Prudentius' Agnes and the Elegiac Puella

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21

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Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella Generic Interactions in Late Antique Christian Poetry

Thomas Tsartsidis Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany [email protected]

Received September 2019 | Accepted March 2020

Abstract

In Peristephanon 14, Prudentius creates an inventive verse rendering of the martyrdom of Agnes. Interestingly, in this poem, the portrayal of Agnes shares many features with the elegiac puellae of Roman love elegy. Prudentius’ classicising poetry is characterised by the mixture of genres and literary traditions, one of them being Roman love elegy. The affinities, however, between Prudentius and the latter tradition deserve closer at- tention. In this paper, by identifying vocabulary, themes and motifs of Roman elegy in Peristephanon 14, I will illustrate ways in which Prudentius’ Agnes can be read as a Christianised elegiac puella.

Keywords

Prudentius – Agnes – Latin love elegy – elegiac puella

1 Introduction

Classical literature is genre conscious. Literary genres, though defined by certain key features, are not static but susceptible to evolution and interaction. The literature of Late Antiquity is characterised by the mixture of genres and literary traditions.1 This is of course not something novel but a

1 For genre and the mixing of genres in the literature of Late Antiquity, see Fontaine 1977 and 1988; Charlet 1988, 77-78, 81-82; id. 2008, 162; Formisano 2007, 282-283; Fuhrer 2013; Pollmann 2017, 19-36. © Thomas Tsartsidis, 2020 | doi:10.1163/1568525X-bja10011 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0Downloaded license. from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 2 Tsartsidis phenomenon that we also come across in earlier periods such as the Hellenistic and Augustan era. When it comes to discussing the mixture of genres in Late Antiquity, the Christian poet Prudentius presents an excellent case study.2 At the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, Prudentius composed a series of poems in various metres. More specifically his oeuvre, bracketed in modern editions by a Praefatio and an Epilogus, poems with both autobiographical and programmatic interest, includes the Cathemerinon, a collection of twelve poems on various hours of the day and occasions, varying upon Ambrose’s hymns, the didactic and anti-heretical Hamartigenia and Apotheosis, the al- legorical epic Psychomachia, the two books of Contra orationem Symmachi, a response to Symmachus’ plea for the restoration of the altar of Victory, the Peristephanon, a collection of fourteen poems on various martyrs, and the Dittochaeon, a collection of epigrams narrating famous scenes from the Old and the New Testament. Many of these poems are preceded by prefaces written in metres different from those of the poems proper. Walther Ludwig has argued that Prudentius’ oeuvre (with the exception of the Dittochaeon) forms a mega-poem (“Supergedicht”),3 in which Christian alternatives to Classical literary genres are represented, organised in a sym- metrical pattern.4 Ludwig’s view underscores the fact that Prudentius’ poems markedly and simultaneously engage with both Christian ideology and distinct Classical genres. Even if this is not true, as Ludwig argues, about Prudentius’ oeuvre collectively,5 it can at least be said to be true about individual poems and such readings have been the subject of many recent studies. A characteristic example of this approach is the Hymn to Romanus, printed as the tenth in the Peristephanon collection,6 a poem that has often been read as a Christian tragedy.7 This poem, consisting mainly of dialogue, is written in 1140 iambic trimeters. In other words, it has the ideal length for a tragedy and it is composed in a metre commonly used in Greek and Roman tragedies. There

2 For the mixture of genres in Prudentius, see Fontaine 1975. For a more recent discussion on the same issue, taking cue from the Hamartigenia, see Dykes 2011, 174-244. 3 Ludwig 1977. 4 Ludwig 1977, 304: “Prudentius gibt ein christliches mythologisches Epos, christliche Lehrepen, christliche Lyrik, Hymnen und Epinikien, eine christliche Elegie und ein christliches Epigramm, einen christlichen Mimus und sogar eine christliche Tragödie”. 5 See the caveats of Cameron’s reaction to the paper by Ludwig 1977, 367. 6 However, this is not its original position in the manuscripts, in which it is placed either at the beginning or at the end of the Peristephanon poems but never among them. In 1527, Sichard was the first to place this poem as the tenth in his edition, and subsequent editors have kept the same order ever since. 7 Ludwig 1977, 336-337; Henke 1985; Fux 2005; Tsartsidis 2016, 67-72.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 3 are other features that seem to adhere to the conventions of tragedy, but an important cue pointing to this genre is that towards the end of the poem the poet refers to the events of Romanus’ martyrdom as ‘tragedy’ (tragoedia, 1113). There are also notable examples among the poems of the Peristephanon, where prominent affiliations from different Classical genres coexist. One of these is Perist. 3, the hymn on the virgin martyr Eulalia. In Perist. 3, the portrayal of Eulalia as a heroine of epic dimensions and the allusions to Vergil’s Aeneid testify to Prudentius’ engagement with epic.8 However, language and themes of Perist. 3 also evoke associations with comedy.9 Further, in the representation of Eulalia rushing to meet her end there are other verbal and thematic associations, often underlying the allusions to epic, that make her resemble a puella from Catullus and Latin love elegy.10 The symbiosis of all these different genres and literary traditions shows that, on the one hand (regardless of conscious or subconscious appropriation of earlier literature) Late Latin poets are building upon a pre-existing literature, which does not cease exerting its grasp one way or another. On the other hand, this symbiosis also testifies to the hybridity and experimental character of these poems, a feature that becomes all the more prominent in the literature of Late Antiquity. Regarding Prudentius’ Perist. 14, the poem on Agnes, scholarship has noted its epic and tragic associations.11 In this study, I wish to shed new light on the underexplored affinities with Roman love elegy. Here, I will explore how Prudentius engages with Classical love elegy in Perist. 14, and more specifically, how the portrayal of Agnes corresponds with and responds to that of the elegiac puella, with the effect that Agnes is turned into a Christianised elegiac mistress. James Uden has argued persuasively that in his portrayal of Aquilina in his third elegy the mid-sixth century poet Maximianus, the last representative of personal love elegy, blurs the boundaries between the elegiac puella and the virgin martyr.12 As I shall argue, Prudentius, from an almost reverse standpoint, employs a similar blurring of boundaries for the representation of Agnes in Perist. 14. In order to facilitate a reading of Prudentius’ Agnes as a Christianised elegiac puella, first I will offer an overview of elegy in Late Antiquity in general, and in Prudentius more specifically. This will concern both the engagement of late Latin poets with Classical love elegy and poems written in elegiacs in that period. Subsequently, I will survey the literary representations of Agnes in

8 Palmer 1989, 154-177; Castelli 1996; O’Hogan 2016, 41-48. 9 Kubiak 1998, 316-324. 10 Baker 1993. 11 For Perist. 14 and epic, see Palmer 1989, 178-179. For Agnes’ tragic models, see Malamud 1989, esp. 154, 161-166, 170-171, and Burrus 1995. 12 Uden 2009.

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Late Antiquity, focusing on Prudentius’ ‘innovations’. Then, I will address features of the text that recall the genre of love elegy, focusing on the elegiac themes we find in Agnes’ interaction with the examining authorities, on her sexualization and sexuality, and on her name and other characteristics that point to her ‘literary constructedness’.

2 Elegy in Late Antiquity

Although it appears that the interest in Tibullus and Propertius wanes during the period of Late Antiquity, Ovid’s presence continues to make an impact, but not so much through his love poetry as through the Heroides and his poems of exile (Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto).13 The elegiac couplet, a constitutive feature of Latin love elegy, is used in Late Antiquity, but is much less concerned with the erotic themes that occupied the poetry of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid.14 With the exception of Maximianus in the mid-6th century, personal love elegy does not carry on into this era. Although some of the elegiac poems written in Late Antiquity contain themes or scenes revolving around love and lament, the thematic horizons of the elegiac couplets are broadened in order to accommodate the ideological and aesthetic concerns of late antique poets from a different milieu. A survey of Late Antique poems written in elegiacs shows us a sheer variety of themes indicating that elegiacs become increasingly open to multiple thematic possibilities, thus being transformed into “a multi-purpose metre”.15 When it comes to Prudentius’ engagement with Classical love elegy, the poet appears to follow the trend of his era. That is, Prudentius does not engage with the Classical elegists (at least not in a striking manner), with the exception of Ovid, with whom, however, it seems easier to detect thematic affinities rather than intertextual relationships.16 Discussions about elegy in Prudentius and his connection to or reconfiguration of Latin love elegy have focused on a poem he composed in elegiac couplets, Perist. 11, a hymn on the martyrdom of

13 For the reception of Ovid in Late Antiquity, see Fielding 2014a, 2017, and the recent vol- ume edited by Consolino 2018. 14 For an overview of Roman elegy in Late Antiquity, see Roberts 2010 and Cutino 2015, and more specifically for love elegy, see Uden 2012 and Green 2013. 15 Roberts 2010, 98. 16 For verbal and thematic similarities between Prudentius and Ovid, see Ewald 1942; Salvatore 1959; Evenepoel 1982; Malamud 1989, passim; Palmer 1989, 111-121 and passim; Dykes 2011, 223-238; Malamud 2011, 38 n. 104, 98, 144-152, 164-167, 190-191.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 5 saint Hippolytus.17 This poem is listed as a Christian elegy in Ludwig’s taxono- my of alternative pagan genres represented in Prudentius’ oeuvre.18 However, from the accommodation of various generic affinities within a single poem such as Perist. 3 (see previous section) and the expansion of the elegiacs to accommodate a sheer variety of themes, we can extrapolate that in late Latin poetry features of Latin love elegy should not be sought and gleaned solely in poetry written in elegiac couplets. In an era when literature is characterized by experimentation and the mixture of genres, the erstwhile generic conventions are not any more or not always firmly attached to a specific form. To investigate the modes in which Latin love elegy survives in Late Antiquity, one must survey across different genres and literary traditions. Prudentius’ hymn on Agnes, especially if we compare it with other contemporary accounts of the virgin martyr, is such a text where, although written in alcaic hendecasyllables and not in elegiac couplets, the conventions of Latin love elegy are brought into sharper relief.

3 The Literary Representation of Agnes in Late Antiquity

Agnes is an archetypically virgin and a quintessentially Roman martyr. Her tomb was located in a catacomb area along the Via Nomentana. Constantina, daughter of the emperor Constantine I, almost surely erected the basilica of Agnes (as well as what was to serve as her own mausoleum attached to the basilica) just to the west of the martyr’s subterranean tomb in the 340s.19 Agnes’

17 How the use of elegiac couplets fits into the way Prudentius understands the concept of elegy is a question that has concerned scholars recently. For Kaesser 2008 the use of elegiac couplets, self-contained units of metre and meaning, lays emphasis on the fragmen- tation, a concept that, famously signalled in Ov. Am. 1.1-4, characterises Classical elegy. On the other hand, Fielding 2014b, 820, who associates the poem not with the tradition of Classical love elegy but with that of the elegiac epitaph, argues that the use of elegiacs rather invites a reverse interpretation. That is, instead of stressing the separation of the elegiac couplets, what should be emphasised is their putting back together “with the effect of evoking the martyr’s sacred presence”. Charlet 1993, 157-160, associates the use of Prudentius’ elegiacs here with the tradition of epistolary elegy (Prop. 4.3, Ov. Ep., Pont.), bringing to the foreground the personal tone that both share, a tone exemplified through the use of vocatives as well as pronouns, adjectives and verbs in the second person. 18 Ludwig 1977, 332-333. Perist. 8 (a short poem about a baptistery erected on a spot where once the martyrs Emeterius and Chelidonius died) is also composed in elegiacs. However, this poem is more readily assigned or seems to adhere to another genre that can be in elegiacs, the epigram. See Ludwig 1977, 331; Schetter 1982, 110; and Charlet 1993, 136, 139-142 with further bibliography. 19 Trout 2015, 151.

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 6 Tsartsidis cult on the Via Nomentana is attested in the Depositio martyrum, a Roman calendar that was published as part of the Codex-Calendar of 354 but whose compilation dates back to the 330s. Although pictorial representations and archaeological evidence had already testified to the popularity of Agnes,20 the first written records about her martyrdom that have come down to us date from the second half of the fourth century.21 These accounts in- clude the elogium of Damasus, Ambrose’s De virginibus 1.2, and Prudentius’ Peristephanon 14.22 We should also mention a hymn on Agnes attributed to Ambrose, Agnes beatae virginis (Hymn 8 Fontaine).23 What all these accounts have in common is the emphasis on Agnes’ youth and her chastity. On the other hand, the details that lead up to her martyrdom as well as the manner of her death differ among the various late antique accounts.24 Damasus installed his elogium on Agnes, a 10-line hexameter inscription, in all probability at the site of the martyr’s tomb at some point during his episco- pal tenure (366-384).25 In his poem, he relates that Agnes left her nurse’s lap and defied the threats of the tyrant who intended to burn her; Damasus tells us that the martyr covered her naked limbs with her hair; and at the end, the author asks her to favour his prayers. The first prose account that has come down to us is included in Ambrose’s three-book treatise De virginibus (1.2) addressed to his sister Marcellina, a con- secrated virgin. It was written around 377.26 In Ambrose’s account, the martyr is a 12-year old girl, who, in stark contrast to girls of the same age, who cannot even bear the angry looks of their parents, offers herself readily for martyrdom. The attempts of the executioner to dissuade her by using both threaten- ing and alluring ways as well as the thought of the many men who would desire

20 Grig 2004, 79-80. 21 For the sources for Agnes, see Franchi de’Cavalieri 1962. For a recent overview, see Lapidge 2018, 348-351. 22 For the purposes of my argument, in this section I will mainly focus on Prudentius’ near-contemporary accounts for Agnes, and not on the passio (BHL 156), which is later (late fifth/early sixth c. ad). On this, see Lapidge 2018, 351. 23 Its authenticity is subject to debate, see Fontaine et al. 1992, 98-99, 366-370, and Dunkle 2016, 145-146 together with bibliography. This issue, however, does not affect the conclusions of the present study. 24 Esp. for the death of Agnes and the vagueness with which it is presented in some of the sources, see Fontaine et al. 1992, 367-369. 25 Ferrua 37. For a recent translation together with a commentary of the elogium, see Trout 2015, 149-152. 26 The date is calculated on the grounds that Ambrose became bishop of Milan in 374 and at Virg. 2.39 he states that he has been nondum triennalis sacerdos (‘not yet three years a bishop’).

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 7 to marry her did not manage to bend Agnes’ decision. The martyr confesses that, as she was first chosen by her spouse Christ, she will remain loyal to him and asks why the executioner delays. Then, Agnes bends down her neck, her fearlessness starkly contrasting with the executioner’s state of panic and fear. Finally, the martyr becomes the ‘victim of a twofold martyrdom, of modesty and religion. She both remained a virgin and she obtained martyrdom’ (… in una hostia duplex martyrium, pudoris et religionis: et uirgo permansit et martyrium obtinuit, Virg. 1.2.9). The hymn Agnes beatae virginis has points of similarity with both Damasus’ elogium and Ambrose’s De virginibus 1.2. It ends with Agnes bending her knee, after the fatal blow (percussa), and covering her whole body with her robe so that nobody can gaze at her uncovered body. Agnes covers her face with her hand and even makes sure to retain a modest posture while she is falling.27 In Prudentius’ Perist. 14, Agnes is a girl of just-marriageable age, who refuses to sacrifice to idols. To convince her, the examining magistrate first resorts to soothing words. Confronted with Agnes’ steadfastness and her scorn for physi- cal torture, he then orders that Agnes be forced into a brothel. Agnes is placed at the corner of a square, but the crowd does not dare to look at her. The only man who does gaze upon her with a lustful eye is immediately struck by light- ning. The magistrate’s wrath escalates, and he asks a soldier to execute her by the sword. Then, Agnes addresses her executioner in an astonishing speech, where her fervent desire to undergo martyrdom is couched in terms of sexual consummation. The executioner beheads Agnes. The martyr’s spirit ascends to heaven, looking down on human sin and vanity. Finally, Agnes is awarded by God with a double crown. The question of whether Prudentius knew of and used Damasus’ or Ambrose’s works cannot be answered with certainty. It is most likely that there are intermediate texts that link Prudentius and the other two writers.28 On the one hand, the variations in the story of Agnes can be explained by the sources that these writers used, be it oral tradition, visual representations or written records. On the other hand, the differences have to do with the context and the purposes that each of the three accounts serves. However, what is striking in Prudentius’ account is the heavily eroticized narrative to describe a martyr whose hallmark is chastity. Prudentius is the first to introduce Agnes’ punishment of working as a prostitute, an element that is part of the later

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 8 Tsartsidis passio of Agnes. In Damasus and the Ambrosian hymn, this is only hinted at. In Damasus, Agnes’ hair covers her naked limbs, whereas in the Ambrosian hymn, upon dying, Agnes takes care to cover herself. Interestingly, however, Ambrose includes in De virginibus the story of an unnamed virgin from Antioch who was also forced to a brothel by her persecutors (2.4).29 Nonetheless, this strongly eroticized element of Prudentius’ account does not rest only on the inclusion of the incident with the brothel, but also and most importantly on Agnes’ sexually charged address to her executioner. In both De virginibus and the Ambrosian hymn, matrimonial imagery is employed. In both cases, Agnes is compared to a bride or characterised as a bride of Christ.30 This type of imagery is also found in Perist. 14, where Agnes, after expressing her desire to be martyred in terms analogous to a sexual encounter, declares that in this way she will become a bride of Christ.31 Nevertheless, Prudentius, writing classicising poetry, brings to the foreground erotic elements that feature neither in contemporary accounts such as these of Damasus and Ambrose nor in the later passio of Agnes. As I will now show, these elements harken back to Latin love poetry and more specifically, to Latin love elegy.

4 Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella

4.1 Elegiac Tropes In Perist. 14, the elegiac associations are evident early in the narration of Agnes’ martyrdom. More specifically, her first interaction with the examining magistrate in the poem reveals Prudentius’ interaction with the elegiac genre:

temptata multis nam prius artibus nunc ore blandi iudicis inlice ...32

29 For further such tales in other writers, see Malamud 1989, 157, 164 n. 12, 166-167, and Grig 2005, 113. 30 Ambrose, Virg. 1.2.9: at illa [sc. Agnes]: ‘et haec sponsi [sc. Christi] iniuria est expectare placituram; cf. also Agnes beatae virginis 13-16: prodire quis nuptum putet | sic laeta uultu ducitur, | novas uiro ferens opes, | dotata censu sanguinis. 31 Perist. 14.79-80: sic nupta Christo transiliam poli | omnes tenebras aethere celsior. It is worth noting that the metre in which Perist. 14 is written, the alcaic hendecasyllable, is also used by Prudentius’ contemporary poet Claudian in one of the latter’s poems on the wedding of Stilicho and Maria (Fesc. 1). See Charlet 2000, 89-90. In that poem, the nuptial but also erotic imagery features prominently. 32 Perist. 14.15-16. All the translations in this study stem from the Loeb editions with slight modifications.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 9

For though she was first assailed with many arts, now with seductive words from a smooth-tongued judge …

Before resorting to threats of torture, the judge’s first attempt to persuade the young martyr to abandon her faith is through many arts (artibus) and a seductive way of talking (blandi). It has already been pointed out that in this passage Prudentius uses language of courtship, “with a judge who speaks like a lover”.33 Both artes and blandus are terms with prominent elegiac overtones. More specifically, blandus is an epithet characteristically used to denote the elegiac lover’s seductive words and verses or (the style of) a specific elegiac poet.34 Blandus also recalls the blanditiae (‘sweet talking’) that the elegiac lov- ers utilise in order to seduce their puella.35 The word artes within a courting context notably recalls the arts of seduction offered by Ovid in his Ars amato- ria. Furthermore, the judge assailing Agnes with alluring words verbally echoes Ovid’s instructions for conquering a female lover: femina quam iuueni blande temptata repugnet (‘[Sooner would birds be silent in spring] than a woman seductively wooed resist a lover’, Ars 1.273). The parallel becomes all the more appealing if we take into account that this is the only occurrence of the per- fect participle of temptare in combination with a cognate of blandus in Latin literature before Prudentius.36 Thus, it can be seen either as a direct allusion to Ovid’s passage or an allusion to a courting and hence to an elegiacally charged trope. However, although Ovid’s instruction, according to the poet himself, guarantees a successful outcome, in the case of Agnes’ judge, who appears to follow this instruction, his soothing words have no influence on the Christian martyr. While creating an atmosphere suggestive of love elegy, Prudentius immediately reverses the situation and brings us back to the interrogation of the steadfast virgin martyr. The episode, however, an attempt to persuade the martyr in terms that allude to courtship, in a way anticipates Agnes’ address to her executioner, which is expressed in terms of a sexual encounter:

33 Malamud 1990, 290. 34 See e.g. Prop. 1.8.40: sed potui (i.e. hanc ego flectere) blandi carminis obsequio; Ov. Ars. 1.663: quis sapiens blandis non misceat oscula uerbis?; Propertius (2.3.16) characterises himself as blandus: non sum de nihilo blandus amator ego. Cf. Ov. Tr. 2.465: blandi praecepta Properti; 5.1.17: blandique Propertius oris. 35 The word blanditiae occurs in Ambrose, Virg. 1.2.9: quanto terrore egit carnifex ut time retur, quantis blanditiis ut suaderet; quantorum uota ut sibi ad nuptias proveniret. Other elegiac features that are explored in this study are absent from this narrative. 36 For this statement I rely on a search of the electronic database of the Library of Latin Texts: ⟨http://apps.brepolis.net/BrepolisPortal/default.aspx⟩.

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ut uidit Agnes stare trucem uirum mucrone nudo, laetior haec ait: ‘exulto, talis quod potius uenit, uesanus, atrox, turbidus, armiger, 70 quam si ueniret languidus ac tener mollisque efybus tinctus aromate, qui me pudoris funere perderet. hic, hic amator iam, fateor, placet; ibo inruentis gressibus obuiam 75 nec demorabor uota calentia: ferrum in papillas omne recepero pectusque ad imum uim gladii traham.37

When Agnes saw the grim figure standing there with his naked sword her gladness increased and she said: ‘I rejoice that there comes a man like this, a savage, cruel, wild man-at-arms, rather than a listless, soft and delicate youth bathed in perfume, coming to destroy me with the death of my honour. This lover, this one at last, I confess it, pleases me. I shall meet his eager steps half-way and not put off his hot desires. I shall welcome the whole length of his blade into my bosom, drawing the sword-blow to the depths of my breast.

Agnes expresses her delight that her executioner is a rough, macho figure and not a soft, delicate youth. She calls him ‘lover’ (amator) and welcomes him penetrating the very depths of her breast with his sword. The lover that Agnes would disavow is tener and mollis (71-72). These are epithets prominently used to characterise both the elegiac lover and his poetry.38 In terms of genre, this ‘softness’ stands in contrast to the durus genre, epic. In terms of gender and its representation in Roman love elegy, this ‘softness’ is associated with effeminacy,39 which, as part of the servitium amoris trope, inverts conventional gender roles.40 The elegiac lover appears to acquire

37 Perist. 14.67-78. 38 Kennedy 1993, 31-32. On the elegiac lover as mollis with emphasis on Propertius, see Keith 1999, 56-57, 61, and Wyke 2002, 168-169, 174-175. Ovid describes Propertius as tener (Ars 3.333) and often uses the same adjective to refer to his own poetry (e.g. Am. 2.1.4, 3.1.69, 3.8.2). In the Tristia, Ovid emblematically depicts himself as tenerorum lusor amo- rum (3.3.73, 4.10.1). 39 On mollitia and effeminacy, see Edwards 1993, 63-97. 40 For an overview of such gender issues in Roman elegy together with bibliography, see Greene 2012, and see the next section.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 11 feminine characteristics and to be subordinate to the elegiac mistress who is depicted as dura. At the beginning of Perist. 14, Agnes too is described as fortis puella, ‘a strong girl’ (2), an appropriate characteristic of a female martyr, as we can infer from her steadfastness and her willingness to undergo martyrdom. When she shuns the tener and mollis youth that resembles the elegiac lover, the lover (amator, 74) that she craves and actually gets is very similar to the rival of the elegiac lover. This rival of the elegiac poet repeatedly appears to be a battle-hardened soldier (Tib. 2.4, Prop. 2.8, 2.16, Ov. Am. 3.8). In Eclogue 10, Vergil, appropriating an elegy written by Gallus, depicts Lycoris, Gallus’ mistress leaving her lover in order to accompany a military man across the Alps. Commenting on line 46, Servius maintains that these verses are translati (‘quoted’ or ‘adapted’) from Gallus’ poems: hi autem omnes uersus Galli sunt de ipsius translati carminibus. Moreover, lines 46-49 of Vergil’s poem strikingly resemble lines 1.8.7-8 from Propertius, a poem in which Cynthia also contemplates going off to Illyria to follow her lover, apparently another military man.41 So, the stance that the elegiac mistress exhibits in these situations, that is, to be lured by the rival of the elegiac lover, a soldier, goes back to Gallus and the beginnings of the Latin love elegy, and is a recurrent theme throughout. In Am. 3.8, Corinna prefers the blood-thirsty soldier to the soft elegiac lover:

ecce, recens diues parto per uulnera censu praefertur nobis sanguine pastus eques.42

Look you, a newly-rich, a knight fed fat on blood, who acquired his wealth by dealing wounds, is preferred to me [sc. the elegiac lover]!

In Am. 3.8, the elegiac lover’s rival is a soldier that has killed (16-17), someone who could possibly tell his puella ‘how many times he has plunged the steel in a human throat’ (… quotiens hominem iugulaverit, 3.8.21). That is exactly the type of lover that Agnes welcomes in Perist. 14, and this is the way Agnes is going to meet her end. The specific type of lover that Agnes fervently approves of (hic, hic amator iam, fateor, placet, Perist. 14.74) is the one that the elegiac puella prefers, as well. On the contrary, the soft and effeminate youth tallies with

41 Ecl. 10.46-49: tu procul a patria (nec sit mihi credere tantum) | Alpinas, a, dura, niues et frigora Rheni | me sine sola uides. a, te ne frigora laedant! | a, tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas! ~ Prop. 1.8.7-8: tu pedibus teneris positas fulcire pruinas, | tu potes insolitas, Cynthia, ferre niues? 42 Ov. Am. 3.8.9-10.

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 12 Tsartsidis the depiction of the elegiac poet who is rejected by the elegiac puella in favour of his masculine military rival. I do not want to assert that the roles are perfectly congruent. In the case of elegy, the rival is also associated with money, the spoils that he brings back from the campaigns (cf. e.g. Am. 3.8.9: recens diues). This wealth plays a de- cisive role in the elegiac puella’s choice.43 On the contrary, in Perist. 14 Agnes disparages wealth. After the martyr’s death, Agnes’ spirit ascends to heaven. During her ascent, Agnes scorns various facets of human sin and vanity, in- cluding riches (Perist. 14.91-111). Nevertheless, in preferring a macho soldier as her ‘lover’ over a tener and mollis youth, Agnes takes on a recognisably elegiac stance.

4.2 Sexualization and Sexuality In Perist. 14, Prudentius offers a sexualized portrayal of Agnes’ body and her martyrdom. Agnes is exposed naked in a public square (platea), although people avoid gazing at her nakedness in order not to see her private parts (uerendum … locum, 42). In this exposure, Agnes exemplifies the contradic- tory combination of the virgin and the prostitute.44 Consequently, as Lucy Grig holds, the martyr’s body represents a paradox.45 “The body of the female saint is exposed and sexualized, and at the same time sacralized and forbidden to us”.46 Later, Agnes’ fervent invitation that the executioner pierces her breast with his ‘naked sword’ (mucrone nudo, 68) strikingly evokes the penetration of the deflowering penis.47 As we saw in the previous section, she expresses her joy that the executioner is not languidus (‘floppy’), a word evoking strong sexual connotations.48 With this description full of sexual overtones, the firm executioner’s sword is associated with his erected penis. For a martyr’s standards Agnes displays a provocatively promiscuous behaviour. She rushes to meet her lover half-way in order not to put off his hot desires (uota calentia, 76). She welcomes his whole blade ( ferrum … omne, 77) into her bosom (in papillas, 77) and invites him to penetrate the depths of her breast (pectusque, 78). Both the martyr’s willingness to undergo torture and the sexualization of a female martyr’s body is not uncommon in martyr narratives. However, as men- tioned earlier, what is striking in the case of Prudentius’ Agnes is, first, that the

43 On the elegiac puella’s greediness, the spoils of war and the lover’s rival, see Keith 2015. 44 On this paradoxical nature of Agnes’ body and her martyrdom, see esp. Grig 2005. Cf. also Malamud 1990, 289, 292. 45 Grig 2005. 46 Grig 2005, 115. 47 Burrus 1995, 37; Grig 2005, 116. 48 Cf. also Adams 1982, 46.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 13 martyr’s willingness to undergo martyrdom is couched in heavily sexual terms and, second, that this sexualized portrayal differs from contemporary and later sources for Agnes. The account of Ambrose is eroticized,49 but the imagery Ambrose uses is largely that of matrimony. Neither do we get this sort of heavily sexualized account in the story of the anonymous Antiochene martyr from Ambrose’s De virginibus (see above). This portrayal, on the other hand, harkens back to Latin love poetry, and more specifically to Latin love elegy where the body of the elegiac puella is regularly sexualized. Agnes invites her executioner to penetrate her breast (papillas, 77; pectus, 78). In elegy, female parts (such as breasts) that arouse sexual desire are often put into the spotlight. Especially the word papilla, which means ‘nipple’ and synecdochally ‘breast’, is often used in elegy in an erotic context or a context of love making (Prop. 2.15.5: nudatis … papillis, Ov. Am. 1.4.37, 1.5.20, 2.15.11). Thus, Agnes’ sexuality points to the mistresses of elegy. Like these, despite her tender age, Agnes is strong ( fortis, 2) and brave enough to refuse to sacrifice to the idols and challenge the examining magistrate. Furthermore, she is the one to invite the executioner, her amator, to penetrate her. Throughout her martyrdom and during her sexually charged address to her executioner, Agnes acquires a dominant role, thus creating a situation of gender-reversal50 typical of Roman elegy, where the woman is portrayed as acquiring the traditionally active and dominant role of men, with the man taking on the traditionally pas- sive and subservient role of women. In her strident speech, Agnes is portrayed as an elegiac domina. Nonetheless, despite this consonance between Agnes and the elegiac puellae when it comes to the representation of their corporeality and sexuality, a closer look can show us how Prudentius engages with and at the same time distances himself from Classical love elegy, in other words, how he trans- forms the latter tradition. On the one hand, in the corporeal and gender portrayal of Agnes, Prudentius summons associations with Latin love elegy. On the other, in stressing her steadfastness and defence of chastity, he accentu- ates her Christian victory. So, in converting the elegiac puella to Christianity, Prudentius replaces the sexual pathos with martyrdom. Agnes’ death is strikingly suggestive of the rupture with elegy. Agnes is after all not penetrated by the executioner’s ‘naked sword’ but is beheaded. This signifies the breach with the sexual imagery that preceded the martyr’s death, the breach with an elegiacally charged atmosphere and Agnes’ ultimate reversion—or one might say conversion—to her Christian context.

49 Burrus 1995, 31, 35, 43. 50 Malamud 1989, 164; id. 1990, 291; Burrus 1995, 45; Grig 2005, 117. Cf. also Uden 2009, 212.

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4.3 Name and Textualization As with many of the saints included in the Peristephanon, Prudentius’ Agnes has a speaking name.51 Such a name might reveal a prominent virtue of the saint or presage their end. Prudentius, as other Christian writers of the same era, sometimes includes etymological puns on the saints’ names.52 The name of Agnes derives from the Greek adjective ἁγνός, ‘pure’.53 As we have seen in the text, Agnes exemplifies the virtue of chastity. However, the use of a speaking name for a character that embodies its attribute emphasises the artificiality of Agnes’ account.54 This use of a descriptive name can be paralleled to the names of the elegiac puellae, such as Lesbia, Delia, Cynthia, and Corinna. All these names evoke literary associations, something that, as in the case of Agnes, underscores their artificiality. It has been famously argued that the elegiac mistresses are puellae scriptae, literary constructions representing Callimachean poetics.55 In the case of Agnes, we have a similar practice. However, unlike the elegiac mistresses, who embody purely literary concerns, Prudentius’ virgin martyr represents Christian ideals.56 Furthermore, the artificiality in the representation of Agnes and her resem- blance to a puella scripta becomes all the more pronounced, once we compare

51 Peter is the πέτρα (‘rock’) of faith (Perist. 12), Eulalia (⟨ εὖ + λαλέω) was proven an eloquent defender of faith (Perist. 3), Hippolytus (⟨ ἵππος + λύειν) has the same name as Theseus’ son, and is similarly dragged to death by wild horses (Perist. 11), and Vincent (⟨ vincere) re- mains victorious even after his death (Perist. 5). For the Roman associations of Romanus’ name in Perist. 10, see Tsartsidis 2016, 39-40. 52 For Prudentius’ puns on the martyrs’ names, see Petruccione 1985, 111, and Malamud 1989, 81, 115-116, 152. For examples from other writers of the same era, see Augustine, Serm. 274 on Vincent; Damasus, Ferrua 59.1; Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 12.1, Carm. 13.1f. on Felix. 53 Cf. Augustine, Serm. 273.6: Agnes latine agnam significat; graece, castam. 54 Although one can argue that women in general or any other characters in literature rep- resent literary constructions, what I maintain is that Prudentius in his portrayal of Agnes, although recounting the story of a known martyr, creates a figure that is more fictitious and imaginative than other contemporary representations, while he does not appear se- verely preoccupied with constructing an account that is or seems to be historically reli- able. Relevant to this discussion are also the conclusions of O’Hogan 2016 who argues that in his representation of space (be it rural, urban, etc.) Prudentius has a bookish approach, owing more to earlier Classical and Christian literature than to lived experience. 55 Wyke 2002. 56 An oscillation between elegiac puellae, whose speaking names echo traditionally elegiac elements, and those whose name represents Christian elements, may also be found in Maximianus. Among the puellae included, we have Lycoris, a girl whose name has obvi- ous elegiac connotations (pointing to Gallus’ mistress), and Aquilina, whose name might point to the virgin martyr with the same name. See Uden 2009, 215. For further attempts to explain Aquilina’s name, see Schneider 2003, 101.

DownloadedMnemosyne from Brill.com10/02/2021 (2020) 1-21 08:44:35PM via free access Prudentius’ Agnes and the Elegiac puella 15 her with her ‘companion’ martyr, Eulalia in Perist. 3. Perist. 3 and 14 are the only poems of the Perist. fully devoted to female martyrs. There is no account of Eulalia’s martyrdom prior to Prudentius. Nonetheless, it has been argued persuasively that for the portrayal of Eulalia in Perist. 3, Prudentius uses ma- terial from the tradition of Agnes.57 In both cases, we have virgin martyrs of just-marriageable age whose spirit ascends to heaven after their death.58 This and other striking similarities have justifiably prompted scholars to read Perist. 3 and 14 as companion pieces. Based on plot similarities, Malamud maintains that “the two young virgins portrayed are almost interchangeable”.59 As other martyrs in the Peristephanon, Eulalia’s body is textualized.60 In other words, the martyr’s body is identified with a text. While her body is mu- tilated by her executioners, Eulalia declares that Christ’s name is being written upon her:

scriberis ecce mihi, domine, quam iuuat hos apices legere, qui tua, Christe, tropea notant, nomen et ipsa sacrum loquitur purpura sanguinis eliciti.61

‘See, Lord,’ she says, ‘you are being written on me. How I love to read these letters, for they record thy victories, O Christ, and the very scarlet of the blood that is drawn speaks the holy name.’

While undergoing martyrdom, Eulalia’s body becomes a text, a medium con- veying or even incarnating a Christian message.62 Eulalia is a puella scripta, and, as pointed out above, highly similar to Agnes, her companion virgin martyr: like Agnes, Eulalia has a speaking name too (see above), and her body is also sexualized.63 The similarities between Agnes and Eulalia, inherent in the very creation of Eulalia’s account, show that Eulalia is an altera Agnes or at

57 Palmer 1989, 240-241; and Petruccione 1990, 83-85. 58 There are many other correspondences between the two poems, cf. Malamud 1990; Roberts 1993, 100-102. 59 Malamud 1990, 280. See also Malamud 1990, 282. 60 For the textualization of the martyr’s body and the use of metaphors of writing in Prudentius, see Thraede 1965, 79-140, and Ross 1995. 61 Perist. 3.136-140. 62 See Fielding 2013, who argues that in this passage the virgin martyr physically embodies the divine Word. 63 See esp. Perist. 3.131-33.

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 16 Tsartsidis least that Eulalia appears to have some Agnes in her. These similarities between Agnes and Eulalia, a Christian puella scripta, prompt us to look at Agnes’ body as textualized, as a text that we need to decode. As Eulalia’s body/text mediates a Christian message, so does Agnes’. The Roman martyr declares to her examining magistrate: ferrum inpiabis sanguine, si uoles, | non inquinabis membra libidine (‘you may stain your sword with my blood if you will, but you will not pollute my body with lust’, 36-37). Agnes would not allow her membra (‘body’) to be infiltrated by lust. Here, Agnes seems conscious that not only (the story of) her martyrdom but also her very body is a medium that communicates a Christian message, a message of Christian chastity.64 Agnes’ body is a medium like that of her fellow virgin martyr Eulalia and like that of Prudentius’ text. Although there are different ways through which we can look at the textualization of Agnes’ body,65 what is inscribed in the wounds inflicted upon Agnes by her executioners is the abnegation of everything carnal and the defence of chastity. Like the elegiac puellae, Agnes is a puella scripta, representing the poet’s cultural concerns. But unlike the elegiac puellae, Agnes represents a spiritual rather than a purely literary stance. It appears that throughout the poem, Prudentius stresses these features of the text that recall Latin love elegy, while at the same time he displays how these features can be redefined as part of the portrayal of a virgin martyr. In line with the literary trends of Prudentius’ era, the body/text of Agnes offered a compelling opportunity for this literary experiment.

64 Cf. Uden 2009, 215: “If, as Maria Wyke 1989 famously argues, the elegiac woman is merely a scripta puella, a ‘written woman’, a sign through which the male poet communicates ideas about his art and his social status, then the martyr is, even more so, an effect of discourse, through the commemoration of whose death a culture communicates its ideals”. 65 Malamud 1990, 294, reading Perist. 3 and 14 side by side, two poems in which issues of sexuality and textuality feature prominently, holds that the poem of Agnes is a rewriting of the poem on Eulalia, “an attempt to transcend, by verbal and intellectual sleight of hand, the disturbing implications of Peristephanon 3, collapsing sexuality and textuality in a rather desperate attempt at closure and control”. Burrus 1995, 42, tracking down the representation of the death of Polyxena, a model for Agnes, from Vergil, Ovid and Seneca through to Euripides, reads Prudentius’ Agnes as a rewriting of a tragic heroine, in which “Agnes’ pubescent body emerges into sharp visibility precisely as a text of death unadorned by the distracting ambiguities of a saintly Life”.

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5 Conclusions

Late Latin poetry is characterized by a mixture of genres, which is often detect- able within a single poem. Against this backdrop and in addition to its epic and tragic associations, in Perist. 14 we can also identify prominent elegiac features. Prudentius creates a narrative that diverges from that of contemporary and later accounts of Agnes’ martyrdom and, at the same time, more strikingly evokes Latin love poetry. The presence of a ‘lover’, even if only by name, and the interaction with the authorities conjured up first in terms of courting and in sequence in terms of a sexual encounter, allude to Roman love elegy .66 Furthermore, the representation of Agnes at times allows us to read her as the virtuous Doppelgänger of an elegiac puella. She prefers a rough, military man to the soft and tender lover. Her body is sexualized, and until shortly before her death she is portrayed as a domina, a strong woman in a gender-reversal situation. Furthermore, like the elegiac mistresses, she has a speaking name and can be largely perceived as a literary construction rather than a realistic representation. As James Uden argues: “the virgin martyr, like the elegiac puella, is, in personified form, a body of generic conventions”.67 This description emphasizes the continuities between Latin love elegy and Prudentius’ hymn. However, there are inevitably sharp contrasts between the two. Agnes’ name alludes to spiritual rather than mainly literary concerns. The heavily eroticized elements that we find in Prudentius’ poem (and not in contemporary accounts on Agnes), even if they might seem provoking, tasteless or even unnecessary,68 are used to heighten the drama of her martyrdom; ul- timately, however, they do not alter the main scope of the poem, which is to praise Agnes for her martyrdom and her chastity. It is important to point out that reading Agnes as a Christianized elegiac puella was not necessarily Prudentius’ sole or principal intention. Although the poet included all the elements that point to Latin love elegy, this should not undermine readings that associate the poem with other genres. Prudentius operates within a gamut of pre-existing generic and literary traditions that, as we have seen, are often readily combined in the literature of his era. The

66 The word amator features also in the later passio (3). Agnes spurns the son of the pre- fect, who has fallen for her, by telling him that she already has a lover, i.e. Christ. Unlike in Perist. 14, however, in this text do not feature the strikingly sexual elements that recall Latin love elegy, such as Agnes’ sexually charged speech and the elegiacally charged vocabulary. 67 Uden 2009, 215. 68 Lavarenne 1955, 195.

Mnemosyne (2020) 1-21 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:44:35PM via free access 18 Tsartsidis interpretation of a text, where different genres co-exist, can depend on the genre or genres one decides to privilege. Perist. 14 can be seen through the lens of epic, tragedy, or, as advocated in this study, elegy. Reading Agnes as a Christian counterpart to the elegiac puella can explain the paradoxes of Prudentius’ account, the oscillation between two extremes, the virgin and the prostitute, the body which is sexualized and sacralized at the same time. This reading of Perist. 14 reconciles the Christian message of the poem with its distinct elegiac qualities. Uden argues that in his third elegy Maximianus, writing in elegiacs, elegises the virgin martyr.69 Prudentius does the opposite: by varying the story of a virgin martyr, he christianises the elegiac puella. In his text, the erotic passion becomes the passion of a martyr.70

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