Group Project: 'Catiline, They Done Him Wrong'

Speeches will be delivered in class on Thursday, March 2.

Assignment

In 63 B.C.E., Marcus Tullius Cicero composed four brilliant speeches accusing and condemning Lucius Sergius Catilina of conspiring against the Roman republic. Eventually Cicero was proven 'correct,' in that Catiline left the city and joined a rebel army to the north. He died in the battle that followed. But was Catiline guilty of anything at the time when Cicero's first speech was delivered? Cicero's speeches are more invective than evidence, and no direct evidence of Catiline's counter speeches survive.

We will be engaging in a bit of historical reconstruction to imagine possible responses by Catiline to Cicero's first speech. Each group will compose and deliver a speech defending Catiline and treating Cicero to a taste of Roman political mudslinging. You may choose whether the audience is the senate or the Roman people and exactly when in the course of events your speech is delivered.

The goals of this assignment are

• to develop your skills at reading texts closely,
• to imaginatively reconstruct a possible historical reality, especially one counter to surviving sources,
• to identify and use rhetorical techniques used in late republican oratory,
• and to identify and make use of critical information, including the interests of the intended audience, the political positions of Cicero, Catiline and other key players, and the general cultural and historical setting.
  

Your final speech should take 7-12 minutes to deliver. Each member of the group will have a specific job, and grades will be based both on the quality of the final speech and on peer evaluations of each individual's contributions to the group effort.

The ORATOR delivers the speech. Each group should decide whether the orator is playing Catiline himself, or a different historical figure speaking on Catiline's behalf.

The ORGANIZER arranges for group meetings, ensures participation by other members, makes certain everyone is clear on and conscientious about their individual assignments, and is responsible for submitting a final written version of the speech the day the orations are delivered.

The RESEARCHER hunts down information identified by the group as necessary for the completion of the project. (Groups with six people will have two researchers).

The WRITERS are responsible for drafting the speech, although everyone in the group should participate in outlining and subsequently revising the oration. The two writers may divide the speech into sections for which they are individually responsible, or may take turns drafting and revising the entire speech.

Evaluation

1. Self-Evaluation (Due in class Tuesday, March 7, the first class after the speeches are presented.)

Describe your participation in the project. Identify your role in the group, and spend about one page discussing and evaluating, in specific and concrete detail, the contributions you made to your group's project. Describe the things you did well, and also describe the areas in which you could have done better. At the conclusion of your self-evaluation, give yourself a grade on your participation in this project, using the following guidelines:

• A extraordinary; far exceeded the basic requirements for group work
• B very good work; generally exceeded the basic requirements
• C met the basic requirements for group work
• D fell below the basic requirements for group work

2. Peer-Evaluation (Due in class Tuesday, March 7, the first class after the speeches are presented.)

3. Group Grade on Final Speech

I will be evaluating the speeches based on the following criteria:

• the coherence of the speech and the clarity of the historical reality it creates and communicates,
• the degree to which the speech is fitted into its historical position, that is, how well existing information is used in reinterpreting the 'Catilinarian conspiracy' and in presenting that interpretation to its intended audience,
• the use of rhetorical techniques and tropes characteristic of late republican oratory and culture,
• and the quality of the speech's presentation in oral and written forms.

Final grades on the project will be calculated using the following percentages: