Wednesday, February 08, 2006

good news, bad news

Good News, Bad News



The good news: We were discussing the Res Gestae in my freshman survey today. Initial skepticism ("how much of this is true, ADM?" "Well ... most of it is in fact 'true' ... but let's talk about that a bit") followed by ... "Hey, what's this tribunicia potestas?" "It's the powers of the tribune"

So a student asks what that means, and someone says, "wait ... he's not a pleb, is he?"

They really seemed to get into picking apart all of these things that look like good traditional Roman values, but just knock the mos maiorum all to hell and gone. A couple of them were grinning like crazy people at the sheet political brilliance of the man ...

Sorry -- that was kinda geeky, but I like it when the students start to say, "hey ... wait a minute!"

The bad news --

I was supposed to give back exams tonight, but the faculty meeting went far longer than I thought it would. Argh.

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