John T. Ramsey
AB (Harvard), BA, MA (Oxford), PhD (Harvard) 
Professor of Classics
Download Professor Ramsey's CV in PDF format

Office : 1800 University Hall
E-mail: jtramsey@uic.edu
Telephone: (312) 996-5530

Areas of Research and Publication:
Roman Republican prose authors (Cicero and Sallust) and Roman history and law; ancient comets as reported in the Greco-Roman tradition and in classical Chinese sources.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Books:

– Cicero, Philippics I & II, Latin text, edited with introduction and commentary. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series (CUP 2003) pp. xxvi/350.
– Sallust's Bellum Catilinae (text with introduction and commentary), 2nd edition (American Philological Association/Oxford University Press, 2006; corrected reprint, Feb. 2009) pp. xx/252.

Monograph:

- A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. Special issue of the journal Syllecta Classica, vol. 17 (2006: published March 2007; corrected reprint, Apr. 2008), 242 pp .

Articles, Chapters, & Reviews:

– “Mark Antony’s Judiciary Reform and its Revival under the Triumvirs,” Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005) 20-37.
– “Senatorial Rhetoric,” chapt. 10 in A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, ed. W. J. Dominik and J. C. R. Hall (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 122-35 .
– Review of Cronologia Ciceroniana. By Nino Marinone, 2 nd ed. rev. by Ermanno Malpaspina (Rome 2004). Classical Philology 101 (2006) 424-29.
– “A Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 28 (2007), 175-97.
- “At What Hour did the Murderers of Julius Caesar Gather on the Ides of March 44 B.C.?” in In Pursuit of Wissenschaft: Festschrift für William M. Calder III zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Stephan Heilen et al. (Olms, 2008), 351-63.
-- Download "Supplementary Tables" in PDF format
- Review of Asconius:  Commentaries on Speeches by Cicero, translated with introduction and commentary by R. G. Lewis, Clarendon Ancient History Series (Oxford, 2006).  Classical Review 58 (2008), 456-58.
- Biographical Memoir of David Roy Shackleton Bailey (10 Dec. 1917-28 Nov. 2005), Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature (Harvard), Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 152.2 (2008) 268-78.
– “Caesar as Proconsul: Politics at a Distance”, chapt. 4 in A Companion to Julius Caesar, ed. Miriam Griffin (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), 37-56.

Work in Press:

- “Debate at a Distance:  A Unique Rhetorical Strategy in Cicero’s Thirteenth Philippic” (9,000 words), chapt. 9 (forthcoming) in Form and Function in Roman Oratory, ed. D. H. Berry and Andrew Erskine (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Work in Progress:

– Commentary on Cicero's Philippics 10-14

Courses recently taught:

- Classics 250 “Greek and Latin Epic Poetry" (in English translation)
- Latin 299 "Sallust's Bellum Catilinae" (in Latin)
- Classics 298 "The Rise to Power of Julius Caesar, General & Politician”
- Latin 103 “Intermediate Latin:  Apuleius’ Cupid & Psyche and Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis”
- Latin 299 “Latin Epistles:  Pliny, Seneca, and Cicero” (in Latin)

Books

 

Sallust's Bellum Catilinae

Second Edition
Edited by J. T. Ramsey
ISBN13: 978-0-19-532085-5

Book Description

In his Bellum Catilinae , C. Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86-35/34 B.C.) recounts the dramatic events of 63 B.C., when a disgruntled and impoverished nobleman, L. Sergius Catilina, turned to armed revolution after two electoral defeats. Among his followers were a group of heavily indebted young aristocrats, the Roman poor, and a military force in the north of Italy. With his trademark archaizing style, Sallust skillfully captures the drama of the times, including an early morning attempt to assassinate the consul Cicero and two emotionally charged speeches, by Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger, in a senatorial debate over the fate of the arrested conspirators. Sallust wrote while the Roman Republic was being transformed into an empire during the turbulent first century B.C.
The Bellum Catilinae is well-suited for second-year or advanced Latin study and provides a fitting introduction to the richness of Latin literature, while also pointing the way to a critical investigation of late-Republican government and historiography. Ramsey's introduction and commentary bring the text to life for Latin students. This new edition includes two maps and two city plans, an updated and now annotated bibliography, a list of divergences from the 1991 Oxford Classical Text of Sallust, and revisions in the introduction and commentary.

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Volume XVII (2006)
A Descriptive Catalogue of Greco-Roman Comets
from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400

John Ramsey

This special edition of Syllecta Classica is devoted entirely to the above work. Included is a tabular summary of comets and other celestial objects attested in Greco-Roman sources, a comprehensive collection of texts referring to these objects, and discussion of the texts.

Reprinted with corrections, 2008.

 

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