During week 14 of the humanities crash course, I explored foundational myths of Western Culture — written during the Roman Empire when decadence was setting in. I paired them with a classic film about social decadence set in mid-20th century Rome.

Readings

Gioa’s recommendations were a bit more open-ended this week: books 1 and 2 of the Aeneid, book 1 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and “selected Roman poems and aphorisms.” Rather than read a whole book, I sought out some of these latter shorter works online. I also read the most famous section of the Satyricon.

The Aeneid is one of the classic epic poems of antiquity. Written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BCE, it aimed to formalize founding myths for the Roman Empire. It’s a sort of sequel to the Iliad and explicitly echoes the Odyssey’s structure.

Fortunately, I only had read the first two books:

  • Book 1: As Aeneas sails toward Italy after the events of the Trojan war; the gods conjure a storm that scatters the fleet. Aeneas and his crew are shipwrecked on the coast of Libya. The goddess Venus guides them to nearby Carthage, where Queen Dido is building a new city. She asks Aeneas to tell his story.
  • Book 2: Aeneas recounts the fall of Troy, focusing on the Trojan horse episode. Despite warnings, the Trojans bring the gift horse into the city, only to be overwhelmed by the Greek soldiers hiding inside. King Priam is killed in the ensuing fight; Aeneas is about to kill himself in despair but the ghost of Hector urges him to flee instead.

I said “fortunately” because these poems were the least pleasant reading I’ve done so far in the course. Perhaps it’s due to the translation I used, but it might also be because this work was created to glorify the Roman emperor. Like most ideological art, I found it pompous and tedious.

In many ways, Metamorphoses was its opposite. Written later, (2-8 CE,) its focus is mythology drawn from the classic Greek pantheon, but parsed through Roman sensibilities. The theme is transformation: gods, demigods, and humans shapeshift, becoming plants, animals, constellations, etc. to change the trajectory of events or escape suffering

Like the Aeneid, Metamorphoses also explores the foundations of Roman imperial rule, but it comes to the subject from a more ironic and irreverent POV. By focusing on change, the poem has interesting parallels with Buddhist teachings and the I Ching. Given its tone, cadence, and subject matter, I enjoyed it more than the Aeneid.

The third major work this week was Petronius’s Satyricon, arguably the first Western novel. It was written during the reign of emperor Nero (mid 1st-century CE,) and only fragments survive. They present the misadventures of Encolpius and his companions Giton (a former slave and teenage lover) and Ascyltus, a friend, antagonist, and former lover. The novel portrays a morally chaotic and decadent society reveling in excess, deception, and sensuous pleasures.

I read the most famous section, Trimalchio’s feast, which provides vivid descriptions of Roman excesses during this time. Characters come across as tone-deaf — especially the nouveau riche, whose vulgarity and self-importance must have seemed outrageous even to people with moral standards very different from ours. I was surprised at how richly these characters were portrayed — and how little people have changed in two millennia.

Audiovisual

Music: Arias by Puccini and Verdi. This is the second time during the course I’ve listened to opera: a medium I love but don’t include much in my regular rotation. This was a good opportunity to revisit some of these magnificent works.

Art: Gioia recommended looking at cave paintings. I punted. Several years ago, I saw Werner Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, and had my fill for cave paintings.

Cinema: I read the Satyricon this week because I saw Fellini’s adaptation in college. At the time, I also saw his LA DOLCE VITA. Even though LDV is the more famous of the two, my memory of it was fuzzier, so I chose to revisit it now.

Marcello Mastroianni plays Marcello, a womanizing gossip journalist drifting through postwar Rome. He has serious aspirations as a novelist, but allows himself to be swept along by the seductive currents of Roman nightlife and celebrity culture.

Like the Satyricon, we get story fragments rather than a unified plot. The fragments loosely echo the seven deadly sins and seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, framing the film as a kind of spiritual inventory of modern life.

I was surprised this classic film was only available to stream through Plex. It was a poor experience, riddled with ads and useless subtitles. My Italian is rusty, but I got most of the film anyway. (I may start seeing other Italian and French movies without subtitles as practice.)

Reflections

The common thread this week was social decadence — especially the kind that takes hold when a society grows too wealthy and powerful for its own good.

I read the Aeneid as a puff piece intended to instill a false sense of pride through a constructed continuity with the Greek civilization Romans admired — and supplanted. Metamorphoses took a more lighthearted approach, suggesting all things pass and that change is the only constant. Both the Satyricon and LA DOLCE VITA illuminated the vulgarity and moral emptiness at the core of decadence, turning it into ironic — and sometimes painful — entertainment.

Can we see our own time with such detachment? Can we recognize the Virgils trying to enshrine the inexcusable? The Ovids who myth-make more lightly and playfully? Or the Petroniuses and Fellinis who nudge us to laugh — and maybe cry — at the foolishness and pain of living adrift in a sensuous world?

Notes on Note-taking

Given my difficulties with the Aeneid, I found its Wikipedia page insightful. The summary of books 1 and 2 gave me an outline to better understand the work. As with previous weeks, I also bounced reflections off ChatGPT and summarized using the Obsidian Text Generator plugin. Both helped me grok the readings and how they relate to each other.

A realization on process: writing these posts helps me focus and power through even when readings get tedious. If I hadn’t committed to sharing publicly, I likely would’ve bailed on the Aeneid. I read with more focus and attention when knowing I’ll publish these little “book reports” at the end of the week.

Up Next

From Gioia’s description, I expect next week’s reading — Boethius’s On the Consolation of Philosophy — will be highly relevant to our current predicament. Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for the videos I’m sharing here. I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment. See you next week!