Wiseman claims that modern readers and scholars of Latin are only relatively informed about the culture and events of the late Republic, and that we are only knowledgeable at all when compared to what we know about other time periods of Rome. He also claims that three mistaken assumptions are repeated again and again when it comes to building a picture of the world First, that the information we have of that time is privileged and indicative of the time. Second, that the end of the Republic marked a deep change in Roman life. Third, that their world is analogous to ours, and that the expectations and assumptions we have of our own world can be applied to that time period unless directly contradicted.
2) What is the purpose of Wiseman's sections titled: Cruelty and Sexual Mores? Does it help argue against any of the three assumptions?
Wiseman's Cruelty and Sexual Mores sections are deliberately shocking and provocative, and they are intended to jolt the reader out of the comfortable assumption that the Romans' world would be familiar to us. It does indeed argue directly against the third of Wiseman's assumptions, and it argues indirectly against the first two - these were the practices and mores both before and after the fall of the Republic, and just because they are not the most popular topic in the extant literature, they are no less a shaper and indicator of the culture.
Bonus: What torture method did you find most painful?
Burning and flogging with metal whips.
3) What approach to Catullus does Wiseman use? Feminist? New Historicism?
New Historicism - Wiesmann uses external evidence, including contemporary writers, inscriptions, and archeology to sketch out the world in which Catullus lived, and thereby to shed light on the possible interpretations and intentions of Catullus' work.
4) How does Wiseman use miming as a literary tool to describe Clodia (and therefore extend the description to Catullus)?
Miming works by utilizing and playing with broad stereotypes. By naming Clodia as both a participant and a writer of these mimes, Wiseman sketches a picture of Clodia as a stereotype as well. If Clodia is this stock, distasteful character, then that also says something about the poet who obsessed about her.
5) Having read the first two chapters of Wiseman's book, what would you guess the third chapter would concern?
The third chapter would most likely be like the second chapter: a biographical treatise on a major character in Catullus' work, possibly one of his male contemporaries.
6) Wiseman began his book with three assumptions, one of which that stated we assume too much incorrectly. Why, then, does it seem he makes his own assumptions without any more citation than we have already been given? (This question is too informal to be seriously dwelled upon, but the fact that he has some pretty heavy assumptions of his own strikes me as hypocritical...)
It is impossible to write while making no assumptions at all. Presumably Wiseman did not consider his assumptions to be baseless, or else he considered them to be so axiomatic they did not require substantiation.
7) How does Wiseman contribute to the study of elegiac traditions? Does he add anything original that may be supported in other works (say, perchance, Ovid's case, or Gallus)?
As these writers were also participants in the Rome in which Catullus lived, especially if one does not subscribe to Wiseman's second assumption, then the background and world-building Wiseman engages in for Catullus would also be helpful in understanding the work of Ovid or Gallus.
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