Maternal Conceptions in Classical Literature and Philosophy Phoenix

MATERNAL CONCEPTIONS IN CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY PHOENIX

Journal of the Classical Association of Canada Revue de la Société canadienne des études classiques Supplementary Volume LVII / Studies in Gender Volume II

Studies in Gender Editors Alison Keith University of Toronto Ingrid Holmberg University of Victoria EDITED BY ALISON SHARROCK AND ALISON KEITH

Maternal Conceptions in Classical Literature and Philosophy

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2020 Toronto Buffalo London utorontopress.com Printed in Canada

ISBN 978-1-4875-3201-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-3203-1 (EPUB) ISBN 978-1-4875-3202-4 (PDF) ______Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Maternal conceptions in classical literature and philosophy / edited by Alison Sharrock and Alison Keith. Names: Sharrock, Alison, editor. | Keith, Alison, editor. Series: Phoenix. Supplementary volume ; 57. | Phoenix. Supplementary volume. Studies in gender ; v. 2. Description: Series statement: Phoenix. Supplementary volume ; 57 | Phoenix. Supplementary volumes. Studies in gender ; v. 2 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190225556 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190225580 | ISBN 9781487532017 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487532024 (PDF) | ISBN 9781487532031 (EPUB) Subjects: LCSH: Classical literature – History and criticism. | LCSH: Philosophy, Ancient. | LCSH: Mothers in literature. | LCSH: Motherhood in literature. Classification: LCC PA3015.M68 M38 2020 | DDC 880.9/35252 – dc23 ______

CC-BY-NC-ND This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative License. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact University of Toronto Press. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support from the University of Toronto Libraries in making the open access version of this title available. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement of Canada du Canada CONTENTS

1 Introduction 3 alison keith, mairéad mcauley, and alison sharrock 2 Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 26 mairéad mcauley

Section 1: Mothers and Young Children 47 3 From Body to Behaviour: Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 49 florence gherchanoc 4 Νωδυνία: L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles et le Chant Théocritéen: d’Alcmène (Id. 24) à Bérénice (Id. 17) 63 florence klein 5 “Nimis … mater”: Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 80 federica bessone 6 Augustan Maternal Ideology: The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 113 judith p. hallett

Section 2: Mothers and Their Children’s Marriages 127 7 Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 129 henriette harich-schwarzbauer vi Contents

8 The Roman Mother-In-Law 140 alison sharrock

Section 3: Mothers and Their Adult Children 167 9 Maximum Thebis (Romae?) scelus / maternus amor est (Oed. 629–30): Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 169 jacqueline fabre-serris 10 Mighty Mothers: Female Political Theorists in Euripides’ Suppliant Women and Phoenician Women 193 giulia sissa 11 Wife, Mother, Philosopher: On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 224 therese fuhrer

Section 4: Mothers and the Death of Their Children 241 12 Virgilian Matres: From Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 243 alison keith 13 Octavia: A Roman Mother in Mourning 270 valerie hope 14 Mothers as Dedicators 296 olympia bobou

Abbreviations 321 Works Cited 323 Contributors 361 Index Locorum 363 General Index 373 MATERNAL CONCEPTIONS IN CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY This page intentionally left blank 1

Introduction

alison keith, mairéad mcauley, and alison sharrock

The study of motherhood in classical antiquity is of relatively recent date, as classical scholars inspired by second-wave feminism turned their attention away from the traditional disciplinary focus on “fathers and sons”1 to explore the ancient literary, documentary, and material remains of the lives of women in antiquity – wives and sisters, mothers and daughters. Inno- vative scholarly investigations of women aligned with a newly energized research impetus into the history and representation of the family itself, as the broader social historical turn animating the study of history eventually reached Departments of Classics and Ancient History. Feminist classical scholarship began by interrogating the literary record primarily in search of empirical information about women’s lived reality in classical antiquity, to focus not on discourse analysis or the rhetorical strategies of representation that mediate our access to ancient women but rather on the distillation of historical fact from ancient fictions. Sarah B. Pomeroy’s 1975 bestseller God- desses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves is generally acknowledged to be the inaugural modern contribution to the study of women in classical antiquity.2 Her landmark survey of women in classical myth and ancient history inspired a host of further studies, some of which analysed the refraction of lived reality in literary representations,3 while others restricted the focus more tightly to the recovery of such “women’s issues” as marriage and divorce, childhood and adoption.4 Literary and philosophical scholars of classical antiquity have been slower to examine the role of maternity and motherhood in ancient literature, despite the fact that the inaugural feminist study of contemporary motherhood was written by the poet Adrienne Rich, whose important work Of Woman Born we discuss below. Yet the earliest literature of ancient Greece might be said to focus, obsessively, on the role of the mother in the life of the hero. Indeed, while the action of Homer’s Iliad finds its point of departure 4 Alison Keith, Mairéad4 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock in the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles on the field before Troy, that quarrel can scarcely be contained within the heroic realm. It reaches the divine plane by the middle of the opening book of the epic, as a result of Achilles’ appeal precisely to his mother, the goddess Thetis (Il. 1.352–4):5 “Since, my mother, you bore me to be a man with a short life, / therefore Zeus of the loud thunder on Olympos should grant me honour at least. But now he has given me not even a little.” Achilles’ lament spurs Thetis to supplicate Zeus in support of his grievance and to demand acknowledgment of her son’s crucial importance to the fighting power of the Greek army (Il. 1.508–10), but after he yields to Thetis’ supplication, Zeus discovers to his chagrin that he has exacerbated the disputes amongst the Olympians, whose sustained expressions of partisanship help fuel the conflict at Troy. Nor does Thetis’ intervention end with her supplication of Zeus. For once Achilles determines to re-enter the fray after Patroclus’ death, she entreats the divine smith Hephaestus for the manufacture of weapons worthy of the best warrior among the Achaeans (Il. 18.457–60): “Therefore now I come to your knees; so might you be willing / to give me for my short-lived son a shield and a helmet / and two beautiful greaves fitted with clasps for the ankles / and a corselet.” It is hardly too much to say, therefore, that Thetis drives the plot of the Iliad. As Laura Slatkin has put it: “The formal accom- modation of Thetis’s mythology within epic is recapitulated in the shape of the Homeric Iliad. In defining Thetis, therefore, the poem defines itself.”6 Nor is the Iliad alone amongst archaic Greek poems in its formulation of an epic plot that explores the maternal role in the formation of the hero.7 The poet of the Odyssey presents motherhood as intuitively comprehen- sible by contrast with paternity. Thus, Telemachus explains to his father’s guest-friend Mentes (the disguised Athena) that “My mother says indeed I am his [sc. Odysseus’s son]. I for my part / do not know. Nobody really knows his own father” (Od. 1.215–16). Telemachus’ interrogation of his paternity and paternal inheritance, which constitutes the focus of the narrative of the “Telemachy,” apparently leaves no room for the problematic of maternity. Indeed, in contrast to the Iliad, the Odyssey seems positively to vaunt the absence of its hero’s mother from the plot when she appears in the underworld (Od. 11.84–7): “Next there came to me the soul of my dead mother, / Antikleia, daughter of great-hearted Autolykos, / whom I had left alive when I went to sacred Ilion. / I broke into tears at the sight of her and my heart pitied her.” Although surprised and devastated to encounter his mother’s shade amongst the dead in the underworld, Odysseus postpones his interview with her to follow that with Tiresias, whom Circe has told him to consult about his journey home to Ithaca. Nonetheless, she is his first thought after his colloquy with Tiresias (Od. 11.139–44): Introduction 5

All this, Teiresias, surely must be as the gods spun it. But come now, tell me this and give me an accurate answer. 140 I see before me now the soul of my perished mother, but she sits beside the blood in silence, and has not yet deigned to look directly at her own son and speak a word to me. Tell me, lord, what will make her know me, and know my presence?

Anticleia, thus introduced as Odysseus’ second interlocutor in the Nekuia, stands at the head of his meetings with the women of classical myth, in the Homeric adaptation of the Hesiodic form of a catalogue of women (Od. 11.225–332). Odysseus questions his mother closely about his father and son, his wife and kingdom (Od. 11.174–9), but his first question (Od. 11.170–3) and her final answer focus on what brought her to the underworld (Od. 11.197–203):

And so it was with me also and that was the reason I perished, nor in my palace did the lady of arrows, well-aiming, come upon me with her painless shafts, and destroy me nor was I visited by sickness, which beyond other 200 things takes the life out of the body with hateful weakness, but, shining Odysseus, it was my longing for you, your cleverness and your gentle ways, that took the sweet spirit of life from me.

Anticleia thus presents the maternal bond as the central relationship of her life, on which she quite literally depends for her existence. In turn, Odys- seus’ desire to speak with Anticleia recalls Achilles’ repeated recursion to his mother in the elaboration of the plot of the Iliad. But Anticleia’s explanation of her own death accentuates the stark contrast between the mothers of the two Homeric heroes. The goddess Thetis, capable of securing divine assistance for Achilles, outdoes in every respect the merely mortal Anticleia, who has wasted away to death grieving for her missing son (Od. 11.204–22). Moreover, Odysseus’ response to his mother’s unhappy tale effects another pointed comparison between the two Homeric heroes (Od. 11.203–7):

So she spoke, but I, pondering it in my heart, yet wished to take the soul of my dead mother in my arms. Three times I started toward her, and my heart was urgent to hold her, 205 and three times she fluttered out of my hands like a shadow or a dream, and the sorrow sharpened at the heart within me …

Odysseus’ vain attempt to embrace his mother’s shade underlines her importance to the hero’s psychic life, as it associates her emphatically with 6 Alison Keith, Mairéad6 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock

Patroclus, whose ghost Achilles vainly endeavours to clasp in Iliad 23 (97– 101). While the loss of Anticleia to the Odyssey thus contrasts with the emphatic presence and assistance of Thetis throughout the Iliad, her interview with Odysseus in the underworld illuminates the importance of the hero’s mother to his epic project of reclaiming his identity, for she is the first member of his family to recognize him on his return voyage. As in the Iliad, moreover, so in the Odyssey, the hero repeatedly seeks maternal succour. With Anticleia dead, however, Odysseus finds maternal support on Ithaca in the person of his old nurse Eurycleia, whose similar name marks her status as a stand-in for the absent mother (Od. 1.428–33):

And devoted Eurykleia went with [Telemachus], and carried the flaring torches. She was the daughter of Ops the son of Peisenor, and Laertes had bought her long ago with his own possessions 430 when she was still in her first youth, and gave twenty oxen for her, and he favoured her in his house as much as his own devoted wife, but never slept with her, for fear of his wife’s anger.

Indeed, the space Anticleia leaves behind was always already filled by Eury- cleia, and not only for Odysseus but also for his father, Laertes, and his son, Telemachus. It therefore falls to Eurycleia, rather than Anticleia, to recognize her surrogate son on his homecoming to Ithaca (Od. 19.392–4): “She came up close and washed her lord, and at once she recognized / that scar, which once the boar with his white tusk had inflicted / on him, when he went to Parnassos, to Autolykos and his children.” Odysseus’ scar is a maternal inheritance in more ways than one, as his maternal grandfather’s hospitality offers Odysseus his first heroic test, imprints the mark of heroism in his flesh, and symbolizes the nature of his heroism in his physical toil and suffering. Eurycleia’s recognition of the “mark of the warrior” thus stands in for the absent mother’s initial inability to recognize her son (Od. 11.142–4) and confirms her commitment to Odysseus’ continuing tenure of power in Ithaca, her “recognition” of his place in the palace and community. She continues to provide practical assistance to him, moreover, as he resumes his place on Ithaca, by naming the mutinous maidservants in his palace (19.496–8, 22.420–7), calling them to account before Odysseus (22.431–4, 495–501), and supplying him with fire and brimstone with which to purify the palace after the slaughter of the suitors (22.480–94). The prominence of maternal figures in bothIliad and Odyssey and the importance of the Homeric heroes’ maternal genealogy to their epics find contemporary parallel in the poetry that circulated under the name of Hes- iod. The Theogony traces the generations of the gods from the parthenogenic Introduction 7 births of Gaia through the children her son Ouranos begets on her, and those born of their children Rhea and Kronos, to Zeus’ establishment of dynastic control over the divine plane by dispatching the threat of genealogical supersession posed to his rule, first by swallowing the pregnant Metis and then by marrying to the mortal Peleus the Nereid Thetis, destined to bear a son stronger than his father. The genealogical organization of the poem has been well analysed by Marilyn Arthur, among others, who has shown the centrality of not only maternal reproduction, but in particular of women’s generative potential, to Hesiod’s epic plot.8 Taking up where the Theogony leaves off, the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women traces the generations of the Greek heroes descended from the Olympians through their relations with mortal women. The famous alternative title of the Catalogue, Ehoie (“Or such a woman as”), encapsulates the organizational principle of maternal genealogy, which structures the poem. Although much remains unclear about the relationship between the Homeric catalogue of heroines in Odys- sey 11 and the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, it is evident from the heroic narratives of archaic Greek poetry that classical epic was from the beginning invested in genealogical narrative and vice versa.9 The foundational tales of classical myth thus accommodate themselves as readily to an exploration of maternity as to paternity.

Mother Trouble

To give our discussion some context, we survey here some maternal interventions in feminist thought, which has had a fertile and fraught engagement with motherhood for some time now. Many early second-wave feminists viewed motherhood as an oppressive institution of patriarchy to be rejected in favour of more liberated forms of reproduction.10 Following Adrienne Rich’s foundational work Of Woman Born, which studied motherhood through the dialectic between patriarchal institution and personal experience, psychoanalytic feminists such as Nancy Chodorow and Jessica Benjamin became interested in the mother-daughter relation, which had been ignored by the traditional psychoanalysis, whether Freud and Lacan’s focus on the Oedipal dynamic between father and son, or object relations theory’s interest in the pre-Oedipal relation between mother and infant son, especially in the work of Melanie Klein. Chodorow argued that because girls are mothered by a parent of the same sex, they retain their mother as primary object, thus perpetuating the sexual division of labour and the chain of mothering.11 Yet even here too, there was a tendency to elide the maternal subject, switching the Freudian, Lacanian, and Kleinian focus from the male child onto daughters, rather than onto the mother with whom the child must 8 Alison Keith, Mairéad8 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock exist in a complex relation of identification and differentiation. Outside of a psychoanalytic framework, philosopher Sara Ruddick called for motherhood to become a new paradigm for ethical “thinking” for both women and men, in her influential work Maternal Thinking (1989). But perhaps the most influential engagement with maternity is in the work of the trio of French feminists and psychoanalytic theorists, Hélène Cixous and especially Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, although they have all, at times, rejected the “feminist” label for their work. They argued, albeit with significant theoretical differences between them, for the potential for alternative, liberating forms of maternity outside of patriarchal norms. Strongly influenced by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and his position that the subject was constituted by language, Irigaray’s early work functions as a critique of psychoanalysis and philosophy, starting with Plato’s Repub- lic, using the terms of each discourse against itself to expose its patriarchal bias, elisions, and resistances, particularly its failure to acknowledge (its debt to) the mother.12 Central to her thought is the issue of sexual difference, which she argues is denied by patriarchal discourse, which constructs the feminine as lack and absence, the blank “mirror” of the male self, reflecting back its own projections. She also focuses on the revolutionary potential of the maternal body and mother-daughter or same-sex intimacy between women, which she argues remain unarticulated in patriarchy. The daughter’s relation to her maternal origin is unsymbolized because the symbolic, the Lacanian order of language, is governed by the Name of the Father (the Law) and the phallus as the signifier of desire.13 Irigaray thus challenges Freud’s narrative of human development in Totem and Taboo, in which he claimed that civilization is founded on a primal parricide and posits “an even more ancient murder, that of the woman-mother, which was necessary to the foundation of a specific order of the city.”14 For Irigaray, the unpunished matricide is “the origin of the erasure of birth and mothering in Western culture.”15 There are a number of affinities and conflicts between Irigaray’s thought and Julia Kristeva’s influential theories about maternity, subjectivity, and language. The development of Kristeva’s thinking about maternity is complex, but her most influential and well-known concept is the semiotic, a pre- symbolic stage linked to the pre-Oedipal relationship between maternal body and infant. The semiotic is discernible in wordless, bodily modes of expression, such as tears, milk, and baby babble, before the child’s coherent self has been established by entry into the symbolic realm of culture and social meaning. For Kristeva, the semiotic survives in traces in the symbolic order, in the form of music, rhythm, and poetry, and the symbolic is obscurely dependent upon its energies. Moreover, in her view the subject continually Introduction 9 oscillates between semiotic and symbolic, and is therefore always “in process/ on trial.”16 While she has not sought to overturn the premise of the Oedipus complex as a basic structuring principle and the association of the symbolic with the masculine, Kristeva has however been interested in the psychic experience of pregnancy and motherhood, which she sees as liminal, at the threshold of nature and culture, characterized by a mute jouissance that is unaccounted for by the symbolic, paternal order. In one of her most influential pieces, “Motherhood according to Giovanni Bellini,” she writes:

Cells fuse, split, and proliferate; volumes grow, tissues stretch, and body fluids change rhythm, speeding up and slowing down. Within the body, growing as a graft, indomitable, there is an other. And no one is present, within that simultaneously dual and alien space, to signify what is going on. “It happens, but I’m not there.” “I cannot realise it, but it goes on.” Motherhood’s impossible syllogism.17

She sees this as profoundly linked, however, to the creative processes of art and poetry:

The language of art, too, follows … the other aspect of maternal jouissance, the sub- limation taking place at the very moment of primal repression within the mother’s body, arising perhaps unwittingly out of her marginal position. At the intersection of sign and rhythm, of representation and light, of the symbolic and the semiotic, the artist speaks from a place where she is not, where she knows not.18

For Kristeva, the “maternal function” is always an “ambivalent principle” which marks the edge of the symbolic, the boundary between the biological and the social, literal and figural, language and non-language. In a famous passage from Stabat Mater, an essay written on the birth of her son, she notes:

Belief in the mother is rooted in fear, fascinated with a weakness, the weakness of language. If language is powerless to locate myself for and state myself to the other, then I assume – I want to believe – that there is someone who makes up for that weakness. Someone, of either sex, before the unconscious speaks, before language, who might make me by way of borders, separations, vertigos.19

As Jacqueline Rose explains this passage, this “catastrophe” (felt by the child here) is a recognition of the fact that language fails us or has limits, which, when recognized, threaten the self’s coherent identity and poise: “simply the fact that there is an unconscious that we cannot fully know … We try to limit the damage, we protect ourselves from the felt danger, by fleshing 10 Alison Keith, Mairéad10 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock out our anxiety, giving that zone of anguish a name: femininity, non- language, body. But the name we give it before all others, the one we really hold answerable for it, is the mother.”20 The “mother” here stands for both the notion of a coherent self and testimony to its inherent instability, as demonstrated by the inevitable inadequacy or “falling short” of language as communication and signification. Kristeva is redescribing here, in psychoanalytic terms, a philosophical problem with the mother that has troubled modern feminist theory since its origins in the early twentieth century. What does motherhood mean – or rather, what is motherhood’s relationship to meaning, particularly as it is defined by “patriarchal discourses” of the self, such as philosophy and literature? At the beginning of The Second Sex, her foundational work of feminist theory, Simone de Beauvoir sketched out the metaphorical meanings of the mother figure in Western culture:

The Woman-Mother has a face of shadows: she is the chaos whence all have come and whither all must one day return; she is Nothingness. In the Night are confused together the multiple aspects of the world which daylight reveals: night of spirit confined in the generality and opacity of matter, night of sleep and of nothingness. In the deeps of the sea it is night: woman is the Mare tenebrarum, dreaded by naviga- tors of old; it is night in the entrails of the earth. Man is frightened of this night, the reverse of fecundity, which threatens to swallow him up. He aspires to the sky, to the light, to the sunny summits, to the pure and crystalline frigidity of the blue sky; and under his feet there is a moist, warm, and darkling gulf ready to draw him down; in many a legend do we see the hero lost forever as he falls back into the maternal shadows – cave, abyss, hell.21

As the place from where we came and the place to which we return, the mother is the “foundation of everything we come to see, know, hear or be”: the “opacity of matter” and the “entrails of the earth” are the ground on which “the sky,” “the light,” and the “sunny summits” are erected.22 In this system “the mother as origin is the condition of possibility of meaning itself.”23 Yet she herself remains “shadowy” and unarticulated, an unlit realm which the masculine self must escape, into the light of knowledge and civilization. Beauvoir’s sequence of images and metaphors is wonderfully resonant of ancient poetry, recalling the oceanic, immersive environment that Homer’s Thetis inhabits, for example, and its latent associations with the hero’s death. The significance of the maternal function, it seems, is best described in poetic and mythic discourse – not the analytic terms of philosophy. One wonders whether it is possible, even for feminist discourse, to describe the maternal outside of metaphor. Introduction 11

Beauvoir’s poetic imagery reveals a metaphorical dynamic that Irigaray’s famous reading of the Platonic cave as ὑστέρα or womb in the Republic also demonstrates, by unveiling the latent patriarchal assumptions of this foundational work of philosophical discourse: “The womb, unformed ‘amor- phous’ origin of all morphology, is transmuted by/for analogy into a circus and a projection screen, a theater of/for fantasies.”24 The acquisition of truth, rationality, λόγος, the symbolic economy of language and sexual difference, all consist of the (masculine) self emerging from the dark womb-cave into the light, just as the child, in Freud’s Oedipal schema, must reject his infantile fusion with the mother in favour of the father and autonomous identity, or, in Kristeva’s elaboration of this, he must emerge from the prelinguistic semiotic realm of mother-and-child bodily intimacy into the symbolic economy of language and law. Irigaray argues that what she calls “mother- matter” – the real maternal body that generates and gives birth – has been excluded from or suppressed in cosmological texts like Plato’s and Aristo- tle’s, to conceal the dependence of all λόγος on it: “Every utterance, every statement, will thus be developed and affirmed by covering over the fact that being’s unseverable relation to mother-matter has been buried.”25 But this metaphorical process of knowledge acquisition is itself founded upon the seemingly contradictory idea that the mother, as the shadowy origin to be transcended, is also fixed, visible, and material. In Moses and Monotheism Freud noted that unlike maternity, which was visible and self- evident in pregnancy and birth, paternity (before modern science) had to be proved on some other basis than sensory perception. It therefore becomes an abstract idea, “an inference and a premise,” a “triumph of intellectuality over sensuality,” like belief in the Judaeo-Christian God.26 Freud returns to this notion of a maternal origin again and again in his thought, as being something “unalterable” that the person knows with “certainty,” whereas paternity requires interpretation. He sees this opposition as central to the development of both individual psyche and civilization: “A great advance was made when men decided to put their inferences on a level with the testimony of their senses and to make the step from matriarchy to patriarchy.”27 It is perhaps no coincidence that Freud reinforces his point with a rhetorical return to antiquity as the origin of Western civilization, citing in support of its timeless “truth” the Roman legal adage pater semper incertus est, mater certissima.28 The pattern of association and thought outlined here is complex. Moth- ers are both certain and shadowy, signifying both Nothingness and matter itself. These tensions in the symbolic meaning of motherhood can be traced back to antiquity, to divergences about the role of the feminine in reproduction and the gendering of nature. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides Apollo 12 Alison Keith, Mairéad12 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock successfully argues that the mother was merely a vessel, a preserving space for the “young shoot” – a “stranger for a stranger.”29 But this seems to have been a minority position in Greek thought: some Presocratics seem to have held that the female had a generative role, and the Hippocratic corpus argued for female as well as male seed and for a womb as a powerful, active organ whose movements accounted for an array of female symptoms.30 Aristotle, however, downgrades the role of the mother in reproduction to argue that she only contributed the matter and the father the form. Plato’s Timaeus, on the other hand, posited a third entity, between Forms and their reproductions in the real world, called the χώρα (“space,” “land,” “territory”), which he defines as theὑποδοχή (“receptacle”) and “nurse of all generation” – a passive space in which generation takes place: “And in fact it is fitting to liken the receiving thing to a mother, the source to a father, and the nature in between these things to the offspring and to recognize that if the imprinted copy is to take on every variety of form, the thing itself in which the model is fashioned would only be sufficiently prepared if it lacks the shape of all the forms it is about to receive” (50c–e). As Irigaray points out, Plato’s description of the χώρα here is figural – it is “like” a mother but it is also like a blank slate:

She is always a clean slate ready for the father’s impressions, which she forgets as they are made. Unstable, inconsistent, fickle, unfaithful, she seems ready to receive all beings into herself. Keeping no trace of them. Without memory. She herself is without figure or proper form … Needed to define essence, her function requires that she herself have no definition.31

For Irigaray, this typifies the way in which the feminine stands outside of representation – she is on the one hand “likeness,” metaphor, that enables the conveyance of meaning; on the other, a shadowy presence that is excluded from representation. If the χώρα is a womb that has no inherent form, a screen that takes the shape of images projected onto (or into) it, then this applies to the mother too: “As for the mother, let there be no mistake about it, she has no eyes, or so they say, she has no gaze, no soul. No consciousness, or memory. No language. And if one were to turn back toward her, in order to re-enter, one would not have to be concerned about her point of view.”32 Kristeva’s influential reading of the Platonicχώρα also sees it as generative of figures. She allies it with the “semiotic” realm, which, as we have seen, she links to the pre-Oedipal, prelinguistic space between infant and maternal body (and also to the pregnant body), as opposed to the symbolic economy of linguistic and social structures. The semiotic is organized by drives that cannot be expressed in language, unless discharged into the symbolic in Introduction 13 special forms of speech such as poetry. The Kristevan χώρα is thus marginal, a border between man and the chaos of the real: “the χώρα is no more than the place where the subject is both generated and negated, where its unity succumbs before the process of charges and stases that produce it [i.e., that unity].”33 As Lynn Huffer notes, it is “a subversive force in language that both threatens coherent meaning and is constitutive of the process through which meaning occurs.”34 Like Irigaray, Kristeva sees the χώρα as a symptom of the exclusion of the maternal body as matter from the philosophical canon, though she seeks to reclaim it positively for her own program. Both Kristeva and Irigaray have been criticized as “essentialist,” for their alleged belief that the “maternal” is a universal, transcendent essence and, even, for a nostalgic desire to “return” to this idealized, if shadowy, mother-space, now recovered for feminist ends as the source of a rival ontology or ethics.35 Judith Butler argues that the designation in Irigaray and Kristeva of the χώρα as outside of metaphysics, excluded from representation as the “unspeakable materiality” that grounds representation, is problematic because it is based on the assumption that matter is, in its essence, feminine. For Butler, the real problem is that philosophy has created this association of mothers and matter in the first place, with the result that, if the χώρα as feminine receptacle is excluded from patriarchal metaphysics, this figure, this trope of the maternal or feminine, marks another exclusion, of the feminine from the human: “taken as a figure, the nurse- receptacle freezes the feminine as that which is necessary for the reproduction of the human but is not itself human.”36 Her position is summed up well by Brooke Holmes: “The critical imperative isn’t to remember the excluded maternal body or the lost intimacy of mother and infant, but to expose the way in which matter comes to be represented at the origin of metaphysics.”37 Other feminists defended this essentialism as a misreading of their work or as a canny political strategy, “ultimately working to radically dismantle the rather facile opposition between essentialism and anti-essentialism” within feminist theory.38 Either way, it seems that even for feminist theory, mothers are trouble, a flashpoint for different, seemingly irreconcilable, political and philosophical visions, to the extent that Patrice diQuinzio concluded in the 1990s that “Motherhood is impossible: it is impossible for feminist theory to avoid the issue of mothering and it is impossible for feminist theory to resolve it.”39 Certainly it seems that maternity, as Lisa Baraitser has recently observed, “brings feminist theory closest to its own blind spots, its varied and ambivalent responses to fleshy subjectivity.”40 The psychic complexities of maternal experience, and the social, economic, and physical demands that accompany it, expose the faultiness in mainstream Western feminism’s liberal, individualist rhetoric 14 Alison Keith, Mairéad14 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock of choice and freedom, and also in its supposed alternative, the postmodern embrace of anti-essentialism and anti-biologism. These are only snapshots of complex and evolving bodies of work within feminist and psychoanalytic theory. While there has, of late, been an increasing “matricentric” turn towards exploring the subjectivity and experiences of mothers themselves in relation to psychological, political, and economic conditions,41 we want to focus on a different thread discernible in some of the most recent work on motherhood. This explicitly draws on but reaches beyond the feminist tradition outlined above, in particular Irigaray and Kristeva, in order to ask, not (just) what maternity means for feminism and gender studies, nor (just) what feminism might mean for mothers, but rather what thinking about mothers might do to the wider disciplines of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, critical theory – discourses of the subject itself. Mothers, it seems, have suddenly become (almost) mainstream within the humanities, a lens through which to re-examine some of the most important discourses and representational modes of modernity, although the concern here is less with recuperating her subjective experience than with seeking to re-explore her symbolic and figurative import. Two recent works, both published in 2012, are major examples of this particular kind of “maternal turn.” In The Mother in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Elissa Marder explores the uncanny properties attributed to the figure of the mother in literature, popular culture, philosophy, and art. Freud’s notion of the uncanny (in German “unheimlich” or “unhomelike”) can be summed up as the unsettling blurring of semantic categories of “familiar” and “strange” to the point where one collapses into the other, leading to ambivalence, undecid- ability, and uncertainty. This uncertainty encompasses the confusion of real and fantasy, animate and inanimate, dead and alive, original and copy. As Elizabeth Bronfen explains, “This effacement of the boundary distinction between reality and fantasy occurs when something is experienced as real which up to that point was conceived as imagined; when a symbol takes over the full functions and meanings of the object it symbolises; when a symbol enacts a sublation of signifier into signified or an effacement of the distinction between literal and figural.”42 Freud roots his understanding of the experience of the uncanny in our passage through the mother’s body in birth, which he sees as the source of the original dejà vu:

To some people the idea of being buried alive by mistake is the most uncanny thing of all. And yet psycho-analysis has taught us that this terrifying phantasy is only a transformation of another phantasy which had originally nothing terrifying about it Introduction 15 at all, but was qualified by a certain lasciviousness – the phantasy, I mean, of intra- uterine existence.43

To conclude this collection of examples, which is certainly not complete, I will relate an instance taken from psychoanalytical experience; if it does not rest upon mere coincidence, it furnishes a beautiful confirmation of our theory of the uncanny. It often happens that male patients declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. This unheimlich place, however, is the entrance to the former heim [home] of all human beings, to the place where everyone dwelt once upon a time and in the beginning. There is a humorous saying: “Love is home- sickness”; and whenever a man dreams of a place or a country and says to himself, still in the dream, “this place is familiar to me, I have been there before,” we may interpret the place as being his mother’s genitals or her body. In this case, too, the unheimlich is what was once heimisch, homelike, familiar; the prefix “un” is the token of repression.44

In her book, Marder locates the uncanniness of maternity in the ambiguities and paradoxes surrounding birth, in particular the radical confusion concerning the possibility of discerning between birth and death, presence and absence:

From the beginning of human history, the privileged figure of the maternal function has always been that of an ambiguous “container” (the womb) that fails to contain the unruly contradictions at work in the concept of birth. The “womb” that holds the body before the beginning of life is structurally indistinguishable from the “tomb” that holds the body after the end of life … The figure of the mother tends to be both excluded from the realm of representation on the grounds that she is “natural” and simultaneously inscribed into the representational practices as the very name for that which cannot be represented … Likewise, although giving birth is depicted as the epitome of a purely natural act, the very act of childbearing (labor) has also been obliquely recognised as the first defining instance of human work … As the originary matrix for all other reproductive acts, the maternal body tends to become associated and confused with other forms of cultural production that are defined (at least in part) by their reproductive capabilities.45

The radical “unthinkability” of birth – we cannot remember it, we have no conscious way of relating to it or of “conceiving” of it – creates an anxiety expressed through the notion of replication or reproduction that exceeds the bounds of any subject. The “maternal function” becomes a reference point for literary production, writing, and the process of language translation, and also for modern “reproductive” technologies such as photography, cinema, and the telephone. 16 Alison Keith, Mairéad16 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock

Also published in 2012, Andrew Parker’s The Theorist’s Mother grapples with psychoanalysis and deconstruction too, but he is specifically concerned with the troubled relation the mother has with philosophy as a whole.46 As Irigaray has shown, mostly this is a relation of absence or elision: philosophers have historically privileged the masculine and the paternal as paradigms for the self and for the reproduction of philosophical discourse. While every theorist is the child of a mother, few have viewed that as theoretically significant.47 Rather, there is a distinct division of labour: mothers give birth and raise children (to be philosophers) while philosophers conceive thoughts (a metaphor that goes back to Plato’s Diotima).48 So while the mother has rarely been seen as a valid object for philosophy, nor indeed as a philosopher herself, philosophy from Plato on has relied heavily on the appropriation of maternal tropes and reproductive metaphors, to the point that our conception of generation has become “so instinctive to us that the etymology of ‘concept’ goes largely unremarked.”49 As we noted above, Irigaray has dubbed this an example of the foundational “matricide” of Western culture, whose myths of genesis privilege paternity and deny the mother’s story and subjectivity. For his part, Parker contends that, although motherhood may provide a grounding metaphor for philosophy, it also functions as a special riddle or conundrum for it, since the meaning of mothers is neither simple nor singular. These days the semantic territory of “mother” extends to surrogate mothers and social mothers, egg donor mothers and carrying mothers, adoptive mothers and biological mothers, heterosexual and gay mothers. It is now, or soon will be, relatively “normal” to have more than one mother, male or female, biological, genetic or social, lesbian, foster or adoptive. It is perhaps because “mother” has moved so far beyond “womb” and therefore so far beyond the visibly pregnant certissima mater that people repeatedly speak of a “crisis” in motherhood and wonder what it means for family and society.50 A crisis in motherhood means a crisis in meaning. Yet while modernity seems to have caused a new fragmentation in maternal identity where formerly this could be ascertained by sense perception, Parker argues that there has in fact always been more than one mother: kinship theory has long recognized a distinction between mater and genetrix, while age-old practices of wet nursing, adoption, and step-relationships have all contributed to the non-coincidence of the word’s sense (“what is a mother?”) and referent (“who mothers?”).51 We have given a fairly crude introduction to the central theses of these recent works. But what interests us here is how, in different ways, these theorists argue that the symbolic associations of maternity, its troubling of the boundary between literal and figural, sense and referent, are central to any understanding of maternity in literary or theoretical discourse – and that this has wider implications for those discourses. In other words, thinking Introduction 17 about how and what mothers might mean changes the way we think about meaning itself. We return to this repeatedly in the volume as we explore how contemporary theorization about maternity and mothers can illuminate some of the more rhetorical or figurative kinds of mother trouble in classical literature. It is also worthwhile to bring back into this larger theoretical debate recent research on the mother in classical antiquity, as in the last decade or so, clas- sicists have returned to the mother, examining with increasing sophistication her multiple, complex representations across Graeco-Roman literature and culture.52 Some of this scholarship has emphasized significant differences in ancient and modern ideologies and public roles: motherhood in Athenian society, for example, was the primary, if not only, way women could attain a degree of civic power, particularly as participants in religious ritual, while aristocratic mothers like Livia and Octavia became agents in the public realm as sponsors of major building works that bore their names, and thus were able, to some degree, to control their own political representations.53 Given the dearth of mother-authored texts, recent work has also focused on how we can uncover traces of authentic maternal experiences and voices from our ancient, male-authored, sources, either reconstructing mothers’ lives through legal, social, and material evidence,54 or in the case of poetry and literature, “releasing” their voices and subjectivities through imaginative acts of feminist criticism, reading “against the grain” of key male-authored texts, such as the Aeneid (e.g., Hallett 2006b). Modes of recuperative and resistant reading consider how certain ancient texts imagine a maternal voice and subjectivity both within and outside of the limits of patriarchal stereotypes and tropes. Alongside this, however, it is also imperative to excavate these tropes themselves, in particular the political and rhetorical use of maternity and reproduction in Roman culture as metaphor, allegory, and symbol, which proved both useful and problematic for the Augustan redefinition of Roman patriarchy in the early years of the Principate, as several essays in this volume show. We have therefore assembled a group of studies that probe the discourse of maternity across a variety of different textual genres, in order to enrich the scholarly conversation still further by opening it up to currents hitherto untested (e.g., ancient science and philosophy, imperial drama, epic, and epigraphy) and reopening its findings for scrutiny in the “hot spots” of ancient motherhood (e.g., Euripides and Virgil).

Organization of the Volume

With one or two exceptions, the chapters in this volume began life as pre- sentations at a conference entitled Motherhood in Antiquity, held at the University of Manchester under the auspices of the Eugesta organization, 18 Alison Keith, Mairéad18 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock to which most of the contributors belong.55 Its goal was to explore ancient motherhood primarily through the literature and culture of the Graeco- Roman world, rather than through social history.56 All the papers are in some way concerned with texts, even in the case of Bobou’s contribution on inscriptions: it is accidental, but nonetheless perhaps worthy of note, that this single piece in the volume to concentrate on material culture also contains the only example of words that represent themselves as authored by mothers themselves, as dedicators. Direct female authoring of the experience of motherhood is, sadly but not surprisingly, minimal in the extant record, the most famous examples being perhaps Sappho’s (for which we must say, that of the speaker of fragment 132) possible beloved daughter,57 and the (fragmentary and of disputed authenticity) correspondence of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, with her son Gaius Gracchus.58 Although we used a picture of Cornelia with her sons on the poster for the conference, neither the conference nor the volume sought to impose any restrictions or require- ments on contributors, other than an interest in mothers, which has had the effect that the contributors have not returned to these loci classici, but have ranged widely across Greek and Roman culture. The papers offered here could rightly be described as covering a range of texts from classical Greece to the late antique Roman world, so it might seem natural for us to present them in chronological order. To do so, however, would be to put the emphasis on the authors, overwhelmingly male, of the texts and cultures that are the focus of our considerations, rather than on the mothers who are our subject matter. Instead, we have chosen to present the main body of the volume in a different chronological order – that of the stage of motherhood which is the central concern in each case, in an attempt to render visible and central, albeit in incomplete fashion, what the theorists discussed above have argued is excluded from representation: the experience and body of the mother. After an initial theoretical introduction, therefore, we cover the life course of motherhood by moving from pre-birth influences of the mother on her children to bereavement of mothers whose children have died before them, culminating in the setting up of monuments in their memory. While we cannot claim that every stage of mothering is given equal treatment, as this life course was not the goal of the project, we hope nonetheless that this arrangement of the papers may draw attention to the subject matter – mothering – rather than to the traditional “his-story.” If we seem to have concentrated more on the grief than the joy of motherhood (Klein’s contribution is a welcome exception), it should be noted that the volume balances the mater dolorosa (Keith) not only with the tender picture of maternal joy, but also with exploration of the philosophical and political potential of mothers to influence the public world (Hallett, Sissa, Fabre-Serris, Fuhrer). Introduction 19

We begin with Mairéad McAuley’s wide-ranging overview of maternity in Rome’s narrative of origins, from the viewpoint of the transition from Republic to Principate, to show how the patriarchal story of fathers and sons on the surface of Roman culture from Aeneas to Romulus to Brutus to Augustus is shot through also with both literal and metaphorical mothers. Her goal is not (or not only) to recuperate these maternal figures but also to show how maternity functions rhetorically in foundational and exemplary narratives, such as those of Ennius, Livy, Virgil, and Horace – and Augustus. Drawing on the idea of the erasure of the mother from Western discourse, McAuley argues that the Aeneid becomes “not just a poem about the gaining of a fatherland, the founding of a nation, a ‘return’ to origins, but a narrative founded on the loss of a mother, about the space the mother leaves behind, the alternative poetic and genealogical possibilities she represents, and the ambivalent compensatory structures that emerge in the wake of her departure.”

Section 1: Mothers and Young Children

Florence Gherchanoc starts the life cycle in the philosophical and scientific literature of classical and Hellenistic Greece, examining the range of views expressed about the extent to which mothers leave traces of themselves in their children, rather than simply acting as the receptacle in which a smaller version of the father can grow. Her treatment ranges from conception and even before it, with consideration of the role of the mother in determining the sex of the unborn child as well as other physical characteristics. Contrary to the famous Aristotelian and Aeschylean claim that the mother hardly counts as a parent, both scientific theory and cultural practice indicate that such a view was not a reality for many ancient Greeks. Although Greek (Athenian) mothers were regarded as having biological influence on their children of both sexes, it was particularly daughters who were thought to be shaped by their mothers’ biology. It is not only conception and pregnancy that were thought to influence the physical development of children, however, as nurturing, both by the mother and by mother-substitutes, also played a role in moulding the child physically. Nor is it only physical traits that a child can be thought to inherit from its mother, but also behaviours, as the notorious example of the speech Against Neaera makes clear. Pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood are the focus of Florence Klein’s examination of Theocritus’ Idylls 17 and 24. She suggests that the charming image of Alcmene’s loving care for baby Heracles and his less well-endowed twin (in the account, in Id. 24, of Heracles’ strangulation of the snakes sent by Hera to kill him in his cradle) is a subtle allegory for the birth of Ptol- emy II Philadelphus, celebrated more explicitly in Id. 17. Among the many 20 Alison Keith, Mairéad20 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock features linking the two poems and stories is the fact that the difficult childbirth of Alcmene is suppressed (despite this being a defining feature of her story), just as Berenice’s parturition is said to be made painless by Ilithyia (Id. 17.62–3). Klein points out that this account of idealized motherhood requires suppression of maternal suffering, then as now. The mother with whom Federica Bessone’s paper is concerned also has a youthful superhero on her hands – the child Achilles, in Statius’ strange epic fragment generally regarded as a delightful piece of Hellenistic/Ovidian playfulness. Bessone explores Ulysses’ judgment on Thetis as nimis mater (“too much a mother”) in her efforts to forestall literary and mythic tradition by creating an alternative narrative of Achilles’ life, one in which he does not go to Troy and does not die a heroic early death, but rather stays hidden on the island of Skyros, disguised as a daughter of the unwarlike king. The sea goddess’s attempt to create a “mother plot” in the form of the notorious cross-dressing episode is shown to fail when Achilles refuses to acknowledge the maternal alternative to Ulysses’ (and Chiron’s and Hom- er’s) martial path. For all her efforts to protect her boy, Thetis is marginalized and silenced, reduced from “a director and plot-creator to an ancillary figure of the narrative.” Judith Hallett is also concerned with goddesses whose literary manifestations reflect on elite human women. She argues that Virgil’s Venus, mother, grandmother, and foremother of the Julian clan, is presented in such a way as to reflect on and celebrate Octavia, sister of Augustus. Hallett suggests that Virgil plays down unsuitable aspects of Venus’ mythology (such as the affair with Mars) and presents the goddess as working to promote the interests of her descendants, including children by different fathers, just as Octavia managed to care for and promote the interests not only of her own children by her first and second husbands but also of Antony’s children by other women. As such, Venus and Octavia can seem to be the mothers of complex “blended families” such as are familiar in contemporary society.

Section 2: Mothers and Their Children’s Marriages

As Bessone’s mother faced the challenge of her boy’s initiation into adult masculinity via warfare, so the mothers examined by Henriette Harich- Schwarzbauer are dealing with the “equivalent” female transition, as their daughters marry and prepare to become mothers themselves. Harich- Schwarzbauer explores the Roman marriage song, epithalamium, as manifested in Catullus, Statius, and Claudian. The extreme youth of brides (at least first-time brides) and the ideology of their innocence means that the genre can accommodate considerable expression of anxiety on the part of Introduction 21 both mother and daughter at the impending separation and even violence of her initiation into marriage. Harich-Schwarzbauer ends with discussion of Claudian’s poem De Raptu Proserpinae. This important and well-known work of late antique literature is shown also to widen the debate on a mother’s responsibility with regard to her adolescent daughter more thoroughly than ever before. Marriage brings with it in-laws. Alison Sharrock’s contribution explores the presentation of the mother-in-law in Roman literature, comparing it with that other “alternative mother,” the stepmother. Whereas the mother- in-law has been a figure of often malicious “fun” in the modern world, Sharrock argues that there is very little evidence in Roman literature for negative stereotypes of the mother-in-law and good evidence for positive representations. The statements of modern commentators that imply that mother-in-law jokes were a feature of the ancient world as much as the modern are therefore argued to be misleading. Indeed, the mother-in-law in most Roman literature appears to be no more negatively stereotyped than the mother herself.

Section 3: Mothers and Their Adult Children

Next, Jacqueline Fabre-Serris addresses a more serious form of problem in intergenerational relationships, that of incest. Accusations of incest and other forms of sexual depravity played a significant role in Roman political discourse, far beyond any actuality, which made the subject particularly available to literature in thinking about good and bad mothers. Fabre-Serris investigates Seneca’s Oedipus as informed by the rereading that Ovid made in his Theban cycle of both Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Bacchae, with the result that incest becomes an obsession within Seneca’s play (as opposed to the Sophoclean play, where patricide holds the limelight for much of the play). Fabre-Serris then puts the drama together with Seneca’s Consolation to his mother, to draw out Seneca’s ideas of the good mother as one who supports the career of her son, as against the bad mother who wants power for herself. Agrippina emerges as a strong example of the bad mother using incest to gain power. In Seneca’s play, the “worst crime” of a mother is presented as incest with her son, but may be held to be standing symbolically for everything a mother should not be. Giulia Sissa is also concerned with mothers’ influence over their adult children, but rather more positively so. She draws out the remarkable extent to which, in Euripides’ tragedy, mothers function as fully fledged political thinkers in the Aristotelian mode of justice: reminding their children how to be men and good kings, performing remedial education, advising their 22 Alison Keith, Mairéad22 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock sons to act for the common good, and even making contributions on foreign policy. These mothers offer a mirror to princes – who happen to be silly boys. Euripides’ mothers are thus a remedy against tyranny and try to save the city. From Aristotle, we move to a philosopher at the other end of antiquity – and to his own mother. Therese Fuhrer explores Augustine’s presentation in a range of philosophical works of his mother, Monnica [sic], a saint of the Catholic Church since the 12th century. Monnica’s function is not only as biological mother and nurturer of the protagonist of philosophical autobiog- raphy, but also as a “resolute and in many respects dominant, but also naive and pious, woman,” who plays a major part in the Christian development of her adult son and is even presented in the role of a philosopher. This is made possible for the relatively little-educated mother of a highly intellectual son in part by the “power of humility and the process of kenosis,” which Augustine highlights as a specific difference between Christian and Platonic doctrine.

Section 4: Mothers and the Death of Their Children

The performance of lamentation for all the dead was, as is well known, strongly associated with women, being indeed one of the few public roles open to them, especially in the Greek world. Mothers in the ancient world were all too often in the position of grieving at the loss of their children. Despite the high incidence of child mortality, there is abundant evidence of the grief suffered at the loss of a child, while the death, often in war, of adult children gave a rare opportunity for mothers’ voices to be heard – briefly – even in the masculine genres of epic and biography. The first two papers in this section show the different ways in which mothers were able to give expression to their grief, but also were subject to suppression by dominant voices. First is Alison Keith’s exploration of grieving mothers (which she designates matres dolorosae) in the Aeneid. Here the distinction between divine and mortal mothers plays into the suppression of alternatives to the Augustan program: Andromache, the mother of Euryalus, and the combined Trojan matres are all backward-looking mothers bound up in the grief of their personal loss rather than forward-looking exponents of the shining Roman and Julian future, whereas Venus, for all her self-presentation as a grieving mother, is focused also on dynastic ambition. Valerie Hope also explores representations of mothers’ mourning, showing still more explicitly the extent to which mothers may be deprived of full expression by masculine culture. Core to her paper is the death of the young Marcellus, memorably lamented in Aeneas’ trip to the underworld and in Introduction 23

Virgil’s biography. Hope shows how, in Virgil, Propertius, and Seneca, Octa- via’s mourning for her son is suppressed, appropriated, and overwritten by masculine concerns, including even Augustus’ own mourning for the loss of the young man on whom his dynastic wishes were focused. In a sense, then, these authors “deny, silence, or denigrate open maternal mourning and its significance.” Finally, to end on a positive note, Olympia Bobou shows how, despite the paucity of opportunity for mothers to make public statements in the ancient Greek world, there were nonetheless women who made large-scale dedications (such as statues) in which they explicitly identified themselves as mother of the person commemorated. For these women, few but not non- existent, motherhood was not only an essential part of their identity but also allowed them to “appear as equal to men in the public areas of the sanctuary, and take on the role of head of household in all but name.” Taken as a whole, these papers offer a range of feminist readings of ancient mothers, some exposing the suppression and denigration that mothers too often received from their culture, while others draw out positive expressions of maternal agency and effectiveness as well as the regard and admiration for mothers to which Greek and Roman men – overwhelmingly our sources – occasionally admitted.

NOTES

1 Exemplified, e.g., by the study of Lee 1979. 2 Other early studies of the history and representation of women in classical antiquity include Fantham 1975; Bertman 1976; Calame 1977; Phillips 1978; Temporini 1978; and Schaps 1979. 3 Foley 1981; Cameron and Kuhrt 1983; Peradotto and Sullivan 1984; Skinner 1986; Dowden 1989; Just 1989; Loraux 1989. 4 Hallett 1984; Pomeroy 1984; Rawson 1986, 1991, 2003; Dixon 1988, 1992; Cohen 1989, 1991; Loraux 1990; Treggiari 1991; Watson 1995; Osborne 1997. 5 Translations of Homer’s Iliad are from Lattimore 1951; translations from Homer’s Odyssey are from Lattimore 1965. 6 Slatkin 1991, 7. 7 In this volume, Bessone offers a compelling reading of Thetis as motivating the deviation from the Homeric Achilles to Statius’ quasi-elegiac Achilles. 8 Arthur 1983. 9 On the relationship between the Homeric and Hesiodic catalogues of women, see most recently Rutherford 2000; id. in Hunter 2005, 99; Osborne 2005, 16–17; see also Cohen 1983, 1986, and 1989–90. 24 Alison Keith, Mairéad24 ContentsMcAuley, and Alison Sharrock

10 See, most famously, Firestone 1970. 11 Chodorow 1978, 32–3. 12 See Irigaray 1985, 1993, and 1994. 13 On this aspect of her thought, see Irigaray 1981 and 1993. 14 Irigaray 1993, 11. 15 Mazzoni 2002, 51, offers a lucid discussion of Irigaray’s thinking about the mother. 16 Augoustakis 2010 fruitfully applies Kristeva’s theories to Flavian epic. 17 Kristeva 1980, 237, see also 242. 18 Kristeva 1980, 242. 19 Kristeva 1986, 175–6. 20 Rose 1996, 420. 21 Beauvoir 1949, 166, cited in Huffer 1998, 8. 22 Huffer 1998, 8. 23 Huffer 1998, 8. 24 Irigaray 1985, 243 and 265. 25 Irigaray 1985, 162. For further discussion of the mother’s role in reproduction in Greek philosophy and ancient science, see Gherchanoc in this volume. 26 Freud 1953–74, SE xxiii: 113–14. 27 Freud 1953–74, SE x: 233n1. 28 “Family Romances” 1909 in 1953–1954, SE ix: 239. See further Parker 2012, 122n50 for how the notion of motherhood as “fact” and fatherhood as “concept” persists in contemporary society. 29 Aesch. Eum. 30. See further the discussion of Gherchanoc in this volume. 30 See Hanson 1991, 79 and 96, and Dean-Jones 1994, 70. The Hippocratics seem to have been reacting to an earlier animistic or superstitious view of the uterus as “wandering” around the body. 31 Irigaray 1985, 307. 32 Irigaray 1985, 295. 33 Kristeva 1984, 28. 34 Huffer 1998, 77–8. Augoustakis 2010 is a powerful reading of the women of the Thebaid in terms of Kristeva’s semiotic: he concludes (18) that “mothers become marginalised either as absorbed into the symbolic of male ideology or as subversive voices of the distorted landscape of civil war.” 35 For criticism of this see Tyler 2008, Huffer 1998. 36 Butler 1993, 16. 37 Holmes 2012, 68. Her discussion of this debate is eminently clear. 38 Mazzoni 2002, 47. On this debate (over whether their “essentialism” was a rhetorical strategy of subversion or a reification of the feminine), Mazzoni 2002, 46–7. For useful summaries, see Parker 2012, 9–10, 123; Marder 2012, 20–1. Introduction 25

39 DiQuinzio 1999, xx. 40 Baraitser 2012, 118. 41 E.g., Baraitser 2009; Sheehy 2014. 42 Bronfen 1992, 113. 43 Freud 1953–74, SE xvii: 244. 44 Freud 1953–74, SE xvii: 245. 45 Marder 2012, 2–3. 46 Cf. Fuhrer, in this volume. 47 Philosopher Christine Battersby draws attention to this elision in her work on metaphysics: “Reading many philosophers we might, indeed, suppose that man experienced himself first in isolation from others; that he never had to learn where the boundaries of his own self, his will and his freedom lie; and that he (or rather she) does not carry within himself (or rather herself) the gradual capacity to become two selves. [ … ] This lack of theorization of birth – as if birth was just ‘natural,’ something that simply happened before man ‘is’ – might be most evident in some continental philosophers (in Heidegger, for example, whose theorisation starts with an existent who is simply ‘thrown’ into the world)” (Battersby 1998, 18). 48 Plato Symp. 209c–d. See also Plato Theaet. 148e–151e, where Socrates describes philosophy as intellectual “labour” as opposed to the dumb, material labour of childbirth, and himself as midwife who attends “men not women” and who looks after “their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies.” 49 Sacks 1980, 1. 50 Parker 2012, 14–15; see also Baraitser 2009, 19. 51 Parker 2012, xiii: “the mother’s identity has never been undivided, [that] our inability to recognize a mother when we think we see one began well before the modern advent of technologically assisted conception.” 52 See for example Petersen and Salzman-Mitchell 2012; Cid López 2009; Augoustakis 2010; Oliensis 2009, 57–91; McAuley 2016. 53 On mothers’ civic and religious roles in Athens, see Tzanetou 2012; Goff 2004. On Livia and Octavia, see Woodhull 2012. 54 Dixon 1988, 1991, 1992, foundational studies of motherhood in ancient Rome, are exemplary in their use of this kind of evidence. 55 https://eugesta-recherche.univ-lille3.fr/en/home/. 56 See our opening discussion of the origins of feminist scholarship in classics. 57 Hallett 1982 argues for reading this fragment as an expression of a remarkable poetic mother’s account of her love for her daughter in heroic and possibly divine terms. In keeping with the nature of Sapphic reception, there has long been a strand of reading of this “daughter” as metaphorical and erotic. 58 See Hallett 2002, 2006a arguing for the authenticity of Cornelia’s voice. 2

Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature

mairéad mcauley

While the study of gender in ancient Greece and Rome has become mainstream within Classics, until relatively recently maternity has constituted a sort of blind spot for scholars, due, perhaps, to the overwhelming weight given to the father in Roman law and ideology. Rome, after all, is the “Daddy” of patriarchal societies, a legal and economic system built on the concept of patria potestas, or paternal power, which, as Richard Saller has noted, has traditionally “provided the pattern of patriarchy in Euro- pean thought.”1 Moreover, compared to other premodern periods, such as the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the real, historical Roman mother’s voice is deafeningly silent. We have scarcely any surviving texts – religious, domestic, medical, literary, or epistolary – written by mothers or for mothers. The feminist literary critic Susan Suleiman’s aphorism, “mothers don’t write: they are written,” thus remains painfully true in the case of ancient Rome.2 Without mothers’ personal accounts, we are left with elite male- constructed representations of maternity from myth, law, poetry, oratory, and visual culture. At best these are only partial or distorted reflections of the diverse familial structures, practices, and traditions across Roman social classes and regions.3 Yet maternity in Roman society meant far more than just pregnancy or child-rearing; it could extend to property management and the “public” realms of civic morality and social status. The cultural centrality of maternity for Romans is evidenced by the fact that the traditional feminine identities of dutiful mother and chaste wife were subsumed under a single label derived from mater: matrona. The enduring fame in Roman moral discourse of politically powerful matronae like Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, shows that it was one of the few roles in which women could exert political and social influence, albeit from within the private domain Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 27 of the family. Indeed, ideals of Romanness were constructed and replicated partly through the propagation of an array of maternal stereotypes, of which the fecund, austere Cornelia became the most invoked exemplum, alongside figures such as Veturia, mother of Coriolanus, both women famed for exercising a stern moral influence over their powerful, if occasionally way- ward, adult children.4 These exemplary narratives, often reproduced in later rhetorical, historical, and philosophical texts, show how mothers were supposed to “reproduce Rome,” not only as bearers of citizen sons but also as transmitters and guarantors of its values of virtus and patriotism, which they were supposed to reinforce in their exemplary maternal behaviour and inculcate in their children. Modes of recuperative and resistant reading consider how certain ancient texts such as the Aeneid (Hallett 2006b; Sharrock 2011; McAuley 2016) imagine a maternal voice and subjectivity both within and outside of the limits of patriarchal stereotypes and tropes.5 For this essay, however, I would like to focus on these tropes themselves, in particular the rhetorical use of maternity and reproduction in Roman culture as metaphor, allegory, and other kinds of rhetorical figure. What is the relationship between the representation of mother figures and Roman culture’s figurative uses of the maternal as myth or symbol? The symbolic Roman mother, I shall argue, proved both useful and problematic for the Augustan redefinition of Roman patriarchy in the early years of the Principate. In this paper I consider this trope, to see how it might help illuminate some of the more rhetorical or figurative kinds of mother trouble in Roman literature.

Augustan Mother Metaphors

Maternity lies at the heart of Rome’s origin narratives, even if the heroes of the story are (unsurprisingly) fathers and sons. A whole series of mothers and surrogates provide the conditions for the birth of the infant city in various legends: the story of Romulus and Remus alone features Rhea Sil- via, mother of the abandoned twins; the she-wolf who finds the infants and suckles them under the fig tree of Rumina/Rumilia, the goddess of milk and breastfeeding (ruma, teat) from whom the city, according to some ancient sources, derived its name; and finally Acca Laurentia, the childless peasant woman who took them in as her own.6 The founding of the Republic also has its mother-stories, from Brutus’ reverence of his earthly alma mater (discussed below) to Lucretia, chaste “mother” of Republican libertas. So again and again, in reconstructing and mythologizing their earliest beginnings, the Romans bind motherhood, literal and symbolic, to civic and cultural origins. With the advent of the Principate, i.e., the end of the Republican 28 Mairéad28 Contents McAuley system and the beginning of the rule of emperors, this same narrative impulse is commandeered to legitimate the birth traumas of the new regime: Virgil’s Aeneid, Rome’s great national epic written after the death of Julius Caesar and the subsequent civil wars, describes its hero Aeneas’ quest for a home in Italy as a divinely ordained search for the Trojans’ “ancient mother” (antiquam matrem). Julius Caesar and his heir, Augustus, claim legitimacy for their rule by claiming their clan’s descent, via Aeneas, from a divine genetrix, or mother, Venus. And it was not just divine or mythic mothers who mattered: Augustus’ mother Atia is alleged to have been impregnated by Apollo in the form of a serpent (Suet. Aug. 94.4), and when a pregnant hen drops in the lap of the newly married Livia, wife of Augustus, the lau- rel sprig it carries grows into a flourishing grove from which all the Julio- Claudian Caesars’ triumphal garlands were drawn (Suet. Galb. 1.1; Pliny, HN 15.136–7/40–2).7 Scratch the story of every founding Roman pater, and a mater is never far beneath the surface. Augustus’ establishment of a hereditary monarchy lent increasing significance to imperial motherhood, and mothers like Livia and, later, Nero’s mother Agrippina were to become powerful and even threatening figures, political manipulators and power brokers within the imperial court. More generally, however, the notion and meaning of “family” seems to have shifted under the Principate.8 While some historians have argued that there was an increased privileging of the private sphere and sentimentality towards familial relations, others contend that such emotional realities are beyond our reconstruction due to the limitations of the evidence.9 Instead, what we can discern in the Augustan period is a change in the representation of the family in Roman visual and literary culture, alongside a fundamental change in its system of government.10 Maternity in the Roman foundation narratives written or rewritten during the Augustan period often functions as a powerful trope or rhetorical instrument for explaining, justifying, and reproducing Augustan social norms and values. What scholars have said of maternity in the early modern period can equally be applied to early imperial Rome: motherhood constituted “open ground for political projections, responding with remarkable flexibility to various efforts to shape its image and ideological implications.”11 This was partly rooted in its figurative potential: the foundation myths mentioned above show how maternity offered the Romans of the early Empire a rich resource for imagery, allegory, and metaphor, enabling them to make rhetorical transitions from past to present, microcosm to macrocosm, internal to external, cause to effect. Here I want to consider more closely the dynamics of this Augustan deployment of maternity as metaphor and rhetorical figure, by looking at some well- known examples. My first passage is not actually Augustan, but much earlier, from the Republican period (3rd–2nd century bce), and serves as a useful limit Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 29 case. It is a line from Ennius’ Annales, the earliest hexameter epic poem in Latin, in which the Roman state is said to “rest on its ancient customs and its men” (moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque).12 For Ennius – and for Cicero, who quotes this line approvingly in his Republic – Rome’s “men and morals” were the key to her success and stability as a polity. A man’s moral behaviour was not simply a “private” affair, but a political concern. What is not said here is “men and women”: Ennius’ emphasis on viri marks that “it is male behaviour that is at issue, not female.”13 Women’s moral health and regulation were the responsibility of their menfolk; thus, the very invisibility or non-representation of women becomes “proof” of their morality, a sign of their proper subsumption into the project of demonstrating the values of the head of the household, the paterfamilias. The second citation is from the first book of Livy’s History of Rome, written sometime between 27 and 25 bce, part of his famous story about Lucius Junius Brutus, nephew of the early Roman king, Tarquinius. When Tarquin- ius sent his sons, along with his nephew, to consult the oracle at Delphi, the sons ask the oracle which of them would become king of Rome. The oracle responded (Livy 1.56.10): imperium summum Romae habebit, qui vestrum primus, o iuvenes, osculum matri tulerit. (“The highest power at Rome shall be his, young men, who is the first among you to kiss his mother.”) While the Tarquinii assume it to mean their own mother, the queen, Brutus falls to the ground and kisses the earth, “since it was common mother to all mortals” (quod ea communis mater omnium mortalium esset, 1.56.12). Soon after, of course, Brutus goes on to avenge his chaste and virtuous female relative, the matrona Lucretia, who was raped in the sanctity of her own home by Sextus Tarquinius. Her violated matronal honour epitomizes a violated or raped body politic, with the end result that Brutus overthrows the monarchy and establishes a republic, fulfilling the maternal oracle in the process. Though Lucre- tia never becomes a real mother herself, Republican libertas is, symbolically, “birthed” from her dead body by the political actions of her male relatives, inaugurating a new symbolic mother, Roma, with the dead and self-effacing matron elevated as exemplary corrective over the matriarchal Tanaquil.14 My third reference is from Virgil’s Aeneid, the foundational epic of the Augustan Empire. Like Livy’s text, with which it is roughly contemporary and shares a similar concern with Roman origins and foundations, the Aeneid also capitalizes on the mythic association of land and nature with feminine reproduction and the maternal body. In Book 3, Aeneas, fleeing the destruction of Troy and stranded in Crete, is instructed by the god Apollo (Aen. 3.94–8):

Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto 95 30 Mairéad30 Contents McAuley

accipiet reduces. antiquam exquirite matrem. hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, et nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis.

(Long suffering sons of Dardanus, the land which bore you first from your parents’ stock shall welcome you back to her fruitful bosom. Seek out your ancient mother. There the house of Aeneas shall lord it over all lands, even his children’s children and those who will be born of them.)

“Seek the ancient mother” (antiquam exquirite matrem, 3.96): the “fruitful bosom” in which Aeneas will beget the future Roman race. Although his father Anchises takes “ancient mother” to mean Crete, origin of the Teucrian line of Trojan ancestry and home of the Great Mother goddess Cybele, it will transpire that “ancient mother” is in fact Italy, “mother” because it is the land from which Aeneas’ distant ancestor Dardanus left to found Troy. Aeneas’ divinely ordained quest for an ancient fruitful Italy is thus characterized as a nostalgic return to a fertile motherland and an idealized primordial past. Later in the poem, the future city of Rome, as yet unfounded, is described by the poet in similar terms as the genetrix or begetter of future heroic virtus, “blessed in her offspring of men” (felix prole uirum, 6.784). My final citation is from Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, performed at the public opening of Augustus’ Secular Games, in 17 bce, to signal the inaugu- ration of a new post-civil war era of stability and abundance (13–24):

rite maturos aperire partus lenis, Ilithyia, tuere matres, sive tu Lucina probas vocari 15 seu Genitalis. diva, producas subolem, patrumque prosperes decreta super iugandis feminis prolisque novae feraci lege marita, 20 certus undenos decies per annos orbis ut cantus referatque ludos ter die claro totiensque grata nocte frequentis.

(You who are fittingly kind to reveal offspring at the right time, Ilithyia, guard of mothers, whether you like to be called Lucina or Genitalis. Goddess, bring forth young and make our fathers’ decrees prosper concerning marriage with women and Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 31 the nuptial law fruitful of new progeny, so that the fixed cycle of ten times eleven years will bring back songs and games crowded into three clear days and as many pleasing nights.)

In the song, the “poet laureate” of the Augustan regime calls on the goddess of childbirth to support the “decrees of the senate concerning marriage of women and the nuptial law productive of new life” (patrum … decreta super iugandis feminis prolisque novae feraci lege marita, 17–20), referring obviously to the Augustan marriage legislation passed the year before. Amongst other things, these laws, passed by Augustus the year before the games, outlawed adultery and marriage between certain classes of people (e.g., citizens and prostitutes) and granted women with three or more children legal benefits (ius trium liberorum). Unlike Ennius’ identification of masculine morality as the cornerstone of Rome’s political edifice, Horace’s propagandistic celebration of the Augustan “rebirth” emphasizes not simply moral regeneration through stable marriage and legitimate reproduction, but the role of women and mothers in that regeneration. Most strikingly, Horace depicts not only the women of Rome to be married (iugandis feminis), but the Augustan law itself as feminine and maternal, describing it as “productive of new life” (prolisque novae feraci / lege marita).15 With the Augustan family legislation, the sexual and reproductive behaviour of women became a matter for control, not simply by the paterfamilias, but for the state, indeed, for the emperor. In other words, the family was politicized, or more accurately politics became re-presented publicly as “familiarized,” and women became a means of deconstructing and transcending the boundaries between public and private, political and domestic.16 Part of this process of re-presentation was an increasingly public display of feminine virtue (with the feminine itself representing the private or familial sphere). It is worth noting, for example, that the inscription commemorating the Secular Games records that, at the performance of Horace’s song, the 110 years of the saeculum were represented by 110 Roman matrons.17 The contrast with the Ennian formulation, in which women are the appropriately suppressed and silent term in Rome’s civic body (women should not be seen or represented), is marked. Yet here in Horace too there is an elision of the maternal: in line 14 the poet calls on Ilithyia to protect Roman mothers (tuere matres), but in 17–18 he changes the focus to patres, yoking together the senators’ roles as biological and social “parents,” while mothers are now demoted to merely “women to be married” (iugandis feminis), and by 19–20 it is the laws themselves that bring forth the next generation of Romans, in a sort of “Caesarean section.” As Milnor observes: “The state itself is the mother to the children the senator will father. By erasing the real bodies of real women 32 Mairéad32 Contents McAuley from the process, the poem elevates reproduction to the level of a national responsibility, one that guarantees a continuous and unchanging return to the virtues expressed in Roman history.”18 These four texts all aspire to an encapsulated articulation of Roman- ness in their particular historical moment, which they convey through the motifs of a return to tradition, a shared, idealized past or ancient foundation, and an accompanying obsession with “primacy” and source. Central to their imagining of Romanness, as “return” to a prior origin, is the trope of the maternal, in their exploitation of which these excerpts share three principal threads. The first common thread is the metaphorical and mythopoeic potential of maternity to evoke place and time, a way of uniting past and future, origins and continuity, local and universal, family and state; a symbolism that goes back to the earliest versions of Roman foundation myth in the stories of Rhea Silvia, Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf, but is reinvigorated in the period of Augustus through the narratives of Livy and Virgil. Hence, Livy’s Brutus piously recognizes that his alma mater is the earth, the collective mother of all, reflecting at once the future global reach of Roman hegemony and her supposedly humble, rustic, farming origins rooted in the land, while at the same time eliding the social mother in favour of the universal and metaphorical. In a similar vein, labelling Italy Aeneas’ antiqua mater is part of Virgil’s attempt to reconstruct, in his epic, a nostalgic narrative of common origins and therefore collective future identity for both Romans and Italians, who had been divided until recently.19 At the same time, by alluding to the supposedly Italian origins of mythic Troy, Virgil counters the potentially wor- rying subtext generated by his yoking of hardy proto-Roman virtus to a genealogy rooted in oriental “otherness,” an otherness symbolized by another mother figure, the Phrygian goddess Cybele, or Magna Mater, and her eunuch priests the galli, whose worship was imported to Rome from the East near the end of the Second Punic War.20 The second thread, emblematized by the difference between the quotations from Ennius and Horace, is the way in which women, elided and unrepresented in the earlier poet’s reference to viri as the cornerstones of the Roman edifice, by Horace’s period, the Augustan era in the years post- Actium, emerge into the public eye as moral and political agents, but in their “private” or domestic capacity, i.e., as wives and mothers, matronae, visual and public guarantors of Roman tradition, continuity and stability.21 As observed above, scholars have increasingly come to see this new emphasis on femininity and family as a calculated shift in representation, in which the emperor finesses his radically new position and unprecedented personal power as an unthreatening “restoration” of traditional Roman identity, with Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 33 himself as “one of the people,” a typical family man and a devoted father, albeit one who was titled “first among equals.” The final common trope I want to draw attention to in these four instances of maternal representation is a rhetorical one. When mothers are inserted into exemplary descriptions or foundational narratives (which all of these passages are), they frequently function as a kind of “punchline,” in a manner that echoes the argument of both Irigaray and Marder on how the feminine- maternal functions as the limit of representation in patriarchal discourse, as what is “natural,” visible, and material, and thus outside of symbolic representation, while simultaneously enabling the conveyance of meaning.22 This punchline functions in these Roman texts in two overlapping ways: maternity constitutes the puzzling, sphinx-like riddle that must be solved by the questing male mind, often by eliding literal meaning in favour of the metaphorical or the particular in favour of the universal (e.g., Brutus’ alma mater, Aeneas’ antiqua mater); or, alternatively, the mother forms the obvious conclusion and ultimate moral proof, so natural and transhistori- cal, it would seem, that she obviates further discussion or inquiry (e.g., the 110 Roman matrons are displayed at the Ludi Saeculares as perfect visible “proof” of the moral stability and fecundity of a new imperial age; similarly, Brutus’ recognition of his “true” mother is what marks him out as future founder of the Republic). This second tendency is even more apparent in another exemplary maternal narrative from the period, Livy’s story of Coriolanus (2.40). Here only Coriolanus’ mother Veturia’s angry invocation of her maternity, and her alignment of it with the terra of Rome, can persuade her son not to invade the city and start a civil war: “Can you plunder this land that bore you and nurtured you? … If I had not given birth, Rome would not be attacked; if I did not have a son, I would die a free woman in a free fatherland.” (potuisti populari hanc terram quae te genuit atque aluit? … nisi peperissem, Roma non oppugnaretur; nisi filium haberem, libera in libera patria mortua essem.) Motherhood, here, both symbolic and physical, origin and guarantor of the future, becomes the last moral and rhetorical defence of the patria against itself. Like the Julio-Claudian invocation of libertas, mater in Augustan representation also functioned as a stabilizing term. In her study of the rhetoric of the imperial historian Tacitus, Holly Haynes argues that the word libertas was “a stabilising fiction signifying the possibility of knowing truth” in the early Empire, which, with Nero’s death, slips “into the formlessness and hence meaninglessness signaled by licentia and libido.”23 In a similar fashion, motherhood could be deployed as a “natural” and “material” reference point for wider and more abstract political, moral, and cultural relations, not only between people and places, but also, for example, between family 34 Mairéad34 Contents McAuley and state, or tradition and innovation. Partly because it could be seen as the “natural” embodiment of social and sexual hierarchy, motherhood offered the seductive hope of a secure, universalized source of meaning and affect in the unstable, fragmenting world of early Imperial Rome. In the examples I have cited, maternity functions as a reassuring symbol of civic continuity and fecundity after a time of social rupture and upheaval. At the same time, however, the invocation of the maternal as origin signifies a move to a deeper “truth,” meaning that can be fixed, the prospect of an epistemological and ethical certainty that stands above and outside of messy post-civil war masculine politics. Motherhood’s very usefulness in Roman politics is that it can be used rhetorically as a means of transcending “politics,” of representing natural, epistemological, and moral truths. Augustan representation, as it evolves the public use of the family and domestic sphere and develops its narratives of restoration and “tradition,” lays claim to both these connected rhetorical moves: the elision of the “real mother” in favour of the symbolic, and the use of maternity to signify transcendent certainty in both morality and knowledge. The deployment of motherhood in these texts of the Augustan period as the first and last word, a source of the “natural and universal” and of untainted rhetorical, moral, and political authority, is of course not unique to the Roman period: it is part of a long tradition of representing “Mother” as the quintessentially “natural” figure, even as “Nature” itself, or physical matter as opposed to abstract form or thought. Birth and maternity are assumed to be incontestable empirical and knowable facts. If fatherhood, as Freud argued, is a “premise,” an act of judgment (“a victory of intellectuality over sensuality”), motherhood is the one origin that we are supposed to be sure of, because we can see it.24 As placeholder for the notion of a natural order, for home and for stability, it offers a source of supposedly secure, universalized meaning in a shifting social and political landscape. One outcome of this dynamic, however, is that this mother is not herself up for examination, as either object or subject. Like Chaos in Ovid’s cosmogony (Met. 1.4– 20), the place of origin lacks its own intelligible form: the mother exists in the shadows “excluded from the realm of representation on the grounds that she is ‘natural’ and simultaneously inscribed into representational practices as the very name for that which cannot be represented.”25 Likewise, in their foundational myths, the Romans used maternal tropes to think about what it meant to be Roman, while the mother is consigned to the very “limit” of knowledge and thought. But as the early Empire progresses, and even within Augustan literature itself, the figure of the mother – her voice, her body, her own knowledge – persistently intrudes in literature and in politics to Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 35 dismantle the very representational and epistemological certainties maternity had been used to shore up.

Virgil’s Versions of the Mother/Metaphor

I want to look now at how some of these rhetorical tendencies I have identified in the above passages’ uses of the maternal metaphor are developed and challenged in Virgil’s Aeneid. Where did the Romans come from? What makes them different from their forebears, and their present and future different from the past? When does an origin give legitimacy and when does it overburden? Such questions beleaguer the Aeneid as it imagines the primal scene of Roman foundation, its earliest birth traumas, famously asserting near its beginning, “such great labour was it to found the Roman race” (tan- tae molis erat Romanam condere gentem, Aen. 1.33). While “found” here (condere) confirms that his Aeneid will be about the beginning of a nation and a city (dum conderet urbem, 5), “race” (gentem) flags Rome, and Vir- gil’s narrative, as a genealogical project, the story of how a man (uir, 1.1) becomes, or begins, a family, a people, a gens. Essentially the Aeneid rewrites Roman history and imperium in terms of lineage: “Virgil’s poem relates a single episode in the history of the genealogical line [the Dardanids] destined to subject the earth to its domination.”26 It casts ahead to the contemporary Roman future of its legendary narrative through techniques such as prophecy, in particular by Jupiter and Aeneas’ father, Anchises, which tell of how Aeneas’ descendants Romulus and Remus, and ultimately Augustus, will bring about the fated destiny of Rome to become a great civilization, an “empire without end.” These prophecies outline a clear vision of genealogy- as-power, documenting the trajectory of Roman history as a sequence of fathers and sons. In the process, they also associate patrilineal reproduction with the teleological narrative of epic, of which the Aeneid itself is the vaunted paradigm and in which they, as fathers, seem to function as especially privileged voices and sources of knowledge. In a poem that holds up paternal genealogy as a model for both Roman history and epic poetry, feminists have repeatedly shown how mother figures are often silenced, left behind, or made to disappear: at best they provide the ground for the reproduction of masculine heroism and the continuity of civilization, but are denied agency or subjectivity themselves (e.g., Creusa or Lavinia); at worst, they are aligned with madness, lament, death, and the obstruction of masculine achievement and order, and rapidly dispatched to allow the narrative and hero to progress (e.g., Amata, Eury- alus’ mother).27 Yet it is possible to see this pattern, not only as a generic 36 Mairéad36 Contents McAuley topos that reproduces patriarchal gender norms (which, of course, it does), but also as a symptom of a larger crisis within the poem’s fictional world. The first conversation with a mother in theAeneid is between Aeneas and the goddess Venus, which culminates in Aeneas’ heartfelt complaint about her inaccessibility and absence – “why can we not join hands and exchange true words?” (cur dextrae iungere dextram / non datur ac ueras audire et reddere uoces?, 1.408–9) – as she fades regally into the distance.28 And the paradigmatic image of the epic – of Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius fleeing the burning Troy – is also marked by the mother who isn’t there, who can’t be found. An instrumental or structuralist gendered reading would see the vanished Creusa as simply sacrificed to make way for Aeneas’ later marriage to the Italian Lavinia, from whom will be born the beginnings of the Roman race – indeed, that is precisely how the ghost of Creusa herself explains it at 2.783–4 – and also to allow the child Ascanius to attain to his full masculine virtus as Iulus in the poem’s second half, a symbolic demonstration of the future of Rome itself as “mother of heroes” (cf. Aen. 6.784: felix prole uirum).29 It seems that “forgetting” the real mother in favour of the metaphorical naturalizes – makes to seem inevitable – the moral system of the Aeneid, its promotion of virtus over love and desire, and the state (a community of men) over the individual. But the elision of Creusa from this iconic family scene – a scene represented frequently in Roman sculpture after the Aeneid – also points to the fissuring of Virgil’s poem itself, its strategies of memorializing and forgetting, within its reconstruction and retelling of the past. The epic takes shape and gains its emotional power not simply from the idealization of the paternal relation in the service of its civilizing message, but also in the context of almost complete maternal absence. Just as the poem persistently returns to the image of patrilineage, of Trojan and Roman fathers and sons, to signpost and secure the plot’s passage from the past to a future-perfect Rome, so it obsessively repeats this maternal aban- donment again and again, often displacing the guilt for its forgetting onto the (mad/obsessive/destructive) women themselves.30 Like Creusa, the still more threatening figure of Dido, Aeneas’ Carthaginian lover and fellow city founder, will also be sacrificed to ensure that she does not derail his mission; as Aeneas flees for Italy on Jupiter’s command, Dido can only accuse him of being forgetful of their vows and lament that she never became a mother by him (4.327–30), before committing suicide with his sword. The queen’s wish for a paruulus Aeneas to replace the perfidus original (4.327–30) is tragic in its belated recognition that her role in the plot is precisely never to become a wife and mother, but rather to be capta ac deserta (330), contained and left behind. Yet through Dido the poem hints at repressed alternative genealogies and unfulfilled epic plots: the mini-Aeneas she longs for is a Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 37 symbol of a future epic dynasty of which she will now never be biological origin and genetrix, but this alternative plot is picked up by Ovid’s Dido in the Heroides who threatens that she really might be pregnant: “perhaps, you wretch, you might even be going to leave Dido pregnant and a part of you might lie hidden in my body” (forsitan et grauidam Dido, scelerate, relinquas / parsque tui lateat corpore clausa meo, Her. 7 .133–4). Young and fertile, yet dying without issue, Dido’s parting curse in which she envisages an avenger rising from her corpse in a kind of (re)birth (exoriare, aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, “arise, some avenger, from my bones,” Aen. 4.625), to do battle with Aeneas’ children’s children (pugnent ipsique nepotesque, “let them fight, themselves and their descendants,” 629), produces the only “offspring” or heir to materialize from her fatal relationship with Aeneas: Hannibal, Rome’s greatest enemy.31 So Virgil’s sublime rhetoric of Roman paternal succession is complicated by the genealogical potential offered by Creusa and Dido, whose matrilineal possibilities the poem seeks to brush aside through various narrative techniques. Usually, the poem’s allusions to maternal reproduction put it in the service, ostensibly at least, of the foundation of masculine imperium: for example, Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, in Jupiter’s prophecy, is evoked in particular because she is a direct descendant of Aeneas’ royal line and of his mother Venus. Her rape and impregnation by Mars unite two divine Roman genealogies (paternal and maternal) through her female body (her twin offspring also signifying this dual inheritance). Unlike Dido, who is one of the most compelling characters in the poem, Aeneas’ Italian fiancée Lavinia features less as “real” woman than as a symbol of future Trojan- Italian kinship and civic identity, a woman turned into a city (urbique dabit Lauinia nomen, “and Lavinia will give her name to the city,” Aen. 12.194) – indeed, she does not speak at all.32 But as future mother of the Roman race, it is through her name and reproductive body that Trojan and Latin are eventually brought together, first in heroic warfare, then in peace. In these genealogies, mothers are mostly the physical and symbolic medium for transmission of an original patrilineal “message,” rather than the hal- lowed source themselves, but they nevertheless function as vital (though often problematic) enablers of the poem’s dominant narrative of masculine kinship and succession. Despite her poetic role as metaphorical mother of the Romans, Lavinia’s literal role as genealogical link in the chain is unclear: Virgil glosses over whether the Romans will in fact descend from Aeneas and Creusa’s Trojan son, Ascanius, who features as an important character in the poem, or from some future son of Aeneas and Lavinia. In his prophecy to Venus in Book 1, Jupiter grants to Ascanius the key dynastic role that will result in the Roman race, but this is directly contradicted in Book 6, in 38 Mairéad38 Contents McAuley

Anchises’ prediction of succession through Aeneas’ posthumous son Silvius from Lavinia.33 (Ascanius was already of ambiguous genealogy: Livy opts for Lavinia as Ascanius’ mother [1.1.11], but acknowledges the alternative story that he was Creusa’s son [1.3.1].)34 The ambiguity of the maternal in relation to genealogy and origins is exemplified by the confusing prophecy they receive from Apollo at Delos in Book 3 (3.95–8):

Dardanidae duri, quae uos a stirpe parentum 95 prima tulit tellus, eadem uos ubere laeto accipiet reduces. antiquam exquirite matrem.

(Hardy sons of Dardanus, the land that first bore you from your parents’ stock will welcome you returning at her abundant teat. Seek out your ancient mother.)

Anchises takes “mother” to be Crete, reasoning that it was the birthplace of the Trojans’ ancestor Teucer and the origin of the Great Mother goddess Cybele to boot. Instead of focusing on the father Dardanus in “sons of Dardanus” and thus thinking of his birthplace of Italy as prima tellus, Anchises focuses on matrem in the prophecy, assuming it meant Dardanus’ wife, Bateia, daughter of Teucer, whose prima tellus was the “most fertile kingdom” of Crete (uberrima regna, 3.106).35 Anchises thus takes “ancient mother” literally to mean both the real mother of the Dardanidae and their cult mother.36 He is corrected in this by the Trojan gods the Penates (3. 154–71), who clarify for Aeneas that the paternal (Dardanus) line rather than the maternal, Teucrian, genealogical line was the key to the oracle and that the “ancient mother” was purely metaphorical (3.163–8): Hesperiam … terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glaebae; / … hae nobis propriae sedes, hinc Dardanus ortus / Iasiusque pater, genus a quo principe nostrum. (“Hesperia [Italy], … an ancient land, powerful in arms and richness of soil … This is our proper home, Dardanus came from here and father Iasius, from whom first came our race.”) Here again, the Penates’ correction shows how a “literal” mother or maternal genealogy must be forgotten in favour of a metaphorical or abstracted one. This seems to be a repetition of the “Brutus” effect of metaphorizing the mother, a perfect example of what Alison Keith has identified as the epic’s pattern of erasing of the bodies of real mothers by inscribing maternity into the primeval Italian landscape or ground of the state.37 But is that the “last word” on the Aeneid’s metaphorical matres? Certainly, in this tendency to appropriate the maternal body as a site for masculine achievement, both intellectual and imperialistic, the Aeneid seems to exemplify what Susan Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 39

Rubin Suleiman (1985: 356–7) has defined as the conventional function of the maternal for the (conventionally masculine) author-child:

Just as motherhood is ultimately the child’s drama [rather than the mother’s], so is artistic creation. In both cases the mother is the essential but silent Other, the mirror in whom the child searches for his own reflection, the body he seeks to appropriate … A writer, says Roland Barthes, is “someone who plays with the body of his [her?] mother.”

Barthes here is alluding to Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic theory of artistic creation in which the work of art is the mother’s body continually destroyed and reimagined by the child/artist (in his fuller phrase, “A writer is someone who plays with the body of his mother … in order to glorify it, embellish it or dismember it, to take it to the limit of what can be known about the body”).38 In this account of the drama of artistic creation, there is little room either for mothers as writers of texts, as Suleiman points out, or for mothers as subjects and protagonists rather than objects or topoi within a narrative. Virgil launches the second, martial, half of his epic with a childbirth metaphor that seems a neat demonstration of this feminist argument (7.44–5): maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, / maius opus moueo. (“A greater order of events is being born, I set in motion a greater work.”) Here the poet, one could argue, “usurps” pregnancy and birth as a figure for masculine artistic achievement, excluding the women who do the real labour of childbearing and rearing. The lines immediately evoke another famous use of this metaphor, in Plato’s Symposium, in which physical reproduction is subordinated to intellectual: “For anyone who looked at Homer and Hesiod and all the other great poets would envy them because of the kind of offspring they left behind them,” says Diotima. “They would rather be the parent of children like these, who have conferred on their progenitors immortal glory and fame, than of ordinary human children.”39 Susan Stanford Friedman, in her study of the metaphoric appropriations of childbirth by authors in the Western tradition, warns of the ideological work this metaphor performs in denying female difference and silencing women: poems are not babies, she reminds us, and to compare one creation to the other is to ignore the “literally false equation … the biological impossibility of men birthing both books and babies and the cultural separation of creation and procreation.”40 Poems are not babies, and male poets are not mothers. Or are they? Cer- tainly, Friedman is right to draw attention to the general way in which the messy, physical work of childbearing and rearing is rendered inferior within patriarchal thought to abstract and intellectual creation, usually the preserve of men – and the consequences this can have for real women’s lives. But at 40 Mairéad40 Contents McAuley the same time, the feminist critique of the childbirth metaphor seems to be based on two assumptions: that men “literally” can’t be mothers and that mothers shouldn’t be metaphors, only bodies.41 This is problematic, not only because it unwittingly reinforces the patriarchal tendency to confine women to the corporeal (leaving to men the sphere of the mind), but also because it takes motherhood as defined by, and as the definition of, the literal – the non-figural, the un-literary. Yet motherhood is also the “first,” all-pervasive, metaphor in the Western tradition, in Lynne Huffer’s words: “the mother is a symbol of beginnings; as the one who gives birth, she occupies the place of origin. Metaphorically speaking, everything begins with the mother.”42 Can motherhood ever be just biological, just literal? Indeed, when it comes to the inherently figurative language of poetry and particularly the Aeneid, it is precisely the metaphorical richness and significance of the maternal in the poem, and its powerful investment of the mother-as-trope at key moments in its narrative, such as here in Vir- gil’s metaphor, which deserves deeper consideration as integral to Virgil’s literary project. Always signifying something other than itself, the poem’s frequent abstracted allegorizations of maternity at times diminish mothers’ social agency, but imbue maternity with an immanent symbolic power. Aeneas’ to-be-wife Lavinia is a perfect example of this paradox – powerless, but “constrained by her role in this constructed political world, she gains significance and power outside the fiction, validating another kind of allegorical signification over narrative action.”43 Indeed, the tension and over- lap between these doubled and overlapping forms of the maternal in the poem – the literal and figural, destructive and dynastic, human and metaphorical – is one of the most intriguing and energizing ambiguities of the Aeneid, part of the poem’s larger concern with the individual’s relation to historical-political forces such as “fate.” It is worth comparing the prophecy’s confusion between “real” mother and maternal metaphor with another confusing and unsettling – yet equally – mother moment in the Aeneid: the hero’s quasi-erotic encounter with his biological mother, Venus, in which a shocked Aeneas accuses the goddess, disguised as a virgin, of cruelly “playing with false images” (quid natum totiens, crudelis tu quoque, falsis / ludis imaginibus? “Why do so often deceive your son with false images, cruel also yourself,” 1.407–8) rather than exchanging “true words” (ueras audire et reddere uoces, 409). The command to “search for the ancient mother” in the prophecy could thus be seen to encompass Aeneas’ frustratingly distant personal interactions with his immortal genetrix (a mother who, uncan- nily here, is both mother and allegorical personification of desire, both his mother and “Mother” of Rome), as well as the epistemologically confusing order to find his destiny, his ancient motherland. Like the critics who Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 41 condemn male authors’ appropriation of the maternal metaphor, both poem and hero seem haunted, yet also driven, by the question: which is the true (image of) mother, which the false? A greater order of events is being born – but by whom? In the exemplary narratives I discussed earlier in this chapter, mothers like Cornelia and Veturia reproduce Rome by begetting its male citizens and educating them in Roman values. In a sense, these mothers are Rome, both Roman mothers and Rome-as-Mother, the symbolic embodiment of the patria and the guarantors of its future fecundity and stability. Repro- duction thus also connects to the act of representation, literary and artistic, both through representation’s mimetic function and its replication or reproduction of particular conventions within a generic or literary tradition. Indeed, reproduction can be seen as representation’s unspoken, “feminine” underside, since, as we have seen, the patriarchal division of labour dictates that men produce works of art while women (re)produce children.44 Yet just as the many mothers in Roman epic and tragedy, from Amata to Euryalus’ mother to Venus herself, fail, or sometimes refuse, to “reproduce” Roman values,45 so too the supposedly hierarchical relation between feminine reproduction and masculine literary representation in Virgil is far more intricate, conflicted, and complicated than might at first appear. In a provocative 1974 essay, the American classicist and psychoanalyst Norman O. Brown argued that “in Roman History the question is ‘Who is my mother?’” He concluded that “[t]he combination of she-wolf, whore and nurse, which Mommsen analysed as an absurd invention of nationalising annalists, is the original mystery or riddle.”46 In the Augustan period, Virgil uses the maternal metaphor, and its multiple, ever-receding referents, to signify not genealogical certainty nor the secure basis for the transmission of knowledge and power but rather the uncanny riddle of origins, the aporia of Roman identity that lurks in the inconsistency between their origins (are they Italian? Trojan?) and Rome’s historical outcome – the reign of pater Augustus.47 In other words, the triumphant emphasis on paternal genealogy in the Aeneid’s master narrative is contextualized and challenged by the troubling presence, or absent presence – not quite visible enough, but always reappearing, never fully censored – of the mother, as unstable, uncertain origin and disruptive, dynastic force. Virgil’s mothers and mother metaphors highlight the fissures that can be discerned in the poem’s narrative and ideological fabric, as it seeks to promote an imperialist vision of Roman civilization and conquest, while also registering – and seeking to delimit – the violence and suffering that accompany these acts of foundation and fatherhood. Like Freud’s uncanny, whose maternal, uterine lineaments are discussed in the introduction to this volume, the absent or repressed mother of the Aeneid returns as 42 Mairéad42 Contents McAuley metaphor. In straddling both literal and figural planes she thus draws attention to a gap or disjunction between the action the narrative depicts (such as the brutality of war and the harsh travails of Aeneas) and the figurative aspect of the poem (its use of symbol, metaphor, and allegory to explain and justify that action as part of an overarching Roman destiny).48 Read through its moments of engagement with and erasure of the maternal, the Aeneid becomes not just a poem about the gaining of a fatherland, the founding of a nation, a “return” to origins, but a narrative founded on the loss of a mother, about the space the mother leaves behind, the alternative poetic and genealogical possibilities she represents, and the ambivalent compensatory structures that emerge in the wake of her departure.

NOTES

This essay reworks and revises parts of the first two chapters of my recently published monograph on motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius (McAuley 2016). The text of Horace used is that of Garrod and Wickham 1912; for Virgil, that of Mynors 1969. All translations of Latin authors are my own, with the exception of some of the Virgil citations, which are adapted from the Loeb translation by H.F Fairclough (rev. ed. G.P. Goold, 2000). 1 Saller 1994, 102. 2 Suleiman 1985, 356, in reference to psychoanalytic theories about artistic creation, which see it as an extension of childhood play (Freud), a transitional space like that which opens out between child and mother (Winnicott), or an attempt to rediscover or “repair” the body of the mother destroyed in infantile fantasy (Klein). 3 Dixon 1988, 7–8. On provincial variations in family structure, see George 2005. Saller and Shaw 1984 used demographics to argue for normative “nuclear” family structure in Rome, but this has been challenged by studies of variable family and household organization in Egypt (e.g., Bagnall and Frier 1994) and North Africa (e.g., Bradley 2000; see also Martin 1996); George (2005, 1–8) usefully summarizes debates. Moreover, the prevalence of practices such as wet nursing and of slaves as primary childcarers may have generated different affective dynamics between mothers and children from the intimate bond assumed in today’s Western family: see Dixon 1988, 105–61. 4 On Cornelia, see Dixon 2007. For Veturia, see Livy 2.40 and my discussion, below. 5 See the introduction to this volume for further consideration of recent trends in feminist scholarship on the maternal. 6 For a lucid discussion of the symbolic significance of Rhea Silvia, Rumina, and the she-wolf in Rome’s foundation narratives, see Mazzoni 2010, 91–7. Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 43

7 In a more negative vein, Caesar at the Rubicon dreams that he rapes his mother (Suet. Iul. 32). 8 See Hallett’s essay in this volume on Octavia and Venus for a different assessment of Augustan maternal ideology. 9 See, e.g., Saller and Shaw 1984; Veyne 1987; Dixon 1991; Rawson 1991, 2003; Saller 1994; Severy 2003; Milnor 2005. 10 Key recent works on familial representation in the Augustan period are Severy 2003; Milnor 2005. 11 Greenfield and Barash 1999, 8. 12 Ann. 156 Skutsch, quoted at Cic. Rep. 5.1. 13 Milnor 2005, 150, an excellent discussion of this fragment; also Edwards 1993, 20. 14 Though it is worth noting that Lucretia, while embodying all the virtuous trappings of matronhood, is never explicitly identified as “mother,” neither of the Republic nor of anything else: Oliensis 2009, 88. For a compelling summary of the way maternity informs all Rome’s foundation myths, see Brown 1974. 15 On the rhetoric of social and biological reproduction or “restoration” in the Carmen Saeculare and Augustan legislation, see Milnor 2005, 141 and 146–7, to which my discussion in this paragraph is indebted. On the Ludi Saeculares and the politicization of the Roman family, see Severy 2003, 57–9. 16 See Milnor 2007; Ramsby and Severy-Hoven 2007. 17 CIL VI 3232; ILS 5050. 18 Milnor 2007, 11–12. 19 Toll 1997. 20 For a discussion of the centralized otherness of Cybele in Rome, see Beard 1996. By the Augustan period, the popularity of another imported maternal goddess, the Egyptian Isis, caused anxiety and generated laws restricting her cult. 21 This public celebration of domesticity may have been a reaction to the political brokering and public actions of women such as Fulvia, Octavia, and Cleopatra in the triumviral periods. 22 Irigaray 1985; Marder 2012, 2–3; see the discussion of these authors in the introduction to this volume, 14–27. 23 Haynes 2003, 43, citing Hist. 1.12. 24 Freud 1939, 113. 25 Marder 2012, 3. 26 Hannah 2004, 156. 27 See, e.g., Keith 2000; Nugent 1999; Sharrock 2011. 28 For different interpretations of Venus’ representation and motivations in the Aeneid, see the essays of Keith and Hallett in this volume. 29 Keith 2000, 130. 30 The original guilt is displaced onto Creusa herself when Aeneas discovers she is missing: hic demum collectis omnibus una / defuit; et comites natumque 44 Mairéad44 Contents McAuley

uirumque fefellit (“when finally everyone had gathered together here, she alone was missing and cheated her companions, her son, and husband,” Aen. 2.743–5); Perkell 1981, 362. Keith (2000, 118) relates Creusa’s “sacrifice” to Aeneas’ sacrifice of Turnus: one inaugurates his mission, the other seals it. 31 On Dido and the possible dynasty stemming from her union with Aeneas as a tantalising “glimpse … [of] a totally different world history,” see Schiesaro 2008, 206–7. On Ovid’s Dido, see Desmond 1994, 43, who argues that while the pregnancy wish of Virgil’s Dido is really a concern for Aeneas’ obligations to her and the future of her city, Ovid’s Dido speaks about motherhood from a personal rather than political perspective. Yet it is not clear that these two aspects of Dido’s wished-for “pregnancy” in Virgil can be so neatly separated, given the Roman (and the Aeneid’s) equation of maternity with femininity on the one hand and of political stability with lineage on the other. 32 Mack 1999, 139. 33 For the dissonances and contradictions in Jupiter’s prophecy and other accounts of the Roman future in the poem, see O’Hara 1990, 91–102 and 2007, 81–91, with 88–91 on Lavinia’s offspring; Zetzel 1997, 195–6. 34 See Edgeworth 2001 for possible political reasons why Virgil adopted the variant that Ascanius was the son of Creusa (thus making him the heir to Hector and Astyanax). 35 Shaw Hardy 1996. 36 Quinn 1965, 401, discusses the prophecy as an illustration of poetic ambiguity “in which the latent image firmly establishes a level of figurative statement transcending the plain or obvious sense of a phrase.” Thus, he claims, the reader takes the phrase ubere laeto to mean “with its rich land” until he or she gets to the word matrem; “whereupon laeto resumes its ordinary meaning, ‘happy’ and upon the image of rich fields is superimposed the image of a mother welcoming her child ‘with glad breast.’” 37 Keith 2000, 47–84. 38 Barthes 1975, 37. 39 Plato Symp. 209c–d. For the metaphor of male pregnancy in Greek literature, see Leitao 2012, especially chapter 6 on the Symposium. 40 Friedman 1987, 56. 41 See Parker 2012, 114, who reminds us that men can now give birth, citing cases of transgender men who have become pregnant. 42 Huffer 1998, 7. 43 Fox 2009, 104, on Spenser’s Adicia. 44 See Plato Symp. 209c–d, as discussed above. 45 On the refusal of both Trojan and Italian matres to reproduce Roman values in the Aeneid, see Keith in this volume. 46 Brown 1974, 101. Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature 45

47 Reed 2007, passim. 48 Wofford 1992, 97–218. Wofford 1992, 101 also sees this gap as opening up, at times, between the narrator of the action and the poet who stands behind him: “In the beginning of the poem, the narrator identifies himself directly with the epic task and with the unfurling of the ostensibly rational and male-identified historical ‘fate’ of Aeneas and Rome, but Virgil’s own identification is more dispersed, more ambivalent, more ironic, and finally more fragmentary.” This page intentionally left blank SECTION 1

Mothers and Young Children

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From Body to Behaviour: Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World florence gherchanoc

Many scientific studies have pointed out, and reasonably so, the foundational role of the father in human reproduction, in both conceiving and rais- ing children.1 Without denying or minimizing the importance of the father figure, particularly during classical times, I would like, in this paper, to re- evaluate the importance of the mother figure by focusing on the physical and behavioural traits that a mother transmits to her children. According to some authors, the mother is not merely a receptacle of paternal seed – even if this is the point of view of Aristotle – nor is she only an interme- diary who passes to the child the noble ancestry, status, or heritage of its father. By confronting various sources – not only medical, biological, and philosophical texts, but also tragedies, comedies, forensic oratory, and lyric poetry – I will reflect on the importance of the mother in the construction of the child’s identity. In light of the collective representations of the Ancient Greeks (particularly in classical times) and according to specific modes of generic and narrative logic, I shall ask in what ways a mother would durably mark her children, from their bodies to their behaviour. How would this “imprint” influence their social and/or political roles in the city? Though the characteristics of heredity are dependent on biology, we will examine how biological theories about reproduction, specifically those concerning transmission from mother to offspring, rely on cultural constructions specific to a particular historical era.2

Physical Characteristics and Resemblances

It is well known that, in Ancient Greece, the importance of the mother in the determination of an embryo’s sex was underestimated until the time 5050 Florence Mairéad50 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley of the Hippocratic physicians, whose views are developed through the variety of treatises written between around the end of fifth century bce to the second century ce. Indeed, unlike their predecessors, some of these physicians were of the opinion that the seed of both parents transmits information to the foetus during conception, justifying shared physical characteristics and resemblances. In particular, they admit the existence of an active feminine seed in the process of generation and in the determination of sex, according to its ἐπικράτεια or domination (Hippocrates, Generation 8.1): “In the uterus, the seed of both woman and man comes from their whole body – weak from the weak parts and strong from the strong parts – so that the child must be formed accordingly” (trans. Pot- ter 2012).3 Aristotle, like the Presocratics, defends a different theory attributing all agency in the generation and transmission of hereditary characteristics to the father. The womb is understood as the site of gestation where determination of the sex and physical traits of the foetus takes place. The mother is merely a passive receptacle (Aristotle, Generation of Animals 2.1.732a6–9): “That is why, wherever and so far as possible, the male is separated from the female, since it is something better and more divine, in that it is the principle of movement (ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως) for generated things, while the female serves as their matter (ὕλη)” (trans. Peck 1942).4 Boys are born when the power of the paternal seed acts fully upon maternal matter. Failure of the paternal seed to act upon maternal matter, particularly as far as young men or old men are concerned, results in a girl.5 In all cases, the child is the issue of its father. For physicians from Cos and the philosopher from Stagira, the question of physical resemblance is also controversial. According to the Hippocratic corpus, the child inherits physical traits from both parents (Hippocrates, Generation 8.2): “It is not possible for a child to look like its mother in all its features and like his father in none, nor the opposite of this, nor to look like neither parent in anything; rather there is a necessity to look like both parents in something, if sperm passes into the child from both of their bodies” (trans. Potter 2012).6 Each parent, man and woman, possesses both male and female seed. Depending on the circumstances, each emits one seed or the other, the distribution of which determines the child’s resemblance to its father and mother. In the blending of seeds, domination by either the (strong) male seed or the (weak) female one determines whether the child is male or female and to what extent it will resemble each of its two parents.7 It is according to this process that offspring are positioned on the spectrums of masculinity, femininity, strength, and beauty (Hippocrates, Regimen 1.28.2–29.1): Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 51

Now if the bodies secreted from both happen to be male, they grow up to the limit of available matter, and the babies become men brilliant in soul and strong in body (γίνονται οὗτοι ἄνδρες λαμπροὶ τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἰσχυροὶ), unless they are harmed by their subsequent diet. 3. If the secretion from the man is male and that of the woman female, the male should gain the mastery, and the weaker soul com- bines with the stronger, since there is nothing more congenial present to which it can go. For the small goes to the greater and the greater to the less, and united, they master the available matter. The male body grows, but the female body decreases into another part. And these, while less brilliant than the former, nevertheless, as the male from the man won the mastery, turn out brave (ἀνδρεῖοι), and have rightly this name. 4. But if male is secreted from the woman but female from the man, and the male gets the mastery, it grows just as in the former case, while the female dimin- ishes. These turn out hermaphrodites (“men-women”, ἀνδρόγυνοι) and are correctly so called. These three kinds of men are born, but the degree of manliness depends upon the blending of the parts of water, upon nourishment, education and habits (…). XXIX. 1. In like manner the female is also generated. If the secretion of both parents is female, the offspring proves female and fair, both to the highest degree (θηλυκώτατα καὶ εὐφυέστατα). But if the women’s secretion is female and the man’s male, and the female gains the mastery, the girls are bolder (θρασύτεραι) than the preceding, but nevertheless they too are modest. But if the man’s secretion is female, and the woman’s male and the female gains the mastery, growth takes place after the same fashion, but the girls prove more daring (τολμηρότεραι) than the preceding, and are named “mannish” (ἀνδρεῖαι). (trans. Jones 1931)

While the distribution of male and female according to the mastery of paternal and maternal seeds is decisive, the part or contribution of the mother is not. In addition, most of the ancient authors who admit the existence of a female seed believe that the child is given the sex and physical characteristics of the parent whose seed has prevailed.8 In contrast, according to Aristotle, the best pattern occurs when “males take after their father – and females, after their mother,” for not to resemble one’s parents is already a kind of monstrousness, an unnatural course of events.9 In this process of generation, the “woman brings her contribution only through the men- strual blood, which is her true seed, and which will constitute the matter of the child.”10 The mother, excluded from the determination of the sex of the embryo, is also barred from the transmission of characteristics to the child. All outcomes depend on the action of the paternal seed, its efficiency as well as its deficiency (see infra). Some thinkers, however, recognize in women a capacity to influence generation and development that transcends the question of the existence of an active feminine seed. For example, according to Plato (Laws 7.789e), “the 5252 Florence Mairéad52 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley pregnant woman shall walk (περιπατεῖν), so that the child, while still soft, shall be moulded like wax, and be kept in swaddling clothes till it is two years old.” (τὸ γενόμενον δὲ πλάττειν τε οἷον κήρινον, ἕως ὑγρόν, καὶ μέχρι δυοῖν ἐτοῖν σπαργανᾶν.) The mother then plays a significant role in the “making” of the child, understood first as a physical moulding. As a permeable being in the process of maturation, the baby receives from its mother elements that forge, structure, and mark first its physical body, then its mind and its character. A few texts allow us to clarify this maternal influence on the develop- ing foetus and newborn infant. In particular, they explain how the mother, through her disposition as well as her body and moods, transmits to her offspring mental disorders, physical symptoms, and sometimes even diseases. A pregnant mother makes a mark on her child, in the first place because of her emotions, her sensations, and her imagination, which leave traces – good or bad – on the baby during gestation. In this regard, and with reference to the institutions of his Cretan city, Plato advises that pregnant women should be closely monitored in order for them not to know any excess of happiness or sorrow, but to keep a serene, easy, and sweet mood.11 Aristotle also develops this idea about maternal dispositions of mind. Even if, as discussed above, the father holds an archê that is crucial in the determination of the sex of the embryo and the characteristics of the child, the mother still transmits her feelings, sensations, ideas, and thoughts to the foetus, like an earth that, according to its richness and quality, nourishes and contributes to the good or bad growth of the vegetables (Aristotle, Politics, 7.141335b):12

And pregnant women also must take care of their bodies, not avoiding exercise nor adopting a low diet; this is easy for the lawgiver to secure, by ordering them to make a daily journey for the due worship of the deities whose office is the control of childbirth. As regards the mind, however, on the contrary, it suits them to pass time more indolently than as regards their bodies; for children before birth are evidently affected by the mother just as growing plants are by the earth.13

Comparable medical theories are developed about impregnation and the maternal gaze. One such is advanced by the second-century ce physician Soranos of Ephesus, an heir of previous tradition and knowledge (Gynecol- ogy 1.12 [1.39]):

What is one to say concerning the fact that various states of the soul also produce certain changes (τῆς ψυχῆς κατάστημα) in the mould (τύποι) of the fetus? For instance, some women, seeing monkeys during their intercourse, have given birth to children resembling monkeys. The tyrant of the Cyprians, who was misshapen, compelled Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 53 his wife to look at beautiful statues during intercourse and became the father of well-shaped children (εὐμόρφων παίδων); (…) Thus, in order that the offspring may not be rendered misshapen, women must be sober during coitus because in drunkenness the soul becomes the victim of strange phantasies; this, furthermore, because the offspring bears some resemblance (ὁμοιότης) to the mother as well, not only in body (κατὰ σῶμα) but in soul (κατὰ ψυχήν). Therefore, it is good that the offspring be made to resemble the soul when it is stable and not deranged by drunkenness.14 (trans. Temkin 1956)

The mother’s state of mind, as influenced by her visual perceptions, can positively or negatively mark the appearance of the foetus in accordance with the nature of the vision and the effects that it produces. Moreover, resemblances between mother and child are both somatic and psychic. The bond between mother and child, far from tenuous, is characterized by a strong interactivity. A mother marks her child just as much through contemplation, perception, sensitivity, and emotion as she could through her blood and/or her milk. Indeed, feminine fluids and moods are considered vec- tors of transmission that act on the seeds of conception or even on the breastfed infant, though such alterations to the child’s appearance or character are not necessarily irreversible. This is why the Athenian physician Mnesitheus, writing in the fourth century bce (and quoted in the fourth century ce by the physician Oribasius, who lived during the rule of the Emperor Julian), recommends the selection of a nursemaid from among one’s close relations or women looking like (εἶδος) the mother: “We mostly prefer the mothers themselves (τὰς τετοκυίας αὐτάς), or, if it can’t be, their close relations (οἰκείας), their relatives (συγγενεῖς), or the women who resemble them in form (τὰς ὁμοίας ταύτῃ οὔσας τῷ εἴδει).”15 The positive qualities (beauty of body, character, behaviour) of the mother, or of her close blood-bonded kin, would then be transmitted to the child.16 The ideal nursemaid must also be “tall, with a well-developed breast, flesh of a good nature, and beautiful to the sight” (εὐμεγέθης, εὔπλευρος, εὔσαρκος, καλὴ τὴν ὄψιν).17 In keeping with the assumption that milk influences the physical development of the infant, the same physician recommends that “a breast-fed child must be of the same sex as the one of the last child of the nursemaid mother.”18 This sex-matching of nurslings would prevent a mis- appropriation of gendered identity: no boy would be feminized, or girl mas- culinized. There is then indeed communication and information exchange between the mother and her child through milk, a substance that transmits “properties” of the feeder mother to her baby. Secreted and ingested milk, like the mental state of a mother, has the potential to modify the character of 5454 Florence Mairéad54 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley the breastfed child. The disposition of the nurse matters as well, according to Soranos of Ephesus (2.8.87–9), “since by nature the nursling becomes similar to the nurse and accordingly grows sullen if the nurse is ill-tempered, but of mild disposition if she is even-tempered.”19 This feminine fluid transmits to the child characteristics of the mother or of the nurse, both genetic mark- ers and temperaments.20 The mother, or her substitute, “nourishes” the baby21 and shapes it according to its nature, as a good or bad earth acts upon plants. This parallelism with the vegetative world saturates the Hippocratic theory concerning the relationship between mother and foetus/newborn (Hippocrates, Nature of the Child 27.1):

For I have explained that everything that grows in the earth lives from the moisture (ἰκμάδος) of the earth, and that whatever kind of moisture a particular earth has in it, this same kind of moisture a plant (sc. growing in it) too will have. In the same way, a fetus also lives from its mother in her uterus, and however much health the mother enjoys, the fetus too will have.22

This parallelism is also to be found in the theories developed by Aristotle (cf. infra). The mother would then have a “power of identity marking”23 that touches first the baby’s body, then its mind. According to these biological and medical theories one must interpret the physical defects of Agesilas, King Archi- damus’ second son, who, in Sparta, even though he did not seem destined to be king, reigned during the fourth century bce (Plutarch, Agesilaus 1.1–3):

Archidamus, the son of Zuxidamas, after an illustrious reign over the Lacedemo- nians, left behind him a son, Agis, by Lampido, a woman of honourable family (ἐκ γυναικὸς εὐδοκίμου); (…) As for his deformity, the beauty of his person in its youthful prime covered this from sight, while the ease and gaiety with which he bore such a misfortune, being first to jest and joke about himself, went far towards rectifying it. Indeed, his lameness brought his ambition into clearer light, since it led him to decline no hardship and no enterprise whatever. We have no likeness of him (for he himself would not consent to one, and even when he lay dying forbade the making of “either statue or picture” of his person) but he is said to have been a little man (μικρός) of unimposing presence. And yet his gaiety and good spirits in every crisis, and his raillery, which was never offensive or harsh either in word or look, made him more lovable, down to his old age, than the young and beautiful. But according to Theophrastus, Archidamus was fined by the ephors for marrying a little woman (γυναῖκα μικράν), “For she will bear us,” they said, “not kings, but kinglets.”24 Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 55

Because physical beauty was an indicator of aptitude to govern and to command, as recommended by most of the discourses that attempt to define the qualities of a good leader,25 the malformation of Agesilaus’ body meant that he did not appear capable of good leadership. His diminutive stature, even more than his limping, made him contemptible looking, and so a priori incapable of ruling. According to Plutarch, however, Agesilaus overcame this disability through the quality of his character and education, so that the physical defects transmitted to him by his mother were forgivable – at least his size. How can we more broadly explain physical defects, like those of Agesilaus, according to classical theories of heredity? According to Aristotle (History of Animals 9.7.6.585b29–32), “There are also births of defective children from defective parents, for example lame from lame and blind from blind, and in general children who often resemble them in respect of unnatural features and possess from birth some marks as growth and scars” (trans. Balme 1991).26 A Hippocratic author, in turn, claims that a crippled child’s condition may be traced to a shock passed from wounded mother to foetus, or to an abnormality of the uterus, like narrowness or malformation. In the latter cases, the mother is directly to blame. Similar theories appear in Hip- pocrates’ Generation (10.1–2):

I assert that a foetus maimed in the uterus is maimed either on being contused when its mother receives a blow over the foetus or she falls, or when some other violent insult is suffered by the mother (…) Embryos are also maimed in another way, i.e., if there is a narrowness in the uterus in the region that corresponds to the part of the embryo that is maimed, then its body must have been maimed by moving in too narrow a space, just as trees in the earth that lack an open space because they are blocked off by a stone or some other object grow twisted or are thick in one part and thin another. (trans. Potter 2012)

As pointed out by Véronique Dasen, “every abnormality of the foetus is (…) due to the state of the uterus,” and hence to the mother.27 By her mind as well as by her body, particularly her uterus, the mother constrains the body of her child. In the case of Agesilaus, however, the limping does not seem congenital; only his small size is the fault of his mother. More generally, a parent and child of the same sex have a mirrored relationship, one being considered an exact reflection of the other28 – which is consistent with the theory of Aristotle (cf. supra). According to these cases, the beauty or ugliness of the parent determines the beauty or ugliness of the child. 5656 Florence Mairéad56 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley

Transmission of Innate and Acquired Behaviours

The transmission of behaviours from mother to child is related to the passing of physical characteristics and follows a similarly “naturalistic” pattern. Tragic as well as legal speeches often agree and make use of the same kind of arguments, without, moreover, contradicting medical and biological discourses.29 The mother acts on the behaviour of the offspring she carries and then raises, like good or bad earth on its fruits, as attested by several examples from the city of Athens. These examples will illuminate how, according to collective representations from Greek antiquity, a mother’s modes of being shape those of her son or daughter. Often in classical Athenian tragedy, just as a son is the product of his father,30 so daughters are shown to inherit behaviour from their mothers. Hermione, for example, is the victim of Helen’s reprehensible behaviours. As Peleus says to Menelaus, in defence of his grandson Neoptolemus’ best interests (Eur. Andr. 619–24):

I said to Neoptolemus when he was about to marry that he ought not to contract a marriage alliance with you or take into his house the foal of such a base mother. For such daughters reproduce their mothers’ faults. Take heed, ye suitors, to get the daughter of a good mother!31

Since qualities and defects are passed from mother to daughter, Helen, like bad earth, could produce (ἐκφέρειν) only bad fruit. Good wives give birth to good future wives, while unfaithful wives produce the opposite. That a daughter is necessarily a reflection of her mother becomes a familiar topos.32 Good and bad behaviours (τρόποι) are related to the characteristics of heredity. As Andromache points out, also about Helen (Eur. Andr. 229–31),

Do not seek to surpass your mother (230) in her man-loving ways, woman. All those who have sense must avoid the character of their bad mothers (τῶν κακῶν γὰρ μητέρων / φεύγειν τρόπους χρὴ τέκν᾽, ὅσοις ἔνεστι νοῦς).

From this perspective, Hermione, as “her mother’s daughter,” is a victim of her maternal heritage. The same is true of Phaedra. In Euripides’ Hippolytus (337–43), Minos’ daughter, in love with her stepson, points to the immoral lusts of her female relatives: her own mother, Pasiphae, fell in love with a bull, and her own sister Ariadne, whom Dionysus married, also undertook the misdeeds of a voracious passion. “And I the third, now wretchedly I perish!” she exclaims (Eur. Hipp. 341).33 These three women have in common complex and tortured loves: is it only the result of divine intervention – here, that of Kypris – or is it a matter of heredity? Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 57

If daughters must resemble their mothers, Electra tries to fight this “natural order,” wishing and proclaiming herself to be from her father’s side – the three Athenian tragic authors stage her this way. In the Libation Bearers, on Agamemnon’s grave, she requests of her late father (Aesch. Choe. 140): “And as for myself, grant that I may prove far more circumspect (σωφρονεστέραν) than my mother and more reverent (εὐσεβεστέραν) in deed.” In order to avoid replicating the misdeeds of adulterous and murderous Clytemnestra, Electra wishes to practise complete abstinence and piety, thus refusing and denying inheritance of maternal behaviours. Likewise, in the eponymous play by Sophocles, the heroine says to her sister Chrysothemis (Soph. Elec- tra, 365–8), “But now, when you could be called the child of the noblest father among men, be called instead your mother’s daughter, for in this way your corruptness will be evident to the greatest number as you betray your dead father and your true friends.”34 Her determination to free herself from her maternal heritage is also expressed through physical adornment: wearing poor clothes and a shaved head like a bereaved woman or a slave, Electra makes herself ugly, whereas Clytemnestra distinguishes herself by her beauty, which does reflect her rank but also evokes the seductions of an unfaithful wife.35 Mothers also mark their daughters through the education they provide. Alcestis fears that her daughter, after her death, won’t receive the education that suits her rank (αἰδὼς) and will fall into dishonour (Eur. Alc. 312–19):

And though a son has in his father a bulwark of defence, how will you, my daughter, grow to an honoured womanhood? What sort of stepmother will you get? (315) I fear she will cast some disgraceful slur on your reputation and in the prime of your youth destroy your chances of marriage. For your mother will never see you married, never stand by to encourage you in childbirth, my daughter, where nothing is better than a mother’s goodwill (ἵν᾽ οὐδὲν μητρὸς εὐμενέστερον).

Above all, Alcestis regrets that she is unable to accompany her daughter in the fulfilment of her duty as a woman, when she becomes wife and mother.36 According to Xenophon’s theoretical treatise the Oeconomicus, mothers teach their daughters the civilized behaviour of submission to man’s will (7.14): “My duty, as my mother told me, is to practice self-control” (trans. Todd, rev. Henderson, 2013).37 The question of παιδεία also applies to Neaera’s daughter in the famous plea dedicated to the hetaira. Phano is described as having inherited her mother’s habits (ἦθος) and disturbances (ἀκολασία). Because of these unsuitable behaviours, though she has already been married for a year and is currently pregnant, her husband Phrastor 5858 Florence Mairéad58 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley decides to send her back to her father without returning the dowry ([Dem.] 59, Against Neaera, 50–1):

She did not know how to adjust herself to his ways, but sought to emulate her mother’s habits and the dissolute manner of living in her house, having, I suppose, been brought up in such licentiousness. Phrastor, seeing that she was not a decent woman and that she was not minded to listen to his advice, and, further, having learned now beyond all question that she was the daughter, not of Stephanus, but of Neaera, and that he had been deceived in the first place at the time of the betrothal, when he had received her as the daughter, not of Neaera, but of Stephanus by an Athenian woman, whom he had married before he lived with Neaera.38

Phano is her mother’s daughter. Her bad behaviour – her lack of order (κόσμος), or the disorder of her personality – and her tendency towards disobedience are evidence of this fact. They express or reveal her origins, in part as a result of her education but also as a factor of heredity that is impossible to conceal. Bad mothers shape bad children, as a bad earth produced bad fruits. As for sons, male children seem less susceptible to the maternal imprint. Nevertheless, in tragedy, mothers take care of their sons’ educations and are also responsible for their maturation to adulthood in the city. This is precisely the theory developed by Giulia Sissa about Jocasta, Aethra, and Prax- ithea, in her chapter on the political intelligence of mothers in this volume. Mothers pass on to their sons political, social, and religious values; in this respect they are, or at least attempt to be, bulwarks against tyranny. More widely, they form the bond between oikos and polis. In the comic register, on the other hand, a bad boy is the son of his mother. In Aristophanes’ Clouds, Pheidippides’ mother contributed in part to the selection of her offspring’s name. She is responsible for his habits, moreover, because of her aristocratic origin, probably because of her τρυφή, and also because of the care and education she passed on to him. “(He) with his long hair is riding horses, and driving curricles, and dreaming of horses,” whereas his father, who is in debt because of the expensive leisure activities of his son, languishes and “sees the moon bringing on the twentieths” (Aristoph. Nub. 14–17). As Strepsiades reminds Pheidippides, he, a rural man (ἄγροικος), married a woman “from the city (ἐξ ἄστεως), haughty, luxurious, and Coesyrafied” σεμνὴν( τρυφῶσαν ἐγκεκοισυρωμένην), who, on the day of her wedding, smelled “on the contrary, of ointment, saf- fron, wanton-kisses, extravagance, gluttony, and of Colias and Genetyllis” (Aristoph. Nub. 39–65). In addition, on the occasion of their son’s birth, they dispute over his name and future behaviour (Aristoph. Nub. 63–74): Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 59

She was for adding hippos to the name, Xanthippus, or Charhippus, or Callipides; but I was for giving him the name of his grandfather, Phidonides. For a time therefore we disputed; and then at length we agreed, and called him Phidippides. She used to take this son and fondle him (ἐκορίζετο), saying, “When you are grown up, you shall drive your chariot to the city, like Megacles, with a xystis.” But I used to say, “Nay, rather, when dressed in a leathern jerkin, you shall drive goats from Phelleus, like your father.” He paid no attention to my words, but poured a horse fever over my property.

The marriage is a hypogamic one. The mother made her son a horse rider and an extravagant city dweller, rather than a frugal “hick” like his father. Even in the pleas of Attic speakers, both mother and father bear responsibility for the bad habits of their sons. However, in the democratic courts, the opponent’s mother – prostitute, foreigner, needy – is, according to the pleaders, a “prime target, because invective made it possible to question a son’s citizenship and thus disbar him from the civic community.”39 If heredity requires a biological explanation, perception of resemblance is a cultural phenomenon,40 whether it concerns body or behaviours. In this context, according to the Greeks of classical times, particularly in Athens, mothers, even if they do pass on physical characteristics to their sons, seem to mark their daughters more durably, particularly in the fulfilment of their womanly duty in marriage as good or bad wives. Thus, maternity is not merely a relational function limited to a woman’s reproductive capacity and so-called aptitude to nurse and nurture their offspring (newborns and young children).41 Mothers, according to their natures, imprint their own physical traits and temperaments – even if defective – on their children, like the print of the craftsman’s awl (τύπος). In this way, during the process of development from gestation to early childhood, offspring are imprinted in body and behaviour with traces of their mothers.

NOTES

A preliminary version of this paper was published in French in Cahiers “Mondes anciens,” 6, 2015. 1 See Bonnard 2004. Unless otherwise stated, the translations are those of the Perseus Digital Library (http://perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/). 2 See Lett 1997, §17–18, for the end of the Middle Ages. For the Presocratics, Hippocrates, and Aristotle on heredity and conception, see, for example, Dean-Jones 2000; Bonnard 2004 and 2006; Roux 2009. This paper will not examine Presocratic theories. 6060 Florence Mairéad60 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley

3 Καὶ ἐν αὐτῇσι τῇ γονῇ ἐξέρχεται καὶ τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀπὸ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀσθενέων ἀσθενὴς καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἰσχυρῶν ἰσχυρή· καὶ τῷ τέκνῳ οὕτως ἐστὶν ἀνάγκη ἀποδίδοσθαι. 4 See Bonnard 2004, 144 190–1. On “hylomorphism,” see Henry 2006. 5 Aristotle, Generation of Animals 4.3.767b8. 6 Ἔστι δὲ οὐκ ἀνυστὸν πάντα τῇ μητρὶ ἐοικέναι, τῷ δὲ πατρὶ μηδὲν, ἢ τὸ ἐναντίον τούτου, οὐδὲ μηδετέρῳ ἐοικέναι μηδέν· Ἀλλ´ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἀνάγκη τίς ἐστιν ἐοικέναι τινὶ, εἴπερ ἄρα ἀπ´ ἀμφοτέρων τῶν σωμάτων τὸ σπέρμα χωρέει ἐς τὸ τέκνον. 7 Cf. Hippocrates, Generation 6.1–2. 8 See Bonnard 2004, 156; Roux 2009, 311. 9 Cf. Aristotle, Generation of Animals 4.3.1–2.768a22–3; History of Animals 7.6.586a4–6; Politics 2.3.8–9.1262a24; Pliny, Natural History 7.51. See Bonnard 2013, 26. 10 Roux 2009, 310. 11 Plato, Laws 7.792e: τὸ δὲ ἵλεων καὶ εὐμενὲς πρᾷόν τε τιμῶσα διαζήσει τὸν τότε χρόνον. 12 This idea of “the woman imitator of the earth” probably comes from Plato; see Loraux 1996 on the Menexenus. 13 χρὴ δὲ καὶ τὰς ἐγκύους ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῶν σωμάτων, μὴ ῥᾳθυμούσας μηδ᾽ ἀραιᾷ τροφῇ χρωμένας. τοῦτο δὲ ῥᾴδιον τῷ νομοθέτῃ ποιῆσαι προστάξαντι καθ᾽ [15] ἡμέραν τινὰ ποιεῖσθαι πορείαν πρὸς θεῶν ἀποθεραπείαν τῶν εἰληχότων τὴν περὶ τῆς γενέσεως τιμήν. τὴν μέντοι διάνοιαν τοὐναντίον τῶν σωμάτων ῥᾳθυμοτέρως ἁρμόττει διάγειν: ἀπολαύοντα γὰρ φαίνεται τὰ γεννώμενα τῆς ἐχούσης ὥσπερ τὰ φυόμενα τῆς γῆς. 14 The anecdote reported by the physician from Ephesus cannot be contextualized; we do not know who this tyrant was or when he held power. On the influence of maternal vision, see Gourevitch 1987; Maire 2004; Dasen 2009, 40–1. For similar stories, cf. Galen (XIV, p. 253 sq. Kühn [De theriaca ad Pisonem II]); Caelius Aurelianus, Gynaecia 1.50. This tradition concerning impregnation by the gaze goes back to the fifth century bce and to Empedocles (Diels 21 A 81 apud Aetius V.12.21 [D423]): “The conformation of the fetus is submitted during pregnancy to imagination (φαντασία) of women; often, they fall for statues or paintings and have children who resemble these objects (μορφούσθαι).” Cf. also Dionysus of Halicarnassus, On Imitation 9.1.2; Heliodorus, Aethiopika 4.8.3.5; see Billault 1981, 63–8. On the influence of both parents, cf. Pliny, Natural History 7.10. In some other cases, food ingested by the mother affects the development of the foetus. Cf. Hippocrates, Superfetation 18 (Littré 1979[1851], VIII 486, 7–9): “If a pregnant woman wishes to eat coal, and she does so, a mark will appear on the head of the child at birth as a result” (trans. Potter 2012). Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World 61

15 Oribasius, Uncertain Books 17.7–8 (apud Bussemaker and Daremberg 1858, 130; see Bertier 1972). 16 See Dasen 2012, 57. 17 Oribasius, Uncertain Books 15.2–3 (Bussemaker and Daremberg 1858, 130). 18 Oribasius, Uncertain Books 15.5–7 (Bussemaker and Daremberg 1858, 130). See Dasen 2012, 57. 19 Cf. also Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. 12.1.19: “This – by Heaven! – is the very reason for what often excites our surprise, that some children of chaste women turn out to be like their parents, neither in body nor in mind” (trans. Rolfe 1927); for the qualities of the nurse – good or bad – are transmitted through her milk. Besides, according to Aulus Gellius (12.1.20), “For the milk, although imbued from the beginning with the material of the father’s seed, forms the infant offspring from the body and mind of the mother as well.” 20 Likewise, it transmits diseases. For instance, according to Hippocrates, “if a nurse is not healthy, but has excessive bile, water, blood or phlegm, her milk will be injurious to the infant; (…) the infant, if sucking from its nurse milk that is not clean, but bilious, becomes itself, as I have said, sickly and weak, and suffers pain for as long as it continues to suck injurious and unhealthy milk” (Diseases 4.24 [Littré 1979[1851], VII, 55]; trans. Potter 2012). The Stagirite too is concerned about maternal milk – about its nutritional quality, whose clues are colour, smell, and warmth – and on which depends the health of the newborn: “It is usual for most babies to be attacked by convulsions, especially those that are better grown and get milk that is more plentiful and thicker and whose wet-nurses are well-fleshed” (History of Animals 9.7.12.588a3–6; trans. Balme 1991). See Bodiou 2011, 146–7; also Djéribi 1988; Boccara 1998; Laskaris 2008; Marshall 2017b. 21 See Bodiou 2006, 162–3. 22 See Dasen 2009, 44. 23 See Dasen 2009. 24 Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia 1d (The Education of Children). 25 See Azoulay 2004; Gherchanoc 2016, 84–5, 129–33. 26 Cf. also Generation of Animals 1.17.721b, 1.18.724a3–7. 27 Dasen 2009, 44. 28 Cf. Greek Anthology 6.353; Artemidorus, Oneiromancy 2.36. See Frontisi- Ducroux and Vernant 1997, 120. 29 On the articulation of these discourses and the way they answer and complete themselves, see particularly Wilson 1996; Hall 2006; Villacèque 2013. 30 Cf. Aeschylus, Eumenides, 658–61; see Bonnard 2006, 307. 31 κἀγὼ μὲν ηὔδων τῷ γαμοῦντι μήτε σοὶ / 620 κῆδος ξυνάψαι μήτε δώμασιν λαβεῖν / κακῆς γυναικὸς πῶλον: ἐκφέρουσι γὰρ / μητρῷ᾽ ὀνείδη. τοῦτο καὶ σκοπεῖτέ μοι, / μνηστῆρες, ἐσθλῆς θυγατέρ᾽ ἐκ μητρὸς λαβεῖν. 6262 Florence Mairéad62 Contents Gherchanoc McAuley

32 Cf. also Greek Anthology 9.96: “Maiden with lovely cheeks, daughter mine, let thy spindle ever be thy fellow-worker, a possession sufficient for a life of poverty. But if thou enterest into wedlock, keep with thee the virtues of thy Achaean mother (ήθεα μητρὸς χρηστὰ φύλασσε), the safest dowry thy husband can have” (trans. Paton 1917). 33 See Sourvinou-Inwood 1994. 34 νῦν δ᾽ ἐξὸν πατρὸς / πάντων ἀρίστου παῖδα κεκλῆσθαι, καλοῦ / τῆς μητρός: οὕτω γὰρ φανεῖ πλείστοις κακή, / θανόντα πατέρα καὶ φίλους προδοῦσα σούς. 35 On Electra and her ugliness: Aeschylus, Libation Bearers, 135; Euripides, Electra, 107–10, 241, 304–6; Sophocles, Electra, 616–21. On Clytemnestra and her beauty: Euripides, Electra, 965–6, 1062–4, 1069–75. On the opposition between mother and daughter (one is “virgin” and “chaste,” the other “more sensual and loose”) as well as the parallelism of their virile and imperious natures, see Vernant 1971[1963], 137–8; on the resemblance of repetitive murderous scenes against relatives, see Saïd 1984, 64; on the impossibility of transmission, see Bodiou 2005, 32–6. 36 Bodiou, Brulé, Pierini 2005, 31; Gherchanoc Forthcoming. 37 ἐμὸν δ᾽ ἔφησεν ἡ μήτηρ ἔργον εἶναι σωφρονεῖ. Cf. Ischomachos about his young wife: “For in control of appetite, Socrates, she had been excellently trained (πάνυ καλῶς […] πεπαιδευμένη); and I regard that sort of training to be the most important for a man and woman alike” (Xenophon, Oeconomicus 7.6). 38 οὐκ ἠπίστατο τοῖς τοῦ Φράστορος τρόποις ἀρέσκειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐζήτει τὰ τῆς μητρὸς ἔθη καὶ τὴν παρ᾽ αὐτῇ ἀκολασίαν, ἐν τοιαύτῃ οἶμαι ἐξουσίᾳ τεθραμμένη. 51 ὁρῶν δὲ Φράστωρ αὐτὴν οὔτε κοσμίαν οὖσαν οὔτ᾽ ἐθέλουσαν αὑτοῦ ἀκροᾶσθαι, ἅμα δὲ καὶ πεπυσμένος σαφῶς ἤδη ὅτι Στεφάνου μὲν οὐκ εἴη θυγάτηρ, Νεαίρας δέ, τὸ δὲ πρῶτον ἐξηπατήθη, ὅτ᾽ ἠγγυᾶτο ὡς Στεφάνου θυγατέρα λαμβάνων καὶ οὐ Νεαίρας, ἀλλὰ τούτῳ ἐξ ἀστῆς αὐτὴν γυναικὸς οὖσαν πρότερον πρὶν ταύτῃ συνοικῆσαι. 39 Villacèque 2014, §3. 40 Lett 1997, 17. 41 On the role of the mother who nourishes, nurses the newborn, then accompanies the child till an advanced age, cf. Xenophon, Oeconomicus 7.24; see Garland 1990, 147–58. On the standard representation of maternity and its reassessment and questioning, see Gherchanoc 2015. 4

Nωδυνία – L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles et le Chant Théocritéen: d’Alcmène (Id. 24) à Bérénice (Id. 17) florence klein

“L’oubli des souffrances” qu’évoque mon titre fait référence à la νωδυνία, la cessation des douleurs – et, en l’occurrence, des douleurs de l’accouchement – que la déesse des parturientes, Ilithye, verse sur les membres de la reine Bérénice Ire tandis que celle-ci donne naissance au futur Ptolémée Philadelphe, dans l’encomium composé par Théocrite pour ce dernier, l’idylle 17 (Theocr. Id. 17.56–64):

σὲ δ᾽ αἰχμητὰ Πτολεμαῖε αἰχμητᾷ Πτολεμαίῳ ἀρίζηλος Βερενίκα. καί σε Κόως ἀτίταλλε βρέφος νεογιλλὸν ἐόντα, δεξαμένα παρὰ ματρός, ὅτε πρώταν ἴδες ἀῶ. ἔνθα γὰρ Εἰλείθυιαν ἐβώσατο λυσίζωνον 60 ‘Αντιγόνας θυγάτηρ βεβαρημένα ὠδίνεσσιν: ἡ δέ οἱ εὐμενέοισα παρίστατο, κὰδ δ᾽ ἄρα πάντων νωδυνίαν κατέχευε μελῶν: ὁ δὲ πατρὶ ἐοικὼς παῖς ἀγαπητὸς ἔγεντο.

(Toi, guerrier Ptolémée, la brillante Bérénice t’a donné au guerrier Ptolémée. Cos te choya, quand tu étais un tout petit enfant; elle t’avait reçu de ta mère lorsque tu vis ta première aurore; car c’est à Cos que la fille d’Antigone, accablée des douleurs de l’enfantement, invoqua Ilithye qui délie les ceintures; la déesse l’assista avec bonté, répandant sur toute sa personne l’apaisement des souffrances; et, semblable à son père, l’enfant chéri vint au monde.)1 64 64Florence Contents Klein

Cette évocation de la naissance de Ptolémée à Cos contraste avec celle d’Apollon à Délos, d’où Ilithye était absente pour que soit retardée la délivrance de Léto conformément au vœu d’Héra tandis qu’ici elle répond immédiatement à l’appel de la reine pour la soulager de ses peines.2 L’Hymne à Délos de Callimaque, contemporain de l’idylle théocritéenne et qui fait explicitement le parallèle entre les naissances d’Apollon et de Ptolémée II,3 met quant à lui largement l’accent sur les souffrances de la parturiente, alors que Théocrite prend soin de les gommer, de les effacer lorsqu’il évoque avec pudeur l’accouchement de la reine Bérénice Ire. Cette propension respective des deux poètes, pour l’un – Callimaque – à représenter des maternités dou- loureuses, et pour l’autre – Théocrite – à valoriser au contraire des figures de mères fortes et puissantes a été relevée;4 je voudrais pour ma part revenir sur cette image particulière de l’oubli des souffrances qu’Ilythie “répandait sur tous les membres” (πάντων / νωδυνίαν κατέχευε μελῶν) de la reine d’Égypte, en considérant qu’elle pourrait valoir aussi pour l’auteur conscient de l’oubli (métapoétique) qu’il répand sur ses propres chants, si du moins on accepte de penser qu’il joue ici sur les sens du terme μέλος (membre) pour désigner, en même temps que les membres de la reine, les vers qui, dans ce passage, la célèbrent. De fait, ce motif de l’oubli des douleurs que le poète répandrait sur son chant, à la manière d’Ilithye, me paraît important si l’on reconsidère un autre texte de Théocrite, l’idylle 24, qui met en scène – en la personne d’Alcmène – une autre mère rendue illustre par le fils exceptionnel qu’elle a enfanté et élevé avec soin, et qui (si l’on accepte les interprétations du poème qui y voient, en filigrane, la possibilité d’un autre éloge, moins explicite, de Phila- delphe) peut être naturellement rapprochée en cela de Bérénice elle-même. Ainsi, après avoir rappelé la valorisation de la figure maternelle qu’opère Théocrite dans ce poème et les résonnances politiques dont cette même valorisation peut être chargée, je voudrais observer comment, par ses silences ou ses démentis intertextuels, le poète y a “effacé les douleurs de l’enfantement,” et avec elles le spectre d’une maternité à la face plus sombre, tout en suggérant par des jeux allusifs et les effets de l’ambivalence poétique, qu’il est bien en train – comme Ilithye pour Bérénice – de répandre sur son propre poème cet oubli des souffrances liées à la maternité.

1. D’une mère à l’autre? Alcmène et Bérénice

L’idylle 24 de Théocrite, l’Herakliskos, conte l’épisode bien connu des serpents envoyés par Héra pour tuer le fils de sa rivale et retrouvés au pied du berçeau, étranglés par le nourrisson. Théocrite fait de cet épisode de la vie du héros le sujet d’un poème charmant, où règne une atmosphère intime et L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 65 domestique, propre à mettre en avant la figure maternelle d’Alcmène. Tan- dis que le couple royal est représenté dans son quotidien (celui de jeunes parents éveillés en pleine nuit par les cris provenant de la pièce où dorment leurs deux petits jumeaux, Héraclès et Iphiclès), le poème place assurément au premier plan une figure de mère douce, aimante et efficace en la personne d’Alcmène. Cette dernière a été très tôt définie avant tout, dans la tradition littéraire, par sa maternité. Le poème pseudo-hésiodique sur le bouclier d’Héraclès rappelle qu’elle a été choisie par Zeus pour enfanter Héraclès et évoque la ruse par laquelle le dieu a pu parvenir à ses fins; l’Iliade mentionne le fameux accouchement retardé à cause de la jalousie d’Héra; Pindare, qui relate précisément l’épisode des serpents dans la première Néméenne, dépeint une Alcmène jeune accouchée qui, à la vue des terribles bêtes, se jette hors de son lit avec courage pour défendre sa progéniture. Mais c’est Théocrite qui met véritablement en avant cette figure de mère qu’il donne comme exemplaire. Il suffit, pour s’en convaincre, de relire l’idylle, dont les manuscrits médiévaux nous ont livré les cent quarante premiers vers: chacun des quatre moments qui constituent le poème voient Alcmène jouer un rôle prééminent. Tout d’abord, le texte s’ouvre sur une scène pleine de tendresse: les soins accordés par la jeune mère à ses deux enfants âgés de dix mois (Theocr. Id. 24.1–10):

῾Ηρακλέα δεκάμηνον ἐόντα πόχ᾽ ἁ Μιδεᾶτις ᾿Αλκμήνα καὶ νυκτὶ νεώτερον ᾿Ιφικλῆα, ἀμφοτέρους λούσασα καὶ ἐμπλήσασα γάλακτος, χαλκείαν κατέθηκεν ἐς ἀσπίδα, τὰν Πτερελάου ᾿Αμφιτρύων καλὸν ὅπλον ἀπεσκύλευσε πεσόντος. 5 ἁπτομένα δὲ γυνὰ κεφαλᾶς μυθήσατο παίδων: ‘εὕδετ᾽ ἐμὰ βρέφεα γλυκερὸν καὶ ἐγέρσιμον ὕπνον, εὕδετ᾽ ἐμὰ ψυχά, δύ᾽ ἀδελφεώ, εὔσοα τέκνα: ὄλβιοι εὐνάζοισθε καὶ ὄλβιοι ἀῶ ἵκοισθε.’ ῝Ως φαμένα δίνασε σάκος μέγα: τοὺς δ᾽ ἔλαβ᾽ ὕπνος. 10

(Un jour, quand Héraclès avait dix mois, Alcmène la Midéenne, après l’avoir lavé et gorgé de lait, lui et Iphiclès, son cadet d’une nuit, les déposa tous les deux dans un bouclier d’airain, belle armure dont Amphitryon avait dépouillé Ptérélaos vaincu. Et, de sa main de femme, caressant la tête des enfants, elle dit “Dormez, mes petits, un sommeil doux et dont on se réveille. Dormez, mes chères âmes, les deux frères, les beaux enfants. Heureux puissiez-vous reposer, heureux atteindre l’aurore.” Parlant ainsi, elle agita le grand bouclier et le sommeil les saisit.) 66 66Florence Contents Klein

En repoussant l’épisode dans le temps par rapport à la première Némée- nne qui situait l’envoi des serpents juste après la naissance des enfants, Thé- ocrite se prive de représenter, comme Pindare, la parturiente se levant d’un bond pour sauver ses nouveaux-nés, mais la remplace par une scène de soin dans laquelle, pour reprendre l’expression de Christophe Cusset, “l’attention maternelle prend toute sa mesure”:5 cette mère parfaite gère sans accroc le bain, l’allaitement des jumeaux et leur coucher, par ses caresses, la douceur bienveillante de ses paroles qui prennent l’allure d’une berceuse,6 le geste savant qui, berçant les bébés, les endort immédiatement. Puis, quand le palais tout entier dort et que les terribles serpents pénètrent dans la chambre des enfants, les deux petits, que le poète désigne comme “les fils chéris d’Alcmène” Ἀλκμήνας( φίλα τέκνα), se réveillent et Iphiclès pousse des cris de terreur. Théocrite nous emmène alors dans la chambre à coucher des deux parents. Bien entendu, la mère entend son enfant crier, tandis que le père dort profondément! Dans cette scène pleine d’humour, Alcmène doit réveiller Amphitryon, qui prend alors le temps de se préparer au combat – pour rien, puisque quand il arrive dans la chambre des enfants, Héraclès a déjà tué les deux bêtes. Tout au long du passage (34–63), l’inquiétude maternelle d’Alcmène contraste avec la bonhommie de son époux qui, sitôt les enfants recouchés, se rendort sans problème. Le troisième moment du texte se situe le lendemain matin: alors que dans le poème de Pindare, Amphitryon consultait le devin Tirésias pour que celui-ci interprète les événements surnaturels de la nuit, chez Théocrite, l’initiative en revient à Alcmène (64–8). Dans sa réponse, Tirésias insiste sur la gloire qui attend cette mère qualifiée d’ἀριστοτόκεια (la meilleure mère), et annonce que le nom d’Alcmène sera chanté et vénéré grâce au fils exceptionnel qu’elle a enfanté.7 Enfin, après une ellipse temporelle, la fin de l’idylle est consacrée à l’éducation du jeune Héraclès qui a bien grandi – une éducation qui fait la place aux arts, et ressemble plus à celle d’un prince hellénistique que d’un héros archaïque.8 C’est encore la figure maternelle d’Alcmène qui est mise en avant dans cette évocation de l’éducation du héros, qui se conclut ainsi: “C’est ainsi qu’une mère aimante fit élever Héraclès” (̔Ωδε μὲν ῾Ηρακλῆα φίλα παιδεύσατο μάτηρ, Theocr. Id. 24.131).9 Cette indéniable valorisation de la figure maternelle (dans ce poème certes centré sur l’exploit d’un Héraclès bébé, mais qui a bel et bien pour protagoniste la mère de ce dernier) peut être, pour partie, mise au compte de l’esthétique volontiers décalée des auteurs hellénistiques qui, en retravail- lant sur les modèles littéraires hérités du passés, préfèrent mettre en lumière, aux dépens des héros traditionnels, des figures plus humbles ou jusqu’alors jugées secondaires, et parmi elles les mères ou les épouses. De fait, ici, le modèle masculin – et en l’occurrence, le modèle paternel – peut apparaître L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 67 comme dépassé, tout comme le serait une forme ancienne de l’épopée du point de vue de ce que l’on appellera plus tard l’epyllion. Un objet embléma- tique de ce décalage est, par exemple, le bouclier, symbole par excellence de l’épopée martiale et particulièrement du modèle homérique. S’il est ici asso- cié au père, Amphitryon, qui l’a remporté lors d’une victoire militaire, il n’en est pas moins détourné de son usage pour la scène domestique du coucher où prédomine le soin maternel des jeunes enfants: le bouclier est devenu berceau, et l’on a pu noter, en particulier, que le verbe employé par Théocrite pour signifier le mouvement par lequel Alcmène berce ses enfants δίνασε( σάκος μέγα, “elle agita le grand bouclier”), traditionnellement employé en contexte guerrier pour signifier le geste menaçant par lequel le combattant fait tournoyer son bouclier pour effrayer ses adversaires, désigne ici – par ce même jeu de décalage – le mouvement régulier et rassurant avec lequel la mère endort ses petits.10 Ce jeu de détournement, comme d’autres,11 illus- trant le changement de genre (dans les deux sens du terme, du masculin au féminin, de l’épopée homérique à l’epyllion hellénistique), expliquerait alors la mise en avant de la figure maternelle aux dépens de la figure paternelle, reléguée au second plan, conformément au positionnement esthétique de la poésie théocritéenne par rapport à ses modèles traditionnels. Cela est vrai, assurément. Mais, en même temps, cette image initiale du bouclier-berceau est également susceptible d’être rapportée à une lecture de l’idylle d’ordre politique. Comme l’ont noté les commentateurs du poème, il s’agit peut-être d’une allusion à un motif lié à l’idéologie lagide: l’image de l’enfant couché dans un bouclier rappelle en effet une anecdote relatée par Elien, selon laquelle Lagos, ayant épousé Arsinoé, la mère de Ptolémée Sôter, fit exposer ce dernier sur un bouclier de bronze. L’enfant fut alors protégé par un aigle qui déployait ses ailes au-dessus de lui.12 Si l’anecdote était déjà connue à l’époque, et avait été forgée – comme c’est probable – par l’entourage même du roi, alors ce clin d’œil de Théocrite peut être l’indice d’une possible lecture politique de ce poème qui met en scène le héros que les souverains lagides avaient placé à l’origine de leur lignée, grâce à une généalogie recon- struite qui faisait d’Héraclès l’ancêtre commun d’Alexandre le Grand et de Ptolémée Ier (et donc de ces deux derniers, des cousins éloignés) – généalogie fictive que Théocrite lui-même convoque explicitement dans l’idylle 17.13 On a alors pu supposer que, tout comme ce dernier texte, l’idylle 24 faisait égale- ment, mais de manière moins explicite, l’éloge du futur Ptolémée II Philadel- phe, qui serait dépeint ici sous les traits du jeune héros si prometteur.14 Or si le poème autorise cette lecture politique, alors la prééminence de la figure maternelle en la personne d’Alcmène peut également être interprétée en ce sens: la mise en avant de la mère du héros rendrait ainsi honneur au rôle éminent joué par Bérénice dans la vie (et la carrière) de son royal fils.15 68 68Florence Contents Klein

De fait, et plus précisément, il a été suggéré que le poème fut composé pour les Basileia de 285 av. J.-C., où fut célébrée la co-régence de Ptolé- mée Ier et Ptolémée II. Comme l’ont exposé certains exégètes, cette occasion serait indiquée dans le texte même par les deux éléments de datation qu’il comporte: d’un côté, la devinette astronomique qui, indiquant les positions respectives des constellations d’Orion et de l’Ourse à minuit, permettrait de dater les événements relatés dans le poème, et de l’autre, la mention inédite de l’âge du jeune héros au moment de ces mêmes événements, puisque celui- ci y est dit “âgé de dix mois” (῾Ηρακλέα δεκάμηνον ἐόντα; nous reviendrons plus loin sur cette formule et ses ambivalences): en croisant les deux infor- mations, les commentateurs ont estimé que la date de naissance d’Héraclès ainsi indiquée par le texte coïncidait avec cette célébration des Basileia et, en l’occurrence donc, de l’avènement au pouvoir de Ptolémée II comme futur héritier du pouvoir royal.16 En outre, l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’idylle 24 célèbrerait la co-régence (et par là le choix que fit Ptolémée Ier de léguer le royaume au futur Philadelphe, c’est-à-dire au fils qu’il avait eu de sa dernière femme, Bérénice, plutôt qu’à ceux, plus âgés, qu’il avait eus de ses précédentes épouses) semble confirmée par les rapprochements qui le lient à un autre poème, également daté de cette époque et dont on a pensé qu’il avait célébré le même événement: l’Hymne à Zeus de Callimaque.17 Dans les deux poèmes, l’auteur fait l’éloge d’un dieu ou un demi-dieu, dont il conte la petite enfance (tandis que l’idylle chante l’exploit accompli par un Héraclès nourrisson, l’hymne à Zeus se focalise sur la naissance et les premiers mois de ce dernier), en mettant en avant la figure maternelle (au rôle éminent d’Alcmène dans l’idylle correspond celui de Rhéa, dont la ruse a sauvé la vie d’un fils exceptionnel appelé à succéder à son père), et en insistant sur la jeunesse et la précocité de l’enfant, ce qui correspondrait bien à cette époque de la vie de Ptolémée II où le jeune prince accède tout juste au pouvoir et où il est plus facile de louer son caractère prometteur que de célébrer son règne à proprement parler. En outre, dans le poème callimachéen, une évocation amusée du partage des empires céleste, marin, et infernal entre les trois frères nés de Cronos a été depuis longtemps interprétée comme une allusion à la succession de Ptolémée Ier: Zeus est si précoce que ses frères lui ont concédé la meilleure part du pouvoir bien qu’il soit le plus jeune d’entre eux, modèle d’un Phil- adelphe à qui sa supériorité aurait garanti la succession du royaume, aux dépens de ses demi-frères plus âgés que lui.18 Or, dans le texte de Théocrite, le même jeu pourrait se déceler aux vers 30–1 lorsque l’enfant, attaqué par les serpents, est qualifié d’ὀψίγονος, d’enfant “tard venu.”19 Ce terme poly- sémique peut désigner à la fois un enfant né quand ses parents étaient déjà âgés, un enfant né après le terme (nous reviendrons sur ce sens, qui, dans L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 69 le mythe, s’applique également à Héraclès), ou encore un enfant né après d’autres enfants, qui est donc le cadet de ses frères. Ce dernier sens pourrait constituer, comme dans le texte de Callimaque, une allusion à la supériorité du futur Ptolémée II sur ses aînés et la justification de la co-régence20. Si l’on accepte de lire le texte avec cet arrière-plan politique précis, alors la valorisation du rôle d’Alcmène peut se comprendre assurément comme un hom- mage à la mère du jeune roi, Bérénice Ire, dont on suppose à bon droit que son influence fut déterminante dans le choix par Ptolémée Sôter de Ptolémée Philadelphe, pour lui succéder, et ce au détriment de ses autres enfants, plus âgés.21 On peut donc penser que l’éloge d’Alcmène que tisse l’idylle con- sacrée à l’exploit de son fils exceptionnel pouvait évoquer la reine Bérénice, fût-ce indirectement, au moment de chanter l’avènement au pouvoir de son fils, et le rôle décisif que celle-ci dut y avoir joué.22 De fait, le mythe était approprié à un tel jeu d’écho à plusieurs égards. Comme nous l’avons rappelé, son héros, Héraclès, était l’ancêtre allégué des Ptolémées, tandis que la célébration d’un exploit accompli très tôt dans sa petite enfance s’accordait bien avec la circonstance des Basileia qui invitait à louer la précoc- ité du jeune héritier; en outre, comme l’a suggéré Susan Stephens, un élément important du mythe était la vertu préservée d’Alcmène, qui réussit l’exploit de demeurer fidèle à son époux (puisque c’est en lui que Zeus s’est métamorphosé pour s’unir à elle) tout en faisant de son fils un demi-dieu. Le motif de l’amour conjugal était central dans l’idéologie lagide, où le désir mutuel au sein du couple royal fondait la légitimité dynastique;23 cette fidélité de la femme amoureuse de son époux, enfantant des fils qui lui ressemblent et, dès lors, dignes de lui suc- céder, est de fait explicitement louée par Théocrite à propos de Bérénice:

Nulle femme, dit-on, n’a jamais plu autant à son mari que Ptolémée n’a eu d’amour pour son épouse. Et certes il était en retour aimé bien davantage encore. Un homme peut, dans ces conditions, remettre avec confiance à ses enfants la garde de toute sa maison, lorsqu’il gagne, plein d’amour, la couche d’une compagne aimante. La femme sans tendresse, elle, pense toujours à l’homme étranger; elle enfante facilement, mais les enfants qu’elle a ne ressemblent pas à leur père. (Theocr. Id. 17.38–44)

C’est ainsi que, dans le passage cité au début de ce chapitre, Bérénice est dit avoir donné à Ptolémée Ier un fils à son image en la personne de Ptolémée II (σὲ δ᾽ αἰχμητὰ Πτολεμαῖε / αἰχμητᾷ Πτολεμαίῳ ἀρίζηλος Βερενίκα, “Toi, guerrier Ptolémée, la brillante Bérénice t’a donné au guerrier Ptolémée”; ὁ δὲ πατρὶ ἐοικὼς / παῖς ἀγαπητὸς ἔγεντο, “et, semblable à son père, l’enfant chéri vint au monde,” Theocr. Id. 17.56–7; 63–4), au terme d’un accouchement dont – rappelons-le – Illythie a effacé toutes les douleurs. 70 70Florence Contents Klein

Trouver en cela l’équivalent mythologique de Bérénice n’était guère aisé: parmi les concubines de Zeus, susceptibles donc d’avoir enfanté un fils semi- divin (comme l’était en quelque sorte Ptolémée en voie de divinisation lui- même), seule Alcmène pouvait être associée à la vertu conjugale. Théocrite dénoue habilement la contradiction, avec cette mère qui à la fois garantit à son fils une paternité divine (à laquelle le poète fait subtilement allusion, en évoquant le bouclier pris par Amphitryon à Ptérélaos, pendant qu’Héraclès était conçu des œuvres de Zeus), sans cesser d’être une épouse aimante et fidèle, en cela digne double de la reine lagide célébrée dans l’idylle 17. Mais, précisément, il est un autre aspect du mythe qui était susceptible de poser problème, en ne coïncidant pas exactement avec la vision idéalisée de la figure maternelle, telle que la met en avant Théocrite: la grossesse difficile d’Alcmène, son accouchement différé par la jalousie d’Héra et les souffrances de l’enfantement qui en ont résulté – autant de motifs visiblement évacu és par le poète, parce qu’ils pouvaient apporter leur part d’ombre dans cette vision de la maternité faite de douceur et de plénitude, et parce que, peut-être, ils contrasteraient – si cet élément du mythe était actualisé – avec l’évocation de cet autre accouchement royal, celui de Bérénice à Cos, dont le poète a pris soin de mentionner qu’il était béni des divinités au point que celles-ci ont pris soin d’effacer les douleurs de la parturiente. Or ce motif de la maternité douloureuse fait indéniablement partie du mythe d’Alcmène dans la tradition (l’accouchement différé était évoqué dès l’Iliade d’Homère). Sans surprise, on le trouve détaillé avec le plus de force dans les textes qui donnent la parole à la principale intéressée, comme dans la Mégara du pseudo-Moschos (nous reviendrons sur ce texte), ou dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide, où Alcmène se confie à Iole et lui conte par le menu cet accouchement retardé par la vengance d’Héra ainsi que les souffrances qu’elle a endurées, à l’instar de Léto dans l’Hymne à Délos (Ov. Met. 9.281–96):

Faueant tibi numina saltem conripiantque moras, tum cum matura uocabis praepositam timidis parientibus Ilithyiam, quam mihi difficilem Iunonis gratia fecit. Namque laboriferi cum iam natalis adesset 285 Herculis et decimum premeretur sidere signum, (…) Nec iam tolerare labores ulterius poteram: quin nunc quoque frigidus artus, 290 dum loquor, horror habet, parsque est meminisse doloris. Septem ego per noctes, totidem cruciata diebus, fessa malis tendensque ad caelum bracchia magno L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 71

Lucinam Nixosque pares clamore uocabam. Illa quidem uenit, sed praecorrupta meumque 295 quae donare caput Iunoni uellet iniquae.

(Puisses-tu, pour ta part au moins, trouver les dieux favorables, puissent-ils abréger tes souffrances, le jour où, parvenue au terme de ta grossesse, tu invoqueras Ilithye, protectrice des femmes en couche qui redoutent ce moment; avec moi, pour com- plaire à Junon, elle fut cruelle. Déjà approchait l’instant où allait naître cet Hercule qu’attendaient tant de travaux et le Soleil foulait le dixième signe du zodiaque (…) je ne pouvais supporter plus longtemps mes douleurs; aujourd’hui même, lorsque j’en parle, mon corps est glacé d’horreur et leur seul souvenir est encore une douleur. Après des tortures qui durèrent sept nuits et autant de jours, épuisée par la souffrance, tendant mes bras vers le ciel, j’invoquais à grand cris Lucine et les déesses de l’enfantement. Lucine vint bien, mais corrompue d’avance par Junon, mon ennemie, à qui elle voulait sacrifier ma vie.)

Quand, donc, Alcmène se confie dans l’intimité d’un dialogue “entre femmes,” on voit revenir ce motif des douleurs de l’accouchement, que Théocrite a, pour sa part, délibérément “effacées,” “oubliées” de son poème. On peut même mentionner l’existence d’une version alternative du mythe, transmise par Diodore de Sicile qui présente la face la plus sombre de la maternité d’Alcmène.24 Au début de son évocation de la geste d’Héraclès, Diodore rappelle qu’Alcmène fut choisie par Zeus pour enfanter ce héros et mentionne les fanfaronnades du dieu sur ce fils extraordinaire à venir, fanfaronnades qui entraînèrent la jalousie et la ruse d’Héra, et, suite à la colère de cette dernière, l’accouchement différé d’Alcmène qui ne fut pas délivrée “une fois atteint le laps de temps que la nature impose aux femmes enceintes” (Διελθόντος δὲ τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν χρόνου ταῖς ἐγκύοις). Jugeant que l’enfant risquait de lui causer trop d’ennuis, Alcmène refusa de s’en occuper et l’abandonna à la naissance; c’est alors Héra qui, le trouvant, l’allaita, avant qu’Athéna contraigne Alcmène à reprendre son enfant et à le nourrir. Le narrateur conclut en soulignant le paradoxe de la situation, et en s’indignant, naturellement, de ce que la mère qui devait chérir son enfant l’ait exposé (ἡ μὲν γὰρ στέργειν ὀφείλουσα μήτηρ τὸ ἴδιον τέκνον ἀπώλλυεν). On voit avec cette variante extraordinaire du mythe, dans lequel la mère parfaite de Théo- crite est – au contraire – tentée par l’infanticide, que l’histoire d’Alcmène aurait pu être celle d’un autre rapport à la maternité, un rapport douloureux et sombre. Théocrite connaissait-il cette version du mythe, telle qu’elle sera rap- portée par son compatriote deux siècles plus tard? Ce qui pourrait le laisser penser est la façon dont il semble avoir délibérément gommé, effacé, 72 72Florence Contents Klein ces deux moments pénibles ou honteux: l’accouchement différé, d’une part, et le refus d’allaiter le nourrisson, de l’autre. Je voudrais donc désormais éprouver l’hypothèse de jeux de réécriture visant à effacer, à passer sous silence et, ainsi, à démentir l’histoire douloureuse, le versant noir de la maternité d’Alcmène, et ce, tout en laissant voir, étonnamment, ce procédé d’effacement à l’œuvre.

2. Le refus de l’allaitement et l’accouchement retardé: l’“oubli des douleurs” maternelles dans l’idylle 24

On peut commencer par le second point – la question de l’allaitement de l’enfant – parce que loin de suivre la même version du mythe, s’il la connaissait, Théocrite précise immédiatement, dès le troisième vers du poème, qu’Alcmène a “gorgé de lait” les deux enfants (Theocr. Id. 24.1–5):

Le début de l’idylle 24 dément donc d’emblée le soupçon selon lequel Alcmène n’aurait pas nourri elle-même Héraclès; qu’il s’agisse bien d’un démenti, plutôt que d’une pure ignorance des versions alternatives du mythe, cela peut nous être indiqué par les jeux d’une écriture ambivalente un peu plus loin dans le texte, au vers 31, quand le poète décrit l’attaque des serpents: Héraclès y est alors caractérisé comme un enfant “encore nourri au sein, qui dans les bras de sa nourrice ne pleure jamais” – c’est du moins une des traductions possibles du vers, dont la construction est assez ambiguë: γαλαθηνόν ὑπὸ τροφῷ αἰὲν ἄδακρυν.

τὼ δ᾽ αὖτε σπείραισιν ἑλισσέσθην περὶ παῖδα ὀψίγονον, γαλαθηνόν [,] ὑπὸ τροφῷ αἰὲν ἄδακρυν

(Eux, de leur côté, enroulaient leurs anneaux autour de l’enfant tard venu, de l’enfant encore à la mamelle, nourrisson ignorant des larmes (/de l’enfant encore au sein de sa nourrice, ignorant des larmes).)25 L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 73

Selon la manière dont on construit la phrase, le texte pourrait laisser entendre qu’Alcmène ne nourrit pas elle-même Héraclès: si on associe entre eux les termes γαλαθηνόν et ὑπὸ τροφῷ qui, de fait, semblent au premier abord devoir être liés entre eux, émerge l’image d’un enfant encore au sein de sa nourrice (γαλαθηνόν ὑπὸ τροφῷ). En ce cas, Héraclès serait un de ces enfants que leur mère n’allaite pas (et dont les auteurs anciens soulignent à l’envi les dangers qu’ils courent à boire le lait d’une nourrice étrangère). Mais parce que Théocrite a explicitement souligné, au début de l’idylle, qu’Alcmène avait nourri de lait ses enfants, et à cause de ce qui apparaîtrait sinon comme une contradiction patente, les éditeurs préfèrent séparer γαλαθηνόν et ὑπὸ τροφῷ, le premier terme étant alors pris uniquement comme une indication de l’âge de l’enfant (c’est encore un nourrisson) tandis que la formule ὑπὸ τροφῷ se comprend en lien avec αἰὲν ἄδακρυν: l’enfant ne pleure pas quand sa nourrice le porte, la nourrice étant ici celle qui s’occupe du bébé mais ne l’allaite pas nécessairement. Richard Hunter a d’ailleurs argué en faveur de cette ponctuation à la lumière d’un passage comparable dans l’Hymne à Déméter mentionnant l’enfant qui pleure dans les bras de ses nourrices (τροφοί) qui, dans le contexte, ne sont clairement pas ses nourricières.26 Tout en suivant cette interprétation que, de fait, le texte nous impose, on peut tout de même souligner que le rapprochement de γαλαθηνόν et ὑπὸ τροφῷ dans le texte de Théocrite est autrement ambivalent – comme un souvenir d’une version dans laquelle Alcmène n’allaiterait pas son enfant, souvenir vigoureusement démenti néanmoins par l’affirmation initiale et la scène de tendresse maternelle qui ouvre le texte. Tout se passe donc comme si Théocrite laissait affleurer la possibilité d’une autre histoire autour de l’allaitement d’Héraclès, tout en ayant pris soin de la rendre caduque avant même de nous donner la possibilité de la considérer réellement. En ce cas, et si du moins il pouvait supposer connue du lecteur une version alternative du mythe proche de celle que livrera Diodore, il soulignerait alors, par la mise en scène de ce démenti, la différence entre son Alcmène, la mère en tous points parfaite, et l’autre, la mauvaise mère. Or cette hypothèse d’un soupçon ainsi (ré-)introduit alors qu’il a été auparavant invalidé par le début de l’idylle me semble d’autant plus probable que le même vers 31 semble également pouvoir faire allusion au second motif lié à la maternité douloureuse d’Alcmène: son accouchement retardé par Héra. Cet aspect de la légende d’Héraclès, qui n’est jamais mentionné explicitement dans le poème, pourrait en effet être évoqué ici, comme de manière subliminale, à travers l’ajectif ὀψίγονος, “tard venu.” Nous avons déjà rappelé les divers sens que peut avoir le terme, appliqué à un enfant, et en particulier celui de “né après (d’autres enfants),” de “puiné,” sens qui peut l’emporter dans le cadre d’une lecture politique du poème, si celui-ci 74 74Florence Contents Klein a été composé pour célébrer l’accession à la co-régence du futur Ptolémée Philadelphe, le fils que Ptolémée Sôter avait eu de Bérénice – sa dernière épouse – cette succession annoncée se faisant donc aux dépens de ses demi- frères plus âgés. Mais l’adjectif peut également désigner l’enfant “né tard,” c’est-à-dire “né après le terme,” sens naturellement susceptible d’être évo- qué à l’esprit du lecteur qui connaît la légende de l’accouchement repoussé et de la grossesse prolongée imposée à Alcmène.27 Mais là encore, cette vision, tout en étant rendue possible par l’ambivalence du terme, semble avoir été auparavant désamorcée dans la mesure où cet épi- sode pénible a bel et bien été oblitéré par Théocrite – qui, malgré tout, nous laisserait peut-être ainsi voir à l’œuvre la manière dont il a, de fait, effacé, éradiqué ce motif de l’accouchement différé. De fait, ici encore, comme pour la question de l’allaitement, l’ambivalence portée par le terme ὀψίγονος au vers 31 (qui peut soit rappeler l’épisode douloureux de l’accouchement dif- féré, soit contribuer indirectement à identifier le petit Héraclès au jeune Ptolémée et donc favoriser une lecture politique de l’idylle) doit être mise en relation avec le tout début du texte, et la présence, pour qualifier le bébé héroïque, de l’adjectif δεκάμηνος, mis en valeur dès les premiers mots du poème: ῾Ηρακλέα δεκάμηνον ἐόντα. La formule ambiguë peut signifier soit qu’Héraclès est âgé de dix mois au moment de l’action, soit rappeler qu’il est un δεκάμηνος παῖς au sens médical, un enfant qui a atteint le dixième mois dans le ventre de sa mère.28 Manifestement, Théocrite joue là avec les attentes de son auditoire, puisque celui-ci, en découvrant l’idylle, ne peut savoir lequel de ces deux sens s’actualise dans le texte. Ajoutons que, dès lors que le parti-pris de situer l’action dix mois après la naissance d’Héraclès (et non immédiate- ment après celle-ci comme chez Pindare) est une innovation théocritéenne, rien ne nous pousse a priori à penser qu’il s’agit d’une mention de l’âge de l’enfant, alors inédit dans sa légende, plutôt que celle du terme “normal” des dix mois de gestation appelé à être outrepassé du fait de la malédiction d’Héra. A la lecture des premiers mots de l’idylle, donc, on peut s’attendre à un récit entièrement consacré à l’accouchement différé d’Alcmène (tel qu’on pourra le lire chez Ovide par exemple) mais cette attente est vite détrompée et l’autre sens de δεκάμηνος rapidement actualisé dès lors que l’on découvre la scène de soin maternel heureuse et idéalisée qui ouvre le poème, Alcmène berçant tendrement les enfants qu’elle a lavés et abondamment nourris de lait, sans qu’il soit du tout question de son accouchement douloureux. Il est d’ailleurs notable que cet autre sens de δεκάμηνος, celui qui dit l’âge d’Héraclès au moment des événements, est également ce qui, associé à la devinette astronomique, permettrait à Théocrite de faire coïncider la naissance de l’enfant et les Ptolemaia, identifiant ce dernier au futur Ptolémée L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 75

II et donc sa mère Alcmène à Bérénice. On observe alors la même alternative, portée par ce terme comme par l’adjectif ὀψίγονος plus loin, entre une maternité idéalisée qui associe en filigrane Alcmène à la reine Bérénice, d’une part, et le fantôme, convoqué mais aussitôt démenti, de la maternité douloureuse par le motif de l’accouchement différé. Ces effets d’ambivalence suggèrent que, plus qu’une ignorance, ce qui se joue dans le texte de Théocrite semble être la négation volontaire des souffrances d’Alcmène telles qu’elles ont pu donner lieu à une autre version de la légende, les douleurs de l’accouchement, et, par conséquent, le refus d’allaiter ce fils source de malheur. Oblitérant à dessein cette part du mythe, l’Herakliskos crée l’image d’une mère parfaite, en tous points idéale et assurément bénie des dieux par sa progéniture (elle est y qualifiée d’ἀριστοτόκεια par Tirésias) et donc favorisée dans sa maternité comme l’est la Bérénice de l’idylle 17, aux souffrances instantanément effacées par la déesse des parturientes. Sans pousser trop loin l’anachronisme, on pourrait par ailleurs observer que ces jeux de démenti résonnent d’une certaine manière dans une autre forme de construction, plus actuelle, de l’image de la maternité idéalisée qui, parce qu’elle est la norme, pousse à condamner celle qui vivrait sa maternité autrement, oserait se plaindre de la pénibilité de la grossesse, des douleurs de l’accouchement, ou des dif- ficultés de l’allaitement. En quelque sorte, le “non-dit” littéraire de Théo- crite, ses silences intertextuels, anticiperaient déjà une forme de non-dit, ou de tabou, qui prédomine encore aujourd’hui – ou aujourd’hui plus que jamais? – dans notre société. Cependant, le procédé théocritéen me semble plus assumé, et en même temps plus subtil, dès lors que le poète ne se contente pas d’effacer tout simplement le souvenir des souffrances maternelles d’Alcmène, mais se montre en train de les effacer, comme Ilithye effaçant celles de Bérénice, “répandant l’oubli des souffrances sur tous ses membres,” ou – peut- être ? – “sur ses chants” eux-mêmes, si l’on pense que Théocrite peut vouloir désigner ici, de manière métapoétique, les jeux de démenti et d’oubli intertextuels qu’il est lui-même en train d’accomplir pour embellir ces deux images de maternité extraordinaire, celle d’Alcmène comme celle de Bérénice. Cet oubli intertextuel des souffrances maternelles tisserait alors un lien plus étroit encore entre les deux femmes, et pourrait offrir un indice supplémentaire, à la lumière de l’idylle 17, de la possible résonnance politique de l’idylle par l’association d’Alcmène, mère idéale du jeune Héraclès, à la reine Bérénice. Ajoutons, pour finir, que ces jeux complexes de reconnaissance par Théo- crite de l’effacement des douleurs qu’il est en train d’opérer dans ses poèmes semblent avoir été repérés par ses successeurs. Je conclurai donc en revenant 76 76Florence Contents Klein sur un texte qui, pour sa part, récuse ce non-dit, cet oubli de l’accouchement douloureux, et conteste à son tour le démenti théocritéen: la Mégara du pseudo-Moschos. Comme nous l’avons annoncé plus haut, quand Alcmène reprend la parole au sein d’un dialogue entre femmes, le texte, en lui permettant d’exprimer ses sentiments, redonne toute sa place à la souffrance niée dans l’idylle 24 (ps. Moschos, Megara 83–7):

ἐπεὶ δέκα μῆνας ἔκαμνον πρὶν καί πέρ τ’ ἰδέειν μιν, ἐμῷ ὑπὸ ἥπατ’ ἔχουσα, καί με πυλάρταο σχεδὸν ἤγαγεν Αἰδωνῆος, ὧδέ ἑ δυστοκέουσα κακὰς ὠδῖνας ἀνέτλην.

(J’ai souffert dix mois avant même de le voir, le portant au fond de mon sein; il m’a conduite tout près du royaume d’Aïdoneus aux portes hérmetiques, tant, pour le mettre au monde péniblement, j’ai enduré de cruelles douleurs.)

Dans ce bref passage, il me semble que l’auteur de la Mégara répond à Théocrite et corrige expressément son démenti des souffrances maternelles. Tout d’abord, la formule δέκα μῆνας ἔκαμνον, “j’ai souffert pendant dix mois,” me semble faire écho à la formule qui ouvre l’idylle (῾Ηρακλέα δεκάμηνον ἐόντα), avec l’ambivalence que nous avons mentionnée, à ce moment où l’auditoire ignore encore le contenu du texte qu’il s’apprête à découvrir. Le poème du pseudo-Moschos, pour sa part, réinterprète clairement les dix mois évoqués par le terme δεκάμηνος comme désignant la durée de la grossesse (on notera le jeu sur les sonorités qui semble faire du verbe ἔκαμνον le prolongement naturel des termes δέκα μῆνας, en un déploiement phonique du terme δεκάμηνον, comme si ces dix mois évoqués au début du texte de Théocrite ne pouvaient être que les dix mois d’une grossesse douloureuse). De plus, le dernier vers du passage semble aussi opérer un renversement par rapport à l’idylle 24, lorsqu’Alcmène se plaint des souffrances de l’accouchement, occultées dans la vision idéalisée de la maternité que construit Théocrite. En particulier le composé δυστοκέουσα semble répondre à celui qu’avait employé Tirésias pour célébrer la mater- nité accomplie d’Alcmène: ἀριστοτόκεια. Ainsi, l’idée de perfection heureuse et de bénédiction associée à cette figure maternelle par Tirésias, et Théocrite derrière lui, est corrigée par l’Alcmène du pseudo-Moschos qui réintroduit, contre son modèle théocritéen, les pénibles douleurs de l’accouchement (κακὰς ὠδῖνας) que l’auteur de l’idylle 24 avait effacées de la légende d’Alcmène, comme Ilithye répandant la νωδυνία, l’oubli des douleurs, sur les membres royaux de Bérénice et, peut-être, donc, sur les chants du poète lui-même. L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 77

NOTES

1 La traduction de ce texte, comme des autres, est empruntée à la Collection des Universités de France. Pour Théocrite, voir Legrand 1967 et 1953; pour Ovide, voir Lafaye (revu par Le Bonniec) 1989. 2 Cf. Hymn. Hom. Ap. 97–116 pour l’accouchement retardé de Léto, cité par Hunter 2003 ad loc. 3 Call. H. 4.55–259 pour l’accouchement de Léto; 162–90 pour la prophétie in utero d’Apollon qui laisse sa place à Cos pour la naissance de cet autre dieu que sera Ptolémée II. Sur les rapprochements et les contrastes entre les deux textes, voir Stephens 2003,122–70. 4 Burton 1995, 72: “When Callimachus’s poetry features the theme of childbirth, the focus is on the birthing process itself, with emphasis on female vulnerability and suffering. The emphasis on suffering in childbirth is not new with Callimachus, of course: the high risks of childbirth in the ancient world were notable. But the point here is that suffering in childbirth is the focus of Callimachus’s representations of childbirth and that this focus contrasts dramatically with Theocritus’s focus on women’s power in relation to children’s legitimacy.” 5 Cusset 1999, 199. 6 Sur les effets d’euphonie et d’assonance dans cette berceuse, voir Linant de Bellefonds et Prioux 2017, 277–8. Comme l’a repéré Richard Hunter, cette berceuse chantée par Alcmène fait écho à celle que chante, chez Simonide, Danaé au petit Persée (PMG 534, cité par Hunter 1996, 26–7). Hunter suggère alors qu’en rappelant Persée, l’aïeul maternel d’Héraclès, Théocrite souligne la continuité dynastique du pouvoir: il est intéressant, dans notre perspective, de noter que cette continuité dynastique est assurée par les femmes, plus précisément dans leur fonction maternelle ici symbolisée par cette tendre berceuse. 7 Theocr. Id. 24.72–81: “Ainsi parlait la reine; et lui répondit en ces termes: ‘Prends courage, femme à la noble progéniture (ἀριστοτόκεια γύναι), sang de Persée; prends courage; et, pour l’avenir, retiens dans ton esprit la meilleure espérance. Oui, par la douce lumière dès longtemps partie de mes yeux, beaucoup de femmes d’Achaïe, tandis qu’elles aminciront avec leur main le fil souple en le frottant sur leur genou, chanteront bien avant le soir Alcmène par son nom; et tu seras pour les Argiennes un objet de vénération; si grand doit être l’homme que deviendra cet enfant, ton fils! Il montera au ciel qui porte les astres, il sera un héros large de poitrine, plus fort que toutes les bêtes et que les autres humains.’” 8 Sur cette éducation: Griffiths 1979, 92; Cusset 1999, 205–6; Cusset et Acosta- Hughes 2011; Acosta-Hughes 2012 qui y voient, comme d’autres, un indice en faveur d’une lecture du poème comme éloge de Ptolémée II. 78 78Florence Contents Klein

9 Voir aussi le début de ce passage consacré à l’éducation du jeune homme: ῾Ηρακλέης δ᾽ ὑπὸ ματρὶ νέον φυτὸν ὣς ἐν ἀλωᾷ / ἐτρέφετ᾽ (“Héraclès grandit sous l’autorité de sa mère, comme un jeune arbrisseau dans un verge,” Theocr. Id. 24.103–4). 10 Voir Cusset 2009. 11 On pourrait également observer, par exemple, le détournement d’une formule iliadique, quand au vers 35 Théocrite fait dire à Alcmène que la peur l’empêche de remuer, ce qui est une correction de la réponse homérique de Diomède à Athéna qui l’accusait de lâcheté: “la peur ne me tient pas et ne m’empêche pas d’aller” (Hom. Il. 5.817, cité par Gutzwiller 1981, 17). Le vers épique du combattant héroïque voit son sens changer quand il est repris par une mère inquiète pour ses bébés. 12 Aelian, fr. 285 Hercher, mentionné par Gow 1952 ad loc. 13 Theocr. Id. 17.26–7: ἄμφω γὰρ πρόγονός σφιν ὁ καρτερὸς ῾Ηρακλείδας, / ἀμφότεροι δ᾽ ἀριθμεῦνται ἐς ἔσχατον ῾Ηρακλῆα. (“L’un et l’autre [Ptolémée Sôter et Alexandre] ont pour ancêtre le vaillant Héraclide, l’un et l’autre remontent, comme premier auteur, à Héraclès.”) 14 Voir entre autres Gow 1952; Griffiths 1979; Cusset 1999; Stephens 2003; Cusset et Acosta-Hughes 2011; Acosta-Hughes 2012; Linant de Bellefonds et Prioux 2017. 15 Voir ainsi Linant de Bellefonds et Prioux 2017, 290–1. 16 Voir par ex. Gow 1952 ad loc. Sur les différents calculs aboutissant à cette même date, on pourra se reporter à Linant de Bellefonds et Prioux 2017, 281–8. 17 Pour cette hypothèse de textes contemporains, tous deux écrits à l’occasion des Ptolemaia, et sur les rapprochements qui les relient, voir Stephens 2003, 127. 18 Call. H. 1.58–9, Τῷ τοι καὶ γνωτοὶ προτερηγενέες περ ἐόντες / Οὐρανὸν οὐκ ἐμέγηραν ἔχειν ἐπιδαίσιον οἶκον. (“Aussi tes frères, bien que tes aînés, ne te disputèrent point ta juste part, la Maison Céleste.”) 19 Theocr. Id. 24.30–1 (le texte est cité plus loin). 20 Voir Linant de Bellefonds and Prioux 2017, 289–90. 21 Stephens 2003, 137. 22 Notons ici que Christophe Cusset et Benjamin Acosta-Hughes ont également avancé un argument en faveur d’une composition de l’Herakliskos pour la circonstance des Basileia sous la forme d’une allusion que ferait le poète lui-même en désignant Alcmène, au moment où elle prend conseil auprès de Tirésias, comme βασίλεια plutôt que son équivalent métrique βασίλισσα que Théocrite emploie ailleurs: Id. 24.72, τόσσ᾽ ἔλεγεν βασίλεια (Cusset et Acosta- Hughes 2011). Les auteurs soulignent en outre que ce possible clin d’œil se ferait à un moment de transition, au début du pronostic concernant le futur du jeune Héraclès. Si l’on suit cette hypothèse, on pourra alors penser en outre, dans notre perspective, qu’il est signifiant que la référence à ce moment L’Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles 79

déterminant pour le futur du jeune Ptolémée, si c’est de cela qu’il s’agit, soit portée par le nom de la reine, comme pour souligner, donc, la présence de cette dernière à l’arrière-plan de l’événement. 23 Voir par exemple, sur ce point, Gutzwiller 1992. 24 Diod. Sic. 4. 9. Sur cette variante extraordinaire de la légende d’Alcmène, voir Davidson 2000. 25 Theocr. Id. 24.30–1. 26 Hymn. hom. Dem, 284–91. Voir Hunter 1996. 27 L’ambivalence du terme peut se mesurer dans les réactions opposées des commentateurs: tandis que Gow 1952 juge que cette évocation éventuelle de la grossesse prolongée dans le terme ὀψίγονος n’est pas pertinente, White 1979 la juge pertinente. 28 Ainsi Hippocrate dans son traité sur les fœtus de huit mois (Περὶ ὀκταμήνου, 7) désigne-t-il, pour les opposer à ces derniers, les enfants qui sont restés dix mois dans le ventre de leur mère (τὰ δεκάμηνα καλεόμενα). 5

“Nimis … mater”: Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid federica bessone

1. Thetis and the Start of the Achilleid: A Minor Goddess, a Minor Epic

It is up to Thetis to set in motion Statius’ second epic: an incomplete poem, interrupted soon after the beginning of the second book, which would have told Achilles’ whole life.1 The Achilleid opens onto the image of Paris coming back from Sparta with Helen: seeing the ship, the marine goddess under- stands that destiny is approaching her son, the present pupil of Chiron and future destroyer of Troy, the “magnanimous” hero to whom immortality is denied, as the incipit of the poem has already proclaimed (Ach. 1.1–3). The war, which will see Achilles both victorious and a victim of fate, is imminent. Even before Troy – indeed, in an attempt to avoid the Iliadic future – the divine mother intervenes in favour of the hero. In the proem, Statius declared that he would fill the gaps left by Homer, comprising in a “cyclic” tale the pre- and post-Iliadic phases of Achilles’ biography (Ach. 1.3–7). From the start, however, the Achilleid engages with the Iliad directly (as does Ovid’s “little Iliad” in the Metamorphoses): although in the completed part it narrates earlier episodes, which are ignored or censored in the Homeric text and hinted at in different versions, Statius presupposes everywhere the character and story of Achilles as fixed by Homer. He alludes to the hero’s future, already written in his Homeric past, and even evokes from time to time, in his new epic design, some key scenes of the Iliadic text. Thetis enters the stage voicing her fears for her son, as at the beginning of the Iliad she expressed her grief for a son not only destined to a brief life, but also dishonoured. Immediately after, in vain she implores Neptune, Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 81 the “second Jupiter,” as she had entreated the true Jupiter in the Iliad (a conscious sign of secondariness).2 Statius’ allusive synthesis even displaces to the exordium a sample of the funereal lament that Thetis sang in Hom- er’s Book 18, an atypical ritual lament, anticipated before Achilles’ death, which was prefigured by Patroclus’ death.3 The expressions and gestures of mourning, prematurely staged by Statius’ Thetis, thus join the beginnings to the final chapters of the hero’s biography. Whatever the continuation of the Achilleid would have been in Statius’ project, the Iliad (with the future prefigured in it) is already inscribed in the completed part of the poem – but, for now, the narration takes a different path. The challenge to Homer is at the same time a new challenge to Virgil. In a minor key, the Achilleid, like the Thebaid, also engages with the Aeneid. This has already been announced in the incipit: the protagonist is a magnan- imus hero here also, but, contrary to Aeneas, he is not destined to caelum – this is a progenies of Jupiter (and a would-be son of the god) that has not accomplished itself.4 Statius’ Thetis presupposes not only Homer’s Thetis, but also the roles of Juno and Venus in Virgil’s epos:5 the failure of the goddess, in rousing a tempest against a Trojan hero, and in deviating the course of fate in favour of her son, makes this Thetis a depotentiated Juno, and a Venus with no luck.6 In this way, Statius’ poetic experiment immediately places itself at a less sublime level compared to Homer and Virgil.7 As the expectations of a grander epos are frustrated (the successful entreaty to the supreme god in the Iliad, or the cosmic upset and the prophecy of diviniza- tion in the Aeneid), here the comedy of deceits of the Scyros episode is being prepared: “The transvestite Achilles at Lycomedes’ court.”

2. Nimis o suspensa nimisque / mater!

Deceit and disguise. This is the mother plot that gives form to the narrative of the Achilleid at the beginning:8 the epic action is fuelled by the desperate trick of a mother, dictated by fear and love, and destined to last not even the space of a single book – until Ulysses’ deceit prevails over that of Thetis, allows the true Achilles to be discovered under the female dress, and starts off the narrative towards the Trojan War. A minor and ineffective goddess, Statius’ Thetis each time confronts greater and victorious forces: the will of fate, Achilles’ character, Ulysses’ wiliness. The stay on Scyros, realized on her initiative, in fact becomes, in spite of her, a crucial stage in the formation of the hero, yet this divine mother, with her vain aspirations and her consciously indecorous acts, risks appearing a caricature of herself. Exposed as she is to the narrator’s irony, this Thetis produces melodramatic effects and is a victim of grotesque deformations. While she provisionally succeeds in deceiving Chiron’s and Lycomedes’ trust, she, in turn, becomes 8282 Federica82Florence Contents Bessone Klein the object of the unsympathetic attitude of the other male characters: Nep- tune’s condescension, Achilles’ rebellion, Calchas’ contempt, Ulysses’ sense of superiority. The narrator lets Ulysses himself coin a memorable definition of the goddess’s role (2.37–8): nimis o suspensa nimisque / mater!9 (“Too fearful she, too much a mother!”)10 This is a partial definition, and formulated in a heroic paraenesis to Achilles, but it precisely grasps the dominant note of this female figure, and her function in the tale. Fear is the trait that has defined Statius’ character, even on a linguistic level, since its first appearance. Expavit is the first verb used to refer to the divine mother (1.25–6), and it is a programmatic manifesto, followed by an uninterrupted series of epi- thets and phrases related to dread and anxiety: almost a specialized linguistic microsystem, later to be reused for Deidamia, as the apprehensive role of the mother is inherited by the wife of the hero. This is not enough. The brilliant juncture nimis … mater – an absolute hapax – even makes the substantive “mother” a synonym of anxiety:11 not only an equivalent of the adjective suspensa, but a synthesis of everything that, together with fear, opposes heroic honour, and resists the war epos to which Achilles is destined. The role of the mother can indeed be “too much” for heroic epic: an impediment to its poetic project, at least until the motherly fear comes to terms with her son’s choice to die with honour – a choice that is all the more arduous, when a goddess’s son has to die.12 A tragic potential is inherent in the character of Thetis, the divine mother of the greatest hero: a goddess who is impotent against the mortal nature of her son, and against his choice of heroic death – a deity condemned to immortal sorrow. This low note, playing in the background from the beginning, is only feebly heard in the completed part of the poem: we shall never know what role Statius would have given to it later. We can observe, however, that in the initial phases Thetis’ uneasy maternity is represented in a precarious balance between pathos and humour:13 a mixture of tones that presupposes the model of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (though not always rec- reating its lightness). Statius makes continual swerves from one register to another, even with an overt and wrong-footing use of allusive art. High ambitions and caricatured falls, would-be sublime and grotesque, pathos and melodrama continually alternate in the Achilleid, as recent criticism has recognized: these ups and downs of narrative and stylistic levels produce effects of ironic estrangement, or even epic parody.14 I would like to investigate here how this peculiar narrative tone, half-serious and shifty, ambiguous and ever-changing, involves first of all the representation of Thetis’ role as a mother. The result is a simultaneously ironic and sympathetic portrait. The text exhibits motherly anxiety to the point of mocking Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 83 it, and creates a light atmosphere that makes the staging of the disguise enjoy- able; but it does not exclude from the beginning a gloomier background, pre- paring the tragedy that is to come. As Deidamia warns, complaining to Achilles in their only night as a married couple (1.941): nec vana Thetin timuisse memento (“Remember, Thetis’ fears were not idle”). Thetis’ fears were not idle, and the hero will have to remember them: the Trojan future will make true the anxieties that, so far, have made his mother almost ridiculous. For readers, the memento by the heroine abandoned on Scyros is a reminder of an only too well-known future, whose poetic memory casts a shadow even on the most light-hearted and happy-go-lucky moments of the Achilleid.

3. Mother Plot and Heroic Epic: Statius’ Ovidian Irony

There is a second aspect that I would like to consider, and this is the competition of narrative aspirations between mother and son, both interested in directing the course of the poem. From a narratological point of view, the mother plot of the Achilleid – the deceit at Scyros – constitutes a deviation, in a geographic, axiologic, and poetic sense, namely, a derailment from the linearity of an epic tale that could have driven Achilles from Chiron’s cave on Mount Pelion to the war at Troy, directly or through intermediate stages of a traditional, virile, and warlike kind (like the armed conquest of Scyros, mentioned in Homer, or the Telephos episode). This geopoetic deviation, which allows comedy situations and erotic-elegiac developments, coincides with the gender deviation of the hero, who, thanks to his mother, is transformed from an ambiguous identity into a provisional and illusory female one, until he regains possession of a fully embraced masculine identity. A poetical conflict between mother and son is staged here, but the play of forces is more complex. The disguise at Scyros, desired by Thetis, does not rescue Achilles from his destiny: it is, rather, paradoxically, the instrument for a full assertion of the hero’s virility, in that from Lycomedes’ court, at the beginning of the second book, Peleus’ son is sent to war. The unsuccess- ful action of the mother, however, has been joined by the action of love/ Love, and this indeed has had decisive and lasting effects. The dream of a quiet family life, cherished by Thetis for Achilles, has not realized itself, but it has become a different reality: the literary reality of an epic hero distant from the Homeric one, stamped by the conflict between virtus and amor, and made more complex by sentimental and familial ties, a “warrior and lover” hero who hesitates on his way to Troy, and between different poetic worlds. With the Scyros deviation, Thetis has not been able to derail Achil- les’ brief destiny: but she has performed a successful deviation in the tradition of ancient epic. 8484 Federica84Florence Contents Bessone Klein

The Achilleid explores the limits and potentialities of the literary role of “the hero’s mother.” The irrepressible reappropriation of his gender identity by Achilles could coincide with a redirecting of the poetic genre towards “pure,” warlike epic: a literary veer, from a feminized and elegi- acized epos – Thetis’ feminei doli (“woman’s wiles,” 1.527) – towards the virility of the κλέα ἀνδρῶν (“the glorious deeds of the heroes”). And yet, while the Greek heroes sail from Scyros to Troy, this well-under-way epic will is endangered by the hesitations of an Achilles still in love – who turns back, regrets, blushes – and has to be reinforced by the persuasion of a skilled orator, as Ulysses is. Only after the astute paraenesis of the polytropos hero does Achilles seem to project himself towards the world of war definitively – or better, up to the point where our text ends. After Scyros, the realignment of the Achilleid as a war epos is not a fore- gone conclusion, and perhaps it is not Statius’ actual purpose. The epic-heroic will claimed by Achilles clashes with an existential and literary experience that is not easy to put in parentheses. Love, which has made an irruption into the epic narrative, and has brought it near not only to the Metamorphoses, but to the Ars amatoria and the elegy in the feminine of the Heroides, has hybridized perhaps irreversibly the nature of this epos – Achilles’ biography would have offered material for other adventures. The mixture of tones that has characterized the first part of the Achilleid, and has culminated in the disguise, might not be a prerogative of the beginnings and the Scyros episode (a half-serious tone pervades, moreover, even the parallel episode at Aulis). The ironic inflexion could have continued – even if we shall never be able to verify what has never been realized. The critics’ conjectures, opposed to each other, have shown, at least, the vast range of possibilities among which Statius could choose. Among the different interpretations of the “Achilleid-which-is-not- there,” I sympathize with those imagining a poem determined until the end to ire per omnem . . . heroa (“traverse the whole hero,” 1.4–5):15 to design, that is, a “well-rounded” hero, showing him not only in the entire span of his life, but in the whole plurality of aspects that a rich literary tradition, after Homer, has attributed to him. This includes not only the Homeric paradigm of heroism, but the complex Achilles of tragedy and satyr play, the sentimental Achilles of Hellenistic poetry and Latin erotic elegy, and the warlike Achilles, marginal and “cyclic,” of that deviant epos that is Ovid’s Metamorphoses.16 Rather than focusing on the virtual Achilleid, however, I would like to concentrate here on the transition zone between the completed poem and the poem-which-is-not-there, and draw from there some arguments based on more concrete data. We can observe that, in the completed part of the Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 85 second book, after the departure from Scyros to (Aulis and) Troy, even this Achilles reconverted to war is subject to a narrative mode already experi- mented by Statius with Thetis. The irony formerly exercised by the narrator at the expense of the mother, who is responsible for the anti-epic deviation in Scyros, is now directed against the epic claims of the pre-Iliadic Achil- les, the young hero who, soon after giving signs of his yielding to passion, and being recuperated to the heroic programme by Ulysses’ smartness, lets himself be tickled in his virile vanity, and constructs on his own a heroic- epic image of himself. On the ship, at Diomedes’ request, Achilles narrates (2.96–167): in seventy verses, he recalls – with feigned modesty and half- concealed pride – his childhood and youth by Chiron, and he transforms it into a true epos. The first moves of the near-Iliadic hero are considered by Statius as ironi- cally as the comic-novelistic plots of his mother. In the preamble to Achilles’ Trojan story, the external narrator appears disposed to depict his hero with detachment, or even to make fun of him, in a tone much more similar to Ovid’s Metamorphoses than to Homeric epic – much nearer to Ovidian epic than the Thebaid was. Thus, the two forces that strive to control the poem with competing literary agendas – the mise en scène of the mother and the epic projection of the son – relativize each other. The poetic option that appears finally to win out – the arma virum (“the arms of the heroes”) – turns out to be substantially modified by the feminine and maternal deviation that has been given to the narrative in the former stages, and it is surrounded by the same poignant and disenchanted atmosphere. In fact, the mother “too much a mother” that Thetis is has introduced a revolution into Roman epic – another one, after that of the Metamorpho- ses. Not only “The Transvestite Achilles,” not only “Achilles in Love,” but even “Achilles’ Anger,” as we shall see, offers itself in the Achilleid to the demystifying gaze of the narrator. In addition to Scyros, Aulis, Pelion, and the ship to Troy are – and perhaps Troy itself would have been? – the theatre of an epos that has Ovidianly lost its innocence, and the original “naïvety.” By entrusting the epic initiative to the hero’s mother, and placing side-by- side with it the superhuman force of love (so as to produce a “well-rounded” Achilles), Statius has boldly innovated the epic genre, and has distanced it from the Homeric tradition even where the latter is more burdensome, just on the eve of the Trojan War.

4. “Diva e donna”17

Let us now read some passages along the interpretative lines hinted at so far. My first point concerns the half-serious tone, suspended between pathos 8686 Federica86Florence Contents Bessone Klein and humour, in which Thetis is represented in the exordium. I would like to show that, on the one hand, Statius operates from time to time a sort of downgrading of Thetis from goddess to mother, an extreme humanization that allows him to handle his character with irony, making a caricature of its excesses of fear and anxiety. This corresponds, moreover, to the impotency of a goddess who is here really minor, diminished in authority compared to the Iliad, subject not only to Jupiter and fate, but to the royal power of Nep- tune (the “second Jupiter”).18 The Achilleid is above all a comedy, human and earthly, and the Nereid adapts to the deminutio of her role: she gives up something of her cosmic power, epic dignity, and divine foresight, but she retains marginal privileges that lend a fairy-tale and magic touch to the narrative (the swimming speed, the dominion over dolphins), and acquires a “bourgeois” dimension that is in great part new. An “epic of ambiguity,”19 in many senses, Statius’ incomplete work is also such in attributing to the goddess an intermediate status between Heaven (or, rather, Sea) and Earth. Even later, in the disguise scene, Thetis’ metamorphic powers as a goddess will be left in the background, and her didactic skills as a mother will come to the front, when she engages in (re-)educating Achilles, as a mater Romana would educate a female daughter for the entrance into society.20 On the other hand, the text hints at the motif of the immortal sorrow, present in Homer in relation to Thetis, then deepened by tragedy and by Virgil: the eternal mourning of a god for the death of a relative that he cannot avert. Statius’ Thetis in several aspects recalls Juturna, Turnus’ divine sister. And yet, the tragic motif is here toned down and lightened: hinted at in Thetis’ miseratio to Neptune, it becomes almost a melodramatic pose, rather than a true drama. A goddess and a woman, this Thetis continually wavers between the two roles, and makes the reader’s response to the text of the Achilleid problematic. The downgrading from goddess to mother is evident as early as in the opening monologue, where Thetis turns from the manners of prophecy to those of motherly presentiment. The incipit with the first-person pronoun in accusative, me, echoes that of Juno’s monologue in the opening of the Aeneid – only to mark the distance in tone, from the authoritative pride of the queen of the gods (Aen. 1.37–8): haec secum: “mene incepto desistere victam / nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem?” (“[Juno] said to herself: ‘Am I beaten, my plans all dead? Is preventing Teucer’s descendant from landing as Italy’s king beyond my power?’”) to the Nereid’s wretched self- commiseration, marked by the pathetic anaphora and by the identification with her son’s destiny (Ach. 1.31): “me petit haec, mihi classis,” ait “funesta minatur.” (“‘This fleet,’ she says, ‘is after me, to me a deadly menace.’”) The indignation of Jupiter’s wife, for the inefficacy of divine power against Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 87 a mortal, gives place here to the powerless pathos of the goddess who is mother to a mortal, and to her presaging sorrow. The prophecy to Paris on Troy’s misfortunes is a traditional repertoire piece, represented in particular by Horace’s Ode 1.15. Here it is reinterpreted from a different point of view: the pathetic perspective of the mother of the Greek hero, who will be Troy’s unlucky winner. In comparison to the Horatian model, which is recalled in this monologue and in the entreaty to Neptune, Thetis’ subjective restriction is obvious in Ach. 1.66–9:

en aliud furto scelus et spolia altera portans navigat iniustae temerarius arbiter Idae, eheu – quos gemitus terris caeloque daturus, quos mihi!

(Behold, the temerarious arbiter of unjust Ida makes voyage, freighted with another crime of theft and spoils of hospitality, to give what groans, alas, to earth and heaven, and what to me!)

See in comparison Hor. Carm. 1.15.9–11:21 heu heu, quantus equis, quantus adest viris / sudor! quanta moves funera Dardanae / genti! (“Alas, alas! What grievous sweat is in store for horses and men alike! What countless deaths you are bringing to the people of Dardanus!”) The civil moralism of Nereus’ prophecy, expressing scandal for the destruction of a people as a consequence of an act of adultery, here becomes a pretended “global” worry, barely veiling the personal and private motivations of a mother – which indeed hit the mark, as Paris is destined to cause Achilles’ death, with his arrow directed by Apollo. A rhetorical pointe further undermines Thetis’ pathetic pose: the cosmic formula “land and sky” (terris caeloque) culminates not in the canonical tripartition, but – by a metonymy – in an egotis- tic, self-aggrandizing personalization of the sea as the sea goddess mother (eheu – quos gemitus terris caeloque daturus, / quos mihi!).22 At the same time, there is irony in this reformulation of an anti-Paris tirade by the same Thetis who, in short, will change Achilles into a Paris-like figure – much as it is depicted by Nereus in the following two strophes of Horace’s ode: a feminized hero, singing the lyre to a woman, preferring love to war and avoiding battle, only to fall later in the dust (Carm. 1.15.13–20). Indeed, Thetis’ indignation at the rape of Helen clashes with Achilles’ next “deed” in Scyros, which will be not so different from that of Paris at Sparta, as a pointed verbal parallelism suggests: we may compare Ach. 1.21, incautas blande populatus Amyclas (“he had sweetly ravished unwary Amyclae”) 8888 Federica88Florence Contents Bessone Klein with 1.567–8, blandeque novas nil tale timenti / admovet insidias (“he … in winning manner sets new traps for the unsuspecting girl”). The language of prophecy – agnosco, ecce, video (1.32–4) – soon gives place to the language of foreboding and motherly fear. The turn is at 1.35–8:

nec sufficit, omnis quod plaga Graiugenum tumidis coniurat Atridis: iam pelago terrisque meus quaeretur Achilles, et volet ipse sequi.

(And it is not enough that all the land of the Grecians leagues with Atreus’ angry sons; soon they will be looking by land and sea for my Achilles, and himself will want to follow.)

Coniurat still echoes Nereus’ warning in Horace,23 but here the mobilizing of all Greece “is not enough.” Nec sufficit is a self-reflexive signal: Thetis integrates Nereus’ speech with strictly personal considerations, and wor- ries about her family. “Her Achilles” is the centre of her anxieties – that Achilles whom, to the contrary, Nereus extolled as triumphant over the Trojans. Meus (1.37), expressing motherly possessiveness, is also meaningful. Achilles is disputed between two worlds that claim possession of him: the protective sphere of the mother and the socio-military one of the Greek youth. At Aulis, Chalcas will oppose to this meus … Achilles the emphatic exclamation meus iste, meus (“He is mine, mine,” 1.528): an ominous claim, made in the name of Apollo, who will be Achilles’ divine killer. Thetis goes further. At 1.37, her alarmed prevision et volet ipse sequi, effectively delayed in enjambement, adds a worry deriving not from external threats, but from a danger intrinsic in her son’s character: the mother knows that the greatest obstacle to her action is Achilles’ will. The motherly presentiment will be precisely confirmed in Ulysses’ words to the hero in 2.41–2, “nec nostrum est, quod in arma venis sequerisque precantes: / venisses” dixit. (“‘Tis not our doing that you come to arms and follow our entreaties. You would have come,’ he said.”)24 What follows is the outburst of a mother who regrets the family’s educa- tional choices and foresees the resolution of her son to embrace war, knowing his habits and nature (1.38–42):

quid enim cunabula parvo Pelion et torvi commisimus antra magistri? illic, ni fallor, Lapitharum proelia ludit Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 89

improbus et patria iam se metitur in hasta. o dolor, o seri materno in corde timores!

(For why did I trust Pelion to the child for cradle and the grim master’s cave? There, if I mistake not, he plays at Lapith battles and already measures himself with his father’s spear, the rogue. Ah pain, ah tremors too late in my mother’s heart!)

There is an ironic gap between the former prophecy-like predictions, with an illustrious literary pedigree, and this prevision made of motherly intuition, marked by the colloquial parenthesis ni fallor: the formula expresses in informal style a presentiment based on experience, and on a mother’s direct knowledge of her son’s disposition. Ni fallor is, at the same time, an Alexandrian footnote, employed by Sta- tius in an Ovidian manner.25 Thetis’ hypothesis on the war games and heroic preliminaries of her son in the Pelion cave is a literary memory, evoking Pindar’s Third Nemean Ode, a fundamental model for the theme of Achil- les’ education by Chiron. There it is told that “blond Achilles, when he was in Phylira’s house, as a child, played great deeds” (Pind. Nem. 3.43–4). By παῖς ἐὼν ἄθυρε μεγάλα ἔργα, Pindar refers to hunting, a traditional preparation for war. With the analogous oxymoron Lapitharum proelia ludit, The- tis imagines a real war, staged as a game: the ludic mimesis of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs, an episode that would doubly excite the imagination of Achilles, pupil to a peaceful Centaur and son of a protagonist in the Centauromachy. Moreover, ni fallor is an ironic signal inside Statius’ text: Chiron will later inform Thetis that the young hero actually provokes the Centaurs to battle by stealing their cattle (Ach. 1.152–5).26 Here, indeed, the mother’s intuition falls short of reality: her son’s actual behaviour far surpasses her fears, and so Thetis proves inadequate even in her anxieties. In a few verses, the divine stature of the Nereid has gone out of sight: here there is an absent mother, who suspects the dangerous games of her son and fears his father’s inauspicious influence on him. A pathetic self-rebuke seals the sequence: o dolor, o seri materno in corde timores! This hyper-maternal Thetis, who does everything to look like that, regrets fearing too late for a mother: she thus prepares the caricature that Ulysses will make of her, “Too fearful she, too much a mother.” From goddess to mother and, again, from mother to goddess. In another sense, the very excess of human apprehension that characterizes Thetis could enhance the dramatic substance of her ambiguous divinity. In her entreaty to Neptune, and later in a speech to Achilles, the drama of an immortal mother before the death of her son looms up – but, even here, the dramatic content is not allowed to affect the text thoroughly. 9090 Federica90Florence Contents Bessone Klein

Statius rethinks Virgil’s rethinking of the Homeric text: not only does he “comment” on the link between Venus in the Aeneid and Thetis in the Iliad,27 but he also reinscribes in the figure of Thetis some traits of another Virgilian character, which is partly modelled on Thetis – a character that has absorbed in itself the elaboration of tragedy and of philosophical criticism on the Homeric text. In the last book of the Aeneid, Juturna, a river nymph by Jupiter’s gift, after trying in vain to rescue her brother from death, at the sight of the Dira announcing his destiny bursts into a funereal lament: a lament in advance, isolated, and even less ritually conventional than that of Thetis in the Iliad; almost a tragic monologue (as Barchiesi has observed) that expresses, as well as mourning, the protest of a goddess condemned to immortal sorrow, and aligns itself with the criticism of Homeric theology contained in Philodemus’ Peri eusebeias and in the Anonymous Peri hypsous.28 The gap between the mother’s divinity and the hero’s mortality, already hinted at in the Iliad in relation to Thetis and Achilles,29 and developed by Virgil in the tragic depth he gives to Juturna’s “motherly” figure, becomes at the beginning of the Achilleid a pathetic image: the vision of a goddess who will fix a sepulchre as her seat, choosing for herself, in the vastness of the marine element, a single Trojan cliff (1.74–6): da pellere luctus / nec tibi de tantis placeat me fluctibus unum / litus et Iliaci scopulos habitare sepulcri. (“Let it not please you that among so many billows I haunt a single beach and the rocks of an Ilian tomb.”) Thetis’ drama is here made into a paradox: if habitare indicates as a rule the abode of a god, it is against all rules that the god “inhabits” a place of death.30 Also in Silvae 5.1 (the epicedion for Priscilla), Thetis is mentioned as a paradigm of eternal mourning, along with Niobe and the goddess Aurora. There as well, the divine mother pays forever the homage of her element, the waves, to her son’s grave (Silvae 5.1.33–6).31 In the Achilleid, the reader is reminded of all this. And yet, the text keeps itself far from drama, touches on it, does not go into it, and dilutes it in a melodramatic tone.32 Shortly after uttering those words about herself, The- tis is depicted in an attitude of mourning, laniata genas et pectore nudo (“tearing her cheeks, and with bared breast,” 1.77), as she opposes herself to Neptune’s horses. Here, however, the narrator’s tone almost verges on the ludic: the malicious ambiguity of pectore nudo suggests a mixture between the audacious gesture of an unarmed mother,33 the (here) improbable effect of tearing one’s clothes in mourning, and the usual nakedness of the Nereid, only just changed in its connotation compared to the sensuous decorative- ness of Catullus 64 (16–18). Even mourning, in the Achilleid, can become a pose. Here, it is dissipated by the magnanimous gesture of an emperor-like Neptune, who deigns to give a lift on his chariot to a goddess subjected to him, softening his refusal with flatteries and assurances.34 Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 91

Tragic irony is not missing even in Neptune’s answer.35 The prophecy on the glory of Achilles “in Sigean dust” and on the “obsequies of (Phrygian) mothers” that Thetis, “victorious,” will see (1.84–5; quem tu illic natum Sigeo in pulvere, quanta / aspicies victrix Phrygiarum funera matrum, “There victorious what a son shall you see in Sigean dust, what obsequies of Phrygian mothers”) reminds the reader of Achilles’ tomb on the Sigean promontory, and Thetis’ motherly mourning, which will come shortly after that of Aurora for her son Memnon, killed by Achilles.36 Statius presupposes a traditional coupling of Thetis and other mourning mothers – particularly the goddess Aurora, since Arctinos’ Aethiopis – and makes the prefigura- tion precise, by alluding to a passage of Seneca’s Troades in which the motif is explicit.37 Even the image of Thetis “seeing” her son triumphant in war recalls, by an ominous antiphrasis, Themis’ prophecy to Jupiter and Neptune in Pindar (Isthmian 8.36–36a): βροτέων δὲ λεχέων τυχοῖσα / υἱὸν εἰσιδέτω θανόντ᾽ ἐν πολέμῳ (“Let her win a mortal’s bed and see her son die in war”) – right when the two gods were dissuaded from marrying the nymph.38 However, where the text anticipates the action of the Iliad, with its deadly continuation, and risks an excess of sublimity and pathos, it changes direction immediately: a self-reflexive sign underlines this. Neptune’s prophecy closed with prefiguring of the Iliad and Odyssey: Achilles’ victories, the storms of Ulysses’ nostos (1.84–94). But the present is another matter. After the god’s refusal to arouse a storm, Thetis, who in tune with those epic visions was ready to wage war against the Trojan ships, like Juno in the Aeneid, has to resort to an alternative literary plan (1.95–8):

dixerat. illa gravi vultum demissa repulsa, quae iam excire fretum et ratibus bellare parabat Iliacis, alios animo commenta paratus, tristis ad Haemonias detorquet bracchia terras.

(He had spoken. Thetis’ face fell at the heavy rebuff. She had been in train to rouse the sea and make war upon the Ilian vessels, but now her mind devised other plans. Sadly she turned her arms to Haemonia’s land.)

Alios animo commenta paratus underlines the reduction from a grand-epic project, immediately frustrated, to a humbler poetic project contrived by Thetis (vultum demissa). Instead of a goddess’s action, a mother’s trick: The- tis becomes sollers pietate magistra (1.105), and thus comes down to the earthly level of her next antagonist, the “wily Ulysses” (sollers … Ulixes, 1.784).39 Once more, in Statius, a woman is invested with a crucial epic initiative by virtue of the familial affection that moves her. In a similar way in the Thebaid, Argia accomplished a heroic aristeia inspired by conjugal love 9292 Federica92Florence Contents Bessone Klein

(Theb. 12.186: hortantur pietas ignesque pudici, “Piety and chaste love urge her on”). Here, however, in place of a heroic sublime in the feminine we have a feminine weakening of heroic epic. From goddess to mother, then. Once the project of an epic storm has come to nothing, Thetis retreats to Chiron’s cave on the Pelion. Here she is informed by the praeceptor about her son’s progress, she finds her Achilles grown up, more learned, and less disciplined, she takes him back by a trick, and she transports him asleep to Scyros, determined to disguise him so as to make him dodge the draft. But, after the new change of scene, she will have to confront the disobedience and indomitable character of her offspring.

5. A Mightier God

At the beginning of the Scyros episode, the downgrading of Thetis from goddess to mother reaches a paradoxical peak: the weakness of her character is on the point of bringing the narrative to an impasse. The mother has to persuade Achilles to pretend to be a woman. Her speech to her son, which opens with regret for his mortality, warns him against the approach of an inauspicious destiny and impending extreme dangers (1.251–8):

occupat illa manu blandeque adfata paventem: “si mihi, care puer, thalamos sors aequa tulisset, quos dabat, aetheriis ego te complexa tenerem sidus grande plagis, magnique puerpera caeli nil humiles Parcas terrenaque fata vererer. nunc impar tibi, nate, genus, praeclusaque leti tantum a matre via est; quin et metuenda propinquant tempora et extremis admota pericula metis.”

(She hastens to caress the frightened lad and lovingly addresses him: “Dear boy, if a kindly lot had brought me the marriage it proffered, I should be holding you in my embrace as a grand star in the celestial regions; of the great heaven should I have borne my child nor feared lowly fates and earthly dooms. As it is, my son, your birth is unequal and death’s path blocked only on your mother’s side. Ay, and the time of danger approaches, perils moved close to the final turning point.”)

The memory of Thetis’ words in Iliad 24 is here filtered through the dialogue between Juno and Juturna in Aeneid 12,40 and is varied by the goddess’s almost aristocratic regret for her marriage to a mortal (in Homer it was up to Achilles to pity his mother for that reason, in a tone of intense pathos). Between the lines there also seems to emerge, mediated by an Ovidian allusion, the goddess’s sorrow for her unhappy immortality41 – but prevailing Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 93 over everything else is the practical, earthly, and terrestrial sense by which this Thetis adapts to her own and her son’s downgrading, from the dreams of celestial greatness (sidus grande … magnique puerpera caeli) to a humble and mortal reality (humiles Parcas terrenaque fata). Faced with the threat of destiny (1.265 minas nubemque … malignam), Thetis invites Achilles to yield, to submit his virile pride and, getting down to the practical level, to accept “her clothes,” a euphemism to mean “women’s clothes.” To be more persuasive, the goddess quotes four exempla of demigods, gods or heroes (Hercules, Bacchus, Jupiter, Caeneus) who did not disdain to wear female dress, or even experienced a sex change unharmed. It is worthwhile to observe the form of the exhortation addressed to Achilles (1.259–60): cedamus, paulumque animos summitte viriles / atque habitus dignare meos. (“Let us give way. Lower a little your manly spirit and deign to wear my raiment.”) Thetis employs the language of surrender and submission: in the face of necessity, the boy must capitulate and “lower his manly spirit.” Viriles is the element on which the text pivots to turn back on itself, with an ironic release: the enjambement marks the passage from the abstract to the concrete (from animos to habitus), and from what sounds like a wise precept to a stage direction for the disguise. By surprise, the initial preaching gives place to practical instructions for performing the deceit, and the reader smiles at the gap. All three verbs (cedamus, submitte, dignare) invite the addressee to a voluntary diminution of his status, but the first two play on the paradigm of inflexibility that Achilles represents in ancient literature, from Homer to Horace (and beyond): from “the ruthless Achilles . . . whose mind is nowise right, neither the purpose in his breast one that may be bent” (οὔτε νόημα / γναμπτὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι, Hom. Il. 24.39–41, trans. Murray), to the Achilles pervicax (“stubborn,” Hor. Epod. 17.14), or impiger iracundus inexorabilis acer (“impatient, passionate, ruthless, fierce,”Ars 121).42 Inviting Achilles to “yield” means reformulating an invitation addressed to the hero end- less times, since Iliad 1, with scant success.43 In a more specific way, Thetis’ exhortation, cedamus, literally clashes with Horace’s definition of “Pelides incapable of yielding” (Hor. Carm. 1.6.5–6: gravem / Pelidae stomachum cedere nescii, “the deadly rancour of Peleus’ son who was incapable of giving way”). This intertextual contact shows Thetis already doomed to failure. This passage by Statius, as Elaine Fantham noticed, shows a certain closeness to Seneca’s Troades.44 In the tragedy Andromache persuades Astyanax to hide in Hector’s tomb, and she tries to win the heroic fierceness that the boy inherited from his father (Sen. Tro. 503–8):

succede tumulo, nate – quid retro fugis turpesque latebras spernis? agnosco indolem: pudet timere. spiritus magnos fuga 9494 Federica94Florence Contents Bessone Klein

animosque veteres, sume quos casus dedit. en intuere, turba quae simus super: tumulus, puer, captiva: cedendum est malis.

(Approach the tomb, dear son – why do you step back and disdain a safe hiding place? I know your nature: you are ashamed to show fear. Throw off your heroic spirit and old courage, and put on what chance has imposed. See – look what a poor troop remains: a tomb, a child, a captive woman: we must surrender to misfortune.)

While she is speaking, Andromache registers the negative reactions of her son, as Thetis too will do in short (Ach. 1.271–2): cur ora reducis / quidve parant oculi? pudet hoc mitescere cultu? (“Why do you withdraw your face, what purpose is in your eyes? Are you ashamed to soften in this dress?”) The mother represented by Seneca speaks a language imbued with philosophy, one which infringes on the Stoic ethics of inflexibility, and prescribes, paradoxically, not compliance with fate, but to “yield to evils,” to destiny’s blows, so as to get to safety.45 The relation between the motherly deceits of Andromache and Thetis, both discovered by Ulysses, is evident (and was perhaps suggested to Sta- tius by the hero’s boast in the tragedy, Tro. 569–70). Even more evident, however, is the effect of ironical degradation issuing from this contact. In the Achilleid the death threat is not so immediate, nor is the deceit as ominous as hiding in the tomb of the father (to the contrary, and with an opposite symbolic value, it consists in taking refuge under the mother’s clothes), and so there is still room for comedy. The mother’s language also takes on a different colour: here the Stoicizing inflexion soon deviates in another direction. Thetis begins by speaking in the plural: cedamus involves Achilles in a “reduction” of aspirations to which she is already resigned. In the soliloquy with which she will go off stage, she will admit (1.394–6): dumque arma parantur / Dorica et alternum Mavors interfurit orbem – / cedo equidem (“and while Doric arms are making ready and Mavors rages between two worlds (let him for all I care)”). Thetis herself, from the beginning, “yields” to the fates that obstruct her plans (fata vetant, 1.82), much as Juno declared her own yielding at the end of the Aeneid (V. Aen. 12.818): et nunc cedo equidem pugnasque exosa relinquo. (“Now I’m conceding defeat. I am leaving the battle. I loathe it.”)46 The mother thus invites her son to “yield” together with her, which means however, in motherly language, “yielding” to her – the mother’s injunction is in fact countered, later on, by that of Calchas, ne cede parenti (1.533–4): o scelus! en fluxae Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 95 veniunt in pectora vestes. / scinde, puer, scinde et timidae ne cede parenti. (“Oh crime! See, flowing garments come upon his breast. Tear them, boy, tear them, nor yield to your timid mother.”) For his part, as we shall see, Achilles will not yield, either to misfortunes, or to that other misfortune which his mother is for him: as he will later confess to Deidamia, the reason why he “has yielded” to his mother’s plan is nothing else than erotic passion, love at first sight for Lycomedes’ daughter: 1.652–5 nec ego hos cultus aut foeda subissem / tegmina, ni primo te visa in litore: cessi / te propter, tibi pensa manu, tibi mollia gesto / tympana. (“Nor should I have donned this habit, these shameful clothes, if I had not seen you at the shore’s verge; on your account I yielded, for you I handle wool and bear womanish drums.”)47 If we take another look, that Achilles can “yield” only to love is suggested between the lines already in these words by Thetis. Here, I believe, the reader is put on the alert behind the character’s back, as the narrator anticipates by way of allusion what is going to happen. Together, cedamus and animos submitte seem to indicate the literary domain of erotic poetry, which shortly afterwards will become the main reference for the Achilleid. Thetis’ exhortation, cedamus, sounds like the program of an elegiac lover- poet, the Gallus of Virgil’s tenth Eclogue (V. Ecl. 10.69): omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori! (“Love conquers all; let us, too, yield to Love!”) It is a program already appropriated by Ovid, with cedamus at the beginning of the hexameter, in Amores 1.2.10: cedamus: leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus. (“Let me yield! Light grows the burden that is well borne.”) The superior might to which one must submit, for Achilles also, is neither misfortune nor his mother, but exclusively love: only to it, as to an absolute master, the hero “incapable of yielding” will be able to surrender, shortly thereafter, not differently from Dido, whom the power of Love forces to submit her pride to the god (animos submittere sc. Amori, V. Aen. 4.414).48 It is not by chance that the passages alluded to here make explicit the presence of Love (with a capital letter): Statius will soon play on the implicit presence, in his text, of the god of passion. Thetis’ exhortation to Achilles also takes on a metapoetic value. Like Gallus’ and Ovid’s self-exhortation to surrender to love poetry, or Dido’s lowering of herself, which lowers the sublimity of the Aeneid towards the elegiac nequitia, here too cedamus and submitte animos contain a literary program. The following dignare goes in the same direction, echoing programmatic passages like the “proem in the middle” of the Bucolics, or the contrast between Elegia and Tragoedia in Amores 3.1.49 Thetis’ invitation to Achilles is almost an invitation to minor poetry: more specifically, to erotic poetry. 9696 Federica96Florence Contents Bessone Klein

Through his character’s speech, Statius conducts a literary discourse. Another signal of that is the adverb paulum (1.259), recalled at the close by parumper (1.270–1): cape tuta parumper / tegmina nil nocitura animo (“for a little while take safe clothing, which will do no harm to your spirit”) – the same parumper that was used by Statius in the proem, to postpone a grander epic on Domitian’s deeds (1.17–19). Thetis promises that she will soon (mox) give back to her son the open fields and the Centaur’s lair (1.266–7), and she proposes the disguise at the royal palace as an interlude, a pause that “will do no harm to his spirit.” It is interesting that, in Silvae 4.4, as Statius invites Vitorius Marcellus to “idleness … sought again for a little while” (repetita parumper desidia), a “timely rest” (tempestiva quies) and the “ease” (otia) that restores the hero’s “energy” (virtus), he quotes the exemplum of Achil- les, who was made stronger for the fight with Hector by singing of Briseis on the lyre.50 In two texts written in the same years, then, Statius acknowledges the paradigm of Achilles as elaborated by Latin elegy, according to which love is not an impediment, but a spur to warlike valour. Here in the Achilleid, the discourse is more properly a literary critical one. Speaking through Thetis’ words, the narrator announces the erotic parenthesis as a provisional poetic choice, and he does so in the same way as, in the Silvae, he signals his incursions from epic into minor and occasional poetry. Paulum is used with such a function in Silvae 1.5, where the poet asks the Thebaid for a short rest to sing a convivial song in praise of a patron; and in Silvae 4.7, where he begs Pindar, whose Thebes he has celebrated with his epos, to grant him “for a little while” the lyric plectrum for an ode to Vibius Maximus.51 What Thetis asks for is a brief pause in Achilles’ heroic apprenticeship – which will, in fact, prove fundamental in the whole of his heroic formation; what Statius accomplishes is a deviation in Achilles’ heroic-epic career, a fundamental one on the literary level to make him a more complex figure than the Homeric champion. From an existential as well as a poetic point of view, Scyros will be a deviation without return. Let us now see how the text comes to this deviation. The mother’s plan faces the refusal of the son, who is conditioned by his father, by Chiron, and by “the raw rudiments of a great nature,” and is compared to a rebellious horse (1.274–82).52 The text marks an impasse. There is only one power in the world that can succour Thetis’ weakness and win Achilles’ inflexibility: it is the god who with his power surpasses men and gods.53 To announce this turn emphatically, the narrator stops the tale with a proemial move (1.283–4): quis deus attonitae fraudes astumque parenti / contulit? indocilem quae mens detraxit Achillen? (“What deity bestowed artful trickery on the baf- fled mother? What mood diverted stubborn Achilles?”) This is a true pro- logue to an erotic section of the epos, soon after which Deidamia appears, Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 97

Achilles falls in love, yields to his mother, and in the course of a few verses gets disguised. The double interrogative move deserves attention. The question “Which god …?” (Quis deus …?) is a proemial formula of epic connected with the invocation to the Muses, which is normally followed, as a reply, by the name of the deity: it is so in the first book of the Iliad or in the ninth book of the Aeneid.54 Here in Statius, however, an explicit answer is wanted. There is another paradoxical effect. Here a deity is already there, but it is not enough. In the presence of a god (deus) so much greater than her, the divine mother of Achilles is reduced to the rank of a “shocked mother” (attonitae … parenti): the downgrading of Thetis from goddess to mother is now offi- cially sanctioned by the text. The cunning deceit (fraudes astumque) already plotted by the mother could not be fulfilled in the narrative plot without the contribution (contulit) of a superior force. There is more. The double interrogative movement is itself part of the epic tradition, and not only that.55 Alessandro Barchiesi has compared the questions of Berenice’s lock in Catullus, expressing amazement at the queen’s change from magnanima (“great-hearted”) to sollicita (“anxious”), from heroism to female weakness, as she bids farewell to her husband leaving for the war (Cat. 66.31–2): quis te mutavit tantus deus? an quod amantes / non longe a caro corpore abesse volunt? (“What mighty god has changed you thus? is it that lovers cannot bear to be far away from the side of him they love?”) There is a certain affinity between two texts that thematize a gender shift (the grammatical feminization of the lock, from Greek to Latin, and the sexual one of Achilles; the feminization of a queen and a hero who are magnanimi).56 More generally, it seems to be presupposed that love/ Love, written with initial capital or lower-case letter, is the most powerful agent of psychic transformations and metamorphoses of gender roles – able to change a brave character into a coward and a coward into someone brave, a weak female into a virile woman, a man into a soft elegiac lover and an elegiac lover into a warrior (miles), a soldier into a deserter, an ἐραστής or ἐρώμενος (“lover” or “beloved”) into a hero: a pervasive theme in ancient culture, at least since Plato’s Symposium, and one that would deserve a separate study.57 In the Catullan alternative between deus and amantes … volunt, a theological explanation and an equivalent psychological diagnosis are brought near to each other – the god Love, or the feeling of love. The double motivation, human and divine, of the character’s agency is a typical feature of the Homeric poems. The alternative between, or the compresence of, θεός and θυμός (“god” and “soul”) is formulated in the Iliad, in one case, even in relation to Achilles.58 But, at a great distance from Homer, Statius looks above all 9898 Federica98Florence Contents Bessone Klein at Latin epic tradition, and the evolution of the narrative technique between Homer and Virgil. The matching of deus and mens recalls Nisus’ self-analysis in his speech to Euryalus: a sort of critical reflection on the Homeric double motivation, put in a character’s mouth, and a sign of the modernity of the Aeneid (V. Aen. 9.184–7). For Euryalus and Nisus, an erotic and heroic couple (Achil- les and Patroclus, rethought of in Platonic terms), love and war, passion and heroism are indistinguishable (9.182). Thus amor, ardor, dira cupido next to di, deus and mens suggest at the same time warlike ardour, sexual lust, and even the god Love – the Ἔρως that makes lovers valorous, as Phaedrus’ speech in the Symposium explains (also with the exemplum of Achilles and Patroclus). Nisus’ doubt seems to take bodily form in Ovid’s epic. The equivalence between a divine explanation of human agency and a psychological one is explored, after Virgil, in the narrative experiments of the Metamorphoses. For the narrative technique, in relation to falling in love, here Statius learns from Ovid. The whole Medea episode, in Metamorphoses 7, can be read in a double perspective, a rationalistic-laic and a religious-mythical one. The narrator elides the role of Eros in Apollonius Rhodius, but, with an illusionistic effect, he continually shows glimpses of it, by way of allusive ambiguity, through the heroine’s, and his own, words.59 This is an exploration of new narrative paths and, at the same time, a commentary on the conventions of epic already implied in the Aeneid passage. Achilles’ falling in love is less complicated than that of Medea (we do not know what space it had in Euripides, in the Skyrioi), but Statius too plays at diffracting the narrative levels, in a compendium of Ovidian technique. The unnamed and invisible god peeps out, with the initial lower-case letter, at the beginning and end in the description of the coup de foudre (1.304, nec latet haustus amor; “Nor does his draught of love stay hidden”; 1.316–17, ardescunt animi primusque per ora / spumat amor; “his spirit takes fire and first love foams through his mouth”),60 and a sign of his active presence comes already at line 304: sed fax vibrata medullis (“the brand waving in his inmost parts”). This Achilles is a victim of Love, as Latin elegy has designed it: Love is the sole force that can drive the hero “incapable of yielding” to yield, tame him like a wild horse, “bend” his “unruly” mind. We may compare 1.284 (indocilem quae mens detraxit Achillen?) with Prop. 1.1.3–4: tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus / et caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus. (“It was then that Love made me lower my looks of stubborn pride and trod my head beneath his feet.”) Statius represents here, in the epic narrative, the triumph of Amor over Achilles that has been decreed by erotic-elegiac poetry, particularly by Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 99

Propertius, in relation to the affair with Briseis, in elegy 2.8 (29–40; quotation at 39–40): inferior multo cum sim vel matre vel armis, / mirum, si de me iure triumphat Amor? (“Since I am far inferior to him in motherhood and in arms, why wonder that Love naturally triumphs over me?”) As I have shown elsewhere,61 by reinscribing into epic a chapter of Achil- les’ biography that has been written, among others, by the elegiac poets, Statius rewrites a piece of literary history. A part of the ancient tradition, including some Homeric scholia, and perhaps the text of the Iliad itself, censures the episode of the disguise at Scyros as inappropriate and detrimental to Achilles’ dignity, while another part exploits as sole justification for it the argument of Achilles’ obedience to his mother.62 Statius follows a different path, which may or may not have been anticipated by Eurip- ides. In the Achilleid there is no obedience to the mother. Thetis’ weakness, even towards her intractable son, here drives the poem to a critical point: only the intervention of Love unblocks it, and makes the fulfilment of the mother’s plot possible. To create a transvestite Achilles, in Statius, the narrative alliance between the divine mother and a mightier god is required. Having fallen in love at first sight with Deidamia, the hero accepts at last the feminine dress only with a view to an erotic assertion of his incipient virility. The narrator emphasizes that, promptly downgrading the role of the mother from director to accomplice (1.318): occupat arrepto iam conscia tempore mater (“His mother is already aware of his secret; seizing her moment, she makes her move”). The experience of eros constitutes in Statius the true motive of the episode on Scyros – and its lasting result. The female clothes will truly be, for the hero, tegmina nil nocitura animo; love, on the other hand, has transformed (and, in a sense, feminized) him for the rest of his life. Soon, Achilles will take those clothes off, to assert his virile valour in battle, but inside he will remain the one whom on Scyros he has discovered himself to be, and will continue to give proof of what he has experienced there: not the antithesis, but the pro- found relation between love and war. The course of the Achilleid could have confirmed what Latin erotic poetry theorizes: that the greatest of heroes can be at the same time a warrior-lover, and a lover-warrior.

6. Love and War

The lasting effect of the erotic experience in Scyros and its prolongation into the Iliadic future is made evident by Statius at the beginning of the second book. The narrative sequence that sets Achilles on his way to Troy, on the ship with Ulysses and Diomedes, displays all the tensions that the poem has aroused so far. Mother and son compete for control of the narrative, even 100100 100 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein after Thetis has left the stage. Achilles’ counter-metamorphosis is complete, as, externally, Achilles in arms has nothing that recalls his ambiguous past (2.5–11):

et iam punicea nudatum pectora palla insignemque ipsis, quae prima invaserat, armis Aeaciden (quippe aura vocat cognataque suadent aequora) prospectant cuncti iuvenemque ducemque nil ausi meminisse pavent; sic omnia visu mutatus rediit, ceu numquam Scyria passus litora Peliacoque rates escendat ab antro.

(And now all look to Aeacides, as with breast stripped of purple cloak he shines with the arms on which he had first seized (for the breeze summons and the kindred seas persuade); they fear him as warrior and captain, not daring to remember aught. So he returned all changed to view, as though he had never endured Scyros’ shores and were embarking from Pelion’s cavern.)

Everybody fears the young leader and “dares not remember anything” of what has been. As I have shown elsewhere,63 at line 9 nil ausi meminisse is the first sign of the suppression of memory through which Achilles, more than any other, would like to put into parentheses the mother plot that has brought him to Scyros. His aspect, apparently at least (visu), is completely changed (omnia mutatus). And it is “as if” the hero “had never undergone” the dishonour of the Scyrian episode (passus has connotations of effeminate passivity, as against the passus applied to Aeneas in Virgil’s proem, Aen. 1.5). The hypothetical comparative sentence (ceu … escendat) seems almost to authorize a selective rereading of the poem that makes his boarding of the ship follow directly on from the stay in Chiron’s cave and expunges as an interpolation everything that comes in between in the text. A direct voyage by Achilles, from Mount Pelion to Troy, is in fact attested in Euripides’ Electra: there the first stasimon recalls the gift of Hephaestus’ arms, which were brought by Thetis and the Nereids to Chiron’s pupil up in the moun- tains, and then set sail with him towards Troy (Eur. Electra 432–51). The expurgated version of the Achilleid would then agree with a branch of the mythical tradition. But, despite outward appearance, Scyros has left in Achilles, as well as in the Achilleid, irreversible traces – however much he himself strives to can- cel them. Statius ironizes the gap between the censoring will and the actual behaviour of the hero. This starts from the prayer to his mother, solicited by Ulysses: here Achilles exploits in self-apology the very claim of excessive Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 101 obedience by which part of the tradition had justified his consent to the disguise (2.17–19): paruimus, genetrix, quamquam haud toleranda iuberes, / paruimus nimium (“Mother, I obeyed you though your commands were more than I could bear, too much I obeyed”). However, shortly after Homer- ically jumping on the ship as the “swift-footed” he is (alno insiluit), and seeing the symbolic disappearance of Scyros “on the vast sea” (2.19–22), Achilles feels love reviving in himself. At this point, he does not escape the polymetis hero, and has to be remotivated by him: Ulysses’ eloquence persuades him, contrasting the accounts that mother and son have tried to realize so far, and showing to Achilles that the departure to Troy corresponds to his own will (2.32–42 “nec nostrum, quod in arma venis sequerisque precantes / venisses” dixit, quoted above, §4). From this point on, Achilles strives to close the narrative parenthesis opened by his mother and to project himself into a different future. The text deflates the hero’s claims to literary unidimensionality: Statius demonstrates that the experiment of the Achilleid, by integrating the Scyros episode into Achilles’ heroic career, has transformed the epic tradition, rein- terpreting even Homer and the Iliad in line with erotic-elegiac poetry. The narrator’s irony exposes in all its clumsiness Achilles’ hypocritical attempt to hide his personal responsibility in initiating the Scyros episode: the hero is silent on his falling in love and the erotic motive for the disguise. In the recusatio non petita addressed to Ulysses, so as to avoid (re)narrating what has been narrated (at excessive length) so far, Achilles dismisses the episode as maternum nefas and fatorum crimina. He lays the whole blame of it on his mother and the fates and, instead of narrating, he shows himself ready rather to redeem “Scyros and the unseemly habit” (the preceding chapter of his story) through heroic action and the weapons (hoc … ense) (2.42–8):

quem talibus occupat heros Aeacius: “Longum resides exponere causas maternumque nefas; hoc excusabitur ense Scyros et indecores, fatorum crimina, cultus. 45 tu potius dum lene fretum Zephyroque fruuntur carbasa, quae Danais tanti primordia belli, ede: libet iustas hinc sumere protinus iras.”

(Aeacus’ hero scion puts in: “Twere long to set out the causes of my tarrying and my mother’s crime. By this sword shall Scyros and the unseemly habit be excused, reproach of destiny. You rather tell me how so great a war began for the Danai, while the sea is calm and the sails enjoy the Zephyr. I am fain to draw just wrath from the tale here and now.”) 102102 102 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein

Here, then, Achilles eschews any report on his recent past, and instead invites Ulysses, in turn, to expound the causes of the Trojan War, as he wants to conceive right now a “just wrath.” There is irony on the narrator’s part about this stiff scholastic pose of the neo-warrior, and the voluntaristic character of his “textbook” engagement. Wrath is an essential prerequisite of heroic epic, and Achilles, as a willing student, wants to learn it – and catch up with the syllabus. The exacting definition iustas … iras, with its philosophical fla- vour and Virgilian-Statian tradition (it is used in the Thebaid for Theseus), openly opposes Homer’s “destructive wrath” (μῆνιν … οὐλομένην, Il. 1.1–2). It anticipates by antiphrasis the incipit of the Iliad, and lets the reader smile on the good intentions of this novice Achilles. The literary signal is precise: in little more than thirty verses, through an attentive script and a speech shrewdly constructed by Ulysses, Achil- les is in fact driven to anger. The hero’s reaction, however, is not only a brilliantly passed exam, which Ulysses delights in: it is an anticipation, which could not be more exact, precisely of the Anger episode in Iliad 1. Let us observe the sequence. After narrating Helen’s rape, Ulysses arouses Achilles’ indignation through a provoking, seemingly impersonal rhetorical question (2.66–71):

inde dato passim varias rumore per urbes, undique inexciti sibi quisque et sponte coimus ultores: quis enim illicitis genialia rumpi pacta dolis facilique trahi conubia raptu ceu pecus armentumve aut vilis messis acervos perferat? haec etiam fortes iactura moveret.

(Thence the rumour spreads everywhere through the various cities. Unsummoned we gather from all quarters, each for himself of his own will, avengers. For who should brook that marriage pacts be broken by lawless guile and wives dragged off in easy rape, like flock or herd or paltry heaps of corn? Such loss would move even the strong.)

The feignedly generic language (quis … perferat …? and etiam fortes) aims straight at the intradiegetic addressee. There follows a series of exempla, a further indignant rhetorical question (“shall we (Greeks) endure …?”) and, as a fulmen in clausula, the provocation that is meant to change Achilles himself into a living paradigm of just anger, for the offence of a woman’s rape. Ulysses employs an exemplum fictum, the hypothesis of a rape of Dei- damia, in reply to which Achilles sets his hand to the sword, blushing. At this point Ulysses, satisfied, keeps silent (2.81–5): Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 103

“quid si nunc aliquis patriis rapturus ab oris Deidamian eat viduaque e sede revellat attonitam et magni clamantem nomen Achillis?” illius ad capulum rediit manus ac simul ingens impulit ora rubor: tacuit contentus Ulixes.

(“How if one were now to come to carry off Deidamia from her native land, pluck her in dismay from her widowed dwelling as she calls on great Achilles’ name?” The other’s hand went to his sword-hilt and a deep flush struck his face. Ulysses was content and said no more.)

The virtual rape is expressed with words (rapturus … eat … revellat) that recall Agamemnon’s threat to carry away Briseis in Homer, Il. 1.184–5: ἐγὼ δέ κ᾽ἄγω Βρισηίδα καλλιπάρῃον / αὐτὸς ἰὼν κλισίηνδε, τὸ σὸν γέρας (“but I will myself come to your tent and take the fair-cheeked Briseis, your prize”). Statius adds to that an elegiac revision of the Homeric text. The hemistich clamantem nomen Achillis echoes a hemistich from Hermione’s epistle to Orestes in the Heroides (clamantem nomen Orestis, “my cries of ‘Orestes,’” Ov. Her. 8.9), where the heroine laments having been raped by Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, and regrets that Achilles is not alive to condemn the act, as “in the old days Achilles never rejoiced nor would he now to watch a widowed husband mourning for a stolen wife” (nec quondam placuit nec nunc placuisset Achilli / abducta viduum coniuge flere virum, Her. 8.85–6).64 Ovid’s text presupposes the eroticized and romantic reading of the relationship between Achilles and Briseis, which imposed itself, on the basis of hints implicit in the Homeric text, in later reinterpretations of the Iliad, from the scholia to Latin elegy.65 Statius too rereads Homer through his reception: in designing a hero who takes the sword and blushes at the same time, he makes visible the mingling of anger and love by which the post- Homeric tradition explained “Achilles’ Anger,” from the Horace of the Epis- tles, to Propertius, to Tristia 2 and other texts by Ovid (Hor. Epist. 1.2.11–13; Ov. Trist. 2.373–4). The parallel between Helen’s rape and the hypothetical rape of Deidamia recalls the parallelism between Helen’s rape and that of Briseis, set up by Achilles himself in Iliad 9.66 Playing on symmetries, Ulysses appeals to Achilles’ recent personal experience, which prefigures his future Homeric experience. That Statius wants precisely to evoke Iliad 1 is clearly seen at 2.84. This point has been strangely overlooked by critics.67 Illius ad capulum rediit manus: Achilles sets his hand to the sword again (rediit), as he had done – we have to imagine – shortly before, when he swore he would redeem the shame of Scyros hoc … ense, with the deictic suggesting the gesture of touching 104104 104 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein the hilt (2.44–5, quoted above). But this “return” of the hand to the sword hilt is also a return of the Achilleid to Homer’s text. No detail is more memorable, in the Wrath episode, than Achilles’ hand searching for the sword, and being on the point of unsheathing it, to kill Agamemnon and avenge the offence (Hom. Il. 1.194: ἕλκετο δ᾽ἐκ κολεοῖο μέγα ξίφος, “he … was drawing from its sheath his great sword”), when Athene appears and exhorts him to check himself (Il. 1.210): “ἀλλ᾽ἄγε λῆγ᾽ἔριδος, μηδὲ ξίφος ἕλκεο χειρί.” (“But come, cease from strife, and do not grasp the sword with your hand.”) And then “He … stayed his heavy hand on the silver hilt, and back into its sheath thrust the great sword” (ἐπ᾽ἀργυρέῃ κώπῃ σχέθε χεῖρα βαρεῖαν, / ἄψ δ᾽ἐς κουλεὸν ὦσε μέγα ξίφος, 1.219–20).68 Tacuit contentus Ulixes: indeed, Ulysses can be content, and Statius with him; together, they have managed to bring the enamoured hero of the Achil- leid exactly where they wanted, right up to the beginning of the Iliad. The mother plot that Ulysses has destroyed, however, was not in vain. The erotic- elegiac deviation effected by Thetis half-voluntarily, with the unexpected aid of Love,69 has produced a new Achilles, ready to enter the Homeric world with an irreversibly post-Homeric profile.

7. Fame, Memory, and Censure: The Competing Narratives of Mother and Son, and Ulysses’ Achilles

To conclude, I would like to share a few observations on the self-reflexive signals that connote the competing narratives of mother and son, as well as the poetic regrets of the Scyrian “abandoned woman,” and Ulysses’ literary project, rejoining Achilles’ education by Chiron to his heroic-epic future at Troy. Thetis “unintentionally” puts a self-reflexive seal on her creation, the Scyros episode, right in the line by which she takes leave forever from the unfinished poem. In her farewell to the island (cara mihi tellus …, “Land dear to me …,” 1.384), the goddess promises as a reward to Scyros a fama not inferior to that of Delos (1.388: nec instabili fama superabere Delo, “nor shall unsteady Delos surpass your fame”). At the same time, she prays Scyros to let the news be spread by fama that on the island there is nothing useful to war (1.393–4: “hic thiasi tantum et nil utile bellis”: / hoc famam narrare doce, “‘Here are only dances, nothing for warriors’ use’ – so teach Rumour to tell”), hoping that, while the expedition against Troy is being prepared, Achilles “is [= is said to be] the maiden daughter of good Lyco- medes” (1.394–6): “dumque arma parantur / Dorica et alternum Mavors interfurit orbem (cedo equidem) sit virgo pii Lycomedis Achilles” (“and while Doric arms are making ready and Mavors rages between two worlds Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 105

(let him for all I care), be Achilles good Lycomedes’ maiden”). “Sit virgo pii Lycomedis Achilles” is more than a definition, it is almost a title – and a truly famous one. Playing on the polysemic fama (“rumour” and “fame”), Statius’ text proclaims, beyond Thetis’ intentions, the literary fame of the Scyros episode – exactly, “Achilles disguised as a maiden at the court of pious Lycomedes.” For his part, in the second book, Achilles consents to Diomedes’ request to tell of his education by Chiron. As I have shown elsewhere,70 here the narrator insinuates that recounting his own deeds is not at all unpleasant to Achilles (2.94–5): quem pigeat sua facta loqui? tamen ille modeste / incohat, ambiguus paulum propiorque coacto. (“Whom would it irk to tell of his own deeds? Yet he begins modestly, a little hesitant, rather as if constrained.”) The rhetorical question by the narrator recalls an ironic intervention by Ovid of Achilles in the “little Iliad” of the Metamorphoses. There, the Greek heroes converse at a banquet, celebrating Achilles’ victory over Cycnus, and epi- cally tell each other their own deeds, tales that are a pleasure for everybody (commemorare iuvat, “they relished … recounting,” 12.162), but above all for Achilles (Ov. Met. 12.163–4): quid enim loqueretur Achilles, / aut quid apud magnum potius loquerentur Achillem?71 (“What else indeed could be Achilles’ theme? What else their theme with great Achilles there?”) Statius repeats the pointed form of Ovid’s question, and condenses in it the meaning of that whole passage. Celebrating the glories of the heroes, but above all of himself, is a predilection of Achilles’ (cf. 1.188). In his tent, in Iliad 9, the hero consoled himself singing on the lyre the klea andron; in the post-Homeric tradition, that self-reflexive tale, an emblem of the epic genre, can change into the self-celebration of a hero. Statius has already played on the protagonist’s vanity, both in the Chiron episode, where Achilles interrupts the song to the lyre in honour of his mother the very instant that, by evoking Catullus 64, he is going to touch on the prophecy of the Parcae about his own victories at Troy (1.193–4), and in the Scyros episode, where the hero courts Dei- damia by teaching her to sing to the lyre the deeds of the famous Achilles (1.572–9). Here, in his first test in a key motif of epic, the hero’sἀπόλογοι (“tales”), the pre-Iliadic Achilles transfigures his education by Chiron into a small Bildungsepos, constructing on his own a heroic-epic image of himself: he gives an extreme, hyper-primitivist version of the Centaur’s school, not only compared to the Pindaric model (the third Nemaean Ode), but also to the picture of his heroic apprenticeship offered by Statius at the beginning of the first book. Between the lines, he precisely alludes to great episodes of the Iliad of which he will be the protagonist. 106106 106 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein

As if to correct the image of himself that has been proposed so far to the reader, with his narrative the hero now substitutes the court of Scyros, the female clothes, the spindle and the thyrsus, the erotic seduction, with the woods of the Pelion, virile nudity, hunting, arms, as he tries to cast into oblivion everything that followed, confining it in a fictitious space created by his mother, known by his mother, remembered only by his mother. Another self-reflexive sign, and a strongly ironic one, in fact closes Achil- les’ tale, and the poem (2.166–7): hactenus annorum, comites, elementa meorum / et memini et meminisse iuvat: scit cetera mater. (“So far, comrades, I remember the training of my early years and joy in the memory. My mother knows the rest.”) Mater is the word on which the Achilleid has closed for ever. If indeed the poem as we have it was a piece complete in itself, and offered as such to the audience in the recitationes, this closure was effective. Thetis had proposed to her son the deceit on Scyros, assuring him that Chiron would not know it: “nesciet hoc Chiron” (1.274). As if replying at a distance, Achilles now claims that nobody but his mother knows that story: “scit cetera mater.” At the end of his tale, the hero restates his refusal to acknowledge, authorize, and remember an indecorous episode that he had refused to renarrate with a praeteritio (2.43–4, translated above): “longum resides exponere causas / maternumque nefas.” Hactenus is here a signal of a voluntary selection of memories, while et memini et meminisse iuvat states “that’s it”: all that Achilles remembers, and all that he “wants” to remember and he “likes” to remember, to the exclusion of all the rest. The hero claims for himself the authority attributed to the Muses by Virgil: et meministis enim, divae, et memorare potestis (“Goddesses, you can remember it all and recite it from memory,” V. Aen. 7.645). Like the heroes of Ovid’s “little Iliad,” including himself, this Achil- les “delights” in remembering and recalling his own deeds (meminisse iuvat, cf. Met. 12.163 commemorare iuvat)72 – or, rather, a partial version of them. Above all, as I have already shown, Statius here varies once again some Ovidian verses, from Glaucus’ first-person narrative of his own metamorphosis (Ov. Met. 13.956–7): hactenus acta tibi possum memoranda referre, / hactenus et memini; nec mens mea cetera sensit. (“So far I can relate what I recall, so far remember; but the rest is lost.”) The obvious formal similarity emphasizes the distance between the situations, and creates an ironical effect at the expense of Achilles. Glaucus’ tale stops at the boundary of what is unknowable, the passage from man to god. In the culminating moment of his transformation, he lost his consciousness, so he is not able to remember what he did not perceive. Achilles, by his disguise, has experienced a metamorphosis, but a wholly conscious and chosen one: his own has been the mise en scène of a transformation. For him, partial memory is a voluntary act of selection. Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 107

On the female side, Deidamia had already feared Achilles’ repressed memories at the end of the first book – many self-reflexive signs, in her lament, foreground issues of memory and oblivion.73 Even at a literary level, Deidamia’s “prophecy” is right: through her words, Statius comments on the censure of the Scyros episode exercised by a part of the literary critical and poetic tradition, perhaps including Homer.74 The repression of memories by Achilles, realizing Deidamia’s fears, mirrors inside the Achilleid the critical debate on the Scyros episode and its fortunes in literary history. Ulysses too participates in that debate, and sets against the embarrassing story of the cross-dressing the well- known literary tradition of Achilles’ heroic education, constructing him as the best of the Achaeans (1.868): scimus ... tu semiferi Chironis alumnus (“We know. You are half-beast Chiron’s fosterling”). Already at the royal palace, as he recognizes Achilles, Ulysses secretly exhorts him to put an end to all the delays that hold him back from war epic, by oppos- ing the heroic narration of his departure to Troy, which will give joy to his father Peleus, to the Scyrian deceit, conceived and staged by The- tis’ fear – a comedy of deceits issued from an excess of motherly love (nimis … mater), and a mother plot of which Thetis herself will be ashamed (1.866–74):

tunc acer Ulixes admotus lateri summissa voce: “quid haeres? scimus” ait, “tu semiferi Chironis alumnus, tu caeli pelagique nepos, te Dorica classis, te sua suspensis exspectat Graecia signis, ipsaque iam dubiis nutant tibi Pergama muris. heia, abrumpe moras! sine perfida palleat Ide, et iuvet haec audire patrem, pudeatque dolosam sic pro te timuisse Thetin.”

(Then keen Ulysses approached him and speaking softly: “Why do you hesitate?” he says. “We know. You are half-beast Chiron’s fosterling, grandson of sea and sky. The Dorian fleet attends you, your Greece expects you with flying standards and Pergamus herself nods to you with walls already tottering. Up now, no more delay! Let treacherous Ide turn pale, let your father rejoice to hear the news and wily Thetis be ashamed to have so feared for you.”)

Thetis’ literary role in the Achilleid, as a timid and deceitful plotter, is here criticized and disposed of. In order to pass from the “Achilles on Scyros” to the “Achilles at Troy,” “The Hero’s Mother” will have to reduce herself from a director and plot creator to an ancillary figure of the narrative, and from 108108 108 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein an irreducible antagonist to an internal opposer of the genre of war epic, a character kept on the margins of the tale of klea andron, able to infuse in it the pathos of fear and lament, to console and succour her son, to ensure him Zeus’ favour at the start and Hephaestus’ arms towards the end – only to make his glorious death come early. On a poetic level, more serious and sublime than that of the Achilleid, the role of Thetis in the Iliad will be the last, failed deviation of Achilles’ destiny.

NOTES

1 On the “coherent and polished” form of the transmitted part of this unfinished poem, see Heslin 2005, 57–8. 2 Hinds 1998, 96–8; Feeney 2004, 86. 3 Cf. Ach. 1.74–8 with Hom. Il. 18.35–67 (on which see Barchiesi 1978, and here below, §4). 4 Cf. Ach. 1.1–2 with Aen. 1.250 (notice progenies) and 259–60. 5 On the many intertextual connections of this passage, see McNelis 2009, 406–7; Kozák 2013, 250–4. 6 See Heslin 2005, 105–9; Uccellini 2012, xxii, 53–4 (note on 1.20–9), and passim. 7 Metapoetic traits comment upon this reduction of epic aspirations: e.g., 1.29 angustum dominas non explicat aequor, “and the strait cannot find room for its mistresses,” opposes Hom. Il. 18.50 τῶν δὲ καὶ ἀργύφεον πλῆτο σπέος, “the bright sea-cave was filled with nymphs” (as noted by Barth 1664–65 ad loc.), following the catalogue of 33 Nereids that Statius elides; non explicat suggests textuality (cf. Catull. 1.6), angustum… aequor Callimachean smallness. See also Micozzi 2015, 337–8. 8 On Thetis’ agency, see Schetter 1960, 141–3; Koster 1979, 199 (“Thetideis”); now McAuley 2015, ch. 8. 9 To be contrasted with Ov. Met. 13.301 me pia detinuit coniunx, pia mater Achillen, “a loving wife held me, a loving mother Achilles”: with rhetorical opportunism, there Ulysses exploits Achilles’ exemplum for his own self-apology. 10 Text and translations of the works of Statius are by Shackleton Bailey 2003. Virgil’s Aeneid is quoted from Conte 2011, with the translation of Ahl 2007. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is quoted from Tarrant 2004, with the translation of Melville 1986. Other texts and translations are from the relevant Loeb editions. 11 Nimis with a substantive, to indicate the utmost, indeed exaggerated, possession of the qualities summed up by the name, and expressed shortly before by adjectives, will recur in Apul. Met. 7.21. 12 Her divine status, and the problematically ironic mode in which it is represented, distances Thetis from Parthenopaeus’ mother, Atalanta, a parallel Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 109

figure in the Thebaid, as is well known (see, among others, Micozzi 1998, 113–14, and McAuley 2015, ch. 8). 13 Heslin 2005, 105: “the goddess becomes by turns a figure of pathos and of comic ineptitude.” 14 See Barchiesi 1996; moreover, Klodt 2009. See also Bessone (forthcoming). 15 Rosati 1992, 1994. 16 On Achilles’ multiple literary identities, see King 1987; Michelakis 2002; Fantuzzi 2012; on the hero in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Galasso 2004; Papaioannou 2007; Labate 2010, 21–34. 17 I hereby borrow the unintentionally ironic title of an Italian women’s magazine. 18 For Thetis’ power in the Iliad, see Slatkin 1995, 53–84 (= 2011, 52–71). For the power relationship between Thetis and Neptune as represented in Statius, cf. the boast of Neptune’s son, Cycnus, to Achilles in Ov. Met. 12.93–4. 19 Rosati 1992, 233–4; 1994, 6–7. 20 Ach. 1.325–48. See Bessone 2016, 186–93. 21 See moreover Parkes 2009, 110, comparing also Val. Fl. 1.549–51 (the following verses, with the anaphoric exclamative series quae … quot … quot … quae …!, reveal the same Horatian matrix, a productive model for later prophecies). 22 On this kind of “universal expression,” distributed over two, three, or four terms, see Hardie 1986, 293–335. 23 Hor. Carm. 1.15.7 (coniurata). 24 Both passages precisely recall Hom. Il. 11.781–2: cf. Bessone 2016, 178. 25 For various ironical uses of this and similar formulas affecting uncertainty (sometimes with a self-conscious intra- or intertextual point), see Fantham 1998 on Ov. Fast. 4.623; Gervais 2017 on Stat. Theb. 2.656; Ov. Her. 5.127; Barchiesi 2005a on Ov. Met. 1.607–8. 26 Cf. Uccellini 2012 ad loc. 27 Hinds 1998, 96; Heslin 2005, 106. Venus’ words to Jupiter, however, recall the Odyssey: see Knauer 1964, 153. 28 Barchiesi 1978; Obbink 2002; Barchiesi 2005a on Ov. Met. 1.662; Reed 2013 on Met. 10.202. For a further hint in this direction, see below, n. 41 on Ach. 1.256–7 praeclusa. 29 Cf. especially Achilles’ words in Hom. Il. 18.84–93 (and perhaps 1.352 μινυνθάδιόν, as interpreted by Pope 1985: 8n14); see also Thetis in 18.50–64 (54 δυσαριστοτόκεια) and 1.417–18; 24.90–1 (see Richardson 1993 ad loc.: “Thetis’ unease at mingling with the gods is caused by her grief and entanglement in mortal affairs”). 30 With habitare cf. the use of ναίειν in Hom. Il. 18.87 (cf. also πένθος, Il. 18.88, with Ach. 1.74 luctus). 31 Cf. Gibson 2006 ad loc., referring to Hom. Od. 24.47–9. 110110 110 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein

32 The motif reappears in Thetis’ speech to Achilles in 1.252–8, as a rhetorical premise to her exhorting him to the disguise. 33 See Uccellini 2012 ad loc.; Micozzi 2007 on Theb. 4.317 (Atalanta); Parkes 2012 on 4.317–44. 34 Ach. 1.78–9. The reader may even be reminded of Neptune’s being a suitor of Thetis, together with Jupiter, in the mythical version given by Pind. Isthm. 8.26a–46a, a text Statius knows well (see Barchiesi 1996: 47–8, and here below). 35 Neptune is a vehicle of tragic irony even on his own: his reassuring words, praising to Thetis the future deeds of her son, also clash with his own future mourning for his son Cycnus, slain by Achilles (Ov. Met. 12.71–145); his revenge on the Greek hero, responsible as well for the destruction of the walls of Troy that he and Apollo had built “in vain,” seems alluded to at Ach. 1.89 (cf. Ov. Met. 12.587; 593). 36 Cf. the parallel clausula in Cat. 64.348–9 (the whole strophe of the Parcae song may sound ominous for Thetis), and see Uccellini 2012 on Ach. 1.84 and 84–5; Lauletta 1993, 90–1. 37 Sen. Tro. 241–2. For the coupling of Thetis and Aurora, cf. Ov. Am. 3.9.1–2. Ovid presupposes that parallelism as he models Aurora’s entreaty to Jupiter in Met. 13 upon that of Thetis in the Iliad: with our verses, cf. Ov. Met. 13.578–80; 595–7. See Hopkinson 2000 on 13.587–99; Hardie 2015 on 584–6, 587–601, passim. For Thetis and Eos in the Aethiopis cf. West 2013, 148; Hunter and Russell 2011 on Plut. de aud. poet. 17a. 38 Indeed, the whole episode of Thetis’ plea to Neptune may sound sinister to the reader who knows his Ovid, and remembers the story of Neptune’s spurring Apollo to kill Achilles, in revenge for the hero killing his son Cycnus. Statius’ benevolent, self-complacently royal god contrasts with his characterization in the Metamorphoses as a sovereign abusing his power against the hero (Met. 12.582–3). 39 Ach. 1.784 (identical ablative absolute arrepto tempore for Thetis in 1.318, “seizing her moment”). The juncture sollers Ulixes was already in Ov. Ars 2.355 (with an illusionistic ambiguity between matter-of-fact and intentional language: Ulysses’ erotic sollertia appears to be what keeps Penelope in suspense while he is absent). 40 Cf. V. Aen. 12.149–50 (Juno to Juturna) nunc iuvenem imparibus video concurrere fatis, / Parcarumque dies et vis inimica propinquant, “Now I observe the youth off to encounter a fate he’s no match for. Destiny’s Sisters and violent hatred are nearing their due date” (trans. Ahl); Hom Il. 24.131–2. At Ach. 1.258 extremis … metis may change into a more specific, metaphorical sense the image of the “accomplishment of death” (θανάτοιο τέλοσδε, Hom. Il. 9.411; Thetis’ words as related by Achilles to the ambassadors). Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid 111

41 Ach. 1.256–7 echoes the words of Inachus, Io’s father, in Ov. Met. 1.661–3 (cf. 662 praeclusaque ianua leti, “the gates of death are shut”): while she stresses Achilles’ mortality, Thetis allusively complains about her own immortality. 42 Cf. Brink 1963 on Ars 121–2. 43 Cf. the exhortation to Achilles to “check,” “tame,” or bravely “win” his soul or anger in Hom. Il. 9.255–6 (cf. 260); 496; Acc. Myrmidones fr. 15 R.2; Ov. Her. 3.85. 44 Fantham 1979, 459. 45 Cf. Sen. Med. 174–6. 46 The formula cedo equidem expresses the yielding to a superior force also at Aen. 2.704; Stat. Theb. 7.178, 8.516. 47 Only out of shame, in front of Ulysses, does Achilles censor the erotic motive and reproach himself only for excessive obedience to his mother (2.17–18, on which see below, §6). 48 V. Aen. 4.412–15 (improbe Amor…, “Ruthless Love…”). Cf. Barchiesi 1987, 82–7 (esp. 85–6) on the Virgilian Dido’s closeness to elegy, particularly in that passage. 49 V. Ecl. 6.1–2 (dignata est); Ov. Am. 3.1.37–8 (es … dignata). 50 Silv. 4.4.33–8. There Statius elaborates on Prop. 2.22a.29–30 and 2.8.35–6, although he characteristically substitutes Achilles’ singing of Briseis for his making love with Briseis. 51 Silv. 1.5.8–9; 4.7.5–8. Statius has Ovid in mind: cf. Ov. Am. 3.1.67–70. See Merli 2013: 186. 52 Also this simile already suggests what is going to happen: the taming action of Love (or Venus) is a topos of erotic poetry, cf. e.g. Ov. Am. 1.2.13–16 (14 iuga prima can be compared with Ach. 1.278 primis … habenis). 53 A widespread motif, since Hesiod’s Theogony: cf. Ov. Am. 1.2.37 with McKeown 1989 ad loc.; Rosati 2009 on Met. 5.369–71. 54 Hom. Il. 1.8–9; V. Aen. 9.77–83. Cf. Ripoll 2008 ad loc. 55 For the form of the double questioning with quis deus and mens further Virgilian and Catullan antecedents could be quoted: V. Aen. 9.601 (with Hardie 1994 ad loc.: “two ways of looking at it, as at 2.54”); Catull. 40, 1–4. Less relevant are alternatives like those of Prop. 1.12.9–10; more interesting are cases like Ov. Her. 5.5–6. 56 Barchiesi 2005b, 60: “Even the question that (unepically) turns the tables on the story, quis deus …?…?, had been inspired (again) by the feminized poetics of Catullus 66.31–32.” 57 Some reflections thereupon in Bessone 2010, 2011 chapter V, and 2015. 58 Hom. Il. 9, 702–3; cf. Od. 4.712–13. 59 See Feeney 1991, 239; Kenney 2008, 380–2; Bessone 2012. 112112 112 FedericaFlorence Contents Bessone Klein

60 Achilles’ primus amor thus derails the epos towards erotic-elegiac poetry, much like primus amor Phoebi in Ovid, Metamorphoses 1 (on which see, among others, Miller 2009b). 61 Bessone 2016, 185. 62 Fantuzzi 2012, ch. 2. 63 Bessone 2016, 199. 64 The irony of the unexpected switch from the woman’s perspective to that of the widowed man (viduum … virum) is remarkable: Achilles would again see himself left alone at the abduction of Briseis. 65 Fantuzzi 2012, ch. 3. 66 Hom. Il. 9.335–45. 67 Only Rosati 1994, 41–2, observes the “conciliation” between war and love shrewdly provoked in Achilles by Ulysses, and quotes Il. 1.194 in passing. No reference to the Anger episode is made in Ripoll and Soubiran 2008 ad loc. 68 The scene is so well known that, in the Satyricon, Encolpius cannot help performing it when Giton is snatched from him, while Petronius makes a parody of it (Petron. 82.2). See Conte 1996, 11–14. 69 An unexpected erotic turn promptly embraced by Thetis, who interprets it as the premise to a quiet family life: cf. 1.321–2 (where, moreover, the well-known Virgilian phrase alius Achilles suggests the dream of a grandson “different” from his warlike and intractable father). 70 Bessone 2016, 200–3. 71 See Galasso 2004, 97; Papaioannou 2007, 77; Newlands 2012, 93. 72 With meminisse iuvat cf. also V. Aen. 1.203 meminisse iuvabit (quoted by Ripoll and Soubiran 2008 ad loc.). 73 More on this in Bessone 2016, 193–7. Cf. Ach. 1.933–4; 1.947–8. 74 Fantuzzi 2012, 27–8. 6

Augustan Maternal Ideology: The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus judith p. hallett

In examining women’s networks in the Aeneid, Alison Keith situates Vir- gil’s portrayal of interactions among its female characters, both divine and human, in its Roman historical context. To establish that context – the codes and conventions that governed social relations among elite Roman women in the mid-to-late first century bce – Keith utilises a variety of sources. They include Plutarch’s Lives of the younger Cato and Mark Antony; Cicero’s correspondence to Atticus and his friends; and Inscriptiones Latinae Selec- tae 8393, the so-called Laudatio Turiae, which eulogizes an aristocratic woman for, inter alia, saving her husband from the proscriptions of 42 bce. Keith concludes that “Virgil’s thematization of gender conflict at the heart of proto-Roman social and political conflict both reflects the widespread practice of elite women’s participation in the social and political life of triumviral Rome and anticipates its public emergence in the Principate.”1 My discussion resembles Keith’s important study in utilizing the testimony of Plutarch and other historical sources – most notably Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Velleius Paterculus – for mid-to-late first century bce Roman elite female social conduct, and in employing these texts to illuminate Virgil’s representation of a major female character in the Aeneid. It argues that Virgil’s, to my mind anomalous, portrayal of the goddess Venus in her role as mother evinces similarities to depictions of an elite historical Roman woman: Octavia, sister of the triumvir who became the emperor Augustus, and wife of his fellow triumvir Mark Antony. Various sources portray Octavia – who figured prominently in Roman triumviral socio- political life, and in the familial interactions that increasingly acquired public consequence during her brother’s principate – in much the same way that 114114114 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein

Virgil does Venus, as coping with the challenges posed by what we today call “blended families.” Such kinship units consist of a woman and her children by different male partners, a man and his children by different female partners, and – at times but not at all times – any children the couple might have produced together.2 Virgil is remembered for his own poignant interactions with Octavia herself, specifically in her role as bereaved mother. In chapters 32–3, the Life of Virgil attributed to Donatus relates that Octavia fainted, and was only revived with difficulty, when she heard Virgil read his tribute to her recently deceased son Marcellus at the end of Aeneid Book 6 (Vita 33): sed hunc notabili Octaviae adfectione, quae cum recitationi interesset, ad illos de filio suo uersus [Aen. 6.884]: “tu Marcellus eris,” defecisse fertur atque aegre focilata. (“But this last book he recited out of his well known affection for Octavia, who was present at his recitation of those verses about her son, ‘You will be Marcellus’ – at which she is said to have fainted and been revived only with difficulty.”)3 So, too, in 46 bce Virgil himself witnessed Julius Caesar’s public endeavours to promote his family’s connection with the goddess Venus and her descendants in the Julian line, through the establishment of a forum featuring a temple to Venus Genetrix, if not all of Augustus’ later efforts to strengthen that connection.4 Virgil’s contribution to this redefinition of Venus and her image – as primarily a maternal divinity fostering Julian family ties – accords with representations in our historical accounts of Octavia, the most visible and esteemed female member of the Julian family, as a wife and especially a mother noteworthy for creating and sustaining emotional bonds among members of her own and her brother Augustus’ household.

1. Virgil’s Anomalous Venus

Genevieve Liveley has remarked that “Virgil’s Venus, ‘mother of savage Love’ and founder of the Julian line, presents a complicated image of motherhood.” Liveley argues that the status of Venus, as a divinity of erotic love, seems to destabilize and undermine her status as loving mother in Virgil’s epic. Liveley is, moreover, by no means the first scholar to offer a feminist reading of the Aeneid foregrounding the “odd blend of the maternal and the erotic” in Virgil’s portrait of Venus as the hero’s mother.5 Indeed, Liveley draws heavily on an earlier essay by Ellen Oliensis in contending that “[t]he antithesis of the mother for whom all-consuming maternal desire replaces sex, Venus appears to reserve her body entirely for erotic pursuits and to deny her child any physical expression of maternal love.”6 Oliensis maintains that Venus, like Dido, appears before Aeneas from the very first and at once as simultaneously a mother and erotic partner, noting: The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 115

After her son’s arrival in Libya, she comes to meet him in the guise of a virgin huntress – one so lovely that Aeneas mistakes her for Diana (Virgil thus conflates the antithetical goddesses of sexuality and chastity). This virginal Venus is functionally akin to the Phaeacian princess who is the first person whom Odysseus encounters after being washed ashore on Scheria. The link between Venus and Nausicaa is mediated by Diana/Artemis, to whom both are compared by their respective heroes … The point is that Venus presents herself to her son as a marriageable girl, offering him a kind of preview of Dido. The incestuous undertones are amplified by the echoes of another famous encounter involving the disguised goddess of love and an awestruck mortal: the meeting of Aphrodite with her future lover Anchises – Aeneas’ father! – in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. It is as if all heterosexual desire were incestuous, a recursive movement in time and space.7

Like Liveley and Oliensis, I too regard Virgil’s characterization of Venus in her maternal role as complicated, but also as replete with contradictions, and not (or at least not solely) because Virgil evokes eroticized depictions of Venus, and her Greek counterpart Aphrodite, in earlier Greek and Latin literary texts and visual representations. Rather, I find many of its details puzzling because they are at variance with those found in earlier Greek and Roman epic representations of Venus that underscore her erotic identity. Yet I would also maintain that, despite these eroticizing evocations and inconsistent details, Virgil offers a sympathetic portrait of Venus in her maternal role. Some of the details that strike me as most anomalous appear in the first and eighth books of the Aeneid. In Book 1, Virgil depicts Venus as shrewdly endeavouring to strengthen ties between Aeneas and Cupid, her two sons by different fathers, through enlisting the latter to aid the former. Later, in Book 8, he portrays Venus and Vulcan as a mutually devoted and loving married couple, shortly after revealing that Vulcan has fathered a monstrous offspring out of wedlock. Furthermore, Virgil does not represent Venus as entangled in adulterous liaisons of her own, at least during the “time line” of the Aeneid itself. Indeed, Virgil’s narrative distances Venus from Mars, the most celebrated of her illicit lovers. Nevertheless, it identifies Rome’s founder Romulus and his twin Remus as Mars’ illegitimate offspring, sired on one of Venus’ own female descendants. So, too, Virgil portrays Venus in the Aeneid as not only persuading her son, and Aeneas’ half-brother, Cupid but also her husband, and Aeneas’ stepfather, Vulcan, to support Aeneas in his political aims, and for this reason as successful in making her “blended family” function. Virgil also represents some of the children sired by her male partners as punished by death for politically destructive behaviour, others as rewarded for their services 116116116 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein to sustaining the Roman state. As we will see, Virgil’s Venus thus resembles Octavia as conducting herself in accordance with Roman ideological assumptions about appropriate maternal behaviour, and as taking charge of offspring, fathered by her two husbands, who both aided and undermined her brother Augustus and his political aims. Strikingly, in certain respects the fictive Roman love goddess fares better on the family management front than does the much-admired Octavia, a paragon of virtuous Roman motherhood. But before turning to the historical Octavia and her similarities to – as well as her differences from – Virgil’s mythic Venus, let us look more closely at what I have termed the “anomalous” details in Virgil’s portrait of Aeneas’ mother. At Aen. 1.651–98, Virgil describes Venus’ efforts to substitute her son Cupid for her grandson Ascanius, and thereby inflame the Carthaginian queen Dido’s heart with passion for her son, Ascanius’ father Aeneas. Virgil does not, however, represent Venus as acknowledging that Ascanius is in fact her grandson, and thus Cupid’s nephew. She merely reports to Cupid, at lines 677–8, that the royal boy (regius … puer) Ascanius, “her greatest concern” (maxima cura), prepares to travel to Carthage in response to a summons by his “dear father.” Earlier, at 664–9, while requesting Cupid’s help, Venus specifically refers to Aeneas as Cupid’s brother, twice addressing Cupid as “son” (nate):

nate meae uires, mea magna potentia, solus, nate, patris summi qui tela Typhoëa temnis, 665 ad te confugio et supplex tua numina posco. frater ut Aeneas pelago tuus omnia circum litora iactetur odiis Iunonis acerbae, nota tibi, et nostro doluisti saepe dolore.

(Son, my source of strength, my great might, you who alone, my son, scorn the Typhoean thunderbolts of great father Jupiter, I flee to you and make my demand in your godhead as a suppliant. That your brother Aeneas is tossed around from shore to shore by the sea, owing to the hatred of harsh Juno, is known to you and you have often grieved with my own grief.)

While Virgil’s Venus has not previously employed the noun she uses to address Cupid here – natus, son – in reference to Aeneas, Aeneas refers to himself with that word at line 407 when he recognizes his mother, and accuses her of cruelly deceiving her son by assuming the guise of a virgin goddess. He has also been previously addressed as nate dea (“goddess-born son”) by his companion Achates in line 582 and Dido herself at line 615. Yet The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 117

Venus does not indicate that Aeneas and Cupid are in fact half-brothers, the offspring of different fathers, much less reveal the identity of Cupid’s father here or elsewhere.8 We encounter a similar phenomenon in Book 5, where the Sicilian Eryx, Venus’ son from a liaison with the Argonaut Boutes, and hence also Aeneas’ half-brother, is repeatedly described as Aeneas’ brother: at line 24–5, a reference to the “reliable shores of Eryx, belonging to a brother” (litora … fida … fraterna Erycis); at line 413, referring to Eryx as a brother (germanus Eryx); and, at line 639, again characterizing the territo- ries (fines) of Eryx as “belonging to a brother” (fraterni).9 What Virgil does emphasize in describing Cupid’s disguise as Ascanius is that Cupid, like Ascanius, is a boy (puer). At 1.684, Venus uses the word puer twice in succession when she tells Cupid “a boy yourself, adopt a boy’s familiar features” (notos pueri puer indue uultus). And at 4.94, Juno, addressing Venus, sarcastically accuses “you and that boy of yours” (tuque puer tuus) of achieving great military glory by making Dido enamoured of Aeneas. At 1.617–18 Virgil depicts Dido as asking Aeneas, whom she has just met, if he is “the Aeneas whom kindly Venus bore to Trojan Anchises” (quem Dardanio Anchisae / alma Venus … genuit). At 3.475, the seer Helenus addresses Anchises himself as “deemed worthy of proud union with Venus” (coniugio, Anchisa, Veneris dignate superbo). Still, Virgil does not represent Venus and Anchises as equally responsible for Aeneas’ parentage. In fact, at 2.594–8, Venus, addressing Aeneas with the vocative nate, urges him to depart from the fray of besieged Troy, and save his family members at home. Yet Venus merely refers to Anchises as Aeneas’ male parent (parentem, 2.596), without acknowledging that he and she have produced Aeneas together, as a couple. Nevertheless, much later in the Aeneid, at 8.370–405, Virgil does portray Venus as part of a mutually devoted married couple, albeit as a wife who successfully makes use of her physical charms in manipulating her husband to do her bidding on her son’s behalf. He also depicts her husband Vulcan as a generous stepfather to Aeneas, creating for Aeneas, as a result of Venus’ manipulative entreaties, a shield comparable to that forged by Hephaestus for Achilles in Homer’s Iliad. Indeed, Virgil first refers to Venus as a justifi- ably frightened mother (at Venus haud animo nequiquam exterrita mater, 370), prior to representing her at 371–3 as “breathing divine love” (diuinum adspirat amorem) with her words to Vulcan, calling Vulcan “dearest spouse” (carissime coniunx) at 377, and as cherishing Vulcan with a soft embrace (amplexu molli fouet, 388).10 Virgil then, in 388–90, details Vulcan’s heated physical response to his wife’s physical charms, aptly likening his reaction, in 391–2, to the fire created by a thunderbolt. He next describes Vulcan, with a particularly apposite 118118118 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein metaphor at 394, as “the father held in chains by eternal passion” (pater aeterno … deuinctus amore), although Vulcan is merely Aeneas’ stepfather, not his “biological” father. Finally, after Vulcan promises his wife that he will craft arms for Aeneas, Virgil relates in 405 that he gave “desired embraces” (optatos dedit amplexus). The use of the perfect passive participle in optatos merits notice, too. It allows for the possibility that both husband and wife were desirous of such embraces, despite his implication that Venus is only bestowing her physical favours to work her will on Vulcan.11 But only a few hundred lines earlier, at 8.193–9, Virgil represents King Evander as mentioning Vulcan to his stepson Aeneas when relating how Hercules slew, and was subsequently celebrated for slaying, the fire- breathing monster Cacus. In so doing, Evander attests to and emphasizes Vulcan’s sexual involvements outside of his marriage to Aeneas’ mother. After describing Cacus as a half-human, bloodthirsty creature, Evander remarks, at 198, “Vulcan was the father to this monster” (huic monstro Volcanus erat pater). Later, at lines 225–6, Evander reminds Aeneas of Cacus’ paternity again, by describing an iron chain holding a large rock as arte paterna, an example of “his father’s craftsmanship,” before he shares the details of Cacus’ death. Anomalously, too, while Virgil represents Venus’ divine husband Vulcan as having fathered the monstrous and justly slain Cacus “on the wrong side of the blanket,” he barely, and only obliquely, acknowledges Venus’ literary reputation for extramarital sexual activity. As we have observed, the Aeneid says nothing about Cupid’s paternity (or, for that matter, the paternity of Eryx). So, too, Virgil depicts Venus as saying nothing about her sexual liaison with Anchises that produced Aeneas, although other characters in the epic are quick to mention it. What is more, Virgil’s portrayal of Venus’ relationship with Mars, god of war, contrasts sharply with the way in which two earlier epic poems that heavily influenced the Aeneid – Homer’s Odyssey and Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura – represented the bond between these two divinities. At Odyssey 8.266–305, the bard Demodocus relates, for Odysseus and the others at the banquet hosted by King Alcinous of Phaeacia, a tale about the illicit coupling of their Greek counterparts, Ares and Aphrodite, to entertain- ing and comic effect. For it literally culminates in their capture in chains by her cuckolded blacksmith husband, there of course called Hephaestus. The proem of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura portrays the physical union of Mars and Venus – who is reverentially addressed in the poem’s first line as Aenea- dum genetrix, “foremother of Aeneas’ descendants” – to symbolize a philosophical desideratum, peace on land and sea. But the Aeneid does not depict Venus and Mars as a mutually enraptured, much less adulterous, couple. The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 119

At Aeneid 1.272–8, however, Virgil portrays Venus’ father Jupiter as making prominent reference to Mars when speaking to Venus herself, to reassure her that her son Aeneas and his descendants will enjoy “empire without end” (his ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono, 278). Jupiter does so when relating that Ilia, a “priestess queen” (regina sacerdos, 273), will bear twin offspring after being impregnated by Mars (Marte grauis, 274). A few lines later, at 275–6, Jupiter describes one of these twins, Romulus, as slated to found Mauortia … moenia (“fortifications of Mars”).Virgil thus calls further attention to the illicit sexual relationship between the Roman god of war and a woman other than Venus. Indeed – as her name Ilia (rather than Rhea Silvia, as she is called by other Roman authors) emphasizes – this woman is a female descendant of Venus herself, through the son of Venus’ son, the puer Ascanius, who will later bear the name Ilus.12 Furthermore, Mars figures prominently in Virgil’s description, at the end of Aeneid 8, of the shield crafted for Aeneas by his stepfather Vulcan.13 At lines 700–1 Mauors, “engraved in iron” (caelatus ferro), looms large among the Roman gods engaged in the Battle of Actium. Line 676 employs the war god’s name metaphorically in the phrase instructo Marte (“in fighting formation”). But at line 630 Virgil also, and again, alludes to Mars as the illegitimate father of Romulus and Remus, with the detail that the shield depicted the twins suckled by a she-wolf, uiridi … Mauortis in antro (“in the green cave of Mars”). Significantly, Virgil’s description of the she-wolf in line 633 astereti ceruice reflexa (“with her shapely neck bent sideways”) echoes line 35 in the first book of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, where the phrase tereti ceruice reposta refers to the shapely neck of Mars in the embrace of Venus. Through this intertextual detail, Virgil may signal his own, and his readers’, familiarity with these earlier representations of Venus and Mars as lovers, and illicit ones at that. Yet while Virgil’s narrative prominently features a speech uttered by Venus’ father and a shield crafted by Venus’ husband that acknowledge the illicit relationship between Mars and Venus’ kinswoman Ilia, the Aeneid does not represent Venus herself as sexually involved with Mars. Rather, it portrays the illicit offspring of Mars as furthering the fortunes of the bloodline launched by Venus’ son. Nor, for that matter, does Virgil mention Venus’ sexual liaisons with other male partners. By way of contrast, lines 15–16 of Amores 3.9, Ovid’s lament for the dead Tibullus, liken Venus’ grief over the youthful elegist’s death to her sorrow over the fatal wound inflicted by a wild boar on the groin of her young lover Adonis. What is more, Ovid does so immediately after addressing “beautiful Iulus” (pulcher Iule) in 13–14, and reminding him of how sad Cupid was when he emerged from Iulus’ own house for the funeral of his 120120120 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein brother Aeneas (fratris in Aeneae … funere). Since Tibullus and Virgil both died in the same year, 19 bce, Ovid may have written this poem not long after the Aeneid, and with the Aeneid in mind, parodying Virgil’s relatively “sanitized” portrait of Venus as mother with details of this kind. Virgil’s use in the Aeneid of the noun genetrix – so memorably applied, along with Aeneadum, to Venus by Lucretius, and so memorably associated with Venus in the temple dedicated by Julius Caesar in 46 bce – merits special scrutiny in this context as well. To be sure, Virgil uses genetrix for women other than Venus, such as the Trojan mother goddess Cybele at 10.234. But he employs genetrix twice for Venus in Book 1, thereby closely associating her with the term, recalling Lucretius’ invocation, and yet differ- ing from Lucretius by not characterizing Venus as the passionate extramarital lover of Mars. And although Virgil first uses the termgenetrix to describe Venus as mother of Aeneas at line 590, he next uses it in 689 to depict her as mother of Cupid, according equal value to her two, very different, male offspring.14 Why, though, did Virgil choose, in his characterization of Venus as mother, to accord equal status to, and stress the connections between, her children by different fathers without even indicating the paternity of two such children, much less admitting that the children of Venus mentioned in the poem are the offspring of three different unions? Why does Virgil blur this distinction further by portraying Venus as failing to acknowledge that she and Anchises, a major character in his epic, share Aeneas as a son? Why does Virgil emphasize the marital devotion between Venus and Vulcan, but not explicitly mention Venus’ illicit, literarily renowned, erotic ties to Mars? And why does he relate that both her husband Vulcan and lover Mars sired children by women other than herself?

2. Venus’ Affinities with Octavia

It is my contention that Virgil has characterized Venus in this anomalous way for ideological purposes, to render her a fitting Aeneadum genetrix, mother of Aeneas’ descendants. I would argue as well that Virgil has endowed Venus with qualities displayed by, and valued in, Augustus’ sister Octavia. The most prominent female member of the Julian family during the decade when Virgil was writing the Aeneid, Octavia accrued a large measure of public respect throughout her own lifetime, both before and after Virgil’s death in 19 bce. To be sure, Octavia does not appear to have been explicitly identified with Venus Genetrix.15 So, too, the efforts to carve out what Beth Severy has called “an unprecedented position for [Octavia] in public life” as a “model The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 121 matron” by “utilizing contemporary public discourse about morality and obligation” occurred during the decade after Virgil died.16 These efforts include the dedication of the Theatre of Marcellus in 13 bce and the renam- ing of the closest portico as the Porticus Octaviae after its renovation. Citing the testimony of several passages from Books 35 and 36 of the elder Pliny’s Natural History, Severy also calls attention to the artwork selected for the portico. “Many of its pieces,” she notes, “depicted famous women and goddesses,” such as “the only public statue of a woman known from the republican period, that of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.” Severy remarks as well that the naming of a public building for someone else, particularly a family member, was unprecedented – and that if Octavia herself, as some sources state, sponsored this public building and named it after herself, this “was an even more unprecedented act than for her brother to erect [this building] in her honor.”17 But in documenting the esteem displayed for Octavia in the years after Virgil’s death and the publication of the Aeneid, Severy accords particular importance to the unit of public architecture created by the Theatre of Mar- cellus and the Portico of Octavia. For it “celebrated a private family relationship,” that of “mother and son”: in fact, the very relationship of Venus and Aeneas that Virgil characterizes as complex and difficult, and yet ultimately portrays in a sympathetic light.18 Various sources allow us not only to reconstruct the basic facts of Octavia’s life but also to recover key aspects of her highly positive public image during Virgil’s lifetime. At Divus Iulius 27.1, Suetonius reports that after the death of his own daughter Julia in 54 bce, Caesar, Octavia’s maternal great-uncle, tried in vain to dissolve her first marriage to Gaius Claudius Marcellus and wed her to Pompey. This detail suggests that Octavia was a few years older than Augustus, who was born in 63 bce, inasmuch as she was unlikely to have been married before reaching the age of fourteen. At Divus Augustus 61.2, Suetonius records that he lost his sister Octavia in his fifty-fourth year, enabling us to date Octavia’s death to around 9 bce, when she would have been in her late fifties.19 Suetonius also relates, at Divus Augustus 63, that Augustus chose Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Octavia’s son by her first marriage, as his heir, and wed Marcellus to his only daughter Julia. After Marcellus’ untimely death in 23 bce, Sue- tonius continues, Augustus successfully beseeched Octavia (exorata sorore, 63.1.5) to release Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, at that time married to Octa- via’s daughter Marcella the elder, so that Agrippa might marry Julia. At 2.93 of his Roman History, moreover, Velleius Paterculus describes – as Suetonius does not – Octavia’s son Marcellus as endowed with outstanding personal qualities, terming him cheerful (laetus) in mind and temperament, and capable of handling what fortune granted him. Significantly, Virgil 122122122 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein uses the adjective laetus in connection with Venus in her maternal role, to describe Venus’ own children Cupid and Aeneas during significant interactions with their mother: Cupid at 1.695–6, as he heads off to dine with Dido, after Venus has persuaded him to impersonate Ascanius (Iamque ibat dicto parens et dona Cupido / regia portabat Tyriis duce laetus Achate); Aeneas at 6.193, when he catches sight of doves, his mother’s birds (maternas auis), en route to the underworld. It warrants notice as well that at Aeneid 6.882, Virgil portrays Anchises as calling Marcellus, nearing his twenties at the time of his death, miserande puer (“boy to be pitied”), employing the same noun used by Venus and Juno for Cupid in his role as Ascanius’ surrogate and Aeneas’ ally. As observed in the essays by Alison Keith and Valerie Hope in this volume, the Romans of her day sympathized with Octavia over the untimely passing of her only son Marcellus. Yet she also earned special admiration for her impressive if not entirely successful efforts at rearing – and fostering close bonds among – the many children in her own “blended family,” much as Venus does Aeneas, Cupid, and Eryx. Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony details several of these efforts. At 87.1 Plutarch relates that although Augustus put Antyllus, Antony’s older son by his late wife Fulvia, to death after Actium, Octavia brought up all of the other six children that Antony sired by three successive wives as well as her three children from her earlier marriage to Marcellus. Two of Antony’s six children were her own two daughters, three were by Cleopatra, and the sixth was Fulvia’s younger son Iullus Antonius.20 There they joined Octavia’s son and two daughters by her first husband Marcellus. As we have observed, Suetonius reports that after her son Marcel- lus died eight years later, Augustus persuaded Octavia to release her elder daughter Marcella from her marriage to Augustus’ long-time friend Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, so that Agrippa could marry Augustus’ daughter Julia, the widow of her own son Marcellus. At Antony 87.2–3, however, Plutarch cred- its Octavia herself with the idea that Agrippa divorce Marcella to marry Julia. He also asserts that Octavia then arranged a marriage between this newly divorced Marcella and Antony’s son Iullus Antonius. Like the Life of Virgil, which represents Octavia as emotionally devastated by the loss of Marcellus, Seneca twice – at Consolatio ad Marciam 2.4 and ad Polybium 25.3 – emphasizes Octavia’s extreme grief over her son’s death.21 That Octavia involved herself, whether passively or actively, in the marital arrangements for both Marcellus’ sister and her own stepson, so as to strengthen family ties as well as the Julian household, attests to her willingness and ability to prioritize the needs of family and the Roman state over her personal feelings.22 Plutarch’s Life of Antony also describes two earlier occasions when Octavia assumed responsibility for Antony’s children as well as her own. At 54.2, he The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 123 reports that in 35 bce Antony treated Octavia scornfully when she travelled to Athens, bringing him military goods and supplies. Yet when she returned to Rome, she continued to live in Antony’s house and take care of his children, not only those to whom she herself gave birth, but also those by Fulvia. Later, at 57.2–3, Plutarch claims that in 32 bce, when Antony divorced Octa- via to wed Cleopatra, he sent men to evict Octavia from his house. Octavia duly vacated the premises, but took all of his children with her except Antyl- lus, his eldest son by Fulvia. Her failure to include Antyllus in her blended brood may have contributed to his death at Augustus’ hands.23 One example of Octavia’s devotion to the children in her blended family was the marriage that she arranged for Cleopatra Selene, Antony’s daughter by Cleopatra, with Juba the Second, who became king of Mauretania in North Africa. Another was the aforementioned marriage she arranged for Antony’s son Iullus Antonius with her own daughter Marcella.24 But this Iullus, whose distinctive praenomen identified him as a member of the Julian family through Antony’s mother, Julia, proved to be altogether different from the similarly named son of Aeneas. Iullus benefited immensely from his inclusion in Augustus’ extended family, and marriage to Octavia’s daughter, attaining the consulship in 10 bce and serving as proconsul in Asia three years later. Yet he was condemned for adultery with Augustus’ daughter Julia, and suspected of trying to overthrow Augustus himself, in 2 bce. By this time, of course, Octavia had been dead for several years. And while her other children did nothing to undermine the Roman state themselves, two of Rome’s least admirable emperors – Caligula and Nero – descended from her two daughters by Antony. Plutarch ends his life of Antony by mentioning Nero, stating that Nero killed his mother, almost destroyed the Roman Empire, and was “the fifth in descent from Antony.”25 As I have noted, Virgil’s own, moving tribute to her only son in Book 6 of the Aeneid evoked a powerful emotional response from Octavia. But Virgil’s portrayal of Venus in her complicated maternal role may be a tribute to Octavia herself.26 For it recognizes the challenges she faced in successfully managing a blended family by transforming an amoral erotic divinity into a domestically amorous goddess, with Rome’s political interests at heart.

NOTES

1 Keith 2006, 11. See also Osgood 2014 and Hemelrijk 2004 for the Laudatio Turiae and its representations of gender. In this chapter, texts and translations are as follows (translations are the author’s own unless otherwise stated): the Vita Vergilii from Bradley and Rolfe 2014; Virgil’s Aeneid from Mynors 1969; 124124124 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein

Homer’s Odyssey from Allen 1917; Lucretius from Bailey 1921; Ovid’s amatory poetry from Kenney 1994; Res Gestae Divi Augusti from Brunt and Moore 1967; Velleius Paterculus from Shipley 1924; Suetonius’ Divus Augustus from Bradley and Rolfe 2014; Plutarch’s Life of Mark Antony from Perrin 1920; Seneca’s Consolatio ad Marciam from Basore 1932. I thank Alison Sharrock, Alison Keith, Joe Farrell, Brian Rose, and Susan Wood for their help with this paper. 2 For “blended families,” see Glass 2014. This how-to manual, like most other publications on this topic, assumes that the children brought by the respective partners to a male-female union of this kind are the products of earlier marriages, and that the partners themselves are currently married to one another. This is not, of course, the case with the mythic Venus and the children for whom she is mother, nor with the children fathered by her partners. While Octavia’s own children are all the legitimate issue of her two marriages, Roman law would not have regarded children from Antony’s union with Cleopatra as his legitimate offspring. 3 On this renowned anecdote, see also the discussion of Hope in this volume, which compares it to Servius’ slightly different version of the recitation, emphasizing the tears of both Augustus and Octavia at the mention of Marcellus. 4 For Caesar’s dedication of the Venus Genetrix temple on 26 September 46 bce, the last day of his triumph, see Richardson 1992, 166 and Cassius Dio 43.22.2. For Augustus’ later completion of his great-uncle’s forum, see Augustus’ Res Gestae Diui Augusti 20 and Cassius Dio 45.6.4. 5 Several scholars who offer “androcentric” readings of Venus’ relationship with Aeneas, including Reckford 1995–6 and Gladhill 2012, also foreground its erotic elements. 6 Liveley 2012, 193–4, who continues: “We might hesitate to label Venus a ‘bad’ mother, but on the basis of this encounter with her son, she could hardly be identified as a ‘good’ mother … What is more, as Ellen Oliensis has observed, Aeneas’ complaint that his mother is ‘cruel too: or cruel like others’ (crudelis tu quoque, 1.407) carries threatening overtones of motherhood turned bad.” See also the discussion of Keith in this volume. 7 Oliensis 1997, 306. She points out as well that Aeneid 1.407–8, a passage later cited by Liveley, in which Aeneas accuses his mother of cruelty, derives from a phrase in Eclogue 8.47–8 about a cruel mother taught by savage love to stain her hands with her children’s blood, presumably the child-killing mother Medea. Oliensis 2009, 61–3 examines Aeneas’ encounter with Venus in Book 1 from a Freudian perspective, in a section on “the dangers of the mother.” As one of this volume’s anonymous referees points out, Dido herself is compared to Artemis later in Aeneid 1, at lines 498–504. 8 For the tendency of (Greek and) Roman authors, chief among them Plutarch, to blur the distinction between full and half siblings when describing family relationships, see Hallett 2014. The Blended Families of Octavia and Venus 125

9 Virgil does not, however, identify Eryx’ father. For Boutes/Butas, see Diodorus Siculus 4.83.1–4, who describes the devotion of the Erycinians to Aphrodite. 10 See the brilliant analysis of the passage by Keith elsewhere in this volume. 11 My thanks to Alison Sharrock for observing that Virgil’s description of Venus’ seductive behaviour towards her husband Vulcan – which persuades him to forge a shield for her son Aeneas – recalls Homer’s account, at Iliad 14.153–353, of how Hera uses her physical charms to seduce Zeus. Significantly, Hera obtains the assistance of Aphrodite in rendering herself more sexually desirable, while Thetis, like Venus, seeks the assistance of Hephaestus in forging a shield for Achilles. 12 Livy 1.3–4, for example, does not use the name Ilia for the mother of Romulus and Remus at all, and merely refers to her as R[h]ea Silvia. 13 See Gurval 1995, 171–3, who observes that the “opening scene” of the shield testifies to the “important role Mars plays in the origins of Rome.” He notes, however, “that the focus of the poet’s description is not on the birth of the twins or their paternal ancestry,” but on the “mothering” of the she-wolf. She, as observed below, is not only described with a phrase that evokes Lucretius’ depiction of Mars at De Rerum Natura 1.35, but also resembles Octavia in assuming responsibility for the nurture of children not her own. 14 As Keith 2000, 38–9 argues, Lucretius later uses the formula nostri genetrix corporis at 2.599, to recall and supersede the description of Venus in the opening words of the proem as Aeneadum genetrix (“the mother of Aeneas’ descendants”). “In the course of the poem,” she maintains, quoting Nugent 1994, “Lucretius strips from Venus the attributes applied to her in the proem and assigns them instead to the blind forces of inanimate nature … closely related to the female, passive insensate body … predicated of earth, thereby transforming the agency of a goddess or anthropomorphic ‘mother’ earth into the passivity of inanimate matter.” 15 Indeed, as Severy 2003, 136 observes, scholars such as Wood 1999, 99–102 and Bartman 1999, 88 claim that on the Ara Pacis Livia is assimilated to the divine figure of Pax/Venus/Italia. Wood also postulates that the post-Augustan Ravenna relief depicts either Livia or Octavia’s daughter Antonia Minor as Venus Genetrix. Heckster 2015, 120, also discusses representations of Livia as Venus Genetrix on coinage and cameos. 16 See Severy 2003, 94, who argues that these efforts constituted a “change in the gendering of public life in the case of Augustus’ relatives, dramatically confirmed at Octavia’s death in 11 or 9 bce when Augustus supervised a state funeral in her honor.” Observing, on the basis of Cassius Dio 54.35.4–5 and Suetonius, Augustus 61.2, that Augustus and his stepson (Octavia’s son-in-law) Drusus delivered eulogies in the Roman forum while her body lay in state at the Temple of Divus Julius, she claims that this ceremony, “traditionally used 126126126 JudithFlorence Contents P. Hallett Klein

to celebrate the public service of certain men … was designed to underscore her entire family’s special responsibility for Rome.” 17 Severy 2003, 91–3 acknowledges that the extent of Octavia’s own involvement and agency in these endeavours is not clear. Nevertheless, she stresses that “many contemporaries state that Octavia herself finished the theater and portico as a monument to her son,” maintains that Octavia “certainly dedicated a school and library in the portico,” and believes that Octavia was “probably responsible for decorating it with famous works of art,” thereby “return[ing] items to public view which had recently been hoarded in private collections.” On the problems of identifying the Porticus Octaviae, see Richardson 1992, 317–18. 18 Severy 2003, 93. She contends, too, that “images of noteworthy motherhood” furnished by the Cornelia statue and other artworks “provided precedents for Octavia” and “helped to transform her into a model matron as well.” 19 As we have seen, Severy 2003, 94 is not certain of Suetonius’ reliability on this score, and would date Octavia’s death to either 11 or 9 bce. 20 On Iullus Antonius and his upbringing, see Hallett 2006b. On Octavia and her blended family, see Hallett 2014 as well as Hope in this volume. 21 See Hope in this volume on the extreme grief attributed to Octavia by Seneca in the Consolatio ad Marciam as well as in other ancient sources. 22 On Octavia as instrumental in these marital arrangements, see Hope 2011, 117. As Plutarch, Antony 2, points out, Antony’s mother was also a member of the Julian family, cousin to Julius Caesar (and hence Octavia and Augustus too). As noted below, the praenomen Iullus chosen for his youngest son by Fulvia sought to underscore his Julian lineage. See Hallett 2006b. 23 One might interpret Jupiter’s prophetic words to Venus about the children her descendant Ilia will bear to Mars in 1.273–4 as assigning her responsibility for the illegitimate offspring of the god elsewhere represented as her lover. 24 See Keith 2006 on the contemporary Roman resonances of Venus as “match- maker” between Aeneas and Dido, another activity Aeneas’ mother shares with Octavia. Octavia was more successful in this regard than Venus, but not entirely so. While Julia’s marriage to Agrippa yielded five offspring, her extramarital affairs during their union were – according to Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.5 – notorious. Iullus’ condemnation for adultery with Julia brought a sad end to his union with Marcella. 25 On Octavia’s own descendants, see the discussion of Hope in this volume. 26 Severy 2003, 41–3 reads Livy 1.4.17–20 – where the abducted Sabine women negotiate the end of war between their Sabine fathers and brothers on the one hand, and their Roman husbands on the other – as an allusion, and an indirect tribute, to Octavia’s peacemaking between her husband and brother at Tarentum in 37 bce. SECTION 2

Mothers and Their Children’s Marriages

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Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia henriette harich-schwarzbauer

The various meanings of the term motherhood, which encompasses that tangible and affective relationship of a mother to her child, as well as the act of bearing and birthing a child, places an enormous narrative palette at one’s disposal. From this wide range of themes we find two selective situations highlighted in Roman epithalamia: the (always) brusque if not brutal separation of daughter and mother, and the foreshadowing of the bride’s imminent motherhood, matrimony’s inherent goal, both symbolized by the gremium matris. In this contribution, I will address the epithalamium stricto sensu, beginning with the “forerunner” Catullus and continuing on to Statius and Clau- dian. In taking this diachronic approach, I will lay bare the alterations as well as the persistence of certain narrative elements in this poetical subgenre, while also detailing how social norms were discussed during these particular epochs. It seems important not to lose sight of the epoch’s specific gender conventions, avoiding generalization while, at the same time, defining these conventions more precisely through the lens of generic criteria.

1. Catullus, c. 61 and c. 62

Although the epithalamium as a poetical subgenre was coined by Statius, it seems useful to open with Catullus, who, in supplying the constituent motifs, laid the groundwork for the subgenre.1 Recent research confirms that Catullus’ work reflects the marital mores of the late republic. It is hypoth- esized that Catullus aimed for a positive reading of the Roman wedding and sought to add to the stabilization of marriage following the brutal experience of civil war.2 C. 61 celebrates the wedding of the young bride (Iunia) Aurunculeia. Her mother once comes to the fore with the pointed focus on her lap from 130 Henriette130130 Florence Harich-Schwarzbauer Contents Klein which the now nubile girl is given in marriage (c. 61.57–9): floridam ipse puellulam / dedis a gremio suae / matris, o Hymenaee Hymen. (“O god of the wedding song, you yourself surrender the flowering little girl from her mother’s lap.”) Violence concealed in the marriage act already figures in the first strophe (c. 61.1–5):

Collis o Heliconii cultor, Uraniae genus, qui rapis teneram ad uirum uirginem, o Hymenaee, Hymen, o Hymen, Hymenaee.3 5

(Dweller of Mount Helicon, Son of Urania the Muse, You tear the tender virgin away To her husband, o Hymenaee Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee.)4

The polysemy of the word rapere, which means not only to take or steal, but actually to rape, hints at the ambiguous situation of the bride and her mother’s ambiguous role – which may mirror the mother’s own painful experience when she had been a bride, whereas this same gremium matris would be the reason of her pride, as soon as she gives birth to a son. At the end of c. 61, the inherent violence will be silenced by the mother’s approval of the marriage. C. 61 belongs to the genre of hymns. The poet addresses Hymenaeus, the bride, and the groom with tu. But on one occasion he deviates from the second person: the lyrical first person articulates a wish for a masculine offspring following the (imagined) consummation of the wedding. The lyrical first person formulates the wish through the image of a boy who, lying on his mother’s (the former bride’s) bosom, extends his tiny arms towards his father. So the motif of a mother’s bosom frames the poem. The entanglement of mother and child is reduced to the movement of either a daughter or a son from the mother’s lap. In contrast, however, to the violence implied for the daughter, a son “leaving” his mother is cause for celebration (c. 61.209–13):

Torquatus uolo paruulus matris e gremio suae 210 porrigens teneras manus dulce rideat ad patrem semihiante labello. Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 131

(I want a little Torquatus To stretch his delicate hands from His mother’s lap and to laugh Sweetly to his father From pursed lips.)5

The mother guarantees the masculine offspring conjugal conception and legitimacy, bestowing her chastity upon the son, so that the son’s physical appearance mirrors his father’s. Penelope serves as paragon for the ideal mother, a pinnacle of chastity (219–23), which guarantees her son’s eternal fame.6 The gremium matris (210) fulfils its responsibility to carry on the family line, and so coheres with the central message of the rite, celebrated in the poem. C. 61 shows some of the constituent elements of an epithalamium, first and foremost the wish addressed to the marital couple that they “enjoy” the wedding night (ludite ut lubet, 204). C. 62 emphasizes new features compared to c. 61. The first four strophes, a refined antiphony between girls and young men, fictitiously present the dif- ferentiated and unique gender perspectives of an approaching wedding. The bride appears exactly at the moment in which she is torn from her mother, probably a reference to c. 61. The girls direct their complaints to the Evening Star (c. 62.20–5):7

Hespere, quis caelo fertur crudelior ignis? 20 qui natam possis complexu auellere matris complexu matris retinentem auellere natam et iuueni ardenti castam donare puellam. quid faciunt hostes capta crudelius urbe? Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee. 25

(Hesperus, what crueller fire is carried in the sky? You can bear to tear a daughter from her mother’s embrace, can bear to tear a daughter as she clings to her mother’s embrace and to give a pure girl to a fervid young man. What crueller act do enemies commit in a city they have captured? Hymen, o Hymenaee, Hymen come, o Hymenaee.)8

The doubling of auellere underscores the underlying violence. Again, the violence inherent in the separation of mother and daughter is strengthened by the comparison with women taken as prisoners following the conquest of a city.9 The iteration here suggests a common experience of cruel separation for both mother and daughter, an experience which does not seem simply to evoke the 132 Henriette132132 Florence Harich-Schwarzbauer Contents Klein

Roman raptio ritual.10 The chiasmus natam … matris / matris … natam that brings to the fore the tight bond between mother and daughter emphasizes this aspect; the resistance of the daughter (retinentem … natam, 22) is underlined. The last strophe (59–66) discusses the eventuality caused by a possible resistance to the marriage on the part of the bride. The bride must accept the transaction, because she shares the decision-making process in equal measure with her mother and father, who hold two-thirds power over her uirginitas – whereas the bride herself has only one-third “ius” over her body. This assessment alone does not allow for the conclusion that the mother enters into an alliance with the daughter to guide her better in the process of choosing a bridegroom, but suggests that a bride could, by alliance with her father or her mother, strengthen her choice.11 The second half of c. 62 (39–66) takes on the function of a commentary on the danger that, if a woman stays unmarried, could result in conflicting emotions on the side of the father (et minus est inuisa parenti) – if we accept that parenti means the father,12 the mother’s emotions are not mentioned.

2. Statius’ Epithalamium for Stella and Violentilla (Silua 1.2)

It was not Catullus but Statius who gave the epithalamium its definitive generic form, which would prevail through late antiquity, establishing it as poetry for a specific occasion. For the issue at hand, it is important to investigate how Statius expands upon Catullus and how he functionalizes the role of motherhood. In the occasional poem Silua 1.2, Violentilla, the bride, is a woman entering into her second marriage of her own free will.13 Long paralysed by sadness and widowhood, she finds herself ready once again to join in sexual congress, as Venus declares (138–40). Venus embodies the sensual desire recovered by the bride, and puts Violentilla on the path to marriage. Here we find no motif of the bride abducted from her house, nor any reference to a relationship with the mother. When compared to Catullus, the circumstances in Statius’ poem appear to some degree inverted. The bride hesitates,14 wondering if she, a wealthy woman, really wants to marry the groom, a relatively poor poet.15 Yet the epithalamium ends with the same wish we find in Catullus’ c. 61 for the newlyweds: Violentilla should become a mother soon. The poetic speaker wishes for Violentilla’s son to inherit beauty (decus) from his father, but even more from his mother. Though the wishes seem to concentrate on the offspring, they focus above all on Violentilla’s beautiful body, on her stomach and her breasts remaining unmarred by the pregnancy (Silu. 1.2.266–73):

Heia age, praeclaros Latio properate nepotes, qui leges, qui castra regant, qui carmina ludant. Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 133

acceleret partu decimum bona Cynthia mensem, sed parcat Lucina, precor, tuque ipse parenti parce, puer, ne mollem uterum, ne stantia laedas 270 pectora; cumque tuos tacito Natura recessu formarit uultus, multum de patre decoris, plus de matre feras.

(Go ahead! Hurry to give birth to famous grandsons for Latium, who will rule laws and armies and will write poems. May kind Cynthia hasten the tenth month for the birth, but may Lucina be favourable; and you boy, spare your mother, don’t hurt her soft womb, her firm breasts. When Nature moulds your face in her silent recess, may you take much beauty from your father, but more from your mother.)16

The bridegroom, Stella, considered an important elegiac poet at that time, is a friend of the lyrical first person, and probably for this reason we find Violentilla’s impending motherhood drawn with elegiac motifs. The wish of the poetic ego, that Violentilla’s body should escape the detriments of pregnancy, remains central as the poet recalls Ovid’s problematization of women’s choice of abortion to stave off wrinkles and thus risk their lives (Am. 2.14.7). The offspring, an imagined boy, should mirror his father, but above all mirror the mother’s “beauty.”17 Two points in this epithalamium are notable when compared to Catullus: (1) the motif of a sexually willing and experienced woman as illustrated in the Venus scene where the goddess takes on the initiative to lead a widow to remarry, and (2) the concern for the beauty of the female body, threatened by motherhood. The relationship between mother and daughter is left by the wayside. Violentilla is hemmed in by social codes and conventions, which mandate that she give birth. The association of the world of the epithalamium with the elegiac cosmos is here very obvious.18 Most of all, this shift brings to the fore the difference between a sexually experienced woman, who by no means fears the wedding night, and a young virgin. Violentilla seduces, she is erotically stimulating, not unlike Ilia, who had once seduced Mars (242–3). No reluctance from the mother’s side is required anymore.

3. The Diversification of Motherhood in Late Antiquity – the Example of Claudian

The epithalamium belongs to a genre of Latin poetry that remained vital well into early modern times, with a continued focus on motherhood.19 Clau- dian serves as an important link between Roman and post-ancient wedding poems.20 Around 400 ce, Claudian authored two epithalamia for historical 134 Henriette134134 Florence Harich-Schwarzbauer Contents Klein figures (c. 10; c.m. 25) as well as a mythical poem, De raptu Proserpinae, which can be read as a wedding poem, as it displays some of the constitutive motifs (such as the rape, the complaints of the mother, and a wedding reception). Besides these poems and some isolated motifs of the marriage context in a simile,21 there is also a spurious epithalamium (c. spurium 5, epithalamium dictum Laurentio) in the corpus Claudianeum, which hints at the fact that an outstanding affinity with this genre was attributed to Clau- dian. Obviously, the high rank of the bridal couples celebrated by Claudian demanded – compared to Statius – diverse modifications for the former’s epithalamia. Although Claudian avoids an obviously explicit Christian interpretation of the wedding, some innovations seem to indicate a Chris- tian background as regards the role of the bride’s mother and the relevance of the bride’s future motherhood.

a. The Epithalamium for the Imperial Couple, Honorius and Maria (c. 10)

The epithalamium dictum Honorio Augusto et Mariae addresses two very young persons at the court at Milan, Honorius, fourteen years old, the son of Theodosius I, and Maria, twelve years old, Stilicho’s and Serena’s daughter. Two aspects of motherhood, that of the bride’s mother and the bride (and future mother) herself, are played out. The relationship between mother and daughter occupies much of the space devoted to the wedding’s announcement. As the mother instructs Maria in literature, the girl has no idea that the trajectory of her life must move her towards marriage. The daughter’s reading list includes Homer, the Orphics, and Sappho, which provide her with exempla of a life of moral integrity (c. 10.229–37):

illa autem secura tori taedasque parari nescia diuinae fruitur sermone parentis 230 maternosque bibit mores exemplaque discit prisca pudicitiae Latiosque nec uoluere libros desinit aut Graios, ipsa genetrice magistra Maeonius quaecumque senex aut Thracius Orpheus aut Mytilenaeo modulatur pectine Sappho 235 (sic Triuiam Latona monet, sic mitis in antro Mnemosyne docili tradit praecepta Thaliae).22

(But she, with no thoughts of wedlock nor knowing that the torches were being made ready, was listening with attention to the discourse of her saintly mother, drinking Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 135 in that mother’s nature and learning to follow the example of old-world chastity, nor does she cease under that mother’s guidance to unroll the writers of Rome and Greece, all that Homer sang, or Thracian Orpheus, or that Sappho set to music with Lesbian quill (even so taught Latona Diana; so gentle Mnemosyne in her cave gave instruction to meek Thalia.)23

In this almost idyllic setting, Venus breaks in. She approaches the mother and daughter to announce the approaching wedding. No danger of an imminent separation of mother and daughter threatens. The circumstances are special ones, since Maria will stay – probably supervised by Serena – at the court in Milan. Instead of evoking an imminent separation, the panegyrist inserts a comparison of the two women. Both possess beauty like the roses from Paestum, the mother like a rose in bloom, the daughter like a floret stretching to the sun. The narrator carefully observes the rules of panegyric, elaborately detailing the beauty of the mother, who at this time is the most powerful woman at the court in Milan. With this comparison, the bloom- ing of the daughter, who should soon become a mother herself, is thrown into sharper relief. Suddenly Venus approaches as pronuba, insofar as she gives marriage symbols to the bride and adorns her with a mantle and a veil (10.282–5). She praises the beauty of the two women – by this comparison underpinning the persistent closeness between mother and daughter – and focuses on the fact that Maria through marriage will earn the regnum and inherit the whole world (10.252–81). The poem ends with a glimpse towards Maria’s prospective motherhood, imagining the happy birth of a son who will ensure the dynasty (c. 10.340–1): sic uterus crescat Mariae: sic natus in ostro / paruus Honoriades genibus considat auitis. (“So may Maria’s womb grow big and a little Honorius, born in the purple, rest on his grandparents’ lap.”)24 Motherhood has become the concern of the military within the epithalamium, as, interestingly, it is the Roman army that utters this wish, whereas the mother and the daughter, after Venus’ epiphany, do not react further to the announcement of the approaching marriage. By this reticence the poet sheds some shadow on the mother, who seems to agree (with) or even to promote this marriage. As the army declares, Maria’s uterus would be the missing link, which subtly makes Stilicho and Serena emperor-like and “legalizes” their position as rulers at the court. This unborn child is perceived as offspring of Stilicho and Serena, sitting on the knees of his grandparents.25 Maria, the mother of this desired boy, is obliterated from these final verses: no more does the poet evoke the longing arms of the newly born from his mother’s bosom stretching towards his father. 136 Henriette136136 Florence Harich-Schwarzbauer Contents Klein

b. Claudian’s Epithalamium for Palladius and Celerina (c.m. 25)

The epithalamium c.m. 25 celebrates a bridal pairing from the Roman aristocracy and again incorporates both above-mentioned perspectives on motherhood. This poem concerns a young, but mature, woman, Celerina. It makes the abrupt separation of mother and daughter a central point. As in Claudian’s c. 10, Venus functions as pronuba, but in this case the goddess is taking the bride away from her mother. Celerina’s mother epitomizes chastity, which guarantees her daughter’s readiness for marriage. Within this constellation – the daughter bolstered by the mother only in chastity – arises a critical moment in regards to the separation (detraxit) and the girl’s sadness, but no allusion to cruel violence is given, and Claudian avoids the verb rapere (c.m. 25.124–6):

adgreditur Cytherea nurum flentemque pudico detraxit matris gremio. matura tumescit 125 uirginitas superatque niues ac lilia candor.26

(Cytherea approached the bride, and despite her tears, drew her away from her mother’s chaste bosom. Her maidenhood was mature and her appearance surpassed the white colour of the snow and the lilies.)27

The foreshadowing of Celerina’s approaching motherhood is woven into Venus’ adhortatio to the bridal couple. She encourages the bride to learn to enjoy sexual union as a woman’s duty.28 A careful and tender sexual approach and practice on the part of both marriage partners would lead to marital love and Celerina to motherhood (sic uxor, sic mater eris, 135). In this epithalamium, the bride’s mother’s role is reduced to her chastity. The mother does not react to the implicit readiness of the young woman to be married. Later, this coincidence is even fostered by the fact that Venus will give recommen- dations to the newly married at the moment of the dextrarum iunctio, as she encourages them to trust each other and to take time to get to know the spouse as partner in sexual intercourse (130–8).29

4. Claudian’s De raptu Proserpinae

In his mythical epic detailing the rape of Proserpina, Claudian distances the role of the mother from that of her daughter, who is about to be married, and elaborately describes the “dark side” of marriage, which has no place in his panegyric epithalamia c. 10 and c.m. 25. It is worth noting that the problems involved with the role Ceres takes vis-à-vis her daughter dominate a large Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 137 stretch of De raptu Proserpinae. Ovid did not pass down any such discourse in the Proserpina narratives in the Metamorphoses and the Fasti.30 This observation allows for the conclusion that the mother-daughter relationship was a highly sensitive topic for Claudian. Ceres knows that her daughter stands on the cusp of adulthood. Yet she turns a blind eye and confines her daughter to a hermetic fortress, refusing every potential suitor who turns up from Ceres’ Olympian circle. Apart from her nurse, Proserpina was emotionally connected exclusively to her mother, who had created these conditions of detention. The young woman is on her own, cut off from girls of her own age. However, when Ceres visits Phrygia for her own purposes in the cult of Cybele and her priestesses, she abandons Proserpina at just the critical transitional period (1.121–213). Nevertheless, nightmares of Proserpina in chains and sombre clothes plague Ceres. That which she suppressed returns in her dreams. Fearing the “kid- napping” of her daughter, Ceres returns, but in the meantime Proserpina has disappeared (3.67–169). Ceres rages with accusations, implicating herself above all. She blames the wet nurse Electra, Proserpina’s “second mother” (haec proxima mater haberi, 3.176), whereas, as Electra reports, Venus, in her initial approach to Proserpina, had blamed Ceres as an uncaring mother. This ironical comment by Venus, criticizing Ceres, gains its full significance when Ceres starts to accuse herself and tends towards auto-aggression. She beats her own uterus31 and twists in sad agony (3.420–7):

ego te, fateor, crudelis ademi, 420 quae te deserui solamque instantibus ultro hostibus exposui. raucis secura fruebar nimirum thiasis et laeta sonantibus armis iungebam Phrygios cum tu raperere leones. Accipe quas merui poenas, en ora fatiscunt 425 uulneribus grandesque rubent in pectore sulci! Immemor en uterus crebro contunditur ictu!

(It is I, I confess, who have cruelly destroyed you, who have deserted you and have actually exposed you in your isolation to the pursuit of enemies. For without concern for you I was enjoying the shrill revels, and happily amidst the clanging weapons was yoking Phrygian lions while you were being carried off. Learn the punishments, which I have deserved. See my face gaping with wounds and great furrows red in my breast! See, my forgetful womb is bruised with the hail of blows!)32

For Claudian’s epyllion De raptu Proserpinae one must assume not only that Proserpina’s father agreed to the marriage, but also that the now grown-up 138 Henriette138138 Florence Harich-Schwarzbauer Contents Klein daughter desired it. The authorial narrator takes a critical view of Ceres with the effect that the reader tends to remain distant and even somewhat unsympathetic to her, since the motherhood that Ceres embodies manifests itself in its total absence during the daughter’s crucial liminality. Claudian broadly develops the mother’s failure to prepare her daughter for marriage in the mythological poem. This accentuation of the narrative allows him to hint at a problem, to which he would not allude in the panegyric epithalamia on high ranked pairs of the late antique aristocracy. To conclude, the late antique poet develops the theme of motherhood, giving it more room than it had traditionally received in the genre of epithalamium. Claudian immersed himself in contemporary developments and discussions concerning the mother’s ambiguous role in marriage and procreation.33 Most strikingly, Claudian seems not to have ignored the difficulty of forcing a scarcely pubescent girl into marriage without the emotional support of her mother. By comparison with his epithalamia, Claudian’s De raptu Proserpinae modifies and widens the debate on a mother’s responsibility towards her adolescent daughter, investigating the problem of a mother who ignores her daughter’s pubescence. This question of the mother’s role had not been discussed so thoroughly before.

NOTES

1 See Horstmann 2004, 79 on Statius as founder of the constitutive form of the Latin epithalamia. 2 See Panoussi 2007, 276. 3 Text Mynors 1958. 4 Translation Dunn 2016, 62. 5 Translation Dunn 2016, 69. 6 For Penelope as famous paradigm of sexual loyalty within the marriage, see Panoussi 2007, 289; Glazebrook and Olson 2014, 69. 7 Text Mynors 1958. 8 Translation Dunn 2016, 70. 9 The cruelty inherent in the act of defloration, especially for (very young and) inexperienced girls, is stressed in a scholion to Theoc. Id. 18 (Wendel 1914, 331): ᾄδουσι δὲ τὸν ἐπιθαλάμιον αἱ παρθένοι πρὸ τοῦ θαλάμου, ἵνα τῆς παρθένου βιαζομένης ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἡ φωνὴ μὴ ἐξακούηται, λανθάνῃ δὲ κρυπτομένη διὰ τῆς τῶν παρθένων φωνῆς. (“Young unmarried women sing the epithalamium in front of the door of the marriage chamber, so the cries of the bride violated by the groom are drowned by the voices of the young women,” trans. Harich- Schwarzbauer.) See Horstmann 2004, 14–15 with n. 14. Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia 139

10 See Panoussi 2007, 286. 11 We may note that the most famous alliance was that of Terentia and Tullia against the interests of Cicero, on which see Treggiari 1991, 176–8. 12 See Panoussi 2007, 287. 13 See Hersch 2010, 203–4. 14 For this motif, see also Newlands 2002, 101. 15 For the high social status of Violentilla, symbol of her economic superiority, see Newlands 2002, 96. 16 Text and translation Shackleton Bailey 2003. 17 Newlands 2002, 102, rightly stresses that decus suggests a concept of beauty, which is “inseparable from nobility and good breeding.” On the physical imprint the mother leaves on her child, already during gestation, see Gherchanoc in this volume. 18 This transfer is highly metapoetical. 19 On post-classical motherhood, see Johnson 2012. 20 See for instance Korenjak 2003. 21 Simile in c. 28 (VI Panegyr. Hon. 523–31) where the city of Rome is looking forward excitedly to the aduentus of Honorius like a mother who adorns her daughter hopefully, wishing that the marriage of her child will be imminent. See Dewar 1996, 351–5. 22 Text Hall 1985. 23 Translation Platnauer 1976, adapted Harich-Schwarzbauer. 24 Translation Harich-Schwarzbauer. 25 Platnauer 1976 translates genibus auitis as “grandfather’s lap,”and Charlet 2000, ad loc., as “les genoux de son aïeul.” But obviously the poet chose a more open phrasing to include Serena. 26 Text Hall 1985. 27 Translation Platnauer 1972, adapted Harich-Schwarzbauer. 28 Hersch 2010, 302 does not sufficiently identify the modifications that late antique epithalamia underwent, when she maintains that the “images of the ideal bride and the groom remained static.” 29 See Pfisterer Bissolotti 2017, 198–205 (vv. 124–45: adlocutio sponsalis). 30 Ovid Met. 5.332–571; Fasti 4.417–620. 31 Klebs 2019, 190 has convincingly interpreted this gesture as a sort of self- punishment for failing in her motherly duties. 32 Text and translation Gruzelier 1993. 33 In Claudian’s lifetime, asceticism and celibacy offered attractive alternatives to motherhood, since aristocratic women who decided to remain childless could play an important (and charitable) role in the society. 8

The Roman Mother-in-Law alison sharrock

The mother-in-law was a regular butt of sexist jokes in twentieth-century Britain, while anecdotal evidence suggests that the phenomenon is widespread in Western culture.1 The heyday and locus classicus of such humour was the world of Les Dawson, in which it is clear that the speaker is a man and it is indeed his wife’s mother, not her husband’s mother, who is the victim and implied problem. Although this form of humour seems perhaps finally to have decreased in recent years, I was horrified to experience it being used as recently as 2015, apparently without irony, by a “motivational speaker” brought in to address our faculty senior management team. It appears also still to be alive in popular online culture.2 Whether expanding the topos to a female speaker’s husband’s mother is really any sort of advance must remain a moot point, although that constellation too may have a long and male-centred history in the form not so much of a female speaker’s husband’s mother but a male speaker’s position felt as caught between his wife and his own mother. In ancient Rome, where so many sexist jokes have resonance with the modern world, and where any woman above thirty is regularly seen as fair game for abuse, it is remarkable that the mother-in-law does not in fact feature very strongly. Rather, it is the stepmother who takes on the opprobrium of “interfering older woman” whose position is threatening because it has the social closeness of immediate family without the biological security of blood relation. Negative humour is not the only reason to look for the mother-in-law, however, as her role must have been extensive in life and therefore must be of interest in literature, even if its very absence is its most salient feature.3 In this paper, I attempt to draw out some of the literary echoes of mothers-in-law that do exist in Roman literature, in order to consider any light that literature may shed on how the Romans perceived and negotiated this difficult but important relationship. The Roman Mother-in-Law 141

1. Roman Mothers-in-Law and Other adfines

There are two sorts of mother-in-law: a woman’s husband’s mother, and a man’s wife’s mother. Although the situation for Roman women in marriage and their relationship with natal and marital families is complicated by manus rules,4 and by the strong patrilineality of Roman understanding of family relationships, with its emphasis on agnates over cognates, in practice there remains a social relationship whatever the legal position. Indeed, there is a sense in which the in-law relationship is, for Romans, more closely related to the step-relationship than has been the case in later European culture. This can be seen, for example, from the manner in which both mothers-in-law and stepmothers are defined as adfines in a similar manner. Moreover, at least in the account from Modestinus below, there is no significant distinction of gender between step-relationships and in-law relationships (Mod. dig. 38.10.4.3):5 adfines sunt viri et uxoris cognati, dicti ab eo, quod duae cognationes, quae diversae inter se sunt, per nuptias copulantur et altera ad alterius cognationis finem accedit: namque coniungendae adfinitatis causa fit ex nuptiis. nomina vero eorum haec sunt: socer socrus, gener nurus, noverca vitricus, privignus privigna.

(Adfines are relatives of a husband or wife, so called because two family groups that were separate from each other are joined through marriage, and each one accedes to the boundary of the other’s family group: for the cause of affinity being joined comes from the marriage. So the names of these people are as follows: father-in-law and mother-in-law, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, stepmother and stepfather, stepson and stepdaughter.)

I think it would be fair to say that in Modestinus’ list of nomenclature, one word stands out as having strongly negative associations, despite his apparent neutrality. That word is not socrus but nouerca.6 It requires no argument to demonstrate the negative representation of the stepmother in the Roman imaginary, despite the very great incidence of step-relationships in a world of high mortality and high divorce. What is more surprising is the paucity of evidence that any opprobrium is attached also to the mother-in-law.

2. The Tradition of Hating the Mother-in-Law

In my 2009 book on Roman comedy, I claimed that Terence’s Hecyra, both the play and the title character within it, are subject to the kind of negative stereotyping that is today often associated with the mother-in-law. So does 142142142 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein the mother-in-law “have to be hated”?7 I am not alone in making what I now believe to be an error. Walcott (1999), in a rather hurried survey of Plutarchan women, claims: “But the mother-in-law is a figure under suspicion throughout antiquity since she competes with the wife for a man’s support and love. With whom is the man to side, his mother or his wife? Although the tradition is challenged by Sostrata, the mother-in-law in Terence’s comedy the Hecyra, inasmuch as she is ‘good,’ more typical is the exclusion of the mother-in-law ‘who loathes and disparages her daughter-in-law’ from the happy reunion of the family members at the annual Roman festival of the Caristia (cf. Ovid, Fasti 2.626).” I shall show in this paper that this claim, although it sets up the modern expectation quite correctly, is misleading in a number of ways. Likewise, Braund, on Juvenal 6, states [sic]: “Lines 231–41, the mother-in-law topos (as prevalent in the ancient world as it is in modern comedy).” The evidence she offers is only that “Donatus says that Terence departs from usual practice in presenting on stage a mother-in-law who is a noble character (ad Hecyram 198 and 774).”8 I shall explore the exceptionality of Hecyra in some detail below.

3. The Mother-in-Law and Other Older Women

The mother-in-law can undoubtedly share in the general abuse of older women, which is, to say the least, prevalent in Roman literature. A nice example comes from Martial 10.67, where the core element of abuse is old age, but where a great range of possible feminine relationships is enlisted into the heap of abuse (Mart. 10.67):9

Pyrrhae filia, Nestoris noverca, quam vidit Niobe puella canam, Laertes aviam senex vocavit, nutricem Priamus, socrum Thyestes, iam cornicibus omnibus superstes, 5 hoc tandem sita prurit in sepulchro calvo Plotia cum Melanthione.

(The daughter of Pyrrha, stepmother of Nestor, whom Niobe as a girl saw when she was white-headed, whom old man Laertes called granny, Priam called nurse, Thyes- tes called mother-in-law, now Plotia, having outlived all the crows, at last placed in this tomb, with bald Melanthio, itches [with lust].)

The absence of one possible female role is remarkable: no one calls the unfortunate Plotia mater, despite the easy availability of wicked mothers from mythology, of which the most obvious is Medea,10 and despite the The Roman Mother-in-Law 143 opportunities for incest-related abuse that it could provide. It might be that the second line is intended to suggest that the white-haired woman is Niobe’s mother, but I find it hard to see the point – the crucial attribute of Niobe is arrogance in her own fertility, not anything to do with her ancestry.11 Be that as it may, the point is that while the mother-in-law can definitely partake in wider ageist and sexist abuse, the role is in no way especially marked out for such attention. A place where one might expect to see a good chunk of abuse specifically directed at the mother-in-law is that magnificently horrendous mountain of misogyny that constitutes Juve- nal’s sixth satire. If we accept the view that the driving force of the satire is opposition to marriage, rather than opposition to women per se,12 this would only serve to increase our expectation that the mother-in-law would feature, in that it is by marriage that one acquires a mother-in-law. It is true that it is by marriage also that one acquires a stepmother, but crucially it is a marriage, one’s father’s marriage, in which one has had no say. The addressee of Satire 6 is the Roman man who is – foolishly – making a positive choice to marry. There is, in fact, one mention of a mother-in-law in the poem, which does indeed look like exactly the kind of negative portrayal that we would expect from the later tradition (Juv. 6.231): desperanda tibi salua concordia socru. (“Give up on any hope of harmony if your mother-in-law is alive.”) The satirist elaborates on this dictum, not with an account of likely squabbling between yourself and your mother-in-law, but with yet another version of an attack on the chances of wifely fidelity. The accusation is that your wife’s mother will teach her daughter to find clever ways of practising adultery, even to the point of feigning illness in order to give her daughter an excuse to visit and meet the adulterer in hiding (Juv. 6.232–8).13 What else could you expect, in that all women are bad and so a mother teaches her daughter to be bad (Juv. 6.239–41)? Not nothing, then, but not really specific to the in-law relationship. By contrast with this one appearance, there are three passages that feature the more common ancient target, the stepmother.14 There are, moreover, some appearances of the mother-in-law that might suggest she is no more problematic within the household than any familial relationship, the difficulties of which are well represented in myth, literature, folk tale, and ritual, as well as history. For example, in Ovid’s account of the Caristia festival, in which families come together to remember the dead, renew the bonds of the living, and perpetuate them for the future, the mother-in-law (but not the stepmother) features as an equal alongside close blood relations (Ov. Fast. 2.617–30):

Proxima cognati dixere Karistia kari, et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos. 144144144 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

scilicet a tumulis et qui periere propinquis protinus ad vivos ora referre iuvat, 620 postque tot amissos quicquid de sanguine restat aspicere et generis dinumerare gradus. innocui veniant: procul hinc, procul impius esto frater et in partus mater acerba suos, cui pater est vivax, qui matris digerit annos, 625 quae premit invisam socrus iniqua nurum. Tantalidae fratres absint et Iasonis uxor, et quae ruricolis semina tosta dedit, et soror et Procne Tereusque duabus iniquus et quicumque suas per scelus auget opes.

(Dear relatives have named the next day the “Caristia,” and a crowd of relatives has come to the associated gods. Indeed it is pleasing to turn one’s eyes away from the tombs and from the near ones who have died straight back to the living, and to look at whatever remains of the clan after so many have been lost, and to count out the degrees of the family. Let the innocent come here: keep away from here, keep away, impious brother and mother who is bitter to her own children, and anyone who thinks his father is too long-lived, who counts his mother’s years, any hostile mother-in-law who oppresses her hated daughter-in-law. Let the brothers, descendants of Tantalus, be absent, and the wife of Jason, and she who gave burnt seeds to the country folk, and Procne and her sister, and Tereus hostile to both, and anyone who increases his wealth through crime.)

All kinds of familial sinners are banished from the rite and its attendant jollities, but there appears to be no distinction between the mater acerba and the socrus iniqua. For this reason, I suggest that Walcot is mistaken in describing this passage as a typical example of opprobrium of the mother- in-law.15 If so, such opprobrium would have to include also mothers, sons, brothers, sisters, wives – everyone, it seems, other than fathers, though since they too are necessarily sons, perhaps they do not escape entirely. This story, then, speaks rather to the positive regard for mothers-in-law, as for mothers, fathers, offspring, and siblings.16 Such a reading would fit well with the (probable) mention of the role of mother-in-law in the Laudatio Turiae, where the bereaved husband tells the story of how his late wife, on realizing that her lack of offspring was detrimental to her husband’s well- being, offered to be divorced from him in order that he should marry someone who might bear him children. He records her as saying that she would be willing, if he wished it, to maintain a close relationship with him in such circumstances, and sororis soc[rusve] officia pietatemque mihi d[ehinc The Roman Mother-in-Law 145 praestituram] (“that you would from this time on fulfil for me the duty and family loyalty of a sister or a mother-in-law,” Laud. Tur. 39 = CIL VI 1527). There can surely be little doubt that there is no troubling or ironic intention here. For a final example of the mother-in-law as a positive role closely related to that of mother, we can turn to an account by Plutarch of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, where he says that she used to complain at her sons (Plut. TG 8.5): ὅτι Ῥωμαῖοι Σκηπίωνος αὐτὴν ἔτι πενθεράν, οὔπω δὲ μητέρα Γράγχων προσαγορεύουσιν. (“Because the Romans still called her the mother-in-law of Scipio, not the mother of the Gracchi.”)17

4. Hecyra and the Mother(s)-in-Law Wronged

So far, we have seen that, although the mother-in-law may be included in routine misogynistic abuse, the role does not generally denote a negative stereotype, unlike the stepmother, who has a special place in the Roman imaginary. To what extent, beyond this, can we see traces of anxiety about the mother-in-law relationship in Roman literature? Do we see any sign there of the kind of difficult relationship with in-laws, or the young person caught between spouse and parent, such as fuel both humour and soap opera in the modern world? It might seem that the obvious answer is, yes, powerfully so, in Terence’s problematic but now much-loved eponymous play, the Hecyra.18 Terence’s plays, produced in the 160s bce, may be nominally set in Greece and nominally “translated” from Greek plays, but it is now widely accepted that they speak to a Roman audience and address issues of social significance for Romans, even if they do so at one remove.19 All Roman literature – and indeed culture – is to a greater or lesser extent a variation on Greek literature and culture, so there should be no difficulty in regarding this play as an example of representation of the mother-in-law in Roman literature. The play does indeed look like a classic example of the tradition of the “mother-in-law joke,” albeit one where the humour is of a particularly painful variety. This, in brief, is the story of a young married couple whose early months together have been troubled. A premarital rape (actually performed by the husband, but without the knowledge of either as to each other’s identity) has caused the young wife to be pregnant, but knowledge of the delayed consummation of their marriage means that both husband and wife, and her mother, believe the child to be illegitimate. The young woman has therefore left her husband’s house, which is shared with his parents, to return to the house of her own parents. The young husband returns from one of those necessary trips abroad that perform such a useful function in 146146146 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein comic narrative, to discover the apparent argument between his wife and her mother-in-law, followed by the birth of a child he believes is not his own. Even those unfamiliar with the play will not be surprised to hear that all is resolved when the identity of the rapist is discovered, thus making the baby legitimate. It is some considerable time, however, before even the audience, not to mention the characters, gain an understanding of the truth, with the result that speculation is rife as to the cause of the difficulties within the household. When the play opens, the young man, Pamphilus, is away but expected back soon; the young woman, Philumena, has taken refuge with her mother and is about to give birth; the young man’s parents, Sostrata and Laches, are worried that their son will come home to find that Sostrata has quarrelled with Philumena, a situation the blame for which Laches has no hesitation in placing on his wife. Speaking in soliloquy, Sostrata seems to offer us a clear statement of the social principle that the mother-in-law is naturally a subject of hatred (Ter. Hec. 277–8): ita animum induxerunt socrus / omnis esse iniquas. (“And so they have brought themselves to believe that all mothers- in-law are hostile.”) Laches had presented the same idea, aggressively, in his verbal attack on his wife, which he generalizes into an accusation of widespread hatred between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law (Ter. Hec. 198–204):20

LA. Pro deum atque hominum fidem, quod hoc genus est, quae haec est coniuratio! utin omnes mulieres eadem aeque studeant nolintque omnia neque declinatam quicquam ab aliarum ingenio ullam reperias! 200 itaque adeo uno animo omnes socrus oderunt nurus. viris esse advorsas aeque studiumst, simili’ pertinaciast, in eodemque omnes mihi videntur ludo doctae ad malitiam; et ei ludo, si ullus est, magistram hanc esse sati’ certo scio.

(LACHES: “By the faith of gods and men, what a race this is, what a conspiracy! All women are the same in what they’re eager for and what they don’t want, and you won’t find a single one who is any different from the character of the lot of them! All mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law hate each other with one accord. They’ve equally planned it to oppose themselves to their husbands, they have the same obstinacy, and they all seem to me to have been taught in the same school for bad behaviour; and of that school, if there is one, the headmistress I know without a doubt to be this woman.”)

There is something of a nice irony (or, rather, it would be nice if it were less painful) in the image he presents of this single-minded determination on the The Roman Mother-in-Law 147 part of mothers- and daughters-in-law, since it almost seems accidentally to present the women as working closely together (uno animo), using their supposed antipathy as a weapon against the common enemy, the husband/ father. But while all women might be culpable, it is Sostrata who must take the worst of the blame. She has caused trouble for them all (210–13) by causing the young woman to conceive a hatred of her (219). Indeed, Laches threatens (220–2) that if he thought it would do any good, he would keep Philumena and get rid of his wife. This, no doubt, in part reflects his concern for the continuation of the patrilineal line, for which Philumena is now important while Sostrata is so no longer. The comments of Donatus apropos this scene, and in one or two other places in the play, seem to be the strongest evidence for any widespread societal attitude that persecutes the figure of the mother-in-law. On Hec. 198, he comments: conatur Terentius aduersum famam socrum bonam reperire. (“Terence tries to find the mother-in-law good, contrary to reputation.”) Later, on Hec. 774, he makes a similar point more strongly: multa Terentius feliciter ausus est arte fretus, nam et socrus bonas et meretrices honesti cupidas praeter quam peruulgatum est facit. (“Terence has been happily very daring, making use of his art, for he makes both mothers-in-law good and prostitutes desirous of what is honourable beyond what is generally put about.”) It does rather seem from these comments that the late antique scholar presents the mother-in-law as widely regarded as a problem. Before we go too far in interpreting his words in the light of Les Dawson, however, there are a number of points we should note. First, the comment on 198 is presented in answer to Donatus’ assessment of Laches, Sostrata’s husband, as difficilis et iratus (“difficult and angry”), so while he does refer to her as socrus (“mother-in-law”), we should remember that this is the title of the play. I tentatively suggest, in addition, that aduersum famam need not refer primarily to the general reputation of mothers-in-law, but to the immediate story that has gone about, i.e., that Sostrata has quarrelled with her daughter- in-law. Be that as it may, I would note also Donatus’ comment on 277, Sos- trata’s own concern that socrus omnes esse iniquas (“all mothers-in-law are bad”), when he says that intellegitur quibus iniquas, id est nuribus (“it must be understood with regard to whom they are bad, that is to the daughters- in-law”), rather, that is, than with regard to people in general. Perhaps worthy of mention also is his further comment on 198: accusatio a persona, cui accidit ex sexu, quod socrus est, which I take to mean that Donatus wants to gloss the idea of the accusation with regard to the character, by saying that it is really with regard to the sex, that it is the specifically female in-law relation about whom such an accusation arises. Poor Sostrata is nonplussed by such accusations regarding mothers- in-law, believing that she had had a good relationship with her young 148148148 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein daughter-in-law. She brings forward one possible explanation, which rings true to the modern anxieties about in-law families: a young woman, especially a young mother, although no one knows this yet of Philumena, will tend to prefer to have her own mother rather than her husband’s mother to help her. Sostrata wonders whether Philumena might be pretending to hate Sostrata in order to spend more time with her own mother (235–6). While the tactic might be rather excessive, the anxiety does point to real concerns about the negotiation of these difficult relationships. Towards the end of this scene, Laches offers another comment that seems to fit comfortably with mother-in-law anxieties (Ter. Hec. 240–2):

nam vostrarum nullast quin gnatum velit ducere uxorem; et quae vobis placitast condicio datur: ubi duxere inpulsu vostro, vostro inpulsu easdem exigunt.

(“There isn’t one of you women who doesn’t want her son to marry a wife, but on this condition, that when they have married them at your instigation, at your instigation they should push them out again.”)

Mothers want their sons to marry well, but find it hard (or are believed to find it hard) to consider any girl good enough for their sons or to be able to share the son with another woman. The bride’s father now joins the fray. He is accused by Laches of going back on their agreement and inappropriately allowing his daughter to leave her husband, which he strenuously denies, showing himself up as a weak (or kindly) man who does not rule his own household as a paterfamilias should. Again, there are comments that appear to fit nicely into an expected pattern of problems between mothers-in-law and daughters-in- law, in that Philumena is said to have complained that she could not bear to be with her parents-in-law while her husband was absent (Ter. Hec. 267–71):

nam postquam attendi magis et vi coepi cogere ut rediret, sancte adiurat non posse apud vos Pamphilo se absente perdurare. aliud fortasse aliis viti est: ego sum animo leni natus: non possum advorsari meis.

(“For after I kept on at her more and more and began to force her to go back, she took a sacred oath that she couldn’t bear to stay at your house while Pamphilus was absent. Everyone has their own vice, perhaps. I am naturally soft-hearted; I can’t set myself against my people.”) The Roman Mother-in-Law 149

Although the statement is a trick on Philumena’s part (if it is not just a convenient fiction on her father’s), it clearly resonates with both the characters and the audience as the kind of thing a young wife might feel about her mother-in-law, even if most proper fathers would not allow their daughters to act on such a feeling. Moreover, the idea that the relationship is an inherently problematic one, and that a man might be uncomfortably caught between his wife and his mother, is nicely reflected in the initial distress of the returning Pamphilus, when he thinks the only problem is an argument between the two of them (Ter. Hec. 299–302):

tum matrem ex ea re me aut uxorem in culpa inventurum arbitror; quod quom ita esse invenero, quid restat nisi porro ut fiam miser? nam matri’ ferre iniurias me, Parmeno, pietas iubet; tum uxori obnoxius sum.

(“It seems I must find either my mother or my wife to be to blame in this matter; when I find out, what remains for me but to be miserable? For duty orders me to put up with my mother’s irritations, Parmeno, but then I am being unkind to my wife.”)

Once Pamphilus has found out that the argument is a fiction and the real cause of his wife’s avoidance of her mother-in-law is the untimely pregnancy, he continues to try to use the awkwardness of the relationship as an excuse (470–81) to break with his wife, even though he claims that it is not what he wants to do. No one really believes that his wish to have regard for his mother ahead of his wife is appropriate, although he does get some praise for filial duty. In the second half of the play, the role of mother-in-law is shared with Myr- rhina, Philumena’s own mother. She is explicitly called socrus at 705 by Pamphi- lus, who hopes she will support him in not rearing the child, and at 748 by Laches, when he tells Bacchis (a prostitute and former lover of Pamphilus) the origin of the suspicion about the ongoing relationship between Pamphilus and herself. Of particular interest to us, however, is Myrrhina’s scene with her own husband, Phidippus, when the latter has just discovered the birth of the child (which he has no reason to suspect is other than a product of normal marital procreation). Myrrhina’s primary goal now is to stop her husband discovering that there is any doubt about the identity of the father. Since she had hidden the pregnancy and is apparently attempting to get rid of the child, Phidippus latches onto the idea that this is because Myrrhina is not happy with her son-in-law, on the grounds of his supposed continuing relationship with the prostitute (Ter. Hec. 536–40):

PH. … sed nunc mi in mentem venit de hac re quod locuta es olim, quom illum generum cepimus: nam negabas nuptam posse filiam tuam te pati 150150150 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

cum eo qui meretricem amaret, qui pernoctaret foris. MY. (quamvis causam hunc suspicari quam ipsam veram mavolo.)

(PHIDIPPUS: “But it occurs to me now what you once said about this matter, when we took him as our son-in-law: for you didn’t want to allow your daughter to be married to someone who was in love with a prostitute, who spent his nights away from home.”

MYRRHINA: (“I’d prefer him to suspect any cause rather than the true one.”))

Myrrhina plays up to this idea, in the hopes of it offering a way out of an impossible situation for her daughter. Again, it reflects (from our point of view, quite reasonable) anxieties in the relationship between mother-in-law and son-in-law. Sostrata’s proposed resolution of the family problem is for her to go and live in the countryside with her husband, thus leaving the townhouse free for Pamphilus and Philumena. The communication of this to her son is a scene overheard by her husband, who is softened by it.21 The problem moves from being all the fault of mothers-in-law to being blamed on the difficulties of multiple generations occupying the same house (Ter. Hec. 619–21):

odiosa haec est aetas adulescentulis. e medio aequom excedere est: postremo nos iam fabulae sumu’, Pamphile, “senex atque anus.”

(“Young people don’t like having the old around. It’s best for us to get out of the way. In the end, Pamphilus, we’ll be like ‘the old man and the old woman’ in the story.”)

Pamphilus is now in, from his point of view, a terrible position, because he either has to expose Philumena to shame or he has to bring up what he thinks is another man’s child. In his argument with his father, where he tries to claim that Philumena clearly does not want to be his wife because she has hidden the pregnancy and that this is a reason for him to refuse a reconciliation, Laches brings the second mother-in-law (i.e., not his own wife but Philumena’s mother) into play and makes her the guilty party (Ter. Hec. 660–1): mater quod suasit sua / adulescens mulier fecit. mirandum[ne] id siet? (“A young woman has done what her mother persuaded her to do. Where is the surprise in that?”) The Roman Mother-in-Law 151

Eventually, this being comedy, the recognition occurs that Pamphilus is the father of Philumena’s baby, although, as Pamphilus says in some famous meta- theatrical lines, only those who really need to know the truth are party to it. With patrilineal inheritance properly reinstated, the social difficulties revolving around the mother-in-law just dissipate. The mother-in-law “has to be hated”? Perhaps so, but if so it can hardly be described as central to the Roman literary imaginary, as I shall go on to explore in the remainder of this paper.

5. Mothers-in-Law (Mostly) Not Wronged

Other comedy, apart from the eponymous play, features very few true mothers-in-law.22 The mother and prospective mother-in-law in Terence’s Adelphi is loving and supportive towards her daughter’s lover, only speaking badly of him when it looks like he has abandoned her and her daughter. The old servant who acts as surrogate mother to the bride in Phormio is strict about marital morality, but otherwise wholly supportive of the relationship between her charge and the hero. These, it should be noted, are characters and families in a position of weakness. Still more so is another potentially relevant character, the mother or quasi-mother of the prostitute, herself also a prostitute or lena.23 This character is indeed generally a figure of fun, as for example in Plautus’ Cistellaria, but as a drunken and possibly lecherous old woman, not as mother-in-law. Rather, it is the father/father-in-law who matters throughout the genre. Given the usual concentration on non-marital, premarital, or at most perimarital situations, it is hardly surprising that any anxieties that may exist around the more settled in-law relationship hardly feature. If a young man in comedy has a living mother, he generally also has a living father. If there is a conflict between the parents and the young man’s erotic adventures, there is no real relationship between the parents and the potential bride, or even pseudo-bride. The one exception (if so it may be thought) is the kind of play where a young man and his father are rivals for the same erotic object (Plautus’ Asinaria, Casina, Mercator), where the mother will support her son’s claim against that of her husband, in order to punish the latter’s attempted adultery.24 Sadly, Phidippus’ questionably reliable account of Philumena’s expression of her unwillingness to spend time with her mother-in-law, in the absence of her husband, is about as close as we get to hearing the voice of any daughter-in-law about her husband’s mother. We do, however, hear a number of accounts on the part of men of their relationships with their mothers-in- law. The remarkable fact is that, as far as I have found, the overwhelming majority of such relationships are presented in a positive light. This appears 152152152 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein to be the case, whether the woman in question is in a weak or a relatively powerful position. In the former, in addition to the (so to speak) mother-in- common-law mentioned in Plautus’ Cistellaria and Terence’s Adelphi, we can count Delia’s mother in Tibullus 1.6, where the quasi-mother-in-law not only promotes the relationship of the young people but even encourages the speaker to forgive his beloved’s little infidelities. It is for her mother’s sake, Tibullus claims, that he is willing to do so. What is more surprising is that the same positive relationship is shown in the relationship between an elite son-in-law and his mother-in-law, as represented in Pliny’s letters (Plin. Ep. 1.4.1–3):25

C. PLINIUS POMPEIAE CELERINAE SOCRUI S.

Quantum copiarum in Ocriculano, in Narniensi, in Carsulano, in Perusino tuo, in Narniensi uero etiam balineum! Ex epistulis meis, nam iam tuis opus non est: una illa breuis et uetus sufficit. Non mehercule tam mea sunt quae mea sunt, quam quae tua; hoc tamen differunt, quod sollicitius et intentius tui me quam mei excipiunt. Idem fortasse eueniet tibi, si quando in nostra deuerteris. Quod uelim facias, primum ut perinde nostris rebus ac nos tuis perfruaris, deinde ut mei expergiscantur aliquando, qui me secure ac prope neglegenter exspectant.

(PLINY TO POMPEIA CELERINA, HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW, SENDS GREETINGS.

What abundance in your houses at Ocriculum, at Narnia, Carsulae, and Perusia! At Narnia there is even a bathhouse! [This is made apparent] from my letters, for now there is no need for yours: that one brief and old note is enough. By Hercules your possessions are not so much mine as my own are, except for this difference, that your people receive me more carefully and attentively than my own do. Perhaps the same will happen to you, if sometime you divert via our place. I’d like you to do this, first so that you may enjoy our hospitality as much as we have enjoyed yours, and secondly so that my people should wake themselves up a bit, since they await me carelessly and almost negligently.)

This extract, of course, is about more than just the friendly tone and sense of communality between in-laws, nor would one really expect to find mother- in-law jokes in such a context, or indeed perhaps any sign of anxiety surrounding the relationship.26 More surprising is the difficulty I have had in finding any strong examples of negative accounts of this relationship, other than in Terence’s eponymous play. There is one brief account of an argument between a highly elite young man and his mother-in-law, recorded in Suetonius’ Life of Augustus. The Roman Mother-in-Law 153

Sponsam habuerat adulescens P. Servili Isaurici filiam, sed reconciliatus post primam discordiam Antonio, expostulantibus utriusque militibus ut et necessitudine aliqua iungerentur, privignam eius Claudiam, Fulviae ex P. Clodio filiam, duxit uxorem vix- dum nubilem ac simultate cum Fulvia socru orta dimisit intactam adhuc et virginem.

(As a young man, he had married the daughter of Publius Servilius Isauricus, but having been reconciled with Anthony after their first split, at the instigation of both men’s soldiers that they should be linked by some ties of necessity, he married Ant- ony’s stepdaughter Claudia, the daughter of Fulvia with Publius Clodius, although she was barely old enough for marriage. Having quarrelled with his mother-in-law Fulvia, he sent Claudia back untouched and still a virgin.)

It would be hard to claim that this argument was anything other than political.27 Even as such, however, it is surprising how rare are such accounts. More common is the hint at strong relationships and communality of purpose among in-laws, such as that implied in Tacitus’ account (Ann. 16.10–11) of the heroic death of Lucius Antistius Vetus, together with his own mother-in- law Sextia, and his daughter, Antistia Pollitta, the widow of Rubellius Plau- tus (hence the son-in-law of Vetus), who had been a potential rival to Nero and was murdered on his orders. When it becomes clear that the family’s continued opposition to Nero makes their death inevitable, Vetus disposes of his property in such a way as to avoid servility to Nero, and then commits suicide with Sextia and Pollitta. These three remaining members of the family are presented as living and dying in perfect harmony (Suet. Aug. 16.11): tunc eodem in cubiculo, eodem ferro abscindunt venas, properique et singulis vestibus ad verecundiam velati balineis inferuntur, pater filiam, avia neptem, illa utrosque intuens, et certatim precantes labenti animae celerem exitum, ut relinquerent suos superstites et morituros. servavitque ordinem fortuna, ac seniores prius, tum cui prima aetas extinguuntur.

(Then in the same bedroom, they opened their veins with the same weapon, and, each covered by a single garment for modesty, they hurried into the bath, the father gazing at his daughter, the grandmother at her granddaughter, and she at them both, and all emulously praying for a swift death for their tottering soul, so as to leave behind family members surviving and about to die. Fortune maintained order, and the oldest died first, then the youngest.)

A less edifying example of a good relationship between mother-in-law and son-in-law comes from Cicero’s defence of Cluentius, in which the defendant’s mother Sassia stars as a classic wicked woman, among whose crimes is to fall in love with her own son-in-law, A. Aurius Melinus, and 154154154 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein persuade him to divorce her daughter (the full sister of Cicero’s client) in order to marry herself. The incident plays only a small role in a gory tale of inter- and intra-familial murder, but nonetheless contributes to building up the picture of the unnatural abuse of natural bonds. Its presentation depends not on any inherent difficulty in the in-law relationship, but on precisely the perversion of social and familial norms. Another snippet from the store of Ciceronian rhetoric, however, might just qualify as a weak mother-in-law joke. In his defence of Flaccus (Flac. 72–3), Cicero goes on the counter-attack against the prosecutor Decianus, relating how the latter mistreated the family of a certain Amyntas, by infiltrating the household of the latter’s mother- in-law, who is described as mulierem imbecilli consili (“a woman of weak intelligence/judgment”), in order to gain control of her estate and access to Amyntas’ wife. Decianus succeeds in abducting the pregnant wife, who gives birth to a daughter in his house. Cicero calls on Amyntas to demand the return of his property and family (Cic. Flac. 73): Exsurge, Amynta, repete a Deciano non pecuniam, non praedia, socrum denique sibi habeat; restituat uxorem, reddat misero patri filiam. (“Get up, Amyntas, and demand back from Decianus not the money, nor the lands, and you could even let him keep the mother-in-law, but let him give back the wife, let him return the daughter to her sad father.”) This offhand, disparaging concession of the mother-in-law in comparison with wife and daughter might perhaps just about qualify as a mother-in-law joke. It is a small moment, however, by comparison with perhaps the most famous Ciceronian mother-in-law, Laelia, mother-in-law of Licinius Crassus, who is presented as the model of true Roman speech (de Orat. 3.45, Crassus is the speaker):

Equidem cum audio socrum meam Laeliam – facilius enim mulieres incorruptam antiquitatem conservant, quod multorum sermonis expertes ea tenent semper quae prima didicerunt – sed eam sic audio ut Plautum mihi aut Naevium videar audire: sono ipso vocis ita recto et simplici est ut nihil ostentationis aut imitationis afferre videatur; ex quo sic locutum esse eius patrem iudico, sic maiores, non aspere, ut ille quem dixi, non vaste, non rustice, non hiulce, sed presse et aequabiliter et leniter.

(For my own part when I hear my wife’s mother Laelia – since it is easier for women to keep the old pronunciation unspoiled, as they do not converse with a number of people and so always retain the accents they heard first – well, I listen to her with the feeling that I am listening to Plautus or Naevius: the actual sound of her voice is so unaffected and natural that she seems to introduce no trace of display or affecta- tion; and I consequently infer that that was how her father and her ancestors used to speak – not harshly, like the person I mentioned, nor with a broad or countrified or jerky pronunciation, but neatly and evenly and smoothly.) (trans. Rackham 1942) The Roman Mother-in-Law 155

And he does not even spoil it with a joke about excessive garrulity! One place where we might expect to find examples of a negative stereotype, if such was available, would be declamation, since so much of the thought-world evoked in these imaginary scenarios revolves around the family, and in particular problems within the family. In all the many intra- familial troubles imagined here, there are remarkably few that involve mothers-in-law. The most extensive is pseudo-Quintilian Decl. Min. 360, which involves a conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law over the will of the deceased son/husband. (It appears to be the only significant one in the Minor Declamations, and I can find nothing in other parts of Quintilian or pseudo-Quintilian or Elder Seneca. Most daughters-in-law seem to be relevant to their fathers-in-law, not their mothers-in-law.) Decl. Min. 360 is very brief and rather undeveloped. The point at issue is not conflict between in-laws but rather in the complicated legal situation. Both women are widows; the estate is insolvent; both women seek the return of their dowry. The older woman had not sought the return of her dowry from the estate when her husband died, in order to help the situation of her son in his reduced circumstances. There is no negative stereotype. By contrast, unsurprisingly, stepmothers are well represented – or, rather, badly represented – in the corpus.28

6. In-Laws Working Together

Roman literature also offers us plenty of examples of in-laws working together. If we think of a “classic” mother-in-law situation being that of a man who feels torn between his mother and his wife, the kinds of stories that predominate in Roman literature do not illustrate such tension but are rather examples of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law working together. Such a case would be the story in Livy 2.40, of the mother and wife of Coriolanus working together to entreat the general not to attack Rome. There are certainly examples of conflict between the mother of a young man and his wife or beloved. On the surface, it might look as though the story of Hispala and the Bacchanalia issue in Livy 39 is one such.29 Aebu- tius’ mother certainly displays a negative attitude towards her son’s beloved (Liv. 39.11): confestim mulier exclamat Hispalae concubitu carere eum decem noctes non posse: illius excetrae delenimentis et venenis imbutum nec parentis nec vitrici nec deorum verecundiam habere. iurgantes hinc mater hinc vitricus cum quattuor eum servis domo exegerunt. 156156156 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

(Straightaway the woman exclaims that he [Aebutius] can’t even keep away from Hispala’s bed for ten nights, and that he has lost all regard for his parent, his stepfather, and the gods, because he has been imbued with the poisonous charms of that snake. This abuse from his mother and his stepfather drove him out of the house, with four slaves.)

That, however, is not really the core of the story. Aebutius’ mother wants him to be initiated into the Bacchic rites, but Hispala warns him off, having had some unhappy experience of them herself. As a result of his mother’s rejection, the young man goes off to his aunt to complain about the situation, with the eventual result that the consul is moved to take action against the Bacchanalia. If there are intra-familial difficulties compounding the political and ideological tensions in this story, they have most interestingly, perhaps, to do with anxiety surrounding the desire to keep property within the agnate family. Notably, it is his paternal aunt, named, of course, Aebutia, to whom Aebutius turns (Liv. 39.11): adulescens inde ad Aebutiam se amitam contulit, causamque ei cur esset a matre eiectus, narravit, deinde ex auctoritate eius postero die ad consulem Postumium arbitris remotis rem detulit. consul post diem tertium redire ad se iussum dimisit; ipse Sul- piciam gravem feminam, socrum suam, percunctatus est ecquam anum Aebutiam ex Aventino nosset. cum ea nosse probam et antiqui moris feminam respondisset, opus esse sibi ea conventa dixit: mitteret nuntium ad eam, ut veniret. Aebutia accita ad Sulpiciam venit, et consul paulo post, velut forte intervenisset, sermonem de Aebu- tio fratris eius filio infert. lacrimae mulieri obortae, et miserari casum adulescentis coepit, qui spoliatus fortunis, a quibus minime oporteret, apud se tunc esset, eiectus a matre, quod probus adulescens – dii propitii essent – obscenis, ut fama esset, sacris initiari nollet.

(The young man took himself off to his paternal aunt Aebutia, and told her the story of why he had been thrown out of his mother’s house. On her advice on the next day he brought the matter in private to the consul Postumius. The consul sent him away, telling him to come back in two days. He himself enquired of Sulpicia, a serious woman and his own mother-in-law, whether she knew a certain old woman called Aebutia from the Aventine. When Sulpicia responded that she knew her to be a virtuous woman of the old school, Postumius said that he needed to have a meeting with her: she should send a messenger to her requesting her presence. Thus summoned, Aebutia came to Sulpicia, and when a little later the consul arrived as if by accident, the conversation turned to Aebutius, her brother’s son. The woman burst into tears and began to bewail the young man’s fate, who, having been despoiled of his fortune by those whom it least became, was now at her house, having been thrown out by his The Roman Mother-in-Law 157 mother, because as a virtuous young man – may the gods be kindly – he did not want to be initiated into rites that were, according to rumour, obscene.)

The explicit mother-in-law in this story is Postumius’ own mother-in-law, a highly proper and respectable woman who acts as a facilitator between the Aebutii and the consul. For the Romans, Sulpicia is the honoured mother-in-law of Postumius, and that is nothing either to laugh at or to be anxious or rude about; Aebu- tius’ mother (and her husband, the young man’s stepfather) are the baddies, but there is no suggestion that Aebutius’ mother’s behaviour has anything to do with her being an actual or hypothetical mother-in-law to Hispala. Rather, it is (at least in part) because as widowed mother and stepfather they do not have the interests of the Aebutii at heart.

7. Apuleius’ Venus and Psyche

Perhaps a better example of a man caught between wife and mother, however, albeit rather an odd one in many ways, is that portrayed in the Cupid and Psyche story within Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. It is another story about which critics have made the claim that it represents a negative stereotype of a mother-in-law. For example, Lateiner describes Venus as “the caricature of the wicked mother-in-law.”30 I suggest that we can feel that this is not quite right, because even in the modern world the introduction “the caricature of the wicked …” asks to be finished with “stepmother,” not “mother-in-law.” Mothers-in-law are all sorts of things troublesome and ridiculous, but not usually actually wicked. This story, which has a long tradition of symbolic reading and may well have folkloric as well as philosophical connections, recounts the story of the mortal Psyche’s love affair with the god Cupid, in which she is punished for her curiosity about his appearance (she has only been able to interact with him in the night), having been tricked by her wicked sisters into believing that her mysterious husband is a monster and bringing in a light and a knife in order to kill him. Cupid flies away, but not before hot oil from the lamp has injured him. Psyche searches high and low for her beloved husband and eventually turns up at the temple of Venus, who receives her angrily, has her beaten, and gives her a series of futile tasks to undertake. Eventually, Cupid himself takes pity on Psyche and helps her with the final task, before pleading with Jupiter to be allowed to keep her as his immortal wife. It is certainly the case that the divine characters, especially the goddesses, in this story are represented in highly anthropomor- phized terms. For example, Venus is Juno’s daughter-in-law (her husband Vulcan being the child of Juno). As a result of this, Juno is unwilling to help 158158158 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

Psyche, even though she is sympathetic to her and even though she is called upon as the guardian of married women, because she does not want to upset her good relationship with her daughter-in-law (Apul. Met. 6.4):31

Sed contra voluntatem Veneris, nurus meae, quam filiae semper dilexi loco, praestare me pudor non sinit. Tunc etiam legibus quae servos alienos perfugas invitis dominis vetant suscipi prohibeor.

(But shame does not allow me to stand out against the will of Venus, my daughter-in-law, whom I have always loved like a daughter. Moreover, I am prohibited by laws that forbid the runaway slaves of other people to be taken up when their masters are unwilling.)

To be noted here is not only the good relationship of mother and daughter-in-law among the goddesses, but also the language of “runaway slave,” which is used of Psyche with regard to Venus as often as (or indeed more often than) daughter-in-law language.32 It seems to me, therefore, that this is by no means a typical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship. Venus’ anger at Cupid for his choice of wife does have some echoes of the problems traditionally associated with the mother-in-law relationship. For example, on first discovering that Cupid is in love, she blames the girl, whoever she may be, quae puerum ingenuum et investem sollicitavit (5.28), while her perception of him as a little boy, really too young for such things, also fits nicely with the idea of the controlling mother who is unhappy at sharing her darling with another woman. Moreover, the futile but difficult and painful tasks that Venus forces Psyche to undertake might well seem susceptible to interpretation as symbols of the struggles of a young wife under the thumb of a domineering mother-in-law. Indeed, Venus’ rage arises primarily from her perception of Psyche as her rival, which could also fit the stereotype. On the other hand, Venus is already angry with Psyche before she hears anything about her son’s relationship, because Psyche’s beauty is such that mortals are abandoning the worship of Venus herself and replacing it with worship of the beautiful girl. This, then, is a story of (albeit uninten- tional) challenging of the gods. If there is some element of folkloric representation of the strained relationship between wife and mother in this story, it is a small element in a complex symbolic tale, in which the dominant imagery is surely that of the search of the human soul for divine love.

8. Two Further North African Mother-in-Law Stories

One possible explanation for any element of the mother-in-law problem within Cupid and Psyche is that it may relate to particularly North African The Roman Mother-in-Law 159 thought, in keeping with Apuleius’ origins in the region. Emmanuel and Nedjima Plantade (2014) make a convincing argument that there are so many features shared between the Cupid and Psyche narrative and a group of Berber folk tales, which show evidence of reaching back into antiquity, as to make it very likely that Apuleius is directly drawing on the folk tales of his youth. The extent of the interaction between Apuleius’ story and the seven instances of the story type discussed by the Plantades is very considerable: the supernatural husband; the taboo, often including sight, by which the female protagonist is constrained; the loss of the husband on the breaking of the taboo; the long search for him; meeting with the mother-in-law, who is an ogress and who sets the protagonist seemingly impossible tasks; help from the husband and final reconciliation. The very small role played in mainstream classical literature by tensions with a mother-in-law, together with its prominence in Cupid and Psyche and the folk tales, seems to me to add support to the proposition that there is a particular connection between Apuleius and the Berber tradition. Alongside such a suggestion, it is perhaps worth noting another North African connection, in the form of a passage in Plutarch’s advice to the newly married couple (Mor. 143 a–b).33 He tells the young couple about a tradition in Leptis, according to which a new wife has to attempt unsuccess- fully to borrow a pot from her mother-in-law on the day after her wedding. This is supposed to help her cope with the future difficulties of dealing with the mother-in-law (Plu. Mor. 143 a–b):

ἐν Λέπτει τῆς Λιβύης πόλει πάτριόν ἐστι τῇ μετὰ τὸν γάμον ἡμέρᾳ τὴν νύμφην πρὸς τὴν τοῦ νυμφίου μητέρα πέμψασαν αἰτεῖσθαι χύτραν: ἡ δ᾽ οὐ δίδωσιν οὐδέ φησιν ἔχειν, ὅπως ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ἐπισταμένη τὸ τῆς ἑκυρᾶς μητρυιῶδες, ἂν ὕστερόν τι συμβαίνῃ τραχύτερον, μὴ ἀγανακτῇ μηδὲ δυσκολαίνῃ. τοῦτο δεῖ γιγνώσκουσαν τὴν γυναῖκα θεραπεύειν τὴν πρόφασιν: ἔστι δὲ ζηλοτυπία τῆς μητρὸς ὑπὲρ εὐνοίας πρὸς αὐτήν. θεραπεία δὲ μία τοῦ πάθους ἰδίᾳ μὲν εὔνοιαν τῷ ἀνδρὶ ποιεῖν πρὸς ἑαυτήν, τὴν δὲ τῆς μητρὸς μὴ περισπᾶν μηδ᾽ ἐλαττοῦν.

(In Leptis, a city of Africa, it is an inherited custom for the bride, on the day after her marriage, to send to the mother of the bridegroom and ask for a pot. The latter does not give it, and also declares that she has none, her purpose being that the bride may from the outset realize the stepmother’s attitude in her mother-in- law, and, in the event of some harsher incident later on, may not feel indignant or resentful. A wife ought to take cognizance of this hostility, and try to cure the cause of it, which is the mother’s jealousy of the bride as the object of her son’s affection. The one way to cure this trouble is to create an affection for herself personally on the part of her husband, and at the same time not to divert or lessen his affection for his mother.) 160160160 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

It is in North Africa, also, that we come across another story of difficulties between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Although the account by Saint Augustine of the life of his mother, Saint Monica, may not be not free of hagiographic spin, the account he gives at Confessions 9.9.20 portrays not only the tensions in a middle-class home shared by in-laws, but also the possibility of achieving domestic peace by honourable behaviour.34 socrum etiam suam primo susurris malarum ancillarum adversus se inritatam sic vicit obsequiis, perseverans tolerantia et mansuetudine, ut illa ultro filio suo medias linguas famularum proderet, quibus inter se et nurum pax domestica turbabatur, expeteretque vindictam. itaque posteaquam ille et matri obtemperans et curans familiae disciplinam et concordiae suorum consulens proditas ad prodentis arbitrium verberibus cohercuit, promisit illa talia de se praemia sperare debere, quaecumque de sua nuru sibi, quo placeret, mali aliquid loqueretur, nullaque iam audente memora- bili inter se benivolentiae suavitate vixerunt.

(She also overcame her mother-in-law, who had at first been whipped up against her by the whisperings of wicked servant-women, persevering with forbearance and mildness, with the result that she [the mother-in-law] of her own accord informed her son of the meddlesome tongues of the female slaves, by whom domestic peace between herself and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, and requested that they be punished. And so after he [i.e., Patricius, the father of Augustine], both complying with his mother and taking care of the discipline of the household and out of concern for the harmony of his people, had constrained with lashes those who had been exposed in accordance with the will of the one who exposed them, she [the mother-in-law] declared that is was the reward that ought to be expected, by anyone who in order to please her said anything bad to her about her daughter-in-law, and when no one now dared to do so, they lived together with memorable sweetness of mutual goodwill.)

These three pieces of cultural witness from ancient North Africa may be no more than coincidence as regards their place of origin, but they do all represent cases of explicit acknowledgment of the potential difficulties in the mother-in-law relationship, which is so lacking elsewhere in classical literature. It seems to me possible that Apuleius’ idea of Venus as a difficult mother-in-law has particular resonance in a North African context, which is not shared with the rest of the ancient Mediterranean world.

9. Conclusion

The mother-in-law, then, is not a figure of fun or of hatred per se in the ancient world, despite the apparently automatic designation of her as such The Roman Mother-in-Law 161 by modern critics, as indicated above. Indeed, she comes in for surprisingly little negative attention, given the high levels of opprobrium attaching to older women more widely. The mother-in-law is substantially less of a problem than the stepmother, but what is more surprising is that she seems to be rather less of a problem than the unconnected older woman, such as the widow, and perhaps even than the mother.35 I end with an example of a “joke” of a similar nature to that with which I began. It is a story from Plutarch’s dinner of the seven wise men (Plu. Mor., 147C [and repeated at 467C]): τοῦ νεανίσκου … τοῦ βαλόντος μὲν ἐπὶ τὴν κύνα πατάξαντος δὲ τὴν μητρυιὰν καὶ εἰπόντος “οὐδ᾿ οὕτω κακῶς.” (“The young man who threw a stone at his dog, but hit his stepmother, whereupon he exclaimed, ‘Not so bad after all!’”) The point is that such a joke applies to the stepmother, not the mother-in-law.

NOTES

1 See Shade 2010. 2 http://www.motherinlawstories.com/mother-in-law_jokes_page.htm. 3 While it is always dangerous to say that something “must have been” significant or extensive, we do have some evidence for the activity of mothers of married children, therefore mothers-in-law, as shown below. Literary evidence for the situation in sub-elite families is very difficult to find, but Apuleius’ Metamorphoses gives us some, if rather idiosyncratic, “evidence” for families across a wider social range, which includes a number of sets of in-laws, both his and hers. See Bradley 2000, Appendix. Bradley 1991, 9–10 counters the belief that multigenerational households were rare in the Roman world. Huebner 2013, ch 6, has extensively discussed the situation for multigenerational households in Roman Egypt, for which there is significant papyrological evidence of the challenges faced by daughters-in-law in a virilocal marital culture, for which Huebner explores comparative evidence from what is (in modern anthropological scholarship) known as the “mother-in-law belt” (Huebner 2013, 141–4) of cultures in which a wife joins her husband’s extended family and thus comes under the effective day-to-day control of her mother- in-law. That there were challenges and indeed suffering arising from such arrangements is undoubted. The argument of this paper is that the evidence of literature suggests that such difficulties were not focused on the mother-in-law as scapegoat and butt of humour in the modern manner. 4 A woman married cum manu becomes a member of her husband’s familia (which may be, strictly, his father’s). If his mother was also married cum manu, the two women would be members of the same familia. If either woman was 162162162 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

married sine manu, as became increasingly common during the Roman period, the two women would not strictly be members of the same familia, but rather would still belong to their natal grouping. See Gardner and Wiedeman 1991, 6n1. 5 See Bullough 1969, 67. Throughout this chapter, all translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 6 The negative representation of the stepmother in antiquity, Roman and otherwise, is well documented. See especially Watson 1995; Noy 1991. 7 This was what I said regarding Terence’s Hecyra in Sharrock 2009, 234. 8 Braund 1992, 76–7 and n. 48. See also Braund 2005. 9 Text of Lindsay 1929. 10 It must be admitted that the child-killing Medea myth would not immediately produce associations of old age, but no doubt the poet could have drawn on her powers as expressed in the myth of the rejuvenation of Aeson. 11 Missing also is the role of wife. Richlin 2005 reads the Martialian misogyny in this and similar poems as strongly connected with age-appropriate sexuality, i.e., that all sexuality in older women is disgusting. In other poems, e.g., 10.90, the role of mother does itself partake in this form of abuse. On the “fear of sex with old women,” see Smith 2005a, 10. 12 Braund 1992. 13 Watson and Watson 2014, 145–8 place this whole scene firmly in the tradition of comedy and mime, plus their elegiac cousin. They describe 6.231 as “a rare precursor of modern ‘mother-in-law’ jokes.” 14 The stepmother poisons her stepson (6.133–4) with an adulterous love potion; a passage attacking know-it-all women who are too ready to share their knowledge, in which one of the pieces of gossip is the presumably incestuous secreta nouercae / et pueri (“secrets of a stepmother and a boy,” 6.403–4); and another variation on the first one, only this time with a murderous potion, with which priuignum occidere fas est (“it is appropriate to kill a stepson,” 6.628), an exaggeration of the poisonous stepmother who figures so prominently in Roman declamation. See Watson and Watson 2014, 272–3. 15 Walcot 1999, 181. 16 On this festival, see Miller 1991, 91–5, who makes no distinction among the family members enlisted in the list of sinners, noting that they “in some way violate familial pietas” (93). Likewise, Miller suggests that all of the members participating in the festival are regarded indiscriminately as “Dear relatives” (cognati … cari, 2.617), in line with the etymology of the festival. 17 Text and translation are that of Perrin 1989. 18 I discussed this play extensively in Sharrock 2009, particularly 233–49. 19 An even clearer example is the case of Adelphi, in which the debate over the education of sons, one by his natural father and the other by his uncle and The Roman Mother-in-Law 163

adopted father, needs to be seen in the context of the performance of the play at the funeral games for a distinguished father (Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus) presented by his sons, both of whom had been adopted into other aristocratic families (the Fabii and Cornelii). 20 All quotations from Terence are to the edition of Lindsay and Kauer 1926. 21 I discuss this point in more detail in Sharrock 2014. For the argument that the play partakes in a wider negative characterization of women, see also Henderson 1999, 47, though he too is seduced by modern prejudices into seeing the mother-in-law as the natural recipient of such misogyny. 22 We know of the title Socrus for a fabula togata by the later republican poet Quinctius Atta, but we should be wary of assuming that the mother-in-law in question is any more pilloried than the married persons in his Mariti, or the aunts in his Materterae. See Manuwald 2011, 266–7 on Atta. 23 Such also is the mother of the elegiac puella, who might have some affinity with a mother-in-law, just as the determinedly non-marital relationship between the lover and the puella has some affinities with marriage, but here also the rather shadowy mothers who do appear are weak characters, as well as looking sometimes rather like lenae. Tibullus 1.6.57–8, for example, speaks very positively about tua mater and an aurea anus, who may or may not be one and the same, but in any case is/are presented as earning by their goodness the forgiveness which the puella does not herself deserve. Propertius 2.15.20 envisages a situation in which the beloved will show bruised arms to her mother (as a result of the speaker’s anger at her refusal of sex). Of particular interest is Prop. 3.8.38, where Propertius utters a curse against anyone who lays a Vulcanesque trap in the speaker’s erotic bed, the terms of which are that his enemy’s father-in-law may live forever and also his (i.e., the enemy’s) mother. There is no mention of a mother-in-law. 24 I have discussed relevant aspects of this matter in Sharrock 2013. 25 Text of Mynors 1963. 26 Carlon 2010, 119–23 argues that Pliny is using his mother-in-law in order to display himself as a loyal son-in-law (despite the fact that his wife, her daughter, has probably died by this time), while he is also guilty of speaking as if he were appropriating her property, such that he cannot be regarded as treating her as an equal. Even if this is so, and studies such as Hoffer 1999 might suggest otherwise, nonetheless the interaction gives nothing to suggest that there is any negative stereotyping of the mother-in-law. Shelton 2013, 260 repeats the common misunderstanding about mother-in-law jokes, saying “the topos of the meddlesome mother-in-law extends back to antiquity,” offering, of course, the example of Terence’s Hecyra, together with an anecdote about Aulus Gellius 12.1, regarding a diatribe against the practice of wet nursing delivered by the philosopher of Favorinus. Although it is true that the proximate cause 164164164 AlisonFlorence Contents Sharrock Klein

of the outburst is a statement from the new mother’s mother, hence Favorinus’ friend’s mother-in-law, there is no suggestion that this is in any way an attack on mothers-in-law. On the ancient concern about what may be imbibed with the mother’s or wet nurse’s milk, see Gherchanoc in this volume. On ancient wet nursing, see Bradley 1986; see also Marshall 2017a with the papers gathered there. 27 I do not discuss here the case of another elite mother-in-law, Virgil’s Amata, who strongly sides with one prospective son-in-law at the expense of the one preferred by her husband, because it is discussed elsewhere in this volume, except to point out that while she is certainly a problem in the eyes of the official viewpoint of the poem, she is nonetheless a figure of loving support to the person who regards her as his rightful mother-in-law. The problem arises from her husband and his dynastic ambitions, whereas Amata herself is more concerned for the well-being of her daughter – particularly if we accept the argument that Lavinia is in love with Turnus. On Amata as a quasi-Roman mother of the bride, see Brazouski 1991. See also Hallett 2006 and in this volume. 28 Imber 2001, 202–3: “Once the student rhetor has declaimed about the wicked stepmother and adulterous wife, the pirate who has kidnapped someone’s son or daughter, the rivalry of rich and poor man, the father burdened with both a dissolute and a sober son, the rapacious tyrant, the mother who must protect a son against a tyrannical father and the rape victim who must choose between her rapist’s death and dowerless marriage to him, he has covered almost all the topics of the controuersiae.” See also Noy 1991. The example at pseudo- Quintilian Declamationes Minores 246 is a nice one: it concerns the stepmother who, accidentally or otherwise, saves the life of her stepson by giving him a sleeping draught which causes him to miss a battle, and who is then predictably accused by him of poisoning. 29 Quotations from Livy are to the text of Yardley 2018. 30 Lateiner 2001, 225. 31 Apuleius’ Metamorphoses is quoted from the text (but not translation) of Hanson 1996. 32 E.g., 5.31 Psychen illam fugitivam volaticam. 33 Quotations of Plutarch's Moralia are to the text and translation of Frank Cole Babbit 1928. 34 The text is that of Hammond 2016. 35 A detailed study of when the phenomenon began is beyond the scope of this paper, but it seems to me a reasonable hypothesis that it is not until the rise of the extensive middle class in the nineteenth century. My recent research student, Helen Dalton, has a convenient interest in old newspapers and has provided me with several examples of mother-in-law “humour,” both British The Roman Mother-in-Law 165 and American, the earliest of which date from 1898. Although they are mostly published in American newspapers, particularly the Boston Daily Globe, a number of examples present themselves as originating from different European countries (Germany, France, Austria), which would be in keeping with anecdotal evidence from colleagues that this form of humour/abuse is extensive in non-Anglophone Europe. I asked a colleague who is an anthropologist of Far Eastern cultures, who told me that the mother-in-law relationship is a source of considerable anxiety in recent and contemporary China and Japan. Interaction with colleagues in other disciplines has not, however, unearthed any strong sense of the mother-in-law as a figure of fun or of hatred before the nineteenth century. While the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it may perhaps offer circumstantial support for my tentative hypothesis of the nineteenth-century development of middle-class culture, perhaps combined with increased longevity, increased mobility, and perhaps even the supposed threats posed by the women’s movement. I wonder whether we might see the beginnings of a new prejudice against mothers-in-law, or perhaps a sign that it has not yet begun, in the comment of Phillips 1845 and his quotation of Bentley, when commenting on Terence Hecyra 199–202 (I have reproduced it exactly): “All women who are circumstanced alike in that they are socrus, (mothers-in-law) are disposed alike towards their nurus (daughters-in-law) respectively in that they hate them; or, vice versâ, all daughters-in-law hate their mothers-in-law; as the words of Laches admit both meanings; though the former is the more obvious, from the sequel which shows that Laches less imputes the fault to Philumena than to his wife Sostrata. Bentley deems this line spurious, ‘For,’ says he, ‘when a charge is being made of a fault common to all women (omnes mulieres), it is not well that mothers-in-law should be here suddenly accused; why should mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law be so very different the one from the other.’ But Bentley did not perceive the proper force of eadem aeque (line 2).” This page intentionally left blank SECTION 3

Mothers and Their Adult Children

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Maximum Thebis (Romae?) scelus / maternus amor est (Oed. 629–30): Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque jacqueline fabre-serris

O Cadmi effera cruore semper laeta cognato domus, uibrate thyrsos, enthea gnatos manu lacerate potius: maximum Thebis scelus maternus amor est. 630 (Sen. Oed. 626–30)

(Ô (vous qui êtes de la) sauvage maison de Cadmus, qui se réjouit toujours du sang qui lui est apparenté, brandissez vos thyrses, déchirez vos enfants d’une main inspirée par les dieux, c’est préférable: le plus grand crime à Thèbes c’est l’amour maternel.)

Tels sont les premiers mots prononcés haineusement par Laïus au sortir des Enfers d’où Tirésias l’a tiré.1 Ce ne sont pas ceux auxquels s’attendent les témoins de la scène, le devin et Créon, ni ceux à qui elle est rapportée, Œdipe et les spectateurs. Le roi assassiné est ramené du séjour des morts pour qu’il révèle le nom de son meurtrier ou du moins donne des indices permettant de l’identifier. Cette charge générale contre la maison de Cadmus vise en fait deux mères. Malgré les pluriels (uibrate, gnatos, lacerate), les deux premières propositions font allusion à la seule mort de Penthée, déchiré par sa mère, Agavé, en proie à la fureur bachique. La dernière proposition, plus brève et plus énigmatique, attaque l’amour maternel en le désignant 170 Jacqueline170 Contents Fabre-Serris comme le plus grand crime à Thèbes. Vu le contexte immédiat: l’évocation de la mise à mort accomplie “joyeusement” par Agavé, le spectateur/lecteur est invité à comprendre que Laïus pense à Jocaste et à ce que lui a inspiré son amour maternel: sauver son fils au lieu d’obéir à son époux en le faisant périr. Sénèque a ajouté un arrière-plan à cette allusion à la mère d’Œdipe. La formulation qu’il a choisie est une variation sur une réflexion qu’Ovide attribue, dans les Métamorphoses, à Myrrha à propos de l’amour qu’elle éprouve pour son père: scelus est odisse parentem; / hic amor est odio maius scelus (“c’est un crime de haïr son père [ou sa mère]; mon amour est un crime plus grand que la haine,” Mét. 10.314–15). Ce renvoi a pour effet d’ajouter l’ombre de l’inceste à cette première manifestation de l’amour de Jocaste. Or jusqu’à ce moment-là de la pièce, il a été question de l’inceste uniquement comme du deuxième crime que l’oracle de Delphes a promis comme destin … à Œdipe. Et il en a été beaucoup question: un des choix thématiques opérés par Sénèque est d’avoir fait primer la peur de l’inceste sur celle du parricide. Cette angoisse, présente dès la première scène, tourne chez son Œdipe à l’obsession, ce qui constitue un décentrement majeur par rapport à l’argument développé dans l’Œdipe-Roi de Sophocle. On peut considérer que l’obscurité de l’affirmation attribuée à Laïus s’explique par la situation même imaginée par Sénèque. Les révélations du roi se substituent à celles qu’Œdipe espérait du devin et elles sont nécessairement en partie énigmatiques. Reste que le spectateur s’attend à une expression violente de la haine d’un père à l’égard du fils qui l’a tué. Or il est le témoin d’une attaque violente contre le sentiment aimant d’une mère, subrepticement mis en relation avec l’inceste. Je vais défendre, dans cet article, la thèse d’une implication personnelle de Sénèque dans ce jugement apparemment inapproprié et négatif à l’excès. Je commencerai par analyser tous les passages où il est question soit de l’inceste, soit de Jocaste, en montrant comment Sénèque y reprend, en les modifiant pour les adapter à son propre point de vue, certains éléments de la relecture qu’Ovide avait faite du cycle thébain à la lumière de l’Œdipe- Roi de Sophocle et des Bacchantes d’Euripide. J’essayerai ensuite d’éclairer les résultats de ces analyses en les confrontant aux éléments biographiques que l’on peut tirer d’une part de la Consolation à ma mère Helvia, d’autre part des passages de Tacite où il rapporte la façon dont Sénèque serait intervenu dans les relations entre Néron et sa mère, en particulier quand elles furent dénon- cées ou diffamées comme tendant vers l’inceste.

1. L’Œdipe de Sénèque ou l’obsession de l’inceste2

Le lecteur d’Œdipe-Roi apprend le sort qui a été prédit au protagoniste aux vers 791–3: “non sans avoir prédit à l’infortuné que j’étais le plus horrible, Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 171 le plus lamentable destin: j’entrerais au lit de ma mère, je ferais voir au monde une race monstrueuse, je serais l’assassin du père dont j’étais né!”3 Chez Sénèque, c’est dès sa première apparition sur scène, aux vers 15–21, qu’Œdipe évoque son destin, en avouant qu’il n’a cessé de le terrifier depuis qu’il lui a été annoncé.4 Sophocle avait usé d’une figure de rhétorique: l’usteron-proteron, qui consiste à inverser la chronologie. C’est une façon d’indiquer l’élément jugé le plus important: en l’occurrence l’union avec la mère, et les enfants qui en sont issus. Sénèque présente – explicitement – l’inceste (il n’est pas question des enfants) comme un maius scelus que le meurtre de son père (15–21)5:

Infanda timeo: ne mea genitor manu perimatur; hoc me Delphicae laurus monent aliudque nobis maius indicunt scelus. Est maius aliquod patre mactato nefas? Pro misera pietas (eloqui fatum pudet) thalamos parentis Phoebus et diros toros 20 gnato minatur impia incestos face.

(Ce sont des choses abominables dont j’ai peur: que mon père périsse de ma propre main; c’est de cela que m’avertissent les lauriers delphiques et ils me révèlent un autre crime plus grand. Est-il un forfait plus grand que le meurtre d’un père? Ô malheureuse piété, (j’ai honte de dire quel est mon destin) Phébus me menace, moi le fils, de la chambre de mon père et d’une couche incestueuse aux torches nuptiales impies.)

La deuxième mention de l’inceste est mise dans la bouche de Créon, mais attribuée à Apollon, qui annonce ainsi le sort réservé au meurtrier du roi (236–8): Nec tibi longa manent sceleratae gaudia caedis: / tecum bella geres, natis quoque bella relinques / turpis, maternos iterum reuolutus in ortus. (“Il ne te reste pas longtemps à jouir de ton crime scélérat: tu te feras la guerre à toi-même, tu laisseras aussi des guerres à tes fils, infâme, revenu, une deuxième fois au lieu de ta naissance, dans ta mère.”) L’inceste est ici présenté comme un “retour dans le ventre de la mère,” ce qui n’était pas le cas chez Sophocle. Ce dernier recourt, quatre fois dans sa tragédie, à deux métaphores complémentaires: celle du labourage et celle des semailles dans un champ, en précisant qu’il s’agit de celui où le partenaire masculin a lui-même été semé.6 Le comportement que ces méta- phores évoquent – la pénétration et un de ses effets, la procréation – ne sont pas en soi typiques de l’inceste. C’est ce qui est attendu d’un époux, dont la capacité génératrice est évoquée à trois reprises par l’emploi du 172 Jacqueline172 Contents Fabre-Serris mot πατὴρ (1211, 1485, 1496). Sénèque, lui, se focalise sur le rapport mère/enfant, qu’il présente comme un retour avec les mots iterum et reuolutus. Dans l’inceste, le phallus reviendrait à la place où était le fœtus, une place que le mot ortus (qui évoque la naissance) désigne en même temps comme révolue.7 Cette vision de l’inceste peut sembler en accord avec le stoïcisme. Il est dans l’ordre naturel, qu’une fois sorti du ventre de sa mère, un enfant n’y revienne plus. Mais toute insistance étant signifi cative, celle de Sénèque sur l’idée de retour à/dans la mère (on en trouve trois occurrences dans la pièce) me semble aller au-delà d’une position purement intellectuelle, inspirée par la doctrine stoïcienne. Pour suggérer le bouleversement de l’ordre naturel dont témoigneraient les entrailles de la génisse que Tirésias a sacrifiée afin de connaître les secrets du destin, Sénèque utilise l’expression acta retro (366–7): Mutatus ordo est, sede nil propria iacet, / sed acta retro cuncta. (“L’ordre (des choses) a été changé, rien n’est à la place qui lui est propre, mais tout a été poussé retro.”) Le mot utilisé pour résumer le changement de la disposition naturelle des organes est retro, qui veut dire “en arrière.”8 Or les modifications que Manto décrit ensuite à son père sont des anormalités (le poumon de droite contient du sang à la place de l’air, les replis gras des intestins ne sont pas cachés par des membranes) et une inversion de place (le cœur n’est pas à gauche). Elle conclut sa description par (371–2): natura uersa est, nulla lex utero manet (“La nature a été bouleversée, aucune loi n’est respectée dans l’utérus”). Le choix du mot utero a surpris. Il ne convient pas puisque ce n’est pas la partie du corps de la génisse qui est examinée. Pourquoi avoir choisi de nouveau un mot inapproprié? Dans son édition commentée, A.J. Boyle dit qu’il “seems (intentionally) ambiguous.”9 J’attribuerai pour ma part le choix de ces deux mots, incongrus dans leur contexte immédiat, retro et utero, à la volonté de faire allusion à la situation humaine (ou plus précisément à la façon dont Sénèque la conçoit: l’inceste serait à pren dre comme un “retour” dans l’utérus) que l’examen des entrailles de la génisse est censée révéler du fait de leur non-conformité à l’ordre de la nature. L’animal a en outre dans ses entrailles (extis, 372), pas au bon endroit (ce qui est signalé par l’expression alieno in loco, “dans un lieu impropre,” 374), c’est-à-dire pas dans l’utérus, qui est ainsi indirectement évoqué, un horrible petit veau, qualifié de nefas puisque conçu par une femelle n’ayant pas été fécondée.10 J’ajoute un dernier argument en faveur d’une allusion masquée: A.J. Boyle11 signale que l’expression uersa natura est retro (“La nature a été bouleversée par un retour en arrière”), qui con- jugue deux expressions utilisées ici, est employée par Thyeste pour parler de son inceste dans l’Agamemnon de Sénèque (34). Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 173

L’inceste est ensuite ouvertement évoqué dans la suite du discours de Laïus, peu après sa charge contre le maternus amor (636–41):

Inuisa proles, sed tamen peior parens quam gnatus, utero rursus infausto grauis, egitque in ortus semet et matri impios fetus regessit, quique uix mos est feris, fratres sibi ipse genuit! – implicitum malum 640 magisque monstrum Sphinge perplexum sua.

(Il a une odieuse descendance, mais cependant le père est pire que son fils, [lui qui est] lourd de nouveau pour/dans12 un infortuné utérus, il s’est poussé/il est allé lui- même dans son lieu de naissance et a porté de nouveau des rejetons impies à sa mère, et, ce qui est à peine l’usage chez les bêtes sauvages, il s’est lui-même engendré des frères – mal entortillé et monstre plus embrouillé que sa propre Sphinge.)

Laïus fait, lui aussi, de l’inceste un retour dans l’utérus, alourdi par le phallus comme il l’avait été par le fœtus. Le mot fetus est utilisé ici pour désigner les autres fœtus impies insérés par Œdipe dans le ventre maternel. La fin de la phrase développe une autre idée: l’être incestueux est, en tant qu’implicitus et perplexus, un monstrum assimilable à la Sphynge. Sénèque souligne explicitement avec cette comparaison qu’une ressemblance secrète existe entre Œdipe et le monstre qu’il a vaincu.13 Tous deux sont des êtres com- posites mêlant ce que les lois de la nature empêchent de se confondre: les espèces pour elle, qui est femme, lionne, oiseau; les rôles parentaux pour lui, qui est le fils et l’époux de sa mère, le père et le frère de ses enfants.14 Pour M. Bettini, Sénèque suggère par là qu’inceste et énigme sont liés. Ce serait en raison de l’enchevêtrement caractéristique de leur nature que la sphynge et Œdipe manifesteraient une aptitude particulière en matière d’énigmes, elle en tant que productrice, lui en tant que débrouilleur de nœud d’éléments à démêler.15 Toutefois, s’il a su clarifier l’énigme de “sa sphynge,” Œdipe n’a toujours pas compris celle de sa propre nature (c’est ce que signale ici Laïus), comme les devins à qui leur propre sort reste souvent obscur.16 L’idée qu’Œdipe ne serait pas l’homme d’une seule énigme, mais de deux, et qu’il n’en aurait dénoué qu’une, est ingénieuse. Elle est même plus suggestive encore que son auteur ne l’a voulu, si l’on songe qu’on peut aussi la lui appli- quer. Son interprétation de l’acte incestueux (vu d’un point de vue exclu- sivement masculin) comme un retour à la position du fœtus à l’intérieur de l’utérus, autrement dit, à la phase prénatale de non-séparation d’avec la mère, n’aurait-elle pas une raison d’être personnelle, qui lui serait restée 174 Jacqueline174 Contents Fabre-Serris obscure? En d’autres termes, si le point de vue développé ici peut paraître plus approprié à l’acte sexuel spécifique qu’est l’inceste (le labourage et les semailles, choisis par Sophocle, valant, comme je l’ai déjà dit, pour n’importe quelle relation homme/femme), ne serait-il pas aussi à mettre en rapport avec une expérience particulière des relations fils/mère? Mais restons-en pour l’instant à son Œdipe et passons au troisième chœur, où l’on trouve une autre variation sur l’inceste.

2. Le troisième chœur d’Œdipe: entre passé, présent et futur

Alors que Laïus, par la bouche de Créon, vient d’accuser explicitement Œdipe, le chœur prend la parole pour rassurer le roi. Les malheurs de la cité n’auraient rien à voir avec Œdipe ou les Labdacides. Je rappelle que Laïus est le fils de Labdacus, lui-même petit-fils de Cadmus par Polydorus. Selon le chœur, il s’agirait de la “poursuite d’anciennes colères divines” (ueteres deum / irae sequuntur, 711–12), une explication qu’avait pourtant récusée par Laïus au vers 630.17 Pour cette intervention du chœur, Sénèque a utilisé – ce qui n’est pas une surprise puisque c’est “le” texte latin sur le cycle thébain – la lecture des histoires thébaines (de l’arrivée de Cadmus à sa transformation en serpent) qu’Ovide propose au livre 3 des Métamorphoses. Sénèque mène avec ce texte-modèle un jeu subtil à l’usage de son lecteur. Il attribue au chœur une interprétation inexacte, qu’il dément, dans le même temps, en renvoyant à Ovide, dont le cycle thébain met en évidence les liens cachés entre l’histoire d’Œdipe et celles de Cadmus et de ses descendants. Mais à malin, malin et demi, si je puis dire: le lecteur ainsi sollicité peut aller plus loin dans la confrontation entre le texte d’Ovide et celui de Sénèque, et se rendre compte que ce dernier a aussi fait des choix personnels (en tant que narrateur principal), à propos de ce qui nous intéresse ici: la mère et l’inceste. Chez Ovide, Cadmus quitte Thèbes à la suite de la série de deuils qui l’ont frappé (les morts d’Actéon, de Sémélé, de Penthée, et, croit-il, d’Ino), “comme s’il était accablé par la fortune des lieux et non par la sienne” (tamquam fortuna locorum, / non sua se premeret, 4.566–7). Plus tard, alors qu’il se trouve en Illyrie avec son épouse, ils repassent tous deux dans leur mémoire les prima (…) / fata domus (4.569–70), autrement dit les événements tragiques lors desquels ont péri les membres proches de leur famille. Revenant sur sa première aventure sur le sol thébain, Cadmus se pose soudain une question (571–5):

“Num sacer ille mea traiectus cuspide serpens” Cadmus ait “fuerat, tum cum Sidone profectus Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 175

uipereos sparsi per humum, noua semina, dentes? Quem si cura deum tam certa uindicat ira, ipse precor serpens in longam porrigar aluum.” 575

(“N’aurait-il pas été sacré ce serpent que j’ai transpercé de ma lance,” dit Cadmus, “quand, parti de Sidon, j’ai répandu à travers le sol, semences nouvelles, ses dents vipérines? Si la colère des dieux le venge avec un soin si assuré, ma prière est que mon propre corps s’étire sous la forme d’un long ventre.”)

Il est alors immédiatement métamorphosé en reptile, ce qui prouve la jus tesse de la mise en relation qu’il vient d’opérer entre les fata malheureux de sa maison et deux actions accomplies lors de la fondation de Thèbes: avoir tué le serpent et avoir semé ses dents. Sénèque fait reprendre par le chœur les deux raisons par lesquelles le Cadmus ovidien expliquait successivement les malheurs de sa famille: la fortuna locorum et l’ira deum. Le chœur évoque des ueteres deum irae, mais sans aucune précision (sequuntur n’a pas de complément d’objet direct). Vu le contexte, cela revient à associer implicitement ces “anciennes colères divines” au lieu où elles se sont produites. De fait le chœur appuie cette thèse par l’argument que “la terre” aurait produit de “nouveaux mons tres” (noua monstra, 724) à partir de l’arrivée de Cadmus: un gigantesque serpent, des guerriers sortis du sol, un homme devenu cerf, Actéon. Néan- moins – j’y reviendrai – impliquer la terra (ce qu’a choisi Sénèque) ou la fortuna locorum (évoquée par Ovide) n’est pas tout à fait la même chose. Sénèque suggère à son lecteur la possibilité d’une autre lecture que celle du chœur, en mettant un souhait à double sens dans la bouche de ce dernier à propos de la mort des Spartes (748–50): hac transierit ciuile nefas! / Illa Her- culeae norint Thebae, / proelia fratrum! (“Puisse le crime des guerres civi- les s’être terminé ainsi [plus précisément: être passé pour ne plus revenir]. Puisse la Thèbes d’Hercule ne connaître que ces combats fraternels!”) C’est un cas classique d’illusion tragique. Attribuer ce souhait au chœur revient en même temps à dénoncer son erreur d’interprétation, le lecteur pensant immédiatement au combat à mort à venir entre Étéocle et à Polynice. Mais inciter son lecteur, par un renvoi à un autre texte ou à une version complète d’une histoire mythologique, à une lecture critique, n’est pas sans risques pour un auteur, car, une fois ce jeu enclenché, pourquoi pas ne pas le pour- suivre? Nous avons vu que chez Ovide, les semailles des dents du serpent étaient reconnues comme l’un des deux motifs de la “colère des dieux.” Dans l’Œdipe de Sénèque, le chœur passe cet épisode sous silence, mais les mots utilisés pour désigner les enfants qui en sont nés, laissent clairement entendre qu’il voit dans cette naissance l’équivalent d’un inceste: impio 176 Jacqueline176 Contents Fabre-Serris partu (731), dignaque iacto semine proles (739). Il n’y a là rien d’étonnant: le chœur a présenté le serpent comme le fils de la Terre et la Terre comme la mère des Spartes. C’est chez Ovide que Sénèque a trouvé cette interpréta- tion de l’épisode des semailles. Dans un article consacré au cycle thébain des Métamorphoses,18 j’ai défendu l’hypothèse qu’Ovide avait lu le meurtre du serpent et les semailles de ses dents, ainsi que l’épisode suivant: la naissance des Spartes et leur guerre fratricide, à la lumière de l’histoire d’Œdipe et de ses descendants mâles. Cette histoire combine en effet un meurtre, un inceste, métaphorisé chez Sophocle par l’image du labourage et des semailles, une altération du corps du coupable: l’aveuglement, et la mort de ses deux fils, Étéocle et Polynice, au cours d’un duel. Sans entrer dans le détail,19 les versions qu’Ovide propose des fins tragiques d’Actéon, de Sémélé et de Penthée, où Cadmus finit par voir des expiations de sa geste héroïque, ont, toutes, pour motif commun une transgression accomplie sous l’effet du désir sexuel. Certes Œdipe n’est pas présent dans cette série de récits. Mais plusieurs détails textuels ou fictionnels évoquent son histoire. Ovide reprend en l’appliquant à Cadmus20 la dernière réplique du choryphée d’Œdipe-Roi (1528–30): “Gardons-nous d’appeler jamais un homme heureux, avant qu’il n’ait franchi le terme de sa vie sans avoir subi un chagrin.” Comme l’ont montré A. Zissos et I. Gildenhard,21 le fils de Jocaste est par ailleurs indirectement évoqué par plusieurs détails de l’histoire du personnage qu’on peut considérer comme un intrus dans le petit cycle narratif sur les destins malheureux des descendants de Cadmus: Narcisse. Son aventure est introduite par un renvoi à la sentence delphienne, “connais-toi-même,” que Sophocle avait reprise et fait utiliser par son Tiré- sias dans sa dispute avec Œdipe, et qu’à sa suite Ovide attribue à son tour à son Tirésias22 (il s’en sert, lui, dans sa querelle avec Penthée). Comme Œdipe, Narcisse passe de l’ignorance à la connaissance; tous deux éprouvaient du désir sans être conscient de l’identité de son objet; la révélation de la vérité les amène à cesser de voir de l’autre là où il n’y avait que du même. Pour en revenir maintenant à Sénèque et au parti qu’il a tiré d’Ovide, la confrontation du troisième chœur avec le cycle thébain des Métamorphoses met en évidence une divergence totale de vues entre Sénèque et Ovide sur le sens à donner à ces histoires de famille. J’ai, dans mon article, défendu l’idée qu’Ovide avait focalisé sa réécriture du cycle thébain sur le désir et le plaisir sexuel de la femme et, en particulier, de la mère, et sur diverses tentatives masculines pour appréhender l’intimité féminine. Et ce parce qu’Ovide a lu les histoires thébaines à la lumière des deux grandes tragédies grecques sur la famille royale thébaine, Œdipe-Roi et Les Bacchantes, qui ont pour protagonistes deux fils, dont l’un, Œdipe, a expérimenté ce qui est apparemment le phantasme de l’autre. Ce sont en effet les rapports sexuels des bacchantes Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 177

(et plus particulièrement ceux de sa mère) que Penthée croit pouvoir surprendre en pleine et libre expression dans la nature sauvage. C’est peu de dire que Sénèque diffère d’Ovide dans sa lecture du cycle thébain, qu’il restreint aux trois premiers épisodes. Pour résumer en deux mots sa position: tous ses efforts visent à dédouaner l’homme et à charger la femme, en l’occurrence la mère. Le chœur commence par souligner que Cadmus est un étranger, en évoquant longuement son errance et les circonstances de son arrêt en Béotie sur l’ordre d’Apollon. Les événements terribles par lesquels les “anciennes colères divines” sont censées se mani- fester sont mis en relation avec Cadmus seulement sur un plan temporel: ces événements se sont produits à partir de son arrivée (tempore ex illo, 724). Le chœur passe sous silence le meurtre du serpent et les semailles de ses dents, signalant seulement que Cadmus, désigné par le mot aduena (“celui qui est venu dans le pays,” 743), fut épouvanté à la vue des guerriers sortis du sol. Mais est-ce seulement au chœur que ce parti pris est à imputer? Comme, en contrepartie de cette réduction de Cadmus au rang de témoin, c’est la Terre qui est présentée comme “ayant produit de nouveaux mons tres” (tempore ex illo noua monstra semper / protulit tellus, 724–5), alors qu’elle est à l’origine – spontanée – (ou du moins l’agent masculin n’est pas précisé) seulement du serpent (les Spartes étant produits par le labourage et les semailles opérées par Cadmus), le lecteur est en droit d’être légère- ment suspicieux. Les mots appartenant au vocabulaire de l’enfantement et de la maternité sont singulièrement nombreux23 dans ce passage: feta (731), partu (731), proles (739), genetrix (746), gremio (746), alumnos (747). Un autre détail porte plus clairement encore la marque de Sénèque. La mort des Spartes est décrite comme un retour (reddi) dans le sein maternel (suo gremio), un mot qui, selon J. Adams,24 peut être utilisé à la place d’uterus: donec … / genetrixque suo reddi gremio / modo productos uidit alumnos (“jusqu’au moment où […] la mère eut vu les nourrissons qu’elle avait récemment mis au monde être rendus à son sein,” 745–7). Cette évocation, qui est apparemment une variation sur la conception que Sénèque se fait de l’inceste, est d’autant plus significative qu’elle est inexacte, les guerriers nés de la terre s’écroulant au-dessus de son sol.25 La version qui est don- née ensuite de l’histoire d’Actéon, troisième et dernier monstre, confirme la volonté de diminuer la responsabilité masculine. Le passage est centré sur la transformation du jeune homme en cerf, ce qui est conforme à la thématique choisie: évoquer les monstra thébains. Sénèque n’explicite pas clairement la raison de cette métamorphose. Il ressort du texte qu’Actéon n’a pas conscience d’être devenu un monstrum (ce qui nous rappelle évidem- ment Œdipe). Il le comprend seulement lorsqu’il voit son visage se refléter dans l’onde d’une source, Sénèque précisant alors qu’il s’agit de l’endroit où 178 Jacqueline178 Contents Fabre-Serris il avait vu précédemment Diane se baigner, autrement dit, quand il revient sur les lieux de sa faute. Cette faute est à ce moment-là minorée. Sénèque glose le mot diua par nimium saeui … pudoris (“à la pudeur excessivement cruelle,” 763). Si elle laisse supposer une atteinte à cette pudeur, l’expression incrimine surtout la déesse pour son excessive cruauté.

3. La Jocaste de Sénèque

C’est un personnage beaucoup plus présent sur scène que dans la pièce de Sophocle. Elle est là, dès le début. Elle soutient Œdipe, à qui elle demande de ne pas aggraver ses/leurs malheurs par des plaintes (81–2): Quid iuuat, con iunx, mala / grauare questu? Comme en contrepoint de cette figure aimante, Sénèque fait, à quatre reprises, surgir l’image d’Agavé: la mère qui tua son fils de ses mains. Est-ce chez Ovide qu’il a trouvé l’idée de rapprocher les destins d’Œdipe et de Penthée? Comme je l’ai déjà rappelé, au livre 3 des Métamorphoses, Ovide met dans la bouche de Tirésias une adaptation de la réplique que Sophocle attribue au devin au plus fort de son altercation avec Œdipe (Mét. 3.517–18): “Quam felix esses, si tu quoque luminis huius / orbus” ait “fieres, ne Bacchica sacra uideres!’” (“‘Que tu serais heureux,’ dit-il, ‘si tu te retrouvais privé, toi aussi, de la lumière, pour ne pas voir les rites sacrés de Bacchus!’”26). Dans mon article sur le cycle thébain des Métamorphoses, j’ai proposé d’interpréter ce renvoi à Œdipe-Roi comme un signal intertextuel invitant à lire la suite du récit en relation avec la pièce de Sophocle, Ovide ayant préalablement lu les Bacchantes, dont son récit suit étroitement le déroulement, à la lumière d’Œdipe-Roi, et ce parce que la pièce d’Euripide lui a semblé (et il est tentant de supposer qu’elle a été con- çue comme telle par son auteur) être une variation sur celle de Sophocle.27 Dans les Bacchantes, le roi de Thèbes, mû par un désir (inconscient) pour sa mère, qu’il espère surprendre dans des orgies, fantasmées comme des ébats sexuels, subit un démembrement, accompli par Agavé, qui ne sait pas qu’elle a attaqué son fils. DansŒdipe-Roi, l’acte sexuel avec la mère est effectif, mais accompli dans l’inconscience de la parenté. La punition du partenaire masculin consiste en une altération volontaire de la vision, qui vaut pour équivalent du type de punition réservée à Penthée. Comme il l’a fait dans son troisième chœur, ce que Sénèque a vu dans le personnage d’Agavé, c’est la possibilité de charger une figure maternelle. Avec chacune de ses évoca- tions de la mère de Penthée, il fait peser l’image d’une mère coupable, meur- trière de son fils, à la fois inconsciente et joyeuse de l’être, comme une espèce de “révélation” de ce que Jocaste serait en réalité. La première mention d’Agavé se trouve au vers 615 dans la liste des morts ramenés des Enfers par les imprécations de Tirésias (615–17): Peior Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 179 hac genetrix adest / furibunda Agaue, tota quam sequitur manus / par- tita regem. (“Une mère pire qu’elle [Niobé, qui causa, elle aussi, la mort de ses fils] est là, la délirante Agavé, que suit toute la troupe qui déchira le roi en morceaux.”) J’ai déjà cité la deuxième occurrence: c’est à Agavé que renvoient (sans la nommer) les premiers mots de Laïus, qui l’oppose implicitement à Jocaste, également non nommée. La troisième mention de son nom est placée dans la bouche d’Œdipe. Au vers 878, dans une espèce d’écho au regret de Laïus, que Jocaste n’ait pas été une Agavé,28 mais qui est contradictoire avec ce regret, Œdipe souhaite que sa mère retrouve les sentiments éprouvés à sa naissance (ce qui suppose qu’il considère qu’elle l’a haï) (878–9): Redde nunc animos, parens; / nunc aliquid aude sceleribus dignum tuis. (“Rends-moi/retrouve contre moi maintenant tes sentiments [d’alors], ma mère: ose maintenant quelque chose digne de tes crimes.”) Le mot redde est repris, peu après, au vers 933 avec, cette fois, pour complément Agaven, au moment où, dans un accès de délire, Œdipe se crève les yeux. La deuxième partie de ce vers confirme que par animos, il fallait entendre ceux d’Agavé, dont l’effet a été la mort (933): nunc redde Agauen. Anime, quid mortem times? (“Rends-moi/fais revenir pour moi maintenant une Agavé. Mon âme, pourquoi crains-tu la mort?”) Il est évidemment trou- blant – et d’autant plus révélateur – que Sénèque ait représenté un fils en train de s’imaginer, au moment où il s’automutile, qu’il se substitue à une mère! Le fait qu’Œdipe qualifie ensuite ses yeux de maritales (956–7: hi maritales statim / fodiantur oculi!, “Que ces yeux d’époux soient sur le champ percés!”) a été commenté comme une façon de souligner la culpa- bilité de la partie du corps choisie pour cette autopunition, et mis en relation avec l’interprétation freudienne selon laquelle les yeux sont un substitut du sexe.29 Il est une dernière fois question d’Agavé à la fin de la pièce. Quand Jocaste sort du palais, après avoir appris la vérité, le chœur la compare à Agavé (1004–7): En ecce, rapido saeua prosiluit gradu / Iocasta uaecors, qualis attonita et furens / Cadmea mater abstulit gnato caput / sensitque raptum. (“Ah! Voici que d’un pas rapide, sauvage, Jocaste s’est élancée, hors d’elle, telle dans son égarement et sa fureur la mère cadméenne qui arra- cha la tête de son fils, puis se rendit compte de ce qu’elle emportait avec elle.”) L’élément commun qui justifie cette comparaison est le passage de l’inconscience à la révélation de l’acte commis, mais l’accent principal est mis sur la sauvagerie, l’égarement et la fureur. Or le premier et le troisième des termes choisis: saeua et furens ne paraissent pas vraiment convenir à Jocaste. De fait, ses premiers mots sont remplis d’incertitude et d’une tendresse contenue. Il est significatif qu’ils soient proprement insupportables à Œdipe (1009–12): Quid te uocem? / Gnatumne? Dubitas? Gnatus es: gnatum pudet? / Inuite loquere gnate: – quo auertis caput / uacuosque uultus? (“En 180 Jacqueline180 Contents Fabre-Serris relation à quoi t’appeler? [Dois-je dire] Mon fils? Tu es dans le doute? Tu es mon fils; fils te fait honte? Quoique ce soit à contre cœur, parle, mon fils: – où détournes-tu la tête et ton visage sans yeux?”) La réaction d’Œdipe à ces quatre occurrences de gnatus, par lesquels Jocaste se met tout de suite dans la position d’une mère,30 est d’une violence extrême. Il considère que l’utilisation du mot gnatus anéantit la punition sauvage qu’il s’est infligée (1012–13): Quis fruis tenebris uetat? / Quis reddit oculos? Matris, en matris sonus! / Perdidimus operam! (“Qui m’interdit de jouir des ténèbres? Qui me rend mes yeux? Ma mère, est-ce la voix de ma mère? J’ai perdu ma peine!”) Refusant ce qui serait un “retour à/de sa mère,” Œdipe souhaite alors, ce qui prend d’autant plus de sens, qu’il s’agit de la situation la plus inverse possible de l’inceste (selon Sénèque), que Jocaste et lui soient désor- mais séparés par le maximum d’espace possible (1014–18):

Congredi fas amplius haud est. Nefandos diuidat uastum mare 1015 dirimatque tellus abdita et quisquis sub hoc in alia uersus sidera ac solem auium dependet orbis alterum ex nobis ferat.

(Il n’est plus permis de nous rencontrer davantage. Que les criminels soient séparés par l’étendue de la mer! Qu’ils soient écartés l’un de l’autre par des terres éloignées! Quel qu’il soit, l’espace du globe, qui, tourné vers d’autres étoiles et un soleil inac- cessible, est (suspendu/placé) sous le nôtre, qu’il emporte l’un (ou l’autre) de nous!)

Jocaste tente de faire entendre une interprétation, qui l’innocente, lui (appa remment, elle, ne se juge pas coupable). C’est la faute du destin (1019): Fati ista culpa est: nemo fit fato nocens (“c’est la faute du destin: personne ne devient coupable à cause du destin”). Œdipe refuse ce qu’elle lui propose implicitement: vivre avec cette nouvelle situation. Il lui demande de ne plus jamais lui parler, en la suppliant, par son corps mutilé, par leurs enfants nés sous de malheureux auspices, et par leurs noms, ceux qui leur sont permis et ceux qui leur sont interdits (per omne nostri nominis fac ac nefas, 1023). C’est une formulation surprenante, aucun nom en fait ne leur étant permis … à présent. Elle laisse toutefois supposer que pour Œdipe les noms interdits sont ceux de fils et de mère. Cette réaffirmation d’un refus de tout contact avec elle conduit Jocaste à se juger, elle aussi, coupable (1024–5): Socia cur scelerum, dare / poenas recusas? (“Pourquoi, alors que je suis associée à tes crimes, refuser une punition?”) La raison pour laquelle elle condamne alors l’inceste correspond à la vision qu’en a Œdipe: avoir mêlé ce qui devait rester séparé, ruinant les lois qui régissent les relations humaines Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 181

(1025–6): Omne confusum perit, / incesta, per te iuris humani decus. (“En jetant dans la confusion tout ce qui fait l’honneur des lois humaines, incestueuse, tu l’as anéanti.”) Cette idée la conduit à vouloir, prise d’une exal- tation croissante, se punir elle aussi … mais par la mort (1031–2): Mors placet, mortis uia / quaeratur. (“La mort c’est ce qui me plaît, cherchons un moyen de mourir.”)31 Qu’elle demande alors à Œdipe de lui prêter sa main (1032) me semble mettre en évidence le fait qu’elle accomplit, ce faisant, un vœu (non formulé explicitement) de son fils. L’endroit de son corps qu’elle retient après avoir évoqué d’autres possibilités, l’utérus, est sans surprise celui que Sénèque associe à l’inceste (1038–9): hunc, dextra, hunc pete / uterum32 capacem qui uirum et gnatos tulit.33 (“Cherche, ma main, cherche exactement cet ample utérus qui a pu porter un mari et des enfants.”) S’il la regrette, Œdipe confirme son rôle dans cette mort (1045): matrem peremi: scelere confecta est meo (“j’ai tué ma mère: sa fin est due à mon crime”). Quoi qu’il en dise, comment ne pas avoir l’impression que ce n’est pas tant le crime d’Œdipe que le refus de s’en absoudre et d’accepter comme réconfort la tendresse de sa mère qui ont conduit Jocaste à mourir?34 À l’issue de cette étude sur Œdipe,35 il est tentant de chercher à éclairer les vues et positions si particulières de Sénèque sur l’inceste en nous servant des témoignages que nous avons sur ce que furent ses rapports non seulement avec sa propre mère, mais aussi avec une autre mère, avec laquelle il eut des relations complexes et un violent retournement de sentiments: Agrippine.

4. Sénèque et les mères

Tout ce que l’on sait des rapports de Sénèque avec sa mère vient de ce qu’il en dit lui-même dans la Consolation à ma mère, Helvia. C’est un texte qu’il écrivit quelques mois après son exil. Apparemment il n’en ressentit pas le besoin sur le moment, ni pour sa mère ni pour lui.36 À lire les passages où il évoque leur intimité, on a le sentiment d’un brassage de motifs convenus (15.1). Est-ce parce que Helvia ne l’a pas élevé? Le lecteur apprend en effet, à l’avant-dernier paragraphe, que Sénèque a été séparé de sa mère très tôt et confié à sa tante, qui l’a amené, dans ses bras (manibus), donc tout petit, à Rome (19.2). Il ajoute qu’elle le soigna quand il fut gravement malade avec un soin tout “maternel” (19.2): illius pio maternoque nutricio per longum tempus aeger conualui. (“C’est grâce aux soins pieux et maternels avec lesquels elle s’occupa de moi, enfant, pendant une longue période où je fus malade que je recouvrai la santé.) L’adjectif maternus, accompagné ici de pius, qui renvoie à l’affection attendue entre parents et enfants, est appliqué à nutricium. Le mot est peu employé.37 Il est tentant d’y voir un renvoi au type de soins que prodiguent les nourrices en se substituant aux mères. La 182 Jacqueline182 Contents Fabre-Serris place de cette notation (elle suit immédiatement la mention de sa venue à Rome dans les bras de sa tante) laisse supposer que cette maladie grave fit suite à sa séparation d’avec Helvia. Un élément plus sûrement exploi table est que, dans l’autre passage où Sénèque fait allusion à cette séparation, c’est pour s’en féliciter (ou – plutôt – pour en féliciter sa mère), au motif qu’Helvia a moins souffert plus tard (quand il fut exilé) de son absence, puisqu’elle y avait été accoutumée depuis de longues années (15.3): Bene nos longinquitas locorum diuiserat, bene aliquot annorum absentia huic te malo praeparauerat! (“Ah! Quelle bonne chose que d’avoir été séparés par l’éloignement des lieux! Quelle bonne chose que cette absence de plusieurs années qui t’avait préparée à ce mal qui te frappe aujourd’hui!”)38 Indépendamment du fait que Sénèque ne dit rien de sa propre souffrance, ni maintenant, ni quand il était enfant, il est difficile de ne pas déceler (derrière la congratulation affichée) une certaine amertume dans cette façon de supposer que sa mère s’est deux fois plutôt bien accommodée d’une séparation qui aurait dû profondément l’affecter. La phrase suivante révèle qu’Helvia venait de repartir de Rome quand il a été condamné: elle était donc (de nouveau) absente à ce moment douloureux de sa vie. Il est évidemment tentant de mettre la séparation qui fut imposée à Sénèque dans sa petite enfance et l’éloge qu’il en fait des années plus tard, en regard de sa vision de l’inceste, qu’il conçoit et condamne comme un retour, après la séparation initiale de l’enfant d’avec le corps maternel. Dans la Consolation à ma mère Helvia, ainsi que dans d’autres de ses textes philosophiques, Sénèque oppose à la bonne mère, qui cherche à aider financièrement à la carrière de son fils (sa mère, sa tante), la mauvaise, qui recherche, à travers lui, le pouvoir (14.2):

Viderint illae matres quae potentiam liberorum muliebri inpotentia exercent, quae, quia feminis honores non licet gerere, per illos ambitiosae sunt, quae patrimonia filiorum et exhauriunt et captant, quae eloquentiam commodando aliis fatigant.

(Il existe des mères, qui – ça les regarde! – exploitent, avec une impudence toute féminine, le pouvoir de leurs enfants, qui, parce qu’en tant que femmes il ne leur est pas permis d’exercer de hautes charges, sont ambitieuses à travers eux, qui ruinent ou captent les patrimoines de leurs fils, qui épuisent leur éloquence en la mettant à la disposition d’autrui.)

Cette sortie violente vise clairement des contemporaines, au nombre des- quelles figure probablement Agrippine. C’est sur le rôle que Sénèque a joué dans le conflit ayant opposé Néron à sa mère39 que je terminerai mon article. J’analyserai brièvement le texte de Tacite qui l’implique dans la version Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 183 des événements selon laquelle Agrippine aurait tenté de séduire son fils pour assurer de nouveau son pouvoir sur lui. Selon Tacite (et Dion Cassius, 61), Sénèque avait auparavant œuvré pour aider Néron à s’émanciper de l’influence de sa mère. Il favorisa les premières amours du jeune homme, en demandant à un de ses parents d’offrir sa maison au prince et à Acté, et c’est ainsi qu’il finit par supplanter Agrippine, dont les reproches indignés avaient eu l’effet inverse de celui qu’elle escomptait (Ann. 13.13.1): donec ui amoris subactus exueret obsequium in matrem seque [Se]necae permitteret (“jusqu’à ce que, vaincu par la violence de son amour, il cessa d’être obéis- sant à sa mère et se remit entre les mains de Sénèque”). Toujours d’après Tacite, quand une rivale plus dangereuse, Poppée, chercha à éloigner plus encore Néron de sa mère, celle-ci tenta un rapprochement. C’est à ce propos que Tacite cite Cluvius (Ann. 14.2.1), selon qui, profitant de moments où Néron avait trop mangé et trop bu, Agrippine se serait offerte à lui, plusieurs fois (saepius), “parée et prête à l’inceste” (comptam in incesto paratam). Et, poursuit Tacite, “déjà l’entourage proche remarquait leurs baisers lascifs et des caresses, qui laissaient présager une infamie” (iamque lasciua oscula et praenuntias flagitii blanditias adnotantibus proximis, Ann. 14.2.1). Il ajoute toutefois que, selon Fabius Rusticus, “ce désir ne fut pas celui d’Agrippine, mais de son fils” (Fabius Rusticus non Agrippinae sed Neroni cupitum id memorat, Ann. 14.2.2).40 Dans les deux cas, l’entreprise n’aboutit pas à cause d’une intervention d’Acté. La version qui incrimine Agrippine est aussi celle qui attribue un rôle décisif à Sénèque dans l’échec de cette “tentation.” Avant de commenter ce passage des Annales, je ferai deux remarques sur la suspicion que peuvent éveiller ces accusations d’incestes. Le récit où Sénèque apparaît en première ligne a un air de déjà-vu. Par plusieurs de ses détails, il rappelle celui de la chute de Messaline. Les deux fois, une parente du prince (Messaline, Agrippine) devient dangereuse. Un conseiller (l’affranchi Narcisse, le précepteur Sénèque) intervient. Il envoie une ou deux femmes de condition inférieure (deux courtisanes, l’affranchie Acté) qui ont été/sont les maîtresses de l’empereur lui révéler qu’en raison du comportement sexuel de son épouse ou de sa mère, son infamie à lui (remariage de sa femme avec Silius, inceste pour Néron) est publique. Le conseiller fait dire que l’empereur risque de perdre le pouvoir.41 Autant dire que ces similitudes ne plaident pas en faveur d’une authenticité des événements rapportés.42 De façon plus générale, comme elles sont monnaie courante, il est impossible d’accepter en bloc les accusations sexuelles dont les historiens se sont faits l’écho, et difficile, pour les lecteurs modernes plus encore que pour les lecteurs contemporains de Tacite, de faire le tri.43 Le troisième protagoniste du récit, Sénèque, n’a d’ailleurs pas échappé non plus à ce type d’attaques: selon Dion Cassius (61.10.1–3), il aurait été 184 Jacqueline184 Contents Fabre-Serris accusé d’avoir eu une liaison avec Julie, l’épouse de Drusus (c’est apparemment la raison officielle de son exil à lui et de sa mise à mort à elle), il aurait aussi été l’amant d’Agrippine, et amateur d’amours homosexuelles dont il aurait donné le goût à Néron. J’en reviens maintenant au récit de Tacite qui implique Sénèque. Si sa construction le rend suspect, parce qu’elle semble dupliquée à partir du passage sur la chute de Messaline, elle n’en reste pas moins intéressante en ce qu’elle témoigne du genre de narration que Tacite et ses contemporains ont pu juger crédible. Un des traits susceptibles de rendre un récit vraisemblable est qu’il puisse être jugé en accord avec la personnalité des protagonistes, non seulement en ce qui concerne les faits rapportés, mais pour ce qui est des paroles qui leur sont attribuées. Était-il possible à Tacite de mettre dans la bouche de Sénèque des points de vue qui lui auraient été totalement étrangers ou des mots qu’il n’aurait jamais prononcés ou pu prononcer? Si l’on suppose qu’il cherchait à produire un récit crédible, comment interpréter les arguments que, selon lui, Sénèque aurait employés pour convaincre Néron? En uti lisant Acté comme truchement, l’ancien précepteur de Néron lui aurait fait dire que “l’inceste était connu de tous, parce que sa mère s’en glorifiait, et que les soldats ne tolèreraient pas que le pouvoir soit aux mains d’un prince sacrilège” (peruulgatum esse incestum gloriante matre, nec toleraturos milites profani principis imperium, Ann. 14.2.1). C’est un discours surprenant. On peut concevoir qu’Agrippine, ayant cru avoir regagné son crédit en jouant sur l’amour maternel (de la mère/pour la mère), “se soit glorifiée” de son retour en grâce, mais il est peu crédible qu’elle se soit vantée de relations incestueuses. Par ailleurs, il ne ressort pas du passage des Annales qui précède cette accusation qu’il y ait eu inceste effectif, mais simplement suspicion d’une dérive possible par un entourage inquiet devant l’éventualité d’un retour en grâce de la mère de l’empereur. Inquiet pourquoi? Essen- tiellement parce que ce retour en grâce aurait pu entraîner pour certains une perte de pouvoir. Ce que Tacite, au livre 13 des Annales, rapporte des manœuvres d’Agrippine au moment où, sentant son importance décliner, elle menace de se servir de Britannicus contre Néron, révèle l’existence d’une lutte d’influence ouverte entre l’impératrice et les deux conseillers du prince: Burrus et Sénèque.44 Agrippine aurait menacé de recourir aux prétoriens, en disant qu’ “elle irait avec lui (Britannicus) au camp; on entendrait d’un côté la fille de Germanicus, de l’autre Burrus, l’infirme et Sénèque, l’exilé, l’un avec sa main mutilée, l’autre avec sa langue de professeur, réclamer le gouvernement du genre humain” (ituram cum illo in castra; audiretur hinc Germanici filia, in[de] debilis Burrus et exul Seneca, trunca scilicet manu et professoria lingua generis humani regimen expostulantes, Ann. 13.14.6). La menace brandie par la mère de Néron joue sur les mêmes ressorts que Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 185 le discours attribué à Sénèque. Les soldats45 refuseraient d’obéir à un prince soumis, selon elle, à ses conseillers, selon lui à sa mère. C’est en tenant compte de ce contexte que j’en reviens à l’argumentaire que Tacite prête à Sénèque.46 Si l’on admet que décrire l’inceste comme un retour annulant la “naturelle” séparation de l’enfant et de la mère à la naissance, le phallus revenant à la place qui fut celle du fœtus, présentait pour Sénèque l’avantage, qu’il l’ait ou non perçu, de pouvoir indirectement valoriser a contrario une situation (la séparation d’avec la mère), qu’il avait vécue dans la souffrance lors de sa petite enfance, on peut conjecturer qu’à l’inverse tout retour de cette affection qui lui manqua cruellement ait pu être refusée et condamnée par lui. Vu que, dans la Consolation à ma mère Helvia, il félicite sa mère d’avoir été si bien habituée à être séparée de lui qu’elle n’a pas été trop affectée par son exil, il n’est pas exclu qu’en contrepartie il ait été violemment hostile à toute tentative de “retour” d’une autre mère, Agrippine, auprès de son fils, et qu’il ait attaqué cette dernière, en lui prêtant des intentions sexuelles et en les dénonçant comme préjudiciables à Néron. Si Tacite n’a pas imputé à Sénèque une accusation qu’il n’aurait jamais proférée ou pu proférer, qu’en conclure sinon qu’il a jugé crédible que le conseiller de Néron ait cherché à faire obstacle au retour d’affection entre une mère et un fils (une situation qui l’insupportait, à titre personnel et lui nuisait politiquement), en présentant une Agrippine se targuant de ses rapports incestueux et en usant d’un mot incestum à la place d’un autre: maternus amor? En agitant la possibilité d’une réaction de l’armée, il liait le retour de/à la mère et le risque de perte du pouvoir. Sur soi? Sur les autres?

5. Conclusion

Chez Sénèque, les deux sont liés: il s’est servi du discours philosophique pour asseoir son autorité, comme le montrent clairement les Lettres à Lucilius. Dans son analyse de la Consolation à ma mère Helvia, H. Harich47 a souligné que Sénèque prenait la posture du philosophe et enseignait à sa mère comment se comporter. Il me semble significatif que ce soit cette posture-là qu’il ait substituée, dans ce texte plus révélateur qu’il ne l’a voulu, à la relation mère/fils. Son histoire personnelle a aussi fortement interféré dans la partie politique qu’il mena avec acharnement contre “la meilleure des mères” (optimam matrem),48 selon les termes de Néron au début de son règne, jusqu’à l’infâme (d’après Tacite, c’est lui qui, à la fin, aurait suggéré de tuer Agrippine, Ann. 14.7.3). Elle a aussi joué un rôle essentiel dans sa théorisation de la bonne façon de construire le moi. D’une séparation subie, il a fait un principe nécessaire, et général, en argumentant sans relâche en faveur de l’idée de “limite,” seul garde-fou contre la menace que constituerait 186 Jacqueline186 Contents Fabre-Serris l’abandon aux sentiments et aux passions en tant que prélude à des défer- lements incontrôlables.49 C’est sur sa philosophie que je conclurai en pro- posant de considérer que sa focalisation, en tant que philosophe, sur l’idéal d’autonomie et de toute puissance du moi, qui s’assortit de la conviction qu’elle ne peut être assurée que par une limitation drastique des sentiments, a à voir avec ce qui semble avoir été un traumatisme de son enfance, si on en juge par son acharnement à affirmer qu’il s’agit là de la “bonne“ manière d’agir, “bonne” pour lui et “bonne” pour tous les hommes. À cet égard, ce n’est pas un hasard s’il a vu dans l’expédition des Argonautes une expression mythologique de sa théorie des passions. Il a en effet dénoncé leur entreprise, en tant que première navigation, comme l’aventure – impie – qui aurait mis fin à la “juste séparation” des terres par les mers, voulue par les dieux (335–6): Bene dissaepti foedera mundi / traxit in unum Thessala pinus. (“Le pacte qui maintenait l’univers bien séparé le pin de Thessalie l’a emporté en unifiant l’espace.”) Le prix de cette course fut, dit-il, outre la Toison, Médée, dont il montre, jusqu’à la satiété, tout au long de sa pièce, le débordement de la fureur et l’oubli de toute limite. On trouve les mêmes motifs dans sa Phèdre, où la rupture du foedus (le pacte de limitation) avec la nature est attribuée au déchaînement des passions, dans un passage hal- luciné, mis dans la bouche de son Hippolyte (Phaedra 559–64):

Sed dux malorum femina: haec scelerum artifex obsedit animos, huius incesti stupris 560 fumant tot urbes, bella tot gentes gerunt et uersa ab imo tot populos premunt. Sileantur aliae : sola coniunx Aegei Medea reddet feminas, dirum genus!

(Mais en matière de maux, c’est la femme qui sert de guide: cette maîtresse dans l’art du crime investit les esprits; c’est à cause des adultères de cet être impudique que la fumée s’élève au milieu de tant de cités, que tant de nations se font la guerre, que des royaumes, renversés de fond en comble, accablent sous leur poids tant de peuples. Silence sur les autres: une seule, l’épouse d’Égée, Médée, rendra compte pour les femmes, race funeste!)

Dans cette tirade enflammée, un mot peut surprendre – incesti. C’est la négation de casta, mais il y avait d’autres mots pour dénoncer le manque- ment au pudor, la vertu attendue des femmes. Les éditeurs sont en désac- cord sur ce passage: ils se partagent entre trois choix: incesti (pris comme le génitif du neutre incestum), incestae, incestis.50 Quoi qu’il en soit, l’emploi Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 187 de l’adjectif incestus, dans un contexte sexuel, est rare.51 S’il a, chez Horace dans l’Ode 3.6.23 (incestos amores), le sens d’impudique, c’est toujours avec celui d’“incestueux” que Sénèque l’emploie dans ses tragédies.52 Aussi est- il tentant de supposer qu’il l’a – sans doute inconsciemment – choisi pour cette connotation latente, avant de lancer, à la fin de son attaque généralisée, comme symbole du dirum genus des femmes, le nom de Médée, autrement dit, de “la” mère criminelle par excellence!

NOTES

1 Comme le note Palmieri 1989, 177n9: “l’introduzione di uno spazio centrale riservato a quel padro minacciosamente assente nel drama sofocleo è la novità più audace e più significativa dell’Oedipus.” Les éditions utilisée dans ce chapitre sont celles de Bourgerie 1923, Chaumartin 1996, Dain 1968, Goelzer 1962, Grimal 1969, Herrmann 1927, Lafaye 1925, Lafaye 1928, et Waltz 1967. Quand il n’y a pas d’indication de traducteurs, toutes les traductions des textes sont personnelles. 2 Cette obsession se marque aussi dans le vocabulaire. Voir Frank 1995, 130, qui a effectué le relevé des termes de famille employés en dehors des chœurs et aboutit au résultat suivant: gnatus (14 fois), parens (17 fois), mater (15 fois), pater (10 fois), maternus (2 fois). 3 Trad. Mazon 1968. 4 Il a beau s’être enfui de Corinthe, cuncta expauesco, dit-il, meque non credo mihi (“je crains tout et ne me fais pas confiance à moi-même,” 27). 5 L’Œdipe des Phéniciennes considère aussi l’inceste comme un crime plus grand que le parricide (270–2). 6 Sophocle, Œdipe-Roi: “Comment, comment le champ labouré par ton père a-t-il pu si longtemps, sans révolte, te supporter, ô malheureux?” (1211–13); “l’épouse qui n’est pas son épouse, mais qui fut un champ maternel à la fois pour lui et pour ses enfants” (1256–7); “ce père, mes enfants, qui, sans avoir rien vu, rien su, s’est révélé soudain père là d’où lui-même avait été semé” (ἔνθεν ἀυτὸς ἠρόθην, 1484–5, trad. Mazon modifiée); ‘votre père a tué son père; il a labouré celle qui l’avait enfantée’ (τὴν τεκοῦσαν ἤροσεν, 1496–7, trad. Mazon modifiée). 7 Jocaste est mise ici dans une position uniquement maternelle, à l’inverse de Sophocle, qui utilise le mot γυνή, “épouse” (1256): γυναῖκα τʹοὐ γυναῖκα (“l’épouse qui n’est pas son épouse”). 8 Sur tout ce passage, voir, à propos de l’obsession de répétition et de retour, Schiesaro 2003, 204–5. 9 Boyle 2011, 201. Bettini 2009, 208 remarque simplement que le veau se trouve à une place qui n’est pas naturelle. 188 Jacqueline188 Contents Fabre-Serris

10 Le terme employé par Sénèque est innuptae (373), que Bettini 2009, 210 commente ainsi: “Unirsi al proprio figlio non significa ‘sposarsi’ (…) l’incestuoso non è un ‘marito.’ È solo un figlio reuolutus matris in ortus.” 11 Boyle 2011, 200–1. 12 Pour Boyle 2011, 260, utero est syntaxiquement ambigu: c’est soit un datif soit un ablatif de lieu, ou plus probablement les deux. 13 Sur les points communs entre Œdipe et la sphynge, voir aussi Frank 1995, 129, qui remarque: “both are distortions of nature, both bring destruction to Thebes, and the tangle of Oedipus’ family relationships is as hard to unravel as the sphinx’s riddle.” 14 Bettini 2009, 189–90 interprète l’arc-en-ciel auquel est comparée la flamme du sacrifice comme une figuration de l’inceste, parce que les couleurs s’y mélangent. 15 Sur tout ce passage et le lien entre inceste et énigme, voir Bettini 2009, 192–6. 16 C’est une observation que Sénèque attribue à Œdipe dans les Phéniciennes (138–9): Ego ipse, uictae spolia qui Sphingis tuli, / haerebo fati tardus interpres mei! (“Moi-même qui ai vaincu la Sphynge et porté ses dépouilles, je serai embarrassé, devenu lent d’esprit pour interpréter mon destin!”) 17 Patria, non ira deum, / sed scelere raperis (“ma patrie, ce n’est pas la colère des dieux mais un crime qui t’emporte,” 630–1). 18 Fabre-Serris 2011. 19 Fabre-Serris 2011, en particulier 116–17. 20 sed scilicet ultima semper/ exspectanda dies homini est, dicique beatus/ ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet (“mais assurément pour un homme il faut toujours attendre le dernier jour et personne ne doit être dit heureux avant d’avoir quitté la vie et reçu les honneurs suprêmes,” Mét. 3.135–7). 21 Zissos et Gildenhard 2000, 141–4. 22 Narcisse aura une longue vie si se non nouerit (“s’il ne se connaît pas,” Mét. 3.348). Cette expression (alors obscure pour ceux qui entendent Tirésias) est une adaptation de la maxime de l’oracle de Delphes γνῶθι σεαυτόν, oracle qui est fortement présent dans la pièce de Sophocle. Le vers 1068 (Ὧ δυσποτμ’, εἴθε μήποτε γνοίης ὃς εἶ, “Oh, malheureux ! Puisses-tu ne pas savoir qui tu es!”) en est un écho direct. 23 Cela est encore plus frappant si on compare avec Ovide. 24 Adams 1990, 92: “Gremium is sometimes used of the uterus or vagina.” 25 C’est cette image que l’on trouve chez Ovide (Mét. 3.124–5): iuuentus / sanguineam tepido plangebat pectore matrem (“Ces jeunes gens frappaient de leur poitrine tiède leur mère en l’ensanglantant”). 26 “Tu me reproches d’être aveugle; mais toi, toi qui y vois, comment ne vois-tu pas à quel point de misère tu te trouves à cette heure?” (Oed. 412–13). 27 Fabre-Serris 2011, 100–1, 112. Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 189

28 Dans Les Phéniciennes (363–7), Sénèque rapproche aussi Jocaste d’Agavé, la mère d’Œdipe trouvant préférable au sien le sort de la mère de Penthée, dont le forfait fut moins grave que le sien dans la mesure où elle ne le fit pas partager à sa famille. 29 Voir Boyle 2011, 330, qui renvoie à Deonna 1965, 68–70. Chez Stace, note Boyle, “the situation is even more ‘Freudian’: Oedipus deposits his eyes on his ‘poor’ mother’s body (misera … in matre).” Le passage est aussi à mettre en relation avec la lecture ovidienne du cycle thébain, où la vue est clairement présentée à la fois comme un préalable et/ou l’équivalent de l’acte sexuel dans le mythe de fondation, où Cadmus regarde le serpent, dans les histoires d’Actéon, de Tirésias, de Narcisse et de Penthée (voir Fabre-Serris 2011). 30 Comme le remarque Frank 1995, 124, “the respected use of gnatus seems to reflect Jocasta’s desire to make contact with Oedipus on the basis of the legitimate relationship between them and to blot out the incest which has polluted it.” 31 Comme le fait observer Frank 1995, 125, le changement dans l’usage des noms rend compte de cette évolution: “In 1009ff., she is insistent that it is right for her to call Oedipus gnatus, thereby denying that he is also coniunx; but by 1034ff., as a result of Oedipus’s brutal refusal to collude in her self-deception, she has moved to despairing acknowledgment that, just as Oedipus is not merely her gnatus, so Laius was not merely her coniunx, but is now revealed also, more immediately and far more terribly, her socer.” 32 On n’a pas d’éléments permettant de dater les tragédies. Il est impossible donc de savoir si l’Œdipe de Sénèque est antérieur ou postérieur à la mort d’Agrippine (qui désigna son ventre comme l’endroit à frapper par l’assassin envoyé par son fils, Tacite, Ann. 14.8), mais peu importe pour mon propos. 33 Le choix du singulier pour uirum fait que le mot désigne seulement Laïos, gnatos évoquant Œdipe et ses autres enfants. Quant au verbe choisi tulit, il a l’avantage de pouvoir être utilisé à la fois pour l’union sexuelle et pour la grossesse. 34 L’une des phrases de la dernière réplique d’Œdipe (1051): i, profuge, uade; – siste, ne in matrem incidas (“va, fuis, marche – non, arrête-toi de peur de tomber sur ta mère”) corrige une illusion antérieure du héros (14): in regnum incidi (“je suis tombé sur un royaume”). Boyle 2011, 358 renvoie à Fitch 2004, 154 à propos du sens sexuel de l’expression in … cadere (Cic. Cael. 69) et in incidere (Sen. Rhet. Con. 1.5.2). 35 Je ne vais pas analyser les autres tragédies où intervient une mère. Je rappelle seulement que, dans les Troyennes, Andromaque, la mère d’Astyanax, dit explicitement qu’elle aime son fils parce qu’elle (croit) retrouver en lui les traits et le caractère de son père (461–8), et que la Médée de Sénèque n’a ni les gestes ni les regrets déchirants de celle d’Euripide, quand elle touche pour la dernière 190 Jacqueline190 Contents Fabre-Serris

fois le corps de ses fils. Notons que l’autre mère de la pièce, Mérope, n’est pas non plus valorisée en tant que telle. Selon le vieillard qui trouva Œdipe et le lui apporta, elle aurait accepté l’enfant dans l’espoir de resserrer ses liens avec son époux (804). C’est pour s’attacher le roi et non pour combler un vide affectif, qu’elle serait devenue sa mère. 36 Évidemment Sénèque donne d’autres raisons au début de son texte. 37 Avant Sénèque, on le trouve seulement chez Varron (Res rusticae 2.1.9), Hygin (Fab. 131), et Pline l’Ancien (Hist. Nat. 18.337). 38 Parmi les autres malheurs dont sa mère souffrit, Sénèque évoque la mort de ses trois petits-fils en usant d’une image curieuse, qui n’est pas sans rappeler sa propre situation, d’enfant tout petit (de nourrisson?) enlevé du sein maternel (2.5): modo modo in eundem sinum ex quo tres nepotes emiseras ossa trium nepotum recepisti. (“Tout récemment, sur ce même sein loin duquel tu les avais laissés partir?/fait partir?, tous trois, tu recueillis les ossements de tes trois petits-fils.”) Il est surprenant d’imaginer une réception des ossements dans un sein ou sur la poitrine d’une mère ou d’une grand-mère, l’enfant vivant étant soudain remplacé par une urne (ou pire encore quand comme ici c’est son contenu: les os, mêlés aux cendres, qui est évoqué). Le verbe emiserat laisse en outre supposer que la séparation d’avec ses petits-enfants quand ils étaient vivants, “envoyés loin du sein,” est un effet de la volonté d’Helvia ou du moins qu’elle a laissé faire. En d’autres termes la phrase a l’air de renvoyer à la situation traumatisante vécue originellement par Sénèque, plus qu’aux événements qu’il est censé rappeler: la mort de trois petits-fils de sa mère et sa douleur après leur trépas. 39 Il est à noter que, Néron ne fut pas, non plus, élevé par sa mère, qui avait été reléguée par Caligula (Suét. Nér. 6). 40 Suétone rapporte que Néron désirait sa mère dans un passage qui n’implique pas que l’inceste fut effectif. Il est question seulement de traces sur ses vêtements qui auraient attesté cette attirance, mais pas d’une union sexuelle qui se serait réellement produite (28): Olim etiam quotiens lectica cum matre ueheretur, libidinatum inceste ac maculis uestis proditum affirmant. (“Jadis même, assure-t-on, toutes les fois qu’il allait en litière avec sa mère, il s’abandonnait à un désir incestueux et il était trahi par des taches sur ses vêtements.”) 41 Tac. Ann. 11.29–30. 42 Il en est de même pour le passage où Tacite évoque l’opposition d’Agrippine à Poppée comme élément déterminant dans la dégradation de ses relations avec Néron. Barrett 1996, 181–2, fait remarquer que ce dernier n’épousa Poppée que trois ans après la mort d’Agrippine et que le récit de Tacite semble être une version recyclée du passage où il évoque l’opposition d’Agrippine à la relation du prince avec Acté. Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque 191

43 Sur la permanence d’une pratique de l’invective dans les débats politiques, voir Benoist 2012. 44 Cette lutte d’influence commença très tôt (voir Tacite, Ann. 13.2.2 et 5.1). Barrett 1996, 238–40, conteste le point de vue selon lequel Agrippine aurait perdu de son pouvoir d’influence sur son fils au profit de Sénèque et de Burrhus. Selon lui, elle aurait compté comme force politique jusqu’à la fin de sa vie. 45 Sur la façon dont Agrippine sut exploiter l’héritage de son père auprès de la garde prétorienne, voir Barrett 1996, 118–21. 46 Voir Moreau 2002, 350 à propos des quatre cas d’incestes attestés sous les Julio- Claudiens, dont le dernier sous le règne de Néron, celui de L. Iunius Silanus Torquatus et de sa tante paternelle Iunia Lepida en 65: “sauf dans le cas de la mère de Sex. Papinius (le seul où aucun homme ne fut poursuivi) l’accusation d’inceste ne fut qu’un prétexte pour se débarrasser d’ennemis du prince.” 47 Harich-Schwarzbauer 2012, 100. 48 Au début de son règne, Néron répondit au tribun militaire qui lui demandait le mot d’ordre “la meilleure des mères” (Tac. Ann. 13.2.5). 49 Voir, entre autres, dans le De uita beata, les passages suivants : ut beatum dicamus hominem eum cui nullum bonum malumque sit nisi bonus malusque animus, honesti cultorem, uirtute contentum, quem nec extollant fortuita nec frangant, qui nullum maius bonum eo quod sibi ipse dare potest nouerit, cui uera uoluptas erit uoluptatum contemptio (“de sorte que l’on dit que l’homme heureux c’est celui pour qui il n’y a de bon et de mauvais qu’une âme bonne ou mauvaise, qui pratique le bien, se contente de la vertu, qui ne se laisse pas exalter ni briser par les coups de la Fortune, qui ne connaît pas de bien plus grand que celui qu’il peut se donner à lui-même, pour qui la vraie volupté est le mépris des voluptés,” 4.2); Incorruptus uir sit externis et insuperabilis miratorque tantum sui, fidens animo atque in utrumque paratus, artifex uitae (“Que l’homme ne se laisse pas corrompre par les choses extérieures ni dominer par elles et n’admire que lui, qu’il se fie à son âme et se tienne prêt à toute éventualité, qu’il soit l’artisan de sa vie,” 8.3); Summum bonum in ipso iudicio est et habitu optimae mentis, quae cum locum suum inpleuit et finibus se suis cinxit, consummatum est summum bonum nec quicquam amplius desiderat; nihil enim extra totum est, non magis quam ultra finem (“Le souverain bien réside dans le jugement même et dans la façon d’être d’une âme parfaite, qui, lorsqu’elle a achevé d’occuper le lieu qui lui est propre et qu’elle s’est assigné ses limites, a parfaitement réalisé le souverain bien et ne demande rien de plus; car il n’y a rien en dehors du tout, pas plus qu’au-delà de la fin,” 9.3). Les traductions sont celles de Bourgery 1923, légèrement modifiées pour ce qui est du deuxième et du troisième extrait cités. Pour ce qui est du troisième extrait, j’ai repris la suggestion de Grimal, 1969, n.3, 54–5, qui propose d’ajouter locum avant 192 Jacqueline192 Contents Fabre-Serris

le suum transmis par les manuscrits en arguant que la bona mens “a achevé d’occuper tout l’être où elle a établi son pouvoir.” 50 Incesti (Peiper et Richter 1902, Grimal 1965, Chaumartin 1996), incestae (Morrica 1947, Coffey et Mayer 1999, Fitch 2002), incestis (Hermann 1924, Fitch 2002, Giardina 2007). 51 Avant et à l’époque de Sénèque, on ne trouve l’adjectif incestus, dans un contexte où il est question des femmes, que chez Horace, Ode 3.6.23 (incestos amores), Ovide, Trist. 2.503 (incestis … uocibus), Sénèque le Rhéteur, Contr. 1.2.15 (penatibus … incestis), 1.3.1 (incestarum), Lucain, Bellum Ciuile, 8.692 (incestae … sorori). 52 Sénèque, Oed. 20–1 (toros … incestos), 1026 (incesta), Phaed. 1185 (incesta). 10

Mighty Mothers: Female Political Theorists in Euripides’ Suppliant Women and Phoenician Women giulia sissa

Tragedy, Aristotle tells us, is a place for intelligence, διάνοια, and for political discourse. Tragic characters, he points out, speak politically (πολιτικῶς) or rhetorically (ῥητορικῶς).1 As we know, this is all true. The theatre drama- tizes, visually and argumentatively, political theory. Let us look at a sample of this kind of discourse and let us focus on its normative content: what is said, and how it is argued. The reader will kindly forgive me if I ask them to indulge in a moment of scepticism and to suspend their belief on who is speaking, to whom, and why. In a moment, we will discuss the role of mothers in classical theatre, but let us begin with a simple reading.

1. Kosmos

There is justice, ἡ δίκη. There is what is intrinsically equal, namely, what the Greek language allows us to express in the neuter preceded by a definite article, as τὸ ἴσον, “the equal.” It is a matter of a principle. Φιλοτιμία, the passion for one’s own honour and glory, on the contrary, is indeed a goddess, but she is an unjust goddess, ἄδικος ἡ θεός. Rather than following strong ambition, it is much more beautiful to honour Equality, Ἰσότης. This is what connects friends to friends, cities to cities, allies to allies. The equal (τὸ ἴσον) is the only thing that is lawful, and thus stable for human beings (νόμιμον ἀνθρώποις ἔφυ). The “less,” on the contrary, stands belligerently against the “more,” and brings days of enmity. On a cosmic scale, Ἰσότης has established the right proportions of measures, weights, and time. Temporality 194194 Giulia Contents Sissa is especially important. Night and Day take turns and respect a well- ordered rotation. Without such a regular, cyclical sequence, where is justice? (κἆιτα ποῦ ’στιν ἡ δίκη). This same alternation ought to regulate relations between brothers. More to the point, such right proportion should also apply to the equal share of sovereignty. Once individuals have agreed to follow an interchanging pattern in ruling and being ruled, then one person at a time should hold power for a set period of time, for instance, one year at a time. Let us now place these words in comparison with well-known advice on the foundations of a good political order. Firstly, the connection of nature and polis is familiar. Alcmeon of Crotona conceived of health as the ἰσονομίη of humid and dry, hot and cold, whereas the “monarchy” of one quality caused illness.2 Plutarch twice quotes Heraclitus’ statement that “the sun will not overstep his bounds, for if he does, the Erinyes, helpers of Justice, will find him out.”3 Through Socrates’ voice in Plato’s Gorgias, Pythagoras claims that geometric equality (ἡ ἰσότης ἡ γεωμετρικὴ) is the principle of the cosmos. The cosmos is a community of friends held together by orderliness (κοσμιότης), moderation (σωφροσύνη), and justice (δικαιότης). This is why the Pythagoreans call the universe “beautiful order” (τὸ ὅλον τοῦτο διὰ ταῦτα κόσμον καλοῦσιν).4 Secondly, equality is the foundation of good government. This is especially true of democracy. In Herodotus’ constitutional debate, Otanes, the son of Pharnaspes, a Persian nobleman who champions the rule of the many, blames the unlimited and thus inherently abusive power of a monarch, and praises ἰσονομίη, “equality before the law/equal distribution.” It is Ἰσονομίη that imparts fairness to the popular rule of the many. This requires collective deliberation, selection by lot, accountability, and publicity.5 As Otanes argues, “Firstly, the rule of the multitude bears the most beautiful name of all, equality before the Law” (Πλῆθος δὲ ἄρχον πρῶτα μὲν οὔνομα πάντων κάλλιστον ἔχει, ἰσονομίην). Ἰσονομίη acts as an antidote to the abuse of power by kings. It pre-empts unsavoury attitudes, such as φθόνος and ὕϐρις. Ἰσονομίη is diametrically opposite to the rule of one man for life, monarchy, which, in Otanes’ words, is “neither pleasant nor good” (οὔτε γὰρ ἡδὺ οὔτε ἀγαθόν). “Equality in speech is a worthy thing” (ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὡς ἐστὶ χρῆμα σπουδαῖον), Herodotus adds in his own voice.6 Even critics of radical equality, such as Plato and Aristotle, admit the beauty of the right kind of ἰσότης. There are two kinds of equality. As the Athenian explains in the Laws, distribution of offices by lot means that honour is assigned following a simple quantitative criterion: weight and number. On the contrary, “the truest and best form of equality” consists in distributing goods in proportion to excellence and education, thus “giving due measure to each according to their nature.” Then we can make Political Theorists in Euripides 195 the best of equality. There is an old and true maxim: “equality produces amity.” This superlative equality is far from common sense. “It is the judgment of Zeus” (Διὸς γὰρ δὴ κρίσις ἐστί). It produces all things good (πάντ᾽ ἀγαθὰ ἀπεργάζεται). “It is always for us,” the Athenian claims, “the political just in itself” (τὸ πολιτικὸν ἡμῖν ἀεὶ τοῦτ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ δίκαιον).7 This is the Platonic version of the neuter preceded by a definite article: “the just”, understood as the Form of Justice (τὸ δίκαιον). Equality – of the geometric type, as opposed to the arithmetic type – can do a great deal among gods and humans (ἡ ἰσότης ἡ γεωμετρικὴ καὶ ἐν θεοῖς καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις μέγα δύναται). In contrast, greed (πλεονεξία) is the attitude of those who, like Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias, do not care about geometry, which means that they despise limits and measure.8 Aristotle will share the same normative distinction with Plato.9 And finally, the principle of rotation, so eloquently upheld in cosmological terms as the cycle of Night and Day, is characteristic of both oligarchic and democratic governments. Think of the Ephors at Sparta and the Archons in Athens who were elected for ten years at the time of Draco, but later held an annual office. In the Constitution of Athens, Aristotle emphasizes the increasingly brief tenure of these magistracies, a development that accompanies the progression of democratic features.10 Let us remember Cleisthenes’ reforms. They were meant to implement the largest possible participation of Athenian citizens in their governing body, the Council of Five Hundred. The means to achieve such ends were not only the redistribution of the popula- tion into ten new “tribes,” each demographically fashioned as opposed to geographically located, as they were made up of people coming from three different regions of Attica and the selection of the Councillors by lot from these “tribes,” but also the actual government of the polis by a delegation of fifty Councillors – the πρυτάνεις – from one “tribe” at a time, for a period of only one month.11 This was the astute coordination of the administrative system with the remapping of the territory and with the Attic Conciliar calendar: ten tribes, ten months; fiftyπρυτάνεις per month; five hundred Councillors per year. Each year and each month, as a consequence, a different group of men took charge. Democracy is popular rule, realized in practice through collaborative work, and based on a brisk turnover. The People cannot govern all together at once. In order to put into operation their active and egalitarian integrity, the People must accept the brevity of political tasks. They must agree to take turns, and yield to their successors, in a peaceful transmission of power. Ἰσονομίη, the justice of democracy, is a matter of time. Let me insist on this point. The very fact that more than one individual is entitled to have political authority creates a fundamental problem: the 196196 Giulia Contents Sissa

“many” (but also the “few”) could not possibly govern simultaneously. In order to extend the chance of holding office to a large number of people, popular rule requires a revision of tasks. As a matter of fact, there is one especially effective way of doing so: rotation. The challenge of plurality can only be met by the management of time. Equality can be only imple- mented as equal periods of time. This is a brilliant expedient, because only by dividing up the duration of everyone’s stint at leadership and gover- nance can a democracy accommodate thousands of citizens in positions of actual power. This is also the leitmotif of ancient democratic theory: magistracies must be short-tenured. Individuals must take turns in the exercise of ἄρχειν, and no one is allowed to enjoy power forever. Regu- larly and cyclically, active citizens exchange roles. This is the correct and practical implementation of equality. Among the features of democracy, Aristotle mentions that no office is to be held twice, or more than a few times, by the same person, or few offices except the military ones τὸ( μὴ δὶς τὸν αὐτὸν ἄρχειν μηδεμίαν ἢ ὀλιγάκις ἢ ὀλίγας ἔξω τῶν κατὰ πόλεμον); there must be short tenure either of all offices or of as many as possible (τὸ ὀλιγοχρονίους εἶναι τὰς ἀρχὰς ἢ πάσας ἢ ὅσας ἐνδέχεται) … And in respect of the magistracies, none is tenable for life (ἔτι δὲ τῶν ἀρχῶν τὸ μηδεμίαν ἀίδιον εἶναι).12

More generally, Aristotle defines a citizen as one who shares in ruling and being ruled. Rotation, therefore, is the distinctive feature of citizenship. Moreover, the excellence of a citizen lies in his capacity to play well, that is, justly and moderately, both roles.13 Once the qualified members of a group decide to participate equally in their self-government, then they can only do so through a strategic use of time, and they must respect such a strategy. This is, therefore, a pragmatic as well as a normative principle. Rota- tion establishes a moral ground for democracy, as a vastly inclusive form of government in which every free, male adult citizen has equal opportunity to rule – for a while. Tragic διάνοια, therefore, joins the chorus of normative knowledge about good government. The tragic character’s “speech, focusing on equality, offers a democratic response to Eteocles’ claims.”14 It should be read in resonance with Socrates’ responses to the arguments of Thrasymachus and Callicles. Such response, as Lombardini observes, “centres on the idea that equality produces order and harmony: it binds (sundei) friends, cities and allies and naturally produces lawfulness (nomimon). Inequality, in contrast, produces war. This connection between equality and order, moreover, is grounded in nature; it can be discerned in the relationship between Night and Day, who share an equal portion of their revolution around the earth.”15 To quote Political Theorists in Euripides 197 verbatim the arguments I have summarized at the beginning and placed in the context of democratic theory:

It is better, son, to honor Equality (Ἰσότης), who always joins friend to friend, city to city, allies to allies; for the Equal (τὸ γὰρ ἴσον) is naturally lasting among men; but the less is always in opposition to the greater and begins the dawn of hatred. For it is Equality (Ἰσότης) that has set up for man measures and divisions of weights, and has determined numbers; night’s sightless eye and radiant sun proceed upon their yearly course on equal terms, and neither of them is envious when it has been defeated (κοὐδέτερον αὐτῶν φθόνον ἔχει νικώμενον). Though both sun and night are servants for mortals, you will not be content with your fair share (ἴσον) of your heritage and give the same to him? Then where is justice?16

It is now time to name the character who speaks in these terms, and with this assertive authority. It is neither a philosopher nor a king. It is a queen, Jocasta. It is a mother who addresses her sons, Eteocles and Polynices, in Euripides’ Phoenician Women. More precisely, Jocasta tries to reason with the more stubborn of her two boys, Eteocles, who, after agreeing with his brother to alternate on the throne of Thebes on an annual basis, reigns for an entire year but, when it is time to let Polynices take over, refuses to do so. Eteocles fails to honour his engagement. His mother displays treasures of wisdom to help him renounce greed (πλεονεξία), prevent hatred and envy, and embrace τὸ ἴσον – all of which necessitates rotation. As the Sun yields to Night, so he must pass the role of king on to his brother.

2. Corpses

Let us now read another excerpt from a tragic play, again suspending our belief about the speaker. There is law. There are venerable customs, such as hospitality. All Greeks abide by such norms. The worth of an individual polis depends upon its respect for these superior principles. A ruler must beware of arrogance and anger. In war, not everything is permissible. You must take care of your dead and allow your enemies to do the same. Corpses must be recovered on your side, and, reciprocally, must be given back to those who claim them, from the other side. On this particular point – the care of dead soldiers, including dead enemies – the theatre offers a template of moral and political imperatives, which associate justice, the law, honour, and manliness. Let us see, for instance, how an Athenian king could be urged to help a foreign city whose warriors are being deprived of proper treatment:

I shall not hold my peace and then at some later time reproach myself for my present silence, nor, since it is a useless thing for women to be eloquent, shall I, out of 198198 Giulia Contents Sissa fear, let go of the noble task that is mine. I urge you first of all, my son, to consider the will of the gods lest you meet with disaster by neglecting it. [You fail in this one thing, being sensible in all else.] In addition, if you were not called to be courageous on behalf of the wronged, I would hold my peace. As matters stand, my son, this course of action brings you honor (νῦν δ᾽ ἴσθι σοί τε τοῦθ᾽ ὅσην τιμὴν φέρει), and I feel no fear in recommending it, urging you to use force to compel men who are violent and deprive the dead of due burial to grant it, preventing them from violating what all Greece holds lawful. For this it is what holds the cities of human beings (ἀνθρώπων πόλεις) together – when one preserves the laws beautifully (ὅταν τις τοὺς νόμους σῴζῃ καλῶς). Furthermore, someone will say that you timidly stood aside because of the cowardice of your hands (ἀνανδρίᾳ χερῶν), although you could have won for the city a crown of glory (στέφανον εὐκλείας).17

Justice, the law, honour, glory, and manliness: the grandness of a city depends upon these basic values, and the risks it is prepared to take on their behalf. But there is even more at stake: the possibility of interacting peacefully and beautifully, for all human cities (ἀνθρώπων πόλεις). There are laws that keep together the whole of Greece. Reciprocal respect for proper mourning is one of them.18 Now, if we were to ask what the provenance of these principles is, we could reply that they can be found, to begin with, in the Iliad. There already, in the narrative of the Trojan War, men and gods argue about justice, fairness, hospitality, and the duties of a rudimentary international law. The plot of the poem can be recounted by pulling many different threads. Achilles’ anger is one of those threads, of course, but dead bodies compose another storyline. The corpse of Patroclus triggers the action of Iliad 16 to 18. Firstly, the text narrates at length the battle between the Trojans, who try to seize it (together with Achilles’ weapons), and the Achaeans, who strive to protect it and bring it back to the barracks; then the text depicts the splendid funeral, the games, the cremation, and the burial of Patroclus’ remaining “white bones.” In Book 24, the corpse of Hector brings the poem to its end. Achilles drags it for days in the dust, while the gods preserve its shape. But finally, Zeus urges old Priam to endanger his own life, in order to cross the enemy’s lines, and visit Achilles as a suppliant. The Olym- pians disapprove of the relentless defilement of Hector’s body, which, as Apollo claims, is neither a beautiful act nor a glorious prowess. To keep fighting Hector, when he is already dead, is just to injure and dishonour (ἀεικίζω) nothing but dumb, mute, “senseless soil” (κωφὴν γαῖαν).19 There is nothing heroic about this unilateral violence.20 The family must rescue the body (Zeus charges Priam, the father, with this mission); the winner, Political Theorists in Euripides 199

Achilles, must give it back to the family, for proper burial. The Homeric background is consistent with what we know about Athenian practice and law, in the fifth and fourth centuries: the obligation to recover the bodies of men who have died for the polis was so compelling that the generals who, because of a storm, had failed to do so after the naval battle of Arginusae, in 406 BC, were tried before the assembly, and condemned to death on this account, “for their failure to rescue the shipwrecked men” after the battle.21 Reciprocally, traitors were deprived of burial within the territory of Attica (ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ).22 The words of tragic διάνοια, in this case Euripides’ Phoenician Women, resonate with the Homeric tradition, omnipresent in classical Athens, and with democratic culture as well. But, once again, there is a striking novelty in the passage I have quoted and discussed: it is not a man who utters this advice, but a woman and, more to the point, a mother.23 In Euripides’ Suppli- ant Women, Jocasta instructs her two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, on how to enact the rotation of ruling and being ruled. In the Phoenician Women, it is another queen mother, Aethra, who lectures her child, King Theseus, on international law. Political theorists can be females, and they tend to be mothers.24

3. Mothers

Euripides’ plays focus emphatically on the maternal authority of the two characters. Firstly, both Jocasta and Aethra insist on addressing their children as such: children. Aethra does not hesitate to chastise her own son, Theseus:

They will say that you struggled against a wild boar, a trivial labor, but where you ought to have struggled through in the face of enemy helmets and spear points, you showed yourself a coward. You are my child, son – do not act thus! (μὴ δῆτ’ ἐμός γ’ ὤν, ὦ τέκνον, δράσηις τάδε) Don’t you see? Your country, when it is taunted with rashness, turns its fierce visage against its taunters. It flourishes in strenuous action. Cities that keep quiet and do no deeds of glory have no glory in their glances but only caution. Go, my son (ὦ τέκνον), and help the dead and these unhappy women in their hour of need! I have no fear for you. You are setting out in a just cause, and I am confident, as I see the people of Cadmus prospering, that their future dice casts will be different. Heaven overturns all things.25

Likewise, in her long address to Eteocles, Jocasta repeats the vocatives τέκνον and παῖ, again and again:26 200200 Giulia Contents Sissa

Eteocles, o son (ὦ τέκνον), not all that attends old age is bad: the old have experience, which can speak more wisely than youth (ἀλλ’ ἡμπειρία ἔχει τι λέξαι τῶν νέων σοφώτερον). Why do you strive for Ambition, the basest of divinities, o child (παῖ)? Do not do so: she is an unjust goddess! Often she goes in and out of prosperous cities and houses and ruins those who have dealings with her! Yet for her you have lost your senses. Far finer, son τέκνον( ), to honour Equality.27

By reiterating that these men are young, inexperienced, overambitious – therefore prone to making big mistakes, and in need of learning how to behave – these mothers emphasize their own epistemic authority. But they do not ground such experience merely in their being older people, and the mothers of their own children. They do not pontificate like an authoritarian parent: “Do what I say, because I say so!” What they have to teach their children is the fruit of experience (ἡμπειρία), as Jocasta points out.28 Moreover, their wisdom has nothing to do with any form of allegiance to the family. It has proved sound in the history of the world. Finally, these mothers know that they know. Their words are arguments. Beyond Euripides, as we have seen, these arguments belong in the tradition of political theory. Their normative substance and cultural plausibility are precisely what I have tried to bring to the fore at the beginning of this paper, even before framing the speakers as “women.” By asking the readers to suspend their belief as to “who is speaking?,” I want to refrain from pre-packaging these fragments of political thinking as gendered utterances, calling for a ready-made gendered explanation. Far from neutralizing gender difference, this moment of skepticism allows for a deeper understanding of what it means to be a female in Euripides’ possible world. What is it that female human beings, in their variety, can do? What are their existential possibilities? In the plays themselves, the logoi of these mothers carry the day. No authoritative character ever intervenes to qualify, diminish, or criticize their worth. Theseus’ and Eteocles’ female parents have the last didactic word. True, Eteocles, the proud champion of tyranny, inequality, and injustice, dares rebut his mother. His disagreement is radical, for he claims that there is nothing equal for mortal beings, except in words (νῦν δ’ οὔθ’ ὅμοιον οὐδὲν οὔτ’ ἴσον βροτοῖς πλὴν ὀνόμασιν).29 But he is radically wrong. On the contrary, the chorus of the Phoenician Women corroborates Jocasta’s words, as the chorus of the Suppliant Women seconds Aethra’s wisdom. The text leaves no doubt about the competence these mothers forcefully voice. They care for the polis, they speak politically. Once again, we could not possibly reduce their concerns to the domestic, familial sphere. Hegel, the paradigmatic reader of Sophocles’ Antigone, saw Greek tragedy as the aes- thetic expression of the collision between the values of the state, on the one Political Theorists in Euripides 201 hand, and the values of the household, on the other. He must not mislead us.30 Euripides’ mothers are fully fledged political thinkers. Jocasta theorizes democratic equality through rotation. Aethra reminds her child how to be a man. She knows what ἀνδρεία is.31 But her instruction aims at a set of social values: she connects manliness with “the beautiful” (τὸ καλὸν) and with the law (νόμος).Even more theoretically, she advocates good relations among Hellenic cities and, beyond that, among all the “cities of human beings” (ἀνθρώπων πόλεις). Both mothers perform remedial education on stage, but always with eyes fixed upon the wider world. They advise their children to be good kings, to act for the common good. They look ahead; they get the big picture. They offer a mirror to princes – who happen to be silly boys. Eurip- ides’ mothers act as a bulwark against tyranny. “What is tyranny?” (τί τὴν τυραννίδα), Jocasta asks. And she is the one who has an answer. “It is happy injustice” (ἀδικίαν εὐδαίμονα), she replies.32 Mothers know better. Jocasta knows better than her two sons, especially reckless Eteocles; Aethra knows better than her own son, Theseus. We could add that Euripidean mothers tend to outsmart adult men too. Hecuba beats Agamemnon and, of course, Polymestor, the traitor; Clytemnestra takes Agamemnon by surprise. But I will limit my argument to the two plays I have focused on so far, the Suppliant Women and the Phoenician Women. Now, the question is: how was the Athenian audience expected to understand these characters? Their knowledge is heavily gendered – they speak as mothers – but how exactly is their gender supposed to colour their intelligence?

4. Gender

To reply to this question, we ought to rethink how ancient theatre rede- fines, and refines, gender expectations. For many years we have – I have – endorsed the line of interpretation of “the female intruder.”33 In a nutshell, this approach postulates that women were excluded from political life in Athenian democracy, but in the imaginary worlds of fiction, especially in tragedy and comedy, they could be brought back into the political arena. Theatrical imagination, far from contradicting, questioning, exposing, or eclipsing the social background in which legal inferiority, domestic segre- gation, and social invisibility prevailed, had the effect of reinforcing cultural stereotypes.34 Once projected into the domain of government, female characters were still represented as overwhelmed by their incurable female- ness. Whatever they did, they ended up importing domestic concerns into the public sphere. They cared about food, sex, the body, and family matters of various kinds. Either comically or tragically, they created an ultimately familiar disruption. 202202 Giulia Contents Sissa

In a tradition of feminist scholarship, more or less aware of its post-Marxist provenance, we have grown used to an a priori definition of gender as social construction, and, above all, as a power relation.35 Domination had to be unidirectional. Nicole Loraux has complicated these premises, but continues in search of exclusions, cancellations, misrepresentations, or appropriations. Women cannot be Athenian citizens. Women cry too much. Women have to kill themselves. Women are dispossessed of their own features (the feminine).36 Inevitably, whenever the intellectual aspects of a woman’s ability come into light, they have to be qualified, hyper-contextualized, downplayed, and, ultimately, discounted. There must be something wrong with it. Once again, I have committed the same pious sins. Today, I would still subscribe to this kind of approach for Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae and Lysistrata, or Plato’s Theaetetus, but, especially when reading Euripides, I now believe that this reverts to Hegelian prejudice.37 Hegel’s shadow, as I indicated in describing him above as “paradigmatic,” is forever fascinating. True, a few influential scholars have now challenged this view. Think of the feminist theorists attentive to the heroic feat of Sophocles’ Antigone, a defiant champion of natural law, or of a whole different vision of politics – not of the family.38 More recently, the language of queer politics invites us to rethink the entire range of binary oppositions that organize Athe- nian culture, such as feminine/masculine and, more broadly, household/ polis, democracy/aristocracy, past/present, fiction/context, codifications/ transgressions. This “phenomenological” reading of tragedy starts from the acknowledgment of the legal provisions, conventional mores, and anthropological presuppositions that frame the plays, but then pays attention to the reversals and subversions that, in the theatre, may set all those norms in disarray.39

5. Aethra

In her study Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama, Laura McClure argues that the views of tragic women as merely disturbing, subverting, threatening (and ultimately validating) the masculine order of the polis needs “modification.”40 McClure examines the traditionally deval- ued forms of womanly parole, from promiscuous gossip to noisy lamentation, but readily acknowledges that a figure such as Euripides’ Aethra bears witness to the “moral, maternal authority of women and their power to work good for the city.”41 This is the approach I am also defending in this paper. But such authority, McClure goes on to say, calls for a circumstantial specification. It only works through men and is framed within a situation, conventionally appropriate to women: religious rituals. This is indeed the Political Theorists in Euripides 203 case. Aethra remains an advisor for her kingly son, nothing more. The action takes place in front of the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, where Aethra invokes the most quintessentially maternal among the goddesses. I would argue, however, that this state of affairs does not limit the theoretical import of Aethra’s thought. On the first point, namely, Aethra’s allusion to her own genderedσοφία – “It is appropriate for women to do everything through the males,” she says, “when they are smart” (πάντα γὰρ δι᾽ ἀρσένων / γυναιξὶ πράσσειν εἰκός, αἵτινες σοφαί) – I would rather assert that these words underscore her authority: she is the one who directs Theseus to act. Aethra is actually saying that it is up to clever women to manoeuvre the “males,” in order to accomplish what they have in mind.42 Notice that she does not mention adult men (ἄνδρες) here, but “males” (ἄρσενες) instead. As she speaks, she sets off to work on her own male “child.”43 She is herself a σοφὴ ( “wise”) woman. She is also a queen. She is, first and foremost, a mighty mother. Both these speci- fications of her womanhood (regal station and maternity) confer high status on her, in contrast with the childish personality of her son. The cultural context allows for such uprightness. First of all, the clout and trustworthiness of a mother are a serious matter in ancient societies at large. In ancient Greece, as Mark Golden has demonstrated, the young must show respect and regard for both parents.44 In a royal family, this is greatly amplified. Think of Hecuba in theIliad , Arete and Penelope in the Odyssey. Furthermore, the act of advising is in itself a weighty contribution to political rule. Any man in a position of leadership needs all the help he can get in order to broaden his views and make sound decisions. Input is indispens- able in a good monarchy and becomes the defining method of government in a democracy. The rule of the many requires a collective decision-making process, which is nothing but an exchange/clash of dissonant opinions. The- seus, the democratic king of a primeval Athens, is a good listener. Eteocles is not. The former behaves as a valiant commander-in-chief, who can accept being enlightened by others. The latter is just a presumptuous despot, who despises equality and thinks that he has nothing to learn. On the second point, namely, that the action takes place in front of the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, I will add that although this setting is indeed significant, it hardly exhausts the meaning of what Theseus’ mother has to say. Politics is always framed by ritual practices in ancient Greece, and this does not detract from the autonomy of male political agents. Although Aethra starts by invoking Demeter, the motherly goddess par excellence, the words she addresses to her son are not bound to a ritual, Eleusinian relevance as if this were both religiously oriented and gender-specific. On the contrary, the rhetorical and political strategy of her 204204 Giulia Contents Sissa intervention is to rise above squabbles and calculations in order to univer- salize the demands of the Argive mothers who are reclaiming the corpses of their sons. The Athenian listeners may have in mind Sophocles’ Antigone, but also old King Priam beseeching Achilles to release Hector’s body, at the end of the Iliad. What is at stake is a Panhellenic awareness of what is right. In conclusion, within the boundaries of an advisory role and in a religious site, Aethra makes statements that are substantive, normative, and meant to be valid in a “trans-gender” perspective, so to speak. We should do justice, therefore, to the intrinsic worth of her words. The complexity of Aethra’s utterances becomes clear, when we break them down following the functions of language to be found in Roman Jakobson’s seminal work.45 Aethra’s speech is passionately expressive, and thus draws attention to the speaker herself as a woman. Furthermore, Aethra sets off to define metalinguistically the concepts she upholds. Finally, the illocutory force and the perlocutory effects of her parole are manifestly strong enough to convince her addressee. But her speech draws attention, above all, to the compelling soundness of her premises, and the coherence of what she is saying. The content of her statements fits the world she is talking about. The referential function of language is primordial here. Aethra is right not just in Eleusis, not just as a woman, but in Athens for an Athenian king, and an Athenian audience.46 She succeeds because she speaks on behalf not of a goddess, but of Athens as the standard-bearer of Panhellenic values, and she addresses a character who, having being constructed as an Athenian “prince of the people,” cannot fail to endorse those principles. That this young man should also be a well-behaved son adds to her stature. He will comply, which proves his intelligence. Another path-breaking scholar, Barbara Goff, had previously argued that the Eleusinian and Athenian context “enables” Aethra’s authority:

Aithra’s rhesis makes many appeals. Athens’ identity and mission is central, and panhellenic law is invoked for the first time in the drama. But how is Aithra enabled to enlarge upon the role of mother, which had indeed already afforded her a measure of authority, and to make this overtly political speech? She is, after all, a woman, and therefore, we may assume, not equipped with a discourse that would count as political.47

The answer to this question, according to Goff, is that in Eleusis Aethra is involved in a particular festival, the Proêrosia, which was a celebration of the Athenian Panhellenic vocation. Goff sees the Proêrosia “as what in fact makes the speech possible.”48 She does argue that, as is the case in many patriarchal societies, maternity itself is a “source of authority.”49 But she finally draws a qualified conclusion: Political Theorists in Euripides 205

Ritual actions performed by women in tragedy … are usually taken to signal simul- taneous commemoration of, and compensation for, an ever-reenacted defeat of the female.[…] Defeating female figures is arguably an important part of the tragic project; but we might consider the possibility that Athens could also deploy tragic female voices in support of its hegemonic politics. 50

This is undeniable. We might also entertain, however, the possibility that Euripides chose to attribute political acumen to women in all sorts of dramatic interactions, as the two plays we are discussing demonstrate. The vocabulary of wisdom, σοφία, Pietro Pucci has shown, is exceptionally dense in the Suppliant Women. Aethra’s disclaimer about her own σοφία may well add a dimension of irony to the Athenian mission to save the civilized world, but it is that seemingly improbable wisdom that pushes Theseus to act.51 Beyond this particular play, the theme of maternal knowledge is ubiquitous. There is Aethra at Eleusis participating in the Proêrosia, but there is also Jocasta trying to forestall her sons’ reciprocal butchery in Thebes; there is Hecuba on the shore where she discovers the corpse of her youngest child and plans her revenge; there is Medea; and there is Melanippe σοφὴ, with her twins.52 These are not ordinary women living in a democratic polis, but powerful queens from the aristocratic past, a possible world where status, power, and intellect were not only compatible with maternity, but conventionally to be expected from mothers. With Daniel Mendelsohn we should track down the meandering and counter-intuitive representations of gender in the play, from the self-sacrifice of the “Girl” to the successful clout of the Mother. In Mendelsohn’s words, Aethra “softens … her son's outlook; he literally broadens his horizons.”53 Theseus, as we said, learns his lesson.54

6. Jocasta

This same methodology applies to Euripides’ Phoenician Women.55 Here the path-breaking interpretations are those of Arlene Saxonhouse, Anna Lamari, and Christine Amiech. Saxonhouse sees the play through an “epistemological perspective.” She focuses on Antigone, and not Jocasta, as an emerging “female political actor.” But Jocasta, she argues, performs a transformative role. “The events and speeches of the play develop so that she [Antigone] can by the end of the play rise above the gender distinctions that mark her status and make her a concealed creature at the beginning” (my emphasis).56 The experience of the war transforms the young woman who finally espouses, in her own way, Eteocles’ arguments on the non-existence of τὸ ἴσον, which Saxonhouse interprets as relativism. Jocasta contributes to this transformation. 206206 Giulia Contents Sissa

Anna Lamari’s intertextual reading of this play together with Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes brings Euripides’ accentuation of maternal authority to the fore. “As far as character-presentation is concerned,” Lamari points out, “one easily comes to notice that in the Phoenissae male authority is also downplayed, since all men are not imposing, finally falling short of representing all-powerful male figures.”57 Whereas Oedipus, Tiresias, Creon, and even the two fratricidal brothers come across as marginalized, indecisive, or self-destructive men, women take action on stage, and even invade the space of the battlefield. “Through the characters of both Antigone and Jocasta, the audience can sense a rather ‘mother-centred’ oikos,” Lamari argues. This household is “imbued with power and dynamism deriving from the figures of daughter and mother respectively.”58 Jocasta “acts as Antigone’s dynamism- booster” and leads the way from beginning to end.59 Although she does traditionally feminine things, such as wailing, she acts heroically. Along the same lines, Christine Amiech, a French scholar who has written extensively on Euripides’ Phoenician Women, calls Jocasta a “mother-philosopher”:

Cette mère-philosophe fait une description apocalyptique de philotimia qui pro- voque la ruine de ceux qui la servent, leurs adeptes – ton chromenon –, et propose à son fils de suivre une divinité abstraite plus noble. Il s’agit d’Isotes, Égalité, mot qui fait une entrée remarquée en tragédie.

Amiech points out that Ἰσότης is an “abstraction divinisée d’un genre nouveau.” She goes on to say: “Dans cette tirade Jocaste ne suit pas les sophistes, mais les philosophes présocratiques qui voient le salut dans le respect de l’ordre du monde.”60 Jocasta is a “mother-philosopher.” She voices Presocratic wisdom about the cosmos, against her sophist of a son. The play stages an epistemological war, between those who, like Jocasta, believe that there is “something” called τὸ ἴσον, and those who, like Eteocles, hold that there is neither τὸ ἴσον, nor τὸ ὅμοιον, beyond mere words. This means that the drama culminates in a truly philosophical dialogue. On the one hand, a Presocratic and, I would add, a quasi-Platonic thinker draws attention to the neuter, which allows us to say that there is “the equal” (τὸ ἴσον), i.e., what is equal absolutely. There is the idea/form of “Equality” per se, which we attribute to a number of equal things. On the other, a nominalist speaker refuses to concur that anything might be there, beyond the mere sound of language. The former is a clairvoyant mother, and she proves to be right. The latter is an impetuous young man, who ends up killing his own brother, and being killed at the same time. Political Theorists in Euripides 207

Euripides stages a theoretical discussion on the reality of concepts, and on the impact of this reality upon human agency. Then the play sets in motion its own poetic justice. Because Eteocles denies the very existence of τὸ δίκαιον and τὸ ὅμοιον, there is nothing that might stand in his way, nothing that might prevent him from reneging on his agreement with his brother – there is nothing there, literally, except empty words. Why would he yield to the alternation of ruling and being ruled, as promised? There is no reason for him to do so. Because Eteocles fails to acknowledge that “something” (called τὸ ἴσον) or “someone” (named Ἰσότης) actually exists, he cannot see why he should ever embrace that non-existing entity as a criterion of value in his own behaviour. This blindness causes precisely the “days of hatred” Jocasta had warned him against. And that hatred will go on to generate more and more violence, for all. The reciprocal killing of Eteocles and Polynices will result in Jocasta’s suicide. There is no doubt that Jocasta was absolutely right. If she failed to persuade her sons to renounce internecine conflict, it is not for want of trying or for any weakness of her arguments. It is because Eteo- cles was such an unjust boy that he denied reality to “the just.” Jocasta is indeed the main strategist in the play. Jocasta has it all. There is nothing amiss in her Platonizing theory of Ἰσότης. There is nothing womanly in her admonitions, nothing gender-specific that a reliable male character might not say. Should a good king utter exactly the same words, we would not dream of second-guessing them. We would take them at face value and place them in their larger context, as a meaningful expression of Athenian political thought. Analogously, there is no doubt that Theseus does the right thing in obeying his own philosopher of a mother, and in helping the mothers of the Argives.

7. Age

This reassessment of female intelligence does not amount to saying that gender is meaningless. On the contrary, the category of gender is always relevant, but it has to be crossed with that of age. This applies to mothers as older women as well as to their sons, who are young men. It is the combination of the four attributes – “female” and “old”/“young” and “male” – that Euripides elaborates. It is this set of differences that we have to map. To track down Euripides’ cognitive and emotional characterization of male youthfulness, we can rely on the works of Jacqueline de Romilly and Eva Thury. Romilly endeavours to compare Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides on the issue of age, and concludes that Euripides oscillates between an idealized depiction of the “purity,” virtue, and generosity of the young, on the one hand, and a much less flattering portrayal, on the other. Young 208208 Giulia Contents Sissa men can be exceedingly hopeful, overconfident, impetuous, and imprudent. This ambivalence should be set against the background of the “excessive individualism of democracy,” the constant state of war, and the threat that weighed on Athenian hegemony at the end of the fifth century bce. Alcibi- ades, Romilly points out, stands as the model of this kind of imperialistic youth that, according to Thucydides, became increasingly vocal in Athens, after Pericles’ death.61 Eva Thury in turn intended fully to understand the relevance of age in Euripides’ corpus. The constant qualification of individuals as old versus young generates a thematic pattern that runs through almost all of Euripides’ plays, she argues, and is particularly significant in the Suppliant Women. Age-difference is constantly thematized:

The play opens with a tableau of Theseus’ mother, an old woman, surrounded by the old women of the chorus; contrast between young and old figures strongly in the discussions of Theseus and Adrastos and of Theseus and the herald, and in the account of the battle with Thebes, the chorus’ mourning of their dead sons and the lamentation of Iphis. The imagery is often explicit, describing the physical characteristics and psychic deprivation associated with aging. At the beginning of the play, the age of the chorus is strongly emphasized by their description of their dead sons as flourishing (621). Even the corpses of the young are flourishing.62

Thury sees a significant opposition between Theseus, as a representative of Athenian youth, and Polynices, who, together with his rebellious friends from Argos, exemplifies excessive spiritedness. The wordνέος , a semantic blend of “young” and “new,” she goes on to say, helps Euripides contrast two different kinds of youth: newness or youth which is fearful, unknown, rash, animalistic; and youth which has been properly schooled and led. Euripides may well be suggesting in the Suppliant Women that the proper hand- ing down of wisdom by the city is necessary to avert human misery.63

This contrast can be placed against the background of contemporary perceptions of a kind of impulsive-aggressive boyishness that might prove dangerous. Thucydides bears witness to a period in Athenian history, when strong-willed young men such as Alcibiades posed a threat to democracy.64 I will add that Theseus shows his civility above all in his prompt compliance with his mother’s advice, a kind of tameness of which Polynices and, worse, Eteocles prove incapable. The young must show respect and regard for both parents.65 Political Theorists in Euripides 209

8. Aristotle

These textual and contextual considerations acquire a cultural plausibility in light of Aristotle’s thoughts on how bodies and characters change according to age. Aristotle’s psychology owes so much to his knowledge of Athenian culture, and especially of tragedy, that we can read his reflections not only as his own systematic elaborations, but also as a synthesis of beliefs that run deep in our texts. More than any other Aristotelian work, the Rhet- oric offers a compendium of commonplaces that can be used as premises in enthymemes, and a typology of emotions and temperaments, meant to help a speaker successfully to address his audience. Speech acts can only be felicitous if they fit the opinions and espouse the sentiments of the general public. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle sketches the portrait of the young man, the man in his prime, and the old man. He obviously refers to males. Individuals become different persons altogether, in different periods of their life. Age brings about such a radical alteration that the old are the exact contrary of the young. The young are full of desires, and such that they act on them. They yield especially to their erotic drive, which they prove unable to rein in, being lacking in self-control (ἀκρατεῖς). Their desires are manifold, intense while they last, but quickly over. Young men are hypersensitive to offence, therefore irascible. This is a consequence of their being spirited (θυμικοὶ), and even keenly spirited (ὀξύθυμοι), and able to follow their anger (καὶ οἷοι ἀκολουθεῖν τῇ ὀργῇ). They are full of θυμός (“spirit”), and yet “inferior” to their own θυμός (καὶ ἥττους εἰσὶ τοῦ θυμοῦ). “Because of their ambition, they cannot endure being slighted, but grow indignant whenever they believe they suffer injustice” (διὰ γὰρ φιλοτιμίαν οὐκ ἀνέχονται ὀλιγωρούμενοι, ἀλλ’ ἀγανακτοῦσιν ἂν οἴωνται ἀδικεῖσθαι). Their passion for honour is also a passion for victory, and for superiority. They are, therefore, highly competitive, but also disinterested. They tend to trust people, hold high expectations, and have strong hopes. Being high-spirited (θυμώδεις) and hopeful (εὐέλπιδες), they are more courageous (καὶ ἀνδρειότεροι) and, therefore, disinclined to fear. Not to be afraid makes them audaciously daring (τὸ μὲν μὴ φοβεῖσθαι τὸ δὲ θαρρεῖν ποιεῖ). Their manly courage (ἀνδρεία) is also attuned to their tendency to act for the sake of what is beautiful (τὸ καλὸν). “They prefer to do beautiful deeds than useful ones: they live through character rather than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning deals with what is useful, excellence has to do with the beautiful” (καὶ μᾶλλον αἱροῦνται πράττειν τὰ καλὰ τῶν συμφερόντων· τῷ γὰρ ἤθει ζῶσι μᾶλλον ἢ τῷ λογισμῷ, ἔστι δὲ ὁ μὲν λογισμὸς τοῦ συμφέροντος ἡ δὲ ἀρετὴ τοῦ καλοῦ). In 210210 Giulia Contents Sissa the same logic they may harm others in order to insult them, but not out of maliciousness. Finally, they are prone to pity others, because they assume that they are good persons, not deserving hardship. And they think that they know everything (καὶ εἰδέναι ἅπαντα οἴονται).66 In Aristotle’s comparison of young and old, everything hinges on an embodied life experience. Over time, men become the diametric opposite of those impulsive, indignant, prickly, fearless, compassionate, stubborn, ambi- tious, belligerent, magnanimous, over-spirited and manly youths. They learn to be diffident, cautious, and sceptical. They grow accustomed to expecting misfortune and mistakes. They have tested the costs of action, and the disap- pointments of social interaction.67 Euripides’ tragic mothers are older, and they are women. Once again, we should look at the convergence of gender and age. From an Aristote- lian standpoint, a constellation of features applies to human females: ability to deliberate, but without authority; intelligence, and even superior intelligence (διάνοια), but accompanied by cowardice. Women are capable of deliberation, but they lack the ability to act on their decisions. In contrast with slaves, who are entirely deprived of the deliberative faculty (τὸ βουλευτικόν) and children who possess it, but in an incomplete form, women have such a faculty, but in an impotent version. A female’s βουλευτικόν, Aristotle argues, is without authority (ὁ μὲν γὰρ δοῦλος ὅλως οὐκ ἔχει τὸ βουλευτικόν, τὸ δὲ θῆλυ ἔχει μέν, ἀλλ’ ἄκυρον, ὁ δὲ παῖς ἔχει μέν, ἀλλ’ ἀτελές).68 Aristotle also argues that women are undermined by a natural incompatibility with the exercise of command. “By nature, the male is more disposed to command than the female” (τό τε γὰρ ἄρρεν φύσει τοῦ θήλεος ἡγεμονικώτερον).69 The reason is that, across species, non-human females are less endowed with spiritedness (θυμὸς) than males.70 Θυμὸς is correlated with manly courage (ἀνδρεία). In general, people (ἔθνη) that are less spirited tend to be more intelligent and more gifted for craftsmanship (διανοητικὰ μὲν καὶ τεχνικὰ τὴν ψυχήν), but being poor in θυμὸς, they behave in a way that is submissive and slavish (ἄθυμα δέ, διόπερ ἀρχόμενα καὶ δουλεύοντα διατελεῖ).71 Spirited- ness and intellect are in inverse proportion. Following this major premise, females lack θυμὸς, but are endowed with greater διάνοια than their mates, and women must be less courageous, but can be more intelligent and inge- nious than men. A fortiori, older women are far less spirited than younger men, but when confronting their own sons, they face juvenile males who are θυμικοὶ καὶ ὀξύθυμοι. Their spiritedness may be low. Their intelligence, however, shines even more. Aristotle’s portrayals shed an interesting light onto Euripides’ characters. More precisely, Aristotle’s taxonomy of behaviours and dispositions, across gender and age, helps us appreciate the difference between Eteocles, Political Theorists in Euripides 211

Polynices, Theseus – and their mothers. Jocasta’s children embody the raw- ness of youthful maleness, while embodying two versions of it. Eteocles sports an extremely daring attitude that is actually indifferent to τὸ καλὸν, and to any other matter of principle. Polynices overreacts as a susceptible, feisty boy would do. They both prove recalcitrant. Theseus, in contrast, acknowledges his mother’s superior wisdom. Both Jocasta and Aethra outwit their sons. They know about ambition, rivalry, stubbornness, pride, thin skin, bloody errors, and their consequences. They are philosopher-queens, expert in proper definitions ofτὸ δίκαιον, τὸ ἴσον, τὸ ὅμοιον, τὸ καλὸν, Φιλοτιμία, πλεονεξία, Ἰσότης, and other ideas without which nobody could ever govern a polis in the Panhellenic world. Yes, Jocasta fails, as so many tragic characters do. But, on this point, we cannot possibly follow Aristotle. His claim that women are endowed with a deliberative faculty, but that such faculty is without authority, cannot explain her failure.72 Jocasta fails not by a fault of her own, but because her two boys prove unredeemable. Aethra is able to accomplish her maternal mission because Theseus, at least, is teachable.

9. Power and Status

Gender never stands alone. The intersection of age and gender, as I briefly argued, enriches our understanding of the rapport of power between women and men, especially among kin, the domain of tragedy. But we can further refine also our usage of the notion of power. A canonical distinction, still in use among American sociologists and political scientists, opposes power and status. Power is defined as the ability to influence the behaviour of others. It can be exercised through force, domination, or manipulation. It can be legal, traditional, or charismatic. Status is a matter of perception. It is based on the premise that we constantly evaluate human beings:

These evaluations may become systematized into a hierarchy of values. The individual makes judgments of others and ranks them on the basis of his hierarchy of values and his knowledge concerning what characteristics these other persons possess. Such a judgment of rank made about either the total person or relatively stable segments of the person constitutes the social status of that person (for the individual making the judgment). 73

Status generates deference (or the lack thereof), be it genuine or spurious. “The status accorded to a person depends on the value hierarchy held by the individual making the status judgment and the individual's knowledge of the characteristics of the person judged.”74 In its analytical neatness, this distinction can help us understand gendered interactions. Tragedy exposes 212212 Giulia Contents Sissa abuses of power, especially tyranny, and the failure to recognize and pay proper respect to status. Individuals slight each other, provoke each other’s anger, and take revenge. In this possible world, mothers may well be weak power holders. They may prove unable to coerce others. They might try to influence their inter- locutors to no avail. As the parents of their children, however, mothers benefit from a highly valued rank. They are also queens. They deserve respect. This is exactly the situation of Aethra and Jocasta in Euripides’ plays: they both enjoy high status. But they differ in regard to power. On the one hand, Jocasta attempts to direct Eteocles, through arguments, advice, and commands. She fails. She lacks power. Nobody questions, however, her status. She obtains full recognition. On the other hand, Aethra endeavours to make Theseus behave in a certain way: he must help the mothers from Argos to retrieve their sons’ corpses! She succeeds. Jocasta has status, but no power. Aethra holds both status and power. Euripides seems to experiment with different combinations of social standing and effectiveness, deference and compliance. What makes the difference is men’s docility.

10. The Epistemic Advantage of Mothers

The awareness of the warlike destination of children places mothers in the right place, where they can extend a political education to their male offspring. Whereas wives are conceived in a binary opposition with husbands – inside versus outside; staying at home versus going into the world; managing the household versus acquiring goods; offering pleasure and rest versus fighting and toiling – mothers deliver men to the external world. Andromache in the Iliad stands as the paradigmatic spouse, who strives to hold back her husband from the battlefield. Aristophanes’ comedic wives are even prepared to give up sex, in order to bring their men back home from war. Euripides’ theatre captures the distinction between women’s self- identification as wives and/or mothers. The former long for their mates. The latter obsess over the success, or the failure, of their sons in the world. They look to the future. Their foresight bridges the family and the polis. Mothers are the standard-bearers of the ideology of the city, as a military enterprise. It is the focus on motherhood that should alert us. Mothers are not just women, plus maternity. Mothers are the living causes of the very existence of the men who engage in politics, and who, above all, fight wars. Mothers know what they are doing in the first place: they deliver children for a reason – not for themselves, but for the polis, and ultimately for the whole of Hellas. Political Theorists in Euripides 213

The scope of motherhood can be adapted to daughters. Young women too can serve the tragic polis, in their own way. In Euripides’ Erechtheus, Prax- ithea offers her daughter as a sacrificial victim. She spells out the political purpose of procreation: “It is for this reason that we engender children: so that we defend the altars of the gods and the homeland.”75 She hates women who prefer that their children should live, she insists, as opposed to prioritiz- ing behaviour that is beautiful (τὸ καλὸν), and who therefore exhort them to base things. Notice, once again, the Platonic appeal to “the beautiful” (τὸ καλὸν), in a language that echoes Jocasta’s plea on behalf of “the equal” (τὸ ἴσον). If she had a son, a male child, Praxithea would have sent him to combat with the spear, although she feared death.76 This conditional circumstance – if she had a male child, she would dispatch him to war – conveys Euripides’ fearless thought experiment with gender. What if we were to replace sons with daughters, in a plot about war? How does the permutation of a female and a male affect a mother’s political mission? Females do not “combat with the spear,” as Aethra’s and Jocasta’s male children must do. But they can still play a bloody role in war. They can be used as appropriate offerings, to be slain to please the gods. By formulating the hypothesis of what she would expect from a son of hers, Praxithea envisions the full range of maternity, in its political potential. Sons fight for the “altars”; daughters are apt to be slaughtered on those same altars. In Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides extends his variations to another case. What if a mother failed to subscribe to patriotism? Then the child herself would remind her parent of what maternity is about. This is how Iphigenia addresses Clytemnestra, who cares too much about her own survival: “You have engendered me for the whole Hellas, not only for yourself!”77 It is an instantiation of the same inference. Maternity is no intimate, personal family business. It reaches out, into the political and military domain – its proper ends. A mother must think ahead, therefore, and throw her own children into the world. Analogously, Menaeceus, a boy, disagrees with his father, and then lectures the chorus of the Phoenician Women on the righteousness of his own immolation.78 Mothers do not hold the monopoly of homeland security, but they vigor- ously uphold its defence. They are expected to do so, as Iphigenia reminds her own oblivious mother. I agree with Claude Calame’s interpretation of Euripides’ Erechtheus, therefore, and I share his concise formula: “citizen culture is based on maternal nature.” I would not, however, argue as he does that Praxithea uses two kinds of language: on the one hand, when she blends into the plural of the male spectators, she speaks as if she were a man; on the other, when she speaks in her own person, she reverts to naturalized maternity. “The ‘female womb’ is not denied,” Calame rightly points out, 214214 Giulia Contents Sissa in response to Nicole Loraux’s problematic thesis that the myth of autochthony allegedly erases Athenian women, but “motherhood is naturalized,” he adds, “in order to be inserted more suitably into the political order.”79 Euripides does not naturalize motherhood. Praxithea emphasizes the military and political destiny of her children, whatever their gender. Once again, to bring “nature” into the picture is to force Hegel, and the metaphysics of the sexes, into Euripides. Mothers do talk about the body, but they do so because the dead body is a crucial concern of “international law”; they talk about their labour, precisely to claim that “their children” belong to them because of φύσις, but that this does not and, above all, should not matter. Praxithea is proud to “give the girl to the land.”80 Jocasta may well linger on the hair and features of her children, but she lectures them on Ἰσότης.

11. Conclusion

The complexity of ancient societies and the specificity of fictional representations of different milieux require that we remain open to surprising dynamics in the attribution of gender qualities. In a social microclimate, in a particular situation of power and status, in an idiosyncratically coded genre such as classical tragedy, women may have accumulated learning, acquired insight, and become mindful of general principles and predictable consequences of action – whereas immature, overenthusiastic, high-spirited, irresponsible boys make catastrophic errors. This is a matter of textual fact. We have no need to search for flaws, fallacies, or failures in anyλόγος ever uttered by a tragic woman, on account of the ideological coherence that we, modern scholars, might assign to the Greeks and take for granted once and forever. We have no need to ask what must be wrong with the female intellect, and to suspect that some adverse connotation, to be unmasked at all cost, must necessarily undermine its expression. Euripides is bigger than that. His unusual subtlety deserves that we suspend our judgements about his comically infamous agenda, in depicting women as wicked, dangerous, deceitful characters. His fictional experiments are far ahead of a monotonous allotment of praise and blame, along gender lines. Euripides’ mothers are agents, responsible for social reproduction. These women know that maternity means to throw young persons into the world. They specifically know one crucial thing: how to make their boys into manly men, ready to fight. Mothers know how a hyper-gendered, warlike society must take care of itself. This is the compelling context in which we should place Aethra and Jocasta. For the Athenian audience, the aristocratic past was distant from the democratic present, but there was one powerful connection between the two: violence. Strife, internecine conflict, and war were Political Theorists in Euripides 215 omnipresent in both worlds. This violence required a meditation on its necessity, its value, its duration, its opportunity, its purpose, and its limits. It is precisely on the justice of wars that tragic women had a lot to say. From the theatrical podium, those women had to lecture their sons on the principles underpinning the most venerable Panhellenic unwritten laws, as well as Athenian democracy. Speaking as powerful thinkers – not marginal, not domestically oriented, not sentimental, not limited to rituals and religion, not stuck in anti-political mourning – mothers pronounce substantive discourses. By giving advice, they enact a precious political function that is compatible with the rule of a good monarch and, even more systematically, with the rule of the many. Ancient δημοκρατία, the self-government of manly men (ἄνδρες), was not good for women.81 The female relatives of those same men had to remain out of the political arena, and famously silent. Of course, Euripides’ queen mothers do not change by one iota the legal inferiority, the military unfit- ness, the political exclusion, and the social confinement to the household that crippled the life of ordinary Athenian women, in a polis where all free adult men were active citizens qua soldiers. Tragedy brought into light a fictional possible world, however, one filled with kings, princes, princesses, and queens. The imaginary monarchies represented on stage gave those old-fashioned figures a rank and a voice. Jocasta’s and Aethra’s epistemic advantage shows the plausibility of female political acumen, when it was an attribute of age and regal status. Before democracy, older queens held the truth. Men could be so immature that they needed to be told what to do. The grown-up δῆμος sitting in Dionysus’ theatre could very well understand that obsolete perspective – a pre-democratic past, when men were just impulsive, unruly, messy boys. Before democracy, men were excessively spirited. The heroic temper was infused with unchecked θυμός. In a democratic political culture that tries to order the performance of θυμός through moderation, justice, and group cooperation, tragedy re-enacts a time when boys resisted growing up. Achilles, after all, was just a pais, like Eteocles, Polynices, and, up to a point, Theseus. Democracy makes boys into men. So did aristocratic mothers.

NOTES

1 Aristot. Poetics 1450b7–8. In this paper, quotations from ancient texts are generally taken from relevant Loeb editions. Short translations are the author’s own. Longer quotations and translations, adapted where stated, of Aristotle are taken from Rackham 1959, while those from Euripides are taken from Kovacs 216216 Giulia Contents Sissa

2002 (Phoenician Women) and 1998 (Suppliant Women), and Jouan and Van Looy 2000 (fragments). 2 Alcmeon, fr. 24 Diels-Kranz. Cf. Vlastos 1947; MacKinney 1964; Svenbro 1982. For a critical revision on the analogical thinking about ἰσονομίη between medicine and politics, see Sassi 2007. For a welcome reassessment of the democratic significance ofἰσονομίη , including discussion of Jocasta’s speech in the Phoenician Women, see Lombardini 2013. 3 Diels-Kranz, 94, apud Plutarch, On Exile, 11 (“ἥλιος γὰρ οὐχ ὑπερβήσεται τὰ μέτρα,” φησὶν ὁ Ἡράκλειτος: “εἰ δὲ μή, Ἐρινύες μιν Δίκης ἐπίκουροι ἐξευρήσουσιν”). The context is the cyclical movement of the planets. Each one keeps its order (διαφυλάττει τὴν τάξιν). Idem, De Iside 48. 4 Plato, Gorgias, 508a: the Pythagoreans say that “gods and men are held together by communion and friendship, by orderliness, temperance, and justice; and that is the reason,” Socrates goes on to say, “why do they call the whole of this world by the name of order, not of disorder or dissoluteness. Now you, as it seems to me, do not give proper attention to this, for all your cleverness, but have failed to observe the great power of geometrical equality amongst both gods and men: you hold that self-advantage is what one ought to practise, because you neglect geometry.” On the binary opposition of τὸ ἴσον versus πλεονεξία, cf. Republic, 359c. Imagine what would happen, Glaucon says, “if we grant to each, the just and the unjust, licence and power to do whatever he pleases, and then accompany them in imagination and see whither his desire will conduct each. We should then catch the just man in the very act of resorting to the same conduct as the unjust man because of the greedy self- advantage that every nature pursues as a good, whereas by the convention of the law it is forcibly diverted to paying honor to ‘equality.’” (Plato, Gorgias, 508a). On the binary opposition of τὸ ἴσον versus πλεονεξία, cf. Republic, 359c (διὰ τὴν πλεονεξίαν, ὃ πᾶσα φύσις διώκειν πέφυκεν ὡς ἀγαθόν, νόμῳ δὲ βίᾳ παράγεται ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ ἴσου τιμήν). 5 Hdt. 3.80–81. 6 Hdt. 5.78. 7 Plato, Laws, 6.757b–c. 8 Plato, Gorgias, 508a. 9 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1130b–1132b; 1158b–c; Aristotle, Politics, 1301b–c: “But equality is of two kinds, numerical equality and equality according to worth – by numerically equal I mean that which is the same and equal in number or dimension, by equal according to worth that which is equal by reason (ἔστι δὲ διττὸν τὸ ἴσον: τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀριθμῷ τὸ δὲ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν ἐστίν. λέγω δὲ ἀριθμῷ μὲν τὸ πλήθει ἢ μεγέθει ταὐτὸ καὶ ἴσον, κατ᾽ ἀξίαν δὲ τὸ τῷ λόγῳ). But although men agree that the absolutely just is what is according to worth, they disagree (as was said before) in that some think that if they are equal in Political Theorists in Euripides 217

something they are wholly equal, and others claim that if they are unequal in something they deserve an unequal share of all things. Owing to this, two principal varieties of constitution come into existence, democracy and oligarchy; for noble birth and virtue are found in few men, but the qualifications specified in more.” 10 Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, 3. See Hall 2014. 11 Rotation is central to the thought about Athenian democracy in Ober 2008, 142–50. It is also the trademark of popular rule for Wolin 1993. For an interesting discussion of Wolin’s understanding of rotation, see Templer 2015, 171, and Mion 1986, 232. 12 Aristotle, Politics, 1317b (trans. Rackham, slightly modified). See Hansen 1991, 68, and 2005, 50. 13 Aristotle, Politics, 1283b–1284a; 1277a 26–7 (The excellence of a citizen consists of being able to rule and be ruled well); 1277b 13–18 (The good citizen must have ability and knowledge concerning both ruling free men and also being ruled. A good citizen must possess moderation and prudence (σωφροσύνη) and justice (δικαιοσύνη) with respect to ruling). I quote the rendering of Aristotle’s text from Martin, Smith, and Stuart 2003. 14 Lombardini 2013, 415. 15 Lombardini 2013, 415–16. 16 Euripides, Phoenician Women, 536–49 (trans. Kovacs, slightly modified). 17 Euripides, Suppliant Women, 297–316 (trans. Kovacs, slightly modified). 18 See the re-enactment of this tragic theme in praise of Athens, in public oratory: Lysias, Funeral Oration, 7–10. “Thinking these things (ταῦτα διανοηθέντες), and believing that the fortunes of war are shared by all men in common (καὶ τὰς ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ τύχας κοινὰς ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων νομίζοντες) while facing a numerous enemy, and yet having what is just as their ally, by fighting they (the Athenians) obtained victory (τὸ δὲ δίκαιον ἔχοντες σύμμαχον ἐνίκων μαχόμενοι).” 19 Iliad, 24.33–55. 20 Iliad, 24.50–5. 21 Xen. Hell. 1.7.4; Lys. 12.36. See Gish 2012. 22 Xen. Hell. 1.7.22–3: “if anyone shall be a traitor to the state or shall steal sacred property (ἐάν τις ἢ τὴν πόλιν προδιδῷ ἢ τὰ ἱερὰ κλέπτῃ), he shall be tried before a court, and if he be convicted, he shall not be buried in Attica, and his property shall be confiscated” κριθέντα( ἐν δικαστηρίῳ, ἂν καταγνωσθῇ, μὴ ταφῆναι ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ, τὰ δὲ χρήματα αὐτοῦ δημόσια εἶναι). For the sources, and a thorough discussion of Sophocles’ Antigone, see Rosivach 1983; Fletcher 2008. 23 On maternity in Greek and Athenian society, see Petersen and Salzman- Mitchell 2012, especially the thoughtful contribution of Angelika Tzanetou, whose views resonate with what I am trying to argue in this paper. See also 218218 Giulia Contents Sissa

the groundbreaking 2015 collection of essays edited by Florence Gherchanoc, especially her “Introduction” (“Mères grecques: des realia à l’imaginaire social et politique des Anciens”), and the contribution of Aurélie Damet, “Le statut des mères dans l’Athènes classique,” a remarkable synthesis on the legal status and the social perceptions of mothers, which does justice to the importance of motherhood. In the same collection, Schmitt Pantel and Sebillotte Cuchet offer a striking analysis of the counter-intuitive representations of mothers by Herodotus and Plutarch: “Pour rendre compte à la fois des rapprochements et des différences de traitement de la question par Hérodote et par Plutarque, nous avons choisi d’argumenter autour des trois points suivants: d’une part, chez les deux auteurs, la fonction de μήτηρ n’apparaît pas aussi marquée par le genre qu’elle ne l’est chez nous. Autrement dit, la fonction génératrice n’est pas qualifiée comme féminine et intervient aussi bien dans le contexte de la parenté charnelle que dans celui de la parenté cosmologique et de la parenté politique. D’autre part, dans les rapports de parenté charnelle, cette fonction s’articule chez les deux auteurs d’une manière complexe avec la paternité en ne subordonnant pas toujours les mères aux pères comme on pourrait s’y attendre. Que ce soit dans le domaine de la descendance ou dans celui de l’expression des sentiments, la fonction de mère n’est pas très différente de la fonction paternelle. Enfin, chez Hérodote et chez Plutarque, la fonction de mère ne définit pas les femmes car elle ne constitue qu’un aspect de leurs possibles interventions dans l’espace social et politique. Celles qui sont ou ont été mères agissent bien souvent en raison d’autres fonctions ou qualités qui leur sont reconnues par leurs pairs: en ce cas, elles ne sont plus nommées et considérées en tant que mères.” See also Xanthou 2015, 30; Franchi 2019. 24 On mothers in Euripides’ theatre, see Golden 1990; Beltrametti 2000; Vester 2004; Hoyt 2013 (on Electra, Medea, and Ion); Given 2009. 25 Eur. Suppl. 316–31 (trans. Kovacs). On Aethra as a maternal mediator, see Kuntz 1993, 81–2; on Aethra as a fertile mother, see Mendelsohn 2002, 140–45; on Aethra as a σοφὴ mother, in the context of Euripides’ attention to σοφία, see Pucci 2016. On the Suppliant Women as a Theban play, see Zeitlin 1990. Mirto 1984 argues that one of the most significant features of the Suppliant Women is the dramaturgic choice that the chorus of the Argive mothers should remain on stage, deprived of participation in the ritual, whereas men such as Theseus and Adrastus take over the organization of the action. Mirto opposes the maternal gestures of affection and mourning to the rationalizing words of the two men. The play, she claims, showcases two gendered “cultures,” in which Aethra’s role is consequently minimized. Aethra, as I hope to demonstrate in this paper, cannot be reduced to a surviving testimonial of an obsolete aristocratic ethics. As a mother, she voices a wisdom that goes far beyond the familial definition of maternity presupposed in Mirto’s argumentation. Political Theorists in Euripides 219

26 For an overview of Euripides’ vocabulary of kinship, see Perdicoyianni- Paleologou 2002. To address a character as παῖς or τέκνον is a sign of affection, Perdicoyianni-Paleologou argues. I will add that the emphasis placed on the relation of a mother to her son/daughter draws attention to the status of the speaker, vis-à-vis her interlocutor, who is thus reminded of his/her immaturity. Eloquently, the statistics available in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae show that in the Phoenician Women the lemmas παῖς and τέκνον recur respectively 73 and 47 times, being among the most frequent, and the most over-represented, terms in the play. In the Suppliant Women, both lemmas occur 44 times. These numbers alert us to the focalization of different plays upon a parental perspective. The language used in the Phoenician Women is exceptionally persistent in exposing the hierarchies of kinship. 27 Eur. Phoeni. 528–46 (trans. Kovacs, slightly modified). On Jocasta as the defender of the polis, in response to both her children (Polynices, the champion of justice who is nonetheless waging war against his own city; Eteocles, the straightforward tyrant), see Bollack, Judet de la Combe, and Wismann 1977, 85–6. On Jocasta’s philosophy, see Amiech 2004 and 2006. I will discuss her comments in a moment. For an interesting intertextual reading of Jocasta’s attempt to reconcile her sons, and the reconciliation scene in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, see Scharffenberger 1995. The argument is highly speculative, largely based on conjectures about dramaturgy, and insufficiently attentive to the larger cultural context (especially on the significance ofἰσότης , for democratic theory), but the discussion of the scholarly debate on the worth of Jocasta’s wisdom is very useful. Scharffenberger insists that Jocasta failed in her intent. This is true, I will argue, but this does not diminish the earnestness of her eloquence. On Jocasta’s alleged failure, see also Vannini 1995, passim, and especially 133. For a valuable criticism of Suzanne Said’s interpretation of the play, see Alaux 2008. See also Saxonhouse 2005. 28 On experience acquired over time as the source of wisdom, see Eur. Hipp. 252; Suppl. 419; and frr. 291, 508, 619 Nauck. These passages can be found, quoted and discussed, in de Romilly 2009, 192. On Euripides’ female characters as highly intelligent and well educated, see Biga 2009–10. Biga offers a commentary of the fragments from a lost play, Μελανίππη ἡ Σοφή . In fr. 3, Melanippe, a young mother, claims that she is indeed endowed with intellect, despite being a woman. According to a scholion, Aristophanes places this claim in Lysistrata’s mouth (Lysistrata, 1124: ἐγὼ γυνὴ μέν εἰμι, νοῦς δ’ ἔνεστί μοι). Lysistrata adds that she has learned her logoi from her own father (Biga 2009–10, 81–4). In fr. 5 Melanippe echoes Anaxagoras’ cosmology, a knowledge she has learned from her mother (Biga 2009–10, 111–25). 29 See Saxonhouse 2005, 501–2. “Through Eteocles’ speech,” Saxonhouse argues (2005, 479), “Euripides offers a portrait of a world in which the equality of 220220 Giulia Contents Sissa

the democracy translates into one where all opinions are given equal weight, where hierarchy dissolves among opinions as it does among individuals.” This interpretation echoes Plato’s comedic portrayal of democracy in Book 8 of the Republic: transvaluation of values, equal opportunity for all pleasures whatever they might be. I will contend that Euripides makes of Eteocles a sort of dogmatic relativist, who may well use nominalist arguments (there is no such thing as “the just”), but does so in order to deny one of the foundational principles of democracy: the need for rotation. Euripides exposes Eteocles’ vocation to tyranny. 30 Hegel 1975, 221: “Creon, the King, had issued, as head of the state, the strict command that the son of Oedipus, who had risen against Thebes as an enemy of his country, was to be refused the honour of burial. This command contains an essential justification, provision for the welfare of the entire city. But Antigone is animated by an equally ethical power, her holy love for her brother, whom she cannot leave unburied, a prey of the birds. Not to fulfil the duty of burial would be against family piety, and therefore she transgresses Creon’s command.” See also 1975, 461: “Everything in this tragedy is logical; the public law of the state is set in conflict over against inner family love and duty to a brother; the woman, Antigone, has the family interest as her ‘pathos,’ Creon, the man, has the welfare of the community as his. Polynices, at war with his native city, had fallen before the gates of Thebes, and Creon, the ruler, in a publicly proclaimed law threatened with death anyone who gave this enemy of the city the honour of burial. But this command, which concerned only the public weal, Antigone could not accept; as sister, in the piety of her love for her brother, she fulfils the holy duty of burial. In doing so she appeals to the law of the gods; but the gods whom she worships are the underworld gods of Hades (Sophocles, Antigone, 451), the inner gods of feeling, love, and kinship, not the daylight gods of free self-conscious national and political life.” 31 Competence about manliness characterizes Atossa and Artemisia, two influential queens Herodotus depicts in his Inquiries (3.134). See Dominick 2007, 442: “When Herodotus’ Atossa, in bed, persuades her husband Darius to begin a war, she argues in part that a war will demonstrate that the Persians' ruler is ‘a real man’ (ἀνήρ). Aithra’s advice to Theseus is remarkably similar: She encourages him to assist in retrieving the bodies of the Seven in part because if he refuses, some will say he did so out of ‘cowardice’ or ‘unmanliness’ (anandria, Suppl. 314–16). Both women influence their male family members, both in the interest of the state and in the interest of those family members’ manliness.” 32 Ibid., 549. This queenly utterance of the foundational values of democracy should be read in the context of the rationality identified by Ober 2008. Political Theorists in Euripides 221

33 Shaw 1975. On the idea of intrusion, either endorsed or criticized, see Rabinowitz 1993; Foley 1993b; Saxonhouse 1992; Wohl 1998; Allan 2000; Cropp and Lee 2000; Foley 2001; Hall 1997. 34 On actual exclusion versus theatrical representation, see Damet 2012[2014]. 35 The canonical reference on the definition of gender remains Scott, 1986. On the use of “gender” in Classics, see Sebillotte Cuchet 2012; Holmes 2013. 36 See Loraux 1987, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2002. 37 I have written on the maternal metaphors of conception, pregnancy, and delivery of discourses in Plato’s language, especially in the Theaetetus, in Sissa 1990 and 2000. 38 For a significant contribution to these recent reinterpretations, see Honig 2010. A canonical reference is Butler 2000. 39 See Susanetti 2014. 40 McClure 1999, 261. 41 McClure 1999, 263. 42 Eur. Suppl. 40–1. Pucci 2016, 97–121, argues that Aethra’s role adds a dimension of irony to the Athenian mission to save the civilized world. 43 Eur. Suppl. 3: Aethra introduces Theseus as her child (Θησέα τε παῖδ᾽ ἐμὸν). 44 Golden 1990, 88. 45 Jakobson 1956 and 1960. 46 Jocasta’s speech, in comparison, exploits better the metalinguistic function of language, i.e., the ability to define and redefine terms, thus drawing attention to the code – as a Socratic dialogue usually does. 47 Goff 1995, 72 48 Goff 1995, 74. 49 Goff 1995, 71: “Aithra’s maternity is a source of authority, as at 320 (μὴ δῆτ᾽ἐμός γ᾽ὤν, ὦ τέκνον, δράσηις τάδε), whereas it is motherhood that has disabled the Argive women. Her relations with Theseus are wholly positive; her son is intent on hearing her speak when she intimates that she has advice to give (296), and he is solicitous of her welfare at all times (89–91). Theseus points out that care for a parent is a kind of investment (361–4), whereas the Argive mothers lament that they will not receive this kind of reciprocal τροφή (923). While both Aithra and Theseus make conventional statements about limitations on women's speech and sphere of action (40–1, 294, 297–300), Aithra is, in fact, accorded the respect and relative freedom that may reward older women who have successfully, in patriarchal terms, negotiated marriage and motherhood.” 50 Goff 1995, 78. 51 Eur. Suppl. 40–1. Pucci 2016, 97–121. 52 Biga 2009–10. See especially fr. 3. P. 222222 Giulia Contents Sissa

53 Mendelsohn 2002, 140–5 and 170. On the irony of such transformation, see Pucci 2016. 54 The famous dialogue on democracy versus monarchy, between Theseus and the messenger from Thebes, follows Aethra’s lecture. Theseus praises democracy, whereas the messenger extols a strong monarchic rule. 55 Lamari 2007. 56 Saxonhouse 2005, 480. 57 Lamari 2007, 18. 58 Lamari 2007, 21. 59 Lamari 2007, 22: “Jocasta acts as Antigone’s dynamism-booster, since she is herself first taking the initiative to invite Polynices inside the city and when admitted by Eteocles, she is also responsible for convincing him to negotiate. Jocasta is doubtlessly the one character that never tires to struggle against the fulfillment of Oedipus’ curse, namely the fratricide, being more decisive than any other male figure of the play. She is the one that sets the debate (633–637), and the one who finally drags Antigone to the battlefield (1275–1283).” 60 Amiech 2006, 79. See also Amiech 2004. 61 De Romilly 2009, 175–207. 62 Thury 1988, 295. The Phoenician Women shows unruly boys, and “lacks all aspects of the rejuvenation motif” (301). See also Karanasiou 2013. 63 Thury 1988, 304–5. 64 Thuc. 6.12.2, 14.4. 65 Golden 1990, 88. 66 Aristot, Rhet. 1389a–b (author’s paraphrase and trans. Freese 1926, slightly modified). 67 Aristot, Rhet. 1389c. 68 Aristot. Pol. 1.1260a 7–24. 69 Aristot. Pol. 1.1259b 1–3. 70 Aristot. Hist. An. 9.608 b 11–609a 30. 71 Aristot. Pol. 7.1327b 27–8. 72 I have discussed at length Aristotle’s argument in Sissa 2018, 141–76. 73 Goldhamer and Shils 1939, 179. 74 Goldhamer and Shils 1939, 181. 75 Eur. Erechtheus fr. 14 (360 Kn. 50 A.), 14–15, in Jouan and Van Looy 2000. 76 Ibid., 22–31. 77 Eur. Iph. Au. 1386. 78 On human sacrifice, see Bonnechère. See also Amiech 2008, 10: “Contrairement à Eschyle ou à Sophocle, Euripide manifeste un goût prononcé pour les sacrifices humains, qu’il utilise comme ressorts de l’action. Il sait en outre l’émotion Political Theorists in Euripides 223

que ce type de scène peut susciter chez le spectateur, surtout quand il s’agit de victimes faibles et jeunes.” 79 Calame 2011, 6–7. See also Sebillotte Cuchet 2006. 80 Eur. Erechtheus, 39–40. 81 I have argued that ancient democracy was essentially gendered in Sissa 2018. 11

Wife, Mother, Philosopher: On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica therese fuhrer

1. Preliminary Remarks: Monnica as a Figure of Art

As mother of the bishop of Hippo and as a literary character in the Confes- sions, Monnica1 at an early date became a personality known to a wide public:2 in 1945 in Ostia, the site of her death and her first burial place, a fragment was found of the grave inscription set up there either during Augustine’s lifetime or a few years after his death.3 Monnica has been a saint of the Catho- lic Church since the twelfth century and hence the subject of countless book illustrations, paintings, and frescoes or stained glass in Christian sacred buildings. Her sarcophagus, in which relics are preserved, stands today in the church of Sant’Agostino in Rome.4 Saint Monica of Thagaste is the patron saint of women and mothers and is responsible for saving the souls of children. She has also given her name to a beachfront city in southern California and to the famous boulevard in Hollywood, the main strip to the hip and famous. Behind the success story of the figure of art “Monnica” stands the literary moulding by her own son: in Augustine’s account in the autobiographical books of the Confessions she is depicted as a convinced and pious Christian, who ensured that he – as he says – “was already signed with the sign of the cross and seasoned with salt from the time I came from my mother’s womb” (Conf. 1.17),5 and who congratulated him, after his famous conversion experience in the garden in Milan, on his decision to serve only God and to lead a celibate life (Conf. 8.30). Given the finesse and nuance of this literary portrait, it comes as no surprise that attempts to reconstruct the historical Monnica have remained mere reproductions of Augustine’s narrative, often On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 225 taking on hagiographical characteristics.6 On the other hand, it has long been recognized that the character of Monnica in the Confessions serves a symbolic role, which is ultimately subsumed in the allegory of the “mother church.”7 Yet even this critical reading at times misleads readers into the biographical fallacy of inquiring into the maternal experiences and traumas of the historical author Augustine. This has repeatedly led to the charge that the Church Father’s personality was driven by mother complexes and that, as such, he should take the blame for the restrictive sexual morality through all the centuries down to the present day.8 The fascination of the figure of Monnica may be due, not least, to the fact that Augustine gives her a broad palette of traits, which make her appear almost as an ideal type of the conventional role of simple woman and car- ing mother, but through which, at the same time, she repeatedly breaches norms. She fears God and is a firm believer,9 but also participates in the cult of the martyrs and the dead, which was not tolerated by the Church,10 or takes part in sit-ins in a Milan church surrounded by imperial troops (Conf. 9.15). As a young girl she was inclined to drunkenness (Conf. 9.18);11 as wife she is submissive towards her husband, is the perfect daughter-in-law, and becomes a role model in her social group – her peer group – for the other wives, some of whom are mistreated by their husbands (Conf. 9.19–22). She is constantly worried about the salvation of her son,12 with the result that she becomes a burden to him and he conceals from her his departure from Carthage for Rome – as Aeneas did from Dido (Conf. 5.15);13 but she – unlike Dido – sails after him (Conf. 6.1) and, with an eye to his government career and social advancement, persuades him to reject his concubine and the mother of his son, so that he may marry a social equal.14 Augustine provides these pieces of information out of chronological order and not in any connected form; each piece occurs in a particular context in the course of the philosophical dialogues or in the narrative of the Confessions. He is thus not writing a biography of Monnica. Instead, he introduces the figure of the mother each time at a chosen moment and assigns to her a dramaturgical or argumentative function that is different every time.

2. Terminology: “Role” and “Symbol”

In this paper, I wish neither to question the historical reality that lies behind Augustine’s literary moulding nor to inquire into the psychological importance of a perhaps close tie between the empirical author Augustine and his mother. Instead, I shall address the question of the extent to which Mon- nica’s role and function as mother is of significance for the themes treated in the three so-called Cassiciacum Dialogues and in the autobiographical 226226 Therese Contents Fuhrer narrative of the Confessions. I wish to argue for the thesis that the “mother” dramatized in the texts of Augustine can be read as a symbolic figure who, through her role as mother, represents a particular philosophical and/or theological concept and the argumentation that rests on it.15 To make this thesis plausible, I will make use of the tools of analysis provided by role theory as developed in modern social science. The concept of the role is used in sociology and social psychology as a technical term for the analysis of social interaction processes.16 Thinking and speaking in roles or “masks” (personae) was developed and practised in ancient rhetoric,17 and was also reflected upon in philosophical treatises.18 In a literary text, a social role can be moulded by certain actions or interactions (including verbal ones) by a character – a bearer of a role – in a particular setting, by clothes or by other props. This process works with expectations of behaviour and rules, and the problems and questions that arise through stereotyped roles have repeatedly been highlighted and debated.19 In the textual analysis that I will present here, I wish, firstly, to show that Augustine makes the figure of Monnica speak and act, both in the philosophical dialogues and in the Confessions, in the specific role of the (or a) mother, but that he also makes her repeatedly breach the norms that are assigned to this model female role. Secondly, I wish to pursue the question of what rhetorical or argumentative, and hence philosophically and theologi- cally motivated, function the figure of the mother fulfils in the texts. I wish to argue for the thesis that Augustine is also working with the concepts of symbol and allegory.20 By this I do not mean the symbolism of the “mother” in a universal sense. I am concerned rather with the concrete question of what abstract content is embodied or illustrated – and hence explained – by the figure of the mother in the texts, in which she is depicted also as a wife or also as a philosopher; or, to put it differently, what broader set of meanings is she meant to call up and make interpretable in each particular context?

3. The Mother as Philosopher in the Early Dialogues

In the dialogues Contra Academicos, De Beata Vita, and De Ordine, which were composed in the period before Augustine’s baptism in the winter of 386/7 at Cassiciacum near Milan, the author presents himself as a character in conversation with his students and relatives, posing questions each of which he anchors in his biographical and historical setting. The characters of the dialogues stand for particular philosophical positions, for a particular level of education or knowledge or for a particular approach to the questions discussed: “Augustinus” (as a character in the dialogues) and his friend Alyp- ius are highly knowledgeable, the students are learning and frequently refer On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 227 to the gaps in their knowledge, and Augustine’s mother and cousins represent the common sense (the sensus communis) of the uneducated.21 The discussions proceed as a dialogue between the students and their teacher, the dialogue character Augustine, and at times also among all the participants, including the mother.22 In these discussions a particular question is posed and the knowledge needed to answer it is surveyed at the start or – recurring to the pagan philosophical tradition – as the dialogue proceeds.

a) De Beata Vita

The dialogue De Beata Vita is set by Augustine as a conversation on his birthday, the Ides of November.23 The discussion group includes his mother, brother, and students, his cousins and his son Adeodatus (Beata V. 6). The group is thus identified as afamilia , in which the mother is assigned a special role: she is the one to whom the “birthday child” owes his life (Beata V. 6: nostra mater, cuius meriti credo esse omne, quod vivo). Thereafter Augus- tine poses for debate the old question of the definition of “happiness,” which will become the central theme of the discussion over the next two days.24 Shortly after the start of the discussion, the mother gives a definition of “happiness” and “wretchedness” that earns her the praise of the discussion leader, her son (Beata V. 10): tum mater: si bona, inquit, velit et habeat, beatus est, si autem mala velit, quamvis habeat, miser est. – cui ego arridens atque gestiens: ipsam, inquam, prorsus, mater, arcem philosophiae tenuisti. nam tibi procul dubio verba defuerunt, ut non sicut Tul- lius te modo panderes, cuius de hac sententia verba ista sunt …25 in quibus verbis illa sic exclamabat, ut obliti penitus sexus eius magnum aliquem virum consedere nobiscum crederemus, me interim, quantum poteram, intellegente, ex quo illa et quam divino fonte manarent.

(At this point our mother said: “If he wishes and possesses good things, then he is happy; if he desires evil things – no matter if he possesses them – he is wretched.” I smiled at her and said cheerfully: “Mother, you have really gained the mastery of the very stronghold of philosophy. For, undoubtedly you were wanting the words to express yourself like Tullius, who also has dealt with this matter” … At these words our mother exclaimed in such a way that we, entirely forgetting her sex, thought we had some great man in our midst, while in the meantime I became fully aware whence and from what divine source this flowed.) (trans. Schopp 1948)

The mother has exceeded the limits prescribed for her female role, so that the audience “is entirely forgetting her sex” (obliti penitus sexus), and she 228228 Therese Contents Fuhrer appears to the others as a “man.” Augustine can see that her knowledge – the definition of “happiness” and “wretchedness” – “flows from a divine source.” As a woman she cannot have acquired her knowledge through education, so it appears that she has intuitive access to this knowledge.26 I briefly summarize the train of thought that follows. The discussion begins from the Stoic paradox that a person can always only be either happy or wretched (beatus or miser), or either wise or foolish (sapiens or stultus), but the objection is raised to this that the Christian God also accepts the foolish, that they too can “have God” (deum habere), so long as they are searching for knowledge of God and live morally blameless lives. Those who are in this way “thirsting” (sitientes) receive a “warning” from God as the “source of truth” (fons veritatis), who is manifested also in the sensibly perceptible sphere through his “overflowing” (emanare), and who is as a “hidden sun” that sends out its light to humans through its rays (Beata V. 35). Monnica sums up the possibility of knowledge that has been described by Augustine in trinitarian structures27 with a line from a hymn of Ambrose (Beata V. 35):

[Augustinus:] quae tria unum deum intellegentibus unamque substantiam … ostendunt. – hic mater recognitis verbis, quae suae memoriae penitus inhaerebant, et quasi evigilans in fidem suam verbum illud sacerdotis nostri: “fove precantes, trini- tas” [Ambros. Hymn. 4.32], laeta effudit atque subiecit: haec est nullo ambigente beata vita, quae vita perfecta est, ad quam nos festinantes posse perduci solida fide alacri spe flagrante caritate praesumendum est.

([Augustine:] “These three show to those who understand the one God, the one Substance …” Whereupon mother, having recalled words which dwelt firmly in her memory, as if awakening to her faith, uttered this verse of our priest: “Assist, O Trinity, to those who pray” [Ambros. Hymn. 4.32], and added: “This is unmistak- ably the happy life, a life which is perfect, toward which it must be presumed that, hastening, we can be led by a well-founded faith, joyful hope, and ardent love.”) (trans. Clark 1984)

At the moment at which Augustine equates the “happy life” with knowledge of the triune God, the mother recognizes the “words” that were “fixed deep in her memory” and sings the final line of Ambrose’s Fourth Hymn, which is addressed to “God, the Creator of All.”28 This should give the impression that she associates the song not only with the philosophical definition of knowledge, but also with the confessio trinitatis of the bishop Ambrose (sacerdos noster).29 That fits the historical situation of the years 385/6 and the “Easter crisis” over church buildings in Milan in On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 229 which Monnica took the side of the Nicene bishop Ambrose and, together with the pia plebs, spent the night in a basilica that was surrounded by the troops of the “Arian,” i.e., heretical, emperor (Conf. 9.15).30 The hymn is an evensong, perhaps one of the songs that Ambrose led the congregation in singing in the basilica surrounded by the imperial troops that night during the Milan Easter crisis,31 i.e., the mother may have heard and sung it then too. By giving his mother this line of song and then showing her as presenting her definition of the beata vita as the Pauline triad of “faith, hope and love,”32 Augustine removes from her the obligation to offer an argument. With the Ambrosian and hence “orthodox” text, which has become fixed in her memory through its rhythmic structure and melody, the mother has direct access to dogmatic truth. Recounting his reaction after Monnica’s death in Confessions 9.32, Augustine terms the lines of the Ambrosian hymn “true” (versus veridici),33 as they not only contain a theological truth, but also, in a specific situation of grief for his dead mother, point towards salvation by the Creator, the deus creator omnium. With the hymn of the troublesome bishop and the recourse to the confessio trinitatis, the mother, so to speak, performatively enacts the solu- tion of the philosophical debate over De Beata Vita: as the mother of the “birthday child,” whom Augustine “has to thank for life” (Beata V. 6), she embodies the access to the “source of truth,” which is identified in Ambrose’s hymn also with the Creator God. The mother, who repeatedly intervenes constructively in the debate,34 thus symbolizes the “source” or “origin” of the knowledge which she gains by intuition.35 With her spontaneous performance as “singer” in the service of the Nicene bishop and hence the church of the “orthodox,” she also represents the “mother church.” With the quotation from Paul she locates the answer to the philosophical question about the “happy life” in the sphere of authoritatively transmitted knowledge and links this process with the emotion of “love” (caritas). She stands symbolically for a possible route to acquiring philosophically relevant knowledge, namely, through religious practice, that is, as practised in the church by the bishop, supported by the word of scripture and accompanied in the church service – and there also through the performative power of hymn singing – by the down-flowing fons veritatis. In contrast to education as a route to learning and knowledge, which is connoted as male, this route is connoted as female and specifically, through the figure of the mother of the “birthday child,” as maternal: she is the woman who has borne him, who followed him overseas to Milan, and who now not only “nourishes” his birthday party but also “feeds” the philosophical table talk with crucial insights.36 230230 Therese Contents Fuhrer

b) De Ordine

The topic of discussion in De Ordine is the ordo mundi, the all-encompassing order of the world, and specifically the question of how “evil” is included in this, that is, the issue of theodicy. Both the dramatic setting and the course of the dialogue itself illustrate the thesis, unanimously supported by the participants in the discussion, that in principle all human action and every event is to be understood as part of an all-encompassing divine order.37 In this case the mother first appears only towards the end of the first day of discussion, at the end of the first book. Her appearance is given special significance by Augustine through the fact that at this point he explicitly addresses the topic of a woman’s role in a philosophical dialogue (Ord. 1.31):38 atque interea mater ingressa est quaesivitque a nobis, quid promovissemus; nam et ei quaestio nota erat. cuius et ingressum et rogationem cum scribi nostro more iussissem: quid agitis? inquit; numquidnam in illis quos legitis libris etiam feminas umquam audivi in hoc genus disputationis inductas? – cui ego: non valde curo, inquam, superborum imperitorumque iudicia, qui similiter in legendos libros atque in salutandos homines irruunt. non enim cogitant, quales ipsi sed qualibus induti vestibus sint et quanta pompa rerum fortunaeque praefulgeant. isti enim in litteris non multum attendunt, aut unde sit quaestio aut quo pervenire disserentes molian- tur quidve ab eis explicatum atque confectum sit.

(In the meantime, mother also came in and inquired what progress we had made; for the problem was known to her as well. But when I had ordered that, in accordance with our custom, record be made of her entrance and her question, she said: “What are you doing? In those books which you read, have I ever heard that women were introduced into this kind of disputation?” To her I reply: “I care but little about the judgments of proud and ignorant men, who rush to the reading of books in the same way they rush to greet men. They consider, not what kind of men these are, but what kind of clothes they wear and how conspicuously they shine in the pomp of worldly wealth. In books they pay little heed either to the why of a question or to the purpose of the authors or even to what is fully explained and proved by them.”) (trans. Russell 1942)

Augustine makes the mother herself refer to the break with literary convention of introducing her as a dialogue participant in a written philosophical dialogue. He sets aside the mother’s doubts with, so to speak, a role-theory justification: social position as enacted “by clothing and advertisement of possessions and rank” is unimportant in this text; what is important is rather the real “quality” of the participants (quales ipsi). He then justifies the role On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 231 of the “woman philosopher” (femina philosophata), going to considerable argumentative lengths in doing so (1.31–2): nec deerit, mihi crede, tale hominum genus, cui plus placeat hoc ipsum, quia mecum philosopharis, quam si quid hic aliud aut iucunditatis aut gravitatis invenerit. nam et feminae sunt apud veteres philosophatae et philosophia tua mihi plurimum placet. [32] nam ne quid, mater, ignores, hoc Graecum verbum, quo philosophia nomina- tur, Latine amor sapientiae dicitur … contemnerem te igitur in his litteris meis, si sapientiam non amares; non autem contemnerem, si eam mediocriter amares, multo minus, si tantum, quantum ego, amares sapientiam. nunc vero cum eam multo plus quam me ipsum diligas et noverim, quantum me diligas, cumque in ea tantum profe- ceris, ut iam nec cuiusvis incommodi fortuiti nec ipsius mortis, quod viris doctissimis difficillimum est, horrore terrearis, quam summam philosophiae arcem omnes esse confitentur: egone me non libenter tibi etiam discipulum dabo?

(Believe me, then, there will not be lacking a class of men to whom the fact that you converse with me on the subject of philosophy will be more pleasing than if they were to find here something else of pleasantry or seriousness. Moreover, in olden times, women, too, have worked on the problems of philosophy. And your philosophy is very pleasing to me. [32] Then, mother, so that you may not be uninformed, the Greek word from which the term, philosophy, is derived, is in the Latin tongue called love of wisdom … Now if you had no love whatever for wisdom, I would utterly disregard you in my writings; if, however, you had just ordinary love for it, I would not entirely disregard you; and much less if you were to love wisdom as much as I love it. And now, seeing that you love it even more than you love me – and knowing your great love for me; and seeing that you have made such advance in it that you are not frightened by the dread of any chance discomfort or even death itself – a most difficult attainment for even the most learned, and a position which all acknowledge to be the stoutest stronghold of philosophy – in view of all this, shall I not gladly entrust myself to you even as a disciple?) (trans. Russell 1942)

As well as citing the existing tradition of having women appear in philosophical discussions,39 he argues that the mother, as she “loves wisdom,” by definition counts as philo-sophos.40 This love for sophia/sapientia surpasses even her maternal love for her son, and through this intensive philosophein, in the sense of “striving for wisdom,” she has reached a level at which she has set aside fear of misfortunes and of death. Thus, as was granted to her already in De Beata Vita, she has reached the arx philosophiae,41 though not by intellectual efforts but through the strength of her love for “wisdom,” which in Contra Academicos, following 1 Cor. 1:24, is identified with the Son of God.42 232232 Therese Contents Fuhrer

The mother is now linked even more clearly to the term “love,” through which she has reached the highest level of philosophical striving. By the declaration that her love for “wisdom,” which is elsewhere defined as “Son of God,” is stronger than her love for her biological son (cum eam multo plus quam me ipsum diligas), the objects of love are set in hierarchy, and so maternal love is also assigned an anagogic function: the loving mother points out the path to wisdom that she connotes emotionally. The mother’s appearance in the dialogue shows – here again performatively – that this path can be entered directly. The son, actually a professor of rhetoric, becomes his uneducated mother’s disciple and thus the hierarchy of social roles is inverted in the spiritual realm.43 In the following discussion in Book 2, in which the mother now takes an active part,44 Augustine’s students repeatedly become caught in contradictions, because they cannot explain how to unite the view that malum exists with the view that God is almighty. The author Augustine, however, shows how all ontological concepts that grant existence to evil are refuted by the pietas-inspired arguments of his students and his mother, who base their reflections on the idea of God as a good creator god. The mother’s contribution to the issue of the place of evil in the world is to examine the premises from which the debaters begin, to assessing them strictly for their theological acceptability.45 Here pietas is understood not so much as religious awe, but rather as a principle of thought guided by love of God.46 The “love” of “wisdom” dramatized by the mother thus becomes a guiding motif in the philosophical argumentation, and here again the mother represents the way of direct access to (this) wisdom.

4. On the Role of the Mother in the Confessions: The Dialectic of Life and Death

Let us now take a look at the closing passages of the autobiographical narrative in Confessions Book 9, the second part of which gives a central place to the death of Monnica. After the brief mention of the mother’s death there follows: (1) a tribute to her with a biographical review, then (2) the narrative of the shared vision of the beyond immediately before her death, and finally (3) the depiction of the grieving and burial.47 The review presents a sketch of her life at the side of her husband Patricius, directly followed by the visionary experience, which in turn is followed by the depiction of the grieving relatives’ reaction. The Neoplatonic conception of the vision as ecstatically seeing God and the styling of the death scene after Plato’s Phaedo make Monnica, who has just been sketched as the submissive servant of her spouse, into a Christian counterpart to Plotinus and Socrates.48 On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 233

Now, Monnica is not just any woman, but the mother of the protagonist of the narrative, and she is also to be understood as the mother of the writer and bishop, the author of the Confessions. Here too she is always referred to only as mater, and it is only right at the end of Book 9 – and only in this single passage – that her name is given.49 The information about her death (mater defuncta est) is at once linked to reflections on her biological and spiritual function as mother (9.17): et cum apud Ostia Tiberina essemus, mater defuncta est. multa praetereo, quia multum festino. accipe confessiones meas et gratiarum actiones, deus meus, de rebus innumerabilibus etiam in silentio. sed non praeteribo quidquid mihi anima parturit de illa famula tua, quae me parturivit et carne, ut in hanc temporalem, et corde, ut in aeternam lucem nascerer. non eius, sed tua dicam dona in eam. neque enim se ipsa fecerat aut educaverat se ipsam: tu creasti eam, nec pater nec mater sciebat, qualis ex eis fieret. et erudivit eam in timore tuo [Ps. 5:8] virga Christi tui, regimen unici tui in domo fideli, bono membro ecclesiae tuae.

(While we were at Ostia by the mouths of the Tiber, my mother died. I pass over many events because I write in great haste. Accept my confessions and thanksgiv- ings, my God, for innumerable things even though I do not specifically mention them. But I shall not pass over whatever my soul may bring to birth concerning your servant, who brought me to birth both in her body so that I was born into the light of time, and in her heart so that I was born into the light of eternity. I speak not of her gifts to me, but of your gifts to her. She had not made herself or brought herself up. You created her, and her father and her mother did not know what kind of character their child would have. She was trained “in your fear” [Ps. 5:8] by the discipline of your Christ, by the government of your only Son in a believing household through a good member of your Church.) (trans. Chadwick 1991)

The mother had “brought into the world” (parturivit) “Augustinus” both “in the flesh” (carne) “and in the heart” (et corde), so that he “would be born” (ut … nascerer) first into the temporal light and then into the eternal light. The idea of “birth” is used also in a transferred sense: the “soul” (anima) “brings” the narrative “into the world.” Here the role of the mother is reduced entirely to the function of giving birth, which is then extended to include the function of the intellectual, religious, and emotional supporter of the protagonist, as well as the idea that she, as the object of the present narrative, has brought it forth,50 and that she has done this at the moment of her death. Overall we get the picture that the mother has made possible the biological and spiritual existence of the writing author and has allowed him to become productive in his turn. Above both of them stands the Creator 234234 Therese Contents Fuhrer

God who has created her (tu creasti eam). As object of the literary production she is the “servant” of God (quidquid mihi anima parturit de illa famula tua), and it is as such that she appears also in the biographical sketch that follows, which belongs to the tradition of literary elogia for the dead.51 The chain of production is thus presented as a top-down, divinely effected process, but at the same time the humans, created by God, place themselves under him and at his service. At the end of the autobiographical narrative in Book 9 the parental function fulfilled by the mother is mentioned again, and now both parents – Monnica and Patricius – stand side by side.52 The relation between them is also described as one between “lord” and “servant” (tradita viro servivit veluti domino, Conf. 9.19), which the woman – almost stoically – accepts, on the grounds that this is what is prescribed in the marriage contract.53 She thus accepts her place in the secular, social hierarchy as well as in the divine one. By doing so, she succeeds in “winning” her husband for God, after which his chauvinistic behaviour towards her changes.54 Her effect as wife on her husband, like her effect as mother on her son, is to change their behaviour in both moral and spiritual respects. Again, as in De Ordine, the social hierarchy is inverted in the spiritual realm. As in the early dialogues, in the Confessions, too, she is presented in the role of a philosopher. After the biographical sketch comes the depiction of the ecstatic ascent through the levels of being of the created world to the transcendental sphere, which she “touched” together with her son before her death – the famous vision in Ostia.55 This seems like a counter-movement to and compensation for the humiliation she knew in life. Mother and son achieve what the philosopher Plotinus, according to his biographer Por- phyry, achieved four times in his life: ecstasy, that is, the “stepping out” of the spiritual soul from the body, by passing beyond the sensibly perceptible sphere and ultimately also the mental sphere.56 Passing beyond the earthly sphere is described as crossing the border of the created into the sphere of the divine “word” by which everything is created (Conf. 9.24–6). In the conversation after the vision the mother expresses her joy that before her death she has been allowed to experience her son’s baptism as a “catholic Chris- tian” and so his becoming a servant of God (servus eius, Conf. 9.26). The following pattern of action arises from this: because the mother accompanied and promoted this process, she drew him down to the level of thralldom, but also opened up to him the path to experiencing God. Monnica, who is represented in the Confessions consistently as a “servant” and so as a socially weak figure relative to men, thus ultimately shows herself to be superior both to her husband, to whom she is “subject,” and also to her intellectual, educated son. Through the social role of wife and On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 235 mother, the power of humility and the process of kenosis is acted out, something that Augustine highlights as a specific difference between Christian and Platonic doctrine.57 Monnica’s function as biological mother of the protagonist is subsumed by a spiritual motherhood, as is stated at the end of the book: the place of the parents in the flesh is taken by God the Father and “in the mother church” (sub te patre in matre catholica, Conf. 9.37).58 The two concepts of motherhood and creativity, which are presented side by side in the visionary experience, thus stand alongside the concepts of fatherhood and the Creator.

5. Conclusion

In the dramaturgy of the autobiographical narrative, the figure of Monnica at first has the function of the mother who carried the protagonist in her body,59 bore him and nourished the “boy” with her milk,60 who brought up the “youth” and through her persistence put him on the right path61 and who led the adult man62 to a “new” life in which the “mother in the flesh” no longer plays a role.63 This role of the mother as a giver of life would, however, hardly have become anything more than a stereotype if the author Augustine had not, for his part, “brought to life” the figure in his texts64 by drawing her as a resolute and in many respects dominant, but also naive and pious, woman, who moves within the bounds of the traditional role of wife and mother, but also clearly breaks them.65

NOTES

1 The spelling “Monnica” is regarded as the historical one, given the near- unanimous testimony of the manuscript transmission at the only point where her name is mentioned (Conf. 9.37; see below n. 52); see O’Donnell 1992, 148; Moore 2007, 149. Quotations of Augustine’s Contra Academicos, De Beata Vita, and De Ordine in this chapter are from Fuhrer and Adam 2017; quotations from Confessiones are from Skutella 2009. 2 Even in Augustine’s own lifetime the thirteen books of the Confessions had a wide impact (cf. Aug. Retract. 2.6.1; Persev. 53; cf. also Conf. 10.3–6). After Augustine’s death, they were primarily read as documentary evidence for his biography, e.g. by Possidius, whose Vita Augustini was intended as a continuation of the Confessions. 3 The text is also transmitted in several manuscripts; the oldest is of the ninth century: HIC POSVIT CINERES GENETRIX CASTISSIMA PROLIS / AVGVSTINE TVI(s) ALTERA LUX MERITI(s) / QVI SERVANS PACIS CAELESTIA IVRA SACERDOS / COMMISSOS POPVLOS MORIBVS 236236 Therese Contents Fuhrer

INSTITVIS / GLORIA VOS MAIOR GESTORVM LAVDE CORONAT / VIRTVTVM MATER FELICIOR SVBOLE (“Here the most virtuous mother of a young man set her ashes, a second light to your merits, Augustine. As a priest, serving the heavenly laws of peace, you taught [or, you teach] the people entrusted to you with your character. A glory greater than the praise of your accomplishments crowns you both – Mother of the Virtues, more fortunate because of her offspring.” Trans. Boin 2010). On this see Wischmeyer 1975; Hattrup 20042, 436–7; Seelbach 2002, 27–8. A date in the seventh century has been argued recently by Boin 2010, 2013. 4 The grave was moved in 1430 from Saint Aurea in Ostia to Rome, to the Church of the Augustinian order. On the history of veneration of Monnica, see Seelbach 2002, 24–30. 5 The translations from Confessions are by Chadwick 1991. Cf. Util. Cred. 2; Acad. 2.5. 6 As well as the older publications, which I do not list here, cf. more recently Coyle 1982; Lamirande 1989; Holte 1994; Zelzer 2005; also Seelbach 2012; Clark 2015. The hagiographical novel by Lucia Tancredi, Io, Monica. Le confessioni della madre di Agostino, Rome 2006, can also be noted. Cf. against this the methodological criticism of Clark 1999, 3–9. See also Bowery 2007, 70, who interprets Monnica as the “feminized image of Christ.” 7 A “Monnica function” is cited by Schindler 1997, 243; Clark 1999, 10; Conybeare 2006. On Monnica’s function as allegory of the “mother church,” cf. Soennecken 1993, 118–19; Schultheiß 2011, 197–8. On the topic of “maternity and reproduction” as allegory and symbol, cf. the chapter by Mairéad McAuley in this volume (ch. 2 above). Cf. also n. 20 below. 8 Thus Børresen 1995; Power 1996. On this discussion, see Schindler 1997; Soennecken 1993, 122–4; Seelbach 2002, 81–92; Seelbach 2012, 72; and Moore 2007, 150–1 who proposes a “middle way.” 9 Thus, the depiction in Conf. 1.4, 1.17, 2.6, 9.8, 9.28; Beata V. 21; Ord. 2.1. 10 Conf. 6.2; Ep. 36.32, 54.3. On this, see Seelbach 2002, 32–5. 11 Julian of Aeclanum evidently recurs to this when he calls her a drunk; Augustine defends her against him (C. Iul. Imp. 1.68, 3.35; cf. 1.6, 7.42, 3.199). 12 Thus, the account in Conf. 2.7, 2.12, 2.65, 3.95–6. 13 On the connection between Monnica and Dido, cf. Bennett 1988; Ziolkowski 1995; Power 1996, 84–6; Cooper 2011, 14–5. 14 Conf. 6.23 and 6.25. On the social practice that lies behind these concerns, see Cooper 2012, 70–5. 15 Cf. n. 7 above. See also Conybeare 2006, who adopts a comparable position with her thesis that both the philosophical arguments given to Monnica and her actions each represent a specifically female perspective and habit of thought. In contrast to Conybeare, however, I do not believe that Monnica represents On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 237

“the irrational Augustine,” but that she embodies a particular argument within the dialogues, which themselves are thoroughly based on rationality; similarly, Clark 1999, 15–20. See on this also Fuhrer 2008, esp. 98–9, and, not very convincingly, Dressler 2016. 16 See on this Forgas 2000, 163. 17 On this see Bloomer 1997. In addition to the conventional roles perpetuated in social interaction, there are the types and characters already shaped in the literary tradition; on this see Fuhrer and Zinsli 2003, 7–8. 18 The locus classicus is Cic. Off. 1.107–25, probably following Panaetius; on this, see Bartsch 2006, 217–24. 19 See Fuhrer and Zinsli 2003. 20 Cf. n. 7 above. By “symbol” I mean a concrete, perceptible content that stands for (and as a sign of) another content that is not immediately perceptible and that is located at an abstract level, for an invisible idea or for a concept. In this I follow the conventional conception of the symbol. Augustine himself works with the concepts of allegory and “figure” (figura) and is familiar with the techniques of both allegoresis and allegorical writing; on this see Fuhrer 2011. Ferrari uses the concept of symbol in his interpretation of the figure of Monnica in the Confessions; see, e.g., Ferrari 1979. 21 Augustine cites the sensus communis in Beata V. 6. Conybeare 2006 presents a comprehensive discussion of the characters and their function. 22 In Contra Academicos, the mother only appears at the point at which she calls the discussion group for a meal (2.13). 23 This is his thirty-second birthday, on 13 November 386. On the symbolism of the celebration, see Weber 2004. On Monnica’s role in De Beata Vita, see Lamirande 1989, 5–9 and Conybeare 2006, 64–92. 24 The best treatment is Harwardt 1999. 25 This is followed by the quotation from Cic. Hort. fr. 59a Grilli. 26 Cf. Conf. 9.8 where, in mentioning her presence in Cassiciacum, her “manly faith” (virilis fides) is praised, in contrast to her “clothing as a woman” (muliebris habitus). On this “violation of the woman-of-worth genre,” see Moore 2007, 149–50 and 156–61, and esp. 158: “Monnica’s approach to faith remains ‘female’ in the sense that it is uneducated, intuitive, and guided by patriarchal church leadership.” 27 Beata V. 35: a quo inducaris in veritatem, qua veritate perfruaris, per quid conectaris summo modo. For the discussion of the extent to which Augustine is here referring to the three persons of the divine trinity, see Doignon 1986, 151–2. 28 Augustine frequently quotes from the hymn, though mostly only line 1 (deus creator omnium); lines 1–8 are quoted in Conf. 9.32 (after the account of Monnica’s death and the grieving that follows), line 32 alone is cited here in Beata V. 35. On this see Fuhrer 2014, 53–4. 238238 Therese Contents Fuhrer

29 Ambrose is also mentioned – again not by name – in the autobiographical passage (the “premières confessions”) in the prooemium (Beata V. 4); Conybeare 2006, 89 with n. 66 suspects a link between the (Milanese) readership, the dedicatee of the dialogue (Theodorus) and the bishop. 30 The emperor is Valentinian II. On this see Fuhrer 2013a, 25–7. 31 Ambrose refers in Ep. 75a[21a = Sermo Contra Auxentium].34 to the singing of hymns, which counted as subversive. On this see Fuhrer 2014, 66–8. 32 After 1 Cor. 13:13; in the early dialogues Augustine also discusses the triad in Solil. 1.13–15. 33 By this Augustine ascribes to the sung form of expression a role as communication medium, similar to the way in which, in the dialogue De Ordine, written at the same time, he interprets singing psalms in the latrine as a mode of communication with God (Ord. 1.22). On this, see Fuhrer 2011, 30–1; Fuhrer 2013b, 57–8. 34 She criticizes only the sceptical Academics, whom she terms “prone to falling sickness” (caducarii, 16): they are thus the opposite pole to what she herself represents, i.e., faith and hence direct access to truth. 35 Conybeare 2006, 74 discusses the passage but without paying any special attention to the concept of the “source” (fons). 36 In this reading, I do not agree with Lionnet 1989, 32, 56, and frequently, who reads the figure of Monnica as a representation of Augustine’s “earthly and bodily connections” and her death as “the culmination of his narrative of a life of sin.” See also Moore 2007, 150. I rather agree with Bowery 2007, who speaks of “Monica as mediator,” although she does not connect this epistemological function with her maternal role. 37 This is well set out by Schäfer 2001. See also Fuhrer 2013b, 54–5. 38 On the scene, see Lamirande 1989, 9–10; Conybeare 2006, 102–9. 39 One thinks firstly of Diotima (Pl. Symp.) and Aspasia (Aeschin. Asp.), in the Roman world of Hortensius’ mother (Cic. Hort. fr. 48 Grilli), Seneca’s mother Helvia (Helv. 17.3) or Porphyry’s wife Marcella (Ad Marc. 3). Conybeare 2006, 105–6 considers also Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and the biblical figures Maria and Martha. 40 On philosophia as amor sapientiae (thus frequently in Cicero and Seneca), see Fuhrer 1997, 114–15. As is said in the passage not quoted here, she is close to the Platonic doctrine of two worlds in that she directs her amor not to the sphere of “this world” but at the “kingdom of God” and thus at the alius mundus; on this, see Fuhrer 1997, 453–5. 41 According to Clark 1999, 18–20, she thus becomes a female Socrates. 42 Acad. 2.1: summi dei virtutem atque sapientiam … dei filium. According to the equation sapientia = dei filius it follows that philosophia is also amor Christi. On the problem of linking the Platonic eros with the amor dei, see Fuhrer 1997, On the Symbolic Function of Augustine’s Monnica 239

65–7. Later, Augustine will equate the Platonic term amor with the Christian caritas (Civ. 14.7). See already Vulg. sap. 8:2: hanc (scil. sapientiam) amavi, et exquisivi a iuventute mea, et quaesivi sponsam mihi adsumere, et amator factus sum formae illius (see also diligere sapientiam, Civ. 6.22–3, 7.10). 43 On the discussion of Monnica’s cultural background as depicted in Augustine’s writings, see Power 1996, 87–9. 44 Her presence is explicitly justified in the prooemium to Book 2, also with recourse to her participation in the discussion in De Beata Vita, where it did not need to be specially justified thanks to her role as mother of the “birthday child” (Ord. 2.1): nobiscum erat etiam mater nostra, cuius ingenium atque in res divinas inflammatum animum cum antea convictu diuturno et diligenti consideratione perspexeram, tum vero in quadam disputatione non parvae rei, quam die natali meo cum convivis habui atque in libellum contuli, tanta mihi mens eius apparuerat, ut nihil aptius verae philosophiae videretur. itaque institueram, cum abundaret otio, agere, ut colloquio nostro non deesset. 45 On this, see Fuhrer 2013b, 55. 46 It is based in turn on the premise that God “loves” the world order He has created; see, e.g., Ord. 1.17, 2.24 and frequently. Caritas is named together with fides and spes in the context of rules for living, observation of which are a precondition for access to the highest knowledge (Ord. 2.25). 47 This biographical review comprises the chapters Conf. 9.17–22; the recollection of the vision at Ostia follows at 9.23–8, the depiction of grieving and burial at 9.29–37. 48 This has been established by Holte 1994 and Clark 1999, 18–20. On the death scene, see also Power 1996, 89–91, and Schultheiß 2011, 262–72, who, however, do not discuss the Platonic styling. 49 See above n. 1 and below n. 52. 50 A comparable motif is found in Roman love elegy: it is the beloved, as the subject treated in the poetry, who first brings forth the poetry and thus has the function of a Muse. 51 Thus, already in Conf. 2.3 and passim. On this see Clark 1999, 14–15; Schultheiß 2011, 213–18. 52 Conf. 9.37: sit ergo in pace cum viro, ante quem nulli et post quem nulli nupta est … et inspira, domine meus, deus meus, inspira servis tuis, fratribus meis, filiis tuis, dominis meis, quibus et corde et voce et litteris servio, ut quotquot haec legerint, meminerint ad altare tuum Monnicae, famulae tuae, cum Patricio, quondam eius coniuge, per quorum carnem introduxisti me in hanc vitam, quemadmodum nescio. (For the following passage, see below, n. 58.) 53 Monnica reminds other wives of this hierarchy – “as though in jest” (tamquam per iocum) – when they complain about the behaviour and blows of their husbands: the women should have known that the tabulae matrimoniales 240240 Therese Contents Fuhrer

were “like tools by which they had been turned into servants” (tamquam instrumenta, quibus ancillae factae essent). On this see Hattrup 20042, 425; Schultheiß 2011, 240–53. 54 Conf. 9.22: etiam virum suum … lucrata est tibi nec in eo iam fideli planxit, quod in nondum fideli toleraverat. See on this the critical comments of Power 1996, 74–6. 55 See Conf. 9.24–5, where the process is described as attingere sapientiam. Hattrup 2011, 426–7, therefore speaks of the “Berührung von Ostia” (“encounter/touch of Ostia”). 56 The similarity between Monnica and Plotinus is highlighted by Clark 1999, 18–20. See also 1 Cor. 12:2–5. (I am grateful to Johannes Singer for drawing my attention to this passage.) 57 Thus in Conf. 7.14, quoting Phil. 2.6–11 (semet ipsum exinanivit formam servi accipiens … humiliavit se factus oboediens usque ad mortem). 58 Conf. 9.37 (the continuation of the quotation in n. 52): meminerint cum affectu pio parentum meorum in hac luce transitoria et fratrum meorum sub te patre in matre catholica et civium meorum in aeterna Hierusalem, cui suspirat peregrinatio populi tui ab exitu usque ad reditum, ut quod a me illa poposcit extremum uberius ei praestetur in multorum orationibus per confessiones quam per orationes meas. Both parents are thus presented as “replaceable,” as Clark 1999, 11–12 observes. On the “spiritual motherhood” in the laudatio funebris, see Schultheiß 2011, 253–5. 59 Augustine makes the state of being in utero (after Ps. 50:7) or inter viscera a frequent theme at the start of the narrative (Conf. 1.12 and 17, and 1.9). 60 Conf. 1.7: exceperunt ergo me consolationes lactis humani, nec mater mea vel nutrices meae sibi ubera implebant, sed tu mihi per eas dabas alimentum infantiae secundum institutionem tuam et divitias usque ad fundum rerum dispositas. 61 See above in this chapter, pp. 229, 232, and 234. 62 In the autobiographical books of the Confessions Augustine explicitly distinguishes each of the age levels he passes through and marks the transitions (1.13: infantia to pueritia; 2.1: to adolescentia; 7.1: to iuventus); on this, see Fuhrer 2012, 272, with n. 35. 63 There is already a reference to the parallels, made explicit at Conf. 9.37, between the biological mother and “mother church” (see above, n. 7) at Conf. 1.17: vidisti, domine, cum adhuc puer essem et quodam die pressu … baptismum Christi tui, dei et domini mei, flagitavi a pietate matris meae et matris omnium nostrum, ecclesiae tuae. 64 Thus at Conf. 9.17: non praeteribo quidquid mihi anima parturit de illa famula tua (see above in this chapter, p. 233–4). 65 I would like to thank Orla Mulholland for translating this article from German. SECTION 4

Mothers and the Death of Their Children

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Virgilian Matres: From Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid alison keith

Virgil presents a rich array of maternal exempla in the Aeneid, from the multiple appearances of Venus, mother of the epic’s hero, whose support of her son drives the action of the narrative almost as much as Juno’s anger; through the brief irruption into the narrative in Aeneid 9 of the unnamed mother of Euryalus, whose terrible grief at her son’s death unmans the Tro- jan fighting forces; to the crowd scenes in which the Trojan matres lament the sack of their city and their Italian counterparts resist Latinus’ compact with the Trojan refugees. This chapter explores the representation of mothers and motherhood in the Aeneid, taking as its starting point the role of the mater dolorosa, with special focus on Venus, Creusa, Andromache, Eury- alus’ mother, and Amata. Analysis of the relationship of individual mothers to lament leads to consideration of the close relationship in the Aeneid between female lament and the collective action of women characterized as matres, including the Trojan women who fire the ships in Book 5 and the Italian mothers who join Amata in Book 7. Throughout, I argue that female agency in the epic is closely associated with maternity and lament.

1. Aeneadum genetrix – mater dolorosa

In her study of the representation of motherhood in Roman literature, Mai- réad McAuley draws attention to the uneasy combination of erotic appeal and sexual coercion Venus brings to bear on her son in Aeneid 1 (especially 1.402–4) and her husband in Aeneid 8 (especially 8.370–506), in her efforts to secure Aeneas’ destiny in Italy.1 Yet in her first appearance in the epic, Venus is, most emphatically, a grieving mother (1.227–33):2 244244 Alison Contents Keith

atque illum [sc. Iouem] talis iactantem pectore curas tristior et lacrimis oculos suffusa nitentis adloquitur Venus: “o qui res hominumque deumque aeternis regis imperiis et fulmine terres, 230 quid meus Aeneas in te committere tantum, quid Troes potuere, quibus tot funera passis cunctus ob Italiam terrarum clauditur orbis?”

(And as Jove turned over such cares in his breast, Venus, her shining eyes filled with tears, addressed him even more sadly: “O you who rule over the affairs of men and gods with eternal commands and terrify them with thunder, what terrible crime has my Aeneas committed against you, what could my Trojans have done, for which they have suffered so many deaths and find the whole globe closed to them because of Italy?”)

Venus’ tearful demeanour and unhappy expression bear witness to her anxious concern for her son’s destiny even before her words confirm her misery at the Trojans’ deaths at sea, as they continue to struggle to reach their appointed homeland. However playfully, even perhaps sensually, Jupiter responds to her (1.254–6: olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum … oscula libauit natae, “smiling at her the father of gods and men poured kisses on his daughter”),3 there is no mistaking the mournful posture of the mater dolorosa, with which Venus makes her entrance into the epic.4 Her first speech is marked as a lament not only by her tears and dolorous posture but also by its content and form, for it includes rhetorical questions and reproaches (1.234–53), expressions of contrast between her end- less mourning over the fall of Troy and Aeneas’ continuing travails in the shadow of death, and her wish for a better outcome for her son, all of which are hallmarks of the genre of lament.5 In the context of her continuing grief, moreover, the goddess’s imperial ambitions for her son and his people also emerge (1.250–3):

“nos, tua progenies, caeli quibus adnuis arcem, 250 nauibus (infandum!) amissis unius ob iram prodimur atque Italis longe disiungimur oris. hic pietatis honos? sic nos in sceptra reponis?”

(“We, your offspring, to whom you promise the citadel of heaven, are betrayed on account of one god’s anger, our ships lost (unspeakable!), and we are kept far from Italy’s shores. Is this dutiful devotion’s due? Is it thus that you restore us to rule?”) Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 245

Addressing Jupiter as the ruler of the cosmos (cf. 1.229–30), in the lexicon of imperial rule, she forthrightly specifies Italy and the recovery of Trojan power as the goal of Aeneas’ journey. Venus’ speech links her ongoing grief to a renewed demand for Trojan resurgence in Italy6 and invites comparison with what Helene Foley has characterized as an “ethics of vendetta” that informs such laments as Electra’s in Sophocles’ tragedy of the same name.7 Indeed, Venus’ demand that Jupiter confirm her son’s destiny may be interpreted as just as important an impetus for the narrative action of the Aeneid as Juno’s continued harassment of the hero (in a stance also recognizably an ethics of vendetta). In a later appearance, to Neptune rather than Jupiter, Venus reprises the twin themes of lament and imperialism that mark her entrance into the poem. The goddess beseeches the ruler of the maritime realm to keep the few remaining Trojans safe on the final leg of their sea voyage to Italy (5.796–7): “quod superest, oro, liceat dare tuta per undas / uela tibi, liceat Laurentem attingere Thybrim.” (“As for what remains, I beg you, let it be granted that they sail safely over the waves and reach the Laurentine Tiber.”) Again the goddess draws on the discourse of imperial power, invoking the divine ruler of the sea to aid her mortal son, whose destiny is to rule Italy.8 Here, moreover, the poet characterizes Venus’ speech as lament (5.779–80): At Venus interea Neptunum exercita curis / adloquitur talisque effundit pectore questus. (“Meanwhile Venus, provoked by cares, addressed Neptune and poured forth from her breast such laments.”) Her plaints (questus, 5.780) rehearse the Trojans’ trials and tribulations at sea in an account that briefly recapitulates the action of the epic up to this point (5.780–98) and characterizes her as a mater dolorosa. Neptune immediately recognizes the maternal anxiety that animates the goddess’s appeal (5.803–4, 812): nec minor in terris, Xanthum Simoentaque testor, / Aeneae mihi cura tui … / nunc quoque mens eadem perstat mihi; pelle timores. (“I call upon Xanthus and Simois to bear witness that my concern for your Aeneas was no less than yours on land … Now too, I remain of the same mind; cast out all fear.”) Indeed, the sea god’s recollection of his long-ago support of Aeneas at Troy (in the Iliad) underwrites his renewed commitment (in Virgil’s Aeneid) to the hero, whose safety he correctly identifies as the focus of Venus’ maternal fears (timores, 5.812), and his assurance of continuing partisanship at once relieves the goddess of her cares (5.816–17): his ubi laeta deae permul- sit pectora dictis / iungit equos auro genitor. (“When he soothed the goddess’s breast, and made her happy with these words, father Neptune joined his horses with gold.”) The unusual application here of the epithet genitor (5.817) to Neptune also seems calculated to respond to the maternal anxiety that animates Venus’ appeal,9 for it recalls her similar interaction with 246246 Alison Contents Keith

Jupiter in her first appearance in the epic (1.237): quae te, genitor, sententia uertit? (“What decision has changed your mind, father?”) Venus’ epiphany to Aeneas in the opening book of the epic, however, has been felt to have no such clear-cut motivation of maternal solicitude as the scenes with her father and uncle. For after her intercession with her father Jupiter, the latter sends Mercury down to Dido’s kingdom to ensure a friendly reception for the shipwrecked Trojans in Carthage (1.297–304); it is therefore not at all apparent why Venus should then present herself to her son in the guise of a Spartan huntress (1.314–20, 336–7) looking for her huntress-companions (1.321–4).10 Her son’s questions about the location of his shipwreck, however, give her the opportunity to impart crucial information about the origins of the kingdom and its queen, in a helpful orientation to both the local geography (1.338–9) and the ruler’s genealogy (1.340–2). But most readers have been as confused as her son, not only by her disguise but also by her failure to acknowledge their relationship (1.403–10):

Dixit et auertens rosea ceruice refulsit, ambrosiaeque comae diuinum uertice odorem spirauere; pedes uestis defluxit ad imos, et uera incessu patuit dea. ille ubi matrem 405 agnouit tali fugientem est uoce secutus: “quid natum totiens, crudelis tu quoque, falsis ludis imaginibus? cur dextrae iungere dextram non datur ac ueras audire et reddere uoces?” talibus incusat gressumque ad moenia tendit. 410

(She spoke and, turning away, her rosy neck gleamed back at him and her hair breathed out the divine scent of ambrosia from her head; her robe flowed down to the tips of her toes and she was revealed as a true goddess from her step. When he recognized his mother in flight, he pursued her with such words: “Why so often – you are cruel too – do you mock your son with false images? Why isn’t it allowed to join right hand to right hand, to hear and exchange our true voices?” With such complaints he made his way towards the walls of Carthage.)

William Gladhill, among others, has well discussed the disturbing “inter cestual” dynamics that underlie the scene of Venus’ parting from her son, in which Virgil reworks the primal scene of Aphrodite’s seduction of Aeneas’ father Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.11 In his description of the goddess’s departure, Virgil emphatically underlines her carnal sensuality not only through the application of the adjective rosea to her shoul- ders (ceruice, 1.401), which alludes to blushing and the red-white palette Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 247 of sensual eroticism conventional in classical literature,12 but also through reference to the ambrosial scent of her divine person (1.402–3). Mairéad McAuley notes that Venus’ falsae imagines “screen” Aeneas to a certain extent from the intertextual taint of incest, even if the attentive reader can trace the goddess’s stratagems back to the dangerous sexuality of the Homeric Aphrodite.13 In fact, neither the goddess nor her son acknowledge the potential eroticism of their encounter: Aeneas, after all, immediately recognizes the disguised huntress as a goddess (1.327–33), if not his mother, and Venus continues to focus on the provision of useful information to her son, in her interpretation of the sight of twelve swans flying together as an omen of his recovery of more ships after the storm at sea (1.387–401). In this regard, Venus can be seen to (continue to) enact the very role ascribed to her by Aeneas in his explanation for his arrival in Libya (1.382): matre dea monstrante uiam data fata secutus (“with my goddess-mother showing the way, I followed my destiny”). The scene concludes with the goddess enveloping her son in an obscuring mist in order to shield him from discovery in potentially hostile territory (1.411–14):

at Venus obscuro gradientis aëre saepsit, et multo nebulae circum dea fudit amictu, cernere ne quis eos neu quis contingere posset moliriue moram aut ueniendi poscere causas.

(But Venus hedged them about as they went in an obscuring mist, and the goddess poured round them a great cloak of cloud, lest anyone be able to see them or happen upon them, delay them or demand the reason for their arrival.)

Venus’ anxiety for her son’s safety is underlined in the proliferation of negative purpose clauses Virgil offers over two lines (1.413–14). Her concealment of her son in a cloud derives from the model of the goddess Athena’s care for her protégé Odysseus by enveloping him in an obscuring mist as he walks through the city of the potentially hostile Phaeacians (Od. 6.39–42).14 But Virgil’s revision of the Homeric Athena’s concern for Odysseus into Venus’ maternal solicitude for her son recasts the positive Greek stereotype of the goddess’s support of an epic hero in the mould of the positive Roman stereotype of a mother’s political support of her adult son.15 By concluding Aeneas’ encounter with his disguised mother with a description of Venus’ Athena-esque concern for the safety of her son in foreign terrain, Virgil defuses the sexual tensions raised by the scene’s intertextual relationship with the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and aligns Venus’ character with 248248 Alison Contents Keith the praiseworthy Roman stereotype of maternal devotion, even as he also remodels Venus’ imperial ambitions for her son within the ambit of the objectives of Thetis, another mater dolorosa, who drives the action of the Iliad to secure maximum glory for her son Achilles.16 Even in Aeneid 8, moreover, Venus’ manipulation of her infatuated spouse, Vulcan, is explicitly motivated by maternal anxiety for her son’s safety (8.370–2):17 At Venus haud animo nequiquam exterrita mater / Lau- rentumque minis et duro mota tumultu / Volcanum adloquitur. (“But his mother Venus, by no means vainly terrified in her mind, was moved by the threats of the Laurentines and the rough uprising, and she addressed Vulcan.”) Of course there is no denying her self-conscious recourse to the allure of her sexual appeal as she charms her husband into doing what she wants: she seeks him specifically in their marriage chamber, a golden bower, and there breathes love into her request (8.373), calling him carissime coniunx (8.377), flattering him as too important to concern himself with merely personal cares during the Trojan War (8.377–80), and comparing her supplication to those of Thetis and Aurora (8.383–4), before enfolding him in the tender embrace (8.387–8) that reduces him to a besotted lover (8.389–90). Indeed, the Virgilian Venus archly refers to her literary descent from the Iliadic Thetis, whose supplication of Hephaestus for arms for Achilles in Iliad 18 is the Homeric model for her actions here, in her self-characterization as a mater dolorosa (8.383–4): te filia Nerei, / te potuit lacrimis Tithonia flectere coniunx. (“Nereus’ daughter was able to bend you by her tears, Tithonus’ wife too.”)18 But Virgil also draws attention here to Venus’ deployment of her arsenal of charms in his comment on the pleasure she takes in her tricks (8.393): sensit laeta dolis et formae conscia coniunx. (“His wife, happy with her ploys and conscious of her beauty, perceived [her effect on him].”) Later in the book, however, when she bestows Vulcan’s arms on her son, she does so without any hint of the eroticism that distinguished her first encounter with him in Aeneid 1, or, indeed, with her husband earlier in the book (8.608–16):19

At Venus aetherios inter dea candida nimbos dona ferens aderat; natumque in ualle reducta ut procul egelido secretum flumine uidit, 610 talibus adfata est dictis seque obtulit ultro: “en perfecta mei promissa coniugis arte munera. ne mox aut Laurentis, nate, superbos aut acrem dubites in proelia poscere Turnum.” dixit, et amplexus nati Cytherea petiuit, 615s arma sub aduersa posuit radiantia quercu. Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 249

(But the goddess Venus appeared, amid the clouds in the sky, bringing the shining gifts; when she saw her son in a remote valley, hidden far away by a cold river, she addressed him with these words and appeared to him of her own accord: “Look at the gifts I promised you, wrought with my husband’s artistry. Do not hesitate, son, soon to demand the arrogant Laurentines or fierce Turnus in battle.” So saying Cytherea sought her son’s embrace, and left the gleaming arms beneath an oak opposite.)

For once, Venus openly greets her son and interacts with him “naturally” (to our eyes). Nor does she delay while he admires the weapons, despite the potential for ambiguity in the amplexus (8.615) she seeks from her son. If anything, their interaction suggests rather the transference of any desire he might have felt for Venus from his mother to the weapons she brings and the war they allow him to win (8.617–21):

ille deae donis et tanto laetus honore expleri nequit atque oculos per singula uoluit, miraturque interque manus et bracchia uersat terribilem cristis galeam flammasque uomentem, 620 fatiferumque ensem, loricam ex aere rigentem.

(Happy, he cannot be sated with the goddess’s gifts and such great distinction; his eyes roam over their details: he admires the weapons and turns them over in his hands and arms – the helmet spewing flames, terrifying with its crest; the death- dealing sword; the breastplate stiff with bronze.)

Aeneas focuses his attention entirely on the marvellous weapons of Vulcan’s manufacture and, as befits the “greater” narrative Virgil unfolds in the second half of his epic (7.44–5), the dangerous sexual allure of Venus evanesces in the face of the powerful longing for war that the weapons elicit in her son. It is worth noting, moreover, that in all four of these episodes Venus takes the lead in her interactions with her male kin in order to secure Aeneas’ safety and pre-empt an occasion for maternal lament. Her intervention with her other son, Cupid, in Aeneid 1, is similarly motivated by maternal concern for the epic’s hero (1.657–62):20

At Cytherea nouas artis, noua pectore uersat consilia, ut faciem mutatus et ora Cupido pro dulci Ascanio ueniat, donisque furentem incendat reginam atque ossibus implicet ignem. 660 quippe domum timet ambiguam Tyriosque bilinguis; urit atrox Iuno et sub noctem cura recursat. 250250 Alison Contents Keith

(But Venus considers new wiles and new stratagems in her breast, to alter Cupid’s face and demeanour and have him attend Dido’s banquet in place of sweet Ascanius, thereby to enflame the passionate queen with gifts and implant the fire of love in her bones. Indeed, she feared the unsettled house and treacherous Tyrian tongues; Juno’s savagery chafes her and concern recurs by night.)

Mistrusting Tyrian hospitality, Venus enlists Cupid’s aid through flattery (1.664–6) and gratitude for his continuing grief over Aeneas’ labours (1.667–9): frater ut Aeneas pelago tuus omnia circum / litora iactetur odiis Iunonis acerbae, / nota tibi, et nostro doluisti saepe dolore. (“How your brother Aeneas is tossed over the sea around all the coasts because of Juno’s bitter anger is well known to you, and you have often grieved for our grief.”) The goddess represents her maternal solicitude as an ongoing grief, and she movingly articulates her anxiety concerning Aeneas’ safety in Carthage (1.670–2): nunc Phoenissa tenet Dido blandisque moratur / uocibus, et uereor quo se Iunonia uertant / hospitia. (“Now Tyrian Dido holds him, delaying him with blandishments, and I fear where Juno’s Carthaginian hospitality leads.”) The fear and grief that inspire her approach to Cupid are likewise the motives that cause her to intervene with Jupiter and Aeneas in Aeneid 1, Neptune in Aeneid 5, and Vulcan in Aeneid 8. Venus’ final appearances in the epic also come under the sign of the mater dolorosa. At the Council of the Gods in Aeneid 10, she vies in direct rhetorical combat with Juno and once again appeals to the father of gods and men for the safety of her son and his descendants (10.17–19, 24–5, 43–52):21

“o pater, o hominum rerumque aeterna potestas (namque aliud quid sit quod iam implorare queamus?), cernis ut insultent Rutuli … Aeneas ignarus abest. numquamne leuari obsidione sines? … si nulla est regio Teucris quam det tua coniunx dura, per euersae, genitor, fumantia Troiae excidia obtestor: liceat dimittere ab armis 45 incolumem Ascanium, liceat superesse nepotem. Aeneas sane ignotis iactetur in undis et quacumque uiam dederit Fortuna sequatur: hunc tegere et dirae ualeam subducere pugnae. est Amathus, est celsa mihi Paphus atque Cythera 50 Idaliaeque domus: positis inglorius armis exigat hic aeuum.” Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 251

(“O father, everlasting power of men and states (for what else is there that I could now supplicate?), do you see how the Rutulians exult over the Trojans? … Aeneas is absent, unaware. Will you never permit him to be released from a siege? … If there is no place that your hard wife may grant to the Trojans, father, I call to witness the smoking ruins of overthrown Troy: let it be permitted to send Ascanius away safe from arms, let it be permitted for my grandson to survive. Let Aeneas be tossed on unknown waves and pursue whatever path Fortuna has granted him: let me prevail to conceal his son and lead him out of dread battle. I have Amathus, I have lofty Paphus and Cythera, and my Idalian homes: let him pass his life without glory here, having laid down his weapons.”)

Stephen Harrison observes that “Venus stresses the claim of a daughter” in her appeal to Jupiter here, but it is worth noting that this posture admits a correlative emphasis on the goddess’s maternal relationship with Aeneas.22 She thinks first of Aeneas, absent from Latium (10.25), trying to secure allies in Etruria (10.48–9), before passing from her son to his line, and its survival through his son Ascanius (10.46–7, 50–3), even at the cost of his son’s loss of military glory (positis inglorius armis, 10.52) and Troy’s Italian destiny (10.51–3). Venus’ arguments throughout are designed to evoke a picture of maternal concern and move in genealogical succession from her father Jupiter to her son Aeneas and grandson Ascanius. As in the earlier passages we have considered, Venus fashions herself first and foremost a mother, concerned to save her son and his line from death, beset as he is by Juno’s hostility. Her two appearances in Aeneid 12 are also consistent with the posture of mater dolorosa. She intervenes first to succour Aeneas, after an arrow wounds him during the breakdown of the truce between Trojans and Italians in Aeneid 12 (411–19):23

Hic Venus indigno nati concussa dolore dictamnum genetrix Cretaea carpit ab Ida, puberibus caulem foliis et flore comantem purpureo; non illa feris incognita capris gramina, cum tergo uolucres haesere sagittae. 415 hoc Venus obscuro faciem circumdata nimbo detulit, hoc fusum labris splendentibus amnem inficit occulte medicans, spargitque salubris ambrosiae sucos et odoriferam panaceam.

(At this point Venus, with a mother’s concern, shaken by Aeneas’ unwarranted pain, plucked dittany from Cretan Mt Ida, with its stalk of downy leaves and its striking 252252 Alison Contents Keith purple flower. The herb is not unknown to wild goats, when flying arrows stick in their back. This remedy Venus brought down to her son, her face veiled in dim mist, and drenching it in river water from a bright urn, she charmed it secretly with healing power, and sprinkled it with the remedy of ambrosial nectar and scented panacea.)

Virgil emphasizes Venus’ maternity in the otiose juxtaposition nati … genetrix (12.411–12),24 as well as her grief at Aeneas’ continuing travails. Here, however, she acts herself to save her son from his predicament rather than through a male relative, and she draws once more on the use of mist for concealment, as gods do regularly on the battlefield.25 Moreover, her use of the special Cretan herb dittany, infused with divine healing powers, and of ambrosial nectar, with its association of immortality, anticipates Aeneas’ traditional reward of apotheosis at her intercession.26 She offers similarly material maternal assistance in her last appearance in the epic, when Aeneas’ spear sticks fast in the tough old root of a wild olive tree (12.781–90):27

namque diu luctans lentoque in stirpe moratus uiribus haud ullis ualuit discludere morsus roboris Aeneas. dum nititur acer et instat, rursus in aurigae faciem mutata Metisci procurrit fratrique ensem dea Daunia reddit. 785 quod Venus audaci nymphae indignata licere accessit telumque alta ab radice reuellit. olli sublimes armis animisque refecti, hic gladio fidens, hic acer et arduus hasta. adsistunt contra certamine Martis anheli. 790

(For though he long wrestled and lingered over the stubborn stem, by no strength could Aeneas unlock the oak’s grip. While he struggled and strained fiercely, the Dau- nian goddess, Juturna, changing once again into the form of the charioteer Metiscus, ran forward and restored the sword to her brother. But Venus, enraged that such licence was granted the bold nymph, drew near and plucked Aeneas’ weapon from the deep root. At full height, in arms and heart renewed, one trusting to his sword, the other fiercely towering with his spear, both breathless, they stood against one another in the contest of war.)

Venus’ aid to her son mirrors that of Juturna to her brother Turnus, and emblematizes the familial loyalties that motivate both goddesses’ presence on the battlefield. Venus’ agency throughout the poem is thus repeatedly associated with her maternal concern for her son, and often articulated in Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 253 a posture of proleptic mourning for him,28 a posture that proves programmatic for the mortal matres of the poem. Her maternal grief and solicitude are also closely allied with her ambition to see Aeneas fulfil his imperial destiny. In this regard too, Venus prefigures the partisan activities in which the poem’s human mothers engage on behalf of their offspring.

2. Matres Troianae dolorosae: Creusa and Andromache

The first human mothers whom we meet in the Aeneid are the Trojan women wandering in Priam’s halls, presumably his womenfolk, whom Aeneas sees lamenting the fall of Troy as he peers into the king’s palace (Aen. 2.486–90):29

at domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu miscetur, penitusque cauae plangoribus aedes femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor. tum pauidae tectis matres ingentibus errant amplexaeque tenent postis atque oscula figunt. 490

(But inside the house there is lament and wretched upheaval, and the hollow house rings with women’s cries within; their clamour strikes the golden stars. Then the frightened mothers wander their native halls, embrace the doorposts and cling to them, fixing them with kisses.)

Servius explicitly attributes this scene of misery and lament to the model of Ennius, in his narrative of the sack of Alba in the Annales (ad Aen. 2.486 at domus interior: de albano excidio translatus est locus; “the passage has been taken from the destruction of Alba”).30 It would seem, therefore, that even in scenes featuring the intensity of epic warfare – by definition masculine – Virgil, like Ennius and Homer before him,31 effects a gendered association between maternity and lament. Whatever Ennius’ practice (irrecoverable given the paltry remains of the Annales), moreover, Virgil sustains this association throughout the Aeneid, in which lament is the defining feature not only of the immortal Venus, but also of mortal mothers. Indeed, the collocation he here employs, femineis ululant (“[the house] rings with women’s [cries],” 2.487–8), heralds his repeated use of the phrase femineo ululatu (4.667, of Dido’s maidservants; 9.477, of Euryalus’ mother) and his regular ascription to female characters of the action of wailing, whether verbal, from ululo, “wail” (ulularunt … Nymphae 4.168, of the cries of the nymphs at the wedding of Dido and Aeneas in the cave; ululata per urbes 4.609, of Hecate’s worshippers howling her name), or substantival, from 254254 Alison Contents Keith ululatus, “howling” (tremulis ululatibus, 7.395, of Amata and the Latin women who have followed her madness).32 Throughout the Aeneid, mortal mothers’ uncontrollable grief both propels and undermines a Julian narrative of Roman imperial expansion that Venus also promotes in her interactions with Jupiter and Neptune. This nexus of maternal loss and lament is visible, even in reversal, in the Creusa episode at the end of Aeneid 2, where she constitutes a paradigm of maternal excellence.33 The first we hear of her is at Aeneas’ realization, on witnessing the death of Priam, that by participating in the fighting for Troy he has left his wife and son defenceless (2.559–63):34

At me tum primum saeuus circumstetit horror. obstipui; subiit cari genitoris imago, 560 ut regem aequaeuum crudeli uulnere uidi uitam exhalantem, subiit deserta Creusa et direpta domus et parui casus Iuli.

(But then first an awful horror encompassed me. I stood aghast; there rose before my eyes the image of my dear father, as I saw the king, equal to him in age, gasping out his life from the cruel wound; there rose Creusa, abandoned, the pillaged house, and the fate of small Iulus.)

The death of Priam leads Aeneas to think, in the first instance, of his father Anchises, as is consonant with Virgil’s characterization of his hero’s piety as father-directed throughout the first half of the Aeneid. But Aeneas’ thoughts turn swiftly to his wife, his household, and the future of his household, as embodied in his son Iulus. Venus then appears to her son,35 to reinforce his haste to return home, reminding him of his family ties in the same order of importance, Anchises, Creusa, and Iulus (2.596–8):36 non prius aspicies, ubi fessum aetate parentem / liqueris Anchisen, superet coniunxne Creusa, / Ascaniusque puer? (“Will you not first look where you have left your father Anchises, consumed with age, or whether your wife Creusa and boy Asca- nius survive?”) Aeneas accordingly hurries home, only to find his father determined to kill himself rather than abandon Troy, and his household in an uproar of grief at their impending ruin (2.650–3). The epic hero’s response to this calamity is to succumb once again to the imperative to fight, amid reproaches to his own mother, Venus, for sending him home from the fighting to witness the deaths of his mortal family members (2.664–7):37

hoc erat, alma parens, quod me per tela, per ignis eripis, ut mediis hostem in penetralibus utque 665 Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 255

Ascanium patremque meum iuxtaque Creusam alterum in alterius mactatos sanguine cernam?

(Was it for this, loving mother, that you snatched me from the weapons, from the flames? To see the foe deep within my house, and to see Ascanius and my father sacrificed, the one in the blood of the other, and Creusa nearby?)

Strikingly absent from all these passages in which Creusa appears is the application to her of the designation mater (or, for that matter, the syn- onymous parens, applied here to Venus, 2.664), despite Aeneas’ repeated movement of thought from mother to son. Nonetheless, Creusa herself is represented as consumed by a mother’s anxieties in her response to her husband’s determination to abandon his household for the battle once again (2.673–9):38

ecce autem complexa pedes in limine coniunx haerebat, paruumque patri tendebat Iulum: “si periturus abis, et nos rape in omnia tecum; 675 sin aliquam expertus sumptis spem ponis in armis, hanc primum tutare domum. cui paruus Iulus, cui pater et coniunx quondam tua dicta relinquor?” Talia uociferans gemitu tectum omne replebat.

(But look, my wife embraced my feet and clung to me on the threshold, holding out little Iulus to his father: “if you are going off, determined to die, take us with you too into all hazards; but if in your experience you place hope in taking up arms, save this house first. To whom is little Iulus left, to whom is your father left and I, once called your wife?” So saying she filled the whole house with lament.)

Both her posture and request assume the lineaments of personal lament in this passage: Creusa’s prone posture recalls that of mourning women stooped over their kinsmen’s corpses, while her final words rehearse the rhetorical questions typical of the female survivor who has lost her male protector.39 Aeneas’ account of the battle for Troy thus highlights the maternal propen- sity for lament, both in the case of Creusa here and in his report, earlier in the book, of the Trojan women’s inchoate lament at the altars (2.489–90, quoted above). Yet before Creusa’s lament can overwhelm the household and halt the forward momentum of Aeneas’ narrative of (and his household’s escape from) the sack of Troy, Iulus’ hair bursts into flames (Aen. 2.680–4), miraculously without harming him. Recognizing the miracle as a divine por- tent, Anchises finally agrees to join the rest of the household in flight. 256256 Alison Contents Keith

The safety of Aeneas’ household is thereby secured, though not without loss. For Creusa herself fails to appear at the meeting point outside the city, provoking Aeneas’ grief-crazed return to the captured city. Seeing Troy’s wealth, temples, and even his own house in the possession of the Greek victors, and desperate to find his wife, Aeneas yields to inarticulate grief (Aen. 2.768–70):40 ausus quin etiam uoces iactare per umbram / impleui clamore uias, maestusque Creusam / nequiquam ingeminans iterumque iterumque uocaui. (“Why, I dared to hurl my cries through the shadows; I filled up the streets with shouts, and I called Creusa sadly, redoubling my cries again and again, in vain.”) Elsewhere a warrior and tactician, Aeneas is here reduced by Creusa’s loss to incoherent lament, as he shouts for her through the sacked city’s streets. In response to his cries, Creusa’s ghost appears to him and deliv- ers the verdict of the gods that keeps her in Troy and sends him into exile to secure a new Trojan homeland in Italy (2.776–89). But she also chastises her distraught husband for succumbing to grief and lament, and commends to him, in her final words, the care of their son Ascanius (2.776–9, 783–9):41

quid tantum insano iuuat indulgere dolori, o dulcis coniunx? non haec sine numine diuum eueniunt; nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam fas, aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi. … illic res laetae regnumque et regia coniunx parta tibi; lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae. non ego Myrmidonum sedes Dolopumue superbas 785 aspiciam aut Grais seruitum matribus ibo, Dardanis et diuae Veneris nurus; se me magna deum genetrix his detinet oris. iamque uale et nati serua communis amorem.

(What does it help to indulge such mad grief, my sweet husband? These events do not come out without the will of the gods; it is not right for you to carry your companion Creusa from here, nor does the ruler of high Olympus permit it … There you will acquire happy circumstances, a kingdom and royal wife; banish your tears for beloved Creusa. I shall not see the proud halls of Myrmidons or Dolopes, or go in service to Greek mothers, a Trojan woman and daughter-in-law of divine Venus; but the great mother of the gods holds me on these shores. And now farewell; preserve your love of our common son.)

In the interaction between Creusa and Aeneas at the end of Aeneid 2 we can see the initial transmutation of the hero’s inarticulate grief into epic Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 257 narrative – his co-option of female lament42 – at the urging of his wife, who not only embraces the imperial project in which she will not participate, but even imposes it on her apparently reluctant husband.43 Her last words, however, emphasize the contribution of her maternity to the realization of the Roman epic plot. The next human mother whom Aeneas introduces in his narrative is Andromache, though, like Creusa, he never calls her mater.44 Nonetheless, she conforms to the pattern we have traced, in which Virgil represents matres in attitudes of mourning. Thus, in the second movement of Aeneas’ epic narration at Dido’s court, in Book 3, the hero introduces another grief-stricken Trojan wife and mother, Andromache, as the very incarnation of lament (3.312–13): lacrimasque effudit et omnem / impleuit clamore locum (“she poured forth her tears and filled the whole place with lament”). Androm- ache’s lament is, in the first instance, for her dead husband Hector, at whose cenotaph Aeneas encounters her before the city of Buthrotum (3.300–5):45

progredior portu classis et litora linquens, 300 sollemnis cum forte dapes et tristia dona ante urbem in luco falsi Simoentis ad undam libabat cineri Andromache manisque uocabat Hectoreum ad tumulum, uiridi quem caespite inanem et geminas, causam lacrimis, sacrauerat aras. 305

(I walked up from the harbour, leaving the fleet and shore, when by chance before the city in a grove at the waters of a false Simois, Andromache was offering a solemn meal and mournful gifts to ashes and summoning the ghost to Hector’s tomb – an empty mound of green sod that she had consecrated with twin altars, the reason for her tears.)

Although Andromache mourns Hector here, Virgil poignantly evokes her continuing grief for her dead son Astyanax at the end of the episode, on the Trojans’ departure from Buthrotum, in her presentation of gifts to Ascanius in memory of Astyanax (3.482–91):46

nec minus Andromache digressu maesta supremo fert picturatas auri subtemine uestis et Phrygiam Ascanio chlamydem (nec cedit honore) textilibusque onerat donis, ac talia fatur: 485 accipe et haec, manuum tibi quae monimenta mearum sint, puer, et longum Andromachae testentur amorem, coniugis Hectoreae. cape dona extrema tuorum, 258258 Alison Contents Keith

o mihi sola mei super Astyanactis imago. sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat; 490 et nunc aequali tecum pubesceret aeuo.

(No less sad at our last parting, Andromache brings robes figured with weaving of gold and a Phrygian cloak for Ascanius (nor does she fail in courtesy), and she loads him with woven gifts, and addressed him with such words: “Receive these too, which are the last memorials of my hands for you, lad, and bear witness to the long love of Andromache, Hector’s wife. Take these final gifts of your kin, o sole surviving image of my Astyanax. Thus he held his eyes, his hands, his face; and now he would be growing up, of an age equal to you.”)

Virgil strongly contrasts Andromache’s retrograde focus on the past – represented by the dead Hector and Astyanax – with the forward narrative impetus of Aeneas (and Creusa) and the proto-Roman project.47 Although Virgil’s emphasis throughout Aeneas’ encounter with Andromache is on her personal mourning for her dead husband and son, the onomastic renewal of the Troad in the landscape of Buthrotum confirms her commitment to past, rather than future, Trojan projects. In this regard, Andromache anticipates the attitude of even the Trojan mothers who join Aeneas.

3. Matres dolorosae ac scelerosae

In Aeneid 5, for example, Andromache’s personal lament is echoed and amplified by the Trojan women who undertake communal mourning for Anchises on their return to Sicily (5.613–15):48 at procul in sola secretae Troades acta / amissum Anchisen flebant cunctaeque profundum / pontum aspectabant flentes. (“But removed far away, on the lonely promontory, the Trojan women wept for dead Anchises and weeping all looked out over the deep sea.”) Collectively identified as Troades here, the Trojan women assume the role of mourners borne by their namesakes in the eponymous Euripidean tragedy,49 as Virgil underlines in the emphatic verbal repetition flebant … flentes (5.614–15). Georgia Nugent has well discussed the gendered contrast between the Trojan men’s festive public funeral games for Anchises, which are simultaneously underway elsewhere on the Sicil- ian shore (5.45–603), and the Trojan women’s unhappy private lament for him here.50 But the Trojan women collectively indulge in more than merely personal grief on this occasion, for their focus moves swiftly from Anchises to their desire for a city (urbem orant, 5.617). It is thus in communal lament for their lost city that Juno’s henchman Iris, disguised as the Trojan mother Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 259

“Beroe,” leads “the Dardanian mothers” when she articulates their collective grief on the Sicilian strand (5.622–9):51

ac sic Dardanidum mediam se matribus infert: “o miserae, quas non manus.” inquit, “Achaica bello traxerit ad letum patriae sub moenibus! o gens infelix, cui te exitio Fortuna reseruat? 625 septima post Troiae excidium iam uertitur aestas, cum freta, cum terras omnis, tot inhospita saxa sideraque emensae ferimur, dum per mare magnum Italiam sequimur fugientem et uoluimur undis.”

(And thus she inserts herself into the midst of the Dardanian mothers: “O wretched women,” she said, “whom the Achaean band could not drag to death in war beneath the fatherland’s walls! O unhappy people, for what end does Fortune preserve you? Already the seventh summer after the fall of Troy rolls by, and having measured out all the straits and lands, so many unwelcoming rocks and stars, we are carried over the great sea while we follow fleeing Italy and are tossed upon the waves.”)

Anchises goes unmentioned in the speech of “Beroe,” who focuses the Tro- jan women’s lament on the passage of time since the fall of Troy and the hazards of their travels at sea instead. The close connection between the city the Dardan mothers desire and their lost male kin emerges particularly clearly in the proposal of “Beroe” that the Trojans remain where they are in Sicily and re-establish “Troy” there (5.630–4):

hic Erycis fines fraterni atque hospes Acestes; 630 quis prohibit muros iacere et dare ciuibus urbem? o patria et rapti nequiquam ex hoste Penates, nullane iam Troiae dicentur moenia? nusquam Hectoreos amnis, Xanthum et Simoenta, uidebo?

(Here is the territory of fraternal Eryx and our host Acestes; who prevents us from laying walls and giving our citizens a city? O fatherland, Penates rescued in vain from the enemy, will there now be no walls named for Troy? Will I nowhere see Hector’s rivers, Xanthus and Simois?)

Like Andromache in her retrograde fixation on the past in Aeneid 3, the Trojan women in Aeneid 5 look for nothing beyond the renaissance of Troy. By inciting the Dardan mothers to re-establish “Troy” on Sicily, moreover, “Beroe” implies the renewal of the city at the very moment that her lament 260260 Alison Contents Keith acknowledges the seventh anniversary of their city’s fall. Virgil thereby intimates that the Trojan women offer annual lament for their fallen city, as he simultaneously discredits their project of refounding Troy with their seditious action of firing the ships. Incited by the false “Beroe,” who plays upon their susceptibility to grief and inability to contain their emotionality, the Trojan women sabotage the proto-Roman project. Thus when Aeneas establishes the Sicilian city, Virgil links maternity and lament once again in the Trojan mothers’ regressive desire for a renascent Troy (5.750, 755–7):52 transcribunt urbi matres … / interea Aeneas urbem designat aratro / sorti- turque domos; hoc Ilium et haec loca Troiam / esse iubet. (“They enroll the matrons for the city … Meanwhile Aeneas marks out the city with a plough and allots homes: he bids this be Ilion and these places Troy.”) Venus has the last word in the book on the Trojan women’s plot, and she calls it crimi- nal (5.793–5):53 per scelus ecce etiam Troianis matribus actis / exussit foede puppis et classe subegit / amissa socios ignotae linquere terrae. (“Look, by driving the Trojan mothers to crime [Juno] has foully burned up the ships and, with the fleet lost, forced them to abandon their allies to an unknown land.”) This pattern of mortal maternal lament, focused seditiously on the past and resistant to the glorious Roman future, continues in the second half of the Aeneid. In Book 7, the Italian queen Amata, fired with passion by Allecto, objects “in the usual way of mothers” to her husband’s betrothal of their daughter Lavinia to Aeneas (7.357–62):54

mollius et solito matrum de more locuta est, multa super natae lacrimans Phrygiisque hymenaeis: “exsulibusne datur ducenda Lauinia Teucris, o genitor, nec te miseret nataeque tuique? 360 nec matris miseret, quam primo Aquilone relinquet perfidus alta petens abducta uirgine praedo?”

(More gently she spoke and in the usual manner of mothers, lamenting much over her daughter’s wedding with the Phrygian: “Is Lavinia to be given in marriage to a Trojan exile, father, and do you pity neither yourself nor your daughter? Do you not pity her mother, whom the faithless pirate will abandon with the first North Wind, seeking the deep after ravishing the maiden?”)

She is particularly incensed because the newly arranged betrothal to Aeneas breaches a prior compact with her nephew Turnus (7.365–6): quid tua sancta fides? quid cura antiqua tuorum / et consanguineo totiens data dex- tera Turno? (“What of your sacred pledge? What of your old concern for Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 261 your relatives and the right hand given so often to your kinsman Turnus?”) Although Amata’s commitment to the earlier betrothal is bolstered by a perhaps inappropriate passion for Turnus,55 it is also consistent with the inappropriate focus on the past that characterizes the Trojan mothers in the epic. Her passionate defence of Lavinia’s betrothal to Turnus is not motivated by lament – her child is still alive, after all, and, indeed, still in Italy, seized not by the Trojan pirate but by the Italian queen herself, who feigns Bacchic madness and decamps to the forest. But her actions are informed by a sense of the injustice done to her maternal right, and her injury carries weight with the other Italian mothers, who follow her from the city into the wilds (7.392–403):56

fama uolat, furiisque accensas pectore matres idem omnis simul ardor agit noua quaerere tecta. deseruere domos, uentis dant colla comasque; ast aliae tremulis ululatibus aethera complent 395 pampineasque gerunt incinctae pellibus hastas. ipsa … clamat: “io matres, audite ubi quaeque, Latinae: 400 si qua piis animis manet infelicis Amatae gratia, si iuris materni cura remordet, soluite crinalis uittas, capite orgia mecum.”

(Rumour flies, and at once the same passion drives all the mothers, inflamed by rage in their breasts, to seek new halls. They abandoned their homes, giving their necks and hair to the winds; some fill up the air with tremulous howls and girt in animal skins carry vine spears. She herself … cries “Ho, Latin mothers, listen, wherever you are! If in your loyal hearts there remains any influence of unhappy Amata, if care for a mother’s right stings you, release the fillets from your hair, take up the rites with me!”)

Amata’s passion is contagious, infecting all the Italian mothers and apparently incited by the injury to her maternal feeling. Moreover the women’s howling in the woods activates a link with maternal lament that we saw earlier in the epic at the sack of Troy (2.486–90, quoted above). Finally, the figural evocation of civil discord in Latinus’ city is confirmed by situational echoes of the Trojan women’s flight into the woods after the firing of the ships in Book 5 (677–8). In both episodes, the mothers’ actions are aligned with insurrection. Both Italian and Trojan mothers resist the teleological drive of Aeneas’ fate and the epic’s promised future. We may close by considering the final Trojan mater of the epic, and sole woman apparently to continue on from Sicily to Italy.57 In the aftermath of the ill-fated rampage of Nisus and Euryalus in the Rutulian camp in Book 9, 262262 Alison Contents Keith the Rutulians mount the heads of Nisus and Euryalus on spears before their camp, in order to bring them into the Trojans’ line of sight (9.465–72). In reaction to the Italians’ desecration of their comrades’ bodies, Rumour runs riot among the Trojans, reaching the ears of Euryalus’ mother in the camp (9.473–80):58

Interea pauidam uolitans pennata per urbem nuntia Fama ruit matrisque adlabitur auris Euryali. at subitus miserae calor ossa reliquit, 475 excussi manibus radii reuolutaque pensa. euolat infelix et femineo ululatu scissa comam muros amens atque agmina cursu prima petit, non illa uirum, non illa pericli telorumque memor, caelum dehinc questibus implet: 480

(Meanwhile, winged Rumour rushed flying with the news through the frightened city, and reached the ears of Euryalus’ mother. And suddenly the heat left the poor woman’s bones, the shuttle fell from her hands, and the wool unwound from it. Unhappy, she flew out of doors and, howling like a woman, tore her hair, crazed with grief, and sought the walls and first ranks on her course; not remembering the men or the danger of their weapons, she filled up heaven with her plaints.)

At the news of her son’s death,59 Euryalus’ mother swoons and then gives voice to “womanly wailing” (femineo ululatu, 9.477), in an expression that recalls the lamentation not only of the Trojan mothers at the fall of Troy (2.487–8), but also of Dido’s household at the prospect of the fall of Car- thage (4.667–8, both quoted above). Abandoning her wool work indoors and emerging in the stockade, “heedless of the men and their weapons’ danger,” Euryalus’ mother gives vent to her terrible grief (9.481–97). Her words rehearse the standard tropes of individual female lament, such as rhetorical questions and reproaches to Euryalus, contrasting her mourning in old age with his youthful death and her wool working with his military adventurism, before giving way to reflection on the indignities that may yet be inflicted on his corpse, in addition to the pathos of his death far from home and her desire to join him in death.60 But there is added poignancy in her emphasis on her extraordinary travels (9.492): hoc sum terraque marique secuta? (“Was it for this that I followed you by land and sea?”) Hers is apparently the only female voice left in the Trojan camp, and it is all the more unexpected as a result. For although the voice of lament in the Aeneid is normatively female,61 it is surprising that a woman should Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 263 remain in the camp to articulate the collective grief of the Trojan community in Italy, once the Dardan mothers have been enrolled in Acestes’ Sicilian city at the end of Book 5. Georgia Nugent and Alison Sharrock have well discussed the disastrous effect of Euryalus’ mother’s lament on the Trojan ranks (9.498–502):62

hoc fletu concussi animi, maestusque per omnis it gemitus, torpent infractae ad proelia uires. illam incendentem luctus Idaeus et Actor 500 Ilionei monitu et multum lacrimantis Iuli corripiunt interque manus sub tecta reponunt.

(Their spirits were broken by this lamentation, and unhappy lament swept through all the men; their strength for battle lay broken. At a word from Ilioneus and Iulus, who was weeping greatly, Idaeus and Actor snatched her away as she kindled mourning and, lifting her between their hands, they put her back indoors.)

Nugent notes that Euryalus’ mother’s unrestrained lament breaks the warriors’ morale in the Trojan camp and necessitates her removal from the epic stage and her return indoors, where women in epic belong, before the war trumpet can re-embolden the men’s spirits for the conflict with the Ital- ians (9.503–4): at tuba terribilem sonitum procul aere canoro / increpuit, sequitur clamor caelumque remugit. (“But the war trumpet sounded its terrible noise on the sonorous bronze from afar; battle cries followed and heaven re-echoed with them.”)63 In the contest that follows, the Italians’ assault on the Trojan camp, though modelled on the Trojan assault on the Achaean walls in Iliad 12, recalls the ten-year siege of Troy and the emotional impact of the city’s sack within the narrative economy of the Aeneid. Virgil thereby endows the battle for the Trojan camp in Aeneid 9 with the urgency of the fighting on Troy’s final night, as rehearsed by Aeneas himself in Book 2.64 The Trojans’ successful resistance against the Italian assault in Aeneid 9 marks an important stage in their transformation from a community of dispossessed Iliadic losers into proto-Roman victors, and contributes signally to Aeneas’ emergence as the sole adult male survivor of the royal house of Troy and thus the legitimate founder of both the Julian family and the Roman race, worthy focus of Venus’ imperial ambitions. The repetitive regressive focus on the Trojan war dead and their city’s sack distinguishes Euryalus’ mother and the other Trojan women from Aeneas and his male comrades, whose forward-looking heroic (and narrative) commitments tran- scend the debilitating effects of maternal lament.65 264264 Alison Contents Keith

NOTES

1 McAuley 2016, 61–6; cf. Reckford 1995–6; Gladhill 2012. 2 I cite Virgil’s Aeneid from the edition of Mynors 1969; translations are adapted from Fairclough, rev. Goold 1999, unless otherwise noted. On the passage, see Wlosok 1967, 86–8, 110–11; Austin 1971, 89–90; McAuley 2016, 89–90. 3 The commentators eschew any mention of a sexual undertone here, but Jupiter’s kisses, even if largely derived from Lucretius’ picture of children snatching kisses from their father (DRN 3.895–6, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati / praeripere), cannot entirely escape the Epicurean poet’s portrayal of Venus as the goddess of reproductive sexuality in the proem to the work (DRN 1.10–20). 4 On Greek lament and its literary representation, see Alexiou 1974, 2002; Seremetakis 1991; Holst-Warhaft 1992, 2000; Wright 1986; Loraux 1990; Easterling 1991; Murnaghan 1991; Derderian 2001; Foley 2001; Dué 2002, 2006; Suter 2003, 2008a, and the majority of the contributions to the latter. On lament in Latin literature, see Barchiesi 1978; Wiltshire 1989; Nugent 1992; Perkell 1997; Dietrich 1999; Fantham 1999; Lovatt 1999; Pagán 2000; Keith 2008. On Roman funerary practice, see Toynbee 1971; Kierdorf 1980; Hopkins 1983; Flower 1996; Bodel 1999; Richlin 2001; Corbeill 2004; Edwards 2007; Dutsch 2008. On Roman continuity with Greek (and Near Eastern) cultural practice, see Jeppeson 2016. On the Christian figure of Mary and her posture of lament at the crucifixion, captured in the opening words of the famous hymn stabat mater dolorosa, see Kristeva 1986; she does not consider continuity with the representation of maternal lament in the ancient Mediterranean. 5 On the conventional themes and formulae of lament, based on Greek culture but applicable mutatis mutandis to ancient Rome, see Alexiou 1974, 161–84; Derderian 2001, 35–40. Perkell 2008 questions the normative value of the laments in Iliad 24 and her literary critical reading persuasively demonstrates both their individual force and their closural propriety within Homer’s epic. By Virgil’s day, the cultural authority of the Homeric epics had lent these laments a “canonical” status – whether for emulation, transgression, or problematization. 6 O’Hara 2007, 79–80 explains the discrepancy between Jupiter’s assurances here to Venus, demanding a renascent Troy, and the compact he comes to with Juno in Aeneid 12 whereby the Trojans and Italians will merge and the Trojan name die out. 7 Foley 2001, 151, with bibliography on modern Greek comparanda. McAuley 2016, 89–90 discusses the tension in Venus’ speech between “dynastic political ambitions” and “maternal solicitude” (quotes at 89). Her focus is not on lament, however, but on how “a specifically maternal perspective in the Aeneid is sometimes positioned as framing, focalising, and qualifying the supposedly Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 265

transcendent, providential patrilineal narrative of imperium sine fine, even as it is, at other times, absorbed, ‘forgotten,’ or disavowed by it” (90). 8 On this scene, see Williams 1960, 191–7; Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 667–93. 9 Among the gods, genitor is most frequently applied to Jupiter in the Aeneid: see, e.g., 1.237, 4.208, 7.306, 8.427, 9.630, 10.45, 10.466, 10.688, 11.727, 12.200, 12.843. Among mortals, Anchises receives the appellation most often. 10 On the passage, see Knauer 1964, 158–63; Austin 1971, 118–45; Reckford 1995–6; Gladhill 2012; McAuley 2016, 61–2. 11 The coinage is that of Gladhill 2012. On the unsettling eroticism of the passage, with its hint of potential incest, see also Reckford 1995–6; Oliensis 2009, 67–8; McAuley 2016, 61–2, with further bibliography. 12 For the erotic undertones of the blush in classical epic, cf. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.790–1 (Hypsipyle), 3.297–8 (Medea); Cat. 65.19–24; V. Aen. 12.64–70, with Lyne 1987, 114–22. 13 McAuley 2016, 62. On the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, see especially Clay 1989, 152–201; Faulkner 2008; Olson 2012. 14 Leach 1997, 356 notes that Venus seeks out Jupiter to complain of the unreasonable delay Aeneas suffers in reaching Italy, on the model of Athena complaining to Zeus in Odyssey 1 of the delay in Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. 15 Dixon 1988, 62–7, 168–209. Leach 1997, 371 argues that Venus is “a recognizably Roman mother.” In this volume, Hallett traces the thematic relations between Virgil’s representation of Venus and the contemporary representation of the princeps’ sister Octavia in the public (i.e., the political) sphere as an exemplary Roman matrona. 16 On Thetis as a model for Venus in the Aeneid, see Skinner 1997. On Thetis in the Iliad, see especially Kakridis 1949, 66–75; Monsacré 1984; Slatkin 1991. On Achilles’ glory in the Iliad, see Nagy 1979; and on the Latin epicists’ reworking of the Homeric motif of Achilles’ pursuit of maximal glory, see Hardie 1993, 1–18, 27–32. Contrast the offering of Klein, in this volume, who explores a text that expresses maternal happiness and delight in her children. 17 On the passage, see Eden 1975, 116–24; Gransden 1976, 133–44; Fordyce 1977, 247–50; Lada-Richards 2006, with further bibliography. 18 On the Iliadic intertext, see Knauer 1964, 259–62. Lada-Richards 2006, 36, explicitly notes Venus’ invocation of the exemplary Homeric mater dolorosa here (cf. 38). For a reading of Vulcan as stepfather to Aeneas, see Hallett in this volume. 19 On Venus’ presentation of the arms to Aeneas, modelled on Thetis’ presentation of arms to Achilles (Il. 18.616–17, 19.3), see Eden 1975, 161–3; Gransden 1976, 159–60; Fordyce 1977, 269. 20 On this scene, see Austin 1971, 199–209. Lada-Richards 2006, 41–2, discusses Venus’ supplication of Cupid here in Book 1 as the intratextual model for Venus’ seduction of Vulcan in Book 8. 266266 Alison Contents Keith

21 On the passage, see Harrison 1991, 62–75. 22 Harrison 1991, 63. 23 On this scene, see Skinner 2007; Tarrant 2012, 195–8, both with further bibliography. 24 The translation is that of Tarrant 2012, 196 ad loc.; as he notes, “genetrix [is] emphasized by its separation from Venus” and so should be translated “not merely ‘Venus … his mother’ but ‘Venus … with a mother’s concern.’” 25 We should recall Venus’ comment to Aeneas when she appears to him during the sack of Troy, that she will draw aside the veil of cloud that conceals the operations of the gods from mortals’ dull vision (2.604–7). See also Tarrant 2012, 197 ad loc., who compares Il. 15.308 and Aen. 10.634. 26 For the curative powers of dittany, cf. Aristot. Hist. an. 612a2–5; Theophr. Hist. pl. 9.16; and Cic. Nat.D. 2.126, with Pease 1958 ad loc. For the immortality conferred by ambrosia, cf. Hom.h. Dem. 237, Theocr. 15.106–8, Ap. Rhod. 4.869–72. For Aeneas’ apotheosis, anticipated by Virgil at Aen. 1.259–60 and 12.794–5 (both in speeches of Jupiter), cf. Ov. Met. 14.598–608, with Myers 2009, 157–9; Hardie 2015, 443–7, both with further bibliography. 27 On this scene, see Tarrant 2012, 288–9. 28 Cf. Kakridis 1949, 66–75, on Homer’s presentation of Thetis throughout the Iliad as proleptically mourning over her (still living) son. 29 On this passage, see Austin 1964, 190–2; Horsfall 2008, 374–7. 30 Servius identifies motifs in this scene of lament that are common to many Mediterranean cultures: on the conventional themes and formulas of lament, based on Greek examples but applicable mutatis mutandis to ancient Rome, see Alexiou 1974, 161–84 and Derderian 2001, 35–40; on Roman continuity with Greek (and near Eastern) cultural practice, see Jeppeson 2016. 31 Cf. Hector’s mourners in Iliad 24, Hecuba, Helen, and Andromache; and Thetis’ posture of mourning throughout the Iliad, with Kakridis 1949. See also Perkell 2008, on the Iliadic focus on “bitterness and pain” in female lament and the lamenting woman’s expression of “an alternative range of moral and human value, unrelated to martial glory.” 32 Sharrock 2011. On ululant/ululatu, see Pease 1935, 207–9; Austin 1955, 69 ad 4.168; Pease 1935, 486; Austin 1955, 178, ad 4.609; Pease 1935, 514–15; Austin 1955, 192, ad 4.667; Horsfall 2000, 272–3, ad 7.395; Hardie 1994, 160–1, ad 9.477. Sharrock 2011, 57–8, has well discussed a fourth and final example of this usage, at 11.190, which proves the rule: ululatusque ore dedere (of the Trojans’ mourning Pallas). She draws particular attention to the context of funerary lament in which ululatus appears here, and its association with women: “Only [this] case is not over-determined with femininity, while even its occurrence in this scene is one which presents the Trojan warriors in ritual grieving for the dead, notoriously both a feminine role and one in which the power of the Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 267

female voice may be dangerous enough to need to be controlled” (quote at 57). Corbeill 2004, 77–84, adduces visual and textual evidence to show that men and women perform some of the same mourning gestures in the Roman domestic funerary context, but that certain gestures (such as bare feet) were gender- specific to women, as was the more excessive wailing. See also Suter 2008b for similar evidence in the Greek materials. 33 On this episode, see Perkell 1981; Homans 1987; Nugent 1999. 34 On the passage, see Austin 1964, 215–16; Horsfall 2008, 424–6. 35 This is to sidestep the question of the authenticity of Aen. 2.567–88, preserved by Servius at this point in the poem, in which Aeneas delays his decision to race home upon catching sight of Helen, skulking on the threshold of Vesta’s temple, and gives in to an immediate desire to kill her. See Austin 1964, 217–19, and Horsfall 2008, 553–86, both with extensive bibliography, to which should be added Horsfall 2006–7. 36 On these lines, see Austin 1964, 231–3; Horsfall 2008, 434–6. 37 On the lines, see Austin 1964, 251–2; Horsfall 2008, 473–4. 38 On the passage, see Austin 1964, 253–4; Horsfall 2008, 476–82. 39 On Roman funerary ritual, see Toynbee 1971; Hopkins 1983; Bodel 1999; Corbeil 2004, with full bibliography; for women’s lament in Roman funerary ritual, see Richlin 2001; Dutsch 2008. On the gendered expectations of funerary lament in ancient Rome, see Dutsch 2008; Treggiari 1991, 484–98, especially 493–5; Richlin 2001. 40 On these lines, see Austin 1964, 277–8; Horsfall 2008, 531–2. 41 On the scene, see Austin 1964, 279–85; Horsfall 2008, 534–43. 42 Aeneas’ narrative repurposes Creusa’s speeches on the night of the fall of Troy as Virgil characterizes his hero not only as an Odysseus redivivus but even as an epic “singer of tales” like Iopas, Demodocus, and Homer himself. Male co-option of women’s lament is a recurrent theme of the contributions to Suter 2008a, especially those of Bacharova, Rutherford, Perkell, and Stears. 43 Alison Sharrock suggests to me (per litteras) that, “although she ends with Ascanius, most of her speech is concerned with Aeneas himself and the imperial project” and that Aeneas’ focalization presents her as “more wife than mother here,” as if she also has to sacrifice her motherhood as well as her life in order for her husband’s narrative to continue. 44 On the Buthrotum episode, see Quint 1991 and 1993, 53–63; Nugent 1999. 45 On the episode, see Williams 1962, 116–21; Horsfall 2006, 233–51. 46 On the lines, see Williams 1962, 157–9; Horsfall 2006, 347–53. Andromache’s focus on Ascanius’ future here, albeit motivated by her fixation on the loss of her husband and son at Troy, is the only evidence she gives of an interest in the Trojan, or proto-Roman, future. We may contrast Dido, who desires motherhood at the end of her life, in order that a “little Aeneas” might allow 268268 Alison Contents Keith

her to forget his father. On Dido’s wish for motherhood, see McAuley in this volume. 47 Quint 1991; cf. Quint 1993, 53–63. 48 On the lines, see Nugent 1992 and the commentators: Williams 1960, 160; Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 585–7. 49 On the lament of the Trojan women in Euripides’ Troades, see Suter 2003. 50 Nugent 1992. Corbeill 2004, 83 comments that the performance of private mourning ritual is commonly gender-specific to women. For reliefs that show women taking the lead in the expression of grief in ancient Roman funerary ritual, see Corbeill 2004, figs. 8 and 13. 51 On this passage and the next, see Williams 1960, 161–4; Nugent 1992; Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 590–6; Keith 2016, 167–70. 52 On these lines, see Williams 1960, 184–5; Nugent 1992; Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 654–7; cf. Keith 2016, 169–70. 53 On Venus’ words here, see William 1960, 189; Fratantuono and Smith 2015, 674. 54 On this episode, see Fordyce 1977, 129; Brazouski 1991; Horsfall 2000, 248–52. 55 Cf. Lyne 1987, 13–27, 116–17. 56 On these lines, see Fordyce 1977, 135–7; Horsfall 2000, 270–7. On Amata’s claim to a “maternal right” here, see Brazouski 1991. 57 On this episode, see Nugent 1992; Sharrock 2011, with further bibliography. 58 On these lines, see Hardie 1994, 159–61. 59 Virgil models Euryalus’ mother’s lament on Andromache’s lament in Iliad 22: on the Trojan women’s laments in Iliad 22, see Perkell 2008 with further bibliography; on Andromache’s lament in Aeneid 3 and Euryalus’ mother’s lament in Aeneid 9, see also Nugent 1992. 60 Cf. Alexiou 1974, 161–84; Derderian 2001, 35–40. 61 Evander is a conspicuous exception in Aeneid 11, upon the return of his son’s body to Arcadia (11.152–81). It is also notable that his lament contains no reference to the fall of his city Pallanteum. 62 Nugent 1992; Sharrock 2011. See also Hardie 1994, 166–7, on these lines. 63 Corbeil 2004, 69 notes of mourning ritual in classical antiquity that “the woman’s function tends to concentrate on ensuring the destiny of the individual corpse, while men use grieving to maintain the continuity of the community and the status of families within the community.” This encapsulates the gender ideology of lament in ancient Rome, where women’s laments – with the exception of the nenia, on which see Dutsch in Suter 2008a – were ideally restricted to the private sphere. For this reason, excessive (i.e., public) lament, particularly by women, was restricted by senatorial legislation at Rome: see Corbeil 2004, 75–7. Livy 22.55.3–8 records the Senate’s public decree confining women to their homes and forbidding them to lament publicly in the aftermath Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid 269

of Cannae. This gender division contrasts strongly with the Greek tradition, where women’s public lamentation was used to showcase the status of families. The results were similar, however, and took the form of repeated legislative efforts to limit women’s public lament; see Alexiou 1974; 2002, 14–23; Loraux 1990, 19–48. For a comparison between Greek and Roman conventions of lament, see Loraux 1990, 49–56. 64 See Nugent 1992; cf. Hardie 1994, 10–14 and 167–80. 65 My thanks to Alison Sharrock for the invitation to participate in the original conference, and for her careful reading of this chapter. She suggests to me (per litteras) that “Venus fits better on this male side than with the mothers, as she is looking forward and in keeping with the Augustan programme” and questions “whether she really deserves to be regarded as a mother,” comparing her to “the incestuous bad mothers” treated by Fabre-Serris in this volume. 13

Octavia: A Roman Mother in Mourning valerie hope

1. Introduction

One of the most famous of ancient anecdotes tells how Octavia, the sister of the emperor Augustus, was overcome by emotion when the poet Virgil first pronounced the words that would immortalize the name of her recently deceased son (Ael. Don. Virg. 32; Serv. Aen. 6.861). Octavia’s reaction celebrated not only the poet’s talent to move his readers, but also the depth of a mother’s grief. It was a scene that gained new potency and popularity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as painters focused on the main players: the declaiming Virgil, the com- manding Augustus, the swooning Octavia, and the impassive Livia.1 For these artists, Octavia, in a state of collapse supported by her brother, took centre stage, and demonstrated both feminine sensibilities and the strength of the maternal bond. The idea that a mother’s grief at the death of a child is more intense than any other grief, that maternal sorrow is more significant, more enduring, and more all-consuming (especially compared to paternal grief), has a long tradition.2 From Homer on it is the cries of mothers, the extremes of their suffering, that become a benchmark for the expression of human loss.3 The physicality of the mother-child bond and the emotional investment in the maternal role prioritizes a mother’s grief. Women are the gatekeepers of life; as midwives, mothers, and mourners, wide-ranging and long-standing traditions dictate that they prepare and nurture bodies for the journey into life and the journey out of life. In paternalistic and patriarchal societies, the tears of a mother may express the otherwise inexpressible and symbolize loss and suffering in an acceptable manner, which serves to strengthen community ties and bonds. In the years following the First World War in A Roman Mother in Mourning 271

Britain, for example, it was mothers who often represented the nation’s grief. At the 1920 ceremony to inter the remains of the Unknown War- rior at Westminster Abbey, women of all ranks were selected to attend, and these women were predominantly mothers who had lost their sons. As Susan Grayzel notes, this suggested that “society could potentially be held together by the gender-specific, primarily maternal experience of mourning.”4 Mothers are the acceptable face of mourning, a conduit for the display of loss and sacrifice, a convenient symbol (and stereotype) to represent the grief of others, even scapegoats for the emotional, exhausting, and messy work that is death. Yet for all the acceptance of a mother’s right to mourn, there is a dangerous flipside. The individual mother who cannot shake her grief, who withdraws from society and ceases to perform her accepted functions; and more threatening still, the united voices of bereaved mothers who challenge the establishment, seeking for answers or calling for revenge.5 There are, then, two frequently identified sides to maternal mourning, the positive and the negative from a patriarchal viewpoint, that female mourning may promote social values and even cohesion, but if left unchecked can be destructive. Recent decades have seen a new focus in classical studies on the role of women in funeral rituals. The public expression of grief through rites associated with the preparation and disposal of the corpse gave a certain prominence to women, both elevating and demeaning them. On the one hand, women were stigmatized by taking on the dirty and polluted tasks associated with death and dead bodies; on the other, mourning was one of the rare occasions when women had an accepted place and role in the public gaze. Women expressed familial and societal loss and guided the dead on their journey to the next life: as such they were fulfilling tasks that were essential for the well-ordered running of society. Such roles were not, however, unproblematic, or viewed as wholly positive, since female mourning could be characterized, by male commentators, as excessive, extravagant, and even dangerous, and something that needed to be checked and controlled.6 The intention of this chapter is to build upon recent work on the roles of women in Roman funeral ritual, their visibility, their characterization (by male authors), and the problematizing of their grief, by focusing on bereaved mothers. How was maternal mourning presented, and manipulated, across literary genres? A case study of Octavia, and the ways in which the grief for her son was recorded, sheds new light on the complex attitudes that Roman society held towards mothers in mourning, and challenges the accepted image of Octavia’s bereavement. 272272 Valerie Contents Hope

2. The Motif of the Mourning Mother

For the Roman world, it would seem clear that men and women were expected to mourn in different ways, and were associated with traditional mourning stereotypes. Women could give audible, visual, and physical expression to grief by, for example, weeping, wailing, lamenting, hair-pulling, and chest- beating; women were characterized as lacking emotional restraint and as readily overwhelmed by grief; they could also remain in a state of mourning (largely signalled by dress and social seclusion) for up to ten months. By contrast, men were expected to give little public or physical expression to their loss, to demonstrate self-control, and to return to their public roles and duties promptly after the funeral.7 Women, then, symbolized, and enacted, the pain of bereavement, and the ultimate female mourning role was that of the bereft mother.8 It was mothers who were frequently pictured at the deathbed, giving the deceased the final kiss, then leading the laments and tears. It was mothers who most often wept in the funeral procession and at the pyre or graveside, and remained to gather up the ashes. Lucan in his description of the start of the civil wars compares the initial dumb remorse of the populace to shock at a death, to the moment when a mother embraces the corpse of her son, before orches- trating the wailing (2.21–8). In the Aeneid, among the most heart-rending, but problematic, cries of lament are those of the mother of Euryalus, who, deprived of her son’s body, lists the rites that she will be unable to perform for him (9.477–502). When Propertius imagines the fate of the drowning Paetus, it is his mother’s name that is on the dying man’s lips, and it is his mother who will be unable to tend and bury his body (3.7.9–18).9 The most overpowering, and culturally justified, loss for a mother was that of an only son, especially one about to reach or in early adulthood. This was classified as the most bitter of deaths, the greatest loss imagin- able, and thus a high point of suffering against which others, that is, men, measured their own losses and misfortunes. Cicero, writing to Papirius Paetus in 46 bce, could compare his grief for the demise of the Roman Republic to that of a mother: “As for my country, I have already mourned her longer and more deeply than any mother ever mourned her only son” (patriam eluxi iam et grauius et diutius, quam ulla mater unicum filium, Fam. 9.20/193.3).10 Catullus, mocking the inappropriate nature of Egnatius’ smile, notes with horror, “at the funeral of a dear son, when the bereaved mother is weeping for her only boy, he smiles” (si ad pii rogum fili lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater, renidet ille, 39.4–5).11 Ovid can comment that only a fool would try to stop a mother weeping at the funeral of her son (Rem. am. 127–8). A Roman Mother in Mourning 273

To note the primacy attached to maternal mourning is not to claim that fathers were absent from mourning rituals, or always steely faced. Fathers too were present at the deathbed, at the funeral, and at the pyre, and their roles were not always confined to speaking formal eulogies or watching women grieve. Fathers could weep too. Lucian in his work On Mourn- ing imagines a father crying over and talking to the body of his dead son (Luct. 13); Apuleius has a father returning from the funeral pyre with a tear- stained face (Met. 10.6). To shed a few tears displayed an essential human side, and the rituals allowed scope for the acknowledgment of parental, not just maternal, loss.12 Paternal and maternal scripts for mourning, however, did differ, especially in the need for male mourning to be ultimately suppressed and work returned to; the remedy for male sorrow was the distraction of business and public duty. Unlike mothers, Roman fathers were not subsequently defined by their grief or continuing state of mourning, whereas a mother could be forever the childless woman, almost a shadow of her former self. As Seneca the Younger could claim, “certain women, whose sadness once assumed ended only with their death – some you know who having put on mourning for sons they had lost, never laid it aside” (quarum tristitiam semel sumptam mors finiuit – nosti quasdum, quae amissis filiis imposita lugubria numquam exeuerunt, Helv. 16.2).13 Maternal mourning was, then, accepted and expected. To mourn for a child, especially a son, could be idealized as the ultimate display of pietas, as well as symbolizing how a woman’s life was defined and confined by the lives (and deaths) of her male relatives. However, female mourning, including that of mothers, could also be viewed in a negative fashion. En masse, as witnessed after the Battle of Cannae, female grief might cripple the state, and become something that needed to be legislated against (Livy 22.53.3; 22.56.4–5; Val. Max. 1.1.15).14 Female mourning was also a standard against which grieving men might be measured to negative effect: to mourn in excess was something viewed as womanish, a sign of weakness and a short- coming in character. There was a condemning, almost mocking tone in cri- tiques of female mourning, as the antithesis of expected male behaviour (e.g., Cic. 187.6/5.16.6; Sen. Ep. 63.13; Plut. Apol. 22). Mourning was part of the female realm, and thus a bad or irrational thing. To some extent this critiquing was philosophically driven and idealized, but it still formed part of the wider stereotyping and expectations for gender roles. We can note, for example, Martial’s brief poem about how Gellia only wept for her dead father when she had an audience: “he mourns not, Gellia, who seeks to be praised; he is the true mourner who mourns without a witness” (non luget quisquis laudari, Gellia, quaerit: / ille dolet uere qui sine teste dolet, 1.33).15 At times mourning was seen as disconnected, even disassociated, from grief. 274274 Valerie Contents Hope

Mourning was an expected show and performance, and thus inherently false. The implication was that male grief – silent, stoical, and private – was superior and more deeply felt than showy, false, and public female mourning. To put it very simply: men grieved while women mourned.16 This sense of falseness in mourning may have been emphasized by the presence of hired funeral specialists. Horace was clear that mourning was an act, and that paid mourners put on more of a show than those grieving in their hearts (Ars 431). It has been argued that the undertaking industry became more formalized during the late Republic and early Empire. Those who could afford it were able to pay people to wash and lay out the corpse and also to lament and wail over it. Women may have always looked to kin, slaves, and perhaps expert paid singers to assist in these roles, but now male slaves could be hired from the undertaker to prepare the body, and the household mourners supplemented by women brought in for the purpose.17 The elite woman may have fulfilled the primary role in orga- nizing these workers, but she found herself distanced from the corpse and removed from some of the more physical, polluting, and emotional mourning duties. Dramatic female mourning was becoming even more of a show and something that was suited to women of an inferior kind.18 Added to this were changing male public roles. With the advent of the emperors, the sense of distraction from grief offered by public office holding was in decline, while the significance of familial life and more private displays of status may have been increasing.19 The real grief of fathers was perhaps becoming more readily acknowledged. Pliny the Younger, for example, did not critique his friends for grieving for their loved ones (e.g., Plin, Ep. 5.16), and in his poems Statius portrayed himself as a dramatic mourner for both his father and his adopted son (Stat. Silv. 5.3; 5.5).20 This is not to say that all men now acted like female mourners, but that there may have been a greater awareness that paternal loss could equal maternal loss, and the differences in how each was expected to express this loss publically were lessening, though far from disappearing. Both men and women may have been forced to occupy more of a middle ground in terms of the gender-stereotyped extremes, neither to be overemotional nor lack in emotion. How individuals, especially those with a public reputation or persona, were expected to mourn was linked to inherent character rather than just gender, though the traditional gender differences still underpinned and defined both the negative and positive aspects of mourning. We can note, for example, how Tacitus characterized his father-in-law’s reaction to the death of an infant son (Agric. 29.1): Quem casum neque ut plerique fortium uirorum ambiti- ose, neque per lamenta rursus ac maerorem muliebriter tulit. (“He bore the loss neither with bravado, like most strong men, nor with the laments and A Roman Mother in Mourning 275 grief of a woman.”)21 The gender stereotypes were still very much present, but neither was viewed as ideal. Such evaluations of public mourning behaviour also allowed for the creation of women as model examples. In mourning, the most female of realms, women could display virtue. There were available paradigms of mothers who took the loss of their children with little outward fuss, almost as if they were men. The most famous was the mother of the Gracchi, Cornelia, who despite the deaths of her sons would not view herself as unfortunate (Sen. ad Marc. 16.3; Sen. Helv. 16.6). Other examples include Rutilia (Sen. Helv. 16.7), Livia (see below), Plutarch’s wife (Cons. Ad Ux.), and Arria (Plin. Ep. 3.16.3–6). These served as exemplars, largely employed in philosophical contexts, for both mothers and fathers of what could be achieved, should be achieved, for the stability and cohesiveness of the state.22 Death of the young was to be expected and parental mourning had to come to an end. This was not to deny the intensity of grief, only the uselessness of pro- longed or debilitating mourning. In addition, positive memories of the dead children, created by their parents, were preferable and more admirable than a legacy of tears. Roman attitudes towards bereaved mothers were complex, and at times contradictory. A mother in mourning could serve as the ultimate symbol of grief, devotion, and pietas, but this could be undercut by the stereotype of feminine weakness, and the falseness inherent in, and low status associations of, the performance of mourning. A good mother should mourn for her children, but the nature and the extent of her mourning display were readily related to her social standing and moral character. Further, by the late Republic and during the first century CE, there may have been challenges to some aspects of traditional mourning expectations and the primacy of female, including the maternal, role in mourning. Mourning may have been traditionally feminine, but grief itself was not bound by gender. Fathers lost children too. These complexities were reflected in how bereaved parents were characterized. In male-authored texts, how a mother, and thus by implication a father, elected to mourn for a child could be used to reflect upon and define character, and this was to become the case with Octavia.

3. Octavia: Wife, Sister, Mother

Octavia was famed for her devoted familial roles, though often with a piti- able twist since she was also a widow, an abandoned wife, and a bereaved mother. Octavia Minor was the great niece of Julius Caesar and an elder sister to the first emperor Augustus. From her birth she was fated to marry into 276276 Valerie Contents Hope leading political families and forge ties that would benefit her blood connections. At the age of fifteen (54bce ), Octavia was married to Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor, the consul of 50 bce, and, despite an attempt by her great- uncle to attach her to Pompey instead (Suet. Caes. 27.1), the union lasted for fourteen years. Three children were born, Claudia Marcella Major (born c. 43 bce), Marcus Claudius Marcellus (born c. 42 bce), and Claudia Mar- cella Minor (born 40 bce). At her husband’s death, though pregnant (Dio Cass. 48.31.4), Octavia was promptly married, in late 40 bce, to her brother’s then ally, Mark Antony, becoming his fourth wife.23 Octavia had two further daughters with her second husband, Antonia Major (born c. 39 bce) and Antonia Minor (born c. 36 bce). When relations between her brother and Antony deteriorated, Octavia chose to continue to live in Antony’s house in Rome and cared for his children, including those from his marriage to Ful- via (Plut. Ant. 54). In 35 bce Octavian obtained extraordinary honours for Octavia, and his wife Livia: the right to be represented in statues; the right to control their own financial affairs; and legal protection of their personages (sacrosanctity) (Dio Cass. 49.38.1–2).24 This elevation of Octavia contrasted with Antony’s treatment of her; she was eventually abandoned and divorced (32 bce) in favour of Cleopatra. After the death of Mark Antony (30 bce), Octavia became guardian to his children by both Fulvia and Cleopatra, creating a “blended family” and cementing her motherly image (Plut. Ant. 87.1).25 She did not remarry. As Octavian’s sister she remained an important figure in the early principate, this importance enforced in part by the prefer- ence shown by her brother to her son. Octavia died either in 11 or 9 bce (Dio Cass. 54.35.4–5; Suet. Aug. 61.2).26 As the wife of Mark Antony, the sister of Augustus, and the mother to the one-time presumed successor of the latter, Octavia was defined by these roles in the ancient sources, who generally promoted her as a prime example of Roman womanhood, a loyal sister, wife, and mother, who bore her vicissitudes, especially her treatment by Mark Antony, with dignity. This characterization was also defined in contrast to other prominent females, including Fulvia, especially Cleopatra, and in part Livia.27 Surviving references to Octavia are, however, generally sparse, mainly found in historical works, and occur in connection with broader narratives (and biographies) focused on the triumvirs and the reign of her brother. Such accounts, mostly written at some chronological distance, portray Octavia, in short passing references, as both influential in the Octavian-Antony relationship, but also a family woman.28 This is particularly notable in Plutarch’s life of Antony, which describes Octavia as an impressive woman, adored by her brother, intelligent, dignified, and a good mother (Ant. 31, 54).29 How much of this image was a legacy of Augustan propaganda, which had painted Octavia as A Roman Mother in Mourning 277 the opposite to Cleopatra, as a demure and ultimately a wounded and abandoned wife, is now difficult to judge, but at the very least such descriptions suggest that Octavia’s posthumous reputation was an extremely positive one. Nor should we underestimate Octavia’s importance and the extent of her influence in the roles that she held. Octavia’s portrait was among the first female portraits to appear on the coinage; she was key in negotiations between Antony and Octavian; supplied the former with resources for his eastern campaigns; was granted honours by her brother; and funded building projects in Rome.30 Ultimately, although she did not live to see it, her descendants would rule, since Octavia was the grandmother of the emperor Claudius, great-grandmother of the emperor Gaius, and great-great grandmother of emperor Nero.31 Octavia’s children were, as she was herself, used to forge alliances and fur- nish the next generation of what would become the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Of her five children, only one predeceased Octavia, her second child and only son, Marcellus. Marcellus had always been favoured, and promoted, by his uncle: as young as the age of three he had been betrothed to Pompeia, daughter of Sextus Pompey (App. B. Civ. 5.73), and was with his uncle at the triumph over Antony and Cleopatra (Suet. Tib. 6.4). With no sons of his own, Marcellus was Augustus’ only male blood descendant, and although we cannot say whether he was specifically earmarked to succeed, Marcellus was an important player in familial and dynastic planning in the early years of Augustus’ reign.32 In 25 bce he was married to Julia, thereby becoming his uncle’s son-in-law, and afterwards was granted accelerated passage through the cursus honorum, which he celebrated by giving magnificent games in his own name (Vell. Pat. 2.93). Not long after these games, in 23 bce, Marcellus fell ill and died. The main historical and biographical sources make no mention of how Octavia reacted to her son’s death (for other works see below). Marcellus’ death is generally referenced briefly, with any mention of Octavia being only a statement of relationship.33 In these contexts Octavia is of little importance, with the death being noted more as a frustration to Augustus than a cause of grief to his mother. Octavia’s life after Marcellus’ death is also little mentioned in the historical sources, even though she lived for another twelve to fourteen years. Octavia may have deliberately withdrawn from the public stage as a result of her bereavement, as inferred by Seneca the Younger (see below), but any withdrawal may also have been connected to a genuine reduction of her public profile. Marcellus’ death, the death of an only son, but one whose public and military career were still in infancy, would have had a genuine impact on Octavia’s social standing.34 However, there is some evidence that Octavia did retain an interest in aspects of state and family 278278 Valerie Contents Hope life and the intersection between the two. She was said to have been active in promoting the remarriage of Marcellus’ widow, Julia, to Agrippa, and thereby the divorce of the latter from her own daughter Claudia Marcella Major (Plut. Ant. 87.2–3).35 She may also have been involved in completing the theatre of Marcellus, libraries in her son’s memory, and promoting ideals of motherhood, and womanhood, in the decorative scheme of the Porticus Octaviae (Plut. Marcell. 30, Livy Epit. 140).36 Further, at her death she was greatly mourned and highly honoured by her brother (Suet. Aug. 61.2, Dio Cass. 54.35.4–5). Seneca suggests that her death was a blow to Augustus, who grieved for his “darling sister” (Polyb. 15.3), and this, coupled with her funeral honours, indicates that she retained her value to and close relationship with her brother. Octavia’s body was displayed in the temple of the Divine Julius Caesar, instead of or in addition to the atrium of her house, closely associating her with the cult of Caesar, and she received two eulogies, with Augustus delivering one from Caesar’s temple and Nero Drusus speaking from the rostra opposite.37 Octavia’s remains were interred in Augustus’ mausoleum, and she was commemorated alongside her son, and named as the sister of Augustus (CIL VI 40356, 40357).38 This was the demise of no ordinary woman: the tears of the emperor, her funeral, and the interment of her ashes underlined her centrality to the new imperial dynasty.

4. Octavia: A Silent Paradigm of Maternal Mourning

The death of Marcellus would come to be characterized as both a personal and a public tragedy. In the literature of the Augustan age it is most famously referenced in Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid. As Aeneas visits the underworld and is presented with a parade of Rome’s future great men, Anchises pinpoints Marcus Claudius Marcellus (c. 268–208 bce), and Aeneas asks after the young man walking beside him, a figure of great beauty, but with a dejected expression, and shaded in darkness (860–6). Tearfully, and with reluctance, Anchises describes the youth as one who will only briefly be shown to earth (867–71) and whose death will be a cause of immense sorrow for the loss of one who would have been good, chivalrous, honourable, and brave (872–81). Anchises then reveals that the young man is Marcellus, for whom he will now scatter flowers in vain (882–6). At this point Anchises’ description of the parade ends. The Book 6 procession of heroes has evoked much analysis of its meaning and inspiration, with identifiable links to, among others, Odysseus’ journey to the underworld (Od. 11), Orphic-Pythagorean philosophical ideas, Roman funeral customs (processions, masks, and eulogies), and honorific statues.39 The fact that the parade ends with Marcellus provides a sorrowful, A Roman Mother in Mourning 279 perhaps even an anti-climactic note, though one in line with some of the overall themes in the Aeneid of doomed youth and intimations of loss.40 It is Aeneas’ prompting that reveals Marcellus, as if Anchises would have passed him over and finished his parade narrative differently.41 Marcellus’ place in the procession is marked by a description not of his achievements but of his potential qualities, his funeral, and the grief experienced at his loss; and this is a comparatively lengthy description, with more lines devoted to Marcel- lus (and his demise) than to the earlier description of Augustus (791–807). Many of the other great men pinpointed by Anchises have a suitable motif or symbol (e.g. spear, oak garland, plumed helmet, standards, spoils) to assist their identification.42 Marcellus is beautiful, majestic, and with “flashing arms” (fulgentibus armis, 861) and is thus represented in the guise of a youthful epic warrior, but it is his demeanour, his downcast gaze (sed frons laeta parum et deiecto lumina uultu, 862) and the black shadow that seems to encircle his head (sed nox atra caput tristi circumuolat umbra, 866), that draws Aeneas’ attention.43 The inclusion of Marcellus is based upon the loss of hope and talent, and rather than being accompanied by an emblem or a specific reference to life’s successes, Marcellus has the marks of sorrow. Less focus falls upon the living body that he will briefly inhabit and more upon the dead body that is associated with groans of mourning (gemitus, 873), a funeral procession (funera, 874), tomb (tumulum, 874) and floral tributes (lilia plenis purpureos spargam flores, 884–5).44 The inclusion of Marcellus provides an emotional crescendo to the procession, and one that celebrates both his celestial greatness and the earthly funereal honours that were bestowed upon him. On hearing these lines, Octavia was said to have been overcome with emotion (Ael. Don. Virgil 32):45

Cui tamen multo post perfectaque demum materia tres omnino libros recitauit, secundum, quartum, sextum, sed hunc notabili Octauiae adfectione, quae cum recitationi interesset, ad illos de filio suo uersus “tu Marcellus eris” defecisse fertur.

(Much later, when he had refined his subject matter, he finally recited three whole books for Augustus: the second, fourth, and sixth – this last out of his well-known affection for Octavia, who (being present at the recitation) is said to have fainted at the lines about her son, “ … You shall be Marcellus.”)

Servius tells a slightly different version, noting that Book 6 was recited to Augustus and Octavia with such great delivery that they wept excessively and would have ordered silence if Virgil had not said that he was finished (ad Aen. 6.861). Here we have tears rather than fainting, and an Augustus who 280280 Valerie Contents Hope is just as emotional as his sister. Aelius Donatus and Servius were writing centuries after the deaths of both Virgil and Octavia, and we can question the veracity of these anecdotes.46 Their primary purpose was to exemplify the fame and power of Virgil’s writings and recitation, not Octavia’s grief for her son. Yet Virgil’s words, which make no direct reference to Octavia, have, through this tale, ever after become entwined with a mother’s loss, creating Octavia as the prime example of a Roman mother overwhelmed by her grief.47 Even if we doubt the story of how Octavia reacted, the performative context of the poem, and the impact upon its first audience, should not be underplayed. Book 6 of the Aeneid is a sombre read with death (Misenus, who like Marcellus dies at Baiae), unburied corpses (Misenus, Palinurus, Deiphobus), an underworld that includes tortured souls, a bereft Dido, and an Anchises whom Aeneas can neither touch nor hold. Aeneas is sorrowful and tearful throughout. The parade of heroes, though positive in some respects, since it represents Rome’s greatness, is also negative since for the reader it represents Rome’s past, a past in which Marcellus now too belongs. In this death-oriented book, Virgil may have been acutely aware of the impact of his words upon the recently bereaved among his first audience, especially Octavia.48 In some respects Virgil was playing the part of consoler to the Imperial family, and the Roman people. Consolation literature often involved praising the dead for their virtues and the bereaved for their grief, celebrated the funeral, and ended by admonishing the bereaved to be strong since ultimately grief is pointless.49 Virgil’s words briefly encompass these elements: praising Marcellus, noting the extent of the grief at his loss, the key elements of his funeral, and ultimately the finality of death.50 The opening comment of Anchises’ speech, “O my son, do not ask for the great grief of your family” (o gnate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum, 868), suggests an awareness of real pain. The direct identification of Marcellus’ name, some fifteen lines later, also intensifies the sense of loss: the reader has to wait for the revelation that confirms that this is indeed the recently deceased Marcellus.51 Overall, the fact that in this scene Marcellus is yet to be born also makes the grief both current and anticipatory, one that is both still fresh and yet to be experienced. In many senses, then, this is a failed consolation, since it not only commemorates and recreates the grief (as consolations were wont to do) but intensifies rather than soothes it. No wonder later authors imagined Octavia crying and fainting. Despite Octavia’s alleged reaction, it is perhaps paternal rather than maternal grief that comes to the fore in Virgil’s words. It is Anchises who speaks of Marcellus, framing himself as a mourner who will scatter flowers (883–6). In Book 6, parallels between Anchises and Augustus, rather than A Roman Mother in Mourning 281

Aeneas and Augustus, have been identified: if so, by association, it is Augus- tus, Marcellus’ uncle and father-in-law, who speaks this final praise of Mar- cellus (as he had done at his funeral) and is seen to shoulder the burden of grief.52 At the very least, Anchises takes a paternal role as the head of the gens: Marcellus is his descendant and it is his duty to mourn him. In his request for flowers (date, 883), Anchises is also drawing others, Aeneas and the reader, into the rituals. Anchises, a figure of the past, becomes the lead mourner of the future. Simultaneously the loss of Marcellus is generalized as a loss for all. Marcellus is presented as a gift for the whole Roman people, here perceived of as a family (870–4).53 This is not a personal tragedy (as described by Anchises), but a public one, and all are joined in the pious act of mourning. This shared experience is the positive, rather than destructive, aspect of the mourning for Marcellus, and underlines that Rome will suffer setbacks, losses, and sacrifices for the greater good, but can continue.54 Neither Aeneas nor Anchises speaks again in Book 6, but Virgil rounds off the book by suggesting that Anchises’ advice to his son continued, and that Aeneas, rather than being disheartened by his emotional visit to the Underworld, was equipped to endure the trials (including personal grief and unhappiness) that lay ahead (886–92).55 Neither Octavia nor Augustus is specifically mentioned in relation to Marcellus in the Aeneid. Octavia was part of the collective that was the Roman people, to be sure, and maybe for contemporary readers and listeners her suffering was readily remembered and pictured. At the very least, Virgil must have been conscious of the impact his words would have upon the Imperial family. It can be argued that in the Aeneid the emperor’s family can stand in for or represent the whole nation, and here Octavia is the implicit mother of the nation.56 If so, her grief was honoured and justified, but also depersonalized, controlled, even silenced, and placed in the context of the need to journey on.57

5. Octavia: The Failed Mother

The only surviving Augustan text that refers to Octavia’s maternity in relation to her son’s death is Propertius 3.18. This elegy, composed shortly after the death of Marcellus, though the precise date is not known, may have been a commissioned piece, and begins by describing and criticizing Baiae, the place of Marcellus’ death (1–10).58 This is followed by praise for Mar- cellus, balanced by the fact that for all his status he still died (11–16); further explores the notion that none can escape death (17–30); and ends by imagining Marcellus set among the stars (31–4). Unlike Virgil, Propertius does not dwell long on Marcellus’ lost potential for future glory, the praise 282282 Valerie Contents Hope being related more to a general sense of greatness that places Marcellus on a celestial footing, and we learn little of his individual qualities or character.59 To some extent the glory of Marcellus, and arguably the Imperial family, is undercut by the inescapability of death, for even the most powerful, the most wealthy, the most noble, the most beautiful will die (21–8), and this could be viewed as a subversive aspect of the poem. Falkner, however, suggests that Propertius is avoiding “obvious forms of flattery,” instead focusing on how Marcellus’ nobility places his spirit above the common lot, uniting him with Rome’s great heroes, Julius Caesar and his ancestor, Marcus Claudius Marcellus.60 As with Book 6 of the Aeneid, Marcellus thus is placed within the context of Rome’s heroic, divinely ordained, past, though his presence there is justified more by his lineage (in some ways problematized by Propertius) than by his own actions.61 In addition, the poem itself acts as a memorial, since as Propertius notes elsewhere (3.3) it is words, especially the words of a poet, that can best memorialize the dead. Once the mortal frame has gone, the poet has the power to defeat death and provide everlasting commemoration.62 The poem does not explicitly name Octavia.63 Octavia is present, however, through her role as mother to the ill-fated Marcellus. Propertius notes that ultimately his excellent mother (optima mater, 11–12) was of no use to him and all the things that a mother could do were not enough (et per maternas omnia gesta manus, 14).64 Octavia’s devotion to her son is made clear, but the real benefits of that devotion are thrown into question. Is Proper- tius highlighting that Marcellus was a Claudian who owed his position to a Julian mother, rather than a Julian father, an issue that, despite her best efforts, Octavia could not resolve or disguise? Octavia is the unnamed mater who, despite her love and imperial connections, still cannot save her son. It is not just Octavia who becomes pointless in the face of death – Marcellus’ high birth, his marriage to Caesar’s daughter, his extravagant games, were all as nothing (11–20) – but the reference to his mother drives the point home that in some respects Octavia had failed.65 In the Propertian poem, grief and mourning, either by Octavia, Augustus, or the Roman people more generally, is not referenced, though a general air of despondency is captured. There is no overt attempt to acknowledge, commemorate, or console the real grief for Marcellus. The theme of “death comes to all” was a common consolatory argument, and here is extensively dwelt upon, but this serves to highlight that Marcellus will rise above this, and any consolation lies in the final positive lines about the immortality of Marcellus. Marcellus’ glorious fate, his celestial greatness, displaces and silences the traditional realm of female mourning. A Roman Mother in Mourning 283

6. Octavia: The Bad Maternal Mourner

Beyond the accounts of Octavia swooning at the reading of the Aeneid, the only surviving direct references to Octavia exhibiting grief for her son are found in consolationes, which post-date her own death.66 In the poetic Con- solatio ad Liviam, addressed to Livia at the death of her son Drusus, there is a brief reference to Octavia and how she wept for Marcellus. This is followed by a description of how Caesar also wept in the sight of the people for Mar- cellus and again at Octavia’s death (441–2).67 Octavia’s maternal tears are here expected, but also surpassed by those of her brother. The consolatory message is that it is acceptable to mourn in public – even an emperor weeps for those he loves at a funeral – but such behaviour needs to be time-limited. Livia at the death of her son Drusus is initially overwhelmed by her sorrow, and in this she behaves as other members of the Imperial family have when they too faced bereavement, but ultimately such displays of sorrow must be controlled. Livia must take comfort from the life of her son, remember her public role and duty, and put grief aside. There is no suggestion in the Consolatio ad Liviam that in her mourning for Marcellus, Octavia failed in her public duties or behaviour; she mourned in line with her brother. However, the idea that Octavia lacked self-control, that she was not the ideal mourning paradigm, is suggested in another consolation, in this case penned by Seneca the Younger. In his ad Marciam de Consolatione, Seneca presents Octavia as a mourning mother in extremis, and this characterization of Octavia is at odds with the Octavia presented by other authors. Here we do not have the loyal, sensible, and decorous Octavia, but a rather selfish, miserable, and short-sighted character. In the ad Marciam, addressed to Marcia three years after the death of her son, Seneca exhorts her to set aside her continuing grief. In this, Sen- eca uses various examples, mainly male and Republican, of people who bore their grief well, and also included for detailed scrutiny are Livia and Octavia. Contrary to our expectations, it is Livia who is the model of virtue and Octavia the flawed being. The exact date of the composition of the ad Marciam is not known, though it was probably Tiberian, and written after Livia’s death (29 ce).68 Drusus had died in 9 bce, and Marcellus in 23 bce, so the maternal grief here characterized predates the work by more than forty and fifty years, respectively. Nonetheless, Seneca draws on well-known female characters, and well-known public losses, from the relatively recent past. Livia was known to Marcia (quam familiariter coluisti, 4.1), even though the death of Drusus must have pre-dated the women’s friendship.69 284284 Valerie Contents Hope

Seneca places Octavia first. There are no oblique references, suspense, or dramatic revelations (compare Virgil and Propertius above), both Octavia and Marcellus are named, the subject matter is explicitly maternal grief, and the protagonists are identified at the outset. Seneca initially praises Marcel- lus, suggesting that Augustus was already beginning to depend upon him (incumbere coeperat, 2.3). Seneca identifies the young man’s qualities, rather than focusing, as Virgil had, upon his prospects for future glory. Accord- ing to Seneca, Marcellus was frugal, self-controlled, able to endure hardship, and averse to pleasures (2.3). After his death, Octavia never stopped weeping and groaning (nullam finem per omne uitae suae tempus flendi gemendique, 2.4). She remained as if still at the funeral (qualis in funere, 2.4) and would not look at portraits of her son, or hear his name (nullam habere imaginem filii carissimi uoluit, nullam sibi de illo fieri mentionem, 2.4). She hated other mothers (oderat onmnes matres, 2.4), especially Livia. Octavia spent the rest of her life in darkness and solitude (tenebris et soli- tudini, 2.4). Spurning her brother and his success, and literary tributes to her son, she closed her ears to consolation (carmina celebrandae Marcelli memoriae composita aliosque studiorum honores reiecit et aures suas adu- ersus omne solacium clusit, 2.4).70 Octavia withdrew from public life and lived in seclusion. Though surrounded by children and grandchildren, she did not set aside her mourning clothes (lugubrem uestem non deposuit, 2.4) and remained bereft. Livia is set up as the antithesis of this. Drusus died a proven soldier on campaign, a man who would have been a great emperor (magnum futurum principem, 3.1). According to Seneca, Livia at the death of her son acquitted herself well. Livia was shocked, upset, and tearful, and had been deprived of giving her son a final kiss (3.2). However, she had a duty to fulfil to her emperor-husband and her surviving son, so after the funeral she set aside her sorrow (illum et dolorem suum posuit, 3.2), but she spoke of her son often, encouraged others to do so, and had him pictured everywhere (non desiit denique Drusi sui celebrare nomen, ubique illum sibi priuatim publiceque repraesentare, libentissime de illo loqui, de illo audire: cum memoria illius uixit, 3.2). Livia also sought out and listened to philosophical consolation (5–6). Now Marcia must choose which of these women to follow (3.3–4). This is a schematic polarization of Octavia and Livia. What one does (whether weeping, wearing black, looking at portraits), the other does the opposite.71 We may question the veracity of the details since it forms part of the arguments and examples Seneca is carefully constructing to instruct Marcia (and his broader readership).72 Seneca may also be toying with real tensions between these two women, and the realities of their respective roles, after the deaths of their sons.73 What Seneca interprets as withdrawal A Roman Mother in Mourning 285 due to grief on Octavia’s part may have reflected a real change in her position. Unlike Livia, she did not have a surviving son, and moreover any such withdrawal may not have been complete (see above). Seneca may be exaggerating, or at least selecting and emphasizing only certain aspects of Octa- via’s behaviour. Nonetheless, it is likely that he was building on a kernel of truth, that after the death of her only son, who, unlike Drusus, was relatively unproven in warfare and public life and left no children, Octavia was subsequently defined by her state as a bereft mother, as the woman who bore, and thus would always be expected to grieve for, one of Rome’s lost sons.74 What is problematized by Seneca is how Octavia fulfilled this expectation, her alleged absence from the public gaze, her private wallowing in her loss, her failure to promote and memorialize her son. Seneca is able to exploit and adapt to his own literary and philosophical ends the ambiguities and ideals that surrounded maternal mourning. Octavia and Livia may genuinely have had very different approaches to their mourning, but both approaches may have been equally accepted. It is Seneca who is choosing to place them in stark opposition.75 Seneca may be being deliberately provocative by taking Octavia, the ultimate paragon of matronly and motherly virtue, and critiquing her behaviour. Octavia could be viewed, and by others probably was so, as a pious and devoted mother who understandably and appropriately mourned her son till her last breath. For Seneca, Octavia’s behaviour becomes morally questionable and potentially damaging for the emperor, and thus the stability of Rome.

7. Conclusion

Octavia may be best remembered as both the abandoned wife of Mark Antony and the woman who went into perpetual mourning at the death of her son, but both probably belie her political significance and underlying strength of character. Such characterizations may reveal more about how we have chosen to script Octavia’s life – combining both Roman idealizations of wife and mother, and our own predilection for tragic figures.76 When we investigate the evidence for how the final years of Octavia’s life were passed, the years that followed her son’s death, we find that the image of her in perpetual mourning is based on Seneca’s account alone, a description that was artfully and to some degree artificially created. It is compounded, to be sure, by the references to her weeping and fainting at recitations of the Aeneid, the veracity of which can also be challenged. All the other sources that refer to the death of Marcellus suggest nothing unusual or extreme in his mother’s reaction – most in fact make no reference to Octavia and her behaviour at the death, the funeral, or subsequently. Octavia weeps (Cons. 286286 Valerie Contents Hope ad Liviam 441–2) and has her parentage acknowledged (Prop. 3.18), but there are no further references to how she coped (or not) with her son’s death. It is Seneca, writing decades after Octavia’s own death, who created her as the mourning mother par excellence, and in doing so he was fulfilling his own agenda. None of the literary accounts or references brings us near to Octavia’s lived emotional reality, her actual experiences of grieving and mourning for her only son. Instead Octavia’s mourning becomes a prism through which to gaze upon the greatness of Virgil’s poetry, presumed anxieties about the Augustan succession, and advice on how to cope with grief. Octavia’s personal experience matters less than how that experience can be manipulated and represented, adapted, and moulded to fit literary and moralizing purposes. Yet for all these distortions, Octavia’s characterization as a mother and as a mourner is suggestive of the social and political importance of maternal mourning in Roman society. Put simply, maternal mourning mattered because it could be public and visible, and the display of grief by a prominent mother, such as Octavia, could be a gauge of wider issues, including societal anxieties and concerns. As such, maternal mourning was a public performance, one that could be watched and evaluated, and readily related both to the underlying character of the mother and that of her offspring. On the one hand, mourning, with a mother at the lead, could be a source of social cohesion – everyone was united by grief, as they were at Marcellus’ death, with the mother acting as the ultimate symbol of a shared loss. On the other hand, a mother mourning in excess could be self-destructive, an indicator of a faulty character, and possibly disruptive to the efficient functioning of the state. For public figures such as Octavia, mourning (that is, the public display of grief) was not a straightforward affair. Whether you were a good mourner or a bad mourner was a matter of perception – what was one person’s excess was a sign of great piety to another. Octavia, as a public figure, through her maternity and personal challenges, became a model or exemplar, to be moulded and adapted, either (and most often) as an admirable and devoted wife, sister and mother, or someone who (at least in later life) faltered under the burden of bereavement. Octavia, and also Livia, faced the challenge of performing mourning on a stage that was shifting and new. Both were a bridge between eras, the transition from Republic to Empire, a context in which a handful of women come to the fore as never before, bringing their behaviour, including mourning behaviour, under scrutiny. There were now questions about how both women and men should appropriately mourn for their children, about what was suitable public conduct in an Imperial age. In many ways, all three of the main authors considered here – Virgil, Propertius, and Seneca – deny, silence or A Roman Mother in Mourning 287 denigrate open maternal mourning and its significance. In Aeneid Book 6 Octavia is absent, and it is paternal mourning that comes to the fore; in the Propertian elegy the value and quality of Octavia’s motherhood is ques- tioned; and in Seneca’s consolation Octavia’s mourning is seen as excessive, and the often male-like Livia’s approach is praised instead. This may suggest a certain discomfort with the role of prominent women, and the potentially destabilizing impact of their traditional mourning roles if these were writ large on a public stage. How to mourn and remember men such as Marcellus and Drusus could not be left to their mothers, or at least not to overemotional mothers. Marcellus’ death was not just a domestic tragedy, but a public one that had to become transformative, and ultimately positive. If Octavia failed to grasp this, Livia, at the death of Drusus, did not (at least according to Sen- eca). Livia understood her duty to her husband, to Rome, and also to her dead son. Livia was the better mourner because her response helped to memorialize her son, and integrate him (and in the process her) into the ongoing dynastic narrative. Livia was instrumental in forging positive memories of her son and in allowing the dynastic plans to continue without him.77 Related to this were broader redefinitions of the maternal role. In her lifetime, Octavia experienced a public image shift from wife to mother. Hence Octavia’s importance under Octavian was as a wife of political significance; under Augustus it was as a mother, as a nurturer of Rome’s future. Octa- via, and other female members of the imperial household, were idealized as symbols of fertility, stability, and continuity. A dynasty needs mother figures. However, this can come at a price, since it is mothers who are readily blamed for the shortcomings of their offspring. Thus, Propertius can even hint that, in the death of her son, Octavia failed in the maternal role. With the death of Marcellus, Livia in part at least usurped Octavia’s role as mother of the dynasty, and was increasingly cast as the female equivalent of her husband.78 The problematic defining of the Imperial family’s first or founding mothers may also have coincided with changing ideas of motherhood more broadly among the elite, and in literary representations: women who were distanced from the rearing of their children; families complicated by divorce and remarriage; mothers, unlike the great Cornelia, who were not the best nurturers and educators of their children.79 The failing of motherhood was perhaps taken to its extreme in Statius’ poetry of the late first century. Newlands has noted that in Statius, mothers are often marginalized and are rarely good;80 and Statius even usurps the mother’s role in lament: “why should a mother who sits bereaved at her son’s warm pyre cry out more against the gods and the bronze threads of the sisters” (cur magis incessat superos et aena sororum stamina, quae tepido genetrix super aggere nati orba sedet, Silvae 5.3.64–6).81 288288 Valerie Contents Hope

The characterization of Octavia as a mourning mother highlights dialogues about acceptable roles for women in an Imperial era, competing views of motherhood and maternal mourning, and by implication fatherhood and paternal mourning as well. By the late first century ce, a century or so after Octavia’s famed bereavement, motherhood and fatherhood continued to be redefined, as the balance between private and public roles shifted. In some contexts, and some genres, maternal mourning no longer held sway.

NOTES

1 For example, Antonio Zucchi, Virgil Reading the Aeneid to the Emperor Augustus, His Wife Livia and His Fainting Sister Octavia (oil on canvas, 1767); Jean-Joseph Taillison, Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia (oil on canvas, 1787); Jean-Baptiste Wicar, Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus, Octavia and Livia (oil on canvas, 1790–3); Angelica Kauffman, Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia (oil on canvas, 1788); Jean-Auguste- Dominique Ingres, Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Livia, Octavia and Augustus (oil on canvas, 1812). 2 Differences between how men and women grieve can be noted, but seem to be culturally rather than biologically driven. Much of the psychological and sociological research until recent years has focused on women’s experiences, highlighting how grief is often inherently viewed as a female sphere. For discussion, and case studies of gender differences, most of which explore parental responses to infant death, see Zeanah et al. 1995; Schwab 1996; Walter 1999, 168–83; Doka and Martin 2010; Rifat et al. 2012. 3 This is not to claim that maternal mourning is always visible, unchecked, or extreme. For cultural differences and changes in the expression of maternal grief, and how it is shaped by dominant ideologies, see, for example, Simonds and Katz Rothman 1992; McMahon 2012. 4 Grayzel 1999, 230. For mothers sacrificing their sons in war, and some of the more problematic aspects of this, see Evans 2007. 5 For discussion and examples of how mothers have been and are presented as mourners, including in unifying or divisive ways, see, for example, Tully 1995; Lee 2005; Thornton 2000; Evans 2007; Luciano 2007, 58–67. 6 Recent work on women and funeral rituals in Greece and Rome includes Loraux 1998; Stears 1998; Richlin 2001; Corbeill 2004; Šterbenc Erker 2004; Mustakallio 2005; Hame 2008; Hope 2010, 2011. 7 For gendered roles in Roman mourning: Presecendi 1995; Richlin 2001; Corbeill 2004; Šterbenc Erker 2004; Mustakallio 2005; Hope 2010. For legal control of mourning: Plut. Num. 12; Sen. Ep. 63.13; Paulus Sent. 1.21.2–5; Dig. (Paulus) 3.2.9. A Roman Mother in Mourning 289

8 The other major female mourning role was that of the wife, and this role could eclipse that of the mother at the death of an adult male. On women as bereaved wives and widows, see Treggiari 1991, 483–501. However, across her lifetime the mourning role that a woman may have fulfilled most often was that of a mother to infants and children; and older children could be mourned for as long as a husband (up to 10 months; Plut. Num. 12). Hallett 1984, 243, has suggested that an elite woman looked to her children rather than her husband for emotional sustenance. Note how Marcellus’ young widow, Julia, was little referenced in relation to his death; his mother’s loss was the greater one. Equally Octavia’s own mourning for her first husband was curtailed; see note 17. 9 For further examples of mothers’ roles in funeral ritual and the importance attached to these, see, for example, Prop. 3.7.9–18; Tib 1.3.5–6; Ov. Fast. 2.813–14; Juv. 3.212; 7.146; Stat. Theb. 3.147–69; Stat. Theb. 6.30–4; Sen. Trojan Women 786–91. See also Keith in this volume. 10 Text and translation from Shackleton Bailey 2001. 11 Text and translation from Cornish, Postgate, and Mackail 1913. 12 Even the most stringent of philosophers allowed for tears and grieving, e.g., Cic. Ad Brut. 1.9.2; Sen. Ep. 99.16; Marc. 7.1. 13 Text and translation from Basore 1932. 14 For attempts to control female mourning, see Mustakallio 2005; Hope 2009, 122–9; for women’s lament as destructive and dangerous, see Fantham 1999, and Keith in this volume. 15 Text and translation from Bohn 1896. 16 It is possible to provide separate definitions for grief and mourning: grief as the emotional, uncontrolled, and primarily private reaction to loss, and mourning as the public expression of, or processes and actions that accommodate, loss. I loosely maintain such distinctions here since in the Roman world mourning could be ritualized, performative, and public. However, such distinctions are not absolute since mourning involved grief and vice versa. It has been observed in contemporary studies of grief that “It is really difficult to provide specific examples of grief, since the moment it is expressed it becomes mourning” (Fontana and Reid Keene 2009, 162). It may be more appropriate not to view grief and mourning as two different things, but two different interpretations of a single practice (O’Rourke 2007, 397). Latin vocabulary could distinguish between grief and mourning. Mourning is most often luctus (suggesting wailing), and other commonly used words capture the physical manifestations of mourning: lament (lamentatio), groaning (gemitus), striking the body (planctus), and a dirty and dishevelled appearance (squalor). The term employed for grief is most often maeror, with the words dolor (sorrow) and tristitia (sadness) also frequently used to express the pain brought by bereavement. However, the fact that luctus and maeror are often linked together (for example, 290290 Valerie Contents Hope

Cic. Phil. 14.11, Mil. 5; Apul. Met. 1.6) suggests that, as in English, there was no absolute dividing line between what was grief and what was mourning. 17 Bodel 2004. 18 On Roman mourning as low status, see in particular Richlin 2001. 19 For these changes, see, for example, Dixon 1991; Bodel 1999; Markus 2004; Milnor 2005; Hope 2011, 112–14. Cicero may have foreseen this rebalancing of public and private life after the death of his beloved daughter, with the complementing roles of family and forum being undermined by the demise of the Republic, Cic. Fam. 4.7. For Cicero’s grief and strategies for consolation, see Hope 2017. 20 Pliny’s characterization of his bereaved acquaintances suggests how for men public mourning could be problematic, and interpreted in contrary ways. Pliny roundly condemned his rival Regulus as excessive and showy in his mourning for his son (Ep. 4.2; 4.7), but was sympathetic and supportive towards Fundanus at the death of his daughter (Ep. 5.16). 21 Text and translation from Hutton and Peterson 1914. 22 Wilcox 2006, 75; McAuley 2015, 195–7. 23 Because Octavia married Antony within ten months of the death of her husband, a senatorial decree was issued allowing her to end her mourning, Plut. Ant. 31.3. Her mourning for her husband of fourteen years was thus curtailed, while her mourning for her son of nineteen years was portrayed as lifelong. 24 See Purcell 1986. 25 On Octavia’s “blended family,” see Hallett in this volume. Octavia could thus have been mother and guardian of up to nine children. Antony had two sons by Fulvia: the eldest (Marcus Antonius Antyllus) was executed by Octavian in 30 bce, aged seventeen. There is no record of Octavia’s reaction to the death of the stepson, whom she had mothered since the age of seven, at the hands of her brother. Notably Plutarch claims that when, in 32 bce, Octavia left Antony’s house, following the divorce, she took Antony’s children with her except Antyllus (Plut. Ant. 57.2–3): perhaps his failure to stick with his stepmother ultimately cost him his life. The younger son of Antony and Fulvia (Iullus Antonius) remained with Octavia and married Claudia Marcella Major, and survived his stepmother and mother-in-law; though favoured by Augustus he was accused of treason and committed suicide in 2 bce (Hallet 2006). With Cleopatra, Antony had three children – Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene II, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. These children were paraded in heavy gold chains in Octavian’s triumph (Dio Cass. 51.21.8). Octavian arranged a marriage for Cleopatra with King Juba II of Numidia, who may also have been cared for by Octavia (Roller 2004, 63), sometime between 26 and 20 bce. Little is known of her brothers, or how long they remained in Octavia’s care; they presumably died young. For the construction of Octavia as an unusually good stepmother, particularly by Plutarch, see Watson 1995, 197–206. A Roman Mother in Mourning 291

26 For Octavia’s life, see Wood 1999, 30–5; and Hallet in this volume. 27 For example, when first introduced in Plutarch’s biography of Antony, Octavia is placed alongside both the dead Fulvia and the very much alive Cleopatra (Ant. 31). 28 Indeed, positive language is generally associated with Octavia: Seneca calls her Octavian’s “darling sister” (Polyb. 15.3); Valerius Maximus describes her as “illustrious and blameless” (9.15.2); Propertius as the “best of mothers” (see below). 29 For the characterization of Octavia by Plutarch and the role of her qualities as a foil to both those of Cleopatra and Antony, see Pelling 1988, 202; Beneker 2012, 185–90. This can be contrasted with how Cleopatra’s motherhood may have been undermined by Octavian propaganda; see Jones 2012. 30 For portraiture, see Wood 1999, 28–74; for her role between Antony and Octavian, see Plut. Ant. 35; 53; App. B.Civ 5.96; Dio Cass. 47.7.5; 48.54.3–4; for special honours, see Dio Cass. 49.38.1; for building projects, see Woodhull 2003. 31 For the continuing political importance of Octavia’s name, see, for example, Tac. Ann. 4.75. 32 For Marcellus and his possible role in the succession, see Dio Cass. 53.30.2; Vell. Pat. 2.93. For discussion of the succession more broadly, see Severy 2003 and Osgood 2013. 33 Vell. Pat 2.93.10; Suet. Aug. 63.1; Plut. Ant. 87.2. Cassius Dio (53.30.4–5) makes no mention of Octavia in relation to Marcellus’ death, though he records rumours that he was murdered by Livia (53.33.4). 34 Wilcox 2006; Hope 2011. Valerius Maximus tells an interesting tale of an imposter who claimed to be a son of Octavia, who had been exposed at birth (9.15.2). The story is not repeated elsewhere, but demonstrates the perceived importance of Octavia’s male bloodline, and the potential impact on her status of its loss. 35 Though Suetonius implies that this was Augustus’ idea and that Octavia had to be placated, Suet. Aug. 63.1. 36 Wood 1999, 33–4; Woodhull 2003; Dixon 2007, 56–9; Woodhull 2012, 225–30; Hallet this volume. 37 Dio Cass. 54.35.4–5; Wood 1999, 34; Marrone and Nicolini 2010, 171; Sumi 2011, 224–5. 38 Marrone and Nicolini 2010, 172. 39 See, for example, Burke 1979; Brenk 1986; Leach 1999, 125–7; Molyviati 2011; Pandey 2014; Kondratieff 2014; Freudenberg 2017, 120–4. 40 For this “gloomy final note,” see Burke 1979, 228n36; for its relation to the overall themes of the Aeneid, see, for example, Reed 2001, 2007. 41 For Anchises as a prophet, and as such unusually allowing a follow-up question that reveals the fragility of the Augustan family, see O’Hara 1990, 169. 292292 Valerie Contents Hope

42 The “heroes” in the parade are not all perfect paradigms of Roman virtue, and include some with chequered careers and fermenters of civil strife. Marcellus’ perfection is in part because he was less tainted by life: see, for example Zetzel 1989, 282. 43 For Marcellus as epic warrior and other Homeric motifs in Virgil’s characterization of him, see Harrison 2017, 78–80. 44 Note how the use of verb tenses and abstract nouns in lines 867–81 renders the physical Marcellus absent. “What is withheld here is the consolation of the present tense” (Willis 2013, 160). 45 Text and translation (adapted) from Rolfe 1914. 46 For the unreliability, and probable fanciful nature, of the Aelius Donatus anecdote, see Horsfall 2001. Although note that Horsfall bases his argument, in part, on Seneca’s description of Octavia’s behaviour after the death of Marcellus (see below), overlooking how Seneca schematizes, and exaggerates, the contrasts between Livia and Octavia. 47 Though Octavia’s alleged reaction could be seen primarily as that of an irrational grief-stricken mother, it was not necessarily in opposition to a male positive reaction to the glorious parade of heroes. The financial reward she was said to have proffered to Virgil may have been as much for Virgil’s praise of Marcellus, as for remembering his death, McAuley 2015, 91–2. 48 Ziogas 2018. 49 Poetic and philosophical consolations (consolationes) could involve similar elements, but consolatory writings cannot be defined by form alone and embrace speeches, letters, poems, and inscriptions, and could crop up “in all sorts of texts and contexts” (Scourfield 2013, 20). 50 Aspects of Anchises’ words have been related to Greek and Latin epitaphs and funeral eulogies; see, for example, Brenk 1986; Horsfall 1989. 51 It was after this wait, and on hearing the words tu Marcellus eris, that Octavia was said to have fainted. How best to translate these words and render their meaning is a long-held debate; see Shackleton Bailey 1986; Horsfall 2013, 604–5. It is also worth noting that if the original recitation of the poem ended at this point (or at least ended for the unconscious Octavia) the overall message and finale of Book 6 would change. For the temporal implications of this, and its influence on later depictions of the scene, see Willis 2011. 52 For parallels between Anchises and Augustus, especially through the role of censor, see Kondratieff 2014, 171–80; also West 1993, 294–6. For the probable influence of Augustus’ funeral speech on the words Virgil gives to Anchises, see Horsfall 1989. 53 Reed 2001, 154. Note also Tac. Ann 2.41.1, where Marcellus’ youthful death is noted as a loss for the Roman people. A Roman Mother in Mourning 293

54 Reed 2007, 152. See also Pogorzelski 2009, 285, “in mourning such a tragedy Romans powerfully construct a collective identity.” For the idea that Marcellus’ death is framed as a sacrifice, see Panoussi 2009, 26–8. 55 Through the parade Anchises manipulates both hope and disappointment to inspire Aeneas (Reed 2001, 154) and instruct him that Rome’s mission is not an easy or painless one, and cannot proceed without the loss of life (Putman 1998, 95). 56 For the emperor’s family figuring for the whole nation, see Reed 2007, 156. Note also how the prominence and political manoeuvring of elite women in the late Republic and early Empire is reflected in the Aeneid (Keith 2006), contemporary readers would have been all too aware of the centrality of the mother-son, Octavia-Marcellus relationship. For Octavia’s parallels with Venus in the Aeneid, see Hallett in this volume. 57 In epic poetry, female lament, including that of mothers at the death of sons, can be seen as dangerous, uncontrolled, and often centred on revenge: see, for example, Fantham 1999. Although it is worth noting the complexities that surround the words of the mother of Euryalus, see Sharrock 2011; Keith in this volume. In Book 6 Marcellus is not lamented by his mother, but by Anchises. For the strong, but often silenced, actions and voices of women in the Aeneid, see also Nugent 1999, and for mothers in particular, see McAuley 2015, 55–94; Keith in this volume. 58 Compare Propertius 3.7; see Cairns 2006, 351. For the significance of the Campanian setting, see Leonard 2015. The opening lines are more reminiscent of love poetry than a lament, and may have reminded readers of the earlier poem 1.11, which also referenced Baiae, Misenus, and Hercules, Falkner 1977, 13. For the significance of the poem in Book 3 and the seeming absence of love as its subject, see Wallis 2018, 167–75, “Where we should find mistress, we find instead Marcellus” (171). 59 Although the Elegy seems to be set between the death and the funeral (note in particular lines 9–10 and 31–2), similarities between 3.18 and Virgil’s Aeneid 6 suggest that it was written after the latter (Falkner 1977, 15n11), though Harrison 2017, 80 argues the opposite. 60 Falkner 1977, 17–18. Note how, in Book 6 of the Aeneid, Marcellus walks with a Claudian ancestor but Anchises frames him more as a Julian, whereas in Propertius he is of both families, and perhaps thus a symbol of a failed (due to his death) union between them; see Wallis 2018, 175–82. 61 For the sense in which the poem “undermines Marcellus’ role in nation- building myth,” see Wallis 2018, 184. 62 Roman 2014, 188–9. 63 Like Virgil, Propertius creates suspense by not naming Marcellus at the outset, and probably not at all, although there may be a lacuna in the text; Heyworth 294294 Valerie Contents Hope

and Morwood 2011, 287. The only non-mythical characters named are Caesar (12, 34) and Claudius (Marcellus) (33). 64 It has been suggested that maternas is a corruption of the text: Shackleton Bailey 1956 ad loc. suggests mirantes; Heyworth and Morwood 2011, 288, maturas. By contrast, Wallis suggests that the repetition of mater is used for deliberate emphasis; Wallis 2018, 180. 65 For the characterization of Octavia’s motherhood as ineffective by Propertius, see Gold 2006, 176. 66 For the relationship between poetic and prose consolations, see Scourfield 2013; for the nature of Seneca’s consolatory writings, see Ker 2009, 89–92; Wilson 2013. 67 The authorship and date of this work are uncertain, but it is probably Tiberian; see Richmond 1981; Purcell 1986; Schrijvers 1988; Schoonhoven 1992; Jenkins 2009; Peirano 2012, 205–41. 68 For dating, see Manning 1981; Bellemore 1992. 69 In using Livia and Octavia, Seneca is creating new examples, rather than limiting himself to the traditional examples: see Shelton 1995, 171; Langlands 2004, 122. 70 It is impossible to know if Seneca is reflecting popular anecdotes about Octavia’s reaction to the Aeneid or helping to create them. The known literary tributes are by Propertius and Virgil (as above), but there were probably others. Plutarch (Publicola 17) mentions a book written by Athenodorus for Octavia, which may have been a consolation. 71 See Wilcox 2006, 85; Marrone and Nicolini 2010, 165; Hope 2011, 97–101. 72 The readership, despite the female addressee, was probably largely male; see Wilcox 2006, 75. 73 For possible tensions between Livia and Octavia, see Bauman 2002, 100–3; Hope 2011, 99–100; Gloyn 2017, 145. Note Cassius Dio’s claim (53.33.4) that Livia poisoned Marcellus. 74 Manning 1981, 36 suggests that Seneca is exaggerating Octavia’s behaviour; Shelton counters that he would have been unable to distort such details greatly (1995, 175). He could, however, be selective in his choice of details. 75 If there were competing models for female mourning, Octavia’s daughter, Antonia, may have modelled herself on her mother. At the death of her husband Antonia refused to remarry, and spent forty-six years as a widow devoted to her husband’s memory (Val. Max. 4.3.3). However, Antonia remained in the household of her mother-in-law, Livia, there may not have been anyone suitable for her to remarry (Severy 2003, 67), and she led an active and engaged life: see Kokkinos 1992. Antonia’s public mourning for her own son, Germanicus, was allegedly controlled by Tiberius and Livia, and was surpassed by that of the widow, Agrippina (Tac. Ann. 3.3). Tacitus’ account of Germanicus’ death A Roman Mother in Mourning 295

is another prime example of competing representations of female, including maternal, mourning, and how this could be interpreted on the public stage and adapted to authorial ends: see Hope 2011. 76 For example: “Marcellus’ death in 23 bce was a blow from which Octavia never entirely recovered” (Wood 1999, 33); “Marcellus’ death left Octavia inconsolable” (Bauman 2002, 101); “Octavia, the mother of Marcellus, went into seclusion after her son’s death” (Cairns 2006, 290). 77 Despite what Seneca says, Octavia may well have memorialized both her son and her maternity through monumental architecture, and Livia may have followed her lead, though more extensively and successfully, at the death of Drusus; see Woodhull 2012, 245. 78 Thakur 2014, 180. 79 For the problematizing of motherhood, and women’s roles more generally, see, for example, Gold 2006; Newlands 2006; Augoustakis 2010; Keith 2013; McAuley 2015. 80 Newlands 2006, 216. 81 Text and translation from Gibson 2006. 14

Mothers as Dedicators olympia bobou

1. The Evidence of Material Culture for Women Dedicators

Literary and archaeological evidence shows that women in ancient Greece expressed their piety through a variety of dedications to the gods. Already in the geometric period, dedications associated with women were small, mostly inexpensive items, some of which could have been used in real life, or were representations of real ritual offerings. A good range of the types of dedications offered comes from the sanctuary of Hera at Perachora, probably founded in early eighth century bce, where women dedicated spindles, loom weights, jewellery, fibulae, and terracotta models of ritual cakes.1 This example also highlights another aspect of female piety: most of the dedications were given to female deities, as they were considered the natural patrons of women’s lives and experiences. These two trends, i.e. dedication of small objects to female deities, continued unbroken for centuries, although there was diversity in the types of objects, depending on the sanctuary and what was considered proper dedication to each specific deity. Other types of objects were also dedicated, again based on what was customary for each goddess: for example, innovative and unique types of pots were dedicated to Athena on the Acropolis,2 clothes to Artemis at Brauron, etc.3 One special category of dedications was that of large-scale sculpture (for example, reliefs and statues, but also objects such as washing basins, particularly popular in the Archaic period). Women did not dedicate such objects as often as men: of the 393 dedications from the Athenian Acropolis dated in the sixth and fifth centuries bce, only eighteen were dedicated by women, so only one in every twenty-one dedications had female donors.4 Mothers as Dedicators 297

In this paper, I will focus on this category of large-scale objects dedicated by women, especially those who also identified as mothers. These are a small subset of dedications of women, and the five case studies from across Greece that will be discussed here in detail, ranging in date from the classical to the Hellenistic period, can offer us useful information for elucidating the public face of motherhood in the Greek world. The relative paucity of female dedications does not mean that women were constrained by social concerns when they dedicated large-scale objects. This is already evident from the archaic period and one of the earliest large- scale statues known to us: the dedication to Artemis by Nikandre. Created at around 650 bce, at 1.8 metres it probably towered over other contemporary dedications at the sanctuary of the goddess at Delos. Nikandre has been considered a trendsetter when it came to statuary,5 but her inscription seems to set a precedent for female dedicators as well, and so it is worth taking a closer look at it. The dedicatory inscription is just as grandiose as the statue: “Nikan- dre dedicated me to the far-shooter, pourer of arrows, daughter of Deino- dikos of Naxos, eminent among the others, sister of Deinomenes, wife of Phraxos.”6 The statue itself proclaims that it was offered to Artemis by Nikandre, who is introduced first as the daughter of Deinodikos, then as a well-known member of Naxian society on her own right, then a sister, and lastly as a wife.7 It was also carefully planned: inscribed on the side of the left thigh of the statue, it is boustrophedon (written in lines that alternate direction, reminding ancient Greek readers of oxen plowing fields), with the first two lines being of equal length, and the third line taking up one-third of the other two lines. The line division is lost in the translation of the inscription, but in antiquity it would have made Nikandre’s family associations even more obvious: the first line contains the actual dedication and the designation “daughter.” Her father’s name is divided between two lines, while the association with her brother closes the second line; the family of Deinodikos thus takes up the largest part of the inscription. Her new family, i.e. her husband, is only mentioned in the last, visually shorter, line. The visual centre of the inscription (middle of the second line) is taken up by Nikandre’s statement of personal excellence (“eminent among others”). The way Nikandre identifies herself, primarily through her male relatives through blood or marriage,8 so, daughter, sister, wife, is one that we will see repeated throughout antiquity, and that applies to all women. Identification as daughter serves much as the way a surname does today, but also placing the woman within a patrilineal family system. This was the commonest way 298298 Olympia Contents Bobou of referring to a woman either in a text or an inscription, as well as the earliest – evidenced well from the case of Nikandre. This type of identification also crosses class boundaries: being named as “daughter of X” could apply to all women, but mentioning brothers, uncles, or other male relatives in a text was usually reserved for women of the elite. Nikandre’s inscription mentions her brother, and, in a much later example, this time from Roman Aphrodisias, Claudia Antonia Tatiana, a local benefac- tress, was identified as a cousin of two local senators.9 So, Nikandre’s dedication can be considered a trendsetter, and establishes a precedent for the scale of dedicated monument, and ways of identification that an upper-class woman could use. The dedication of Nikandre also serves as a good starting point for observing temporal changes and continuities in the ways that women identified themselves in the public sphere. Looking again at the Acropolis dedications, we see that in the eighteen dedications made by women, in the Αrchaic-period monuments women identify themselves as daughters10 or make no mention of a husband or father.11 Only one inscription mentions the woman explicitly as wife, but that is later, dated at c. 450 bce (Raubitschek 1949, no. 378). This does not mean that families did not dedicate offerings to the gods, but that in archaic and early classical Greece, the role of the head of the family was strictly restricted to the male members of the family, and had to appear so in dedications and other inscriptions placed in public spaces. For example, it has been suggested that Deinomenes appears in Nikandre’s dedication because their father Deinodikos had died, and Deinomenes was the head of the family.12 In the Acropolis inscriptions we have a few dedications that seem to have been made by families: a dedication by Smikros and his παῖδες, a term that possibly refers to his family rather than his pupils or slaves,13 a dedication by someone whose name has been lost and his παῖδες,14 and the dedication of Kynarbos in fulfilment of a vow made by his daughters Aristomache and Archestrate.15 It has also been suggested that Nikandre made her dedication on the occasion of her marriage to Phraxos.16 In that case, not mentioning any offspring is logical, but the lack of comparable inscriptions from the period may indicate that it was also a trend not to give the name of offspring. These inscriptions also reveal who had the control of the finances in a typical archaic household. In some cases, it is clear who paid for the offering: for example, even though Aristomache and Archestrate had made the vow to Athena, it was the responsibility of their father to fulfil it and make the dedication. In the case of Smikythe, the inscription states that she paid for her offering herself from the proceeds of her work: “Smikythe the washerwoman dedicates a tenth.”17 The inscription was inscribed on a column base Mothers as Dedicators 299 for a washing basin, an appropriate offering for a washerwoman. In other cases, the lack of mention of a head of the family is thought to indicate that the women paid for the offerings through their own expenses, as for example Nikandre.

2. Mother Dedicators: Case Studies

Of all the women who dedicated objects only a few identified themselves also as mothers. The material evidence shows that their dedications did not differ from those of other women. Again, an example from the Athenian Acropolis can be illustrative. Avramidou has studied a number of small- scale dedications from the Athenian Acropolis, dating from the Archaic and Classical periods, and her results show that women, either identifying as mothers or not, dedicated the same types of objects. In Avramidou’s study, married women were automatically assumed to have been mothers as well, which is likely, but not always evident from either the artefacts (for example, when a woman is depicted with children, it is highly plausible that she was their mother) or the inscriptions.18 As mentioned earlier, this paper will focus only on large-scale dedications where women are explicitly defined as mothers in the inscriptions. It is a small, but noteworthy, category. The evidence comes from various Greek sites. We do not have enough information for all the monuments dedicated by mothers; five of them, though, are fairly well known or have better doc- umentation, and they offer insight into the types of dedications made by them and the locations as well as possible social changes. I would like to present these monuments first, and then discuss what they tell us about the position of these mothers, and mothers in general, in Greek society.

2.a Classical Period: Telestodike

The inscription of Telestodike is one of the earliest dedications where a woman identifies herself as a mother: “Artemis, to you Telestodike dedicated me, this statue, mother of Asphalios, daughter of Therseleos. I [the statue] boast that I am the work of Kritonides of Paros.”19 The inscription, from around 500 bce, was on a small column base, now at the Museo Archeo- logico Oliveriano at Pesaro, that supported the statue.20 Telestodike presents herself as a daughter and mother, and as Eva Stehle describes it, “a link in a vertical kinship.”21 The text uses the words μήτηρ and θυγάτηρ, the words that will accompany the names of the other dedicators mentioned below. Unlike other dedications, though, she first identifies herself as a mother, and then as a daughter. 300300 Olympia Contents Bobou

Table 14.1. Schematic display of case studies

Family members and Dedicator relationship to dedicator Date Location

Telestodike Therseleos, father c. 500 bce Delos? Paros? Asphalios, son Xenokrateia Xeniades, father c. 410 bce Near modern Xeniades, son Neo Phalero Demokrite Theodoros, father 240–180 bce Oropos Theodoros, son Demainetos, husband Aristaineta Timolaos, father c. 225 bce Delphi Timolaos, son …, mother Aristoxene Timokrates, father 200–167 bce Delos Timokrates, son …on, husband Demaretos, nephew Timokrates, nephew Timokrates, nephew Euelthon, great-nephew Aristodemos, great-nephew Aristophon, great-nephew

Stehle acknowledges that we do not know why Telestodike chose to represent herself in this manner, a lack of knowledge that we have for the other monuments in this paper, but which does not preclude speculation as to the reasons behind such unusual dedications: “special reason … or how [Telesto- dike] views her place in the social system.”22 The lack of find context is another problem that hinders our understanding of the monument’s impact and relation to other monuments from the same site. Adolf Kirchhoff writes that it was transferred to Ancona in 1738, and that Paciaudi, who first published the inscription, wrote that it came from the Peloponnese. Kirchhoff himself doubted the Peloponnesian provenance of the base,23 while Stehle proposed that it came from Delos, a plausible provenance.24 Another inscription on a statue base, this time from Paros, may be an offering by the same Telestodike. It dates to the same period and is also a dedication to Artemis, but this time it presents Telestodike as the wife of Demokydes: “Demokydes and Telestodike, having made a vow, together erected this statue to the virgin Artemis on her sacred ground, the daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus; to their family and livelihood give increase in safety.”25 If, as it has been suggested, both statues were dedicated by the same woman,26 the different dedication locations for the two inscriptions may Mothers as Dedicators 301 give some explanation for the different family associations mentioned in the texts. In the monument set up locally, Telestodike presented herself as the model wife: her name followed that of her husband, and the statue was shown to be a testament of familial piety. In the monument set up away from Paros, which created an opportunity for the artist to proclaim his provenance, Telestodike, instead, presented herself as a member of her father’s family (a daughter), and also a mother.

2.b Xenokrateia

The dedication of Xenokrateia is perhaps one of the most famous from the classical world, and it seems to herald a new age for women in general, but perhaps also for mothers as well. In around 410 bce Xenokrateia founded a sanctuary to the river god Kephisos at the area of Neo Phalero at Peiraeus. This information comes from the inscription accompanying her dedication, a multi-figured relief, to the sanctuary: “Xenokrateia has founded a sanctuary to Kephisos, and dedicated this gift [to him] and to the gods who are worshipped with him on the same altar in thanks for the teaching, the daughter and mother of Xeniades, from Cholleidai. Whoever wishes, can sacrifice for the fulfilment of good things.” Xenokrateia identifies herself as a daughter first, and then a mother, in the manner that will become standard for later inscriptions. She is dressed in a peplos and himation, like any other respectable citizen woman, but also the female deities in the relief. The exact find location of the sanctuary is not known, but one more relief and an inscribed stele also come from the same location. The stele contains a list of deities’ names: Hestia, Kephisos, Apollo Pythios, Leto, Artemis Lochia, Eileithyia, Acheloos, Kallirhoe, Geraistan Nymphs at Birth, and Rhapso, who are considered to have been the gods worshipped together with Kephi- sos mentioned in Xenokrateia’s relief. The second relief found at the site is carved on both sides. On one side, we read: “Kephisodotos, son of Demogenos, [from the deme] of Boutades, has founded [this] and the altar.” On the other side, we have a dedication to Hermes and the Nymphs (the second half of this inscription is indeci- pherable now and has been variously amended and completed),27 while the names of Hermes, Echelos, and Basile are recorded as well.28 As Matthew Dillon has already remarked, the dedication of the shrine to Kephisos by a woman is unusual for the period.29 In fact, Robert Parker prefers to see this foundation as “rest[ing] … on an impossible translation of the start of IG I3 987.”30 I do not think this is as unlikely as Parker would suggest, and that the representation on the relief reinforces the textual statement: Xenokrateia and her son are depicted between two groups of deities – the Pythian Apollo, a female and a youthful male deity on the proper right, 302302 Olympia Contents Bobou and Kephisos and seven other deities, including the river god Acheloos, on the proper left. The iconography is unusual, as in most reliefs women go as part of a family group that includes a male head of the family.31 This pictorial convention is followed even when a woman is the donor of the relief. Such is the case with the slightly later (second half of the fourth century bce) dedication of Aristonike to Artemis at the Brauron sanctuary: “Aristonike, the wife of Antiphates from [the deme of] Thorai prayed and dedicated to Artemis.”32 The image on the relief dedicated by Xenokrateia emphazises her agency, as well as her role as a mother and head of her family: she presents her son to the gods much in the way that fathers present their sons to the deity in other Athenian reliefs.33 It is an unusual image, which would go well together with the unusual, for the times, founding of a cult by a woman.34 Joan Breton Connelly has an interesting suggestion for its origins: Xenokrateia had promised to dedicate her son to the river god but was pre- vented by the events of the Peloponnesian War, as from 413 the Spartans had captured Dekeleia and its environs.35 It is significant that Dekeleia is not far from where Kephisos originates; furthermore, the presence of the Spartan army would have made travelling beyond the city walls unsafe. The foundation of the shrine at the protected mouth of the river near modern- day Neo Phalero would have been a suitable alternative location that would allow Xenokrateia to fulfil her vow.36 The innovation, though, is not as radical as it first seems: the sanctuary of Kephisos founded by Xenokrateia seems to have been little more than the locus of a private cult that did not survive long. The few movable objects associated with the site date from the same period, while the proclamation at the end of the inscription on Xenokrateia’s dedication (“Whoever wishes, can sacrifice for the fulfillment of good things”) does not constitute a sacred law, while the deme of Cholleidai or the Athenian demos do not seem to have taken an active interest in the sanctuary.37

2.c Hellenistic Period

If Xenokrateia made dedications in the small sanctuary she founded herself, other mothers decided to make statements about themselves in a grander setting. The Hellenistic period is generally considered a time of greater inde- pendence for women, largely thanks to the influence of queens. Queens could and did dedicate on a grand scale. It has been suggested that Macedonian queens had a less visible presence on the public sphere than the queens of the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic kingdoms,38 but even they offered expensive dedications to the gods. Such a dedication is of a female statue at the sanctuary of Eukleia (“good fame”) at Vergina, made by Eurydice, Mothers as Dedicators 303 mother of Philip II.39 Better examples of the wealth and visibility of female royal dedications is that of the rotunda at the sanctuary of the Great Gods at Samothrace, built between 280 and 270 bce, dedicated by Arsinoe II, queen of Egypt.40 At other occasions, queens intervened on behalf of cities and offered donations, as did Laodike III, the Seleucid queen who gave various donations to cities that had suffered through the wars of her husband Antiochos III.41 The kind of benefactions and dedications would have provided elite women with an example of the types of offerings they could donate, the types of benefactions they too could give to their cities, and would have helped create similar leading roles for them in their own cities and towns.

2.d Demokrite

The sanctuary of Amphiaraos at Oropos was one of the most important of the sanctuaries dedicated to the Theban hero. According to legend, Zeus opened a chasm in the earth in order to protect and save Amphiaraos from an ignomini- ous death when he was persecuted by Periklymenos. The chasm was located in the area of Oropos. The sanctuary passed from Athenian to Boiotian, and then Theban control during the Peloponnesian War, but it reverted to Athe- nian control in the second half of the fourth century bce. This marked a time of great building activity in the sanctuary, as well as of numerous dedications. The road leading from the theatre to the temple of the god was the most prominent location of the sanctuary, and where the various dedicants vied for securing a place of high visibility for their statues. The dedicatory inscriptions show that this was the location for dedications by the δῆμος, as well as by prominent and important citizens and worshippers, including a statue of Adeia, sister-in-law of King Lysimachos, dedicated by the king.42 In this location, Demokrite dedicated a statue group (see fig. 1). The crowning of the base has marks for five bronze statues, but in the inscription only her father and her son are mentioned, both named Theodoros. On the left side, the inscription records the dedication of her father’s statue: “Demokrite, daughter of Theodoros, [the statue of] her own father, Theodo- ros, son of Archilochos, to Amphiaraos.” On the right side, the inscription records: “Demokrite, daughter of Theodoros, [the statue of] her son The- odoros, son of Demainetos, to Amphiaraos.” The artist’s inscription is at the bottom of the base: “Dionysios, son of Ariston, made this.”43 This has led to different hypotheses about the reconstruction of the complete group: John Ma has suggested that Demokrite, her father, and her son as well as Amphiaraos were represented,44 or that Demokrite and her family members were accompanied by two slave attendants.45 Regardless of who was represented, this multi-figured group would have stood out in the area, placed as it was next to bases for single or double statues. 304304 Olympia Contents Bobou

Fig. 1. Detail of area with statuary dedications on the δρόμος leading to the temple of Amphiaraos. Demokrite’s dedication in black. Drawing after Goette 2001, fig. 81.

Demokrite’s dedication would have been visually comparable to dedications made by male heads of families, since it was common for a son to dedicate the statue of his father (and on occasion his mother too) as well as for a husband to dedicate the statue of his wife.46 The dedication of the statue of a parent by a daughter was fairly unusual, though, and so Demokrite’s dedication would have stood out at the sanctuary. The name Theodoros is also interesting: there are records of a priest of Amphiaraos named Theodoros under the archonship of Philon.47 These inscriptions are broadly dated in the period 240–180 bce, the same broad period of Demokrite’s dedication. It is tempting to connect the two, and propose that Demokrite is the daughter of priest Theodoros.48 Dedications of statues of priests were common in sanctuaries; if Theodo- ros the priest was the same as Theodoros, Demokrite’s father, then the dedication of his statue could be ascribed to this dedicatory pattern, and could explain why Demokrite chose to emphasize her association with her father. It does not explain, however, the lack of the statue of her husband, who is only mentioned in connection with her son.

2.e Aristaineta

A similar dedication is that of Aristaineta from Aitolia at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, dating to around 225 bce (see fig. ).2 The sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi arguably was the most important sanctuary of the god in the Greek world, and had long been a site that attracted precious and magnificent dedications by kings, and cities, as well as private citizens.49 Fig. 2. Detail of the central terrace of the Apollo sanctuary at Delphi. The columnar monuments in the area are circled; the base for Aristaineta’s monument in black. Not shown in the plan the base for the Athenian palm tree dedication, located next to Aristaineta’s monument. Drawing after Luckenbach 1904, fig. 50. 306306 Olympia Contents Bobou

In the Archaic and Classical periods, the most prominent location of the sanctuary was the road leading from the sanctuary’s entrance to the temple of Apollo. At the time of Aristaineta’s dedication, the surrounding area of this road was crowded by dedications of victorious cities and rulers. This made the area close to and directly in front of the temple a location that could be filled with prestigious dedications. Aristaineta’s dedication was in the shape of an Ionic double column on a stepped base. The type of the monument was particularly popular in the Hellenistic period, and together with the similar pillar monuments, the best- known examples are associated with royalty: the monument in honour of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II at Olympia, the Doric column in honour of Philip V at Samothrace, the pillar honouring Eumenes II at Delphi, or the pillar in honour of Prusias of Bithynia, again at Delphi.50 The inscriptions inform us that the monument was crowned by the statues of Aristaineta, her parents, and her son: “Aristaineta, daughter of Timo- laos, from Aitolia to the Pythian Apollo” and “Aristaineta from Aitolia [the statue of] her father Timolaos, and [the statue of] her mother […] and [the statue of] herself, and [the statue of] her son Timolaos to Apollo.”51 The combined height of the base and the column meant that the statues dedicated by Aristaineta would have stood at almost ten metres above ground (some thirty feet), thus physically standing out from the other dedications in the area.52 Both the scale and the form of the monument meant that Aris- taineta’s dedication could compete with those of kings such as Eumenes II. Aristaineta’s monument can be connected to a period in the sanctuary history dominated by the Aitolians. The Aitolians had been gaining and losing control of the sanctuary since the 290s bce; by 262 bce the sanctuary was under their control, and in 242 bce the Aitolians were confident enough that they celebrated the Soteria at Delphi, a festival in honour of Zeus and Apollo Soter. A few years later Aristaineta dedicated her monument, which was followed by a similar dedication by the general Charixenos.53 We do not have any other information about Aristaineta or her family so far; the location and type of her dedication at a time that Delphi was under Aitolian control show that she was a member of a prosperous and influential Aitolian family. Compared to Demokrite, Aristaineta chose to commemorate her family ties in a non-Aitolian, non-local sanctuary that was under Aito- lian control. Thus, she showed that she enjoyed greater influence. Aristaineta’s monument also followed contemporary trends in honorific dedications: the columns in honour of Ptolemy II and his sister-wife Arsinoe II dedicated by Kallikrates between 278 and 270 bce were among the earliest Hellenistic high columnar dedications, and of a similar height (at around ten metres).54 It could be compared as well with other high columnar dedications, such as the sphinx dedicated by the Naxians at around 570–560 bce Mothers as Dedicators 307

(also on an Ionic column),55 the acanthus column,56 and a statue of Phryne.57 Much like Demokrite’s dedication, which followed the trend for blocky ped- estals in the sanctuary of Amphiaraos, but differed from them on account of its size, so Aristaineta’s dedication could belong to a long tradition of columnar dedications, but differed in its use of a single base for two columns – therefore, by offering an elaborate variation of a common type. Like Demokrite’s dedication, Aristaineta’s group of statues was also comparable to those made by male heads of families. This also differed from them in presenting Aristaineta, instead of the expected male, in the group.

2.f Aristoxene

Another important monument is that of Aristoxene; she dedicated a statue of her son Timokrates at Delos between 200 and 167/6 bce (see fig. 3). It was a single statue, set up between the South Stoa and the Propylon of the

Fig. 3. Detail of the area between the sanctuary propylon and the δρόμος leading to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos. Aristoxene’s monument is marked out. Drawing after Vallois 1923, pl. 9. 308308 Olympia Contents Bobou sanctuary of Apollo.58 The inscription is as follows: “Aristoxene, daughter of Timokrates, [the statue of] her son Timokrates, [son of …] on, and Demare- tos and Aristokles and Timokrates [the statue of] their uncle, and Euelthon and Aristodemos and Aristophon [the statue of] their cousin, to the gods” (IG XI,4.1181). This is a joint dedication, by the mother, and, based on the names, the cousins and nephews from Timokrates’ maternal side. The family of Timokrates seems to have been one of the important families of independent Delos.59 The location of the statue is quite prominent: it may not be as conspicuous as the statues placed on either side of the road leading to the sanctuary of Apollo, but by the time it was set up, that area was mostly occupied. Its location was the next best available.60 The joint dedication is not as unusual as it first seems: a contemporary inscription from Delos, on a base in front of the portico of Philip, records the dedication of the statue of Herakleides by his wife Myrallis, their sons Aris- tion, Aischrion, Herakleides, and Menekrates, and their daughters Nikaso and Kleano.61

2.g Other Dedications

There are other dedications as well by women setting up statues of their children, but they have attracted less scholarly attention. In the turn of the fourth to the third century bce, Klearista, daughter of Aristarchos, from Epi- dauros dedicated the statue of her son Oxymenes to Asklepios (IG IV²,1 239; Denham Rouse 1902, 14–15). Kleonika from Sparta dedicated a statue of her son and her father with her own expenses (IG V,1 522; Bradford 1977, 159). Damo, daughter of Aristomachos, dedicated the statue of her son Damaretos, son of Alkias, in the late first century bce (IvO 414). At Thebes, Niko, daughter of Agathokles, together with her daughter Armoxena, dedicated the statue of Teisarchos, son of Ar[…] (IG VII 2488). At Megara, Anaxis, daughter of Alkias, together with her children Philonas and Philokleia, dedicated the statue of Lysias, son of Herakleitos (IG VII 60). Atheno, the daughter of Hegesios, dedicated the statue of her son Theophanes, son of Dionysios, together with her other son Proxenos, in the late second-century bce (IG XII, 9 1233), while Philokion dedicated the statue of her son Dositheos at the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos at around 225 bce.62

3. Discussion

As mentioned earlier, this is a small subcategory of dedications made by women. From them we can gain some information about the public display Mothers as Dedicators 309 of motherhood. The first thing that is striking is that, even though there is some variation in the phrasing, the name of the father (and the identification as daughter) comes first. Only in the late Archaic dedication of Telesto- dike we see her first as a mother. This shows that from the classical period onwards, the way of referring to one’s self as member of a family group had been standardized, and women were also identified by their father’s name, the way men had always been in inscriptions and texts. This formula did not change (X, daughter of Y, mother of Z), but as the Hellenistic examples show, the family relations displayed or inscribed could be expanded (statues of mothers, or joint dedications by several family members). Of the dedications themselves, only the relief dedicated by Xenokrateia has survived and shows us the woman; as mentioned, she is dressed in a cos- tume appropriate for freeborn, well-off women, known in other artworks, including the Parthenon frieze. There is no visual evidence of her motherhood in her relief and, judging by votive reliefs where family groups are approaching deities, as well as statues of women,63 there is no reason to think that depictions of mothers were distinguished in any way from those of married women. Also interesting is the fact that the husband’s name does not appear in five of the eleven inscriptions discussed or mentioned in this paper. In the six where it appears, it appears after the son’s name. This has to be significant, and it is worth examining if women had the legal and/or social autonomy to erect costly monuments, and their relationship with the men in their families. Our knowledge of ancient Greek laws regarding women, their rights, and property is fragmentary, and we do not have information for all the areas from which the dedicators discussed or mentioned originate. Most of our information, in fact, comes from classical Athens, and so, scholars use that in order to hypothesize about the lives of women from other locations.64 The use of a patronymic shows that the women in the inscriptions in this paper were freeborn. As such, their lives would have been regulated by a set of laws designed to keep them under control. First of all, they would have had a κύριος, a guardian. This would have been first their closest male relative, almost always their father, the head of their first household. It would be his responsibility to find a husband for his daughters, and provide them with a dowry. With marriage young women passed on to the guardianship of their husband.65 In the classical period, the dowry was estimated in monetary terms, even when it consisted of land or animals, or some other type of property. It was considered to be the woman’s property, yet it was the husband’s responsibility to administer it. So, if a woman received a dowry of three talents, she 310310 Olympia Contents Bobou would not have direct access to that money, but her husband was expected to use it as capital for profitable ventures.66 Divorce or the husband’s death were situations that made clear that the dowry was part of the wife’s property: when/if the wife returned to her paternal household, she took the dowry with her.67 The birth of a child strengthened and solidified a wife’s place in the husband’s household. Until then, she was still connected to her old, paternal household; she was still a νύμφη (bride), but the birth of a child transformed her into a γυνὴ (wife).68 Relations with her paternal household, though, did not cease: even if it was common to name the first child after the paternal grandfather, the second child was named after the maternal grandfather (LGPN; Bremmer 1983). In some cases, the ties with the maternal family were the ones that were prioritized: for example, the Athenian Sositheos claimed that the property of Hagnias rightfully belonged to his family through his wife Phylomache II, a descendant of Hagnias through adoption. In his speech against Macartatus, whose father had been awarded the disputed property, Sositheos claimed that his choice of names for his sons, as well as the choice of a husband for his daughter, confirmed his rightful association with Hagnias: his firstborn was named “as was right” after his father Sosias, but every other son was named after members of his wife’s family: his second born was named after his maternal grandmother, the third after another maternal relative, and the last after Sositheos’ maternal grandfather, through whom Sositheos himself claimed a connection to Hagnias. Sositheos also gave his daughter in marriage to his nephew, who was related to Hagnias too (Demosthenes Against Macartatus 43.74). The importance of the maternal household is evident in the inscriptions under discussion: all but one of the women (Philokion) have their father’s name inscribed. Unlike men, for whom the patronymic was a necessary marker that distinguished them from others and commemorated their belonging to a family and a town, women were not identified with their patronymic often. The women in our inscriptions thus chose to proclaim their descent from their father’s house. Of the children mentioned in the inscriptions, none has a name that can be linked etymologically to the father’s name, except perhaps the daughter of Niko and Ar[…], Armoxena. The lack of the father’s patronymic also means that we cannot establish if some of these children had their paternal grandfather’s name. Four of the children, however, carry the name of their maternal grandfather: Xeniades, Theodoros, Timolaos, and Timokrates, while Damaretos’ name can be associated with that of his mother, Damo. The onomastic practices of these particular families highlight the connection with the mother’s household. Mothers as Dedicators 311

What can we infer from this information? Perhaps the four children named after their maternal grandfathers were all second sons. This would mean that the representations of these four families were particularly selective. In the relief dedicated by Xenokrateia, only herself and her son were represented, while the maternal grandfather is mentioned. In Demokrite’s statuary group herself, her son, and her father were represented, together with two other figures (the god and a servant? two servants?). In Aristai- neta’s group there was herself, her son, and her two parents, while only Timokrates was represented in the monument dedicated by his mother and several of her nephews and grand-nephews. The absence of a firstborn son bearing his paternal grandfather’s name seems then problematic, especially in the cases of Xenokrateia, Demokrite, and Aristaineta. In the case of Xenokrateia, it seems odd that she would dedicate a relief to, and establish a cult for, Kephisos, only in relation to her second-born child. Do her pious actions mean that she had a first child that died, and so she then thanked the god for the survival and διδασκαλία of her second child? If that was the case, does this mean that the first son had lived long enough to see the birth and naming of the second son (assuming that if he had died before the naming ceremony or before the birth of the second son, then Xenokrate- ia’s husband would have opposed a name stemming from his wife’s family)? In the cases of Demokrite and Aristaineta there is another problem with the dedication of the statue of the second son. In the base for Demokrite’s group, there was space for five statues. Even if we accept that one of them depicted Amphiaraos, and the other three spaces were reserved for Demokrite, her father, and her son, there is still enough space for the statue of yet another son. The same with Aristaineta’s dedication: since the monument was custom-made, they could have made it large enough to hold yet another figure, or could have made the statues slightly smaller so as to accommodate a fifth figure on the base, or they could have omitted a statue (probably that of Aristaineta’s mother). Furthermore, there is evidence that a posthumous representation of a family member could be added in a relief or a statue: in the relief dedicated by Aristonike, her husband is presumably depicted on the relief, but the inscription shows that it was a dedication by Aristonike alone. In the group dedicated by Philip II of Macedon at Olympia there are representations of his father and mother, even though by 338 bce his father was definitely, and his mother most probably, dead.69 It then seems that the dedication of a relief or a statue to a second son creates complications in our interpretation of the monuments, and should be considered a less likely hypothesis. More likely is that these were firstborn sons, and the choice of name from the maternal side of the family suggests 312312 Olympia Contents Bobou

(a) either the greater importance of the maternal family compared to that of the father, or (b) that the family was trying to establish its connection with the maternal family, like Sositheos did, or (c) that the mothers were heir- esses (ἐπίκληροι). When a father, or a male heir (brother), died without leaving a son, then the family name was in danger of becoming extinct, and the property of passing on to a different family. The daughter (or sister) then became an ἐπίκληρος, and was obliged to marry her closest male relative from her paternal side so that the family property would remain in the family.70 Such laws were in place in various areas of the Greek world, although we are more familiar with the laws from Athens, Gortyn, and Sparta. The laws present the orphan girl as a passive creature that had to be married off, and, if already married, to be divorced from her first husband, and whose role was to pass on the property from her father to her son. It is a bleak picture, but perhaps marrying into the family had some advantages for the orphan girl. Let us take the case of Sositheos and his wife Phylomache II. Sositheos was the son of Euboulides I’s granddaughter, and the closest male relative of Euboulides I’s great-granddaughter. The two were second cousins, then. Even if Sositheos had been compelled to marry Phylomache II by the ἄρχων, as was the law for ἐπίκληροι,71 he probably already knew her on account of their kinship. This may not have caused love or affection immediately, but it at least put Phylomache II at a better place than other Athenian girls who were married off to complete strangers. Considering that both were great-grandchildren of Eubulides I, and so must have belonged to the same generation, it also means that Phylomache II and Sositheos might have been closer in age than most Athenian couples. The birth of five surviving children would probably have strengthened the bonds between husband and wife, while in the suit against the family of Macartatus, Sositheos appears as the defender of his wife’s rights. As in the case of Sositheos and Phylomache II, it is possible to imagine common financial interests between anἐπίκληρος and her husband, as well as the joint interest of passing their inheritance to their children. These would have created bonds between husband and wife that could rival those born out of affection and love. The iconography of the relief, as well as the indications provided by the monuments, show also that, if indeed Xenokrateia, Demokrite, Aristaineta, and Aristoxene were ἐπίκληροι, then they were committed to promoting their paternal family and to safeguarding the interests of their father’s house. Their motherhood was more than the fulfilment of a woman’s role in life; it was also the necessary means for saving their paternal family. In the Mothers as Dedicators 313 monuments, these women appeared as links between two generations of men, without whom the family name, the family property, the family home would have been lost. For Xenokrateia it has also been suggested that she was a widow who had returned to her father’s house.72 This does not explain why her son is named after his maternal, and not his paternal, grandfather, nor why her father is such an important figure in the text. A widow without children would return to her father, or her closest male relative, and be placed under their guardianship, but if she had children, then her children would become her husband’s heirs. The child would then remain in the husband’s house, under the guardianship of a male relative of the father, while the widow could stay or return to her father’s house.73 If it is not likely that Xenokrateia was a widow, this was a possible scenario for the other women in the inscriptions discussed, where the father’s name was mentioned next to that of the son. This was the case for four of the women: Damo, the wife of Alkias, Niko, the wife of Ar[…], Anaxis, the wife of Herakleitos, and Atheno, the wife of Dionysios. All of these women identify themselves as the “daughter of.” The texts clearly break down the family unit in two: mother, daughter of/son, son of. This formula could reflect the actual breakdown of a family unit after the death of the husband, especially compared to the formulas used for joint dedications of statues of children by both parents. In joint dedications, the father’s name comes first, followed by the mother’s name, and then that of the son; for example, the dedication of the statue of Sotimidas by Damocha- ris, son of Sotimidas, and Aristedeia, daughter of Nikias, at the sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosoura (IG V,2 538). If they were widows, then the mention of the patronymic would serve as more than an identifier (much like a surname would today). Together with the mention of the (late?) husband’s name, it could also highlight the fact that, even though they were widows, they had chosen to stay with their husbands’ families and take care of their children. Of course, it could very well be that the dedicators wanted to make their monuments stand out; the example of the dedication of Telesto- dike shows that we should be cautious. Telestodike, daughter of Therse- leos, dedicated the statue of her son Asphalios; another monument at the same period was dedicated by a Telestodike at Paros together with Demokydes. If both monuments were dedicated by the same woman, one by her alone and another together with her husband, then monuments that have inscriptions that deviate from the “father-mother/child” formula could have been created with either different audiences in mind, or just in order to be different. 314314 Olympia Contents Bobou

The matter of the audience of the monument is an important one: the dedication by Telestodike was set up at a sanctuary of Artemis outside Paros (or else Kritonides the sculptor would not have signed with his place of origin). If it was dedicated at the sanctuary of the goddess at Delos, the designation of Telestodike as mother and daughter would have sufficed to the international audience of the sanctuary; also, it would have stroked Telesto- dike’s ego to present herself as a woman of means from a prominent family that had been blessed by Artemis. At Paros, where she would be known as much as the daughter of Therseleos, as well as the wife of Demokydes, it would have been better to be seen following social rules and appear first as the wife of Demokydes in their joint dedication. Another explanation for the different formulas is that of chronological difference: the Paros dedication was set up soon after the marriage of Telestodike and Demokydes, perhaps soon after the birth of a child, while the second inscription could have been set up after Demokydes’ death. All but one of these inscriptions share a common feature: the absence of the expression “with their own expenses” (ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων). Only Kleonika paid for the statues of her son and father with her own expenses. Her origin from Sparta may explain this: Spartan women were famously independent, compared to women from other regions, and could own and manage their own land.74 Women from regions other than Sparta, though, could make offerings “with their own expenses,” as for example Theodote at the sanctuary of Artemis Mounichia at Piraeus in the middle of the fourth century BC (SEG 26.267). One explanation for the absence of the formula is that all the women, except for Kleonika, were not in control of their own purses, and so could not state that the dedications had been paid by themselves. If that was the case, then the monuments would have been paid by their κύριος: their fathers, uncles, husbands, or even their sons. Texts, however, offer a different picture: Archippe, the wife of the banker Pasion, had personally given 2000 drachmas to the children of Phormion (Demosthenes For Phormion 36.14). Another woman gave three μναῖ of silver to Antiphanes, a non-relative, in order to arrange her funeral (Lysias 34.21). In order to explain this inconsistency between laws and practice it has been proposed that women could make large expenditures provided their κύριος gave them his approval.75 The texts show that it would be possible for a woman to make a grand gesture such as offering a two-column monument to her paternal family at a sanctuary outside her town. If Aristaineta’s κύριος was her son, or a close relative, perhaps he too would have agreed with the placement of a monument aggrandizing his family. The absence of the formula “with their own Mothers as Dedicators 315 expenses” would then make these women appear as submitting to social norms, softening the impression made by the inscriptions. For the four women who had made the costliest dedications in our list, this was the only concession to social norms. The size and location of the monuments would have competed with those of elite worshippers. Aristai- neta’s monument would have competed with the palm tree offering of the Athenians (Plutarch, Nikias 13.3). Xenokrateia’s was wider than the other offerings that were found in the same area, and probably larger, or among the large offerings of others that were not recovered. Demokrite’s dedication, compared to the other monuments of the Amphiaraeion, had one of the widest and largest bases on the site. The base of Aristoxene’s offering was comparable to other single-statue bases in the dromos to the sanctuary. The choice of location would have made their offerings comparable to those of other illustrious and well-off donors, including kings, generals, and the δῆμος in the sanctuaries of Apollo at Delos and Delphi, and of Amphi- araos. Their offerings had been placed in conspicuous places of the sanctuaries: Xenokrateia’s occupied a prime location thanks to it being the offering of the founder of the shrine. Demokrite’s offering was at one end of the processional route in the sanctuary of Amphiaraos. Aristaineta’s too occupied a prime location in the sanctuary, close to the temple of Apollo, while Aristoxene’s was outside the propylon of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos, a location inferior only to that of the processional route. These particular women participated in the competition for elite display that took place in the sanctuaries, and their offerings would have attracted the visitors’ gaze as much as those of elite men. Visually, at first glance they would appear as similar offerings to those of others in the sanctuary, but a closer look would set them apart from most offerings, i.e., statues of men. In Xenokrateia’s relief, only she and her son appeared, the lack of an adult male figure making obvious the dedication from a woman, as in the later relief from Echinos, now at the Lamia Archaeological Museum (inv. No AE 1041).76 In Demokrite’s and Aristaineta’s dedications, the lack of a middle-aged male figure also made clear that this was not a dedication by the husband of the woman, although it left open the possibility that the statue groups had been dedicated by the parent(s) of the woman portrayed. It is in the single-figure dedications that it would be impossible to tell whether the dedicant of the statue was the father or the mother. The inscribed texts made clear who the dedicant was, since imagery and location were not always clear or provided enough information about that: these were all mothers, usually identified themselves as daughters, and sometimes made the offering together with other members of their family. Of all these social roles (daughter, wife, mother, relative), that of mother was 316316 Olympia Contents Bobou the most important: it was highlighted by the visual presence of the child on the monument, and was central in the inscribed text on the base. By proclaiming their motherhood, these women showed that they had achieved what was considered the life’s goal for a woman in ancient Greece: they had given birth to legitimate children who had survived the perils of infancy and who would have continued the family name – whether that of their husband’s family, or their paternal family (in the case of ἐπίκληροι). They had linked two households with their marriage, and with the birth of a child, they had linked two generations. Their presence as mothers had secured the continuity of the family within the city. They were worthy of fame and praise. The lack of a husband distinguished them further: in setting up a monument for their children, these women assumed a male responsibility, since men were the traditional donors of family groups. If we also consider the possibility that these dedications were paid by the women themselves, by their personal capital, then their comparison with men became even more stressed. Thucydides gave us a version of Pericles’ funeral oration, delivered after the first battles of the Peloponnesian War (431/30bce ). There we read that the greater glory for women is to be “least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad” (Thucydides 2.45.2, in the translation of Crawley 1910). It does not matter whether Pericles really said those actual words; what matters is that Thucydides wrote them with the expectation that they would be accepted by his readers as appropriate for the occasion, reflecting the common opinion on women, and the social limitations imposed on them. The religious sphere did allow women some measure of fame for their own sake: priestesses, first of all, were talked about, and played an important role in the city. Women appeared increasingly as joint dedicants together with their husbands from the end of the fifth century bce. Most of the women in the inscriptions discussed here, however, took this a step further. Perhaps this was the result of hearing about, or seeing, the dedications and benefactions of powerful queens. Most of the dedications date from the Hel- lenistic period, a period from which we have more dedications by women than the archaic or the classical period. More importantly, by using their roles as mothers these women took on a traditionally male role and dedicated monuments themselves. As mothers and donors, they operated like the male head of household, deciding who would be portrayed, where they would set up the statue, and how the dona- tion would be recorded. Motherhood, furthermore, gave them the right to make these expensive gestures; they had fulfilled their traditional role and social expectations, and could take pride in their achievement. What better, Mothers as Dedicators 317 and more traditionally acceptable and feminine, way than to thank the gods for the survival of their family with an offering? Unlike inscriptions recording legal transactions like buying or selling where the women act through a κύριος or an ἐπίτροπος, here the women appear acting by themselves. By sidelining or completely omitting their husbands, though, these women covertly claimed the role of head of their household. In some cases, this claim was twofold, both visual and textual. When Xenokrateia appeared presenting her son to Kephisos, in the same way that a father would present his son to Zeus Meilichios in contemporary or slightly later reliefs, she assumed an iconography that put her in charge of her family. Demokrite and Aristaineta did the same thing. They appropriated an iconographic narrative that in most cases privileged the male line, and emphasized a woman’s role as wife, a role ancillary to that of the husband. By appearing as mothers, together with their parents, they assumed the role of the pious son, and father. They became equal to men honoured as good husbands and fathers. Women like Aristoxene also took on the paternal role: especially in joint dedications, by having their name placed first in the inscription they occupied a prominent space of the text, a space occupied usually by the male dedicant/father. Aristoxene, and the other women who set up monuments to a single child, also became equal to fathers who had set up statues to their children alone, or together with their family. We have only a few inscriptions recording monuments set up by women, but these inscriptions discussed here are perhaps the most striking. On one hand, they comply with the social rules that allowed women (some) autonomy and prominence in the religious sphere. They comply with the laws prevalent in the ancient world that women were not in control of their property and finances by downplaying the financial aspects of the offering and omitting the tell-tale expression “with their own expenses.” Most of all, they comply with the notion of motherhood as a woman’s goal and achievement. At the same time, they undermine the image of the subservient wife, who is not to be talked about and is under constant control. The texts emphatically place them at either the beginning or the centre of the inscriptions. In the texts, they are separated from their husbands (if they even appear), and appear as daughters and mothers. In the most expensive and prominent monuments under consideration (of Xenokrateia, Demokrite, Aristai- neta, and Aristoxene), they align themselves with their paternal family, and appear to continue their fathers’ line, rather than their husbands’. For these women, motherhood was more than their pride, glory, and accomplishment. It was an essential part of their identity that allowed them to appear as equal to men in the public areas of a sanctuary, and take on the role of head of household in all but name. 318318 Olympia Contents Bobou

NOTES

1 Dillon 2003, 14. 2 Verbanck-Piérard 2008. 3 Dillon 2003, 19–22; Brøns 2016. 4 Raubitschek 1949, 465. 5 Butz 2010, 102. 6 Donohue 2006, 220. 7 Butz 2010, 102; Dillon 2003, 11. 8 Stewart 1990, 108. 9 For Tatiana, see Dillon 2010, 148. 10 Raubitchek 1949, nos. 191, 194, 201, 297, 369. 11 Raubitschek 1949, nos. 3, 25, 81, 93, 232, 258, 298, 348, 380. 12 Dillon 2003, 11. 13 Raubitschek 1949, no. 53. 14 Raubitschek 1949, no. 64. 15 Raubitschek 1949, no. 79. 16 Dillon 2003, 11. 17 Dillon 2003, 15. 18 Avramidou 2015. 19 Dillon 2003, 11. 20 Purgold 1882. 21 Stehle 1997, 116. 22 Stehle 1997, 116. 23 Kirchhoff 1877, 65–7. 24 Stehle 1997, 116. 25 Dillon 2003, 12. 26 Dillon 2003, 12. 27 For example, in IG I³ 986, the text is given as Ἑρμῆι καὶ Νύμφαισιν Ἀ<λ>εξὸ [τήνδ’ ἀνέθηκεν]. In the catalogue of the National Museum (Kaltsas 2002, cat. no. 258), the inscription reads: Ἑρμῆι καὶ Νύμφαις ἴνα ἀέξοι[εν φί]λ[ον υἱόν. 28 Kaltsas 2002, cat. no. 258; Parker 2005, 430. 29 As Dillon 2003, 24–5. 30 Parker 2005, 430. 31 For example, Kaltsas 2002, cat. nos. 427–9. 32 Despinis 2002. 33 For example, Kaltsas 2002, cat. no. 469. 34 Hupfloher 2012, 30. 35 Connelly 2014. 36 Connelly 2014. 37 Hupfloher 2012, 30. Mothers as Dedicators 319

38 Carney 2012, 314–5. 39 Mari 2011, 463. 40 McCredie et al. 1992. 41 Ramsey 2013. 42 Petrakos 1997, cat. no. 382. 43 Petrakos 1997, cat. no. 424/25. 44 Ma 2013, 207. 45 Bobou 2015, 69. 46 Ma 2013, 203–4. 47 Petrakos 1997, cat. nos. 71, 72. 48 Löhr 1993, 195. 49 For Delphi, see recently Scott 2014. 50 Westcoat 2016, 434. 51 Flacelière 1954, nos. 130–1. 52 Dillon 2010, 48–9. 53 Scott 2014, 169–75. 54 Palagia 2013, 147. 55 Scott 2010, 46–7. 56 Scott 2010, 135–6. 57 Dillon 2010, 48. 58 Dillon 2013, 219. 59 Vial 1984, 305. 60 Dillon 2013. 61 Dillon 2013, 220; ID 1716. 62 Mitford 1961, 12, 27. 63 See Dillon 2010. 64 Blundell 1995, 10. 65 Kamen 2013, 87. 66 MacDowell 1978, 87. 67 MacDowell 1978, 88. 68 King 2002, 79. 69 Scott 2010, 210–12. 70 MacDowell 2009, 66–8. 71 MacDowell 2009, 98. 72 McClees 1920, 28. 73 Cox 1998, 144. 74 Pomeroy 2002, 80–2. 75 MacLachlan 2012, 87–8. 76 Morizot 2004. This page intentionally left blank ABBREVIATIONS

All abbreviations of literary texts and journal titles in the main follow OCD3 and L’Année philologique, respectively. Note also the following:

CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1863–. IG Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin, 1903–. IvO W. Dittenberger and K. Purgold, Die Inschriften von Olympia. Olympia 5. Berlin, 1896. LGPN P .M. Fraser, E. Matthews, et al. (eds.), A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. Oxford, 1987–. http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/names/practices.html (accessed 30/12/2016). LS C.T. Lewis and C. Short (eds.), A Latin Dictionary. Oxford, 1879. OCT Oxford Classical Texts OLD P.G.W. Glare (ed.), Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford, 1968–82. RE Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1894–. TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Leipzig, 1904–. This page intentionally left blank WORKS CITED

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Federica Bessone – Università degli Studi di Torino Olympia Bobou – Aarhus University Jacqueline Fabre-Serris – Université Lille 3 Charles de Gaulle Therese Fuhrer – Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich Florence Gherchanoc – Université Paris Diderot, ANHIMA Centre Judith P. Hallett – University of Maryland, College Park Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer – Universität Basel Valerie Hope – The Open University Alison Keith – University of Toronto Florence Klein – Université Lille 3 Charles de Gaulle Mairéad McAuley – University College London Alison Sharrock – University of Manchester

Giulia Sissa – University of California, Los Angeles This page intentionally left blank INDEX LOCORUM

Accius Aristophanes Myrmidones fr. 15: 111 Nubes 14–17: 58 Aeschylus 39–74: 58–9 Choephori 140: 57 Lysistrata 1124: 219

Alcmeon Aristotle fr. 24DK: 194 Athenaion politeia 3: 195 De Generatione Animalium Apollonius 2.1.732a6–9: 50 Argonautica 4.3.767b8: 60 1.790–1: 265 4.3.1–2.768a22–3: 51 3.297–8: 265 Historia Animalium 4.869–72: 266 7.6.586a4–6: 51 9.608b 11–609a 30: 210 Appian 9.7.6.585b29–32: 55 Historia Romana 612a2–5: 266 5.73: 277 Nicomachean Ethics 1130b–32b: 5.96: 291 195 Poetics 1450b7–8: 193 Apuleius Politica Metamorphoses 1.1259b1–3: 210 1.6: 290 1.1260a 7–24: 210 5.28: 158 2.3.8–9.1262a24: 51 5.31: 164 7.1327b 27–8: 210 5.369–71: 111 1283b–1284a: 196 6.4: 158 1277a26–7: 196, 217 7.21: 108 1277b13–18: 196 10.6: 273 1301b–c: 216 364 Index Locorum

1317b: 196 43.22.2: 124 1450b7–8: 193 45.6.4: 124 Rhetoric 47.7.5: 291 1389a–b: 209v10 48.54.3–4: 291 13.89c: 210 49.38.1–2: 276, 291 53.30: 291 Augustine 53.33.4: 291, 294 Confessiones 54.35.4–5: 125, 276, 278, 291 1.17: 224 5.15: 225 Catullus 6.1: 225 39.4–5: 272 8.30: 224 40.1v4: 111 9.9.20: 160 61: 129 9.15: 225, 229 61.1–5: 130 9.18–22: 225 61.57–9: 130 9.32: 229 61.204: 131 Contra Academicos 231 61.209–13: 130–1 2.13: 237 61.219–23: 131 De Beata Vita 62.20–5: 131–2 226–7 62.39–66: 132 2.1: 231 64.16–18: 90 6: 227, 229 64.348–9: 110 10: 227–8 65.19–24: 265 9: 232 9.17: 233 Cicero 9.19: 234 ad Brutum 1.9.2: 289 9.24–6: 234 ad Familiares 2.37: 235 4.7: 290 35: 228 9.20/193.3: 272 De Ordine 1.31–2: 230–2 de Oratore 3.45: 154 de Natura Deorum 2.126: 266 Aulus Gellius Orationes Philippicae 14.11: 290 Noctes Atticae Pro Flacco 72–3: 154 12.1: 163 Pro Milone 5: 290

Bible Claudian Corinthians Carmina 1.1: 24: 213 10: 134 10.229–37: 134–5 Cassius Dio 10.252–85: 135 Historia Romana 10.340–1: 135 Index Locorum 365

Carmina Minora Fr. 14 (360 Kn. 50 A.), 14–15 J and 25: 134 VL: 213 25.124–6: 136 Fr. 22–31: 213 25.130–8: 136 39–40: 214 28: 139 Hippolytus Epithalamium Dictum Laurentio 134 252: 219 de Raptu Proserpinae 337–43: 56 1.121–213: 137 Iphigenia Aulidensis 1386: 213 3.67–169: 137 Phoenissae 3.176: 137 528–46: 200 3.420–7: 137 536–49: 197 Spurium 5: 134 Supplices 3: 203 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 40–1: 203, 205 CIL VI.1527:144–5 89–91: 221 CIL VI 40356, 40357: 278 297–316: 197–8 314–16: 220 Demosthenes 316–31: 199 For Phormion 36.14: 314 320: 221 Against Macartatus 43.74: 310 361–4: 221 Against Nerea 50–1: 58 419: 219 633–7: 222 Diodorus Siculus 923: 221 Bibliotheke 4.83.1–4: 125 1275–83: 222 Fragments (Nauck) Donatus, Aelius 3: 219 ad Hecyram 5: 219 198: 142, 147 29: 219 277: 147 508: 219 774: 142 619: 219 Vita Vergilii 32–3: 114, 270, 279 Herodotus Ennius 3.80–81: 194 Annales 156 Sk: 29 3.134: 220 5.78: 194 Euripides Alcestis 312–19: 57 Hippocrates Andromache Generation 229–31: 56 6.1–2: 60 619–24: 56 8.1–2: 50 Erechtheus 10.1–2: 55 366 Index Locorum

Nature of the Child 27.1: 54 Inscriptiones Graecae Regimen 1.28.2–29.1: 50–1 IG I3 987: 301 IG IV2 1239: 308 Homer IG V 1522: 308 Iliad IG V 2538: 313 1.8–9: 111 IG VII 60: 308 1.194: 112 IG VII 2488: 308 1.352: 109 IG XI 4 1181: 308 1.417–18: 109 IG XII 91233: 308 9.255–6: 111 9.335–45: 112 Inschriften von Olympia 9.702–3: 111 IvO414: 308 11.781–2: 109 14.153–353: 125 Juvenal 15.308: 266 Satires 18.35–67: 81 3.212: 289 18.50: 108 6.231–41: 142–3, 162 18.50–64: 109 6.403–4: 162 18.84–93: 109 6.628: 162 18.616–17: 265 7.146: 289 19.3: 265 24.33–55: 198 Livy 24.90–1: 109 Ab Urbe Condita Odyssey 1.1.1.1: 38 4.712–13: 111 1.3.1: 38 6.39–42: 247 1.3–4: 125 8.266–305: 118 1.4.17–20: 126 24.47–9: 109 1.56.10: 29 1.56.12: 29 Homerica Hymns 2.40: 33, 155 Demeter 237: 266 22.53.3: 273 22.55.3–8: 268 Horace 22.56.4–5: 273 Ars Poetica 431: 274 39.11: 155–7 Carmen Saeculare 13–24: Epitome 140: 278 30, 31 Carmina Lucan 1.15: 87 Bellum Civile 2.21–8: 1.15.7: 88 272 Index Locorum 367

Lucian Ars Amatoria 121–2: 111 de Luctu 13: 273 Fasti 2.617: 162 Lucretius 2.626: 142 De Rerum Natura 2.813–14: 289 1.1: 118 4.417–620: 139 1.35: 119, 125 2.617–30: 143–4 2.599: 125 4.623: 109 Heroides Lysias 3.85: 111 12.36: 199 5.5–6: 111 34.21: 314 5.127: 109 Funeral Oration 7–10: 217 7.133–4: 37 Metamorphoses Macrobius 1.4–20: 34 Saturnalia 2.5: 126 1.607–8: 109 5.332–571: 139 Martial 12.71–145: 110 Epigrammata 12.582–3: 110 1.33: 273 12.587: 110 10.67: 142–3 12.593: 110 13.301: 108 Modestinus 13.578–80: 110 Digest 38.10.4.3: 141 13.584–601: 110 14.598–608: 266 Oribasius Remedia Amoris 127–8: 272 15.2–3: 53 15.5–7: 53 [Ovid] 17.7–8: 53 Consolatio ad Liviam 441–2: 283, 285–6

Ovid Paulus Amores Sententiae 1.21.2–5: 288 1.2.13–16: 111 Digesta 3.2.9: 288 1.2.37: 111 2.14.7: 133 Petronius 3.1.37–8: 111 Satyrica 82.2: 112 3.1.67–70: 111 3.9.1–2: 110 Pindar 3.9.13–16: 119 Isthmian Odes 368 Index Locorum

8.26a–46a: 110 54.2: 122–3 8.36–36a: 91 57.2–3: 123, 290 Nemean Odes 3.43–4: 89 87.1–3: 122, 276, 278, 291 Apologia 22: 273 Plato Consolatio ad uxorem 275 Gorgias 508a: 194–5, 216 de Exilio 11: 194 Laws De Iside 48: 216 6.757b–c: 194–5 Marcellus 30: 278 7.789e: 51–2 Moralia 7.792e: 60 143a–b: 159 Republic 359c: 216 147C: 161 Symposium 209c–d: 39 467C: 161 Nikias 13.3: 315 Plautus Numa 12: 288–9 Asinaria 151 Tiberius et Gaius Gracchus 8.5: 145 Casina 151 Cistellaria 151–2 Polybius Mercator 151 15.3: 278, 291

Pliny the Elder Propertius Natural History 1.1: 293 7.51: 51 1.12.9–10: 111 15.136–7/40–2: 28 2.15.20: 163 2.22a.29–30: 111 Pliny the Younger 2.8.35–6: 111 Epistulae 3.3: 282 1.4.1–3: 152 3.7: 293 3.16.3–6: 275 3.7.9–18: 272, 289 4.2: 290 3.8.38: 163 4.7: 290 3.18: 281–2, 286, 293–94 5.16: 274, 290 3.18.9–10: 293 3.18.31–2: 293 Plutarch Agesilaus 1.1–3: 54 Pseudo-Quintilian Antony Declamationes Minores 2: 126 246: 164 31: 291 360: 155 31.3: 290 31.54: 276 Res Gestae Divi Augusti 35.53: 291 20: 124 Index Locorum 369

Scholia 1.31: 86 Theocritus Idylls 18 (Wendel 1914, 1.32–8: 88 331): 138 1.38–42: 88–9 1.66–9: 87 Seneca 1.74–6: 90 Consolatio ad Marciam 1.74–8: 81 2.3: 284 1.77: 90 2.4: 122, 284 1.78–9: 90 3.1–4: 284 1.84–5: 110 4.1: 283 1.85–6: 91 5–6: 284 1.89: 110 16.3: 275 1.95–8: 91 ad Helviam 1.105: 91 16.2: 273 1.152–5: 89 16.6–7: 275 1.252–8: 110 ad Polybium 25.3: 122 1.256–7: 111 Epistulae 1.278: 111 63.13: 273, 288–9 1.321–2: 112 99.16: 289 1.325–48: 86 Troades 1.527: 84 241–2: 91 1.528: 88 786–9: 289 1.567–8: 88 1.933–4: 112 Servius 1.941: 83 Ad Aen 6.861: 270, 279 1.947–8: 112 2.17–18: 111 Sophocles 2.37–8: 81 Antigone 451: 220 2.41–2: 88 Electra 365–8: 57 2.96–167: 85 Silvae Soranus 1.2: 132 2.8.87–9: 54 1.2.138–40: 132 1.2.242–3: 133 Statius 1.2.266–73: 132–3 Achilleid 1.5.8–9: 111 1.1–7: 80, 81 4.4.33–8: 111 1.4–5: 84 4.7.5–8: 111 1.21: 87 5.1.33–6: 90 1.25–6: 82 5.3: 274 1.29: 108 5.3.64–6: 287 370 Index Locorum

5.5: 274 210–13: 147 Thebaid 219–22: 147 2.656: 109 235–6: 148 3.147–69: 289 240–2: 148 4.317–44: 110 267–71: 147 6.30–4: 289 277–8: 146 7.178: 111 299–302: 149 8.516: 111 470–81: 149 536–40: 149–50 Suetonius 619–21: 150 Vita Augusti 660–1: 150 16.11: 153 705: 149 61.2: 121, 125, 276, 278 748: 149 62: 153 Phormio 151 63: 121, 291 94.4: 28 Theocritus Vita Galbae 1.1: 28 15.106–8: 266 Vita Iulii 27.1: 121, 276 Theophrastus 32: 43 Historia plantarum 9.16: 266 Vita Tiberii 6.4: 277 Thucydides Supplementum Epigraphicum History of the Peloponnesian War Graecum 2.45.2: 316 SEG 26.267: 314 6.12.2: 222 14.4: 222 Tacitus Agricola 29.1: 274 Tibullus Annales 1.3.5–6: 289 2.41.1: 292 1.6: 152 3.3: 294–5 1.6.57–8: 163 4.75: 291 16.10–11: 153 Valerius Flaccus Historiae 1.12: 43 1.549–51: 109

Terence Valerius Maximus Adelphi 151–2, 162–3 Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium Hecyra 1.1.15: 273 141–2, 145–6 4.3.3: 294 198–204: 146 9.15.2: 291 Index Locorum 371

Velleius Paterculus 2.594–8: 117, 254 2.93: 121, 277, 291 2.604–7: 266 2.650–3:254 Virgil 2.664–67: 254–5 Aeneid 2.673–9: 255 1.1:35 2.704: 111 1.5: 35 2.743–5: 43–4 1.33: 35 2.768–70: 256 1.37–8: 86 2.776–89: 256 1.203: 112 2.783–4: 36 1.227–33: 243–5 2.680–4: 255 1.234–53: 244 3.94v8: 29, 30, 32, 38 1.237: 246, 265 3.106: 38 1.250: 81 3.154–71: 38 1.254–6: 244 3.300–5: 257 1.259–61: 81, 266 3.312–13: 257 1.272–8: 119 3.475: 117 1.297–304: 246 3.482–91: 257–8 1.314–24: 246 4.94: 117 1.327–33: 247 4.168: 253 1.336–42: 246 4.208: 265 1.382: 247 4.327–30: 36 1.387–401: 247 4.412–15: 111 1.401: 246 4.609: 253 1.402–4: 243, 247 4.625: 37 1.403–10: 246 4.629: 37 1.407: 116, 124 4.667–8: 253, 262 1.407–9: 36, 40 5.45–603: 258 1.411–14: 247 5.413: 117 1.498–504: 124 5.613–17: 258 1.590: 120 5.622–34: 259 1.617–18: 117 5.639: 117 1.651–98: 116–17 5.750: 260 1.657–62: 249–50 5.755–7: 260 1.664–72: 250 5.796–7: 245 1.689: 120 5.779–8: 245 1.695–96: 122 5.793v5: 260 2.486–90: 253, 255, 262 5.803–4: 245 2.559–63: 254 5.812: 245 2.567–88: 267 5.816–17: 245 372 Index Locorum

6.784: 30, 36 9.498–504: 263 6.791–807: 279 9.601: 111 6.860–6: 278–9 9.630: 265 6.868: 280 10.17–19: 250 6.870–4: 281 10.24–5: 250–1 6.882: 122 10.43–3: 250–1 6.883–6: 280–1 10.45: 265 6.884: 114 10.234: 120 6.886–92: 281 10.466: 265 7.44–5: 39, 249 10.634: 266 7.306: 265 10.688: 265 7.357–66: 260–1 11.152–81: 268 7.392–403: 261 11.190: 266 7.395: 254 11.727: 265 8.193–9: 118 12.64–70: 265 8.225–6: 118 12.194: 37 8.370–93: 248 12.200: 265 8.370–405: 117–18 12.411–19: 251–2 8.370–506: 243 12.781–90: 252 8.427: 265 12.794–5: 266 8.608–16: 248–9 12.843: 265 8.617–21: 249 Bucolica 8.630: 119 6.1–2: 111 8.633: 119 8.47–8: 124 8.676: 119 8.700–1: 119 Xenophon 9.77–83: 111 Hellenica 9.473–97: 262 1.7.4: 199 9.477: 253 1.7.22–3: 199 9.477–502: 272 Oeconomicus 7.14: 57 GENERAL INDEX

Acca Laurentia 27 Aeschylus 207; Eumenides 11–12; Acestes 263 Seven Against Thebes 206 Acheloos 301, 302 Aethra 58, 199, 201–4, 205, 211, 212, Achilles 4, 23n7, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 213, 214, 215, 218n25, 220n31, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 221n42, 221n43, 222n54 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, Against Neaera 19, 57–8 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, Agamemnon 4, 103, 104, 201 108n9, 108n16, 108n18, 109n29, Agathokles 308 110n32, 110n35, 110n38, 110n40, Agave 169, 170, 178, 179, 189n28 111n41, 111n43, 111n47, 111n50, Agesilaus 54–5 112n60, 112n64, 112n67, 112n69, Agrippa 288 248, 165n15, 198, 204, 215; and Agrippina 21, 28, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, Patroclus’ death 4, 5–6, 98; in 189n32, 190–1n42, 191n43, 191n45 Thebaid 20; and Thetis 4, 5, 6 Aischrion 308 Actaion 174, 175, 176, 177 Alcestes 57 Adeia 303 Alcinous 118 Adfines 141 Alcias 308 Adicia 44n44 Alcibiades 208 Adrastos 208, 218n23 Alcmene 19, 20, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, Aebutia 156 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77n6, Aebutius 156, 157 78n11, 78–9n22, 79n24 Aeneas 19, 22, 28, 33, 36, 225, 243–4, Alcmeon of Crotona 194 245, 246, 247, 249, 250, 252, 253, Alexander Helios 290n25 254, 255, 256, 258, 260, 263, 267n35, Alexander the Great 67 278; apotheosis 252, 266n26; Alkias 308, 313 mourning 256–7 Allecto 260 Aeschines 238n39 Alyptius 226 374 General Index

Amata 35, 41, 164n27, 243, 254, 255, Aristaineta 3, 4, 7, 311, 312, 314, 315, 317 257, 260–1, 268n56 Aristarchos 308 Ambrose: Fourth Hymn 228–9, Aristedeia 313 238n29, 238n31 Aristion 308 Amphiaraeion 315 Aristomache 298 Amphiaraos 303, 304, 315 Aristomachos 308 Amphitryon 66, 67, 70 Aristonike 302, 311 Amyntas 154 Aristophanes: Clouds 58; Ecclesiazusae Anaxagoras 219n27 202; Lysistrata 202, 219n27 Anaxis 308, 313 Aristotle 11, 12, 21, 22, 49, 54, 193, Anchises 30, 36, 38, 246, 254, 255, 194, 195, 196, 216n13, 222n72; on 258, 259, 265n9, 278, 279, 280, 281, age 209–10; on conception 50, 291n41, 292n50, 292n52, 293n55, 59n3; Constitution of Athens 195; 293n57, 293n60 on determination of sex 51, 52; on Andromache 22, 93–94, 189–90n35, heredity 55, 59n3; on pregnancy 52; 212, 243, 257–8, 259, 266n31, Rhetoric 209; on women’s 267n46 character 210 Anticleia 5–6 Aristoxene 307, 308, 312, 315, 317 Antigone 202, 205, 206, 220n30, Armoxena 308, 310 222n59 Arria 275 Antiochos III 303 Arsinoe 67 Antonia Major 276, 294n75 Arsinoe II 306 Antonia Minor 276 Artemis Lochia 301 Aphrodite 118, 246, 247 Artemisia 220n31 Apollo 64, 77n387, 110n35, 110n38, Ascanius 36, 37–8, 44n35, 116, 117, 171, 177 119, 251, 255, 256, 257, 267n43, Apollo Pythios 301 267n46 Apollo Soter 306 Asklepios 308 Apollonius Rhodius 98 Aspasia 238n39 Apuleius 157, 159, 160, 161n3, Asphalios 313 164n34; Metamorphoses 157, Astyanax 93, 189–90n35, 257, 258 161n3, 164n34 Atalanta, Parthenopaeus’ mother Archestrate 298 108–9n12 Archippe 314 Athena 71, 78n11, 104, 247 Arctinos’ Aethiopis 91 Atheno 308, 313 Ares 118. See also Mars Atia, mother of Augustus 28 Arete 203 Atossa 220n31 Arginusae, battle of 199 Augustine 22, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, Argonauts 186 232, 235, 235n1, 235n2, 235–6n3, Arian 229 236n11, 236–7n15, 237n20, 237n21, General Index 375

237n27, 237n28, 238n32, 238n33, Cadmus 169, 174, 175, 177, 189n29 238n36, 238–9n42, 239n43, 240n59, Caeneus 93 240n62; Cassiciacum Dialogues 225, Calchas 82, 88, 94 237n26; Confessiones 224, 226, Caligula 190n39 232–4, 235n2, 240n62; Contra Callicles 195, 196 Academicos 226, 231; De Beata Callimachus 64, 69, 77n4; Hymn to Vita 226, 227–30, 231, 237n23, Delos 64, 70; Hymn to Demeter 73; 239n43; De Ordine 226, 230, 234, Hymn to Zeus 68 238n33; and happiness 227–8 Cannae, Battle of 273 Augustus Octavian 19, 23, 28, 31, 32, Caristia 142, 143 35, 41, 113, 121, 270, 275, 276, 277, Cassius Dio 113 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 284, 287, Catullus 20, 97, 105, 129, 132, 133; 290n25, 291n28, 291n29, 291n30, C.64 105 291n35, 292n52 Charixenos 306 Aurius Melinus 153–4 childbirth, pain of 64, 70, 71, 74, 75, Aurora 90–1, 110n37, 248 76, 77n4 Autistia Pollitta 153 Chiron 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 96, 100, 104, 105, 106 Bacchanalia 155–6, 162n16 Cholleidai, deme of Athens 302 Bacchic madness 169, 261 Celerina 136 Bacchis 149 Centauromachy 89 Bacchus 93 centaurs 89, 96 Bateia 38 Ceres 136, 137, 138 Berenice I 20, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, children, names of 309–12 75, 76, 97 Cicero 153, 154; to Atticus 113, 153–4; Beroe 258–60 to Paetus 272; Republic 29 birth 8–9, 11, 14–16, 19, 34, 39–40, Circe 4 52–3, 63–4, 70–2, 75–7, 129–30, 133, Claudia Antonia Tatiana 298, 318n9 135, 146, 149, 154, 233, 310–12, 316 Claudia Marcella Major 276, 288, blushing 102, 246–47, 265n12 290n25 breastfeeding 27, 53–4, 72, 73, 74, 75 Claudia Marcella Minor 276 bride 20, 129–30, 132, 136, 139n28, Claudian 20, 21, 129, 133, 134, 151, 310 (νύμφη). See also mothers: 136, 137, 138, 139n33; De raptu and daughters Proserpinae 21, 134 bridegroom 130, 132, 133, 136, 139n28 Claudius 270 Briseis 96, 98, 103, 111n50, 112n64 Cleisthenes 195 Britannicus 184 Cleopatra 43n22, 276, 277, 290n25, Brutus, Lucius Junius 19, 27, 32, 33, 38 291n27, 291n29 Burrus 184, 191n44 Cleopatra Selene II 290n25 Buthrotum 257, 258, 267n44 Cluentius 153 376 General Index

Cluvius 183 of Telestodike 299–301, 314; of Clytemnestra 57, 201, 213 Theodote 314; of Xenokrateia confessio trinitatis 228–9 301–2, 309 consolatory literature 280, 292n49, Deidamia 82, 83, 95, 96, 99, 102, 103, 294n66 105, 107 Coriolanus 33,155 Deinodikos 298 Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi 18, Deinomenes 297, 298 25n58, 26–7, 41, 42n5, 121, 125n18, Deiophobus 280 145, 238n39, 275, 287 Dekeleia 302 Cos 64, 70 Delia 152 Creon 169, 171, 174, 206, 220n30 Delos 64, 67 Creusa 35–7, 44n35, 243, 254–7, 258, Demokrite 303–4, 306, 307, 311, 312, 267n42 315, 317 Cupid and Psyche 157–9 Demokydes 300, 314 Cybele 32, 38, 43n21, 120, 137 Diana 178 Cycnus 105, 109n18, 110n35, 110n38 Dido 36–7, 44n32, 95, 111n48, 114, 116, 117, 225, 236n13, 246, 253, 257, Damaretos 308, 310 262, 267–8n46, 280 Damo 308, 310, 313 Δίκη 193; and δικαιοσύνη 194, 195 Damocharis 313 Diodorus Siculus 71, 73 dead, proper treatment of 197–9 Diomedes 78n11, 85, 99, 105 Decianus 154 Diotima 16, 39, 238n39 dedications 296–7, 298, 316; Dira 90 Acropolis 298; of Anaxis, Domitian 96 Philonas, and Philokleia 308; of Donatus 147, 280, 292n46 Aristaineta 304–7; of Aristonike to Dositheos 308 Artemis 302; of Aristoxene 307–8; dowry 58, 155, 309–10 of Arsinoe II 303; of Atheno 308; of Drusus 278, 283, 284, 285, 287, 295n77 Charixenos 306; of Claudia Antonia Tatiana at Roman Aphrodisias 298; Echinos 315 of Damo 308; of Damocharis 313; of Eileithyia 63, 64, 76, 301 Demokrite 303–4; of demos 303; of Electra 57 Euridice 302–3; of Kallikrates 306– Encolpius 112n68 7; of Klearista 308; of Kleonika Encomium 63 from Sparta 308; of Kynarbos 298; Ennius 19, 29, 31, 32, 253; of Laodike 303; of Lysimachos 303; Annales 253 of Nikandre to Artemis 297; of Ephestus 100 Niko and Armoxena 308; of ἐπίκληρος 312, 315 Myrallis 308; of Philokion 308; of Epithalamium 20, 130, 131, 132, 133, queens 302–3, 316; of Smikros 298; 134, 138, 139n28 General Index 377

ἐπίτροπος 317 Fulvia 43n22, 276, 290n25 Epyllion 67, 137 Fundanus 290n20 equality 193–6, 206. See also ἰσονομία funeral ritual 271, 289n9 and ἰσότης Eteocles 175, 176, 196, 197, 199, 200, Gaia 7 201, 203, 205, 207, 208, 210, 212, Gaius 277 215, 219n27, 219–20n29 Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor 276 Euboulides I 312 Gaius Gracchus 18 Eumenes II 306 Gallus 95 Euridice, mother of Philip II 302–3 Gellia 273 Euripides 17, 21, 22, 98, 100, genealogical narrative: in Hesiod 6–7; 189–90n35, 197, 199, 200, 201, in Homer 3–6 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, Genetrix 120, 124n4, 125n14, 125n15 212, 213, 214, 215, 216–17n9, Geraistan Nymphs at Birth 301 218n24, 218n25, 219n26, 219n28, Germanicus 294–5n75 219–20n29; Bacchae 21, 170, Giton 112n68 176, 178; Electra 57, 100, 218n24; Erechtheus 213; Ion 218n24; Hagnias 310 Iphigeneia in Aulis 213; Medea 98, Hector 93, 96, 257, 258, 266n31; 142, 162n10, 189–90n35, 218n24; death 198–9, 204 Phoenician Women 197, 199, 200, Hecuba 201, 203, 205, 266n31 205, 206, 213, 216n3, 217n9, 219n26, Hegel 200, 202, 214, 220 222n62; Skyrioi 98; Suppliant Hegesios 308 Women 200, 205, 208, 217n22, Helen 80, 87, 102, 103, 266n31, 267n35 218n25, 219n26; Troades 268n49 Helvia 181, 182, 190n38, 238n39 Euryalus 262; and Nisus 98, 261–2; Hephaestus 4, 248 mother of 22, 35, 41, 243, 261–3, Hera 19, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 74 268n59, 272, 293n57 Heracles 19, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, Eurycleia 6 72, 73, 74, 77n6, 78–9n22; and Evander 118, 268n61 Hercules 93, 118, 293n58 exemplum, of mothers 27, 243 Heraclitus 194 Herakleides 308 families, blended 114, 115, 124n2; in Herakleitos 313 the Aeneid 115–20; of Octavia heredity 55–6 122–3, 126n20 Hermes 301 father-in-law 151, 155 Hermione 56 feminism, second wave 3, 7–14; and Herodotus 194, 217–18n23 classics 3, 23n2 Hesiod 6, 7, 111n53; Catalogue of foetus 172, 173 Women 5, 7, 23n9; Theogony 6–7, Freud’s uncanny 14–15 111n53 378 General Index

Hestia 301 201, 205–7, 211, 212, 213–15, Hippocratic corpus 12, 24n30, 49–51, 54 219n27, 221n40 Hispala 155, 156, 157 Juba II 290n25 Homer 10, 70, 80, 86, 93, 253, Julia 288 270, 267n42; Homeric Hymn to Julia, wife of Drusus 184 Aphrodite 115, 246, 247, 265n13; Julian of Aeclanum 236n11 Iliad 3–4, 5, 6, 65, 70, 80, 81, 86, Julius Caesar 28, 114, 120, 121, 90, 91, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 126n22, 275, 278 105, 106, 108, 108n18, 110n37, 198, Juno 81, 92, 157, 245, 250, 258, 264n6 203, 204, 212, 245, 248; Nekuia 5; Jupiter 81, 86, 90, 91, 93, 109n27, Odyssey 4, 6, 118, 203 110n34, 110n37, 244, 245, 246, 250, Honorius 134, 135, 139n21 254, 264n3, 264n6, 265n9 Horace 19, 31, 88, 93, 103; Carmen Juturna 86, 90, 92, 252 Saeculare 30–1; Epistulae 103 Juvenal 143 Hortensius 238n39 household 298, 309–10, 316, 317 Kallirhoe 301 Hymenaeus 130 Kephissos 301, 302, 311, 317 χώρα, Platonic 12; Kristevan 13 incest 21, 170–6, 177, 180, 181, 182, Kleano 308 183, 184, 185, 186–7, 192n51 Kleonika 308, 314 Ino 174 κοσμιότης 194 inscription 297–9, 301, 303, 306, 308, Kronos 7, 68 314, 317; nomenclature 308–13 κύριος 309, 314, 317 Iole 70 Kynarbos 298 Iopas 267n42 Iphicles 65, 66, 67 Labdacos 174 Iphigeneia 213 Laches 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, Iphis 208 164–5n35 Iris 258. See also Beroe Laelia 154 ἰσονομία, and τὸ ἴσον 193, 194, 195, 197, Laertes 6 205, 206, 207, 211, 213, 215n2, 216n4, Lagos 67 ἰσότης 193, 195, 206, 207, 211, 214, Laïus 169, 170, 173, 174, 179, 189n31, 219n27 189n33 Iullus Antonius 290n25 lament 244; funerary 266–7n32, Iulus 254. See also Ascanius 267n39, 268n50; Greek 264n4; Iunia Lepida 191n46 Greek and Roman 264n5, 266n30; Iunius Silanus Torquatus 191n46 and Mary 264n4; and mothers 22, 253–4, 257–8, 259–63; and Jocasta 58, 170, 176, 178, 179, 180, women 255, 256–7, 266n31, 293n57; 187n7, 189n28, 189n30, 197, 199, Roman 267n32, 268–9n63 General Index 379

Lapiths 89 Mars 115, 119, 120, 125n13. See also Laudatio Turiae 113, 123n1, 144–5 Venus Lavinia 35, 36, 37–8, 40, 44n34, Martial 142–3 164n27, 260, 261 mater dolorosa 18, 22, 243, 244, 245, Leto 64, 70, 77n2, 77n3, 301 248, 250, 251, 265n18 Licinius Crassus 154 maternal figures, in Iliad and limit, in Seneca 185–6 Odyssey 4–6 Livia 17, 25n53, 28, 125n15, 270, 275, maternal role, in conception 19, 276, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 291n33, 49–51; in classical Athens 25n53; 292n46, 294n69, 294n73, 294n75, in pregnancy 19, 52–3; in Roman 295n77 society 26–7 Livy 19, 29, 32, 33 maternus amor 169, 170, 173, 184, 185 Lucan 272 matres: Italian 243, 261; Trojan 22, Lucius Autistius Vetus 153 258–60, 261, 262 Lucretia 27, 29, 43n15 matricide 8, 16 Lucretius 264n3; De Rerum Matrona 26, 31, 32, 33 Natura 118 Medea 186, 187, 205 Ludi Saeculares 33 Megara ([ps] Moschus) 70, 76 Lycomedes 81, 83, 95 Melanippe 205, 219n28 Lysias, son of Herakleitos 308 Memnon 91 Menaeceus 213 Macartatus 310, 312 Menekrates 308 Marcellus 121, 176, 277, 278, 279, Menelaus 56 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 289n8, Mercury 246 291n32, 292n42, 292n43, 292n44, Merope 189–90n35 292n47, 293n56, 293n57, 293n60, Messalina 183, 184 293–4n61, 294n73; death of 22, 114, Milan 134, 135, 224, 225, 226, 228, 229 122, 124n3, 277, 278, 281, 286, 287, Misenus 280, 293n58 291n33, 292n46, 292n53, 293n54 misogyny 143, 162n11, 163n21 Marcia 283 metis 7 Marcus Antonius Antyllus 290n25 Mnesitheus 53 Marcus Claudius Marcellus 276, 282, Modestinus 141 293–4n63 Monnica 22, 160, 224–35, 235n1, Maria, bride of Honorius 134, 135 235n4, 236n6, 236n7, 236n13, Maria and Martha 238n39 236n15, 237n20, 237n23, 237n26, Mark Antony 113, 276, 277, 285, 237n28, 238n36, 239n43, 239n53, 290n23, 290n25, 291n27, 291n29, 240n56; death of 232–4 292n30 motherhood, imperial 28 marriage 20–1, 141, 143; Augustan mothers, and adult children 21, legislation of 31; Greek 309, 312 247; and daughters 20–1, 129–31, 380 General Index

134–5, 136–8; as dedicators 18, 23; Niko 308, 310, 313 in feminism 7, 8; and infants 8, Niobe 143, 90 12; as metaphors 28–35; as nursemaid 53–4 philosophers 230–1, 234; as political Nymphs 301 theorists 199–201; and sons 58; νωδυνία 63, 76 as symbols 27, 226, 237n20; in tragedy 56–7 Octavia 17, 20, 23, 25n53, 43n22, mother-in-law 21, 140–57, 160–1, 113–14, 116, 120–3, 124n2, 124n3, 163n21, 163n22, 163n23; and 125n13, 125n15, 125n16, 126n17, daughter-in-law 146–9, 151–2, 126n18, 126n19, 126n20, 126n21, 155, 156, 157–8, 164–5n35, 225; in 126n22, 126n24, 126n25, 126n26, Declamations 155; as a joke 21, 265n15, 270, 271, 275–8, 289n8, 140, 141, 145, 163n26, 164–5n35; 290n23, 290n25, 291n26, 291n27, and son-in-law 149–50, 152–3, 291n28, 291n29, 291n31, 291n33, 163n26, 163n27 291n34, 291n35, 292n46, 292n47, mourning 198; female vs. 292n51, 293n56, 294n64, 294n69, male 272–4, 286, 289n14; and 294n70, 294n70, 294n73, 294n74, grief vocabulary 289–90n16; 294n75, 295n76, 295n77 industry 274; maternal 270–1, 272, Odysseus 5, 6, 247, 267n42; 286–7, 288, 289n8; paternal 280–1, recognition of 6 288; as a ritual 268–9n63; Oedipus 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, Roman 290n18; of widows 289n8. 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 187n5, See also lament 188n13, 188n16, 189n30, 189n31, Myrallis 308 189n33, 189–90n35, 206, 220n30; Myrrha 170 Oedipus complex 9, 11 Myrrhina 149, 150 ordo mundi 230 Oribasius 53 Narcissus 176, 188n22, 184n30 origin narratives, of Rome 19, 27–9; in Nenia 268–9n63 the Aeneid 35 Neoptolemus 103 Otanes, son of Pharnaspes 194 Neptune 80, 82, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, Ouranos 7 109n18, 110n34, 110n35, 110n38, Ovid 42n1, 70, 74, 80, 82, 84, 85, 245, 250, 254 95, 98, 103, 105, 106, 108n10, Nereids 100 109n16, 110n37, 110n38, 111n51, Nereus 87, 88 132, 133, 170, 175, 176, 177, 178, Nero 33, 153, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188n23, 272; Ars Amatoria 84; 190n39, 190n40, 191n46, 191n48, 277 Fasti 137; Heroides 37, 84; Nicandre 297–8, 299 Metamorphoses 70, 80, 82, 84, 85, Nikaso 308 108n10, 109n16, 137, 170, 174 Nikias 313 Oxymenes 308 General Index 381

Paetus 272 φιλοτιμία 193, 211 Palinurus 280 Philumena 146, 147, 148, 150, Pallas 266n32 164–5n35 Pamphilus 146, 149, 150, 151 Phormion 314 Panaetius 237n18 Phraxos 297, 298 parade of heroes 280, 292n42, 293n47, Phylomache II 310, 312 293n55 Pietas 273, 275 Parcae 105, 110n36 Pindar 65, 66, 74, 89, 91, 96, 105; Paris 80, 87 Nemean Ode 1 65, 66; Nemean parricide 170, 171 Ode 3 89, 105 Pasion 314 Plato 8, 11, 16, 39, 232; Gorgias 195; patria potestas 26 Laws 194; Phaedo 232; Republic 8, patriarchy, Roman 17, 19, 26, 27 11; Symposium 39, 97, 98, 238n39; Patricius 232, 234 Theaetetus 202, 221n37 Patroclus 198 Plautus: Asinaria 151; Casina 151; patronymic names 309 Cistellaria 151, 152; Mercator 151 Paul 229 πλεονεξία 195, 197, 211, 216n4 Peleus 56, 83, 93 Pliny 152, 163–4n26 Pelion 83, 85, 89, 92, 100, 106, Plotia 142 Peloponnesian War 302, 303 Plotinus 232, 234, 240n56 Penelope 131, 203 Plutarch 159, 194, 217–18n23; wife Pentheus 169, 174, 176, 177, 178, of 275; Lives, of younger Cato and 189n29 Mark Antony 113 Peri hypsous 90 Polydorus 174 Pericles 208, 316 Polymestor 201 Periclymenos 303 Polynices 175, 176, 211, 215, 219n27, Perseus 77n6 220n30 Phaedrus 98 Pompey 276 Phallus 8, 172 Poppea 183, 190–1n42 Phano, Neaera’s daughter 57–8 Porphyry 234 Pheidippides 58 Possidius: Vita Augustini 235n2 Phidippus 149, 151 Postumius 157 Philip II 311 Praxithea 58, 213, 214 Philip V 306 pregnancy 19, 39, 149–50; male Philodemus, Peri eusebeias 90 pregnancy 44n40 Philokion 308 Presocratics 12, 50, 59n3 Philokleia 308 Priam 253, 254 Philonas 308 Priscilla 90 philosophy, by women 8, 10–14, 16, Proerosia 204 193–235 Pronuba 135 382 General Index

Propertius 23, 99, 103, 163n23, 272, at Brauron 302; of Artemis 281, 286, 287 Mounichia at Piraeus 314; of Proserpina 136–7 Despoina at Lykosoura 313; of Proxenos 308 Eukleia at Vergina 302; of Great Prusias of Bithynia 306 Gods at Samothrace 303; of Hera at psychoanalysis and deconstruction 16; Perachora 296 and motherhood 7–14; and Sappho 18 paternity 11 Sassia 153 Pterelaus 70 Scyros, in Achilleid 83, 84, 85, 87, 92, Ptolemaia 74, 78n17 96, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, Ptolemy I Soter 67, 68, 69, 74 107 Ptolemy II 19, 68, 69, 74–5, 77n3, Semele 174, 176 77n8, 306 Seneca the Elder 155 Ptolemy Philadelphus 63, 64, 67, 68, Seneca the Younger 21, 23, 91, 93, 69, 74, 77n3, 78–9n22, 290n25 94, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, Pythagoras 194 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 188n10, 188n16, Quintilian: Minor Declamationes 155 189n28, 189–90n35, 190n36, 190n37, 191n48, 192n51, 277–8, 283–4, 285, rape 37, 130–1, 134, 145–6 286; Agamemnon 172; Consolatio Regulus 290n20 ad Helviam 21, 170, 181, 182, Rhea 7, 68 185; Consolatio ad Liviam 283; Rhea Silvia 27, 32, 37, 42n7; as Rhea Consolatio ad Marciam 283; Ilia 119; rape of 37 Letters to Lucilius 185; Oedipus 21, role theory 226, 230 170, 181, 189n32; Phaedra 186; Romanness 27, 32 Phoenicians 187n5, 188n16; Romulus 19, 119, 125n12; and Troades 91, 93, 189–90n35 Remus 27, 32, 35, 37, 115, 119 Serena 134, 135 rotation, in Athenian democracy 195– Servius 253, 266n30, 267n35, 280 6, 217n11 Sextia 153 Rubellius Plautus 153 Shield of Heracles 65 Rumina/Rumilia 27 Sicily 261, 258, 259 Rumour 104, 261, 262 Smikros 298 Rutilia 275 Socrates 196, 232 σοφία 203, 204 sanctuary: of Amphiaraos at Sophocles 171, 174, 176, 178, 187n7, Oropos 303; of Aphrodite at 188n22, 207; Antigone 200–1, Palaipaphos 308; of Apollo at 204, 217n22; Electra 245; Oedipus Delos 308, 315; of Apollo at Rex 21, 170, 176, 178 Delphi 304, 306, 315; of Artemis Soranos of Ephesus 52 General Index 383

Sosias 310 Theocritus 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, Sositheos 310, 312 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 77n4, 77n6, Sostrata 142, 146, 147, 148, 150, 78n11; Idyll 17 70; Idyll 24 164–5n35 (Herakliskos) 72, 75, 76, 78–9n22 Soteria 306 Theodoros, father and son 303, Sotimidas 313 304, 310 σωφροσύνη 194 Theodosius I 134 Statius 20, 42n1, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, Theophanes, son of Dionysios 308 86, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, Therseleos 313, 314 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, Theseus 199, 200, 201, 203, 205, 207, 106, 107, 108n7, 108n10, 109n18, 208, 211, 212, 215, 218n25, 220n31, 110n34, 110n38, 111n50, 111n51, 222n54 129, 132, 134, 138n1, 189n29, 287; Thetis 10, 20, 23n7, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, Achilleid 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 104, 105, 106, 90, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 104, 106, 107, 108, 108n8, 108–9n12, 109n18, 107, 108; Silvae 96; Thebaid 24n34, 109n29, 110n32, 110n34, 110n35, 81, 85, 91, 96, 102, 108–9n12, 110n36, 110n37, 110n38, 110n39, Stella 133 110n40, 111n41, 112n69, 125n11, stepfather, for Vulcan 117–18, 119 248, 265n16, 265n19, 266n28, stepmother 21, 140–1, 143, 140, 266n31; and Peleus 720 145, 155, 161, 162n6, 162n14; in Thrasymachus 196 Declamations 164n28 Thucydides 208, 316 Stilicho 134 Thyestes 172 Stoicism 94, 172 Tiberius 294–5n75 Suetonius 113, 190n40 Tibullus 152 Sulpicia 157 Timaeus 12 Timokrates 308, 310, 311 Tacitus 33, 170, 182, 183, 184, Timolaos 310 190–1n42; Annales 185 Tiresias 4–5, 66, 75, 76, 78n22, 169, Tarquinius 29 172, 176, 178, 188n22, 189n29 Teiresias 206 tribes, in Athenian democracy 195 Teisarchos 308 Troy 80, 83, 84, 85, 87, 99, 100, 101, Telemachus 4, 6; and Mentes 4 104, 105, 107, 110n35 Telephos 83 Turnus 86, 252, 260, 261 Telestodike 299–301, 309, 313, 314 Terence 140–1, 142, 145, 151, 152, Ulysses 20, 81, 82, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91, 165; Adelphi 151, 162–3n19; 94, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 107, Hecyra 141, 142, 145, 162n7, 108n9, 110n39, 111n47, 112n67 163n26, 165; Phormio 151 uncanniness, Freud’s 14–15; of Thebes 170, 174, 175 maternity 15 384 General Index uterus 24n30, 50, 55, 135, 137, 172, Vibius Maximus 96 173, 177, 181. See also womb Violentilla 132, 133, 139n15 Virgil 17, 19, 20, 23, 29, 32, 40, 41, Valentinian, the second 238n30 42n1, 45n40, 86, 90, 246, 247, 253, Velleius Paterculus 113 257, 270, 280, 264n5; Aeneid 17, vendetta, ethic of 245 19, 22, 27, 28, 29–30, 35, 113, Venus 20, 22, 41, 81, 90, 109n27, 243, 245, 253, 254, 262, 263, 272, 113–20, 126n24, 132, 133, 135, 136, 281, 283, 285, 293n36, 293n57; 137, 157–8, 160, 243, 244–6, 252, Bucolics 95 253, 260, 263, 264n6, 264–5n7, Vitorius Marcellus 96 268n53, 269n65, and Aeneas 36, 40, 116–17, 121, 122, 124n5, 124n7, wedding 129–30, 133–4; role of the 246, 249, 251, 252, 254, 265n12; mother in 130–2, 134 and Anchises 118; and Cupid 115, widows 133, 161, 275, 294n75, 313 116–17, 118, 122, 125n11, 249–50, womb 11, 12, 15, 16, 50, 173, 177. 265n20; disguise 246–7, 248; See also uterus Epicurean 264n3; and Eryx 117, women, as authors 18; as dedicators 118, 122; and Jupiter 119, 18, 296–7, 299, 302–3 265n14, 265n15, 266n24, 266n25; and Mars 115, 118, Xeniades 310 119; and Octavia 116; and other Xenokrateia 301, 309, 311, 312, 313, partners 119; and Vulcan 115, 315, 317 117–18, 120, 125n11, 157, 248–9, 250, 260, 265n18, 265n20 Zeus 4, 7, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 198, 303, Veturia 27, 33, 41 306; Meilichios 317 PHOENIX SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUMES

1 Studies in Honour of Gilbert Norwood edited by Mary E. White 2 Arbiter of Elegance: A Study of the Life and Works of C. Petronius Gilbert Bagnani 3 Sophocles the Playwright S.M. Adams 4 A Greek Critic: Demetrius on Style G.M.A. Grube 5 Coastal Demes of Attika: A Study of the Policy of Kleisthenes C.W.J. Eliot 6 Eros and Psyche: Studies in Plato, Plotinus, and Origen John M. Rist 7 Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism J.A. Philip 8 Plato’s Psychology T.M. Robinson 9 Greek Fortifications F.E. Winter 10 Comparative Studies in Republican Latin Imagery Elaine Fantham 11 The Orators in Cicero’s Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology G.V. Sumner 12 Caput and Colonate: Towards a History of Late Roman Taxation Wal- ter Goffart 13 A Concordance to the Works of Ammianus Marcellinus Geoffrey Archbold 14 Fallax opus: Poet and Reader in the Elegies of Propertius John Warden 15 Pindar’s Olympian One: A Commentary Douglas E. Gerber 386 Phoenix Supplementary Volumes

16 Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices: The History of a Technology John Peter Oleson 17 The Manuscript Tradition of Propertius James L. Butrica 18 Parmenides of Elea Fragments: A Text and Translation with an Intro- duction edited by David Gallop 19 The Phonological Interpretation of Ancient Greek: A Pandialectal Analysis Vít Bubeník 20 Studies in the Textual Tradition of Terence John N. Grant 21 The Nature of Early Greek Lyric: Three Preliminary Studies R.L. Fowler 22 Heraclitus Fragments: A Text and Translation with a Commentary edited by T.M. Robinson 23 The Historical Method of Herodotus Donald Lateiner 24 Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100–30 BC Richard D. Sullivan 25 The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth John M. Rist 26 Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC to 50 BC Michael Alexander 27 Monumental Tombs of the Hellenistic Age: A Study of Selected Tombs from the Pre-Classical to the Early Imperial Era Janos Fedak 28 The Local Magistrates of Roman Spain Leonard A. Curchin 29 Empedocles The Poem of Empedocles: A Text and Translation with an Introduction edited by Brad Inwood 30 Xenophanes of Colophon Fragments: A Text and Translation with a Commentary edited by J.H. Lesher 31 Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual Noel Robertson 32 Reading and Variant in Petronius: Studies in the French Humanists and Their Manuscript Sources Wade Richardson 33 The Excavations of San Giovanni di Ruoti, Volume I: The Villas and Their Environment Alastair Small and Robert J. Buck 34 Catullus Edited with a Textual and Interpretative Commentary D.F.S. Thomson 35 The Excavations of San Giovanni di Ruoti, Volume 2: The Small Finds C.J. Simpson, with contributions by R. Reece and J.J. Rossiter Phoenix Supplementary Volumes 387

36 The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus Fragments: A Text and Trans- lation with a Commentary C.C.W. Taylor 37 Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda R.A. Hazzard 38 Aristotle’s Theory of the Unity of Science Malcolm Wilson 39 Empedocles The Poem of Empedocles: A Text and Translation with an Introduction, Revised Edition edited by Brad Inwood 40 The Excavations of San Giovanni di Ruoti, Volume 3: The Faunal and Plant Remains M.R. McKinnon, with contributions by A. Eastham, S.G. Monckton, D.S. Reese, and D.G. Steele 41 Justin and Pompeius Trogus: A Study of the Language of Justin’s Epitome of Trogus J.C. Yardley 42 Studies in Hellenistic Architecture F.E. Winter 43 Mortuary Landscapes of North Africa edited by David L. Stone and Lea M. Stirling 44 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae Fragments and Testimonia: A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays by Patricia Curd 45 Virginity Revisited: Configurations of the Unpossessed Body edited by Bonnie MacLachlan and Judith Fletcher 46 Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture edited by Jonathan Edmondson and Alison Keith 47 Epigraphy and the Greek Historian edited by Craig Cooper 48 In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic Neil W. Bernstein 49 Perceptions of the Second Sophistic and Its Times – Regards sur la Sec- onde Sophistique et son époque edited by Thomas Schmidt and Pascale Fleury 50 Apuleius and Antonine Rome: Historical Essays Keith Bradley 51 Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World edited by Sheila L. Ager and Riemer A. Faber 52 Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture edited by Michele George 53 Thalia Delighting in Song: Essays on Ancient Greek Poetry Emmet I. Robbins 388 Phoenix Supplementary Volumes

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