Now is the time, Charles, now!
I handed my paper in today. It might seem brown-nosey, and perhaps its was, but I'd still be picking at it, when there's really little, if anything, left to change at this point. I feel relieved it's over and exhausted. Here's my final paragraph; for imperium read "command," for uirtus read some combination of "manliness," "personal ability," and "moral excellence."
Taking in vistas of disorienting wastes (the first ring), the nadir of imperium lost and civilization literally and willingly overturned (the second), and the heights of imperial achievements, even without uirtus (the third), the excursus represents a lens through which Sallust allows his reader to view Rome's moral and political decline. The view, though, is all the sharper, all the harsher, because it is illuminated not by Rome's early accomplishments of uirtus and imperium, but by those of her greatest and most fearsome rival, Carthage.
Taking in vistas of disorienting wastes (the first ring), the nadir of imperium lost and civilization literally and willingly overturned (the second), and the heights of imperial achievements, even without uirtus (the third), the excursus represents a lens through which Sallust allows his reader to view Rome's moral and political decline. The view, though, is all the sharper, all the harsher, because it is illuminated not by Rome's early accomplishments of uirtus and imperium, but by those of her greatest and most fearsome rival, Carthage.