What can you say about their social values?

Here is the basic instruction given, and I will make further comments on it below:

“In reading the 4 sources (Ovid’s poem and the 3 segments of text assigned for this week in Worlds of History) what sort of common themes do you see? As historical sources, even though they each come from different perspectives or genres, what does each source have to say about Roman society and the kinds of concerns the writers had? What can you say about their social values?”

What I would like are your observations about what the Romans felt was important. This is not just the obvious things like power or family, but really look at what is referred to – places in the empire that are far from Rome, multi-culturalism, the existence of slaves, ethical living, social status reflected in many forms. When you read this group as a set, you see those things popping up frequently so we can assume these are matters of importance.

So in writing, your thesis statement would be something like “These texts show a Roman interest in [..X, Y, Z fill in the blank].

The supporting paragraphs would be to cite examples from the text, and then give your opinion about it – does it seem strange, does it strike you as a pervasively human trait, what about being Roman made this thing a different experience (you can compare to any group we have studied, or to modern America – up to you). A really good answer might include how your observation can be analysed or related to other facts you know about Rome from the textbook (such as an understanding of the vastness of the Roman empire which informs your understanding of Ovid’s mention of German prisoner hair; there are German prisoners because Rome campaigned there many times trying to conquer it). The segments are

1) Cicero, Letter to His Brother Quintus, 60 B.C.E. (140-144)

2) Correspondence between Pliny and Trajan, c. 112 C.E. (145-147)

3) Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. 167 C.E. (147-150)

4) Ovids poem