UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Juvenal and the Boundaries of Libertas Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5d76870s Author Feland, Jeffrey Eldon Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Juvenal and the Boundaries of Libertas DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Classics UCI Tri-Campus Program with UCI, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego by Jeffrey Eldon Feland Dissertation Committee: Professor James Porter, Chair Professor Page du Bois (UCSD) Professor Amy Richlin (UCLA) Associate Professor Andrew Zissos 2014 © 2014 Jeffrey Eldon Feland aviae carissimae optimaeque ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv CURRICULUM VITAE v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: The Boundaries of Satire Rome’s Genre and Its Character 8 Satire as Container 27 Juvenalian Excess and Indulgence 45 CHAPTER 2: Morality and Libertas under the Principate 53 The State of Roman Morality: Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 55 The State of Libertas: Tacitus’ Dialogus de Oratoribus and Quintilian’s discussion of satire in the Institutio Oratoria 68 CHAPTER 3: Juvenal and the Boundaries of Libertas 105 Libertas and Satire 106 The Fine Line Between Licentia and Libertas 120 The Exercise of Libertas 129 CONCLUSION The Conception of Libertas 186 Libertas and Romanitas 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express appreciation to my committee chair, Professor James Porter, who has seen this project through all its forms and stages. Without his patience and guidance this dissertation would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my committee members, Associate Professor Andrew Zissos, Professor Page duBois, and Professor Amy Richlin for all their time and efforts. Each has contributed in unique and significant ways to my development as a scholar. Additionally, I would also like to thank my undergraduate professors in the Classics department at UC Davis, who are responsible for nurturing my love for Latin and Greek. I also owe a large debt of gratitude to my family, friends, and teachers, who have ceaselessly supported and encouraged me throughout my academic career. Each of you has been a beacon of light for me on my darkest nights. To my family: you are everything to me. To my friends: thank you for taking care of me, being patient with me, and helping me see this project through to completion. Lastly, I would like to thank the University of California, Irvine for all the generous financial support over the years. iv CURRICULUM VITAE Jeffrey Eldon Feland 2006 B.A. in Classics and English, University of California, Davis 2007 Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics, University of California, Los Angeles 2008-2009 Teaching Assistant, Department of Classics, University of California, Irvine 2009 Research Assistant, Prof. Susan Jarrett Graduate Student Researcher, Prof. Steven Mailloux 2009-2010 Research Associate, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae®, Prof. Maria Pantelia, Director University of California, Irvine 2010-2013 Teaching Associate, Department of Classics, University of California, Irvine 2011; 2012 Instructor (Summer), Department of Classics, University of California, Irvine 2011 M.A. in Classics, University of California, Irvine 2014 Co-Chair, “You Are What You Eat: Appetite, Consumption, and Identity in Antiquity,” Graduate Student Conference, University of California, Irvine 2014 Ph.D. in Classics, University of California, Irvine (UCI Tri-Campus Program with UCI, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego) FIELD OF STUDY Roman satire: Juvenal (1st-2nd c. CE); libertas, the identity of freeborn male Romans, and the principate v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Juvenal and the Boundaries of Libertas by Jeffrey Eldon Feland Doctor of Philosophy in Classics UCI Tri-Campus Program with UCI, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego University of California, Irvine, 2014 Professor James Porter, Chair Roman satire confronts readers with a complex picture of contemporary Roman society. Yet despite whatever distortions, exaggerations, or other techniques of satire that are utilized in the text, a satirist uses his medium to engage with issues, events, and persons that are of a present and very real concern to him. In the case of Juvenal, a Roman satirist of the late first and early second centuries CE, an issue of primary importance in his Satires is that of the state of libertas, a sociopolitical concept that stood for both freedom and freedom of speech. Lacking ‘true,’ Republican libertas, Juvenal must tackle the problem of how to write satire in the mold of the genre’s inventor, Lucilius, who did possess libertas some two hundred years previously under the Roman Republic. Therefore, Juvenal takes hold of the requisite libertas by exploiting and developing excess: the indulgence that he satirizes in fellow Romans also allows him to indulge his corpus, to go beyond the lex operis of Roman satire, so that with this excessiveness he can point to what is missing: libertas. As a corollary of this lack, Juvenal is thus able to make a case about decayed vi Romanitas – free, elite, male Roman identity – that has transpired as a result of Rome’s sociopolitical strife and transformation into the Empire. After placing Juvenal within the larger tradition of Roman satire, his serious impetus is restored to him through comparison with other contemporary texts that highlight the reality of Roman morals and libertas in the first century CE (Paul, Tacitus, Quintilian). With this done, a close examination of Juvenal’s Satires reveals the persistent focus on the issue of libertas. To gain new perspective on libertas, Isaiah Berlin’s two concepts of freedom are introduced to expand the conception of libertas and thus demonstrate the nuances of Juvenal’s argument for and production of libertas. What we read then in the Satires is a discourse about libertas and Romanitas in the first and second centuries CE: Juvenal’s intricate and rhetorical satire is at odds with the institution of the principate and what it has consequently done to free, elite Roman men. vii Introduction “I’ll publish right or wrong. Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.” – Lord Byron “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” – George Washington In modern America and Western society, we may at times take for granted our ability to access and to use our freedoms, including our freedom of speech. For Americans, the Bill of Rights ingrains the freedom of speech along with other fundamental freedoms. From our youth, we are taught about the Bill of Rights and especially, our First Amendment rights. We have the right and the ability to say, write, and think almost whatever we choose; to take away these basic freedoms is nearly unthinkable. We frequently hear news stories and court cases dealing with issues of free speech from both abroad and at home: from social media and the internet to politics and protests, we are constantly confronted by the topic of free speech, its limitations, its preservation, and its performance. One realization of the freedom of speech that can prove to be equal parts problematic, dangerous, offensive, and provocative is the production of satire. Satire puts mankind’s worst behaviors on public display, exaggerates them, plays with irony and humor, and then excoriates its targets. Satire is the unavoidable mirror that reflects a grotesque selfie that reveals every imperfection about its subject (the audience, the observers, us) and then some. And everyone, including the mirror, bursts out laughing. Satire does all this purposefully: to keep us in check and in line with the norms of our society. From its ancient beginnings as a formal literary genre in Rome, satire has always shown itself and its scope to be a little bit of everything; satire is predicated on its contemporary society, 1 culture, news, politics, and more. And so, at all times, Roman satire is about Romans and the issues, people, and events about which they were concerned.1 Therefore, when we ask questions about Roman satire, we are effectively asking questions (and seeking answers) about the context and all the conditions of the author in specific and of Roman society in general – and, importantly, about how these all come into play in the text. In the absence of a complete historical record, let alone audio and video recordings, modern libraries, and the internet, the text must be the driving force behind our inquiries into Roman satire. And yet, what makes any such inquiry certainly all the more challenging is the nature of the text of Roman satire. Genre is a major factor in considering satire: it is not meant to preserve as history, to tell a story as epic or drama, to charm as lyric, to praise as encomium, or to report as biography. Satire is problematic because, for a start, it is fraught with distortion, irony, rhetoric, parody, sensationalism, contradiction, and hyperbole. Yet, amongst all the wild claims of satire there must be reality, standards, and sincere motivation. Determining the validity of some of Roman satire’s outlandish or embellished accusations is, at best, thoughtful conjecture and, at worst, harebrained assumption. But what we can do – and do well – when we approach Roman satire is to trace the threads of ideas throughout it, to examine the techniques within it, and to place it back into greater contexts. The focus of the present study will be the Roman satirist Juvenal and his Satires. More specifically, I am examining how we can – even in the absence of a solid biography – reexamine the text of Juvenal and return to his satires an underlying (and serious) purpose. This purpose will be the concern for libertas and its implications for Roman identity.2 1 Freudenburg (2001), Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal, 1-4.