Just to be clear, Cinefactus, I never found any of your comments anything but helpful. It was only Bitmap's that I was referring to, which as you can see has been edited several times to remove the more flagrant of the insults. But I understand that because he thought that I was going to actually use the names of Sulla and Cicero in those statements in context he assumed that I'm a moron, and a bad teacher.
What I knew I needed from the very beginning were 20 or so short, simple Latin insults that a politician MIGHT have received from his detractors. I searched around for genuine ones in vain and then, lacking time and needing results, decided to just make some of my own that seem to align with the impression of Roman values/opinions I've been given from different books. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I truly thought that to the majority of conservative Romans, fairness to your wife and fairness to your household slaves was seen as honorable.
What Bitmap may not understand is that unfortunately if you're creating projects like this for a world history class sometimes you're forced to cut some corners. I don't like it either, but I realize that I only have a certain amount of hours to devote to preparing this project and in a matter of two weeks we're moving on to a different historical period, and I'd better have something ready for that as well! If my students learn some characteristics of what Roman politics was like during this period and about the patron-client system and other major concepts, it won't break my heart to have to tell them "these Latin insults may be a bit more like insults we would say than what they would have said, but you get the general idea". I understand that from your perspective that seems unacceptable, but that is because this is your area of passion and expertise. My end goal is for students to be engaged enough in what they're learning to leave my class having retained knowledge of broad concepts and major themes, and hopefully interested enough in the topic to want to learn more on their own. When put in full perspective those small corners I have to cut become fairly inconsequential.
What I knew I needed from the very beginning were 20 or so short, simple Latin insults that a politician MIGHT have received from his detractors. I searched around for genuine ones in vain and then, lacking time and needing results, decided to just make some of my own that seem to align with the impression of Roman values/opinions I've been given from different books. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I truly thought that to the majority of conservative Romans, fairness to your wife and fairness to your household slaves was seen as honorable.
What Bitmap may not understand is that unfortunately if you're creating projects like this for a world history class sometimes you're forced to cut some corners. I don't like it either, but I realize that I only have a certain amount of hours to devote to preparing this project and in a matter of two weeks we're moving on to a different historical period, and I'd better have something ready for that as well! If my students learn some characteristics of what Roman politics was like during this period and about the patron-client system and other major concepts, it won't break my heart to have to tell them "these Latin insults may be a bit more like insults we would say than what they would have said, but you get the general idea". I understand that from your perspective that seems unacceptable, but that is because this is your area of passion and expertise. My end goal is for students to be engaged enough in what they're learning to leave my class having retained knowledge of broad concepts and major themes, and hopefully interested enough in the topic to want to learn more on their own. When put in full perspective those small corners I have to cut become fairly inconsequential.