.
Would love to see a documentary about Spartacus By Mary beard!!!!!
Wonderful and courageous lecture! Thank you to be an advocate for women who experience sexual violence!
Unfortunately as much as we like to think our society had moved on rape is still a crime that’s rarely ends with a conviction.
While I appreciate hearing Mary Beard's marvelous lectures, I would like the even more if they would show the slides to viewers as they are shown by Prof. Beard during her lecture.
Simply brilliant
When I first learned the story of Lucretia, I assumed she “consented” in order to survive the rape so she could report the truth. Afterwards she realized the assault upon her would cause great danger for her husband and father, as they would be faced with confronting the son of the King. She sacrificed herself to save her husband and father from the wrath/denial/blameshifting of the ruling family. Hers was a noble act. This is the interpretation of a 20th Century woman, who views her own sex as noble and intelligent. Sadly not surprised by the various interpretations presented.
I would’ve liked to hear Mary’s view on the reputation of clodia pulcher the sister of the famous clodius whose death caused the destruction of the senate
Strange to hear that people argue over Lucretia's suicide. It's obviously a way to make her male relatives experience a tragic loss (and perhaps share in some of the feeling of vulnerability of being female). Otherwise the story can't work; if she just got raped and stayed alive, they'd be pissed off, but would she inspire a civic revolt?
Think again: you got a king. Tyrannical. You are fed off....having a king... having a tyrannical king. Then to topple it all the king's son - and possible next king - feels entitled to get any woman he pleases, married or not ?
So....how would you feel: you work, has your properties, richness but anytime some brute crowned guy can come to your house and rape your wife or daughters.
Something is faulty in a system like this. Isn't it better to overthrown the royal family and make another system ?
Me too ❤️
Does the link between violence to the female body and the Roman state, find expreson in Roman political oratry?
I don't know about oratory, but in one of the episodes of Ultimate Rome, Pf. Beard tours a series of public government erected sculptures that depict the different Roman provinces as women being raped by the emperors at the time of their conquest, i. e. the very first depiction of Brittania is as a naked woman being thrown down and raped by Claudius. I've also read in works on Roman sexuality that they didn't think in gay or straight, rather that penetration, dominance and conquest was ALWAYS defined by the masculine, and to be penetrated, dominated and conquered was ALWAYS defined as feminine. So it's my personal opinion that, in the Roman mind, to conquer and destroy the kings of Rome is the EXACT male on male equivalent of raping Lucretia. That in stories where the control of the Roman state, or any land the Romans conquered, a raped woman becomes the symbol of the state because, by succumbing to the conquest of it's new masters, the state has symbolically taken on that permanently feminine role of being penetrated, dominated, and conquered. I think Lucretia, the Sabine women, and Verginia are all part of one mythological heritage because any time the Roman political system changed hands, the state itself HAD to be represented by a violated female because it had succumbed, female, to a new dominating force, male. The thing that really surprises me is that there's no big rape story to go along with the transition from Republic to Empire, though Caesar literally being penetrated by dozens of stab wounds MIGHT count, but he retained his masculinity, so???? That one confuses me.
Certainly in Roman poetry. And of course it created the impetus for the creation of the republic so I assume so
Politics and patriarchy for that matter would then be built on the power to PRE-EMPT or PUNISH foreign violence against women.
Fama and Famae: surely th distinction between good and bad news is by context and description as per Virgil Aeneid (VI I think):
Fama malum qua non aliud velicius ullum= Nothihg travels faster thanj bad news.
Minute 1:11 -1:12 , is it not that politics is structured by the idea of PREVENTING violence against the female body?
This story of Lucretia is a part of the Roman founding myth. Therefore it got universally known both during the Roman time and beyond. Lucretia has been a moral hero for more than two thousand and five hundred years. But the moral context changed over this period and for many times. And moral examples get challenged, no wonder that the moral image of Lucretia got challenged too. For the pagan Romans a suicide like this is heroism, for St. Augustine it's a sin. St. Augustine needs to show the raped nuns in a favourable light because they hadn't killed themselves. The Renaissance people had different moral appoaches as well as those who speculated about the story later. Even Livy and Ovid are removed from the foundation of the republic far enough.
According to the Ancient Roman law a woman was relieved from the liability for adultery if she was screaming for help. Lucretia wasn't and that's because Sextus Tarquinius had threatened her into that. Had she cried for help, Crown Prince Sextus Tarquinus would have presented him as someone who had stopped her adultery in progress by killing her and her presumed slave lover. The version of a Crown Prince would have not been challenged, his father the king was the supreme judge after all. So Lucretia was to lose her reputation and it was a top priority for the people of that time as they lived in small communities. She gave in but she couldn't live with that. Ovid presents it that she couldn't forgive herself. Her suicide a) properly punished her sin, b) winned her credit for moral heroism c) proved her case before her husband, father, and the whole of the community. Therefore they saw that the Tarquinii's regime had robbed them of justice and they overthrew it. It takes a hero to die to spark a revolution.
My opinion on why Ovid calls her a "puella" is that Sextus Tarquinius fell in love with her. She's "beloved" and female therefore she's a "puella". That's enough, she needs not to be loving for that.
Latin is hardly a murky language because it's synthetic. Professor Dame Mary Beard might have additional difficulties because her mother tongue is English that is an analytical language, but the real reason for the problem of understanding isn't that. Latin is an ancient language, without good textbooks by native speakers and modern second language learners don't get enough usage practice.
Lucretia's problem was that she was too good, too conventionally feminine. If she had gossiped a little more, she would have found out that Tarquin was a mean one and if she had been strong minded enough, she wouldn't have let him stay in her house. All the cubicula are being painted, there's a nice hotel down the street, etc. But she was too sweet, too blind to the bad side of life, too conventionally feminine to be strong minded, something considered most unattractive in women, then and now. Women are shafted either way. If they are conventionally virtuous, they are too weak to survive in the world. If they develop less feminine qualities, they survive better in one way but are less likely to be socially acceptable.
Tarquin was attracted by her goodness and resentful of it at the same time. It made him look and feel bad, and made it impossible for him to excuse his badness by saying that everyone else was bad too. He wanted to make her less perfect and of course, to prove her husband wrong and himself right. I think her beauty was a nice extra but not the main reason for his attack on her.
So be moderate in conventional goodness as well as conventional badness. They can both be problems. Life is a balancing act and the more awareness, the better.
11ď
Lucretia has a really small head in the titian painting
Speaking of Roman mythology as if it is fact. Wonder if there is an agenda there.
In this instance, Roman mythology has CREATED fact. To say that Pf. Beard, or any of the commentators, are suggesting that a real Lucretia really got raped is ludicrous. But there is a direct line from those types of stories to all the antique, medieval and Renaissance commentators talking about her enjoyment, her consent, how she might have invited it, to modern ideas about consent, blame and what does and does not constitute rape, which ideas create facts about who gets blamed, who gets prosecuted, who gets convicted. Of course there is an agenda: to help people understand that there is a direct heritage of ideas that shape how we think about things today. You'll find it difficult to change something if you don't understand where it originated from. People drastically underestimate the influence Roman thought has on modern Western culture.
Livy included it in his History of Rome, if there was an agenda it was part of roman society and Augustine politics. They believed or claimed this stuff was the origin of their society.
At 2:37 she prefaces the lecture by saying she's discussing mythology, although that's often implied when discussing classical antiquity as the lines between myth and history can be blurred. The rape of Lucretia is accepted as the reason for the fall of the Roman monarchy; whether that's historically accurate isn't really relevant to the points she makes.
I have to say, terrible captioning aside, it is amusing and gratifying to see Sextus Tarquinius transcribes as "sexist Tarquinius". Mary Beard is wonderful as always!
Perhaps she was pregnant.