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Dictynna Revue de poétique latine
8 | 2011 Varia
Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/dictynna/684 DOI : 10.4000/dictynna.684 ISSN : 1765-3142
Référence électronique Dictynna, 8 | 2011 [En ligne], mis en ligne le 05 décembre 2011, consulté le 10 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/dictynna/684 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/dictynna.684
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SOMMAIRE
Genere e intertestualità in Ovidio: qualche riflessione su Met. 13.771-5; Her. 14.45-50; Ibis 153-8 Chiara Battistella
Attis a Roma e altri spaesamenti: Catullo, Cicerone, Seneca e l’esilio da se stessi Mario Citroni
Zoophilie in Zoologie und Roman: Sex und Liebe zwischen Mensch und Tier bei Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren, Aelian und Apuleius Judith Hindermann
Divided Voices and Imperial identity in Propertius 4.1 and Derrida, Monolingualism of the Other and Politics of Friendship Michèle Lowrie
Vergil, Georgics 1.1-42 and the pompa circensis Damien Nelis et Jocelyne Nelis-Clément
‘Eastern’ Elegy and ‘Western’ Epic: reading ‘orientalism’ in Propertius 4 and Virgil’s Aeneid Donncha O’Rourke
India, Egypt and Parthia in Augustan verse: the post-orientalist turn Grant Parker
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Genere e intertestualità in Ovidio: qualche riflessione su Met. 13.771-5; Her. 14.45-50; Ibis 153-8
Chiara Battistella
NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR
Per ragioni tecniche le note 1 e 2 sono state soppresse nella versione elettronica e integrate a testo Pour des raisons techniques les notes 1 et 2 ont été supprimées de la version électronique et intégrées au texte
Queste pagine hanno beneficiato della lettura di Damien Nelis, che qui ringrazio. I miei ringraziamenti vanno anche ai referees della rivista per varie e utili osservazioni e alla Fritz Thyssen Stiftung per aver finanziato la mia ricerca a Monaco. I passi sono citati in base alle seguenti edizioni: Hopkinson (2000) per Met. 13; Palmer (2005) per Her. 14; La Penna (1957) per l’ Ibis.
I. L’altera del Ciclope
1 La natura polifonica delle Metamorfosi è un tratto ormai riconosciuto : il poema non rappresenta una forma ‘pura’ di epica, ma è in qualche modo il contenitore di differenti voci generiche che, come già nell’Eneide (emblematico il caso di Didone come further voice3) si fanno strada attraverso la parola dei personaggi4. Consideriamo il seguente passo : Ov. Met. 13.771-5 Telemus Eurymides, quem nulla fefellerat ales, terribilem Polyphemon adit “lumen”que “quod unum fronte geris media, rapiet tibi” dixit “Ulixes”.
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risit et “o vatum stolidissime, falleris” inquit ; “altera iam rapuit.”
2 A parlare ai vv. 774-5 è un Polifemo dalla vocazione alquanto metaletteraria e dialogica alle prese (suo malgrado) con una riflessione di genere. Non è passata inosservata la componente elegiaca dell’episodio del Ciclope e Galatea e peraltro non è questa la prima volta in letteratura in cui viene portato in scena un Polifemo innamorato (cf. Theocr. Id. 6 e 11). Eppure, se si mette ulteriormente sotto pressione il testo, credo che proprio all’interno di un singolo emistichio – altera iam rapuit – si possa isolare tutta una specificità elegiaca che discende dal codice della sintassi amorosa. Gli spazi testuali in cui si inserisce l’elegia sono esattamente quelli costruiti sulla traccia della vicenda omerica (e perciò epica) del personaggio : rapiet e lumen ai vv. 772-3, in unione a uror e laesus5 del v. 867, pur alludendo marcatamente all’inganno omerico di Odisseo, sono rivisitati in chiave elegiaca – cf. la sottrazione della vista, il fuoco d’amore, il tradimento dell’amato –, per quanto alla fine dell’episodio Polifemo recuperi i suoi tratti caratteriali originari, ossia omerico-virgiliani (si noti per inciso che Telemus Eurymides del v. 771 cita Od. 9.509)6.
3 L’emistichio altera iam rapuit, che del resto potrebbe perfettamente entrare anche nella prima parte di un pentametro, è commentato così da Hopkinson ad loc7: « Polyphemus’ wittily savage retort exploits the cliché of the beloved person ‘snatching the eyes’ of an admirer; cf. Am. 2.19.19 quae nostros rapuisti nuper ocellos » (e cf. anche Prop. 1.1.1 Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis). Da quanto mi risulta però, è stata prestata talmente poca attenzione ad altera che Bömer8 la considerava equivalente ad alia (« i. q. ‘alia’« ), precludendo in questo modo al testo la possibilità di far emergere nella sua pienezza il potenziale elegiaco che lo informa.
4 Contrariamente alla parafrasi offerta da Bömer, altera definisce un’opposizione tra non più di due elementi ed è proprio su questa intenzionale ‘alterità’ che è costruito il codice della poesia amatoria (non senza interessanti conseguenze generiche per il nostro passo). In questa altera a cui il Ciclope dedica il suo amore esclusivo 9, in questa Galatea che a quello che ci è dato sapere per la prima volta prende la parola qui nel testo ovidiano, è contenuto uno dei tratti distintivi della sintassi elegiaca che può essere ricondotto a una reductio ad duo (almeno dalla prospettiva dell’amator). Con riferimento al genere, questa binarietà è esemplificata dal confronto tra Elegia e Tragedia nel noto Am. 3.1, in cui Elegia è essa stessa caratterizzata come altera al v. 33. Anche Galatea è in qualche modo l’‘altra’ in relazione all’Ulixes del v. 773 (chi sottrarrà il lumen a Polifemo ?) e ciò dimostra appunto il funzionamento binario dell’elegia, come illustrato da Gibson10 : « essa tende ad operare con una serie di polarità binarie […] : elegia vs epica, gioventù vs vecchiaia, maschile vs femminile, amore vs guerra, amor vs matrimonio ».
5 Nell’opposizione generica si riflette il principio della rivalità che è tipico del codice amoroso : come Polifemo stabilisce una rivalità con Aci, così al tempo stesso altera costruisce una rivalità in termini generici tra Galatea-l’elegia e Odisseo-l’epica. Rifiutare una parafrasi come quella bömeriana, che ci pare in questo caso fuorviante, vuol dire restituire al testo tutta la sua pregnanza semantica e generica : se è dunque vero che lo spazio dell’elegia statutariamente vive di questa alterità (intesa anche come opposizione all’altro11), personaggi e generi nel passo in questione, letti dalla presente prospettiva, assumono un significato più complesso (e ovidiano).
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II. Iper-pietas
6 Questo principio binario o oppositivo nel testo ovidiano può essere isolato anche in un ulteriore passo, in cui sono dell’idea che il discorso generico sia complicato da una presenza intertestuale. Si tratta di Ov. Her. 14.45-50, versi nei quali Ipermestra, una delle Danaidi, riferisce gli avvenimenti della famigerata notte durante cui avrebbe dovuto trovare la morte anche il suo sposo Linceo : non ego falsa loquar : ter acutum sustulit ensem, ter male sublato reccidit ense manus ; admovi iugulo – sine me tibi vera fateri – admovi iugulo tela paterna tuo. sed timor et pietas crudelibus obstitit ausis, castaque mandatum dextra refugit opus.
7 Come giustamente ha rilevato Fulkerson12, la lettera si inserisce nel microcosmo delle Heroides scritte dalle altre eroine in modo un po’ anomalo. L’epistola sembra contemplare due destinatari, quello ‘vero’, Linceo, e un secondo potenziale ‘recipiente’, Danao, il padre di Ipermestra (l’eroina imprigionata corre in effetti il rischio che la missiva venga intercettata dal genitore) : quello che Ipermestra fa emergere tra le righe della sua lettera è un sentimento di pietas particolarmente ambiguo, sospeso tra dovere coniugale e filiale che quasi anticipa quel blocco tematico incentrato sulla perversione della pietas verso il proprio genitore di alcuni episodi delle Metamorfosi.
8 Reeson, nel suo commento13, puntualizza che la ripetizione di ter (45-6) riferita a tentativi vani è « at home in epic », come nei passi virgiliani di Aen. 2.792-3 (Creusa) e 6.700-1 (Anchise) e già prima in quelli omerici di Il. 18.155-8 e Od. 11.206-8. Tuttavia, a ben vedere, il passo di Aen. 6, al di là dal costituire un mero parallelo linguistico, costruisce un contatto testuale ben più operativo con i versi di Her. 14. Tematicamente parlando, la pietas percorre il poema virgiliano dall’inizio alla fine facendosi vero e proprio Merkmal del personaggio Enea in primo luogo nei confronti del padre Anchise14. Nel libro 6, durante la sua discesa nell’oltretomba, Enea incontra il padre che gli rivolge le seguenti parole (vv. 687-8) : “venisti tandem tuaque exspectata parenti vicit iter durum pietas ?” a cui segue la risposta di Enea (vv. 697-8) “ … da iungere dextram, da, genitor, teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro” Subito dopo egli cerca di abbracciare il padre (vv. 700-1) ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum, ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago
9 L’incontro con Anchise è finalizzato alla formulazione della profezia ai vv. 888-92 (cf. docet, v. 891) ; il gesto di congiungere le mani a quelle del genitore e i ripetuti (per quanto frustrati) tentativi di abbracciarlo (ter) rientrano perfettamente nell’idea di una pietas tradizionale offerta a un padre esemplare come Anchise, che ha meritato i laeta arva nell’oltretomba (6.744).
10 Ipermestra è alle prese con una forma più complessa di pietas, il cui adempimento implica l’esecuzione di un ordine proveniente da un genitore violentus : cf. 14.43 excussere metum violenti iussa parentis (cf. v. 53 saevus e anche Hor. Carm. 3.11.34 periurum … parentem ; cf. peraltro ai vv. 30-2 impiae e al v. 39 scelestas detto delle sorelle complici, mentre al v. 46 Ipermestra si definisce clemens riecheggiato in Her. 14.4 est mihi supplicii
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causa fuisse piam). La sua mano potrebbe dimostrare pietà filiale solo macchiandosi del delitto voluto da Danao, sollevata perciò non in un gesto pacifico, ma per colpire e uccidere (cf. le esitazioni dell’eroina ai vv. 61-2 ; chiaramente i bella … gerenda invocati nella profezia di Anchise sono un caso un po’ diverso che non mette in discussione la rettitudine del personaggio). La sua percezione della pietas rivela una forte connotazione in senso virgiliano, come risulta dalla costellazione di elementi allusivi ter, dextra, pietas – il gesto delle ‘tre volte’ trascina con sé in questo caso un marcato contesto di pietà filiale –, ma Danao non è Anchise allo stesso modo per cui Ipermestra non è Enea (v. 65 quid mihi cum ferro ? quo bellica tela puellae ?). Anche la breve (e selettiva) digressione su Io nell’epistola (vv. 85-108) serve in un certo senso a definire meglio il ruolo di Ipermestra che, nonostante il sentimento conteso tra padre e marito, opta in definitiva per la pietas coniugale : infatti anche l’eroina, non diversamente dall’illustre antenata, mutatis mutandis « will escape from her father. Hypermestra thus integrates the traditional story of Io into her letter, utilizing it for her own purposes » (Fulkerson [2003], 137).
11 Se si è d’accordo nel riconoscere questo momento intertestuale, la considerazione più evidente da fare è che l’intertestualità qui in azione ha una valenza oppositiva, soprattutto in termini ‘ideologici’, ma certamente anche di genere : la scelta al bivio è tra epica (e la sua tradizionale pietas) ed elegia (e, per così dire, una diversa forma di pietas, rivolta allo sposo15 ; cf. anche vv. 129-30, l’epitafio di Ipermestra16) ed è paradigmatica di come, ancora una volta, il testo ovidiano sia costruito su una binarietà arricchita in questo caso da un rivolo intertestuale.
12 Soffermiamoci però ancora un istante sul motivo della pietas nell’Eneide per esplorarne ulteriormente le nuances semantiche. Il momento culminante della missione di Enea coincide con l’esecuzione ex abrupto di Turno, un gesto che ha spesso lasciato turbato o contrariato il lettore del testo virgiliano17 per l’assoluta mancanza di pietà. Eppure, in definitiva, quella di Enea, dopo le iniziali incertezze (cf. 12.939-41 Aeneas volvens oculos dextramque repressit / et iam iamque magis cunctantem flectere sermo / coeperat e 950-1 hoc dicens ferrum adverso sub pectore condit / fervidus), è una scelta perfettamente in linea con la sua pietas, se per pietas si intende la necessaria vendetta della morte di Pallante.
13 Questo sentimento incarna perciò un « sense of responsibility »18 che, con le dovute distinzioni, non è troppo lontano da quello di Ipermestra. Si aggiunga che, se si mette a fuoco la causa reale che ha prodotto la vendetta ‘pietosa’ dell’eroe, vale a dire la visione del balteus di Pallante indossato da Turno nel combattimento finale (cf. 12.941-2), ritorna quello che, almeno ai fini della presente discussione, si configura come un fil rouge : il mito delle Danaidi, la cui carneficina era stata impressa sul balteo e per cui cf. Aen. 10.496-8 … immania pondera baltei / impressumque nefas : una sub nocte iugali / caesa manus iuvenum foede thalamique cruenti19 (con l’eccezione, dobbiamo credere, dello sposo di Ipermestra). La pietas ‘non convenzionale’ di Ipermestra e quella di Enea, a ben vedere, risultano perciò costruite entrambe su uno scarto dal concetto normativo di pietà, che Ovidio recepisce nel testo virgiliano e riproduce con consapevolezza nella sua epistola20.
III. Un lugubre queror
14 La mia terza lettura ovidiana si concentra sul v. 158 dell’Ibis e sulla parola tematica – ed elegiacamente iper-connotata – querar all’interno del nuovo contesto poetico della
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maledizione : può essere interessante riflettere sulle presenze elegiache (in primis il distico) in un poema di maledizione e sulla portata di un termine come queri. Credo si possa individuare un denso contatto lessicale21 tra l’insonnia di Ibis procuratagli da un persecutorio Ovidio travestito da uccello notturno e il risveglio di Arianna in Her. 10 nel momento della scoperta dell’abbandono : Ibis 153-8 Quidquid ero, Stygiis erumpere nitar ab oris, et tendam gelidas ultor in ora manus. Me vigilans cernes, tacitis ego noctis in umbris excutiam somnos visus adesse tuos. Denique quidquid ages, ante os oculosque volabo et querar… Her. 10.7-17 Tempus erat, vitrea quo primum terra pruina spargitur et tectae fronde queruntur aves. Incertum vigilans ac somno languida movi Thesea prensuras semisupina manus. Nullus erat ! referoque manus iterumque retempto, perque torum moveo bracchia : nullus erat ! Excussere metus somnum ; conterrita surgo […] luna fuit ; specto, si quid nisi litora cernam
15 Il risveglio di Arianna dopo la partenza di Teseo è inserito in una cornice facilmente riconoscibile come elegiaca grazie a queruntur, verbo che nella poesia ovidiana, ormai definitivamente risemantizzato, diventa il segnale convenzionale del lamento elegiaco ; in Her. 10.8 il queri degli uccelli anticipa evidentemente il cri du cœur dell’eroina che si espanderà lungo l’intera epistola – le Heroides, ante Tristia, entrano nello spazio elegiaco ovidiano come paradigma di poesia triste – : la querela di Arianna è dunque prefigurata nel canto degli aves (querela è in qualche modo già parola elegiaca di Arianna in Cat. 64.130 atque haec extremis maestam dixisse querellis, ma cf. anche Didone in Verg. Aen. 4.462-3 solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo / saepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces22 ; cf. infine Verg. Georg. 4.512 nel contesto proto-elegiaco di Orfeo ed Euridice 23 ; Ov. Am. 3.1.4 nel programmatico incontro di Elegia e Tragedia)24.
16 Non è sempre immediato stabilire se il contatto fra due testi sia frutto di pura coincidenza verbale o di una presenza intertestuale. Nel nostro caso sono propensa a credere che la costellazione lessicale individuata sopra riesca ad attivare, al di là dell’analogia tematica (risveglio e lamento), un momento dialogico tra il queri dell’Ibis e quello di Her. 10. Nella visionaria sequenza testuale dell’Ibis, in cui il poeta immagina di turbare il sonno del nemico con la sua inquietante epifania post mortem, è notevole come querar conservi la sua abituale (nell’elegia) posizione pentametrica. Da una prospettiva per così dire di grado zero, Ovidio, in questi suoi nuovi umbratili e volatili panni, sembra dar voce a un lamento apparentemente non troppo diverso da quello di un qualsiasi altro lugubre uccello25.
17 A voler però mettere sotto pressione il testo da una prospettiva più complessa, il contatto con Her. 10, supportato dalla densità allusiva, diventa semanticamente rilevante per spiegare la curiosa metamorfosi del poeta che si appropria, oltre che della forma volatile (volabo), anche del suo ‘contenuto’ più caratteristico (queri). L’operazione di estrapolare da un testo-sorgente genericamente ben orientato (elegia) una sequenza testuale ricreandola nel nuovo testo determina inevitabilmente delle consequenze in
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termini di genere. Il testo dell’Ibis in questo punto gravita attorno a una sorta di ‘liminalità’ generica, per cui l’elegia è il lamento amoroso (qui chiaramente fuori contesto), ma anche il lamento funebre dell’ ἒ ἒ λέγειν 26 (elegia delle origini). Il contesto dell’Ibis ha certamente molto più da spartire con l’elegia funebre delle origini e con il tema della morte, ma la ricezione nell’opera ovidiana non è mai un tratto inerte e innesca spesso degli effetti di deviazione27 : così in Ibis 158 il tradizionale lamento per il morto28 è trascinato dal nuovo contesto di maledizione nella direzione di un lamento del morto (Stygiis … ab oris, v. 153). Tale riflessione sull’‘evoluzione’ del genere elegiaco, variamente sperimentata nella poesia ovidiana e più in generale in quella augustea29, aiuta a percepire allo stesso tempo il contributo intertestuale e l’écart semantico in querar.
18 Dopo l’innovativo esperimento delle eroini scriventi (il suo opus novum), Ovidio permette all’elegia di entrare anche nel suo esperimento di maledizione con un duplice effetto di continuità e distanza, come accade abitualmente in ogni momento intra- o intertestuale. In questa sua (quasi) ultima e inattesa epifania l’elegia, sfruttando uno dei suoi tratti più costitutivi quale quello del lamento, prende le mosse dal contatto allusivo con Her. 10 per risalire fino alle sue origini testuali, senza rinunciare al piccolo scarto semantico delineato sopra. E forse anche questo gesto è in linea con l’intento parodico dell’iperbolico e ossessivo catalogo di maledizioni che riscrive i testi delle Arai30. La ‘voce’ elegiaca di Ovidio, arrivata ormai al capolinea, si deposita nel testo come un lamento (querar) che vive di strategia autoriflessiva31 : genera una tensione tra il testo-sorgente da cui si sviluppa l’allusione (Her. 1032) e la sorgente stessa del genere, i cui confini il lettore è invitato, ancora una volta, a esplorare33.
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NOTES
3. Cf. Cairns (1989), 129-50; Casali (2006), 154. 4. Cf. e.g. Nikolopoulos (2004), 25. 5. Per uror cf. Farrell (1992), 256: «Ovid of course follows Theocritus in exploiting the generically ambivalent element of fire». Laesus (‘ferito’) è parola elegiacamente connotata riferita al tradimento (cf. Knox [1995], ad 5.4). 6. Cf. e.g. Papaioannou (2005), 96. D. Nelis mi fa notare come il termine vatum possa essere letto da un prospettiva metapoetica. Tradizionalmente il vates incarna il paradigma della poesia elevata e ispirata (i.e. quella epica): il fatto che compaia qui sulla bocca di questo Polifemo elegizzato e irriverente produce un certo effetto di ironia, anche generica (epica stolida). 7. Hopkinson (2000). Cf. anche Farrell (1992), 257, n. 53; Rosati (2001) che indaga il sovrasenso elegiaco del v. 856 tibi … succumbimus uni. Per la vista come fondamentale mezzo di seduzione a partire dalla lirica greca cf. Davies (1980); Id. (1986), 403 e n. 21. Per una discussione sulla parodia generica nell’episodio ovidiano del Ciclope cf. Creese (2009) con ulteriore utile bibliografia (si noti che ai fini della presente discussione il genere pastorale rimane ai margini, in quanto il microcontesto di 13.771-5 è connotato elegiacamente). 8. Bömer (1982). 9. L’esclusività è tipicamente (topicamente) elegiaca: cf. e.g. Ov. Her. 3.51 tot tamen amissis te compensavimus unum; mi sembra si possa richiamare il concetto anche per Met. 1.474 (Apollo e Dafne) protinus alter amat, fugit altera nomen amantis. 10. Gibson (2005a), 143. Cf. anche Miller (2009) per la compresenza di epica ed elegia nella costruzione caratteriale Apollo in Met. 1.452-3. Del resto, come mi suggerisce il referee 1, nella stessa natura metrica del distico elegiaco è iscritta questa duplicità: cf. Ov. Am. 3.1.8 pes … alter e anche Hor. AP 75 versibus impariter iunctis. 11. Aspetto che è già in Properzio, per cui cf. DeBrohun (2005), 26: «Propertian love elegy depicts itself as a discourse founded on a world of opposition, in which its concerns occupy only a part, or pole – as it places itself firmly on the side most readily labeled amor». Per ulteriori opposizioni generiche nel testo ovidiano (mondo pastorale vs epica) cf. Fabre-Serris (1999). 12. Fulkerson (2003). 13. Reeson (2001). 14. Cf. e.g. 3.480; 6.405; cf. anche il lemma pietas in EV s.v. (A. Traina). Per l’evoluzione di questo ambiguo e problematico concetto nel poema cf. Putnam (1995), 134-51 e infra. 15. Come mi fa notare il referee 2, qui si tratta effettivamente di un rapporto coniugale in piena regola, ma questo non sottrae né i personaggi né il testo alle regole del genere elegiaco (almeno in parte, nonostante Fulkerson [2003], 127 «there is no mention of love in Heroides 14»; per il ‘tasso’ di elegiacità dell’epistola cf. Reeson [2001], 334 s.v. ‘elegiac’). 16. Fulkerson (2005), 80: «[…] interestingly, Hypermestra, who explicitly disobeys her father, is able to make herself seem obedient through a skillful use of rhetoric». 17. Cf. Burrow (1997), 83: «For many medieval readers Aeneas’ killing of Turnus was an outrage against compassion – Lactantius vehemently cries “Where then was your pietas (pity)” when he discusses the episode»; cf. anche Putnam (1995), 134-51; Clausen (2002), 206-9; Conte (2007), 154-5. 18. Secondo la parafrasi di Conte (1997), 155. 19. Cf. Conte (1970); Barchiesi (1984), 33ss. Si veda anche Harrison (1991), ad loc. e Putnam (1998), 189-207. 20. Cf. e.g. Hinds (1998), 108-11. 21. Non ancora notato da quello che ho potuto vedere. 22. Passo che Ovidio sembra ‘riscrivere’ in Ibis 223-4 sedit in adverso nocturnus culmine bubo / funereoque graves edidit ore sonos.
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23. Per Orfeo come poeta-amator (figura Galli?) cf. Conte (2001); Cairns (2006), 139-40 e passim. Cf. anche Morgan (1999), 171-84, che discute la duplice presenza di epillio ed epica nell’episodio di Aristeo. 24. Riferimenti d’obbligo sono Hinds (1987), 103; Barchiesi (1992), 28; Rosati (1996). Per esemplari eroine lamentevoli cf. Her. 1.8; 2.2; 3.5-6 (con Barchiesi [1992], ad loc. sull’isotopia tematica di queror come tratto costitutivo dell’elegia). Querela è impiegato da Properzio nell’accezione tecnica di ‘elegia’, per cui cf. Saylor (1967). Cf. infine Keith (1992), 137-46 e Williams (1994) su querela nella poesia dei Tristia. 25. Per la ‘metamorfosi’ di Ovidio in uccello (nonostante l’ambiguità del v. 153 quidquid ero) cf. 157 volabo e anche 155 in umbris in cui umbrae rappresenta topicamente lo spazio privilegiato del canto/lamento degli uccelli come in Cat. 65.13 e Ov. Am. 3.1.4-5. 26. Cf. Ov. Am. 3.9 flebilis indignos, Elegia, solve capillos, in cui a Elegia viene chiesto di piangere il defunto Tibullo, e soprattutto il v. seguente a, nimis ex vero nunc tibi nomen erit. Per le origini dell’elegia e la sua etimologia cf. Hor. AP 75-6; Varro, De Poem. (GRF fr. 303) nam et elegia extrema mortuo accinebatur sicuti nenia; Hinds (1987), 160, n. 30. Cf. anche Luck (1969), 25-6; West (1974), 1-21, soprattutto 7ss.; Fantham (2001); Gibson (2005b); Hunter (2006), 29-30: «the birds … are indeed ‘elegiac’ birds: the word elegia was connected by the Romans with complaint and lamentation, and the ‘complaining bird’ above all is the nightingale, to which Catullus compares himself in a poem that seems to introduce an elegiac collection (65.11-4)». Cf. anche la nota successiva. 27. L’Ibis non può di certo essere definito né poesia elegiaca ‘lieta’ né ‘triste’, eppure il testo è in distici: per una discussione relativa a questo metro nel poemetto cf. Williams (2006), 245-54. 28. Cf. Cat. 65.12 semper maesta tua carmina morte canam (il lamento per la morte del fratello) seguito dalla similitudine dell’usignolo (cf. sopra) con il commento di Barchiesi (1993), 364: «with semper canam […] Catullus has actually become a nightingale» (corsivo mio): in modo analogo l’Ovidio maledicente dell’Ibis è diventato un lugubre uccello di morte che emette versi (queri) contro il nemico. 29. Su questo aspetto sofisticato della poesia augustea fondamentale Barchiesi (1993), che analizza soprattutto come la poesia ovidiana abbia conferito una nuova forma all’elegia delle origini (360-5). 30. Cf. Helzl (2009), soprattutto 192-3: «Outdoing Callimachus at his own game and topping the tradition of literary curses could easily have been accomplished in half the length. Since the catalogue of examples is hard to take seriously both because of its length and because of its sustained violence, Ovid’s catalogue of punishments may be directly related to his addressee and may be making fun of some of his stylistic hallmarks, among which could have been a tendency to go on endlessly, the use of abstruse myths, or a fondness for gruesome details». 31. Nella poesia ovidiana, che ci è pervenuta nella sua quasi completa totalità, questo aspetto è abbastanza ‘macroscopico’; può essere interessante notare come tale gesto autoriflessivo fosse già operativo nei frammenti elegiaci ed epillici di Callimaco (Aitia e Hecale) con cf. Ambühl (2004). 32. Si aggiunga che la ‘scelta’ di Her. 10 tra tutte le altre lettere non è forse casuale, se si considera il potenziale iper-elegiaco dell’epistola per cui cf. Battistella (2010), 17ss. 33. Cf. Hinds (1987), 103: «Although elegy in Augustan Rome most famously means subjective love elegy, its supposed origins are always kept in view». Cf. anche Nelis (2009) su ulteriori aspetti di confini generici.
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RÉSUMÉS
Da tempo il confine fluttuante dei generi (con Barchiesi [2001], 157) – o super-generi – in Ovidio non costituisce più una novità (cf. Heinze 1919 e Hinds 1987). Qui di seguito discuto tre passi che vorrebbero contribuire ulteriormente, per quanto da prospettive diverse, a illustrare questo tratto distintivo (e pervasivo) dell’opera ovidiana. L’obiettivo di queste pagine è di mostrare, senza pretesa di esaustività e soprattutto sulla base di un criterio microesegetico, come alcune strategie interpretative e il riconoscimento di momenti intra- e intertestuali riescano a spiegare meglio la tensione generica del testo e le sue nuances semantiche, costruite non di rado su un sistema di opposizioni binarie.
INDEX
Mots-clés : interpretazione, intertestualità, intratestualità, tensione generica
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Attis a Roma e altri spaesamenti: Catullo, Cicerone, Seneca e l’esilio da se stessi*
Mario Citroni
1 1. La connessione profonda e inevitabile tra la percezione della propria soggettività individuale e il senso di appartenenza a una comunità cui è a sua volta attribuita un’identità collettiva propria, emerge con grande evidenza dai testi latini antichi. La radicale interdipendenza tra identità individuale e identità di una comunità si propone alla coscienza – e trova aperta espressione letteraria – tipicamente, nei momenti di privazione : nei momenti in cui il legame tra il soggetto e la comunità di cui esso si sente parte subisce una interruzione forzata. L’identità esilio-morte è, come sappiamo, luogo comune nelle parole degli esuli antichi. Un cliché sancito anche a livello proverbiale,1 che ricorre spesso in Cicerone, e con un’insistenza quasi ossessiva in Ovidio. Ma, come ci ripetono dai loro diversi esilî Cicerone e Ovidio, l’esule è un morto che vive : l’esule sopravvive alla morte di un suo altro, più autentico sé, che è perduto. Il distacco dalla patria, dalla comunità civica e familiare, è una frattura dell’esistenza che ha interrotto la continuità del soggetto. Cicerone, all’inizio del suo esilio, nell’aprile del 58 a.C., quando era già in viaggio ma ancora si trovava in Italia, ancora poteva scrivere ad Attico : “io sono sempre lo stesso : i miei nemici mi hanno privato delle mie cose, ma non mi hanno privato di me stesso” (Att. III 5 ego … idem sum. Inimici mei mea mihi, non me ipsum ademerunt). Ma poco dopo, nell’agosto dello stesso anno, da Tessalonica, avrà per lo stesso amico parole ben diverse, anzi senz’altro opposte : “sento la mancanza non solo delle mie cose e dei miei cari, ma di me stesso. Infatti, io che cosa sono ?” (Att. III 15, 2 Desidero enim non mea solum neque meos, sed me ipsum. Quid enim sum ?) ; e ancora, nella stessa lettera : “l’io ch’io sono stato, e l’io ch’io avrei potuto essere, non posso più esserlo” (Att. III 15, 8 Qui fui, et qui esse potui, iam esse non possum). E nel giugno, da Tessalonica, aveva scritto al fratello : “io non avrei voluto vedere te ? Tutt’altro ! Non ho voluto esser visto da te. Infatti non avresti visto tuo fratello, non quello che avevi lasciato, non quello che conoscevi, non quello da cui ti eri congedato piangendo … di lui nemmeno una traccia, nemmeno un’ombra, ma come l’immagine di
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un morto che respira” (Q. fr. I 3, 1 Ego te videre noluerim ? immo vero me a te videri nolui. Non enim vidisses fratrem tuum, non eum quem reliqueras, non eum quem noras, non eum quem flens … dimiseras, ne vestigium quidem eius nec simulacrum sed quandam effigiem spirantis mortui). Ovidio, dal Ponto, dirà : Non sum ego quod fueram (“Non sono quel che ero” : trist. III 11, 25).2 E il ritorno dall’esilio si configura, conseguentemente, come una ‘restituzione’ del sé a se stesso, un recupero, cioè, della sua identità autentica, che era stata perduta : Cic. p. red. in sen. 1 qui amplissimam rem publicam, qui patriam … qui denique nosmet ipsos nobis reddidistis ; 8 si me mihi, si meis, si vobis, si rei publicae reddidisset… ; fam. III 10, 10 memet ipsum mihi … restitutum puto.3
2 Nel 46, dieci anni dopo il rientro dall’esilio, Cicerone sperimenterà un esilio ideale in quanto, secondo la sua sofferta valutazione, la Roma in cui si trova a vivere non è più una res publica, e gli è dunque straniera.4 Anche questo esilio ideale egli lo vive come una frattura del suo io : lo commenta infatti richiamando quello che egli ci informa essere un antico detto : “quando non sei più quello che fosti, non hai motivo di desiderare di vivere” (Cic. fam. VII 3, 4 Vetus est enim, ubi non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere).
3 L’esilio è evento eccezionale : e appunto conferma che, in condizioni normali, la vita in patria, l’integrazione nella propria comunità, è garanzia di tenuta e di continuità dell’identità personale, di continuità del sé. E il rientro dell’esule, quando avviene, significa anche la reintegrazione del suo io perduto.
4 Seneca, esule in Corsica, per consolare la madre sostiene la tesi della irrilevanza del luogo per la felicità : è una tesi che vuole suonare come verità paradossale – appunto un ‘paradosso stoico’. Seneca cataloga, nel confutarle, le ragioni per cui l’esilio era universalmente considerato un male. E ci conferma che la separazione dalla patria era solitamente avvertita come una separazione dal sé : la ricetta del filosofo per neutralizzare la sofferenza dell’esilio è infatti di ricordarsi che nessun esilio ci può comunque privare dei due beni più preziosi : la natura umana, che abbiamo in comune con tutti i nostri simili, e la virtù personale, che è propria di ciascuno di noi (propria virtus) e che potremo praticare in qualunque luogo ci veniamo a trovare (Helv. 8, 2 duo quae pulcherrima sunt quocumque nos moverimus sequentur, natura communis et propria virtus). Se Seneca afferma che l’esilio non ci toglie la capacità di esprimere la nostra propria virtus, e dunque non ci toglie la capacità di essere noi stessi,5 è perché evidentemente era opinione comune che, al contrario, l’esilio comportasse la perdita del sé. Notiamo che anche Seneca connette la qualità morale della persona individuale, la propria virtus, alla comunità in cui essa si esplica, solo che, a differenza che in Cicerone, non fa riferimento alla condizione di cittadini di una patria, ma alla naturale condizione umana (natura communis), e dunque alla condizione di membri di una comunità che non conosce frontiere.
5 2. Ma più importa ora riflettere su un diverso risvolto dell’argomentazione di Seneca. Alla comune credenza che “la privazione della patria non è sopportabile” egli obietta (Helv. 6, 2 s.) che la quasi totalità (maxima pars) di coloro che vivono a Roma “sono privi di patria” (patria caret) e, confluiti qui dal mondo intero (ex municipiis et coloniis suis, ex toto denique orbe terrarum confluxerunt) per le più diverse ragioni, vivono in una città che non è la loro (maximam quidem ac pulcherrimam urbem, non tamen suam). Seneca procede delineando un grandioso quadro dell’immenso spazio delle terre abitate in cui ovunque popoli e individui, attraverso i secoli, hanno continuamente peregrinato e mutato insediamento, e continuano incessantemente a farlo ancora oggi, e nessuno occupa più
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la sede originaria (Helv. 7, 5 illud utique manifestum est, nihil eodem loco mansisse quo genitum est). E ancora : “non riusciresti a trovare una terra che sia ancora occupata dai suoi abitanti originari : tutto è frutto di mescolanze e innesti” (Helv. 7, 10 Vix denique inuenies ullam terram quam etiamnunc indigenae colant ; permixta omnia et insiticia sunt). Dal punto di vista del cittadino romano, che si sa dominatore del mondo, tutto l’impero, tutto lo spazio delle vittorie di Roma, è patria : ubicumque vicit Romanus, habitat (Helv. 7, 7) : ma Seneca subito supera questa visione, ancora troppo ristretta, e nei capitoli seguenti sviluppa il concetto secondo cui patria dell’uomo è l’universo, è ogni luogo da cui si possa contemplare la natura e, attraverso essa, la divinità.
6 Quest’ultima è una mera astrazione, che non poteva avere riscontro effettivo nella esperienza identitaria del soggetto. Ma anche l’idea che l’immensa orbita del potere di Roma possa essere avvertita come una patria, come la comunità che dà sostegno al proprio sé soggettivo, è un’astrazione. Il potere di Roma era ben lungi dall’aver creato, in tutto il suo impero, uno spazio omogeneo di civiltà, una comunità unitaria di vita. Una patria globale non esiste : a Tomi Ovidio si sentirà in un mondo profondamente alieno, e scoprirà che la pax Romana, che in Italia è una realtà, ai limiti dell’impero è poco più che una formula propagandistica.6 L’esule di fatto, lo abbiamo visto, sentiva il suo sé spezzato.
7 Se il rimedio proposto da Seneca contro lo spaesamento identitario dell’esule è privo di reale possibilità di presa sull’esperienza esistenziale del soggetto, quel richiamo al fatto che il mondo romano è un mondo di migranti, un mondo che non conosce indigeni, e che proprio la città di Roma è in realtà abitata da un’umanità senza patria, al di là della dilatazione enfatica propria della argomentazione di un paradosso, identifica con spregiudicatezza quello che è davvero un risvolto debole della coscienza identitaria romana. Non si tratta soltanto del disagio provocato dalla invasione di estranei, diversi per aspetto, per colore della pelle, per abbigliamento, che occupano gli spazi fisici della città mutandone vistosamente la fisionomia, e occupano gli spazi dell’economia, del lavoro, della produzione, e praticano riti diversi e costumi diversi. Non si tratta solo di tutto quello spettacolo esterno della diversità che nell’ottica socialmente conservativa della letteratura satirica, e in modo particolarmente eloquente in Giovenale, appare compromettere l’identità propria della comunità.7 Si tratta di un disagio più sottile, e interno, che riguarda il dubbio sull’esistenza di una identità originaria della stessa patria romana. Il dubbio se quei diversi, quegli estranei che per lo più arrivano dalle diverse regioni ellenizzate dell’Oriente e del Sud del Mediterraneo, che sembrano a molti offendere l’immagine identitaria della comunità, che suscitano a molti repulsione e disprezzo, non siano in realtà parte di noi stessi, non siano noi stessi.
8 Seneca si chiede infatti : “Ma l’impero romano stesso, non considera come suo fondatore un esule in fuga dalla patria perduta, capitato in Italia, con un pugno di superstiti, mentre andava alla ricerca di terre lontane, sospinto dalla costrizione e dal timore del nemico ?” (Helv. 7, 7 Romanum imperium nempe auctorem exulem respicit, quem profugum capta patria, exiguas reliquias trahentem, necessitas et victoris metus longinqua quaerentem in Italiam detulit). Ed Enea non è che uno dei tanti eroi, sia troiani che greci, sia vinti che vincitori, che dopo la guerra di Troia mossero esuli dall’Oriente e si stabilirono in Occidente, in terre estranee : Helv. 7, 6 Quid interest enumerare Antenorem Patavi conditorem et Evandrum in ripa Tiberis regna Arcadum conlocantem ? Quid Diomeden aliosque quos Troianum bellum victos simul victoresque per alienas terras dissipavit ? Seneca, attraverso Enea, Antenore, Evandro, Diomede, allude al fatto ben noto a ogni romano, e
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consacrato nel poema virgiliano nel quale tutti gli eroi qui ricordati hanno spazio, che l’intero complesso delle leggende sulle origini degli insediamenti laziali, e della città di Roma, rinviava a migrazioni ed esilî di eroi troiani e greci attraverso il Mediterraneo, e al loro incrociarsi con popolazioni locali che a loro volta avevano alle spalle diverse origini e diversi spostamenti e spaesamenti.8 E per la parte più strettamente romana, e laziale, le leggende sulle origini davano spazio all’idea del costituirsi della primitiva comunità come un gruppo di avventurieri di incerta origine, che si allarga grazie a un generoso diritto di asilo concesso a persone di altrettanto incerta origine.
9 Muovendo dalla leggenda alla storia : i Romani sanno bene che la loro storia, antica e recente, è storia della progressiva integrazione nella loro comunità dei popoli con cui si sono via via confrontati in conflitti feroci e che essi hanno vinto con le armi. In un mondo in cui, proprio per la frequenza di migrazioni e peregrinazioni di individui e comunità, delle quali si conservavano incerte memorie, l’autoctonia era considerata un valore,9 la vicenda di Roma, che continuò nei secoli a includere sistematicamente nella cittadinanza i popoli vinti, e gli schiavi liberati, e che non si preoccupò di attenuare nelle ricostruzioni dei propri miti nazionali questo carattere etnicamente composito e incerto, ma anzi lo esibiva, rappresentava un caso anomalo. Anzi, la capacità di integrare in sé i popoli vinti – e l’esempio fondante di questa condotta era stato dato proprio dal fondatore primo della città, Romolo, come le fonti sottolineano sistematicamente – e di integrare gli ex schiavi, e di far proprie le migliori acquisizioni tecniche e intellettuali degli altri popoli, ha potuto assurgere essa stessa a carattere identificativo della comunità romana : un carattere unico e ritenuto, nella riflessione storico-sociologica e nel dibattito politico, a Roma e in Grecia, ragione fondamentale di quel successo nella politica imperialistica che non era riuscito in modo duraturo a nessuna comunità greca.10
10 In realtà, il percorso che va dai primi trattati con riconoscimento di cittadinanza con le comunità del Lazio fino alle concessioni di cittadinanza alle province dell’impero, e alla Constitutio Antoniniana agli inizi del III secolo, era stato accompagnato, nel corso del tempo, da opposizioni anche violentissime. L’estensione della cittadinanza agli italici era costata una guerra atroce. Difficilmente, dunque, nella visione soggettiva dei membri di questa comunità in progressiva crescita di componenti etniche la consapevolezza di una coerenza attraverso il tempo della linea di apertura della comunità alle popolazioni vinte e ai liberti poteva essere avvertita come un tratto identitario, generatore di orgoglio. Tale esso appare nel discorso di Claudio, discorso registrato dalla tavola lionese, e rielaborato da Tacito (ann. XI 24), e in altri testi ben noti, che Tacito, e lo stesso Claudio, ebbero presenti : un passo del discorso di Cicerone in difesa del diritto di cittadinanza di un provinciale (Pro Balbo 31) e il discorso del tribuno Canuleio in difesa del riconoscimento dei diritti della plebe in Livio IV 3-5.11 Ma in questi testi il processo è guardato con ampia prospettiva storica, nel suo sviluppo sulla lunga durata. Volta per volta, nel momento del confronto con il diverso, il senso di assedio della propria identità, dall’esterno e dall’interno, inevitabilmente prevaleva. E quegli stessi discorsi erano stati pronunciati, ogni volta, per superare pregiudizi e contrasti rispetto al processo di integrazione del diverso.
11 Cicerone, nel proemio degli Academici (I 9), elogia Varrone per la sua poderosa opera di ricerca sulle antichità romane con parole ben note : “i tuoi libri ci hanno, per così dire, ricondotti a casa nostra, mettendoci finalmente in condizione di sapere chi siamo e dove siamo” (nos … tui libri quasi domum deduxerunt, ut possemus aliquando qui et ubi
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essemus agnoscere), mentre finora vivevamo “nella nostra stessa città come degli stranieri, e la percorrevamo smarriti ed estranei” (in nostra urbe peregrinantis errantisque tamquam hospites). Vi è in queste parole una chiara forzatura enfatica dovuta all’intenzione elogiativa (segue infatti subito dopo una martellante anafora di ben otto tu per enumerare le specifiche benemerenze dell’opera di Varrone). Ma non è un caso se Cicerone, pur tanto orgoglioso del nomen Romanum, ricorre qui al concetto di ‘estraneità in patria’ e lo esprime con parole che sembrano anticipare quelle con cui Seneca delinea la grandiosa immagine di un impero di Roma abitato solo da esuli e migranti. In realtà nemmeno le infaticabili ricerche di Varrone potevano veramente riportare i Romani a casa loro : Varrone non poteva dare ai Romani la consapevolezza di una identità etnica, che di fatto non esisteva. Varrone riuscirà a dare concretezza e profilo alle componenti dell’amalgama da cui era nata la nazione romana, ma non poteva che certificare che di un amalgama comunque si trattava.
12 Accanto al disagio per l’incerta identità etnica, vi era un ulteriore disagio che agiva nel profondo : quello della dipendenza intellettuale dalla grecità. Le categorie concettuali, il sistema della conoscenza, le categorie dell’espressione letteraria del pensiero, le categorie delle arti e delle scienze, anche le categorie con cui i Romani pensavano e rappresentavano il proprio più intimo sé, erano greche : consapevolmente mutuate dalla cultura greca, in un interscambio che risaliva fin da prima della fondazione della città. Un interscambio e una elaborazione comune mai interrotti, in cui parte largamente egemone era stata la cultura greca, che a sua volta era elaborazione comune di una vastissima varietà di comunità, in antichissima relazione con le diverse culture dell’Oriente, continuamente rinnovata nelle tante diverse realtà del mondo ellenizzato. La grande originalità romana era stata di aver ad un certo punto sviluppato, nel vasto ambito della cultura ellenistica, una cultura e una letteratura in latino, anziché in greco : una cultura che restava comunque ellenistica nelle sue categorie di base.12 Dunque quei Greci e Orientali la cui presenza nelle strade di Roma pareva a Giovenale compromettere irrimediabilmente l’identità della comunità, erano forse intrinseci alla comunità sul piano etnico, ed erano parte di quella vasta area di elaborazione culturale greca in cui Roma aveva trovato gli strumenti intellettuali con cui comprendere la realtà e con cui comprendersi, e a cui dava il proprio contributo in lingua latina.
13 Il disagio nel confronto culturale con la grecità si esprime spesso nei testi letterari latini su un piano generale e, per così dire, istituzionale. Tipicamente in Cicerone, che accetta l’imbarazzante paradosso che percorre la produzione letteraria romana, ed è esplicitato anche da Orazio, per cui far finalmente conseguire alla cultura romana una pari dignità con quella greca, e un affrancamento dalla dipendenza da essa, può essere fatto solo producendo opere latine sempre meglio esemplate sulle opere greche, così da sostituire nell’uso degli intellettuali romani la biblioteca greca con una parallela biblioteca latina.13
14 3. Non è comune invece, nei testi letterari latini, la testimonianza diretta dei disagi del soggetto che si trova in rapporto problematico con la comunità, dello smarrimento del sé nel confronto con culture aliene che sospettiamo possano rivelarsi come parte del nostro stesso sé, o che possono far emergere spazi del sé di cui non avevamo coscienza. I testi conservati testimoniano le contraddizioni e i disagi della coscienza morale assai più che quelli della percezione del sé : un territorio in cui ci si avventura raramente. Se prescindiamo dal caso dell’esilio, in cui la perdita della identità personale deriva da un
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evento esterno, normalmente di natura politica, che strappa l’individuo al suo contesto, gli smarrimenti del sé nella letteratura latina a noi nota sono più spesso oggetto di derisione comica e satirica che sorgente di espressioni tragiche. La scoperta della tragicità del privato, la scoperta della sofferenza esistenziale che compromette l’integrità del soggetto fino ai limiti della dissoluzione del sé ci si propone dapprima nella poesia erotica : è una scoperta che Catullo fa reinterpretando la propria esperienza dell’eros attraverso la lirica di Saffo, come ci attesta il carme 51 Ille mi par esse deo videtur. Ed è importante osservare che, attraverso un passaggio concettuale per vari aspetti problematico, che è stato molto discusso e analizzato, e che è comunque ancora una volta mediato da idee elaborate dalla cultura ellenistica, Catullo, nel riconoscere in sé la forza distruttiva dell’eros, la sua capacità di dissolvere l’integrità del soggetto (misero quod omnes / eripit sensus mihi …/ lingua … torpet … / gemina teguntur / lumina nocte), la identifica a sua volta con una forza di portata più vasta, capace di distruggere, attraverso l’integrità etica degli individui, l’integrità delle comunità e degli stati. A questa forza Catullo dà, come è ben noto, l’ambiguo nome di otium : Otium, Catulle, tibi molestumst : otio exsultas nimiumque gestis : otium et reges prius et beatas perdidit urbes.
15 Il latino otium si carica qui dei significati intensamente allusivi del greco tryphé : quell’eccesso di edonismo, di piacere individuale, di lusso, a cui, secondo un concetto elaborato dalla storiografia ellenistica, si attribuiva la decadenza morale e infine politica dei regni orientali (ad essi Catullo allude col termine reges).14 Otium qui dunque è lo spazio, la disponibilità, che si concede all’amore e ai piaceri (l’associazione amore- otium era corrente e quasi proverbiale a Roma), che si identifica appunto come incompatibilità con i neg-otia cui l’etica della comunità vincola gli individui : e dunque come forza corruttrice sia dell’identità individuale che di quella della comunità. Catullo avverte che lasciarsi sconvolgere dalla passione significa al tempo stesso alienarsi da una comunità la cui etica corrente subordina gli individui ai doveri nei suoi confronti : significa perdere quel legame fondamentale tra il sé e la comunità, che è garanzia della tenuta del sé. Significa essere esuli in patria. Sulla scia di Catullo, questa esperienza sarà espressa più esplicitamente da Properzio, che si professa incapace di combattere, disinteressato alla gloria, e interamente votato alla milizia d’amore, e attribuisce questa sua condizione a un destino che lo sovrasta (Prop. I 6, 29 s. Non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus armis : / hanc me militiam fata subire volunt) e che lo condanna a una dura esclusione dalla comunità. Quasi un destino da poeta maledetto.15 All’amico che percorrerà in armi le regioni dell’Oriente per contribuire ad estendere l’impero di Roma, Properzio dice che se mai egli troverà tempo di ricordarsi dell’amico, potrà esser ben certo della condizione in cui egli versa : “vive sotto aspra stella” (ibid., 35 s. tum tibi si qua mei veniet non immemor hora, / vivere me duro sidere certus eris).
16 4. Appunto in Catullo, appunto nel poeta latino che per primo ha saputo proporre il sé come spazio di autentiche tragedie, vediamo rappresentato il più estremo smarrimento tragico del sé in un quadro di confronto con una diversità culturale che proviene da un Oriente lontano e che penetra nelle pieghe profonde della soggettività.
17 Si tratta, ancora una volta, di un esule (Catull. 63, 14 aliena … petentes velut exules loca…). Ma di un esule volontario. Un giovane uomo greco che ha da poco compiuto l’adolescenza, e che porta il nome emblematico e fatale di Attis.16 La vicenda è ben nota.
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Con un manipolo di compagni, accomunati nella sua stessa sorte, Attis lascia la città nei cui ginnasi e nelle cui palestre aveva formato il suo bel corpo di giovane maschio, la città in cui era molto amato e ammirato, la patria greca in cui pareva così pienamente integrata la sua fiorente giovinezza. La lasciano, lui e i compagni, per dirigersi a Oriente, percorrendo, veloci, mari pericolosi, incalzati da una smania ansiosa di raggiungere i boschi della Frigia : un mondo estraneo, remoto e selvaggio, ove potersi unire agli iniziati e celebrare i riti di Cibele, la grande madre, dea casta di cui Attis e i suoi compagni vanno in cerca Veneris nimio odio : “per eccessiva ripulsa del sesso”. Non è la scelta casta e solitaria di Ippolito, assunta con serena consapevolezza, anche se tragica negli esiti :17 è invece un’ansia fremente e smaniosa, una esaltazione travolgente che induce Attis e i suoi compagni a evirarsi con una pietra tagliente nel furore dell’entusiasmo mistico e consacrarsi così definitivamente alla dea. Attis e i compagni, cui d’ora in poi (a partire dal v. 11) il testo si riferirà per lo più al femminile,18 raggiunto in forsennato corteo il tempio della dea sulle alte pendici del monte Ida, senza cibo né riposo, cadranno infine privi di forza nel sonno. All’alba Attis si risveglia. La rapida rabies, la furia trascinante, è ora dissolta. La mente torna alla lucidità, e Attis si rende conto che ha perduto ogni contatto col mondo di cui era parte integrante, che il suo sé si è irrimediabilmente dissolto, e anche la sua identità di genere, e la base fisica, e fisiologica, della sua persona originaria è perduta. Tutto il passato della sua giovane identità non esiste più. Lo sguardo di Attis va al mare varcato, al vasto mare che lo separa dalla patria, e piangendo invoca la patria : Catull. 63, 50 ss. Patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix, 50 ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut erifugae famuli solent, ad Idae tetuli nemora pedem, ut apud nivem et ferarum gelida stabula forem, et earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula, ubinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor ? 55 … Egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo ? patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero ? abero foro, palaestra, stadio et gyminasiis ? 60 miser ah miser, querendumst etiam atque etiam, anime. Quod enim genus figuraest, ego non quod obierim ? ego mulier, ego adulescens, ego ephebus, ego puer, ego gymnasi fui flos, ego eram decus olei : mihi ianuae frequentes, … 65 … Ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar ? ego Maenas, ego mei pars, ego vir sterilis ero ? ego viridis algida Idae nive amicta loca colam ? 70 ego vitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus... Patria che mi hai creato, patria che mi hai generato, che io ho lasciato, infelice, come gli schiavi che fuggono dai padroni, per portare il mio piede sui boschi dell’Ida, per vivere tra le nevi, tra fredde tane di belve e accostarmi in delirio ai loro rifugi, in quali luoghi posso pensarti collocata, o patria ?… Lontana dalla mia casa mi aggirerò in questi boschi ? Senza patria, beni, amici, genitori ? Senza il foro, la palestra, lo stadio, i ginnasi ? Povero, povero mio cuore, dovrai piangere e piangere ancora. Quale aspetto umano non ho assunto ? Donna, uomo, adolescente, fanciullo. Sono stato il fiore del ginnasio, la gloria della palestra, la mia porta era affollata… e ora dovrò essere una
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sacerdotessa, una schiava di Cibele, un uomo sterile, un resto di me stesso ? abiterò per sempre i gelidi luoghi dell’Ida innevato, i monti della Frigia…
18 Non c’è salvezza ormai per Attis : Cibele, rendendosi conto del suo pentimento, gli scaglia contro un leone, che lo costringe a reimmergersi nella selva dove sarà per sempre suo sacerdote.
19 Questa amarissima storia di perdita del sé, del sé come identità personale e di genere, del sé come parte di una comunità civile in cui il soggetto è integrato e sostenuto nella sua identità personale, era stata certo cantata da un poeta greco al cui carme, perduto, evidentemente Catullo si ispirava.19 Il mondo dell’Attis catulliano è, infatti, interamente greco. Quel poeta aveva cantato lo smarrimento del sé, lo snaturamento intimo e irrimediabile che poteva comportare l’adesione a credenze e riti di tipo mistico, che erano ben presenti nella esperienza religiosa del mondo ellenistico, che provenivano soprattutto dalle regioni orientali del mondo ellenistico stesso, e che suscitavano insieme attrazione e terrore.
20 La ripresa del tema da parte di Catullo non è una mera esercitazione letteraria. I sacerdoti evirati di Cibele erano una presenza reale a Roma. Le loro danze rituali forsennate e fragorose, i loro abiti colorati, i loro lunghi capelli e l’aspetto femmineo, le cruente autoflagellazioni, l’autocastrazione che si diceva praticassero e che certo alcuni praticavano, li rendevano agli occhi dei Romani una presenza aliena, una incomprensibile contraddizione della immagine che la comunità romana dava di sé. Una presenza che suscitava repulsione e disgusto, come vediamo da testi di autori contemporanei a Catullo : Lucrezio e Varrone20 – ma che esercitava anche, come vediamo da quegli stessi testi, una oscura attrazione : queste forme estatiche di unione al divino, non mediate dagli apparati cerimoniali di stato, ma accessibili direttamente a ciascuno, promettevano compensi ultraterreni. Ne era un simbolo l’immortalità concessa all’Attis del mito in compenso del sacrificio della sua virilità e della sua dedizione totale alla Grande Madre.
21 Una presenza aliena, o una presenza che aveva un suo spazio alle radici stesse dell’identità dei Romani, e che veniva a rivelare ad essi aree non indagate della loro stessa intima soggettività ? Una presenza aliena : lo Stato romano proibiva la castrazione, e ai cittadini romani era vietato essere sacerdoti di Cibele ed anche partecipare ai riti cruenti del suo culto. Eppure il culto di Cibele era inserito nel sistema ufficiale delle feste romane : i Megalesia comprendevano spettacoli scaenici e circenses come le altre feste romane, e una forma alternativa di culto della dea, rigorosamente conforme al costume romano, fatta di sobri conviti e riunioni nelle case private, era praticata dall’élite senatoria. E del resto le processioni dei sacerdoti evirati percorrevano la città, erano in essa una presenza vistosa, e la loro stessa organizzazione doveva in qualche modo coinvolgere anche i collegi sacerdotali ufficiali. E, soprattutto, il tempio della Mater Magna era sul Palatino, entro gli spazi che costituivano il centro simbolico, civile e religioso, della città. Il culto era Stato introdotto a Roma per decisione dello stato fin dal 204 a.C., in un momento drammatico per la sopravvivenza della comunità, che si era rivolta alla dea frigia per la propria salvezza. L’arrivo, per nave, della statua aniconica della dea, la misteriosa pietra nera caduta dal cielo, era stato straordinariamente solenne. L’oracolo di Delfi aveva richiesto che fosse accolta dall’uomo migliore di Roma. Il personaggio scelto, Publio Scipione Nasica, si fece accompagnare, come racconta Livio, dalle matrone romane, che trasferirono la statua nella provvisoria sede di culto passandosela di mano in mano. Il
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noto episodio della vestale che rese possibile l’arrivo della nave con un atto miracoloso che dimostrò la sua verginità ingiustamente sospettata, conferma la connessione della dea con il patrimonio valoriale della comunità e della sua élite, e addirittura attribuisce a Cibele il ruolo di garante della verginità delle vestali. Roma avrebbe ben presto vinto la sua guerra decisiva contro Annibale, e Cibele fin dal 191 a.C. avrebbe avuto il suo tempio sul Palatino.21
22 Roma, come si era sempre aperta alle concessioni di cittadinanza, si era sempre aperta alle ammissioni di culti stranieri, allargando il consenso, ma mettendo in gioco, ogni volta, l’identità della sua comunità. Così nel caso della ammissione del culto della Madre : ma era questo davvero un culto straniero ? Secondo il racconto di Ovidio nei Fasti, che probabilmente recupera tradizioni precedenti, il re di Pergamo in un primo momento non aveva autorizzato la traslazione a Roma della statua della dea frigia, ma la dea aveva fatto sentire la sua voce, e aveva espresso il suo desiderio di trasferirsi nella città degna di essere sede di tutti gli dei. A quel punto Attalo, intimorito dal prodigioso monito divino, diede il suo assenso alla richiesta, e giustificò la decisione col fatto che in fondo Cibele, anche a Roma, avrebbe continuato ad essere in terra frigia, perché i Romani stessi non erano che dei discendenti dei Frigi : Ov. fast. IV 265-72 Phrygiae tum sceptra tenebat Attalus ; Ausoniis rem negat ille viris. Mira canam : longo tremuit cum murmure tellus, et sic est adytis diva locuta suis : “ipsa peti volui : ne sit mora ; mitte volentem : dignus Roma locus quo deus omnis eat”. Ille soni terrore pavens “proficiscere” dixit ; “nostra eris : in Phrygios Roma refertur avos”.
23 Ritroviamo qui dunque, proprio in riferimento a Cibele, il grande tema, su cui ci siamo soffermati poco fa, della incerta identità etnica dei Romani, che rischiano continuamente di dover riconoscere nello straniero un proprio antenato. E anzi Ovidio, in un passo precedente dello stesso racconto, attribuisce a Cibele stessa l’intenzione di accompagnare Enea nel suo viaggio verso l’Italia dopo la caduta di Troia, intenzione che all’ultimo fu procrastinata in quanto la dea si era resa conto che il momento in cui il fato avrebbe voluto, nell’interesse di Roma, il suo trasferimento sarebbe giunto nel futuro : Ov. fast. IV 251-4 cum Troiam Aeneas Italos portaret in agros, est dea sacriferas paene secuta rates, sed nondum fatis Latio sua numina posci senserat, adsuetis substiteratque locis.
24 Si è a lungo ritenuto che la figura di Attis, cui si connettono gli aspetti del culto cibelico più repulsivi per la mentalità romana – mi riferisco naturalmente all’evirazione – dovesse essere stata introdotta, e fatta oggetto di culto, a Roma molto tempo dopo l’adozione del culto per Cibele stessa. Oggi l’archeologia ci dice che fin dalla più antica fondazione del tempio della dea sul Palatino, e dunque contemporaneamente alla prima introduzione del culto di Cibele a Roma alla fine del III secolo, anche Attis, il bellissimo giovinetto che aveva sacrificato la sua virilità per esserle fedele, era venerato in quel sacrario nel cuore di Roma, anche se un culto ufficiale di Attis si avrà solo nel I sec. d. C. 22 Molto rilevante era anche lo spazio di Attis nei rituali cibelici a Roma, ma non siamo
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in grado di accertare le date di introduzione dei diversi aspetti del rituale che lo riguardavano, e che potrebbero essere assai più tarde dell’età cui qui ci riferiamo.
25 A fronte del turbamento suscitato nella coscienza identitaria dei Romani da queste presenze al tempo stesso estranee e intrinseche, Catullo espone alla coscienza dei suoi lettori romani lo spaesamento radicale di un uomo che l’origine, la formazione, l’ambiente, le condizioni familiari, ed il suo stesso corpo, coltivato con tanta cura, destinavano agli agi sereni della vita cittadina in uno dei tanti centri di evoluta civiltà del mondo ellenico ed ellenizzato, e che in quello stesso mondo, attraversato e fecondato da una molteplicità di tradizioni culturali e spirituali diverse, ha conosciuto l’attrazione per un contatto diverso con il divino, e si è trovato su un percorso senza ritorno, che lo ha escluso dalla civiltà che lo aveva plasmato, e che ha dissolto il suo sé, la sua stessa persona, trasportandolo in una dimensione incognita simboleggiata dal remoto mondo silvestre.
26 Tutto questo si riconduce all’esperienza della diversità spirituale e religiosa che potevano avere i cittadini stessi di Roma, grande e anomala metropoli del mondo culturale ellenistico, anch’essa attraversata e fecondata da una molteplicità di tradizioni culturali e spirituali diverse. Anche a Roma, come abbiamo detto, lo spettacolo della diversità può respingere e sedurre.23 E che il carme di Attis, pur nella sua dimensione greca, intenda interpretare anche esperienza e atteggiamento dei lettori romani diventa più chiaro nei versi finali : nella preghiera del poeta che la sorte di Attis non sia mai la sua stessa sorte. La preghiera è rivolta dal poeta, in proprio nome, alla stessa Cibele, alla dea potente e terribile davanti alla quale egli ora si prostra come un devoto : Catull. 63, 91-3 Dea magna, dea Cybebe, dea domina Dindymi, procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, era, domo : alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.
Dea grande, dea Cibele, dea signora del Dindimo, fa’ che ogni frenesia per te sia lungi dalla mia casa, altri sospingi e aizza, altri sospingi e rendi furiosi...
27 La garanzia nella tenuta del proprio sé è chiesta alla stessa dea che quel sé avrebbe la forza di disperdere, a quella dea che appare ora insieme nemica e amica, estranea e intima.
28 Nella poesia religiosa, era convenzione antichissima, risalente agli inni omerici e variamente rielaborata nella poesia religiosa ellenistica (negli inni di Callimaco, in Teocrito XXVI), che il poeta-orante, dopo aver raccontato, e celebrato, meriti e potenza della divinità, intervenisse a proprio nome, per professare la sua devozione al dio, per promettergli nuovi canti ecc. Spesso troviamo la richiesta al dio di esercitare la potenza che detiene, e che è stata rappresentata e celebrata nel corso del componimento, a vantaggio del poeta-orante stesso o, come qui, di non esercitarla a suo danno. Non raramente la richiesta di risparmiare l’orante dagli effetti perniciosi e distruttivi del potere del dio si accompagnava alla raccomandazione, che troviamo formulata anche nell’epilogo del carme catulliano, di rivolgere contro altri la sua capacità di colpire.24 Il carattere convenzionale di questi epifonemi espressi a nome proprio nel finale degli inni sembra dover indurre a cautela nell’attribuire il contenuto di questi versi alla sensibilità di Catullo. Ed è chiaro che Catullo poteva aver trovato una affermazione come questa nel suo modello greco. Eppure proprio il fatto che questa fosse la sede deputata per l’espressione del sentimento personale dell’orante, unito alla evidente
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convenzione della poesia di Catullo per cui l’io di norma si deve intendere espressione della persona del poeta, deve indurci a ritenere che Catullo contasse sul fatto che i suoi lettori, consci di questa convenzione, appunto attribuissero alla sua persona il contenuto di queste parole, indipendentemente dal fatto che egli potesse averle derivate da un modello greco. Ad attribuire l’intenzione espressa dall’epifonema alla persona dell’autore ci invita anche l’impressionante analogia, spesso segnalata, con un verso delle Eumenides in cui Varrone esprimeva la reazione di rigetto di un cittadino romano di fronte agli aspetti più inquietanti del rituale cibelico : Men. 133 apage in dierectum a domo nostra istam insanitatem.
29 Questa duplicità tra senso di estraneità di una credenza religiosa, e accreditamento di potenza ai suoi dei e ai suoi riti, che si esprime nell’epilogo, questa duplicità che consente infine al poeta, e al suo lettore, di recuperare fiducia nel proprio sé, corrisponde, a livello di percezione individuale, alla disponibilità dello Stato romano ad accreditare le religioni diverse nel sistema del culto di stato, una disponibilità che, insieme a quella ad integrare i popoli vinti nella cittadinanza, ha rappresentato una formula idonea – fosse o no consapevole strategia – per una comunità che si è ritenuta dotata dei requisiti per un ruolo imperiale, e che si è mostrata disponibile a mettere in gioco la propria identità per coinvolgere gli apporti diversi delle diverse popolazioni che intendeva attrarre, ed integrare, nel suo sistema di controllo politico. La fiducia che da queste molteplici ‘contaminazioni’ sarebbe comunque emerso un equilibrio, una composizione delle differenze, in cui almeno un significativo residuo di un presunto antico mos Romanus restasse a garantire, oggi e nel futuro, la riconoscibilità identitaria della comunità, permane pur sempre sullo sfondo della riflessione morale espressa nella letteratura romana, al di là di tante professioni di sconforto per uno snaturamento descritto come irrimediabile. E certo tale fiducia permaneva nell’opinione corrente dei Romani. Una fiducia che offre anche sostegno alla tenuta dell’identità individuale, e che, appunto con questa funzione di sostegno alla identità individuale, vediamo affiorare anche nella conclusione di questo carme disperato.
30 Ma i costi interiori, le lacerazioni del sé create nell’individuo dagli incessanti processi di adattamento sono messi a nudo, solo qualche volta, dai poeti.
NOTES
*. Propongo qui, parzialmente rielaborato, il testo della relazione che ho presentato al convegno “L’orientalismo romano” tenutosi nel novembre 2009 all’Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, nel quadro delle attività promosse dal Réseau international de recherche et de formation à la recherche dans le domaine de la poésie augustéenne. 1. Cfr. Publilio Siro E 9 Exul, ubi ei nusquam domus est, sine sepulchro est mortuus (il testo della parte iniziale del verso è però incerto). Sul motivo dell’identità esilio-morte cfr. E. Doblhofer, Exil und Emigration. Zum Erlebnis der Heimatferne in der römischen Literatur, Darmstadt 1987, pp. 166-78; R. Degl’Innocenti Pierini (a cura di), Cicerone, Lettere dall’esilio, Firenze 1996, pp. 11-15. 2. La variante qui (per quod) è ben attestata e la scelta testuale non è sicura: vd. il commento di G. Luck, Heidelberg 1977, pp. 217 s. Ovidio ha certo presente alla memoria Properzio, che aveva
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detto di sé Non sum ego qui fueram (I 12, 11), in relazione allo spaesamento identitario causato dalla delusione in amore (un motivo su cui torneremo brevemente più avanti). Cfr. inoltre Cic. Att. III 10, 2, da Tessalonica: possum oblivisci qui fuerim? Questi passi, e quelli citati nella nota seguente, sono già segnalati, con altri per noi meno rilevanti, nel commento di D.R. Shackleton Bailey alle epistole ad Attico, vol. II, Cambridge 1965, pp. 147 (Att. III 10, 2) e 150 (Att. III 15, 2). Altri echi o variazioni della formula properziana in id., Propertiana, Cambridge 1956, p. 38. 3. Il motivo in Cicerone ricorre anche a proposito del suo rientro a Roma dopo la sconfitta pompeiana a Farsalo: Cic. Lig. 7 …qui … me … rei publicae reddidit, qui ad me ex Aegypto litteras misit ut essem idem qui fuissem; Marc. 13 …me et mihi et item rei publicae … reliquos amplissimos viros et sibi ipsos et patriae reddidit. 4. La res publica per Cicerone può dirsi tale solo quando rispetti la sua natura propria di res populi, e cioè quando sia governata in modo da assicurare gli interessi dell’intera comunità. Di questa questione, ed in particolare del motivo, ricorrente più volte in Cicerone, secondo cui l’esilio di cittadini egregi è di per sé prova che la res publica non è più tale, e viceversa la loro reintegrazione in patria significa il reintegro della condizione di res publica, ho trattato in Cicerone e il significato della formula ‘res publica restituta’, in corso di pubblicazione in M. Citroni (a cura di), Letteratura e civitas, Studi in memoria di Emanuele Narducci, Pisa 2012. 5. Cfr. anche, poche righe sopra, Helv. 8, 1 M. Brutus satis hoc putat (sc. remedii), quod licet in exilium euntibus virtutes suas secum ferre. 6. Pont. II 5, 17 s. vix hac inuenies totum, mihi crede, per orbem / quae minus Augusta pace fruatur humus. Ma il motivo della assenza di pace nella sede del suo esilio ricorre continuamente nelle elegie dal Ponto: cfr. trist. II 187-206; III 10, 51-70; V 2, 69-72; Pont. I 2, 13-22. 77-86. 106-112; 8, 5-24. 73 s.; II 2, 94-6; 7, 2. 67 s.; III 1, 7s. 25-28. 38; 3, 25. 40; 4, 92; 9, 28; IV 14, 62. 7. Dai saggi raccolti in C. Edwards, G. Woolf (a cura di), Rome the Cosmopolis, Cambridge 2003 si ricava un quadro molto articolato, che considera punti di vista e risvolti diversi, della consapevolezza dei Romani del carattere cosmopolita della città: ragione insieme di orgoglio per il ruolo imperiale conseguito e di ansia per una perdita identitaria. Ottima sintesi nel saggio introduttivo scritto dai due curatori (pp. 1-20). 8. Oggi, come è noto, vi è molta attenzione su questa problematica nella bibliografia virgiliana. Mi limito a ricordare J.E.G. Zetzel, Rome and its Traditions, in C. Martindale (a cura di), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1997, pp. 188-203, con rinvii a ulteriore bibliografia. Il tema percorre anche il recente volume di J.D. Reed, Virgil’s Gaze. Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid, Princeton 2007. Restano molto importanti gli studi ben noti di A. Momigliano, How to Reconcile Greeks and Romans, in Settimo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, Roma 1984, 437-62 (e in Id., On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Middletown 1987, pp. 264-88) e di E.S. Gruen, Culture an National Identity in Republican Rome, Ithaca 1992, spec. pp. 6-51. 9. Per il mondo greco è ben noto che l’autoctonia era particolare vanto di Atene: mi limito qui a rimandare al volume di N. Loraux, Né de la terre: mythe et politique à Athènes, Paris 1996. Per il mondo latino il valore dell’autoctonia è espresso efficacemente in Liv. XXXVIII 17, 9-13 et illis maioribus nostris cum haud dubiis Gallis, in sua terra genitis, res erat; hi iam degeneres sunt, mixti … generosius, in sua quidquid sede gignitur; insitum alienae terrae in id, quo alitur, natura vertente se, degenerat. Sulla difficoltà per i Romani di attribuirsi questo vanto vedi A. Momigliano, art. cit. (sopra, n. 8). Cfr. Anche E. Gabba, Dionysius and the History of Archaic Rome, Berkeley – Los Angeles 1991, pp. 104 ss. 10. Rinvio alla concisa trattazione di A. Giardina, L’Italia romana. Storie di un’identità incompiuta, Roma – Bari 1997, pp. 6 ss., con indicazione delle fonti e della bibliografia rilevante. In particolare per la capacità di appropriarsi delle elaborazioni tecniche e intellettuali dei popoli vinti, cfr. anche M. Citroni, I proemi delle Tusculanae e la costruzione di un’immagine della tradizione letteraria romana, in id. (a cura di), Memoria e identità. La cultura romana costruisce la sua immagine, Firenze 2003, pp. 149-84, spec. 158-65. Fanno riferimento a Romolo come primo fondatore della prassi di
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integrare i vinti, giudicata esplicitamente ragione fondamentale della futura potenza romana, tra gli altri Cic. Balb. 31; rep. II 12 s.; Liv. IV 3, 12 s. (e cfr. I 8); Dion. Hal. ant. Rom. II 16 s. (in aperta contrapposizione con la politica, ritenuta rovinosa, degli stati greci, gelosi delle prerogative della loro stirpe: questa stessa contrapposizione, senza riferimento a Romolo, ibid. XIV 6); Tac. ann. XI 24, 4. 11. Sul discorso di Claudio, anche in relazione con i testi di Cicerone e Livio qui ricordati, vedi A. De Vivo, Tacito e Claudio, Napoli 1980. 12. A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, Cambridge 1975, p. 11. 13. Cfr. il mio contributo cit. sopra, n. 10. 14. Non è il caso di dare conto qui delle molte discussioni sui problemi posti dall’ultima strofe del carme 51 (tra gli altri: se essa fosse originariamente parte dello stesso carme, e se trovasse corrispondenza in una parte perduta dell’ode di Saffo). Anche sul punto, che considero qui fondamentale, della interferenza nell’uso catulliano di otium con il concetto greco di tryphé, mi limito a rinviare alla lucida e equilibrata sintesi di E. Fraenkel, Horace, Oxford 1957, pp. 211-13, che discute brevemente la principale bibliografia anteriore. 15. Questa felice formula per il ritratto che Properzio dà di sé in particolare in questa elegia è di A. La Penna, L’integrazione difficile. Un profilo di Properzio, Torino 1977, p. 34. Nel corso di quel libro La Penna mostra come anche in altri casi Properzio renda più espliciti motivi che in Catullo erano suggeriti o impliciti. 16. Secondo la versione del mito attestata da Ovidio (fast. IV 223-46), e certo risalente a fonti ellenistiche (cfr. P.E. Knox, Representing the Great Mother to Augustus, in G. Herbert-Brown [a cura di], Ovid’s Fasti: Historical Readings at its Bimillennium, Oxford 2002, pp. 155-74, spec. 167-71) Attis, amato da Cibele di casto amore, promise alla dea di restare vergine e di consacrarsi al suo culto, ma poi cedette all’amore per una ninfa; Cibele fece morire la ninfa, provocando in Attis un disperato furore nel corso del quale egli fu indotto a evirarsi; dopo la morte fu divinizzato e fatto oggetto di un culto strettamente connesso a quello di Cibele alla quale l’evirazione lo aveva consacrato (il motivo dell’evirazione ricorre anche in altre varianti del mito, ma non in tutte). Attis era anche il nome assunto dal sacerdote, evirato, preposto al culto del dio (cfr. Bremmer, cit. alla fine di questa nota, p. 45). In Catullo Attis è, invece, il nome di un giovane greco il quale, suggestionato dal culto per la dea, si evira perché investito di un furore analogo a quello che aveva indotto all’evirazione l’Attis del mito e che induceva allo stesso atto i sacerdoti e i seguaci di Cibele. Il nome del giovane è dunque qui preannuncio del suo destino. Sulle varie versioni del mito di Attis, e sul suo culto, mi limito a rinviare a J.N. Bremmer, Attis: a Greek God in Anatolian Pessinous and Catullan Rome, in R.R. Nauta, A. Harder (a cura di), Catullus’ Poem on Attis. Texts and Contexts, Leiden – Boston 2005, pp. 25-64, che dà ampio conto della vasta bibliografia. 17. O. Weinreich, Catulls Attisgedicht, “Annuaire del l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire orientales et slaves” 4, 1936 (Mélanges Franz Cumont), pp. 463-500 (= id., Ausgewählte Schriften, II, Amsterdam 1973, pp. 489-527) nota, in apertura della sua analisi, la differenza tra Ippolito, o Melanione (quale rappresentato in Aristoph. Lys. 785 ss.), figure in cui il rifiuto del sesso esprime uno stato di crisi personale più pacata, che trova collocazione nel quadro del mondo spirituale greco, e la figura di Attis, che ci pone di fronte a un caso di esperienza radicale di conversione, propria della religiosità orientale. M.B. Skinner, Ego mulier: The Contruction of Male Sexuality in Catullus, “Helios” 20, 1993, pp. 107-30 (versione riveduta e ridotta, in J. Hallett, M.B Skinner [a cura di], Roman Sexualities, Princeton 1997, pp. 129-50) e successivamente, ma indipendentemente, J. Strauss Clay, Catullus’ Attis and the Black Hunter, “Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica” 50, 2, 1995, pp. 143-55, hanno invece sottolineato l’affinità di Attis con Ippolito e Melanione in quanto figure dell’immaginario greco che, secondo la nota tesi di P. Vidal-Naquet (Le chasseur noir. Formes de pensée et formes de société dans le monde grec, Paris 1981, pp. 151-75), rappresentano, sul piano del mito, il fallimento del passaggio alla maturità sessuale, avvertito come problematico e rischioso. L’accostamento è opportuno e, direi, rivelatore (particolarmente penetrante è l’analisi della
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Skinner): la problematicità della identità sessuale nel passaggio adolescenziale è evidentemente un elemento cruciale nel carme di Catullo (vedi anche infra, n. 22), e la rinuncia a identificarsi con il ruolo proprio della sessualità adulta (tema identificato nel c. 63 già da K. Quinn, Catullus. An Interpretation, New York 1973, pp. 249-51) si associa in Attis, come in quei personaggi del mito greco, a ambienti selvaggi (ma, nel caso di Attis, non alla caccia né alla solitudine!), a rifiuto della civiltà. Ma non meno importante dell’accostamento resta, credo, la differenza di Attis rispetto a questi suoi ‘simili’: il furore autolesivo che induce a causare con atto cruento una irrimediabile frattura nella propria identità è un tratto specifico vistoso, che riconduce a un contesto non- greco, e che spaventa e attrae proprio in quanto, pur avvertito come estraneo e apparentemente incomprensibile, investe le problematiche profonde e inquietanti del costituirsi dell’identità. B.- M. Näsström, The Aborrence of Love. Studies in Rituals and Mystic Aspects in Catullus’Poem of Attis, Uppsala 1989 fa cenno al tema del passaggio adolescenziale, ma si concentra, con notazioni interessanti, sugli aspetti mistici della castità. 18. La tradizione manoscritta presenta forme maschili ai vv. 42, 45, 88 e 89: gli editori moderni hanno solitamente ‘normalizzato’ il testo introducendo ogni volta desinenze femminili. Ma Catullo avrà intenzionalmente oscillato nella scelta del genere, per sottolineare l’ambiguità sessuale del personaggio dopo l’evirazione: argomentazioni a favore di questa tesi in P. Oksala, Das Geschlecht des Attis bei Catull, “Arctos” 6, 1970, pp. 91-96; e negli studi di Weinreich (pp. 507-9), Skinner (p. 114), Strauss Clay (pp. 146-48) citati nella nota precedente. 19. Il tema, il protagonista del carme, l’ambiente di origine che gli è attribuito rinviano con evidenza a un punto di vista greco (il punto è ben illustrato da A. Harder, Catullus 63: a Hellenistic Poem?, in Nauta, Harder [a cura di], op. cit. [sopra, n. 16], pp. 65-86 [spec. 72-74]), e dunque a modelli poetici greci. Come è noto, conserviamo per tradizione indiretta due galliambi greci che aprivano un carme chiaramente affine a quello di Catullo ma, a quanto si può capire, diversamente strutturato. L’attribuzione di quei versi a Callimaco, e l’identificazione di quel perduto carme col modello del c. 63, sostenuta dal Wilamowitz (Die Galliamben des Kallimachos und Catullus, “Hermes” 14, 1879, pp. 194-201 e poi in Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, II, Berlin 1924, pp. 291 ss.), oggi non è considerata sufficientemente fondata, mentre si avverte la probabilità di un modello post-callimacheo. Del resto Catullo può essersi ispirato, con libertà, a più modelli. I molti tentativi di separare, entro il carme, gli elementi da ricondurre alla personalità di Catullo da quelli che risalirebbero al modello si sono rivelati, in mancanza di ogni informazione sul modello stesso, sostanzialmente vani. 20. K. Summers, Lucretius’ Roman Cybele, in E. N. Lane (a cura di), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M. J. Vermaseren, Leiden 1996, pp. 337-65, porta molti argomenti (non tutti egualmente solidi) a sostegno della giusta tesi che Lucrezio, nell’ampia rappresentazione delle processioni in onore di Cibele nel suo secondo libro (vv. 600-60), si fonda sulla diretta esperienza delle celebrazioni in onore della dea a Roma, e non meramente o prevalentemente su fonti letterarie greche. I resti delle Menippee, ed in particolare i numerosi frammenti delle Eumenides, attestano che Varrone dedicava attenzione, mista di curiosità e di repulsione, alla presenza dei rituali cibelici in Roma (la collocazione a Roma delle scene di culto cibelico nelle Eumenides è dimostrata in modo convincente da A. Rolle, Il motivo del culto cibelico nelle Eumenides di Varrone, “Maia” 61, 2009, pp. 545-63). Segno ulteriore dell’interesse degli intellettuali Romani del tempo per il culto e il mito di Cibele sono i componimenti poetici dedicati alla dea da Cecilio, amico di Catullo (cfr. Catull. 35) e, pochi anni dopo, da Mecenate (fr. 5 e 6 M., in galliambi). 21. La paradossale compresenza di accettazione e rifiuto nei confronti del culto cibelico da parte delle istituzioni politiche e civili romane è spesso evidenziata negli studi. Segnalo due articoli relativamente recenti che mettono a fuoco i termini della questione con efficacia e ne analizzano con acume le motivazioni (ad essi rimando anche per i principali riferimenti alle fonti antiche): T.P. Wiseman, Cybele, Virgil and Augustus, in T. Woodman, D. West (a cura di), Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus, Cambridge 1984, pp. 117-28 e 225-29 e soprattutto l’importante contributo di
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M. Beard, The Roman and the Foreign: The Cult of the “Great Mother” in Imperial Rome, in N. Thomas, C. Humphrey (a cura di), Shamanism, History, and the State, Ann Arbor 1994, pp. 164-90, particolarmente notevole per la ottima sintesi dei materiali e per la prospettiva storico-culturale proposta. Ad esso sono largamente debitore per questi paragrafi sul culto romano di Cibele e Attis. 22. P. Romanelli, Lo scavo al tempio della Magna Mater sul Palatino e nelle sue adiacenze, “Monumenti Antichi” (Accademia dei Lincei) 46, 1963, pp. 202-330 aveva pubblicato i risultati dei suoi scavi al tempio di Cibele, registrando una grande frequenza di statuette di Attis (ben 94 esemplari: molto più numerosi delle immagini di Cibele come rileva Pensabene nell’art. cit. alla fine di questa nota). Egli le datava alla fase successiva alla ricostruzione del tempio, a seguito di un incendio, avvenuta alla fine del II sec. a.C. Cfr. anche id., Magna Mater e Attis sul Palatino, in M. Renard, R. Schilling (a cura di), Hommages à Jean Bayet, Bruxelles 1964, pp. 619-26. Ma F. Coarelli, Public Building in Rome between the Second Punic War and Sulla, “Papers of the British School at Rome” 45, 1977, pp. 1-23 (spec. 10-13) ha dimostrato con sicurezza che esse sono da ricondurre alla fase della prima fondazione. Importanti conferme e precisazioni in P. Pensabene, Nuove indagini nell’area del tempio di Cibele sul Palatino, in U. Bianchi, M.J. Vermaseren, La soteriologia dei culti imperiali nell’impero romano, Leiden 1982, pp. 68-108, che contiene considerazioni interessanti sulla presenza e sulla popolarità del culto di Attis (e di Cibele) a Roma. 23. Nel privilegiare una lettura del carme 63 come espressione del disagio dei Romani di fronte a credenze e rituali orientali non intendo escludere altri significati, altre motivazioni e intenzioni, che possono ben coesistere. In particolare credo che nella scelta del tema si esprima la sensibilità del poeta al disagio esistenziale connesso con la definizione dell’identità sessuale nell’adolescenza: tema di cui Attis poteva essere mitico emblema (cfr. sopra, n. 17). È certo legittimo, e direi necessario, nonostante i chiari rischi ‘biografistici’, analizzare questo tema anche in relazione con la poesia erotica di Catullo, e con la persona di amante che in essa si delinea, nella quale sono stati riconosciuti, oltre a una aperta bisessualità, elementi di femminilizzazione dello stesso ruolo maschile: su questa linea vd. Skinner, art. cit. (sopra n. 17). Meno fondata la linea di studi che cerca di collocare anche il c. 63, insieme agli altri ‘carmi lunghi’, nel contesto di un presunto ciclo di poesie sul tema del matrimonio, ritenuto un problema assillante e irrisolto per Catullo. E ancor meno fondata, io credo, la linea di studi che ha visto nel carme una sorta di allegoria della vicenda d’amore di Catullo e Lesbia. Giuste obiezioni a queste interpretazioni autobiografistiche in H.P. Syndikus, Catull: eine Interpretation, II, Darmstadt 1990, pp. 98 s. Dissento però dall’idea di Syndikus (pp. 79 e 97) che i rischi identitari derivanti dal confronto con l’irrazionalismo delle religioni orientali potevano rappresentare un problema per un uomo greco, e dunque per il poeta preso a modello da Catullo, ma non per Catullo stesso e per il suo ambiente di élite colta romana. 24. Richiami agli inni omerici, agli inni di Callimaco e a Teocrito sono correnti nei commenti al passo, e non occorre qui ripeterli. Va segnalato il notevole contributo alla comprensione di questo formulario in Weinreich, art. cit. (sopra, n. 17) il quale anche in altri importanti studi (Gebet und Wunder, Tübingen 1929, 175 ss. e altri, elencati in id., Ausgewählte Schriften, III, Amsterdam 1979, p. 61, e cfr. ibid., p. 176 s.) ha soprattutto messo a fuoco il motivo della richiesta al dio di rivolgere contro altri la sua potenza distruttiva, motivo di cui in seguito sono stati segnalati moltissimi altri esempi in generi vari di poesia (elegia, lirica, tragedia ecc.: cfr. gli elenchi in Gaio Valerio Catullo, Attis (carmen LXIII) a cura di L. Morisi, Bologna 1999, pp. 147 s. e R.G.M. Nisbet, M. Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book I, Oxford 1970, p. 260). Mi limito in questa sede ad accennare al problema, insoluto, della definizione del genere in cui rientra il carme: l’epifonema suggerirebbe che si tratti di un inno: la narrazione che forma la sostanza del carme, e che include un ampio monologo ‘drammatico’, andrebbe in tal caso intesa come rappresentazione del potere della divinità, come è proprio degli inni. Così intendono, tra gli altri, T.P. Wiseman, Catullus and His World, Cambridge 1985, pp. 198-206 (che pensa a un inno destinato
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ad essere eseguito durante i Megalesia romani: ipotesi improbabile, che non ha trovato consenso); S. Harrison, Altering Attis: Ethnicity, Gender and Genre in Catullus 63, in Nauta, Harder (a cura di), op. cit. (sopra, n. 16), 11-24 (spec. 18-23), R. Hunter in R. Hunter, M. Fantuzzi, Muse e modelli, Roma – Bari 2002, pp. 550-59: ma in tal caso dovremmo ammettere che il poeta-orante qui, sia nella ‘narrazione’ aretalogica che nell’epifonema, celebra il potere del dio come potere perverso, da cui rifuggire: una situazione quasi paradossale. Per questo non credo di poter consentire con l’idea di Hunter (e di Wiseman) che la persona loquens del carme non sia quella del poeta, ma quella di un sacerdote di Cibele, un Gallo.
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Zoophilie in Zoologie und Roman: Sex und Liebe zwischen Mensch und Tier bei Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren, Aelian und Apuleius1
Judith Hindermann
1 Sex mit einem Tier – ein Tatbestand, der bis Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts in fast allen europäischen Staaten mit dem Tode bestraft und weit ins 20. Jahrhundert durch mehrjährige Gefängnisstrafen geahndet wurde – gilt, obwohl in den meisten Ländern Europas inzwischen straffrei,2 als das letzte Tabu in Sachen Sexualität und bleibt sowohl in der öffentlichen Diskussion als auch in der erzählenden zeitgenössischen Literatur weitgehend ausgespart.3 Auch in der klassischen Philologie wurde das Thema ausserhalb des Kontexts von Mythos und Kult nur selten aufgegriffen.4 Es fehlt in vielen Studien zur Sexualität,5 zur bildlichen Darstellung von Sexualität6 oder zum Tier bzw. zur Zoologie in der Antike.7
2 Überblickt man die überlieferten literarischen Texte, fällt auf, dass Zoophilie ausserhalb des Mythos vor allem in zwei literarischen Gattungen auftritt : Einerseits in den zoologischen Schriften von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian, andererseits im antiken Roman, d.h. in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius und im pseudo-lukianischen Onos. In diesem Beitrag soll untersucht werden, welche Funktion Zoophilie in den beiden literarischen Gattungen hat und wie die Autoren die sexuelle Praktik bewerten, die weder nach griechischem noch römischen Recht strafbar war.8 Da Vorstellungen über Tiere eng mit Gender und Geschlechterhierarchien verbunden sind,9 soll insbesondere die Frage berücksichtigt werden, inwiefern männliche und weibliche Verhaltens- und Rollenzuschreibungen bei der Darstellung zoophiler Akte wirksam werden. Auf die Ikonographie der Zoophilie10 oder auf Zoophilie als Straf- und Foltermethode11 wird in diesem Beitrag hingegen nicht eingegangen.
3 Für sexuelle Akte bzw. Liebe zwischen Mensch und Tier kennt die Antike keinen eigenen Begriff, sondern verwendet mit amare bzw. ἐράω dieselben Termini wie für zwischenmenschliche Kontakte. In diesem Beitrag wird der moderne Begriff
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„Zoophilie“ benutzt, der gemäss Definition eine emotionale Bindung zu einem Tier bezeichnet, die zu dessen Bevorzugung als Lebensgefährte und/oder Sexualpartner führt. Anders als der Begriff „Sodomie“, der sich nur auf den sexuellen, nicht aber den emotionalen Aspekt bezieht, deckt der Terminus ein breites Spektrum von Kontaktformen zwischen Mensch und Tier ab und schliesst sowohl den Menschen als auch das (dressierte) Tier als Initiator der Beziehung ein, was sich als ein relevanter Faktor bei der Beurteilung von Zoophilie in der antiken Zoologie erweist.12
Zoophilie in der antiken Zoologie
4 Eine besonders reiche Quelle für Zoophilie sind die zoologischen Schriften von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian. Anders als im Mythos, wo zumeist eine Frau/ Göttin in menschlicher Gestalt durch einen Gott in Tiergestalt vergewaltigt wird13 und in Folge dessen über die Spezies hinweg menschlicher, göttlicher oder tierischer Nachwuchs entsteht,14 geht es in den bei den antiken Zoologen überlieferten Geschichten nicht nur um Akt und Zeugung, sondern auch um Freundschaft, Liebe, Zuneigung und Verführung zwischen Mensch und Tier.15 Ebenfalls anders als im Mythos, wo es sich ausser bei Ganymed stets um heterosexuelle Zoophilie handelt16 und die Täter mit Ausnahme der Pasiphaë17 immer männlich sind, variieren bei den antiken Zoologen die Perspektiven, aus der die Mensch-Tier-Geschichten erzählt werden, ebenso wie Geschlecht und aktives bzw. passives Rollenverhalten der Beteiligten stärker.
5 Da dieselben Anekdoten über Zoophilie bei Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian in ganz unterschiedlicher Ausprägung erscheinen, dienen sie nicht nur der Charakterisierung der unmittelbar beteiligten Tiere und Personen, sondern lassen sich auch als Ausdruck einer generellen Sicht der Autoren auf die Beziehung zwischen Mensch und Tier interpretieren. Die Grenze zwischen Geschichten, welche die geistige Liebe bzw. Freundschaft zwischen Mensch und Tier respektive einer Tierart belegen sollen, und solchen, die einen dezidiert erotisch-sexuellen Hintergrund haben, ist dabei nicht immer klar zu ziehen.18 Diese Unschärfe ist dem antiken Diskurs über das Verhältnis von Mensch und Tier inhärent, der geprägt ist durch ein Nebeneinander von Nähe und Distanz, das als Vorstellung einer Artverwandtschaft gedeutet werden kann und seinen Ausdruck in zahlreichen Mythen über Mischwesen und Monster findet.19
6 Seit dem 5. Jh. v. Chr. lässt sich neben einem oppositionellen Modell des Verhältnisses von Mensch und Tier ein stärker graduell gedachtes Modell feststellen.20 Die neue Art, Differenzen – nicht nur zwischen Mensch und Tier, sondern auch zwischen Mann und Frau – zu betrachten, findet sich erstmals bei Aristoteles, dem bedeutendsten Vertreter der antiken Zoologie. Einher mit dieser Vorstellung einer Kontinuität geht in Aristoteles’ zoologischen Schriften jedoch gleichzeitig eine klare Grenzziehung zwischen Pflanzen und Tieren sowie Tieren und Menschen.21 Anders als in den Schriften von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian spielt Zoophilie keine Rolle als Form der Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Tier22 und die Existenz von Mischwesen hält Aristoteles deshalb für unmöglich, weil sich Lebewesen über die Artgrenze nur dann fortpflanzen können, wenn sie über ähnliche Grösse und Tragzeiten verfügen.23 Berichte über Mischwesen, die auf Sex zwischen Mensch und Tier bzw. Tiere unterschiedlicher Gattungen schliessen lassen, erklärt er rationalisierend mit der Ähnlichkeit missgestalteter Menschen oder Tiere mit anderen Tieren.24
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7 Mit „Zoologie“ wird im Folgenden daher nicht die systematisch-wissenschaftliche Behandlung von Morphologie, Anatomie und Physiologie im aristotelischen Sinn bezeichnet, sondern eine Naturgeschichte der Tiere im weitesten Sinn. Charakteristisch für diese Art der Zoologie, die bei späteren griechischen und römischen Schriftstellern vorherrscht, ist das Interesse am Aussergewöhnlichen (paradoxa) und Wundersamen (mirabilia) der Tierwelt25 sowie die Wahrnehmung der Tiere in anthropologischen Kategorien. Mensch und Tier begegnen sich in der Beschreibung von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian auf Augenhöhe und ihr Verhalten wird bei der Beschreibung von Zoophilie entlang denselben, nämlich menschlichen, Vorstellungskategorien gezeichnet und beurteilt. Da die Annäherung bestimmter Tiere an und die Werbung um den geliebten Menschen wie beim Menschen auf einer bewussten, individuellen Entscheidung, und nicht auf dem Instinkt basiert,26 ist für die Bewertung von Zoophilie bei allen drei Autoren die Frage zentral, wer die Initiative zur zoophilen Beziehung unternimmt.
Der Mensch als Aggressor : Verurteilung der Zoophilie
8 Plutarch gilt aufgrund seiner Schriften De esu carnium, De amore prolis, De sollertia animalium und Bruta animalia ratione uti als erster antiker Denker mit einem sympathetischen Verständnis für Tiere. Seine Werke basieren auf der anti-stoischen Grundhaltung, dass zwischen Mensch und Tier keine prinzipiellen, sondern nur quantitativ seelisch-geistige Differenzen bestehen.27 Daraus resultiert für die Menschen die moralische Pflicht zur Gerechtigkeit gegenüber den Tieren, die man sich zwar nutzbar machen darf, jedoch nicht unnötig jagen, quälen oder töten soll (mor. 964E– 965B). Wie im Dialog Bruta animalia ratione uti deutlich wird, zählt dazu auch die Benutzung eines Tiers zur sexuellen Befriedigung. Zoophilie dient hier dem von Circe in ein Schwein verwandelten Gryllus, der seine menschliche Gestalt zu Odysseus’ Erstaunen nicht zurück will, als Beweis für die Verdorbenheit und Perversion der Menschen.28 Die unmässige Lust bringe die Männer dazu, die Grenzen der Natur zu überschreiten und sich mit Ziegen, Schweinen und Stuten zu paaren. Auch Frauen haben sich mit Tieren eingelassen und so seien die verschiedenen Mischwesen (Minotauren, Aegipane, Centauren, Sphingen) entstanden (mor. 991A). Die einzelnen Geschichten werden von Gryllus nicht detailliert ausgeführt, sondern nur mit dem Geschlechtsakt bzw. den daraus resultierenden Nachkommen betitelt. Als Auslöser der Taten sieht Gryllus die menschliche Lust, die als widernatürlich bzw. widerrechtlich (παρανομοῦσιν) bewertet und der tierischen unverdorbenen Natur gegenübergestellt wird : Πρὸς δὲ συνουσίαν οὐδέποτε θηρίον ἐπεχείρησεν ἀνθρώπῳ χρήσασθαι. Θηρία δ’ ἄ νθρωποι καὶ πρὸς ταῦτα καὶ πρὸς ἄλλα πολλὰ καθ’ ἡδονὰς βιάζονται καὶ παρανομοῦσιν (mor.991A).29 Die Tiere dagegen erscheinen in Gryllus’ Rede als wehrlose Opfer, die von Natur aus keusch sind und nie einen Menschen aus Gründen der Lust angreifen würden. Ihre besondere Wirkkraft bekommt die Argumentation aus dem Munde eines Schweins, das selbst zu den lüsternen Tierarten zählt und Plutarch dennoch dem Menschen als moralisch überlegen zeigt.30
9 Auch in Aelians De Natura Animalium wird die sexuelle Annäherung von Menschen an Tiere in einen negativen Kontext gestellt, indem die Täter für ihre Tat mit dem Leben büssen müssen. Die erste der beiden Geschichten, die Aelian erzählt, handelt von einem Stallburschen, der sich in die schönste Stute aus seinem Stall verliebt und mit ihr
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schläft. Das Fohlen, das die Szene beobachtet, empfindet die Tat als Tyrannei (τυραννουμένης) und rächt die Mutter, indem es auf den Stallburschen springt, ihn erschlägt und zudem später dessen Grab schändet (NA 4,8). In der zweiten Geschichte geht es um einen Hirtenjungen, Crathis, der die schönste seiner Ziegen liebt, mit Geschenken und Gefälligkeiten um sie wirbt und schliesslich eine sexuelle Beziehung mit ihr eingeht. Der Ziegenbock der Herde erschlägt den Hirten schliesslich aus Eifersucht, indem er dem Schlafenden die Hörner gegen den Schädel rammt (NA 6,42). Beide von Aelian referierten Geschichten enthalten realistische Details : Die Täter sind junge Männer, die aufgrund ihres Berufes engen Umgang mit Tieren und Gelegenheit haben, sich diesen unbeobachtet zu nähern. Dass Hirten mangels Frauen mit ihren Tieren schlafen und sogar Nachkommen zeugen, wird auch bei anderen Autoren als allgemein bekannte Tatsache vorausgesetzt.31 Aelian schildert diese Form von Zoophilie dennoch als ein von der Gesellschaft negativ bewertetes Verhalten, indem er neben den Reaktionen der „entehrten Angehörigen“ der geschändeten weiblichen Tiere auch den inneren Konflikt des Stallburschen vor der Tat zeigt, der zunächst versucht, sein abnormes Verlangen (τῷ λέχει τῷ ξένῳ) zu unterdrücken (NA 4,8). Deutlicher noch wird die Verurteilung der Zoophilie bei Aelian in der Geschichte des Atheners Socles, der ob seines Verhältnisses mit seinem Pferd in Verruf gerät (διέρρει λόγος ὑπὲρ ἀμφοῖν ἀτοπώτερος) und das Tier deshalb verkauft (NA 6,44). 10 Auch Plinius der Ältere erwähnt sexuelle Beziehungen und daraus resultierende Mischwesen zwischen Mensch und Tier in seinem siebten Buch über den Menschen, bezeichnenderweise aber als Phänomen, das nur bei indischen Völkern am Rande der Oikumene vorkommt : Duris Indorum quosdam cum feris coire mixtosque et semiferos esse partus (nat. 7,30). Die babylonische Königin Semiramis, die Sex mit ihrem Pferd gehabt haben soll, ist ebenfalls im entfernten Asien beheimatet.32 Monstren und Mischwesen finden sich dagegen nicht nur in Indien, sondern auch auf italischem Boden.33 Deren Entstehung stellt Plinius jedoch entgegen der Tradition nicht in den Kontext von Zoophilie.34 Als sexuelle Praxis bei den zivilisierten Römern ist Zoophilie in Plinius’ Naturalis historia somit nicht existent.
11 Der Grund, warum vom Menschen initiierte Zoophilie von den Zoologen abgelehnt wird, ist nicht eindeutig zu fassen. Während die Verurteilung der Zoophilie heute wesentlich durch Fragen des Tierschutzes bestimmt ist,35 spielt diese Überlegung keine Rolle. Die Vorstellung von Grausamkeit gegenüber den Tieren, die zu Tausenden in der Arena getötet wurden,36 ist in der antiken Literatur kaum ausgeprägt und Schutzbestimmungen für Tiere sind selten belegt.37 Das Verhalten gegenüber Tieren wird bei Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian auch nicht, anders z.B. als im Diskurs über den Umgang mit Sklaven,38 als Hinweis auf den Charakter des Besitzers verstanden. Ein Grund für die Kritik der Zoophilie könnte die Furcht vor dem Entstehen von Mischwesen sein, die als Verstoss gegen die Natur und als schlechte Omina gedeutet werden. Diese Furcht vor den Folgen zoophiler Kontakte wird explizit in Philons Abhandlung über die Tiere aus dem 1. Jh. n. Chr. formuliert39 und hält sich bis weit ins 19. Jahrhundert.40
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Das Tier als Verführer : Beweis der tierischen Intelligenz und miraculum
12 Sowohl bei den Zoologen als auch im Mythos sind es in der überwiegenden Mehrheit der Fälle Frauen, die zoophile Akte begehen. Entsprechend der traditionellen Geschlechterrollen bleiben die Frauen dabei jedoch passiv und werden vom Tier, das entweder explizit als männlich beschrieben wird oder dessen Geschlecht unbestimmt bleibt, umworben und verführt bzw. vergewaltigt. Analog dazu werden auch Knaben von Tieren verführt, hingegen nur sehr selten erwachsene Männer. Nur in einer Geschichte Aelians (NA 4,54) ist es dezidiert ein weibliches Tier, eine Schlange, die aktiv um einen Knaben wirbt. In der Perspektive des Tieres, das um den geliebten Menschen wirbt, spiegeln sich somit die Werthaltungen und Rollenvorstellungen des männlichen Autors und der Leser, die sich mit dem aktiven Tier identifizieren. Dass es bei den antiken Zoologen in der Mehrzahl der Fälle Tiere, und nicht Menschen sind, welche die Initiative zu zoophilen Akten ergreifen, erklärt sich mit dem speziellen Fokus der Schriftsteller auf Aussergewöhnliches und Wundersames. Plutarch lässt in seinem Dialog De sollertia animalium, der sich um die Frage dreht, ob Land- oder Wassertiere intelligenter sind, Aristotimus, den Anwalt der Landtiere, mittels vier Geschichten über Zoophilie beweisen, dass das Verhalten bestimmter Tiere dem verliebter Menschen gleicht (mor. 972D–F). In der ersten Geschichte wirbt ein Elefant um eine Kranzverkäuferin, indem er ihr Früchte mitbringt, sich neben sie stellt und sie mit seinem Rüssel am Busen berührt.41 In der zweiten Geschichte wird eine Frau aus Aeolien jede Nacht von einer Schlange besucht, die sich unter sie schiebt und Haut an Haut zu liegen kommt.42 Auf eine von den Verwandten der Frau erzwungene Trennung reagiert die Schlange, indem sie sich nach der Wiedervereinigung eng um die Frau schlingt, ihr dadurch die Hände am Körper festbindet und dann die Gefesselte zur Bestrafung mit dem Schwanzende auf die Waden schlägt.
13 Der Fokus des Erzählers liegt in den beiden ausführlicher beschriebenen Fällen43 ganz auf dem Verhalten der anthropomorph beschriebenen Tiere. Elefant und Schlange werben aktiv um die geliebten Frauen und suchen ihre Gefühle gleich den Menschen, aber mit den ihnen eigenen Mitteln auszudrücken, indem sie statt den Händen Rüssel und Schwanzende, statt Worten die Körpersprache nutzen. Wie die Frauen auf die Avancen des Tieres reagieren, ob sie dessen Gefühle teilen, als unangenehm empfinden oder überhaupt als Liebe wahrnehmen, interessiert den Erzähler nicht. Die Frauen erscheinen als stumme Objekte, an denen die Tiere ihren Verstand demonstrieren können. Zoophilie dient Plutarch, wie andere komplexere Handlungen auch,44 als Beweis dafür, dass Tiere über Intelligenz verfügen, die darin besteht, menschliches, d.h. männlich-aktives Werbeverhalten zu adaptieren. Das Fehlen der Hände, mit dem Anaxagoras den Mangel an Kultur bei den Tieren erklärt,45 wird hier nicht als Beweis für die fehlende Intelligenz der Tiere angeführt, sondern erst recht als Indiz für dieselbe gewertet, da die Tiere zwecks erotischer Werbung ihre naturgegebene Beeinträchtigung mit anderen Körperteilen zu kompensieren vermögen.
14 Wie Plutarch führt auch Plinius das Thema Zoophilie mit der Anekdote über die Liebe eines Elefanten zu einer Kranzverkäuferin46 ein und fügt dann zwei weitere Fälle an, in denen sich ein Elefant in eine junge Frau (eine Salbenverkäuferin) oder einen jungen Mann (einen griechischen Soldaten) verliebt. Auffällig ist die Zurückhaltung, mit der Plinius die Anekdoten referiert. Das bei Plutarch geschilderte Detail etwa, dass der
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Elefant die Brust seiner Angebeteten mit dem Rüssel streichelt, fehlt. Plinius’ Elefanten äussern ihre Zuneigung durch Freude beim Anblick des oder der Geliebten, durch Hungerstreik bei deren Abwesenheit, ungeschickte Liebkosungen sowie Geschenke (nat. 8,13–14). Auch andere bekannte Geschichten über die Liebe von Gänsen (nat. 10,51) und Delphinen (nat. 9,25–27) zu Menschen schreibt Plinius so um, dass nicht die erotische Anziehung, sondern die Freundschaft und der (moralische) Nutzen der Tiere für den Menschen ins Zentrum gerückt werden.47 Gänse etwa helfen dem Menschen durch ihre Wachsamkeit und Weisheit, ebenso ist der Delphin, der für Fische gefährlichste Feind, ein Menschenfreund (homini ... amicum nat. 9,24), der den Fischern mutig und diszipliniert beim Fischfang hilft (nat. 9,29–32).
15 Die als natürlich gelobte tierische Sexualität setzt Plinius in seiner Naturalis historia wiederholt der durch den Verstand pervertierten menschlichen Sexualität entgegen.48 Erstere zeichnet sich durch Mässigung und Ausrichtung auf die Fortpflanzung aus.49 Um die These von der moralisch vorbildlichen Wirkung von Tieren auf die Menschen nicht zu entkräften, müssen die tradierten Geschichten über Zoophilie, die vom Tier aus geht, entsprechend Plinius’ didaktischer Intention entschärft werden. Plinius tut dies, indem er zum einen erotische oder sexuell explizite Details weglässt und zum andern die Geschichten mit den positiven charakterlichen Eigenschaften der Tiere einrahmt.
16 In Aelians De Natura Animalium spielt das Aussergewöhnliche, Paradoxe (paradoxa) und Wundersame (mirabilia), das primär der Unterhaltung dient, gegenüber dem Anspruch auf Belehrung der Leserschaft eine weit grössere Rolle als bei Plutarch und Plinius.50 Entsprechend nimmt auch die Zoophilie bei Aelian grossen Raum ein : Er berichtet über Zoophilie mit insgesamt elf verschiedenen Tierarten,51 indem er in Übersichtskapiteln die Geschichten verschiedener Tieren aufzählt, die sich in Frauen oder Knaben verliebt haben.52 Zoophilie erscheint auch in Zusammenhang mit der Beschreibung besonderer charakterlicher Eigenschaften von Tieren. Als lüstern und zügellos (ἀκόλαστα) gelten Hunde, Paviane und Geissböcke, von denen man sagt, dass sie mit Frauen schlafen oder diese vergewaltigen.53
17 Neben katalogartigen Sammelkapiteln zum Thema Zoophilie bietet Aelian auch verschiedene ausführlicher erzählte Belege, so die Geschichte über eine Schlange und einen Rinderhirten (NA 8,11), eine Schlange und eine Frau aus Judaea (NA 6,17) sowie den Athener Socles und sein Pferd (NA 6,44). Aelians Fokus ist dabei ein zweifacher : Erstens werden die Anekdoten mit zusätzlichen erotisch-sexuellen Details versehen. Die Schlangen etwa, die sich in den Hirten und in die Frau verlieben, sind enorm gross (δράκοντα μεγέθει μέγιστον).54 Im Fall der Frau wird die Schlange zudem zweimal mit einem Liebhaber verglichen (ὡς ἐραστὴς). 18 Zweitens dienen die Geschichten Aelian als Beweis für die Macht Amors, dem auch die Tiere hilflos ausgeliefert sind. Dies führt zum Widerspruch, dass Aelian den Tieren einerseits wie Plutarch und Plinius moralische Qualitäten und Leistungen zuschreibt, die über diejenigen der Menschen hinausgehen – indem er z.B. ein Inzest-Tabu schildert, das Tiere angeblich strenger als Menschen befolgen, oder auf die tierische Nächstenliebe oder den Selbstmord aus Scham verweist –,55 gleichzeitig aber unkritisch über Tiere berichtet, die mit Menschen erotische oder sexuelle Beziehungen eingehen wollen. Aelian führt als Erklärung, und damit implizit auch als Entschuldigung die allumfassende Macht des Liebesgottes an, der nicht nur über alle anderen Götter, sondern auch über die Tiere herrscht, die als unvernünftig (τῶν ἀλόγων) beschrieben
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werden.56 Wie in den griechischen Liebesromanen,57 zu denen Aelian eine grosse Nähe aufweist, spielt neben Amor auch die Schönheit der Beteiligten eine zentrale Rolle, weil sie via Auge Liebe auf den ersten Blick auslöst. Tiere, insbesondere die scharfsichtige Schlange (NA 8,11) und der intelligente Delphin (NA 6,15), sind in Aelians Darstellung fähig, menschliche Schönheit zu erkennen und zu würdigen.58 Gleichzeitig macht die Schönheit die Ebenbürtigkeit der Verliebten öffentlich sichtbar, wie in der Geschichte über Socles und sein Pferd deutlich wird, die beide von ihrer Umgebung als attraktiv und klug wahrgenommen werden (NA 6,44). Durch die Betonung der Schönheit der Beteiligten und des Einflusses des Liebesgottes auf das Entstehen einer zoophilen Beziehung wird bei Aelian das miraculum unterstrichen und gleichzeitig die Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier verwischt.
19 Überblickt man die Geschichten in ihrer Gesamtheit, zeigt sich, dass Zoophilie bei den drei Zoologen je nachdem, wer die Initiative zur zoophilen Beziehung ergreift, unterschiedliche Bewertung erfährt. Aus Sicht des passiv bleibenden Tieres sind die menschlichen Annäherungen bei Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian gleichermassen Zeichen von perverser Lust bzw. Barbarei und werden als sexuelle Übergriffe beschrieben, die durch Mischwesen und Monstren in der Öffentlichkeit manifest werden. Zoophilie dient allen drei Autoren als Beweis für die Verdorbenheit der Menschen, deren degeneriertem Verhalten die als natürlich gepriesene Sexualität der Tiere vorbildlich gegenübergestellt wird. Dagegen wird Zoophilie, die vom Tier ausgeht, von den Zoologen je nach Intention ihres Werks zu unterschiedlichem argumentativem oder narrativem Zweck angeführt, erfährt jedoch in keinem Fall explizite oder implizite Kritik. Die Vorstellung von der natürlichen Unschuld und artgemässen Handlungsweise von Tieren59 erweist sich als die dominierende Sichtweise auf jegliches tierische Verhalten.
Liebestolle Frauen : Zoophilie im antiken Roman
20 Dass sich Frauen selbst aktiv einem Tier in zoophiler Absicht nähern, ist in den zoologischen Schriften ebenso wie im Mythos der Sonderfall, im Kontext von Satire und Invektive dagegen die Regel. Juvenal (6,332–334) schildert Frauen, die sich in rasender Lust mit Eseln vereinigen, wenn gerade keine freien Männer oder Sklaven zur Verfügung stehen,60 und Prokop (hist. 9,20–21) beschreibt in seinen Anekdota, dass sich die Kaiserin Theodora auf offener Bühne von Gänsen Körner aus dem Schoss picken liess. Beiden Autoren dienen diese Beispiele als Kulminationspunkt ihrer Beweisführung der Verdorbenheit und sexuellen Besessenheit von Frauen. Zoophilie ist – ähnlich wie das Ausüben anderer Praktiken wie Cunnilingus oder Fellatio61 – ein Vorwurf, der zur Invektive gegen Individuen oder das ganze weibliche Geschlecht verwendet wird.
21 Auch im antiken Roman sind es ausschliesslich Frauen, die sich in zoophiler Absicht Tieren, ebenfalls Eseln und Gänsen, nähern,62 erstaunlicherweise werden sie in dieser literarischen Gattung jedoch weder explizit für ihr Verhalten kritisiert noch wie bei Aelian durch Tod oder Unglück implizit bestraft. In Apuleius’ Metamorphosen (met. 10,19,3–22,5), die ausführlichste Darstellung von Zoophilie überhaupt in der antiken Literatur, fällt dies deshalb besonders auf, weil sich Apuleius’ Protagonist Lucius ansonsten betont gegen Ehebruch und unmoralisches Verhalten ausspricht und öffentliche Zoophilie in der Arena als äusserst entehrende Strafe beschreibt (met.
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10,29.34). Anders als im Onos, der Epitome der verlorenen griechischen Metamorphosen, auf denen Apuleius’ Metamorphosen basieren, wäre bei Apuleius eine Bestrafung der zoophilen matrona – analog zu der anderer Personen im Roman, die durch voluptas motiviert gegen Sitte und Gesetz verstossen – ohne Weiteres möglich.63 Apuleius legt den Fokus der Geschichte jedoch nicht auf moralische Fragen, sondern auf die fliessende Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier und die Umkehr der traditionellen Geschlechterrollen, indem er den Esel Lucius als käuflichen Liebessklaven auftreten lässt.64
22 Ganz zu Beginn der Geschichte bezeichnet Apuleius die matrona als asinaria Pasiphaae, als „Pasiphaë mit einem Esel“.65 Dadurch evoziert er den Mythos der „Ahnherrin“ der Zoophilie, vor dessen Folie die aktuelle Geschichte gelesen werden soll, und gibt dem gebildeten Leser, ähnlich wie er es auch an anderer Stelle tut,66 ein Signal, das ihn auf intertextuelle Bezüge aufmerksam machen soll. Ursprünglich Mythos einer Bestrafung und Erniedrigung des Königs Minos durch den Gott Poseidon, verlagert sich in der literarischen Tradition der Schwerpunkt der Erzählung auf Pasiphaë, die sich vom passiven Opfer in eine aktive Täterin verwandelt. Damit einhergehend wird der komische Aspekt der Erzählung, Pasiphaës Werbung um den desinteressierten Stier, hervorgehoben, und sowohl der Götterzorn, der das Verhalten der Königin erklärt, als auch das technische Konstrukt des Dädalus, das die praktische Umsetzung plausibel macht, in den Hintergrund gerückt.
23 Erste Ansätze für eine solche Umwertung des Mythos finden sich bei Vergil, der ihn in seinen Eclogen (6,45–60) ins bukolische Milieu67 transportiert und die verheiratete Königin in ein unglückliches Hirtenmädchen (virgo infelix 47) verwandelt.68 Ovid entwickelt Vergils Ansatz, Pasiphaë als verliebte Frau, und nicht als mythisches Opfer göttlichen Zorns darzustellen, in seiner Ars amatoria (1,289–326) weiter,69 indem er die komische Inkongruenz im Handeln der Pasiphaë hervorhebt,70 die versucht, dem Stier durch kostbare Kleidung und Frisur zu gefallen (303–307), und sich ihrer tierischen Nebenbuhlerinnen raffiniert entledigt (313–322). In der psychologischen Deutung des praeceptor amoris erscheint Pasiphaë als extremer Fall der furiosa libido (281), die allen Frauen eigen ist, und dient als Argument dafür, dass der Liebesschüler darauf vertrauen kann, in seinem Werben nicht zurückgewiesen zu werden.71
24 Auch Apuleius’ Lucius trifft auf eine Pasiphaë, die wie die exempla aus Ovids Ars amatoria von einer rasenden Lust (vaesana libido met. 10,19,3), aber nicht auf einen Stier, sondern auf einen Esel ergriffen ist. Gleichzeitig wird jedoch der Blickwinkel, aus dem die Geschichte erzählt wird, durch Lucius’ Ankündigung verändert. Während in der traditionellen Überlieferung des Pasiphaë-Mythos das Verlangen der Frau aus einer auktorialen Perspektive geschildert wird und das Tier stumm bleibt, werden bei Apuleius die Geschehnisse aus der Perspektive des menschlichen Ich-Erzählers und männlichen Esels geboten.72 Die Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier wird nicht nur durch diese Personalunion von Esel und Erzähler, sondern auch durch das Verhalten der matrona verwischt. Diese wählt wie Ovids Pasiphaë Mittel, die dazu geeignet sind, einen Mann, nicht ein Tier zu verführen, indem sie das Schlafzimmer mit Kissen, Decken und Kerzen schön einrichtet, sich und den Esel mit wohlriechendem Öl parfümiert und ihn mit Küssen bedeckt (met. 10,20,1–2). Insbesondere die Sprache spielt bei der Verführung des Esels in Apuleius’ Darstellung eine grosse Rolle, obwohl die matrona damit rechnen muss, dass er sie gar nicht versteht.
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25 Die menschliche Sprache mit ihrer kulturstiftenden Funktion gilt in der Antike als wesentliches Distinktionsmerkmal des Menschen gegenüber dem Tier.73 Speziell Liebesworte gehören zum angeborenen Grundwissen der menschlichen Spezies74 und sind für das Entstehen der Liebe von grosser Bedeutung.75 Während im Onos nur vermerkt wird, dass sich die matrona mit dem Esel wie mit einem menschlichen Liebhaber unterhält,76 rapportiert Lucius dem Leser die Liebesbekundungen der Dame im „originalen“ Wortlaut, indem er vier spezifische Ausdrücke nennt und die übrigen als typische Worte verliebter Frauen zusammenfasst : „amo“ et „cupio“ et „te solum diligo“ et „sine te iam vivere nequeo“ et cetera, quis mulieres et alios inducunt et suas testantur adfectiones (met. 10,21,3). 77 Auch während des Akts bezeichnet die matrona den Esel Lucius als palumbulum („Täubchen“) und passer („Spatz“). Damit befolgt sie einerseits Ovids Rat an seine Liebesschülerinnen, dem Partner während des Akts Koseworte zuzuflüstern,78 um dadurch Lust zu bekunden und dem Liebhaber zu schmeicheln. 79 Indem die matrona aber ausgerechnet Vogelnamen wählt,80 spielt sie – ohne sich dessen bewusst zu sein – auf das Verhältnis zwischen Lucius und der Sklavin Photis an, welches Lucius’ ungewollte Verwandlung in einen Esel statt in einen Vogel am Anfang des Romans auslöste. Die Kosenamen erinnern gleichzeitig auch an das erotische Verhältnis zwischen Frauen und Spatzen bzw. Tauben, die (u.a. als Metaphern für das männliche Glied) Gegenstand von Catulls und Martials Gedichten sind.81
26 Zoophilie erscheint in Apuleius’ Geschichte über den Esel Lucius und die matrona ohne moralische Wertung als mögliche Form der Lustbefriedigung und dient mit der detaillierten Beschreibung der nackten Körper und des Liebesakts der Erotisierung der Lesers.82 Wie in der Geschichte über Lucius und die Sklavin Photis, die als kompositorisches Gegenstück zur Liebesnacht zwischen Lucius und der matrona gilt, 83 ist die Unterordnung des Mannes unter den Willen der Frau, also die Umkehrung der traditionellen Geschlechterrollen in einer Art servitium amoris, für den Protagonisten mit erotischem Gewinn verbunden.84 Durch die Betonung der Bedeutung der Sprache in der Beziehung zwischen Frau und Esel wird gleichzeitig in humorvoller Weise eine gewisse Durchlässigkeit der Grenzen zwischen Mensch und Tier suggeriert, die – ebenso wie der Verweis auf die mythische Folie der Pasiphaë-Geschichte, vor der die Episode zwischen matrona und Esel gelesen werden soll – das Anstössige an der Schilderung mildert, und gleichzeitig die Rückverwandlung des Protagonisten in einen Menschen am Ende des Romans vorbereitet.
Schluss
27 Zoophilie ist – anders als bisweilen in der Forschung behauptet85 – ein Phänomen, das sich in der antiken Literatur nicht nur auf göttlicher Ebene im Mythos, sondern auch zwischen Mensch und Tier findet. In den zoologischen Schriften von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian wird Zoophilie, die vom Tier initiiert wird, deutlich positiver bewertet als Zoophilie, die vom Menschen ausgeht. Dabei wird das typisch aktive bzw. passive Rollenverhalten bei der erotischen Werbung analog zum Verhältnis zwischen Mann und Frau gezeichnet : In der überwiegenden Mehrheit der Fälle sind es männliche Tiere, die aktiv Frauen oder Knaben erobern. Umgekehrt ergreifen im antiken Roman ausschliesslich Frauen die Initiative zum sexuellen Kontakt mit Tieren. Geschichten über Zoophilie haben hier jedoch anders als bei den Zoologen keinen
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moralisierenden, sondern einen unterhaltenden und erotisierenden Zweck ; die zoophilen Frauen werden daher für ihre Taten nicht kritisiert oder bestraft.
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NOTES
1. Mein Dank gilt der Herausgeberschaft von Dictynna und den anonymen Lesern, die mir wertvolle Hinweise und Verbesserungsvorschläge gegeben haben. 2. Vgl. dazu Lang (2009); Beetz (2002) 192–199; Stettner (1990) 173–174. 3. Dekkers (1994) 172–175; 198–199; Massen (1994) 11–16; Beetz (2002) 162. 4. Der bislang umfassendste Beitrag zur Zoophilie im antiken Mythos ist in Zusammenhang mit dem Thema Vergewaltigung und der Frage nach den sozialen Faktoren, welche die Mythen geprägt haben, entstanden (Robson 1997). Vgl. auch Bruneau (1965) und Gourevitch (1983) mit Belegstellen. Zu den (kultischen) Tier-Mensch-Mythen aus verschiedenen Kulturkreisen und Epochen vgl. Hdt. 2,46; Strab. 17,1,19; Pind. fr. 167 sowie Krebs (1969); Dekkers (1994); Massen (1994) 77–109; Lang (2009) 35–45; Beetz (2002) 164–165. 5. Vgl. z.B. Skinner (2005) 83; Krenkel (2006) 133–134. 6. Vgl. z.B. Richlin (1992); Clarke (1998) 261. 7. In Thorsten Fögens 22-seitiger Bibliographie aus dem Jahr 2006 mit dem Titel „Animals in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Beyond“ findet sich kein gesonderter Beitrag zur Zoophilie (http:// www.telemachos.hu-berlin.de/esterni/Tierbibliographie_Foegen.pdf). In den Monographien zum Thema Tier wird das Thema meist nur gestreift (z.B. Martini 2000, 52; 84; 142; Goguey 2003, 59– 60) oder mit Fokus auf die geistige Liebe bzw. Freundschaft zwischen Mensch und Tier behandelt. 8. Lang (2009) 47–49. 9. Alexandridis (2008); Franco (2008). 10. Alexandridis (2008) untersucht die Ikonographie der Zoophilie im griechischen Mythos. Vgl. auch Bruneau (1965) zu den Darstellungen von Zoophilie auf römischen Tonlampen. In archäologische Studien wird das Thema öfters aufgegriffen: siehe Johns (1982) 107–113; Dierichs (1993) 115–117 und (1997) 82–83; Kilmer (1993) 57 Anm. 66; 208–209; Lissarague (1990) 61f. und 76f. 11. Erwähnt bei Suet. Nero 12,2; 29,1; Mart. De Spect. 5; Apul. met. 10,34,3–35,2; Onos 52–53; vgl. dazu Coleman (1990) 63–69. Siehe auch Catull. 15,18–19. 12. Vgl. dazu Beetz (2002) 166–170. 13. Zeus verwandelt sich in einen Adler, Stier, Schwan, Satyr und in eine Schlange; Poseidon in einen Stier, Adler, Delphin und Schafsbock. Weitere Götter, die in Tiergestalt vergewaltigen, sind Kronos (als Pferd) und Apoll (als Schildkröte und Schlange). In einem zweiten, selteneren Typus von Geschichten behält der vergewaltigende Gott seine menschliche Gestalt, während sein Opfer sich im vergeblichen Versuch, dem Angriff zu entgehen, in ein Tier verwandelt. In einem dritten
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Typus schliesslich treten beide Beteiligte in Tiergestalt auf. Vgl. dazu den Überblick über die verschiedenen Tiermythen mit Belegstellen bei Robson (1997) 74–75; 83–89. 14. So z.B. Helena (Zeus als Schwan und Leda), Athene (Zeus und Metis in wechselnder Tiergestalt), der Schafsbock mit dem Goldenen Vlies (Theophane als Vogel und Poseidon als Schafsbock). Auch Mischwesen können resultieren, so z.B. Cheiron (aus Kronos als Pferd und Philyra) oder der Minotaurus (ein Stier und Pasiphaë). Vgl. dazu Robson (1997) 74–75. 15. Athenaios (deipn. 13,606b–d), dereine Liste bekannter Anekdoten über Tieren bietet, die sich in Menschen verliebt haben, ohne aber weitere Details zu nennen, lasse ich in meiner Untersuchung weg; ebenso Philon (De animalibus 66–67 mit Verweis auf Pasiphaë, Glauke und den Schafsbock sowie den Jungen und den Delphin), der, in der jüdischen Tradition verwurzelt, für die an Zoophilie beteiligten Menschen und Tiere die Todesstrafe fordert (Spec. 3,49–50). 16. Robson (1997) 85 erklärt Ganymeds Entführung durch Zeus in Adlersgestalt als späte Analogiebildung zu ähnlichen heterosexuellen Tier-Mensch-Mythen. Zur Problematik der modernen Termini homo- bzw. heterosexuell vgl. Alexandridis (2008) 287, Anm. 18. 17. Zudem gibt es noch die nur bei Ant. Lib. 21 überlieferte Geschichte der Polyphonte, die als Strafe dafür, dass sie ins Gefolge der Artemis wechselt, von Aphrodite mit Wahnsinn und der Liebe zu einem Bären gestraft wird, dem sie zwei Söhne gebiert. 18. Dies spiegelt sich deutlich in der Sekundärliteratur, wo dieselben Textstellen bezüglich ihres erotischen Gehalts sehr unterschiedlich interpretiert werden, vgl. z.B. Massen (1994) 109–110; dagegen Hübner (1984) 164; French (1994) 21; Dumont (2001) 359. 19. Martini (2000) 84; vgl. auch 59; 142–144; Gilhus (2006) 71–74. 20. Alexandridis (2008) 303. 21. Vgl. dazu Dierauer (1997) 11–17; Lloyd (1983) 14–57; Kullmann (1998) 121–132. 22. Einzig in hist. an. 8,48,631a verweist Aristoteles auf die Liebe von Delphinen zu Knaben, ohne allerdings die Geschichten im Detail wiederzugeben: πρὸς παῖδας ἔρωτες καὶ ἐπιθυμίαι. 23. So z.B. Hund und Wolf oder Hund und Fuchs, vgl. Aristot. hist. an. 7,28,607a. 24. Vgl.Aristot. GA 4,3,769b; 2,7,746a,29–33. Über den Grund der Entstehung und die verschiedenen Arten von Missbildungen bei Mensch und Tier siehe GA 4,3,769b–771a. 25. Vgl. dazu Kullmann (1983) 129–130; Martini (2000) 74–77; 133–135. Zur Bedeutung der mirabilia bei Plinius dem Älteren siehe Beagon (1992) 8–11; 128–133, 151–152; Naas (2002) 237– 393. 26. Vgl. zur Konzeption des tierischen Instinkts Dierauer (1997) 20–22. 27. Zu Plutarchs Auffassung gegenüber der Tierwelt und seiner Auseinandersetzung mit der stoischen Lehre siehe Newmyer (2006) 17–20; 58–65; Dierauer (1977) 253–273; French (1994) 178– 184; Goguey (2003) 87–89. 28. ... ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ ῥεύματος ἐκφερόμενα πολλαχοῦ ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις δεινὴν ὕβριν καὶ ταραχὴν καὶ σύγχυσιν ἐν τοῖς ἀφροδισίοις ἀπεργάζεται τῆς φύσεως (mor. 990F). 29. Zur moralischen Überlegenheit der Tiere über den Menschen siehe auch mor. 987B; 989A; 990C–D; 493E–F. 30. Vgl. Plin. nat. 10,181–182; Aristot. hist. an. 5,14,546a,21–22; 6,18,572b,23–26. 31. Vgl. Plut. mor. 149C–E über ein Mischwesen, das als Nachkomme zwischen einer Stute und ihrem Wächter beschrieben wird. Als Lehre aus der Geschichte wird gezogen, dass man den Hirten Ehefrauen geben muss. Ebenso berichtet auch Phaedr. 3,3 von Lämmern mit menschlichem Kopf als Resultat der Verbindung von Hirt und Schaf. Vgl. auch Theokr. eid. 1,86– 88. 32. Plin.nat. 8,155. Zu Plinius’ romzentrischer Sichtweise vgl. Beagon (2005) 25–30. 33. Plin. nat. 7,3: eine Frau bringt einen Elefanten zur Welt; eine andere Frau eine Schlange. Zu Mischwesen vgl. Plin. nat. 9,9–11: Triton, Nereïden, Seemonster; 8,72.75: Sphingen, Pegasi, Mantichora; 5,7: Satyrn, Aegipane. Vgl. zu den Monstren bei Plinius auch Beagon (2005) 46–48; 170–172.
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34. Vgl. z.B. Juv. 2,121–123. 35. Vgl. dazu Liechti (2002); Stettner (1990). 36. Vgl. z.B. Gilhus (2006) 31–35. 37. Vgl. z.B. Colum. 6, praef. 7; Varro rust. 2,5,3–4; Beagon (1992) 151; Martini (2000) 40; 94; 98; 143–144. 38. Vgl. z.B. Sen. epist. 47; Plin. epist. 1,4; 2,6; 5,19; 8,16; 8,19. 39. Phil. De an. 66; vgl. auch Spec. 3,43–45.49. Philon verurteilt Zoophilie ohne zu berücksichtigen, ob sie vom Mensch oder vom Tier ausgeht, und nutzt sie nicht zum Beweis tierischer Intelligenz, sondern reiht sie unter die Laster von Tieren ein. 40. Vgl. Beetz (2002) 195. 41. ... τὴν προβοσκίδα τῶν χιτωνίων ἐντὸς ὥσπερ χεῖρα παραβαλὼν ἀτρέμα τῆς περὶ τὸ στῆθος ὥρας ἔψαυεν (mor. 972E). 42. ... καὶ τοῦ σώματος ὑποδυόμενος ἐν χρῷ καὶ περιπλεκόμενος οὐδὲν οὔθ’ ἑκὼν οὔτ’ἄκων ἔβλαψεν (mor. 972E). 43. Zwei weitere Geschichten über eine Gans, die einen Knaben liebt, und einen Schafbock, der die Harfespielerin Glauke begehrt (mor. 972F), erwähnt Aristotimus nur dem Titel nach, da sie allgemein bekannt seien. 44. Aristot. part. An. IV, 10 ; 687a7. Vgl. dazu Dierauer (1997) 24–27. 45. Vgl. Dierauer (1997) 6. 46. Dieselbe Geschichte findet sich auch bei Aelian NA 1,38, dort allerdings um zu belegen, dass Elefanten alle Arten von Parfüm, Salben und Blumen lieben. Ähnlich auch in NA 7,43. 47. Vgl. dazu Hindermann (2011). 48. Vgl. Plin. nat. 10,171–172; 7,38. 49. Elefanten z.B. begehen gemäss Plinius (nat. 8,1; 8,12–13) keinen Ehebruch, haben nur im Verborgenen alle zwei Jahre Sex und reinigen sich danach im Fluss, bevor sie zur Herde zurückkehren. Vgl. dazu French (1994) 217–218. 50. Vgl. Fögen (2007) 57–61; Kullmann (1998) 135–136. 51. Hund, Widder, Gans, Dohle, Elefant, Delphin, Schlange, Robbe, Adler, Hahn, Biene. 52. NA 1,6; 12,37; 5,29. 53. ... ὁ μοιχὸς ἐν τῇ δίκῃ κύων εἶναι ἐλέγετο ... παρθένοις ἐπιμανῆναι καὶ μέντοι καὶ βιάσασθαι (NA 7,19). Ebenso NA 15,14 über Affen, die umgebracht werden, weil sie mit Frauen Ehebruch begehen. 54. NA 8,11; 6,17; ähnlich auch in NA 12,39. 55. Inzesttabu: NA 3,47; 4,7; vgl. dazu auch Aristot. hist. an. 8,47,630b–631a; Nächstenliebe: NA 1,4; 3,23; 5,6; 7,10; Selbstmord aus Scham: NA 3,42.47; 4,7. Tiere werden bei Aelian oftmals als bessere Menschen dargestellt, vgl. dazu Hübner (1984) 161–163. 56. ... ὁ καὶ τοῦ Διὸς ἄρχων αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν θεῶν τῶν ἄλλων οὐδὲ τῶν ἀλόγων ὑπερορᾷ (NA 6,17). Ebenso auch NA 1,12. 57. Anthia und Habrokomes bei Xenophon (1,3,1–2); Chariklea und Theagenes bei Heliodor (3,5,4–6); Chaireas und Kallirhoe bei Chariton (1,1,5–7); Leukippe und Kleitophon bei Achilles Tatius (1,4,2–5). Vgl. dazu auch Hübner (1984) 167, der auf die „beinahe monotheistische Omnipräsenz des Eros“ im griechischen Roman verweist. 58. Ἦν δὲ ἄρα ἴδιον ζῴων καὶ ἐρασθῆναι μὴ μόνον τοῦ συννόμου τε ἅμα καὶ συμφυοῦς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ προσήκοντος ἥκιστα, ὡραίου μέντοι (NA 8,11). NA 4,56 bietet die Gegenthese: Ein Seehund schläft mit einem äusserst hässlichen Mann und hält ihn für den schönsten aller Menschen. Aelian erklärt dies damit, dass auch Menschen oft hässliche Menschen lieben. 59. Franco (2008) 66–67. 60. In der Loeb-Ausgabe (Ramsay 1990) wird diese Passage in der englischen Übersetzung zensuriert. 61. Vgl. z.B. Mart. 3,81; 4,43; 11,61.
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62. Petron. 137. 63. Im Onos sucht der Protagonist Lukios ganz am Schluss des Romans, wieder in einen Menschen zurückverwandelt, die matrona auf, wird von ihr aber verspottet und weggeschickt, nachdem sie entdeckt, dass sein Penis nun menschliche, und nicht mehr tierische Grösse aufweist. 64. Apul. met. 10,19,4; 10,22,5. 65. nec ullam vaesanae libidini medelam capiens ad instar asinariae Pasiphaae complexus meos ardenter expectabat (Apul. met. 10,19,3). 66. Vgl. dazu Hindermann (2009) 16–20. 67. Vgl. dazu Camilloni (1986); zu den bukolischen Elementen in der 6. Ekloge Elder (1999) 396– 398. 68. Zu dieser für eine verheiratete Frau und Mutter ungewöhnlichen Bezeichnung siehe Armstrong (2006) 172; Coleman (1977) 189–190. 69. Vgl. dazu Frécaut (1982); zum Vergleich mit Vergil siehe Hollis (1977) 93–96; Armstrong (2006) 169–186; Wildberger (1998) 90–95. 70. Vgl. dazu Reckford (1974) 320; Hollis (1977) 93. 71. Vgl. dazu auch Prop. 3,19. Zum didaktischen Wert der Erzählungen: Wildberger (1998) 89– 102. 72. In met. 6,29,4–5 wird Lucius bereits mit dem für Europa in einen Stier verwandelten Jupiter verglichen. 73. Fögen (2007) 39 mit Verweis auf Belegstellen und weiterführende Literatur. 74. Ov. ars 2,703–706. 75. Ov. am. 1,2,35–36; 2,19,17; 3,11a,31–32; ars 2,723–724. 76. Εἶτά με καὶ ἐφίλησεν καὶ οἷα πρὸς αὐτῆς ἐρώμενον καὶ ἄνθρωπον διελέγετο (Onos 51). 77. Ähnlich auch Ov. ars 3,523–524; am. 3,7,11–12. 78. Ov. ars 3,795–796. 79. Ov. ars 2,689; am. 3,14,25; 1,4,65–66. Ebenso Mart. 10,68; 11,29,3; 11,60,7–8; 11,104,11; Juv. 6,194–197. 80. molles interdum voculas et adsidua savia et dulces gannitus … iterabat illa et in summa „teneo te“, inquit, „teneo, meum palumbulum, meum passerem“ (met. 10,22,2–3). 81. Catull. 2; 3; Mart. 7,14 (vgl. auch 1,7 und 11,6); siehe dazu Gourevitch (1983) 123–124. 82. Z.B. met. 10,22,1: tam lucida tamque tenera et lacte ac melle confecta membra ... tam vastum genitale; 10,22,4: artissime namque complexa totum me prorsus, sed totum recepit. 83. Vgl. dazu Zimmerman (2000) 26. 84. Vgl. dazu Hindermann (2009b). 85. Siehe z.B. Zimmerman (2000) 265 im Kommentar zum zehnten Buch von Apuleius’ Metamorphosen: „Except for this passage and the corresponding passage in the Onos, the only stories in ancient literature that mention sexual acts between humans and animals are mythological ... This makes it all the more remarkable that there are illustrations on lamps ... of a woman coupling with an ass.“
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RÉSUMÉS
Die Bedeutung von Zoophilie in der antiken Literatur wurde bislang – mit Ausnahme des Mythos – kaum untersucht. Überblickt man die überlieferten literarischen Texte, fällt auf, dass Zoophilie ausserhalb des Mythos vor allem in zwei literarischen Gattungen auftritt : Einerseits in den zoologischen Schriften von Plutarch, Plinius dem Älteren und Aelian, andererseits im antiken Roman, d.h. in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius und im pseudo-lukianischen Onos. In diesem Beitrag soll untersucht werden, welche Funktion Zoophilie in den beiden literarischen Gattungen hat und wie die Autoren die sexuelle Praktik bewerten, die weder nach griechischem noch römischen Recht strafbar war. Da Vorstellungen über Tiere eng mit Gender und Geschlechterhierarchien verbunden sind, soll insbesondere die Frage berücksichtigt werden, inwiefern männliche und weibliche Verhaltens- und Rollenzuschreibungen bei der Darstellung zoophiler Akte wirksam werden.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Aelian, Apuleius, Liebe, Plinius der Ältere, Plutarch, Roman, Sex, Tier, Zoologie, Zoophilie
AUTEUR
JUDITH HINDERMANN Universität Basel [email protected]
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Divided Voices and Imperial identity in Propertius 4.1 and Derrida, Monolingualism of the Other and Politics of Friendship*
Michèle Lowrie
Je est un autre. Arthur Rimbaud
This film is comfortable with otherness so long as it is not really other. Karen Mirza and Brad Butler1
1 When Horos objects to Propertius’ proposal to engage in a more civic-minded poetry in poem 4.1, it is not clear who he is, what right he has to speak, whether he is friendly or hostile, and what, if any, relation he has to the figure of the poet who speaks in the poem’s first half.2 Furthermore, he is in many respects unreliable, so that it is unclear how much weight his objections actually or should carry. He nevertheless contributes, along with the speaking poet ‘Propertius,’ to the definition of Propertius as the poem’s implied author. The relation of these two voices could be interpreted in any number of ways depending on their speech situation : whether Horos and Propertius are to represent two distinct persons or one person speaking to an imaginary interlocutor ; whether actually uttered or an interior dialogue ; whether dialogically interactive or statically juxtaposed monologues ; whether each voice represents contradictory desires of the implied author or one or both correspond to external impulses or constraints.3 The possibilities are dizzying and the lack of a frame that could provide some resolution means the two voices do not add up to a unity. The conflict between them rather enacts a competition – in form and content – over the program of book four staged in terms of the identity of Propertius, who he is, where he comes from, and what kind of poetry he wants to write.4 The struggle over who Propertius is and what he should write operates as a paradigm for Roman identity beyond his own.
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I. Subject/self/identity/empire
2 Neither the speaking poet nor Horos corresponds fully to the reader’s preconceptions of Propertius as garnered from the previous books, but each bears some relation to him. My working hypothesis is that the voice that opens the poem represents the subject position against which the second voice protests and that it is the second voice’s job to aid in the definition of the first.5 It is the second voice, for instance, that identifies the first by name (‘Properti,’ 4.1.71) and only subsequently identifies itself (‘Horon,’ 78). The first voice does not need to name itself because it is the speaking subject : it simply speaks. Although Horos also speaks in the first person, his speech is responsive, so that he occupies the slot of the second person with respect to the first. The second person is the one who can and indeed is expected to speak back, but his point of view is presented as filtered through the first speaker. There is, however, a larger self at the level of the implied author that is defined through the interaction of first and second persons in this poem. By self, I mean the outward projection a particular subject makes of his or her sense of being a whole person with a unique set of experiences and other identity traits, however much these traits may conflict and however illusory or constructed this sense of wholeness may be.6
3 Since what the speaking voice first says entails a description of the heart of maxima Roma in terms of its legendary past, the identity to be defined in the poem at first appears to be that of Rome rather than that of the speaker, whom we only take to be a person engaged in a dynamic speech situation rather than an impersonal narrator because of the address in the first line to a second-person hospes. A first-person verb must wait fifty-six lines (coner, I would try, 4.1.57), until after a meaty chunk of Roman lore. The speaker’s identity is not presented in psychosexual terms – this comes later in Horos’ voice – but rather through the cultural and political interrelation predominantly of Umbria and Rome, but also of Greece and Troy. I therefore propose to read this poem through a lens that foregrounds identity at the national level, that is, in relation to Rome as ‘an imaginary community with a supposedly shared imaginary.’7
4 There are both formal and substantive reasons to consider what Jacques Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other and his Politics of Friendship can bring to our understanding of what and how a figure of an other contributes to the definition of the self in Propertius. The analogies between these texts will help clarify the operations within both, and the points of departure will similarly help establish differences between ancient and modern approaches.8 Formally, both include quoted oppositionalist voices within their texts. Monoligualism opens in ‘Derrida’s’ voice with a paradox, ‘I have only one language ; it is not mine’ – French is the colonial language in Algeria, where he was born, so Derrida does not speak what would otherwise be his native language. He is furthermore working within a French tradition : Rimbaud’s famous je est un autre, cited as epigraph above, is the model for finding the other within the self or externalizing the self into an other. Monolingualism’s opening sentence turns the self into an other, since the speaking subject avows a monolingualism attributed to the other of the work’s title. ‘Derrida’ is immediately interrupted by an internal interlocutor who voices objections, dismisses the paradox as nonsense, and calls the ostensibly authorial voice incoherent and even reaches to another language, English, for the word ‘inconsistent’.9 This speaker has more than one language, a fact that reveals from the beginning the
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multilingual competence of the author. Derrida also uses internal voices at various places in Politics. Propertius’ Horos not only provides a similarly oppositionalist voice, he also uses similar language when he calls the newly aetiological poet uagus (‘inconsistent’) and imprudens (‘lacking in judgment’). A further parallel is that the oppositionalist voice reveals biographical information about the author. Instead of linguistic competence, Horos emphasizes other markers of Propertius’ identity, namely that he was from Assisi, the early loss of his father and wealth, and the decision to pursue poetry rather than oratory as a career (4.1.124-34).
5 Substantively, each is asking how to define oneself and relate to others in a world where one’s identity is in different respects given and chosen, constructed from within, from without, and in relation, where who one is and the people one relates to are simultaneously conditions for and conditioned by different kinds of politics. In Monolingualism Derrida presents himself as a francophone Jew from the Maghreb who lost his citizenship under the Vichy regime of Maréchal Pétain, which summarily removed citizenship from Algerian Jews without their having any alternative citizenship. Although eventually restored, its removal put him temporarily in a position common in antiquity : not having any citizenship whatsoever. Increasingly common in modernity is having some citizenship that does not answer to the particular configuration of power in which one finds oneself.10 Politics, more philosophical and less autobiographic, asks about the history of thinking about the friend, an other who can enfold the foe, as a condition for politics. The figure of the hospes, who mediates between friend and foe in Monolingualism and is addressed in the first line of poem 4.1, will let us think about the politics of friendship where an other of indeterminate citizen status aids in defining the self.
6 Propertius presents himself as similarly multilayered : he is simultaneously Umbrian and Roman (Vmbria Romani patria Callimachi, 4.1.64).11 While Umbria had been Roman for several centuries already and was one of eleven administrative regions into which Augustus divided Italy, Propertius’ previous mention of his native regime in poem 1.22 specifies that Umbrian Perusia was known for being the locus of civil war, so that he too had experienced the land where he grew up in terms of military disturbances that made his allegiance to some larger state entity fraught. Furthermore, the citizenship status and national identity of Horos, Propertius’ alter ego, are unclear. Both Derrida and Propertius engage with political worlds where expanding states exercise power beyond their own boundaries and over people who are not or at least were not originally their own citizens. Each to that extent raises the larger question not just of what it means in their own cases to be Umbrian or Roman, Maghrebian, Algerian, or French, but more generally what it means to be whoever one is specifically under conditions of empire. Their multiple identities respond particularly to a variety of overlapping and conflicting configurations of power, but also present their own condition as paradigmatic (section V below).
7 Many categories can be used to define ‘national’ identity : ethnicity, territory, religion, and everything that falls under culture, e.g., language, lifestyle, values, degree of urbanization, the role of education in society, and so on. Many also serve to define ‘personal’ identity : e.g., gender, sexuality, race, class, level of education, citizenship or its lack, in addition to all the categories that make up national identity.12 These lists are hardly exhaustive. Features that might at first look as though they belong to one category, such as place names, can serve as shorthand for clusters of overlapping
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features that help shape identity in several different respects. Categories of identity function both on the level of content, i.e., that Cicero presents himself as a ‘new man’ with a double identity as a citizen both of Arpinum and of Rome, and on the level of style. His oratorical style indicates his level of education, intellectual allegiances, taste, and so on. I will focus as much on the formal processes of signification (style, narratological choices) as on the signified (content, ideology) with an eye to their interrelation.13
8 Empires ancient and modern alike bring together people and peoples with different identity configurations and their contact has influence, with the result that both national and personal identities can have many layers. Although such mixing is not exclusive to empire – migration and trade similarly bring different peoples into contact – multiple or divided identities are endemic to imperial conditions.14 The complex hierarchies and relations within any individual identity’s various components attest to conflicting currents of power at different levels.15 For the purposes of this paper, I bracket the differences between the material and political conditions of the Roman empire and the colonial and post-colonial empires of modernity to explore a technique, the divided voice, shared by writers within each.16
9 By divided voice, I mean that the speaking voices of Propertius and Horos, of Derrida and his imagined interlocutors, all belong to the implied author of their respective texts, whose own voice encompasses the two (or more).17 Although ‘Propertius’ and ‘Derrida’ are speaking subjects within the texts and whose identity the texts explore, the implied authors Propertius and Derrida project more complex images of themselves by setting figures of their own subjectivity, represented by their speaking subjects, into relation with figures of the other. The presentation of Horos as non-Roman and specifically as Eastern makes him into a figure for the ‘other,’ namely a figure whose job it is to lend definition to the subject. The category of otherness, by virtue of its semantics, is only ever relational to some perceived center, whether the speaking subject in the case of subjectivity or Rome in political terms. The other can never be understood on its own terms because that is not the category’s job. If the other were ever ‘really other,’ as in the Mirza and Butler quotation cited in the epigraph above, it would become a subject on its own, which would contradict its function as the category that allows self-definition through difference and appropriation. This is the paradox pursued by Derrida, who situates himself both as a speaking subject and as an alienated other with respect to France.
10 The interaction between two figures at the same narratological level (speaking subject, oppositional others) aids in the definition of self for both Propertius and Derrida at the level of the implied author. This technique is a means for giving expression to some of the different aspects of personal identity, particularly those aspects against which their subjectivity resists, and provides an icon of internal division within the self. Although all subjectivity is divided in that the subject position requires a second person to define it, in both Propertius and Derrida, the multiplicity of voices speaking to one another additionally brings alternative national identities into interaction with one another. The structure of political identity here maps onto that of psychological subjectivity. Each author negotiates an identity within an imperial context where they occupy in different respects the position of both dominator and dominated.
11 Much of our thought about Rome and identity has been shaped by its contact with the East and the understanding of this relation in the past decade or so has revolved
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around competing notions of openness and inclusion on the one hand, appropriation and domination on the other.18 I start from the premise that ‘East’ for Rome is not only a relational geographic category, but stands for the other from the perspective of an imperial system where inclusion and domination are not incompatible, but friendly and forceful sides respectively of the structuring of plurality through power.19 I also assume that Roman identity is not a stable, univocal category, but that it has been multiple as far back as we can trace its development and is understood to be and to have been so during the Augustan age.20 If Roman identity is plural already within itself and in its relations with its Italian neighbors, then the question becomes what further role the eastern other plays in defining Rome.
12 The relation of national to personal identity involves a negotiation between the general and the particular, the normative and the singular to begin with. The complexity is magnified when the general, as in the case of Rome as well as modern empires, already entails multiplicity.21 The challenge of reconstructing ‘the human experience of imperialism’ pertains to both conquered and conqueror, and Propertius and Derrida identify in different respects and at different times with both sides.22 Propertius aligns with the dominated in his self-presentation as Umbrian, but with the dominator over against his eastern interlocutor Horos. Derrida aligns with the dominated as an Algerian Jew, but with the dominator as a speaker of French. The subordinate voices within the texts, Horos or Derrida’s various oppositionalist voices, replay the problematic by trying to dictate to the speaking subject and set the conditions for his speech. Dominator and dominated are positions to be occupied rather than permanent states of being and the various voices in these texts struggle to obtain advantage for themselves.
II. Identity en abyme
13 The construction of identity in both Propertius 4.1 and in Monolingualism turns not merely on an interrelation between voices at the same narratological level, but on reflection, refraction, and inversion between levels (mise en abyme) – again both formally and substantively. If identity is produced dialogically in relation to some other, difference does not merely strengthen the self, but challenges it to recognize the other within.
14 Derrida and Propertius alike quote others within their own notional voices to disrupt presuppositions of a single identity. Beyond the oppositionalist voice that alternates with his own through most of the book, ‘Derrida’ also quotes a hypothetical internal interlocutor, who, like Horos, is argumentative (4-5). But he furthermore gives quotations from the book of a friend and colleague, Abdelkebir Khatibi, a linguist and also Franco-Maghrebian (7-8). Derrida imagines a conversation between himself and Khatibi in which he outlines his own unusual situation of being both Maghrebian and a French citizen by birth (12-13). Propertius’ internal voices are prophetic. ‘Propertius’ quotes Cassandra who tells the Greeks their victory will be in vain (4.1.53-4), and his Horos even engages in self-quotation of his own effective prayer to the gods (101). If lines 135-46 are the speech of Apollo, the god of prophecy and poetic programs alike, the most conventional elegiac program is a citation within a citation.23
15 Furthermore, there is a textual problem at lines 87-8 that, as so often, exemplifies the interpretive stakes, here, the identity of the speakers. It is not clear who speaks the
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lines that proclaim a first person prophetic authority (dicam, canam 4.1.87-8). Although the manuscript tradition ascribes them to Horos, many editors move them to the section of the poem voiced by ‘Propertius.’24 If they go after line 52, the first person proclamation dicam will belong not to ‘Propertius,’ but the internally quoted prophet Cassandra – a further level of internal quotation. The lines’ sitting ill in their transmitted context raises a question of subjectivity : it is not at all clear who is speaking. We return below to their content, the announcement that Troy will fall and a Trojan Rome will rise again (4.1. 87). Propertius goes formally beyond Derrida in making the voice of the other, that of Horos, the one to define Propertius according to criteria familiar from books 1-3, while his own voice announces a project at variance with himself as we know him. The familiar is externalized.
16 Within the various narratological levels, the categories of identity are neither univocal nor static and their dynamism interacts with that of the other levels. If the subjectivity of the speaker Propertius is constituted in relation with Horos, this does not mean that either ‘Propertius’ or Horos has a single or set identity when taken on his own. The passage in which ‘Propertius’ announces his newly patriotic poetry (hoc patriae seruiet omne meae, ‘all this will serve my country,’ 4.1.60) entails a poetic avowal of identity : he is, or will be, a Romanus Callimachus (64). Taken out of context (63-4), we could understand the phrase merely as a statement about the transfer of a poetic vision from Greece to Rome. But the Greek/Roman alignment matches another closer to home, Rome/Umbria. Both interrelations entail a Rome that has grown to encompass its neighbors further and further afield. ut nostris tumefacta superbiat Vmbria libris, Vmbria Romani patria Callimachi ! (4.1.63-4) May Umbria proudly boast of my books, Umbria, the fatherland of the Roman Callimachus.
17 Here is the notion of two patriae familiar from Cicero.25 In a poem where everyone is to some extent a foreigner, the repetition of Umbria highlights the different levels and respects in which identity can operate : Rome is national ; Umbria is Italian and local ; Callimachus is a cultural indicator by virtue of being Greek. These aspects all together add up to a multivalent identity that operates within the expansive context of empire, in which elements of a different order jumble together.
18 It is not only the identity of ‘Propertius’ that is multivalent. I have assumed so far that Horos can be identified as eastern, but to pin down where he is actually from is difficult.26 As an astrologer, his name evokes the Greek hora and horoscope. But there are also overtones of the Egyptian Horos, the god of the sky.27 He uses birth as a legitimating category and proclaims that Babylonian Orops is his father, that Orops is descended from Archytas, and that his house derives from Conon (77-9). This makes us wonder whether he is Babylonian or Greek and whether such a distinction would be meaningful. During this period Babylon was part of the Parthian empire and so much more not Roman than merely Greek would be. There was additionally an Egyptian Babylon, thought to be a locus for star science,28 so even Babylon turns out not to be single. The poem furthermore does not disambiguate between a personal and a professional genealogy. Whatever Horos’ identity as a speaker, the discourse of astrology has non-Roman associations. He emerges as generally eastern in many respects rather than having a well-defined specific identity.
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19 Propertius’ story about Roman origins, moreover, also has strong non-Roman, eastern associations, so that the ‘other’ is found within also for national identity – the interplay internal to subjectivity is reflected or refracted in the collective.29 Contradiction and ambivalence about foreign origins, however, mean that the poem does not fully embrace the alien within the Roman. The beginning of the poem, when Propertius stages a panoramic view of Rome’s center for a visitor he addresses (hospes, 4.1.1), intertwines the difference between Rome’s rustic origins and contemporary splendor with the progressive integration of non-native elements. The contrast between contemporary golden temples and formerly earthen gods (5) intimates the conventional topos of decline, encoded by an emphasis on previous smallness (1-2, 14, 34), poverty (21-2), or both (10-12), that are valorized. Many details of origin are originally from elsewhere. Aeneas is Phrygian (2), Evander a refugee – at least his cows are (profugae … boues, 4), the Tiber is a foreigner (aduena, 8). The house of Romulus is mentioned under Remus’ name (9). We cannot gloss over this anomaly by making an easy equation between the two.30 Fratricide in this period stands for civil war, which in turn indicates internal division. While the speaker seems to welcome some foreign elements, as in the affirmation of Troy’s sending the Penates (39), the statement that ‘there was no care to seek external gods’ (nulla cura fuit externos quaerere diuos, 17) rubs against the characterization of the same Penates as welcome refugees (profugos). It would be a stretch to emphasize that Romans may not have sought foreign gods, instead they just came of their own volition – the nativist prejudice combines with a contrast between then and now with the implication that things have taken a turn for the worse.
20 Propertius’ strategy resembles in some respects Vergil’s in the Aeneid, where elements we assume are native turn out to come from elsewhere, but the poems set integration in relation to continued alienation in different ways.31 Where Evander gives Aeneas a proper tour at the story level in Aeneid 8, Propertius turns the tourist figure into one of address. This feature is not only generically appropriate to elegy, but also highlights the interrelation between subject positions. His addressee is more a notional visitor than Aeneas, who goes on an actual walking tour. This poem moves in its description faster from the Palatine to the Capitoline, to the Forum in between, and the Tiber beyond than one could walk, so that levels of story and narration are at odds. The poem quickly passes beyond the monuments, which are subject to actual viewing, toward a mental picture of ancient institutions such as the Parilia (19) and the division into tribes (31) and delves into Rome’s Trojan origins (39-44, 51-4). The addressee of the first line is left behind and Propertius closes his section of the poem with an enthusiastic embrace of a new poetic vision for himself as a poet who can tell us the aetological stories that serve an important function in national self-definition. This novel role alters Propertius’ definition of what kind of poet he is and consequently of his identity. His account, however, differs significantly from Vergil’s not only in the form of the tour, but in the message. Where the epic poet sets a strong break between Troy and Rome through the annihilation of Trojan culture (occidit, occideritque sinas cum nomine Troia, ‘Troy has fallen, let Troy fall along with her name,’ Aen. 12.828), the elegist makes Rome Trojan (Troia cades, et Troica Roma resurges, ‘Troy, you will fall and you, Roman Troy, will rise again,’ 4.1.53-4). Vergil upends categories of ethnicity by blending into Rome manifold Italic and Mediterranean elements, but the break from Troy stands for success in establishing something recognizably Roman.32 What makes Rome Roman is
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not lineage, but shared values. It is not at all clear that Propertius’ Rome succeeds as well as Vergil’s in standing out from the mixture in terms of stable norms.
21 Furthermore, a textual problem is symptomatic of the poem’s ambivalence and confronts us with opposing attitudes : the affirmation of a symbolic identity over one determined by descent or a lamentable decline from an original bloodline. At line 37, pudet allows for the former and putet for the latter : ‘nil patrium nisi nomen habet Romanus alumnus : / sanguinis altricem non pudet/putet esse lupam’ (the Roman son has nothing of his father but a name ; he is not ashamed/would not think a wolf is the nursemaid of his blood’, 37).33 The symbolic reading would make Rome reside in the name rather than in some essentializing identity. Son here is alumnus, a foster child rather than a naturally born son. We could recognize all Romans as foster children who, like Romulus, have been brought up by notional wolves. Nurture would surpass the bloodline so that identity would be determined by education, cultural choices and symbolic names rather than by breeding. But the better attested reading putet emphasizes the conventional notion of decline – the contemporary Roman has the mere name as opposed to the vibrant blood of his martial ancestors – as well as a lack of self-knowledge in a people who do not recognize their own origins. Whichever reading we choose, traces of the other remain and unsettle, so that the textual surface as transmitted raises questions of its own identity. As readers we must ask which is the native, which the intruder.
22 The wolf also allows for reflection between Roman identity outside the text and Propertius’ own. The slang word for prostitute, lupa (38, 55), accords well here with elegy’s self-identification with non-normative sexuality. In A Latin Lover in Ancient Rome, Ralph Johnson insists on the ‘possible ambiguities of his patriotism’ that are provided among other things by Propertius’ insistence on defining his identity through sexuality.34 But he also shows that rampant eroticism pervaded not just the demi- monde, but the powerful in this period.35 Antony may not have won, but Sulla certainly did. Both were playboys, as was Caesar, and Augustus’ record is less clean than he would have others be. As Propertius says, Venus herself brought Caesar his arms (46). Which Caesar hardly matters. And Horos reveals in this poem that the arms ‘Propertius’ bears are erotic (137). The larger point is that Propertius turns out to be representative rather than or maybe because of being oppositionalist. Non-normative sexuality inhabits Roman power just as eastern elements do. All of the ways Propertius presents himself as an outsider from the corridors of power reinscribe him further within a Roman identity that is already fractured.
23 The interplay between bearing arms against an enemy or wielded in a more friendly struggle brings us to the last element of textual reflection considered here and offer a transition to the next section on the friend/enemy distinction. The hospes offers a blank that invites projection. While we might be tempted to identify the person addressed in the first line with Horos and to align the two figures in the second person,36 there are no textual indications we are to do so. This figure is the abstract correlative to the cranky peculiarity of Horos – another instance of internal mirroring without direct correspondence. Even though he is not a strong character, the hospes contributes to the poem’s processes of identity formation by structuring the discourse as an address to another whose identity and origins are mysterious. He cannot be from Rome or he would not need the introduction to the city. He is a generic other without particularity, the one over against whom, over against the idea of whom, self-definition takes place.
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24 When faced with a stranger, we must first determine how to relate to this person, whether to welcome him with open arms or defend ourselves. Derrida cites Benveniste several times in Monolingualisme for an analysis of the links between ipse, hospes, hostis, and a variety of words denoting capacity (posse).37 This figure, guest or host (hospes), friend or enemy (hostis), is intimately linked to the self (ipse). Derrida uses the word when asking about the relationship between identity on the level of ‘monoculturalism or multiculturalism, nationality, citizenship, and, in general, belonging’ and identity on a different level ‘before the identity of the subject’ (i.e., the political subject), namely ‘ ipseity’, which he links to the originary power to say ‘I can’ (possum) even before the abstract capacity to say ‘I’ (14). His point is that identity establishes one’s place in the world as a power relation, particularly the ability to articulate one’s own power through language. This is what Propertius does when he presents his new personal and poetic identity as a Roman Callimachus, someone who can tell stories of origin in the search for national identity. His addressee the hospes seems open to this gambit, at least until Horos begins to speak.
III. The friend/enemy distinction
25 Horos says ‘no’ and punctures the balloon of the speaker ‘Propertius’ in his claim to power. He attempts to put the poet and his poetry back into a familiar and restricted box. Trying on his new poetic project will be painful and Horos threatens him with tears (73, 120). Propertius the author puts in another’s voice a self-censorship that reconfigures Horace’s ‘quo, Musa, tendis ? desine pervicax…’ (Where are you heading, Muse ? Stop headstrong… Odes 3.3.70). The lyrist pulls back when he was similarly embracing more political topics that share Rome’s Trojan origins as a theme.38 His address to his Muse externalizes an internal poetic conflict. By staging the opposition as human and foreign, Propertius enacts a political scene.
26 At this point we need to determine whether Horos is a friend or an enemy, and furthermore whether we can actually make this needed determination. The tenor of Propertius’ politics depends on the former question, the operation in the poem of the political as such on the latter. Derrida’s Politics of Friendship is devoted to the history of thinking about friendship as a foundational trope for politics and particularly to deconstructing the political theory of Carl Schmitt, whose thesis in The Concept of the Political is, ‘The specific political distinctions to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.’39 Schmitt’s involvement as the attorney general in the Nazi regime has made it imperative not only to counter his politics, but to give an answer also to his provocative and highly original thinking.40 Derrida calls into question whether the distinction between friend and enemy can hold up :41 ‘The body politic should, no doubt – but it never manages to – identify correctly the foreign body of the enemy outside itself.’ But the distinction between civil war and foreign war calls the ability to make this identification into question, so that in practice, it becomes impossible to decide purely and concretely who the enemy is. Without this knowledge, on which Schmitt insists, the political cannot exist according to his own definition.42
27 It is beyond the scope of this essay to analyze either Schmitt’s or Derrida’s political theory in depth. Suffice it to say in this reading of Propertius 4.1 that the introduction of political themes having to do with Rome’s foundation at the same time as a voice of a foreign opponent to the newly defined project enacts the political through conflict. To
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this extent the poem as a whole accords with the announced project : it fits through its structure the themes ‘Propertius’ introduces. If, however, it becomes impossible to determine whether Horos is a friend or an enemy, not only will the conflict between ‘Propertius’ and Horos replay a distinctive characteristic of civil war, but the inability to make this distinction will call the political as such into question. In this case, Horos’ objections would win out over the program enunciated by ‘Propertius.’
28 To examine the extent to which Horos operates as friend or enemy, let us first return to his partial overlap with the hospes addressed in line 1. Like the hospes, Horos does not seem to have any basic knowledge of Rome. In accord with his position as foreigner, the exemplum (4.1.109) he retails is not Roman : his telling the story of Calchas, unlike the link made by ‘Propertius’ between Troy and Rome (47-8), brings up the Trojan war entirely from a Greek perspective. But being non-Roman does not necessarily make him an enemy, and even if it did, the ambivalence over whether hospes means friend or enemy is replayed in Horos, but taken further. In addition to marking the second- person position, like the hospes, Horos not only speaks back, he intervenes. He is friendly in that he is in dialogue, inimical in that he interferes with a decision that should belong rightly to ‘Propertius.’
29 The determination of whether Horos is the enemy must be made before asking about his attempt to influence another’s decision. The question Derrida traces in Schmitt progresses from who the enemy is to a matter less of identity as such than of recognition. One simply passes from being-enemy to the recognition of the enemy – that is, to his identification, but to an identification which will carry me to my identification, finally, myself, with the other, with the enemy whom I identify. Previously, the sentence was : ‘I wonder, then who can finally be my enemy ?’ now it is : ‘Whom may I finally recognize as my enemy ?’ Derrida 2005 : 162 Horos’ status turns less on his identity in terms of content – foreign, eastern, or whatever – than on our ability to identify him in the sense of recognize him as occupying the position of the enemy. Derrida continues : Response : ‘Manifestly, he alone who can put me in question (der mich in Frage stellen kann). In so far as I recognize him as my enemy, I recognize that he can put me in question. This would seem to provide the needed criterion. Horos puts ‘Propertius’ into question by intervening both on his decision and on his self-definition ; therefore he is the enemy. But the problematic comes full circle. And who can effectively put me in question? Only myself. Or my brother. (162) … The enemy is oneself, I myself am my own enemy. (163) If Horos turns out to be the enemy, he also turns out to be Propertius’ self. I have operated from the beginning with the assumption that Horos is an internal voice controlled by the poem’s implied author, whose larger self is constructed through the interaction between ‘Propertius’ the speaker and Horos. But Derrida’s formulation makes it necessary to consider whether the two speakers are also intimately related.
30 Many verbal continuities between the two sections of the poem link ‘Propertius’ and Horos thematically and discursively. Both, for instance, apostrophize Troy (39, 114). In trying to establish his authority on the basis of predictions about otherwise unknown persons, Horos repeats the name Lupercus from the first section of the poem. Where Propertius links this name to the Fabii and the Lupercalia (26), i.e., to a national myth, Horos assigns it within the private sphere to an unknown individual, one of two sons whose death he predicted. Each turns the name toward the poetics he avows. The sons’
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names, however, end up replaying the difficulties of identity and recognition we have encountered throughout the poem. One has a very Roman name, but the other, called Gallus, could be either Roman or non-Roman. A number of possibilities come to mind. If he recalls Cornelius Gallus, he would be like Propertius in being an elegist, but we would then have to wonder about the success of his politics.43 If he is a Gaul, then he is a former enemy now subjected and colonized. If he is a castrated Gallus,44 priest of the Magna Mater, Horos emphasizes the frustrated psychosexual identity he associates with elegy and reimposes on ‘Propertius,’ always stuck on one girl who gets away (139-46). Each possibility involves some sort of check. Taken together, the possibilities interweave Roman imperialism, an elegiac figure who came to grief in the political realm while serving it, and castration, that is, precisely the territory of elegy turned toward exploring the interrelation of sexual and political identity under empire.
31 In addition to similarities found in the two sections of the poem, Horos is bound up with ‘Propertius’ in more intimate ways. He is the one who reveals biographical information about the poet never articulated as clearly elsewhere. There are contrasts, however, in their respective representations. ‘Propertius’ boldly approaches his new poetic project with a complex mixed identity (Vmbria Romani patria Callimachi, 64). His avowal of generic insufficiency (ei mihi, quod nostro est paruus in ore sonus !, alas for the smallness of my poetic voice, 58) could betray anxiety, but it could equally well emphasize his courage in pushing against limitations. Horos on the other hand restricts him : patria for him pertains exclusively to Umbria (122) and keeps him local. Horos also emphasizes the aspects of Propertius’ life that prevent him from becoming a fully enfranchised Roman : the early death of his father and diminution of wealth (127-8), the loss of his land (129-30), and his exclusion from the Forum (133-4), presumably consequent on the land loss. We can only wonder whether Apollo forbade Propertius access to the Forum as the god of poetry doing literature a favor – a divine sanction of his life choices – or whether as the patron god of the victory at Actium he indicates a political career cut short by historical circumstances, so that poetry emerges as second- best.45 Horos limits Propertius’ participation in public affairs through the substitute of the topsy-turvy militia amoris and through his poetry (137-8). Unspoken is that he participates in the Augustan regime by accepting Maecenas as his patron. Unspoken also is whether this patronage resulted, like Horace’s Sabine estate, in a land grant that restored his status.
32 If Horos is an enemy, he is the enemy within. He turns the tables on his interlocutor ‘Propertius’ in fact by calling him hostis (enemy) twice, first in the militia amoris, where he ‘will be an enemy useful to Venus’ boys’ (Veneris pueris utilis hostis eris, 138),46 then stresses his vulnerability as an ‘unarmed enemy among armed men’ (armatis hostis inermis, 148). By contrast, the mention ‘Propertius’ makes of military affairs pertains to Rome : the soldier (miles, 27) goes back to a time before well-developed armor, but is still armed with pikes ; Rome has defensive walls and a citadel (arces, muros, 65-6). ‘Propertius’ seems unaware of Horos at all, much less as either friend or foe, except to the extent that he overlaps with the hospes ; rather it is Horos who brings the figure of the enemy into the poem and attaches it to the speaker. Inasmuch as Horos voices important aspects of Propertius’ identity, ranging from his town of origin, to information about his socioeconomic status, sexuality, and poetics, he turns into an alter ego. But his opposition, both as his objection to the ego’s expressed desire and as
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his figuration of him as a hostis, may rather make him an alterum id.47 Let us accept this notion provisionally – its limitations are shown below.
33 Derrida raises questions about subjectivity in relation to the unconscious precisely with regard to decision-making, the area where Horos intervenes. Undoubtedly the subjectivity of a subject, already, never decides anything: its identity in itself and its calculable permanence make every decision an accident which leaves the subject unchanged and indifferent. A theory of the subject is incapable of accounting for the slightest decision. (Derrida 2005 : 68 ; his emphasis) He challenges, on the one hand, the ‘classic, free, and wilful subject’ and the ‘classic concept of decision, which must interrupt and mark an absolute beginning,’ and, on the other, the ‘passive’ decision taken without freedom. The former implies an agency he suspects, while the latter can hardly be understood to be a decision. He concludes : ‘In sum, a decision is unconscious’ (69 ; his emphasis). His target is Schmitt’s decisionism, where one of the main issues to be decided is who the enemy is, but his scope encompasses the relation of the psychological to the political and to that extent reveals the problem Propertius faces. He cannot from his own subjectivity make a decision about changing the course of his poetics, because the decision cannot be made from the subject position. The decision he announces does not correspond to his identity. It requires the alien within to articulate this identity, to reaffirm the psychosexual elegist he has always hitherto been, to make the decision for him or at least prevent him from making a decision counter to who he is. But if we are tempted to align Horos with Propertius’ authentic desires, who limits whom will be the topic of the next section.
34 Derrida’s keen sense of classical form leads him to reproduce some of the same techniques found in Propertius 4.1. The dialogism in Monolingualism, where his own biography is foregrounded, maintains a clear subject position that aligns with himself as author. In Politics, however, he enfolds a dialogue between two friends – ‘dear friend’ (149) is spoken by both interlocutors – where both voices ask questions that have been troubling Derrida throughout the work and it is not clear whether one, either, or both align with the author. The internal speakers collaborate with one another. Furthermore, he also makes Schmitt speak (157), so that he is represented as answering objections put to him by Derrida he had not anticipated himself. ‘Schmitt’ plays the role of the enemy within. The two passages correspond in form to different philosophical visions, one of politics enacted through friendship, the other of politics enacted through the friend/enemy distinction.48 The two passages in content bring up the absence of woman in both sorts of accounts : the sister does not play a role analogous to that of the brother in the philosophical tradition that makes friendship a basis for politics and ‘Schmitt’ elides sexual difference to claim that ‘the subject of the political is genderless.’ Like Horos, who reminds ‘Propertius’ of his subservience to his puella, Derrida reminds us of an important category of identity. The political once again entails an exclusion.
IV. ‘The museum of non participation’
35 To be excluded, however, does not mean to be totally absent from the game, but rather to participate through negation or under erasure. In Horos’ section of the poem, ‘Propertius’ is figured as a non-participant in a variety of respects. As mentioned above, he has lost his land and cannot speak in the Forum (134). In addition, Horos blocks his speaking of overtly nationalistic topics within his poetry (71-2). The traditional elegiac
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topic Horos does affirm, love poetry, also turns on exclusion : his girl escapes him and he himself spends nights on her doorstep, despite the gesture’s failure to persuade (145-6). The rhetoric of inability is a powerful way to call attention to and protest one’s condition whether in love or politics.49
36 Active non-participation characterizes intellectual life.50 Hannah Arendt, in a section of the Life of the Mind devoted to the relationship between thinking and doing (92-8), comments on the advantages of spectatorship over action : ‘only the spectator, never the actor, can know and understand whatever offers itself as a spectacle’ (92, her emphasis). She calls spectatorship ‘deliberate, active non-participation in life’s daily business’ (93). Although the writing of poetry creates in her categories a durable work and is to that extent part of the active life, it nevertheless falls short of action as the realm of the political.51 Active non-participation speaks to the double sense thinkers have that they lack the power to change the course of events, but that by translating what they observe into art or some form of expression, they can nevertheless perform the important social function of making history intelligible and also that of critique. If we accept the role of the intellectual as a viewer and commentator rather than an actor, the first half of poem 4.1 already satisfies the criterion. ‘Propertius’ makes no claim to engage in politics, only to aspire to represent it in his poetry. His poetry will serve the state (hoc patriae seruiet omne meae, 60) not through oratory or the military, conventional activities of service, but by presenting the history of Roman culture to others. He will not build walls or set up institutions, but arrange them in verse or song (disponere uersu, 57 ; canam, 69). This is his portion of the active life and his invitation to the hospes at the poem’s beginning presents his role as analogous to the tour guide, that is, someone who can explicate the spectacle, what he and his guest view (uides, 1).
37 By presenting himself as excluded, Propertius stages himself as an intellectual in a society that valorizes political participation. By articulating the various ways he is excluded from politics in the voice of another, however, Propertius goes beyond Arendt’s active non-participation to show that these exclusions were not entirely of his own choosing. Horos reveals that ‘Propertius,’ who is otherwise ready and willing to adopt the role of engaged non-participant, had only so much agency in his decision to become a poet. But Propertius makes an additional move by revealing information about himself in the voice of someone who is in turn subject to a variety of exclusions. Horos again reveals a darker side of Propertius’ self, but this gesture goes beyond Propertius’ own self-definition to ask more general questions about identity and authority in contemporary Rome. The intellectual may rank second to the politician, but can still wield cultural authority. The astrologer, however, sits lower on the totem pole and Horos is not a good one at that. Propertius consistently undermines his authority.
38 For Horos’ exclusions, we need first to look outside the text to consider astrology’s fraught relationship to authority in this period. On the one hand, important political figures made it respectable, mostly notably Augustus. Tamsyn Barton’s Ancient Astrology emphasizes astrology’s links to science in antiquity and generally tries to recuperate its respectability.52 On the other, astrologers were repeatedly thrown out of Rome, mostly recently by Agrippa in 33 BCE. The triumviral period is also the obvious candidate for when Propertius lost his property and his qualification for normative public life. The ambivalence between engaging in powerful discourses (poetry, astronomy) and dispossession is another element that links ‘Propertius’ with Horos.
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39 Within the text, however, Propertius gets his revenge on Horos by undermining his authority as a speaker, that is, he performs his own exclusion on the voice that attempts to limit him. Horos’ anxiety about his authority appears in his attempt to bolster it for a good 47 lines. He boasts certa feram certis auctoribus (‘I will bring sure information from sure authorities,’ 75). His rehearsal of his lineage means to back this vaunt up (77-8), an essentializing and reductive gesture. He cites his astrological knowledge (79-86) and predictions that came true (89-102). He critiques rivals’ ability – none other than the oracle of Ammon and the mythological Calchas (103-118). Horos is unreliable and his knowledge and predictions banal.53 While Horos presents ‘Propertius’ as excluded from speaking authoritatively in the Forum, Propertius turns the tables and undercuts him in turn. Both speakers end up with compromised authority, another intimate link between them.
40 Propertius’ treatment of Horos comments on Roman imperial identity pragmatically as well as in content. First the latter. Beyond the personal link, the ambivalence of dispossession of property and citizenship correspond to central features of Roman identity as represented in myth. Romans are notionally powerful and authoritative political players, but they also trace their lineage back to defeated Troy. Roman achievement comes in the wake of dispossession. Troy is not a univocal signifier and even in poem 4.1 the different voices have different perspectives. Nevertheless, Troy’s recurrence in the poem’s two parts, specifically in prophecies by seers, is one more verbal and conceptual link. Although both recognize Rome as the continuation of Troy, ‘Propertius’ celebrates the displaced victory, while Horos focalizes the Greek point of view. The Trojan Cassandra in the first part warns the Greeks that they are winning at a cost and that Troy will survive : male uincitis ! Ilia tellus uiuet (‘You win to no avail ! The Ilian land will live,’ 53-4). This is a message about resilience in the face of defeat. Horos uses the Greek Calchas more restrictively as a negative example (exemplum graue, 109) of the superiority of astrology over other kinds of prophecy, since the Greeks won over Troy at the price of not returning home ; Calchas should have been able to prevent the whole endeavor from starting. Troy is to dry her tears (113-14). The difference in attitude between the Roman ‘Propertius’, who offers a more celebratory message, and that of the eastern outsider, who acknowledges Roman supremacy without identifying with it, enacts an imperial perspective by putting both conquered and conqueror on display.54 Rome occupies both positions at different points.
41 If the Roman story is one of exile in defeat followed by successful empire, we could see Propertius’ story as typically Roman : his success as a poet follows an initial dispossession. But this would be to undervalue the generic function of the exclusions he shows himself to have undergone. In the elegiac trope, the poet’s failure at persuasion (146), at getting the girl, is exactly what makes him a good practitioner of the genre. That is, he is a good love poet not because of his success at love, but because of his failure. The same holds for political poetry. In Adorno’s analysis, the more lyric withdraws from politics, the more political it is.55 The same logic applies to elegy and poem 4.1 figures the political similarly to the way it figures love. Poetry succeeds in participating in the relevant sphere by representing the poet’s own failure to participate or at least participate fully. Desire rather than success structures elegiac discourse. To bring the erotic logic over to the political, it is not the declaration of ‘Propertius’ that makes him a political poet, but rather Horos’ interdiction.
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42 Let me attempt to stave off some possible oversimplifying interpretations. It would be tempting to apply Lacanian terms and see Horos’ interdiction as the Symbolic limiting the Imaginary.56 But we cannot simply align ‘Propertius’ with the Imaginary (the self the poet would like to project) over against Horos as the representative of the Symbolic (which imposes rules), because the voices reverse the alignment : the poetic stance ‘Propertius’ says he would adopt represents the more normative Symbolic, the kind of poetry Augustan poets present those in power as wanting, while the desires voiced by Horos, his psychosexual identity, correspond better to Propertius’ ordinary self- presentation. For similar reasons, ‘Propertius’ cannot align with the Freudian ego and Horos with the id. It is normally the ego which tries to limit the id, not the other way around. Nor can we apply in any straightforward way the categories of ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’ desires Bartsch uses for analyzing the structured self in Seneca, where the former are more instinctive and the latter are what a subject wants to want or thinks it should want, but that often conflict with the first-order desires.57 The absence of hierarchy between the voices makes it hard to pinpoint which of them represents what Propertius ‘really’ wants, even apart from Bartsch’s conclusion that second-order limitation rather than instinctual desire is what reveals character. It is not clear that the desire to participate in the public world is any more or less instinctual than psychosexual desires, or that the limitation either applies to the other is more top- down. A better Lacanian analysis would locate the irruption of the Real here in the struggle between the voices as they fail to go in the same direction and attempt to limit each other.58 More true to Bartsch’s overall analysis would be to underscore the mutual mirroring between the different manifestations of Propertius’ self.
43 If ‘Propertius’ recuperates success by his stance as an intellectual commentator on the political on one level, and Propertius furthermore aligns this engaged non- participation with the structure of the erotic, where poetic success depends on an erotic exclusion, what remains to be examined is whether the same logic can apply to the exclusions to which Horos is subjected in the poem. I would submit that the deauthorization of Horos holds the place of the non-recuperable exclusion in the politics of empire. Himself marginal, he attempts to disenfranchize ‘Propertius’ as well. To this extent, he allegorizes the forces of empire. Although it was hardly the Eastern foreigner who subjected the Roman upper classes to the position of impotence felt with the collapse of the Republic and represented in elegy, Horos intertwines two aspects of imperial expansion : contact with foreigners and the interdictions on political participation among the elite that resulted from the concentration of power in the single figure of the emperor.
44 Is Horos abject or comic ?59 He may show up all of the ways ‘Propertius’ comes short of being normatively Roman, the aspects that belong to Propertius but from which he would rather distance himself, and to that extent line up with the abject. But he also reveals basic truths about contemporary society exemplified by both Propertius and himself. After all, he defines ‘Propertius’ as he is already known to the reader, a position he might in fact find comfortable. His powerlessness turns out to have a certain power after all, and to that extent he performs a comic function, to reestablish and justify the status quo.
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V. The paradigmatic self
45 One of the ways Propertius 4.1 differs from many other Augustan explorations of Roman identity is that he works through the definition of a single person – however divided – on his way to a larger notion of what it means to be Roman as a collective. His particular identity is paradigmatic for a larger whole, not in conformity to a universal or in adhering to the norms of Romanness, but in the mechanics of its construction and in the way the particular relates to the collective. Rather than matching an image of ‘Joe Roman,’ Propertius shows himself as an individual with his own experiences engaged in a dynamic process of identity construction in relation to Roman norms and outsiders alike. This is how he reveals himself as Roman.
46 Vergil and Horace offer different models – these brief remarks mean to highlight what is special to Propertius 4.1. The multiplicity of people and peoples who are the forerunners to Rome in the Aeneid not only reveal the city’s heterogenous origins, but also express contemporary realities about the empire : to be Roman is less a question of ethnic descent than of shared culture. The treaty between Juno and Jupiter at the poem’s end sanctifies the foundation of a state through cultural markers (language, dress ; 12.825) and norms (uirtus, mores, religious practices ; 12.827, 836). No single person becomes emblematic of Roman identity in the Aeneid, which frames identity in national terms, via norms rather than through individual subjectivities.60
47 Although Horace uses a single figure, Cleopatra, in Odes 1.37 to explore through negation the norms (male, sane, virtuous) that define Roman identity, her actions and decisions are viewed from the outside rather than through a speaking subject.61 Horace’s Cleopatra works out Roman identity on the symbolic level. That she turns out to embody many Roman norms she initially flouts reveals not only the complexity of individual persons, but also chinks in the ideology. For a woman to commit a ‘Stoic suicide’ along the lines of Cato shows the weakness of the Roman masculinist bias. The poem’s speaking subject, however, in this poem fills a blank slot : the poet is a citizen without individualizing characteristics celebrating a national victory.62 Horace is concerned in a context of civil war with fractures in Roman ideology rather than with how an individual Roman might negotiate within it. To come up with a picture of his own identity as an imperial citizen requires deciphering a mosaic that spans poems, collections, and genres. No single poem provides a complete picture, which rather emerges from bits and pieces.
48 Poem 4.1 makes Propertius exemplary of Roman identity, despite the lack of alignment between his self-definition and normative Romanness, despite the failure of his life to be representative. Although ‘Propertius’ does not reveal much about himself, a remarkable amount of biographical information is divulged in the voice of Horos. Many of his experiences were common to the period, most specifically the land confiscations. Others are universal : the failure to win the object of desire. Some are particular and local : the early death of his father in Assisi. But the way in which Horos makes him an exemplum is specifically linked to his poetic vocation, where few could follow even if a mass of them would be interested in trying : scribat ut exemplo cetera turba tuo (‘so that the rest of the crowd could write according to your example,’ 136). The question is then how Propertius’ construction of identity goes beyond his narrow exemplarity as a poet to be paradigmatic for Roman identity as a whole.
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49 The structure Propertius sets out of a dialogic construction of identity through the deconstruction of difference can be generalized despite the singular peculiarities of any individual. That is, he can be paradigmatic for other singular individuals even when they do not share the same life experiences because the structure is the common element between them. Aristotle classifies the paradeigma (example) as a kind of induction (epagogê), which proceeds from part to whole, but differentiates it from induction proper in that it proceeds from part to another part (Prior Analytics 69a13-14). That is, the example operates as a singularity that reveals a third common element about another singularity. In the Rhetoric (1.2.19), he specifies that the paradeigma goes from part to part under a larger umbrella of the genos or kind. The singularity for poem 4.1 is the identity of Propertius ; the genos is the structure of subjectivity ; the other singularity would be any other Roman subjectivity.
50 Giorgio Agamben, who discusses the methodology of the paradeigma in Signatura rerum, takes Aristotle’s point about the relation of one singularity to another, but leaves Aristotle behind by pressing for a radical singularity.63 He finds it impossible to separate clearly in an example its paradigmatic status, namely, its truth value for all, from its being a singular case among others (22). The paradeigma does not subsume a singularity into an existing norm but rather produces its own norm through analogy. This general rule cannot be formulated a priori (24), with the result that a singularity taken as an example produces new knowledge performatively. Derrida warns in his essay on performativity, ‘Signature, Évenement, Contexte,’ that performative production cannot escape the citation of previous performatives, even if reenactment produces something new. This means that performatively produced new knowledge stands in relation to what is already known without being identical to it. Agamben stresses that every singularity relates to innumerable other singularities (31). The paradeigma mediates between a phenomenon and its image, between an origin and the already existing.64
51 Although Propertius does not reproduce the exact structure of identity construction through difference we see exemplified in other literary texts, his model can be paradigmatic because his singular identity, instantiated within the text, produces a new model through the example of himself. We can take both the identity Propertius constructs for himself and the poem in which he constructs it as paradigmatic. Propertius’ new model in poem 4.1 builds on the other models put forward by his contemporaries. His emphasis on the subjectivity of an individual with all his own peculiarities adds a new element to the then current debate about the structure of identity construction. It is not only his self that is paradigmatic to the Roman self in this period, but his poem that is paradigmatic for other poetry with similar concerns.
52 For a collective identity to have any validity, aspects of it need to be embodied in particular persons, even if no individual matches the totality. Derrida makes the move in chapter 4 of Monolingualism of turning himself into an example. He universalizes his unique experience and in the process reveals that the idea of himself that he has been presenting is a simplification (19). Let us sketch out a figure. It will have only a vague resemblance to myself and to the kind of autobiographical anamnesis that always appears like the thing to do when one exposes oneself in the space of relation. Let us understand “relation” in the sense of narration, the narration of the genealogical narrative, for example, but more generally as well…
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Derrida goes on to speak of both a poetics and a politics of relation. Besides relation as narrative, i.e., to relate a story, I think he additionally means relation in the sense of establishing relations between people, between different ways of belonging to some larger whole. We can say something similar of Propertius. The real Propertius is the one to whom the whole, complex, multivocal poem belongs and the simplified Propertius within it arises as an idea from the combination of the speaker ‘Propertius’ and the biographical information about him given by Horos.
53 Propertius’ singularity, however, should be distinguished from the unique. Every element which might differentiate him from some other singular person turns out to be shared : others were dispossessed, lost their fathers at an early age, lost relatives in civil war, came from Umbria, wrote poetry. The singular is one in a series ; the unique stands alone in its category. Derrida’s analysis of identity makes a stronger, more modern claim than poem 4.1 by adding uniqueness into his argument about the relation of the individual to the universal (20). What happens when someone resorts to describing an allegedly uncommon “situation,” mine, for example, by testifying to it in terms that go beyond it, in a language whose generality takes on a value that is in some way structural, universal, transcendental, or ontological? When anybody who happens by infers the following : “What holds for me, irreplaceably, also applies to all. Substitution is in progress ; it has already taken effect. Everyone can say the same thing for themselves and of themselves. It suffices to hear me ; I am the universal hostage.” … How does one determine this, an uncommon this whose uniqueness stems from testimony alone, from the fact that certain individuals in certain situations testify to the features of a structure nevertheless universal, revealing it, showing it, and allowing it to be read “more vividly,” more vividly as one says, and because, above all, one says it about an injury, more vividly and better than others, and sometimes alone in their category ? And what makes it more unbelievable is that they are alone in a genre which becomes in turn a universal example, thus interbreeding and accumulating the two logics, that of exemplarity and that of the host as hostage.
54 If we take these questions seriously, we also have to ask whether Propertius envisions the generalization of his own identity construction beyond contemporary historical circumstances, namely those of a citizen who experienced civil war at Rome in the transition to empire. That is, does he see the identity he constructs in a dialogic relation with Horos as emblematic of Roman imperial conditions or as universal ? My impression is that his generalization goes only so far and that if we want to make this interaction universal for psychoanalysis or our own globalized times, this is an operation we bring to bear on the text as readers. Derrida’s emphasis on the unique accords with a post-enlightenment conception of the person and his emphasis on the universal – as opposed to the merely paradigmatic for certain historical conditions – generalizes in a gesture common among late 20th c. theoretical approaches. My sense is that Latin literature of this period is concerned with its own sociopolitical circumstances rather than with the human condition as such, but the ability of the singular to intimate the universal means that we cannot shut down an attempt at generalization made at the point of reception.
55 We should further ask whether the other elements Derrida intertwines, the injury and the hostage, find equivalents in poem 4.1. Although the hostage shares a root with hospes, I would be hard pressed to say that Horos holds ‘Propertius’ hostage. Yes, he impinges on his poetic liberty, but he does not ask a ransom in return for release. Nor
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does Propertius hold hostage a fictitious character under his artistic control. With injury, however, we find greater correspondence. The loss of land was a significant diminution of status that corresponds to Derrida’s own loss of citizenship. Although the latter was a greater injury, it was temporary, while Propertius does not let us know he ever recovered his land – on balance a similarity. Furthermore, poem 4.1 ends with Horos prophesying harm, physical or metaphorical : whether ‘Propertius’ takes a sea journey, confronts an enemy unarmed, or the earth gapes beneath him, what he is really to fear is the sign of the Crab (147-50). Something bad is looming. Still, these vague threats by an astrologer it is hard to take seriously come short of Derrida’s gesture toward trauma theory. I will leave this opening for someone more oriented toward psychoanalytic readings to pursue.
VI. Conclusion
56 The ideological Roman is notionally masculine, brave, virtuous in public affairs as in his private life; his life emanates from a city at the center of its empire. But it is not only individuals who are exceptions to or resist the simplified norm. All the counter-terms also define the Roman, by negation or contrast, but also by inclusion. Although such internal contradictions inhabit identity defined under non-imperial circumstances as well, imperial conditions make frequent contact with other peoples under circumstances of inclusion, acculturation, domination, and appropriation fertile material for self-definition whether from the point of view of the dominant or dominated alike. The inclusion of ‘alien’ or ‘Eastern’ voices, the turn to the conditions of making art or speaking at all, and the exploration of social exclusion and artistic interdiction, are all ways of defining identity under imperial conditions. The relation between Derrida and Propertius is not allusive, but analogical. Both find their way to these techniques because of exposure to a world larger than their local identities, one in which power is felt as constraining whether they lie on the side of the conquerors or the conquered. By using an internal, alienating voice with Eastern overtones to express the version of his self that resists the norm, Propertius reaches beyond his own poetic self-definition to self-exemplarity : by dividing up his own voice, he defines the structure of being Roman under the Empire. What turns out to be universal is the inability of anyone to measure up to the imaginary whole, whose use is to provide a framework against which actual subjectivities differentiate themselves.
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NOTES
*. An earlier version of this paper was written for a conference on ‘Orientalismo romano,’ Roma, La Sapienza (November 2009). I thank Alessandro Schiesaro for organizing and all the
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participants for their feedback. The remarks on the norm and exemplarity at the end of the paper were informed by discussion with Susanne Lüdemann and Christiane Frey as we were organizing a conference on ‘Exemplarity/Singularity’ at the University of Konstanz (May 2011). Especial thanks are owed to the anonymous referees, both friendly and oppositionalist. To the latter, I offer this quotation as a gift: ‘Conclusion: if you want a friend, you must wage war on him, and in order to wage war, you must be capable of it, capable of having a “best enemy”,’ Derrida (2005) 282. 1. Their film, ‘The Exception and the Rule,’ was shown under the avant-garde rubric at the New York Film Festival (fall 2009; clip available http://www.mirza- butler.net/index.php?/project/ the-museum-of-non-participation/, accessed December 2010). Their larger project, ‘The Museum of Non Participation’ (Section IV is entitled with this phrase below), was conceived in 2007 while viewing the protests and state violence of the Pakistani lawyers movement from a window in the National Art Gallery. The film explores imperial identity through various formal techniques, including showing material from another artist figure, ‘Raj Kumar,’ whose work is identified as being on video while that of Mirza’s voice is on film. Unlike Propertius 4.1 and the voices explored below in Derrida, Raj Kumar’s voice or viewpoint aligns sympathetically with those of the filmmakers. 2. Some divide the poem in two, see Miller (2004) 186, Hutchinson (2006) 61. Since Horos’ speech answers that of ‘Propertius,’ the question is immaterial to my argument. 3. Newman (1997) 274: ‘is the poet not speaking all the time?’ 4. For the poem as combined ‘program poem’ and ‘ recusatio,’ see Richardson (1977) 414; DeBrohun (2003) 9-22; Syndikus (2010) 310 traces the history of reading the program as greater than the sum of the poem’s two parts and emphasizes the ironic dissolution of polarities. 5. ‘Subject,’ ‘subjectivity,’ ‘identity,’ and ‘self’ are contested categories that different approaches put in relation in different ways. I lay out my provisional assumptions to orient the reader, but do not mean these to be dogmatic. Syed (2005), for instance, locates the subjectivity that the Aeneid constructs in the reader. 6. In Miller’s (2004) 5 version of Lacan’s terms, the Imaginary. 7. Phrase from Alston and Spentzou (2011) 219. 8. I am sympathetic to the approaches to analyzing identity and the self outlined in Arweiler and Möller (2008) vii-xiii and Alston and Spentzou (2011) 1-26. They are skeptical about genealogy and applied theory, but rather pursue analogies between ancient and modern texts across disciplines. A dominant critical trend for analyzing elegy in recent years has been psychoanalytic, particularly with a Lacanian cast. E.g., Janan (2001), Miller (2004). Oliensis (2009) 3 and 60 comments on the appeal of Lacan’s semiotics and abstraction to Latinists. Alston and Spentzou (2011) set Lacanian terms into relation with Foucault. My turn to Derrida has much to do with the formal properties of the chosen texts and I hope this approach will supplement the more overtly psychoanalytic trend. Agamben (2008) 11-34 defends the analogical method, as do Alston and Spentzou (2011) passim but especially 1-26 and 225-30. 9. Derrida (1998) 2. 10. For statelessness and two classes of citizenship in modern democracies, see Brown (2010) 82, 87, 96. 11. DeBrohun (2003) 102-113 also underscores the association of Umbria with civil war. 12. Hall’s (2005) 262 comment that ethnicity is not an a priori container but a discursive construction is relevant for all categories of identity. National and personal identity are anachronistic categories, used here as shorthand without implication of exact overlap between nation and patria, between the personal and the subject position. 13. Lowrie (2008) considers the interrelation of form and ideology in Propertius 4.11. 14. For the reciprocal effects of contact between cultural groups, see Hall (2005) 264.
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15. Woolf (2001) 311 emphasizes the lack of homogeneity in ancient empires and the hitherto unprecedented scale of the Roman (313). Hall (2005) 264 shows the relevance of post-colonial theories of hybridity to the movements of population in the ancient Mediterranean, but also points out that peoples did not always encounter one another in contexts of suspicion, hostility, or subjugation (280). Wirth (2010) explores the metaphor of ‘grafting’ as a divergent cultural model for mixed identities in an attempt to get beyond the naturalization that can attend metaphors of hybridization. 16. For a basic overview of the Roman empire within a volume dedicated to a larger comparison of empires, see Woolf (2001), who at (1998) 26-7 explores the limits of similarities between Rome and the 19th and 20th c. colonial empires of the West. Hardt and Negri (2000) envision empire as a post-modern world order beyond the sovereignty of modern nation states. 17. Many understand Propertius’ identity as divided. Edwards (1996) 55-6 sees Proportius as conflicted, both Roman and Umbrian, who lost relatives in civil war. Janan (2001) 12-13 presents the ‘upheaval of Rome’s transformation from republic to empire’ as the context for ‘a social crisis characterized by the disintegration of an ideologically secure sense of self.’ Propertius 4 is a case in point because of the lack of a ‘common viewpoint’ or the ‘unifying voice’ of books 1-3; the book treats ‘not just an individual’s slippery prosopography, but a nation’s tenuous link to its defining foundations.’ Miller (2004) 186 criticizes the ‘desire to establish two self-consistent and freestanding speaking subjects’ and sees the poem as deconstructing ‘the oppositions between epic and elegy, between the Roman and the Callimachean, and between the poet’s Imaginary self- projection as an elegist and his interpolation by the Symbolic structures and institutions of the Augustan state’. 18. Woolf (1992) 348 defines a central problem in the study of imperialism as understanding both ‘the broad dynamics of expansion, exploitation and control’ and ‘the multiplicity of local experiences.’ The problem of modern scholarship replays problems the Romans themselves had in understanding their own role in the expansion of empire. Dench (2005) 21 speaks of the ‘double pull of “generosity” and violence in ancient accounts of the Roman conquest of Italy, and indeed, in Roman accounts of “imperialism” more generally.’ Toll (1997) 45-50 sees Vergil’s perspective in the Aeneid as one of an openness that corresponds to his own origins on the borders of an area that acquired Roman citizenship within his lifetime; she generalizes inclusion as an obligation of empire (52). 19. The classic work on orientalism is Said (1978). Although differences between imperial conditions call for care in using it for ancient Rome, Latin literature of the Augustan period studied here is certainly Eurocentric and the contact between Rome and the East that fueled literary interest was channeled through military expansion. I thank Grant Parker for sharing with me a paper in preparation that critiques Said’s orientalism from the perspective of its relevance to Rome. 20. Woolf (2001) 317 sees tension between the ideas of Rome as a melting pot and as an ‘ever- threatened unity.’ Dench (2005) 4 emphasizes Roman plurality and frames appropriation more neutrally as the ‘incorporation and transformation of other peoples and cultures’; the Augustans especially underscored Rome’s ethnically and socially accretive nature, an emphasis unparalleled in Mediterranean culture (254). 21. Dench (2005) 329 mentions Propertius’ interplay and tension between global and local perspectives through different speaking voices (poem 4.1 in n. 96). 22. Phrase from Wolf (1992) 350, who at (1998) 22 speaks of ‘the dilemmas of individuals caught in the middle’. Alston and Spentzou (2011) organize their discussion of Roman identity from the individual level out to the imperial; programmatic statement at 193. 23. Hutchinson (2006) 31 prints quotation marks; history of the idea in Hübner (2008) 356. DeBrohun (2003) 17 calls these lines ‘a short review of the topoi of love elegy.’
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24. Heyworth (2007) and Goold (1990) put them after line 52. They are bracketed in Barber (1960) and Hutchinson (2006). Richardson (1977) thinks they belong in a different poem. Butler and Barber (1933) list possible solutions. 25. Parallel in Edwards (1996) 55-6. 26. Miller (2009) 319-20: Horos is ‘oriental’ (in scare quotes) with ‘a ridiculous Greco-Babylonian- Egyptian pedigree’; he is an ‘ethnic Other.’ 27. DeBrohun (2003) 19-21, who underscores the multivalence of Horos’ name, also considers a possible derivation from the Greek horos (boundary), which fits with Horos’ attempt to keep Propertius within familiar poetic bounds. Hübner (2008) 352-4 thinks his name may be a pseudonym or nom de plume as was common among astrologers; the mixed identity of Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek is similarly professional rather than genealogical – in which case Horos is pure figuration. 28. Rochberg in Keyser (2008) 787: Teucros, who is later than Propertius, was presumably not operating in a vacuum. 29. Hutchinson (2006) 61 sees foreign religion and culture as a locus for the poem’s exploration of Roman change, with Rome’s Trojan origin complicating the picture. 30. The equation is made by Hutchinson (2006) ad loc., who claims that Remus can stand for both brothers or for Romulus, and Butler and Barber (1933), who locate the hut on the Palatine and explain the substitution by meter. Richardson (1977) does not object to the equation, but to the identification of the monument, which he thinks is more probably the temple of Quirinus. See Janan (2001) 135. 31. Syed (2005) 205-223, Reed (2010). 32. Toll (1991) 4 speaks of ‘fusion’; Syed (2005) 221-2 emphasizes inclusion and integration; Alston and Spentzou (2011) see Vergil’s vision as one ‘of a Rome and Italy unified by common values.’ Reed (2010) tilts more toward the instability of the categories: Roman identity emerges as imperial, precisely because ‘The “ideal Roman” is perpetually deferred’ (72). The interplay between integration and disintegration I see in Lowrie (2005a) provides more symbolic resolution than offered by Propertius. 33. pudet is attested in P; Baehrens’s suggestion patet goes too decisively toward the decline narrative. 34. Johnson (2009) 60. 35. Johnson (2009) Chapter 1. 36. Butler and Barber (1933) at 4.1.1 ‘presumably, but not necessarily Horos.’ Richardson (1977) 414 identifies the two. Hutchinson (2006) calls him merely a ‘stranger.’ 37. Derrida (1998) 14 and 24. 38. Parallels and bibliography on the Abbruchsformel can be found at Lowrie (1997) 44, 164 n. 41, 182, 229 n. 8. 39. Schmitt (1996) 26. 40. An incisive analysis of Schmitt’s politics in relation to his political theory is John McCormick’s introduction to Schmitt (2004). Kalyvas (2008) chapter 2 recuperates and redirects useful aspects. 41. Derrida (2005) chapter 5. 42. Derrida (2005) 114-16. 43. Gallus’ initial success as prefect in Egypt after Actium was followed by excessive self- glorification; after being interdicted from the house and provinces of Augustus, he committed suicide. See OCD at Cornelius, Gallus. 44. Beard (1996) analyzes the tension between the rejection of the cult of Magna Mater with her eunuch priests and its inclusion in the ‘symbolic forms of state religion’ in relation to the larger debate on ‘Romanness’ in imperial Rome (166).
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45. DeBrohun (2003) 87 links Propertius’ diminished resources to Apollo’s assignment of genre. Miller (2009) 232 and 321-3 situates Apollo’s intervention here within the topoi of the Augustan recusatio, including the retroping of Callimachus’ Aitia. 46. Richardson (1977) ad loc.: the poet is a ‘good target’ for the Amores. Hutchinson (2006) ad loc.:his poetry confers glory on them. 47. Newman (1997) 275: the repressed returns in Horos. 48. Bartsch (2006) 240-1 cites internal dialogue in Seneca between himself and a friend (Lucilius) as well as two voices of the self. The identity worked out in these passages, however, is moral and revolves around attitudes to wealth. 49. A leitmotif of Lowrie (2009), especially chapter 14. 50. Mirza and Butler explore the artist’s position as the engaged observer (n. 1 above). 51. Arendt (1977) 92-3. I use Arendt’s formulation for Horace’s definition of his position as a lyrist in Augustan Rome in a book in progress provisionally entitled ‘From Safety to Security: Roman Literature and Political Thought in the Transition to Empire.’ 52. Barton (1994). Hutchinson (2006) 60 traces ‘conflicting attitudes’ to astrologers with a wealth of further bibliography. Also Hübner (2008) 347. 53. Richardson (1977) at 4.1.102; Rothstein (1979) at 4.1.101; Newman (1997) 272 ‘pseudo- science’. Scholars cannot agree about any of the astrology in the poem, e.g., Keyser (1992) and Butrica (1993). General review at Hübner (2008) 348-50. 54. As mentioned above, it is not clear who voices the prophecy Troia cades, et Troica Roma resurges (‘Troy, you will fall and you, Trojan Rome, will rise again’, 87). Moving the line to the voice of ‘Propertius’ would keep the triumphalism together. See n. 24 above. 55. Adorno (1991). Mirza and Butler (above n. 1) flash across the screen, ‘If all art is political how do you make a political film?’ They also dramatize interdiction: ‘Raj Kumar’ is denied a permit to film in India. He distinguishes between making a political film and making a film politically, that is, he separates content from form. 56. Miller’s (2004) 5 definitions. He aligns Propertius’ ‘interpellation by the Symbolic’ with the program expressed by ‘Propertius,’ but also traces the dissolution of the subject position in book 4 and an irony that ‘floats free of any single Imaginary projection of self.’ 57. Bartsch (2006) 236-9. 58. Buchan (2005) 201, who resists the alignment of the Imaginary with the private and the Symbolic with the public, quotes Lacan: ‘the Imaginary offers us the “armor of an alienating identity.” Our self-image is, for Lacan, a way of avoiding our own fragility and helplessness, and the price to be paid is alienation: our image of ourselves is, precisely, not us.’ The Imaginary and the Symbolic inhabit the speeches of both voices. 59. Horos is often read as silly rather than threatening. Humor: Rothstein (1979) at 4.1.89, 101, 147; satire: Newman (1997) 271. For a survey of the scholarly assessments, see Hübner (2008) 345-50. 60. Syed (2005) locates subjectivity in the reader; earlier bibliography at 252 n. 51. More recently, see Toll (1991) and (1997), Ando (2002), Lowrie (2005a) 971-6, Reed (2007) and (2010). All emphasize in various ways the multiplicity that makes up the Roman. 61. Lowrie (1997) 139-64. 62. Oliensis (1998) 137. 63. Agamben (2008) ‘Che cos’è un paradeigma?’ 11-34. 64. I take the liberty of attempting to unpack Agamben’s (2008) 33 dense summary (item 5).
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RÉSUMÉS
Propertius and Derrida use a similar formal technique to explore the structure of identity under imperial conditions. This is the divided voice, where significant elements of authorial self- expression occur in the voice of an oppositional other. These texts enact a dialectic without synthesis between a more normative self and one that undergoes dispossession, loss of citizenship, various restrictions on speech, or other forms of limitation or exclusion. They raise the question of the extent to which singular individuals, whose identities do not and cannot fit the ideological norm, can be paradigmatic for identity within their own times and political circumstances. While Propertius emerges as singular, that is, an individual within a series, Derrida claims a unique status that marks a difference between ancient and modern conceptions of the self.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Derrida, empire, exemplum, identity, Propertius
AUTEUR
MICHÈLE LOWRIE University of Chicago [email protected]
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Vergil, Georgics 1.1-42 and the pompa circensis
Damien Nelis et Jocelyne Nelis-Clément
For Philippe Borgeaud
1 In the eighth book of the Aeneid Vergil brings Aeneas, a character from Homer’s Iliad, the future founder of Lavinium and, ultimately, a father figure of the Roman people, to Pallanteum, an Arcadian settlement on the site of the future Rome. Aeneas arrives there in the wake of Hercules, who, on his way back to Greece with the cattle of Geryon, had killed the local monster Cacus on the Aventine. Within the typological scheme inherent in Vergil’s narrative, Hercules functions as a forerunner of Augustus, who, later in the same book, will be represented on the shield of Aeneas, an artifact which, while closely modelled on the Iliadic shield of Achilles, also celebrates the post-Actium triple triumph of 13-15 August 29BCE. Every reader of the Aeneid must attempt to make sense of this bewildering combination of epic myth-making, poetic allusion and historical reference to contemporary Roman concerns. D. Feeney has this to say about one particular aspect of Vergil’s technique and of the demands it places on his readers: We may read the eighth book of the Aeneid, with its obsessive interest in Hercules, as an intelligent – if rather recherché – redeployment of Greek categories of god, demi-god, and human: the poet can focus on the hazards of stupendous mortal achievement with the aid of a structuralist schema drawn from his foreign literary sources. But for at least 150 years before Virgil was born, and possibly much longer, his fellow-citizens had been viewing processions before the games, the pompa circensis, in which divine images were, very probably, grouped according to just these divisions: first the twelve Olympian gods – itself a Greek category – and then Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, the sons of gods by mortal mothers. These mythic categorisations were part of the state’s religious apparatus, and therefore part of the mental equipment of Virgil’s readers.1
2 For the Triumviral and early Augustan period of Roman history, during which questions of divine status and deification were very much part of the political scene, these categories and ways of thinking about them, representing them and exploiting them are obviously of special importance. In this paper, we would like to take as a
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starting point D. Feeney’s remarks about the pompa circensis, a ritual which he elsewhere describes as "the city’s most elaborate display of the gods’ images",2 in order to show how awareness of this remarkable procession and of some of its meanings and resonances may help to shed light on another passage of Vergilian poetry in which Greek myth and contemporary Roman concerns are closely intertwined.
3 Vergil’s Georgics begin with a remarkable prologue which begins by summarizing the main topics of the work as a whole (1-5a), before going on to invite a series of twelve deities to come forth and be present (5b-23). It then continues with an appeal to a person named as ’Caesar’ (25; Vergil is referring to Octavian), who is said to be on his way to becoming a god and is invited to preside over the work’s beginning (24-42). After the opening sentence, depending on how the text is punctuated, the remainder of the prologue is made up either of one massive sentence of thirty seven and a half verses, or of two sentences, one of eighteen and a half lines in length followed by another of nineteen lines. Mynors and Thomas place a full stop after imbrem in line 23, but most editors (e.g. Conington and Nettleship, Page, Richter, Erren, Geymonat, Williams) place only a semi-colon at this spot.3 As we shall see, a detailed look at the syntax of the passage tends to plead in favour of the second solution. It also usefully draws attention to the ways in which Vergil introduces the deities he invokes and helps readers to grasp the imagined physical setting in which they are supposed to appear.
4 The first word of the invocation proper is uos (5). The Sun and the Moon are then referred to and Liber and Ceres are named. The initial vocative is then picked up and repeated by et uos in line 10, and in turn the Fauns and Dryads are asked to approach, ferte...pedem (11). A second person singular follows, tuque o (12), also recalling the initial uos, o. Followed by a relative cui (12), it introduces Neptune (14). A connective et then adds Aristaeus, identified only as cultor nemorum, whose entry in the list is similarly introduced with a second use of the word cui (14), thus connecting these two deities. Next, without any connective, an ipse (16) introduces Pan, who is adressed directly with the second person iussive subjunctive adsis (18), recalling the earlier ferte...pedem (11). On this occasion also, the second person form is followed by another exclamatory o, following its use in lines 5 and 12. It is at this point that the reader finally appreciates the syntax of the whole sentence and realizes that the earlier uses of uos, uos and tu all imply the ellipsis of verbal expressions meaning ’come hither’ or ’be present’. Subsequently, Minerva, Triptolemus and Silvanus are introduced in a syntactically parallel manner to Pan by the que of line 18, the que of line 19 (each attached to an objective genitive, oleaeque Minerua/inuentrix and uncique puer monstrator aratri) and the et at the beginning of line 20. The fact that the final name, that of Silvanus, appears in the vocative, Siluane (20), followed immediately by the generalizing formula dique deaeque omnes, confirms that the syntax of the whole sentence and this long series of vocatives is held together by the reader’s consistent provision of verbs or expressions meaning ’be present’ (adsis), or ’come hither’ (ferte pedem).4 When the next sentence, introducing Caesar, begins with tuque adeo (24), recalling the tuque which introduced Neptune (12-14), the reader realizes that the poet is unifying the whole prologue by subtle and varied repetition of vocatives and easily supplies once more a verb to express the ideas of movement and presence. It is the second person subjunctive uenias (syntactically dependent on the indirect question introduced by incertum est, 25) of line 29 which finally makes explicit the idea of Caesar’s physical presence, in parallel to that of the other twelve deities.
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5 These deities having been invited to come forth and be present, questions remains to be asked: present at what? Where is the reader to imagine them going? Where is s/he to place them? The obvious answer is that they are to attend the beginning of Vergil’s poem, and that what we have here is simply an example of a relatively standard kletic hymn.5 But it is our contention that there is a further level of reference present in the text and that for a Roman reader this appeal to a series of deities to come forth and be present at the beginning of Vergil’s poem would have clearly evoked a very precise context and occasion, the pompa circensis, the procession of deities which marked the ritual beginning of Roman circus games.6 This connection has already been made by M. Erren in his commentary on the Georgics: Er zählt die Götter nicht nur einfach auf, wie Varro in seinem Prosabuch, sondern spricht sie an und versammelt sie wie zu einer Götterbewirtung, einem Lectisternium, zu dem sie in einer Pompa circensis (vgl. K. Latte, Röm. Religionsgesch. 248ff.) in den Circus maximus einziehen und auf den Kultbetten (Pulvinaria) Platz nehmen, um der Darbeitung präsidieren;7
6 A series of references to chariots and chariot racing at later points in the Georgics tends to confirm that Erren has indeed caught an important feature of Vergil’s text.8 To put it simply, the way in which the gods are invited to come to be present at the beginning of Vergil’s poem is modelled on the great procession of the gods which marked the ritual opening of the ludi circenses. It is our intention in this paper to produce further arguments in favour of making a clear and meaningful connection between prologue and pompa.
7 In the immediate context, Vergil ends his prologue in such a way as to draw attention to the act of beginning and the connection with chariot races: da facilem cursum atque audacibus adnue coeptis, 40 ignarosque uiae mecum miseratus agrestis ingredere et uotis iam nunc adsuesce uocari. But smooth my path, smile on my enterprise, Pity with me the unguided steps of farmers, Come forward and learn already to answer prayers.9
8 As poet, Caesar and reader stand at the start of the work (coeptis), these lines present the poem as a cursus and its course of instruction as a uia. This imagery programmatically presents the complete poem as a journey of a particular kind, a chariot race in which the poet, in a variation on the ancient Greek motif of the poetic chariot of the Muses, presents himself as a charioteer, the movement of whose chariot represents the actual development of the poem.10 It is the realization of this aspect of the text which explains the presence of the verbal correspondences between these lines and Amores 3.2, Ovid’s extraordinary account of a pompa circensis and a day at the races. 11 If one compares Vergil, Georgics 1.16-42 and Ovid, Amores 3.2.43-58, it is obvious that there is some kind of intertextual relationship between the two passages. Vergil writes in his prologue, which, with Erren, we read as alluding to the pompa: ipse nemus linquens patrium saltusque Lycaei Pan, ouium custos, tu si tibi Maenala curae, adsis... 18 da facilem cursum atque audacibus adnue coeptis, 40 Yourself, leaving the high arcadian glades, Your birthplace, Pan of Tegea, graciously, Draw near... But smooth my path, smile on my enterprise,
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In his description of an actual pompa, Ovid writes: sed iam pompa uenit: linguis animisque fauete; tempus adest plausus: aurea pompa uenit. prima loco fertur passis Victoria pinnis: huc ades et meus hic fac, dea, uincat amor. ... auguribus Phoebus, Phoebe uenantibus adsit; ... plaudimus: inceptis adnue, diua, meis daque nouae mentem dominae, patiatur amari; adnuit et motu signa secunda dedit. But now the procession is coming - keep silence all, and attend! The time for applause is here - the golden procession is coming. First in the train is Victory, borne with wings outspread - come hither, goddess, and help my love to win! ... And Phoebus - let him be gracious to augurs, and Phoebe gracious to huntsmen... we applaud... smile, O goddess, upon my undertakings, and put the right mind in my heart’s new mistress! Let her endure to be loved!12 She nodded, and by the movement gave favouring sign.
9 Vergil requests of a series of deities that they be present as his poem begins (adsis). Ovid welcomes the gods as they parade in the pompa (ades, adsit). Each poet asks one particular deity (in Vergil, a person named ’Caesar’ (i.e. Octavian-Augustus) and in Ovid, Venus) to look favourably on their undertaking (adnue coeptis and inceptis adnue) and grant them a particular favour (da, daque). At this point, a careful reader may also note that Minerva, Neptune, Ceres and Bacchus appear among the deities mentioned in both passages. The particular association of the latter two with the countryfolk (ruricolae) in Ovid corresponds to Vergil’s idea that he is invoking only gods with a particular interest in farming (studium quibus arua tueri) as part of his aim to instruct countryfolk (agrestis). Presented in this way, the verbal similarities are clear enough. On one level, of course, we have here some of the standard vocabulary one would expect to find in a prayer of invocation.13 But since Ovid’s language in Amores 3.2 is specifically used in relation to the pompa circensis, it is at least possible that when very similar vocabulary appears in Vergil the same context could potentially be in the poet’s mind.
10 The Latin word pompa, from the Greek πομπή meaning, among other things, a procession or parade, is usually found in relation to three types of ceremonies: the pompa triumphalis, the pompa funebris and the pompa circensis.14 The most detailed surviving description of the third type occurs in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in the seventh book of his Roman Antiquities (72.1-18). This passage raises many questions of interpretation which, for the purposes of this paper, may be set aside.15 Here, it will suffice to concentrate on those elements of Dionysius’ account which seem most immediately relevant to the Vergilian text. The first crucial point is that Dionysius confirms that the pompa is a spectacular procession which involves divine figures and which marks the opening of the circus games. Both aspects are relevant to the argument that Vergil is evoking it at the beginning (coeptis) of a poem which he likens to a cursus and which opens with the invocation of a long list of deities. In Dionysius’ description, at the end of the procession come "the images of the gods, borne on men’s shoulders, showing the same likenesses as those made by the Greeks and having the
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same dress, the same symbols, and the same gifts (δωρεάς) which tradition says each of them invented and bestowed on mankind." (7.72.13; trans. Cary 1914). In Vergil too the gods are described in relation to the gifts which they have granted to mankind (munere, 8; munera, 12:). The deities in question come in three distinct categories. First Dionysius mentions the Capitoline Triad (Zeus/Jupiter, Hera/Juno, Athena/Minerva) plus Poseidon/Neptune, before adding all the others "whom the Greeks reckon among the twelve deities" (Aphrodite/Venus, Artemis/Diana, Demeter/Ceres, Hestia/Vesta, Apollo, Ares/Mars, Hephaistos/Vulcan et Hermes/Mercury.) Next come the earlier generation of deities, those which the mythographers say to be the parents of the Olympians, Kronos/Saturn, Rhea/Ops, Themis, Leto/Latona, the Moirai/the Parcae, Mnemosyne. Then comes the closural formula, "all the gods to whom the Greeks dedicate temples and sacred precincts." Finally come those deities considered to come later than Jupiter, Persephone/Proserpine, Eileithuia/Lucina, the Nymphs, the Muses, the Horai, the Graces, Dionysus/Liber, as well as the demi-gods or heroes who were divinized after death and received the same honours as the gods, Herakles/Hercules, Asklepios/Aesculapius, Castor et Pollux, Helen (?),16 Pan, and numerous others. Again, there are similarities to Vergil, who also combines figures from among the twelve Olympians with divinized humans, and includes Pan (16-18).17
11 Dionysius insists on the antiquity of his source, Fabius Pictor, whom he describes as "the most ancient of all the Roman historians" (7.71.1). In turn, he says that the pompa was first celebrated around 500 BCE. Wether this is true or not, his detailed description raises the question of the importance of the pompa in Augustan Rome. Earlier in the Antiquities he had described the splendour of the Circus Maximus, describing it as the most impressive building in the city (3.68). That this construction was important to Augustus personally is demonstrated by the fact that in his Res Gestae (19) he refers to the puluinar ad Circum Maximum. This place, which in the Greek version is translated by the term naos, seems to have been both the imperial lodge and a sacred space for the statues of the gods, where they were placed on cushions (puluinaria) after having been paraded in the pompa.18 Concerning the actual fabric of the Circus Maximus, it is important to realize the scale of Augustus’ intervention. It was he who completed work begun by Julius Caesar, bringing to a completion the monumental form of the site and adding at a later date the obelisk (10-9BC). It was no doubt after the fire which destroyed much of the Circus in 31 BC (Dio 50.10.3) that Agrippa was put in charge of both the rebuilding of the structure and the reorganization of practical aspects of the organization of the games (Dio 49.43).19
12 In light of this massive building programme and its wider political and cultural significance, there can surely be little doubt concerning the massive contemporary relevance of both Dionysius’ account of the pompa and also of possible Vergilian references to the Circus and its games as he was writing the Georgics in the late 30s and early 20s BC. And one further consideration must be added to the various ways in which the organization of Circus spectacles may have had special contemporary importance. As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the gods of the pompa are presented in terms of very precisely articulated “mythic categorisations”. There is interesting evidence to suggest that this aspect of the pompa circensis was of very particular interest to onlookers.
13 Suetonius, in his life of Julius Caesar states that allowing himself to appear in the pompa circensis was one example of Caesar’s tendency to present himself as a god (Caes. 76.2):20
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sed et ampliora etiam humano fastigio decerni sibi passus est: sedem auream in curia et pro tribunali, tensam et ferculum circensi pompa, templa, aras, simulacra iuxta deos, puluinar, flaminem, lupercos, appellationem mensis e suo nomine...; he even allowed privileges to be bestowed on him which were greater than is right for mortals; a golden seat in the senate house and in front of the speaker’s platform, a chariot and litter in the procession for the circus games, temples, altars, statues placed beside those of the gods, a couch, a priest, an extra college of Luperci, and a month of the year named after him.
14 Dio Cassius tells a similar tale, again showing how political manipulation of the pompa functions as one aspect of a wider communicative effort on the part of Caesar (43.45.2; see also 44.6.3): 21 Καὶ τότε μὲν ἀνδριάντα αὐτοῦ ἐλεφάντινον, ὕστερον δὲ καὶ ἅρμα ὅλον ἐν ταῖς ἱπποδρομίαις μετὰ τῶν θείων ἀγαλμάτων πέμπεσθαι ἔγνωσαν. And they decreed at this time that an ivory statue of him, and later that a whole chariot, should appear in the procession at the games in the Circus.
15 It is Cicero who permits us to see how such things could be perceived, as the following letter demonstrates (Cic., Att., 13.44; July 45 BC):22 suauis tuas litteras! (etsi acerba pompa. uerum tamen scire omnia non acerbum est, uel de Cotta) populum uero praeclarum quod propter malum uicinum ne uictoriae quidem ploditur! What a delightful letter yours was! Though the procession was unplesant news; still it is not unplesant to know everything, even about Cotta. The people were splendid not even to clap Victory because of her bad neighbour.
16 These words bring out with great clarity the political reverberations arising from Caesar’s attempts to manipulate the pompa. And further evidence suggests just how attentive the public could be to this kind of manipulation when, five years later in 40 BCE, the people applaud the arrival of Neptune, in order to show their attachment to Sextus Pompeius (Dio 48.31.5):23 καὶ ἄλλα τε ἐπὶ θεραπείᾳ αὐτοῦ διεθρόουν, καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἱπποδρομίαις κρότῳ τε πολλῷ τὸ τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος ἄγαλμα πομπεῦον ἐτίμων καὶ ἡδονὴν ἐπ´ αὐτῷ πολλὴν ἐποιοῦντο. ἐπεί τε ἡμέραις τισὶν οὐκ ἐσήχθη, τούς τε ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ὄντας λίθοις ἐκ τῆς ἀγορᾶς ἐξήλασαν καὶ ἐκείνων τὰς εἰκόνας κατέβαλον, καὶ τέλος, ἐπειδὴ μηδ´ ὥς τι ἐπεραίνετο, σπουδῇ ἐπ´ αὐτοὺς ὡς καὶ ἀποκτενοῦντές σφας ὥρμησαν. They not only kept up a general talk to foster his interests, but also at the games in the Circus honoured by loud applause the statue of Neptune carried in the procession, thus expressing their great delight in him. And when on certain days it was not brought out, they took stones and drove the magistrates from the Forum, threw down the statues of Caesar and Antony, and finally, when they could not accomplish anything even in this way, they rushed violently upon these men as if to kill them.
17 The removal of Neptune from the pompa by Augustus reappears in another text (Suetonius, Aug. 16.5):24 ... quasi classibus tempestate perditis exclamauerit etiam inuito Neptuno uictoriam se adepturum, ac die circensium proximo sollemni pompae simulacrum dei detraxerit. ... claiming that when the ships were lost in the storm he had cried out that he would conquer even without the will of Neptune and that the next time the circus games were held, he had Neptune’s image removed from the festival procession.
18 Finally, Augustus’ keen interest in the pompa is demonstrated in yet another passage of Suetonius (Aug. 43.12):
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Accidit uotiuis circensibus, ut correptus ualitudine lectica cubans tensas deduceret. When he was giving votive games in the Circus he happened to fall ill and led the procession of sacred chariots reclining in his litter.
19 Between organizing the divine procession and being a part of it many Roman spectators may have seen a line being crossed.
20 These anecdotes help to illustrate how the pompa is one element in the Roman culture of spectacle which became a focal point for issues relating to power and divinity in the late Republic and early Empire. At the same time, it plays an important role both in Dionysius’ presentation of the Romans as Greeks and in his use of aspects of contemporary Augustan culture to contribute to his image of the Roman past. These ideas and associations help to illustrate the importance of trying to decide whether Vergil did indeed conceive of the opening of his Georgics in terms of a pompa circensis. Vergil’s text is one in which the issue of Octavian’s apotheosis is central to the thematic unity of the whole.25 It is also one in which the mingling of Greek and Roman elements is particularly eye-catching, and this feature merits some brief discussion in terms of both prologue and pompa. As shown above, Dionysius uses the pompa to reflect on the nature of the relationship between Romans and Greeks. It would be absurd to argue that Vergil’s handling of Greek elements in the prologue is inspired directly by such features in the pompa, but it is at least worth pointing out some aspects of Vergilian technique. It will become clear that the interaction of Greek and Roman elements is an important theme in the Georgics and that by means of one particular reference to Greece in another section of the poem he draws attention to the underlying presence of the pompa at the start of book 1.
21 Already in lines 8-9 of the book 1 the world of Greek myth is introduced. After naming Liber (the only occasion on which he uses the Italic name for Bacchus in the poem) and Ceres, Vergil explains their presence by referring to the gifts which they have bestowed upon humanity (7-9): uestro si munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutauit arista, poculaque inuentis Acheloia miscuit uuis; since your grace Procured that earth should change Chaonia's acorns For the rich ears of grain, and grapes be found For lacing cups of Acheloüs' water;
22 Chaonia is in Epirus, the River Achelous in Aetolia, and Vergil seems to present them as "the cradle of the human race".26 By taking his readers back to the origins of agriculture and to the appearance of corn and wine Vergil inaugurates an important theme in the poem, that of aetiology and the origins of culture in general.27 He does so by looking to Greece, where the Achelous was seen as the oldest of all rivers. Chaonia of course evokes Dodona, which was known to be the site of an ancient oracle of Zeus.28 Greek and Roman elements again seem to be deliberately combined in line 11, with the invocation of both and Fauns and Dryads, the inclusion of the latter as a close Greek counterpart of the former being particularly marked by the way in which they seem at first to be overlooked and are then named parenthetically, almost as an afterthought (11), the Fauni having been first mentioned alone. Next, in quick succession, comes a series of Greek place names, Cea, Lycaeus, Maenalus, Tegea (14-18), the first in connection with Aristaeus, the others with Pan. Subsequently, Erigone and the Chelae, two more Greek names are mentioned. Erigone is a story of catasterism, with the young
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girl becoming the constellation Virgo. Vergil’s choice of myth is dictated at least in part by the immediate context, in which he is evoking the possible catasterism of his Caesar. 29 The Chelae, the Greek word for claws, represent the pincers of Scorpio seen as a separate and quite distinct constellation. It is in the space between the two that the deified Caesar may find his niche. Whatever the astronomical details, intermingling of Greek and Roman elements is again prominent. But the most striking reference to Greece comes in lines 38-9: quamuis Elysios miretur Graecia campos nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem Though Greece is spellbound by the Elysian Fields And Proserpine is loath to follow Ceres Calling her back to earth;
23 Vergil comes close to invoking Greek mythology as a discrete body of narratives and beliefs. It is important to realize that in doing so he has in mind stories which are particularly appropriate to this context. Mention of the ’Elysian fields’ gives rise to thoughts about stories relating to what happens after death. Vergil is dealing in the passage as a whole with the apotheosis of Caesar and his entry into the deorum concilia (24f). In line 39 the mention of Proserpina may allude most immediately to the Eleusinian mysteries, closely associated with the agricultural cycle of course and so highly relevant to this georgic poem; she also had a temple, the Aedes Cereris, near the Circus, and appears in Dionysius’ account of the pompa.30 At 1.163 Vergil mentions the Eleusinian mother. But the myth of Proserpina is also one which deals with life after death, and so it is relevant, once again, to the presentation here of Caesar as some kind of god-in-waiting.
24 In relation to all these elements Vergil probably has specific Greek literary texts in mind, but it is not possible to trace in full his intertextual strategy. What is his model, for example, for the unusual version of the Proserpina story he chooses? Normally, she follows her mother out of Hades. He no doubt has Eratosthenes’ Erigone in mind and Aratus too for the details about the Chelae. In one case, it is possible to imagine the presence of Callimachean echoes, given that the expression nouum...sidus of line 32 may be intended to recall him via Catullus 66.64, sidus...nouum. Given that the Coma Berenices of the end of Aetia 4 is a model elsewhere in the poem, and that its twin the Victoria Berenices, a poem in celebration of a victory in the chariot race at the Nemean Games, is the direct model for the prologue to book 3, it seems reasonably certain that Vergil is modelling his striking praise of Caesar on Callimachean encomium. But the discussion of Greek elements in the prologue should not be restricted to the search for literary models alone, even if the whole question of Vergil’s relationship with and manipulation of Greek literary tradition is extremely important throughout the Georgics.31 Greece is important in other ways too. Many Greek places are named throughout the poem and, perhaps most crucially, at the end of book 1 Greece is central to some of the poem’s main concerns because of the fact that it was at Philippi in Macedonia that the bloody civil war arising from the assassination of Julius Caesar had been fought. For Vergil, Greece is a place of cultural origins, but it is also a part of the world ruled by Rome and it is a place in which the fate of Rome is played out. Furthermore, it is a place which has strong cultural associations with Ptolemaic Egypt, a country with which Rome was at war during the period of the writing of the Georgics. Vergil even goes so far as to imagine the Nile depicted on the doors of the Caesarian temple he describes in the prologue to the third book (26-29). By doing so he celebrates Octavian’s victory over
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Antony and Cleopatra at Actium and subsequently in Alexandria, giving rise to the ironical fact that he is drawing on the Ptolemaic encomium of Callimachus for Berenice as the direct model for his production of encomium of the man he calls Caesar, i.e. Octavian, for his victory over Cleopatra. If Vergil is confident enough to envisage the deification of the same Caesar already in the prologue to the first book, it seems reasonable to conclude that the triumphs celebrated at the beginning of book 3 are already won and so underpin the optimism of the poem’s opening. This connection between the work’s two grand prologues (books 2 and 4 have much shorter and less ambitious openings) helps to bring into focus a similarity between the two passages which is particularly interesting for the argument that the pompa circensis is an important point of reference.
25 The word Graecia appears only twice in the whole poem, at 1.38 and 3.20. The former we have already looked at in some detail. The word’s second occurrence is as follows (16-20): in medio mihi Caesar erit templumque tenebit: illi uictor ego et Tyrio conspectus in ostro centum quadriiugos agitabo ad flumina currus. cuncta mihi Alpheum linquens lucosque Molorchi cursibus et crudo decernet Graecia caestu. 20 ipse caput tonsae foliis ornatus oliuae dona feram. iam nunc sollemnis ducere pompas In the middle of the shrine, as patron god, I will have Caesar placed, and in his honour Myself as victor in resplendent purple Will drive a hundred chariots by the river. For me all Greece, deserting the Alpheüs, Olympia's river, and the groves of Nemea In racing and in boxing will compete. Myself as priest, my brow with olive wreathed, Will offer gifts. I see myself already Leading the solemn procession joyfully To the shrine and watching bullocks sacrificed,
26 In the preceding lines Vergil has foreseen (deducam, 11) the triumphal transfer of the Muses from Greece to Italy. This triumph will be accompanied with a temple foundation and ludi circenses (centum quadriiugos agitabo...currus, 18), as well as other sporting contests (caestu, 20) and theatrical performances (scaena, 24). Furthermore, Vergil predicts that all of Greece will attend these games. The expression cuncta...Graecia must surely recall the occurrence of Graecia at 1.38. There, in a striking combination of Roman and Greek concerns, Vergil had evoked certain myths of the Greeks in relation to the forthcoming apotheosis of Caesar, while here, once more in a context in which the deification of Caesar is of central importance, the Greeks will desert their Olympic and Nemean games, which Vergil evokes by learned reference to place-names (Alpheus and Nemea (lucos Molorchi), 19). In the midst of the description of all these future plans there occurs a striking switch to an impersonal verb in the present tense (iam nunc iuuat) after a long series of future tenses. Suddenly, Vergil imagines a pompa actually taking place. When it is described as making its way to altars (ad delubras) where sacrifices (caesi...iuuenci) take place, the reader may think of it as a sacrificial pompa. But in the immediately preceding lines, as we have just seen, Vergil has been imagining circus games on a remarkable scale, with himself as organizer and/ or participant (centum quadriiugos agitabo...currus, 18), and so it surely makes more sense
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to see the pompa of line 22 as the pompa circensis, the procession which will actually mark the beginning of the triumphal games he is looking forward to.32 If this is indeed the case, given the other connections between this prologue and that of book 1 just discussed, there is further support for seeing the implicit presence of a pompa underpinning the invocation of the 13 deities which opens the whole poem.
27 In conclusion, there are good reasons for believing that a Roman reader would easily have seen connections between the prologue of the first book of the Georgics and the pompa circensis. The parallels between the Vergilian text and the detailed evocations of this remarkable ritual by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and, in very different mode, by Ovid, are economically explained by this suggestion. But perhaps more importantly, Vergil is also drawing on a vital aspect of the significance of the pompa in contemporary Roman culture. This brilliant display of the gods had become a reference point for consideration of divine status and political power in triumviral Rome. These very matters lie at the heart of Vergil’s prologue and indeed of his whole poem. Appreciation of the presence of the pompa circensis at the work’s opening thus becomes more than simply a matter of formal recognition of one simple aspect of the particular way in which the gods are invoked to attend this particular beginning. Rather, it becomes an important element in the reader’s approach to the interpretation of a central theme running right though the poem as a whole, that is consideration of the importance of the name ’Caesar’ in recent Roman history and brilliantly insightful investigation of evolving patterns of Roman ruler-cult at a crucial turning point in that history. Of the pompa circensis D. Feeney has written: As the principal venue for display of divinity, the pompa could arise high emotions and was necessarily adaptable to changes in ideology... and Caesar’s introduction of his own statue into the pompa was the first step in the imperial appropriation of the pageant.
28 Right at the opening of the Georgics, when we are told of the forthcoming deification of Caesar Octavian, who had of course been known as Divi Filius for many years already, we see Vergil reflecting on ideological change and imperial appropriation in post-Actian Rome. At the very end of the poem, when we see Caesar for the last time, it is perhaps not surprising that the final words we read about him in the poem (4.562) imagine him making his way towards immortality: per populos dat iura uiamque adfectat Olympo.
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NOTES
1. Feeney 1998: 55; see also 87, 96, 109f. Thanks are due to Denis Feeney and J. McKeown for help and encouragement at an early stage and to Jacqueline Fabre-Serris for her saintly patience throughout. We would also like to thank the anonymous readers who offered searching criticisms and sound advice, which helped to improve this paper in many ways. 2. Feeney 1998: 96. 3. For the most recent detailed discussions of the syntactic structure see Jenkyns 1998: 326-329 and Erren 2003: 31-32. 4. As often, Page in his note on tuque in line 12 puts it succinctly and correctly: "There is no verb in this or the next clause; the vocatives, however, mark clearly that some form of appeal is intended, and the third clause makes the nature of this appeal clear, viz. 'be present to aid me,' line 18 adsis." Erren (e.g. on 5f and 11f) also catches well the whole aspect of physical movement which characterizes Vergil's depiction of the deities as they are invoked to attend, noting of the parenthesis in lines 11 and 12a that it "gibt eine Regieanweisung für den Einzug in die Arena". 5. This is the view taken by one of the anonymous readers, unconvinced by the argument that the text offers a more precise contextualization. For a description of the form of a kletic hymn see Menander Rhetor 334.5-336.4 Spengel = Russell and Wilson 1981: 8-13. 6. It is worth noting in passing that at the beginning of his De re rustica Varro twice refers to the circus: at 1.2.11 he links the taking down of the last egg which marks the last lap of a race to the egg which was traditionally eaten at the beginning of a Roman dinner; and at 1.3 he has Agrasius compare the course of the work's instruction to that of a race, beginning at the starting gates (a quibus carceribus) and running (decurrat) to its end (ad metas). These associations illustrate the pervasive force of circus imagery in the mentality of Romans and how easy it was for them to make sense of its use in literary texts. For an example of the ways in which consideration of the topography of the Circus Maximus can enrich the interpretation of a literary text, the Ovidian chariot ride of Phaethon, see Barchiesi (2008) = (2009b). 7. Erren 2003: 13. Cf. also his note on ingredere in line 42: " 'Geh voran!' in den Circus und zur Pompa und den Sacra (vgl. 2,475f und 3.21ff). Vergil verlässt die mit Absicht nicht anschaulich ausgeführte Fahrtmetaphor von 40 und lenkt auf die Vorstellung des Einzugs zum Lectisternium zurück." Cf. also his note on iam nunc assuesce, 42. It is worth noting that we established a connection between Vergil's prologue and the pompa circensis before consulting Erren's magnificently rich commentary. On the much discussed links between Vergil's prologue and
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Varro's invocation of twelve deities with particular interest in agriculture see Wissowa 1917, Erren 2003: 13-15. For excellent readings of the prologue as a whole see Thomas 1988 and Mynors 1990: on 1-42, Horsfall 20012: 99-100. 8. See Nelis 2008 for a full discussion, with bibliography, of references to chariot racing in the Georgics, including treatment of such passages as the chariot running out of control at the end of book 1, the races mentioned in the prologue to book 3, the discussion of how to train racing horses later in book 3 and the metapoetic and cosmic aspects of circus imagery; see also Nelis 2010. 9. Translation by Wilkinson 1982. 10. See Nelis 2008: 502-504 for detailed discussion. Erren 2003: 42 on 1.40, while accepting the presence of an element of ambiguity over whether Vergil is thinking of a sea journey or a circus race, notes "denkt man sich aber das ganze Lectisternium im Zirkus, so liegt die Vorstellung eines Rennwagens näher". For the specific use of cursus to refer to racing see OCD s.v. 2b and TLL s.v. 1531.3-31. 11. In his forthcoming commentary on the Ovidian poem, a draft of which he has generously shared with us, J. McKeown notes the similarity between Ovid's inceptis adnue (3.2.56) and Vergil's adnue coeptis (1.40). For a literary reading which does justice to the brilliance of the elegy see Henderson 2002. Cf. also Ars am. 1.135-170 for another Ovidian description of the pompa circensis; see also Fast. 4.389-394. 12. Translation by Showerman 1914. 13. One of the anonymous readers compares Georgics 2.39-46 (ades, da, ades), Germanicus, Arat. 16 (adsis), Ovid, Fast. 1.1-18 (ades, adnue, da), Statius, Theb. 1.56-87 (adnue). For adsis fauens in a prayer cf. ILS 3530 and see Chapot and Laurot 2001: 268-70 on the prologue as a whole. In one of Vergil's key models, the prayer to the twelves deities at the opening of the De re rustica (1.1.4-6), Varro uses first person verbs with direct objects, inuocabo eos, adueneror, precor; he closes his prayer with the words, deis ad uenerationem aduocatis. 14. For some recent work in the whole area of Roman processions see for example Bastien 2007, Beard 2007, Hölkeskamp 2008, Krasser, Pausch and Petrovic 2008, Fless 2008, Östenberg 2009, Pelikan Pittinger 2009, Arena 2010. On the circus games in general see Humphrey 1986, Nelis- Clément and Roddaz 2008, Marcatilli 2009. On the culture of spectacles in the late Republican and early Imperial period see for example Beacham 2005, Sumi 2005, Benoist 1999, 2005. For the earlier material and Republican ludi see Bernstein 1998. 15. For discussion see Thuillier 1975, Nelis-Clément 2002: 270-272, Nelis-Clément 2008: 440-444, Arena 2010: 54-61. 16. There is considerable doubt about this reading in the MSS and various emendations have been proposed. 17. On the deities who are, so to speak, already in the Circus, i.e. those represented on the central spina and in the monumental architecture of the complex as a whole see Marcattili 2006, 2009: 18-135. On Ceres, Liber and the agricultural associations of the Circus and its cults see Marcattili 2008 (and especially p. 207 for the connection with the prologue of Georgics 1), 2009: 135-141; see also Le Bonniec 1958: 185-192, 264-266, 278 and 378. 18. See Long 1987: 97-98, T. 34 and on Res Gestae 19 see Scheid 2007: 55-56, Cooley 2009: 187-188; more generally see on the puluinar Hugoniot 2006, Van den Berg 2008. 19. For full discussion see Roddaz 1984: 152-3, Humphrey 1986: 73. Tacitus, Ann. 2.49 refers to the reconstruction by Augustus iuxta Circum of the temples of Bacchus, Ceres and Proserpina; this was in fact a single temple, known as the the Aedes Cereris; see Coarelli 1993. All three deities are mentioned in Vergil's prologue, which is highly suggestive of the topicality of the passage; Vergil reiterates the importance of Ceres for Georgics 1 as a whole by naming her again at 1.96, 147, 338-50. In general see Le Bonniec 1958: 52-77, 108-164. 20. Translation by Edwards 2000. On Caesar and the pompa see Weinstock 1971: 184-6.
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21. Translation by Carey 1916. 22. Translation by Winstedt 1918. 23. Translation by Carey 1917. 24. Translation by Edwards 2000. On this incident see Beard, North, Price 1998: 262, Feeney 1998: 96. 25. See Nelis 2010. 26. Conington 1898: ad loc. 27. See Gale 2000: 27-31. 28. On various different beginnings in Georgics 1 (e.g. Deucalion and Pyrrha; Jupiter's inauguration of a new via) see Hardie 2005. 23-25 = 2009: 41-3. For the suggestion that Chaonia puns on Hesiodic Chaos see Hardie 2005: 23 n.11 = 2009: 42 n.2. 29. See Ruiz de Elvira 1967. 30. See n.19 above on Proserpina and the Circus; and for a recent survey of the presence of mystery cult in the poem see Johnston 2009. 31. See Farrell 1991. 32. Cf. Erren 2003: 572 on 3.22 for the same conclusion.
RÉSUMÉS
In this paper we attempt to show that the prologue of the first book of the Georgics, in which a series of deities is invoked to preside over the beginning of Vergil’s text, should be related to the pompa circensis, the grand procession of deities which preceded the celebration of the ludi circenses. The Vergilian passage is compared with the descriptions of the pompa to be found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 7.72.1-18 and Ovid, Amores 3.2. It is also discussed in relation to the prologue of Georgics 3, where a pompa is explicitly mentioned. In addition, we relate the prologue’s prediction of Octavian’s apotheosis to the fact that the pompa circensis was Rome’s most remarkable display of images of the gods and hence a major focus for the categorization of the divine, particularly in Triumviral and early Augustan Rome.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Circus games, Circus Maximus, Georgics, pompa circensis, Roman Religion., Vergil
AUTEURS
DAMIEN NELIS (University of Geneva) [email protected]
JOCELYNE NELIS-CLÉMENT (CNRS, Ausonius-Université de Bordeaux) [email protected]
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‘Eastern’ Elegy and ‘Western’ Epic: reading ‘orientalism’ in Propertius 4 and Virgil’s Aeneid
Donncha O’Rourke
NOTE DE L'AUTEUR
This paper was first delivered as ‘L’epos “occidentale” nell’elegia “orientale” e vice versa: Elena, Didone, e Cleopatra in Properzio e Virgilio’ at a conference on Orientalismo Romano held at Sapienza Università di Roma; a subsequent version was aired at NUI Maynooth. I gratefully acknowledge the input of both audiences, of Anna Chahoud, Jacqueline Fabre-Serris, Giacomo Peru, and of Dictynna’s anonymous reviewers. This research was conducted during tenure of postdoctoral fellowships from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and, latterly, the British Academy.
Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions ; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient ; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious “Western” imperialist plot to hold down the “Oriental” world. It is, rather, a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts ; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident) but also of a whole series of “interests” which, by such means as scholarly discovery, philological reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and sociological description, it not only creates but also maintains ; it is, rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world.i
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Introduction
1 The generic and geographical coordinates encoded in ‘eastern’ elegy and ‘western’ epic propose an identification of elegy with the Orient and of epic with the Occident. The adherence of these labels owes less to the alleged historical origins of elegy in Phrygia (by some accounts, Homer was no less eastern)ii than to elegy’s self-construction in contradistinction to epic, as the binary opposite of a genre whose underlying narrative is consistently one of western hegemony (of the Greek world over Troy, of Trojan Rome over Greece and the world).
2 It matters less that the Iliad does not in fact polarise Greeks and barbarians than that it was constructed as doing so by readers situated in the anti-Persian context of Classical Athens, a context which has mediated readings of Homer to this day.iii Thucydides may have recognised that Homeric epic eschews the word barbaros,iv but he also sees the Trojan expedition as an originary act of Hellenic unity (Thuc. 1.3). For Isocrates (Paneg. 159) Homer glorified those who fought against the barbarians (τοὺς πολεμήσαντας τοῖς βαρβάροις) and bequeathed to posterity a model both of the enmity which exists towards them (τὴν ἔχθραν τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν πρὸς αὐτούς) and of the virtue of those who went on campaign against them (τὰς ἀρετὰς τῶν στρατευσαμένων).v 3 Western hegemony is the narrative also of Roman epic, whether narrated ‘imperially’, from the perspective of the victorious, or ‘romantically’, through the eyes of the defeated : recognising this bifurcation, David Quint finds that the “Virgilian tradition of imperial dominance is the stronger tradition, the defining tradition of Western epic”.vi It is also a tradition which, unlike Homeric epic, defines the West itself : thus, for example, Anchises prophesies an Augustus Caesar who ‘will advance his empire beyond the Garamants and Indians’ (super et Garamantes et Indos | proferet imperium, Aen. 6.794-5). In this way, the Aeneid retrojects into the Homeric past the orientalist dichotomy of the Augustan present : the un-Homeric adjective with which Aeneas describes the ruined bridal chambers of the Trojan palace (barbarico postes auro spoliisque superbi | procubuere ; tenent Danai qua deficit ignis, ‘the doors proud with the spoils of barbaric gold, fall low ; where the fire fails, the Greeks hold sway’, Aen. 2.504-5) recurs in this form in the Aeneid only of Marc Antony, pictured on Aeneas’ shield ‘with barbaric might’ (ope barbarica, Aen. 8.685) as he musters ‘the strength of the East’ (uirisque Orientis, 687).vii That Virgil is in both cases echoing a phrase of Ennian tragedy (o Priami domus … uidi ego te adstante ope barbarica, Enn. trag. 87-9 Jocelyn) suggests that the Annales, too, will have anticipated the Aeneid in confirming epic as the poetic embodiment of occidental imperialism.viii
4 To the extent that it constructs itself in opposition to epic, then, elegy might be said to distance itself from an Occidental agenda and to associate itself with an Oriental alternative. Propertius’ putative association with Antony will suggest one way in which this idea may be explored,ix the exoticism of Propertius’ language another. x Such material requires careful evaluation, however : Antonian affinities are not necessarily valorized or legitimised by elegy,xi and the genre’s exoticism, palpable even in the names of the elegiac mistresses, reflects a wider context in which the elegiac lifestyle and its props are luxury imports predicated on imperialist expansion.xii
5 The labelling of epic and elegy as ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ might also be seen as an extension of, or a possibility created by, the similarly binary association of gender and
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genre. Recent studies have explored (and sometimes deconstructed) the tendency of epic to gender itself as male and the opposing tendency of elegy to gender itself as female, each asserting its default identity with self-conscious headlines : the opening of the Aeneid (Arma uirumque cano) first echoes and then translates the androcentric incipit of the Odyssey (Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε) ; xiii the opening of the Propertian corpus (Cynthia prima) first enacts and then declares the ostensible gynocentrism of elegy.xiv Although Said’s account of ‘orientalism’ has been criticised for its perceived omission of gender,xv a similar distinction between ‘male’ west and ‘female’ east can be identified as a polarity operative in ‘orientalist’ discourse.xvi It follows, not without circularity, that the genres of epic and elegy should exhibit ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ characteristics respectively, with each scrutinising the other in the construction of itself : ‘western’ epic is necessarily tough, rational, civilised, and masculine, while ‘oriental’ elegy is weak, irrational, uncivilised, and effeminate.xvii However, to equate elegy and epic with the polarities of orientalist discourse is not merely to reconfigure gender-focussed analysis. While gender remains a conspicuous theme in (our feminist and post-feminist readings of) Latin elegy and epic, in an orientalist context even the idea of male superiority plays handmaid to occidental geopolitical hegemony. To a paper which sees genre circulating with gender within the framework of Said’s orientalism, then, the well-known confrontation of elegy and epic in Propertius 4 offers a rich case-study also for the interface of East and West.xviii
Propertius and Horos (Propertius 4.1)
6 The first elegy of Propertius 1 had opened with the primacy of Cynthia and her emasculation of the poet-lover (1.1.1-4), and looked east to Hellenistic models (Callimachus and possibly Philetas) with the exotic exemplum of Milanion and Atalanta (1.1.9-16).xix At the other extreme of the Propertian corpus, something quite the opposite occurs. The first elegy of Propertius 4 looks west to maxima Roma and, intertextually, to Virgil’s Aeneid (4.1.1-4) :xx HOC quodcumque uides, hospes, qua maxima Roma est, ante Phrygem Aenean collis et herba fuit, atque ubi Nauali stant sacra Palatia Phoebo, Euandri profugae concubuere boues. Everything you can see here, my friend, where the great city of Rome is, before Phrygian Aeneas was hill and grass ; and where stands the Palatine sacred to Naval Phoebus, the migrant cattle of Evander once lay together.
7 Although temporally located ‘before Aeneas’, these lines clearly survey the literary landscape after the Aeneid :xxi the names of Aeneas and Evander, the exiled cattle, the interplay of humble past and magnificent present, and the memory of Actium signal collectively the presence in Propertian elegy of Virgil’s epic on Rome and nationhood. The ensuing celebration of early Roman and Italian asceticism, rusticity, and religiosity makes a “resounding understatement” of the declaration, postponed until line 39, of Troy’s good fortune in finding such a destination (huc melius profugos misisti, Troia, Penates, ‘Here, Troy, you sent the fleeing Penates to a better future’).xxii Snapshots from the Aeneid (41-50 : the wooden horse ; the flight from burning Troy ; Venus’ delivery of ‘the victorious arms of resurgent Troy’ ; the Sibyl’s prophecy) shade into a reminiscence of Lycophron’s Alexandra (itself an intoxicating narrative of east-west conflictxxiii that encloses much of the same materialxxiv) when Cassandra’s prophecy of
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geopolitical reversal in Greece’s submission to Trojan Rome (uertite equum, Danai : male uincitis. Ilia tellus | uiuet, et huic cineri Iuppiter arma dabit, ‘Greeks, turn the horse : it is futile for you to win. The land of Ilium will live, and Jupiter will give arms to this ash’, 53-4) belatedly proves true to Priam.xxv Climactically, Propertius proclaims his native Umbria as the homeland of Rome’s Callimachus (Umbria Romani patria Callimachi, 64) and so concludes his foray into the narrative of occidental hegemony with a personal endorsement of Rome as the artistic capital of Italy and the Greek world.
8 The task of arresting Propertius’ newfound interest in epic, masculinity, and the West is assigned, in what is conventionally called 4.1b, to a speaker who boasts a strikingly oriental lineage (me creat Archytae suboles, Babylonius Orops, | Horon, et a proauo ducta Conone domus, ‘Babylonian Orops, the offspring of Archytas, fathered me, Horos, and the house derives from our forefather Conon’, 78-9).xxvi It is perhaps not surprising that this easterner goes on to champion the ‘orientalising’ aspects of Propertian elegy, in particular the poet-lover’s ineluctable subservience to una puella (140), but also the ‘romantic’ focalisation of imperialism from the perspective of its casualties.
9 Thus, whereas Propertius reads Virgil and Lycophron for the narrative of Troy’s resurrection as imperialist Rome, Horos eschews the Aeneid and rereads the Alexandra from the alternative perspective : the echo in 87-8 (dicam ‘Troia, cades, et, Troica Roma, resurges’ ; | et maris et terrae longa sepulchra canam, ‘I shall say, ‘Troy, you will fall, and, Trojan Rome, you will rise,’ and I shall sing a catalogue of tombs on land and sea’)xxvii of Lycophron’s controversial prediction of Roman dominion (γῆς καὶ θαλάσσης σκῆπτρα καὶ μοναρχίαν | λαβόντες, ‘[Cassandra’s descendants] obtaining the sceptre and monarchy of earth and sea’, 1229-30)xxviii has been taken to recommended Mueller’s transposition of the couplet to precede the earlier Lycophronian reminiscence in 53-4,xxix but it might also be taken to initiate a sequence in which Horos neuters the intertext of its imperialism (in which case longa sepulchra need not be emended) xxx by focussing on the disasters suffered by the returning Greeks (113-16, cf. Alex. 365-1089) rather than on the new empire taking their place, on Cassandra’s victimisation (117-8, cf. Alex. 348-64) rather than on her role as prophet of her nation’s future glory.xxxi Propertius had traced that glory to the auspicious arrival of the Trojan Penates in Italy, but Horos now relates how a grasping Roman mother enlisted her twin sons in the foreign legions and doomed them never to return ad patrios … Penates (89-98).
10 Whereas Propertius celebrates Umbria’s service to Rome, Horos defamiliarises the poet’s homeland (qua nebuloso cauo rorat Meuania campo | et lacus aestiuis intepet Umber aquis, ‘where misty Mevania is moist in its deep-lying plain, and the Umbrian lake warms up with summer waters’, 123-4) to evoke its ‘otherness’ and to commemorate the site of its capitulation to Roman integration in 308 BC.xxxii He then reminds the poet of more recent acts of imperialist bullying, the agrarian confiscations of 41 BC, in which the Propertian gens was dispossessed ( abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes, ‘the grim surveyor’s pole took away the cultivated wealth’, 130).
11 Climactically, whereas Propertius had proclaimed himself the ‘Roman Callimachus’ to sing of Rome’s occidental militia, Horos restages (and at 4.1.133-40 alludes to) the Callimachean Apollo’s intervention in the Aetia Prologue conversely to delimit Propertian elegy to the sphere of militia amoris (135-8) :xxxiii at tu finge elegos, fallax opus (haec tua castra), scribat ut exemplo cetera turba tuo.
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militiam Veneris blandis patiere sub armis et Veneris pueris utilis hostis eris. You are to compose elegies, deceitful work : this will be your campaign, so that the rest of the crowd may write in imitation of you. You will endure military service under the attractive arms of Venus, and you will be an easy opponent for Venus’s sons.
12 This imperative to promote in elegiac art a highly unRoman subject positionxxxiv aptly inverts the famous conclusion of the Virgilian Parade of Heroes (Aen. 6.847-53) in which Anchises leaves to the Other (alii, 847) the activities of sculpture, oratory, and astronomy, and assigns to the Roman the ‘arts’ of empire (851-3) :xxxv tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. you, Roman, be sure to rule the world (these be your arts), to crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished and to crush the proud.
13 Identified as an ‘opponent for Venus’s sons’ (137), Propertius is not merely Cupid’s target, but also the adversary of his proto-Roman brother, Aeneas. Whereas Anchises commands the Roman to war down the proud, Horos prophesies (also post eventum) that una puella will elude the elegist’s grasp and thwart his victories (nam tibi uictrices quascumque labore pararis, | eludet palmas una puella tuas, ‘For whatever symbols of victory you gain with your labour, one girl will elude your palms’, 139-40 : palmas suggests both ‘grasp’ and ‘victory palms’), subjecting him to her dominion instead (141-6). In Horos’ response to Propertius, the outsider’s perspective on imperialist dominion as a narrative of destruction and self-destruction shades into a parallel narrative of erotic emasculation and domination.
14 In this way, the oriental Horos of 4.1b systematically inverts the occidental Propertius of 4.1a. Taken as a whole, elegy 4.1 articulates the polarity within Propertius 4 between epic and elegy, a polarity also expressed through the interplay of male and female interests, and through attendant geographical or ethnographical oppositions. However, the aetiological and erotic poles of the book are not mutually exclusive : erotic aetiologies and aetiological love-poems collapse the poles of masculine epic and feminine elegy, such that no elegy can be categorised strictly according to one or the other.xxxvi Within the masculine and western first half of 4.1, too, Propertius can be seen to read Virgilian epic for its ‘oriental’ elements. While, on first appearances, late Propertian elegy seemed to rescind its former ties with the feminine and the east (Cynthia prima) and to declare allegiance to the masculine and the west (maxima Roma), the elegist’s use of the epithet ‘Phrygian’ (4.1.2) to describe Aeneas also signposts from the outset that which within masculine and western epic connotes the effeminate Orient. In the Aeneid, occidental extremism is represented by the protests of Iarbas (4.215-7), Turnus (12.99-100) and, most vehemently, Numanus Remulus (9.598-620), for whom Aeneas’ Phrygian provenance serves as a catch-all slur (614-20) : uobis picta croco et fulgenti murice uestis, desidiae cordi, iuuat indulgere choreis, 615 et tunicae manicas et habent redimicula mitrae. o uere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges, ite per alta Dindyma, ubi adsuetis biforem dat tibia cantum. tympana uos buxusque uocat Berecyntia Matris Idaeae ; sinite arma uiris et cedite ferro. 620 But you wear embroidered saffron and gleaming purple ; sloth is your joy, your delight is to enjoy the dance ; your tunics have sleeves and your turbans ribbons.
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Phrygian women, indeed ! – for Phrygian men you are not – go over the heights of Dindymus, where to accustomed ears the pipe utters music from double mouths ! The timbrels call you, and the Berecynthian boxwood of the mother Ida : leave arms to men, and quit the sword.
15 For this racial fundamentalist, Phrygius connotes the effeminate, weak, and irrational composition of the ‘other’, the mirror image of his own durum a stirpe genus (603). xxxvii Here, then, Virgil confronts head-on the problematic stereotype of the barbarized Trojan read into Homeric epic in fifth-century Athens. By extension, Numanus’ defence of Italy’s occidental purity is also implicitly a defence of the epic genre from oriental and effeminate incursion : his imperative to the Trojan heroes, whom he regenders as ‘Phrygian women’ (617) to ‘leave arms to men’ (sinite arma uiris, 620) invokes the incipit of the Aeneid as if to suggest that easterners by essence have no business in epic.xxxviii An uncompromising and unapologetic spokesman for racial extremism, Numanus polices the borders of geography and genre.
16 Without necessarily positing an allusion to Numanus’ speech in Propertius 4.1, the intertextual connotations of the epithet Phrygius are nonetheless such that its application to Aeneas at 4.1.2 can be taken as an allusion to the tension inherent in the Roman foundation myth as presented by Virgil. For Richard Thomas, Numanus’ speech is a nodal point in Virgil’s lament for the lost innocence of pristine Italy, a speech which points to “the moral degeneracy which is a part … of modern Roman civilisation”.xxxix Contrary to views of Roman xenophobia and racial discrimination, however, Erich Gruen has argued that the heterogeneity integral to the Roman foundation narrative is one among many signs of a Roman predisposition and openness to ethnic pluralism.xl On this view, the ensuing removal of the unsympathetic Numanus by Ascanius’ bowshot could be taken to hail the advent of a less uncompromising and more pluralistic Italy. The divergent responses to Virgil’s presentation of Trojan immigration are read by James O’Hara as a symptom of “functional indeterminacy” in the morality of pre- and post-Trojan Italy as presented by Virgil.xli The plurality of views identified by Emma Dench in Roman discussions of ethnicity and nationhood thus finds itself reflected within the Virgilian text.xlii
17 Propertius 4.1 offers a more one-sided reading of Virgilian indeterminacy, first signposting and then subtly illustrating the ‘orientalising’ effect on proto-Rome of the Phrygian influx. Propertius might thus be said to tease out the implications detected by readers such as Thomas in the Virgilian presentation of indigenous Italy, and so to expose a reading of the Aeneid that is congenial to the oriental perspective of elegy. It is well-recognised that the past-present juxtapositions in Propertius 4.1 are inspired by Virgil’s contrasts between ‘now’ and ‘then’ in Aeneid 8 (only from the inverse temporal perspective).xliii However, the temporal marker embedded in the phrase ante Phrygem Aenean at Propertius 4.1.2 suggests that the event which divides past from present, and which is therefore the catalyst of change, was the arrival of the Trojans, itself postponed until line 39 (huc melius profugos misisti, Troia, Penates). Thus, the seemingly casual assertion that before Phrygian Aeneas ‘an artlessly built cottage used not to be a cause of shame’ (nec fuit opprobrio facta sine arte casa, 6) offers an implicit comment on later attitudes to domestic comfort. Similarly, that there existed no saffron-reeking theatre (15-16) or foreign religion (17-18) before Phrygian Aeneas implies that these potentially dubious innovations attended the arrival of the Trojans :xliv as Hutchinson points out on 15-16, “[b]oth hexameter and pentameter end with visibly Greek words [theatrum ; crocus], and suggest foreign culture and luxury” ;xlv the contrast in 17-18
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between native Italian ritual (patrio … sacro) and later foreign religion (externos … diuos) might bring to mind the importation of the Magna Mater, the Trojan cult lambasted by Numanus for its effeminacy.xlvi
18 The disjunction between pre- and post-Trojan Italy in Propertius is far more clear-cut than its ‘functionally indeterminate’ Virgilian counterpart also in regard to the militarisation of the indigenous population. The Aeneid illustrates a much more blurred division between the pre- and post-Trojan eras when the newcomers’ hubris (Ascanius has shot Silvia’s stag) is met with iron resistance (Aen. 7.523-6) : non iam certamine agresti stipitibus duris agitur sudibusue praeustis, sed ferro ancipiti decernunt atraque late horrescit strictis seges ensibus now they do not contend in rustic quarrel with heavy clubs or seared stakes, but with two-edged steel they try the issue ; far and wide bristles a dark harvest of drawn swords
19 The abandonment of wooden stakes for weapons of steel and the perversion of agricultural imagery (non … agresti) in the crop of swords suggest that the Latins are ready for more than a rustic squabble. The subsequent reopening of the Gates of War (7.601-8) and re-tempering of patrios … enses (‘their forefathers’ swords’, 7.636 : contrast Geo. 1.506-8) explodes the myth of an ‘Arcadian’ Italy. Contrariwise, Propertius 4.1 maintains that, before Phrygian Aeneas, the rustic soldier knew battles only with the wooden stake (27-8) : nec rudis infestis miles radiabat in armis : miscebant usta proelia nuda sude.
nor did the novice soldier shine in hostile armour : they joined unarmoured battles with burnt staves.
20 Moreover, in fighting without shining weapons, the rudis … miles does without the resplendent equipment brought to Aeneas by Venus (arma sub aduersa posuit radiantia quercu, ‘[she] set up the radiant arms under an oak before him’, Aen. 8.616 : the verb radiare occurs only here in Propertius). There may have been rustic squabbles in the Propertian view of aboriginal Italy, but the implication that metal arma were a Trojan innovation implicitly corrects the Virgilian picture of a pre-militarised native Italy and complements the recurrent insinuation that the Trojan immigration had a detrimental effect.
21 These differences do not necessarily register a fundamental ideological disagreement with Virgil, and oriental elegy may not be quite so far distant from occidental epic as it seems. The two-way traffic of intertextuality is such that Propertius’ allusions to Virgil serve not only to make elegy more ‘epic’, masculine, and ‘western’ ; it also exposes what in Virgil is less ‘epic’, less masculine, and more ‘oriental’. Propertius’ self-identification with Callimachus (4.1.64) is both a declaration of elegy’s ‘foreign’ aesthetic but also itself an act of literary imperialism. In like manner, Virgilian epic is at once ‘orientalising’ and intertextually imperialist in its incorporation of, among other ‘eastern’ models, the Odyssey and Iliad, the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius and, in Aeneid 8 in particular, Callimachus’ Aetia.xlvii In the Georgics, Virgil is more explicit in advertising his intertextual appropriations as a form of triumphant imperialism, but the same can be said of the Aeneid : as Philip Hardie has written, “The Aeneid itself is the monument to the final naturalization on Roman soil of Greek cultural goods
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transported from the east, a journey parallel to that of its hero Aeneas, from east to west, from the world of Homer to the world of Augustus.”xlviii
Hercules (Propertius 4.9)
22 Aeneas’ journey from east to west is inverted in Propertius 4.9 when the Virgilian Hercules, Aeneas’ typological precursor in the Aeneid, sets out from Erythea, the mythical island of the far west, and travels east to Rome (4.9.1-3) : AMPHITRYONIADES qua tempestate iuuencos egerat a stabulis, o Erythea, tuis, uenit ad inuictos, pecorosa Palatia, montes The son of Amphitryon, what time he had driven the oxen from your stalls, Erythea, came to the unconquerable mountains
23 This global setting provides a grand stage for the metapoetic drama to be played out within 4.9 in the intrusion of epic masculinity on the domain of female elegy.xlix The geographical transition from west to east thus anticipates Propertius’ transition from epic to elegiac narrative : Hercules’ defeat of Cacus, narrated in Evander’s epyllion at Aen. 8.190-275, is now compressed into a mere seven elegiac couplets (4.9.7-20), thereby making way for a Propertian sequel in which the epic hero becomes an elegiac-style exclusus amator (4.9.31-6) :l huc ruit in siccam congesta puluere barbam, et iacit ante fores uerba minora deo : ‘uos precor, o luci sacro quae luditis antro, pandite defessis hospita fana uiris. fontis egens erro circum antra sonantia lymphis, et caua suscepto flumine palma sat est. Here he rushed, having heaped dust into his dry beard, and before the door he utters words not worthy of a god : ‘I pray to you who play in the sacred bower of the grove : open the temple hospitably to men who are exhausted. In need of a fountain I wander around glades sounding with water — and a hollow palm with water cupped in it is enough.
24 Hercules now stands ante fores (a catchphrase of the paraclausithyron scenario) begging to be admitted to the female-only shrine of the Bona Dea so that he may quench his thirst (and perhaps his lust).li Although translated to a distinctly elegiac scenario, the culture-hero nevertheless retains traces of his Virgilian provenance. Hercules’ prayerful request for a palmful of water recalls the ritual act of Aeneas at the very moment of his immigration via the Tiber (Aen. 8.69-70) : cauis undam de flumine palmis sustinet ac talis effundit ad aethera uoces
[Aeneas] uplifts water from the stream in his hollow palms as use ordains, and pours forth to Heaven this prayer
25 Propertius’ Hercules might initially be thought to be ‘repeating’ here, in an elegiac context, the far more solemn action of Aeneas in Aeneid 8. In narrative chronology, however, it must be Aeneas who is doing the repetition : in an act of literary one- upmanship, Virgil’s hero is made to repeat the rather less than heroic behaviour of his typological precursor as found in the Propertian poem. On an initial impression, then, the elegiac destination that awaits Hercules’ passage from west to east inverts the epic destiny that awaits his analogue’s inverse passage from east to west. At a more playful
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level, however, 4.9 exploits the chronological texture of the Aeneid to expose (or impose) a more elegiac reading of Virgil : Hercules’ elegiac emasculation, for example, may find affinity in the effeminacy imputed to Aeneas by his Italian opponents. Constructing for himself a suitably elegiac and feminine demeanour, Propertius’ Hercules cites his former enslavement to the Lydian queen Omphale (47-50) : idem ego Sidonia feci seruilia palla officia et Lydo pensa diurna colo ; mollis et hirsutum cinxit mihi fascia pectus, et manibus duris apta puella fui. I have also done the tasks of a slave-girl in a Sidonian gown and worked at the daily burden of the Lydian distaff. A soft breastband has surrounded my shaggy chest, and with my hard hands I was a fitting girl.
26 However comical Hercules’ transvestism may be, when read through an ‘orientalist’ lens, his presence in the Roman Occident, reliving his ‘oriental’ adventures, becomes a meaningful analogy for the story of the Aeneid, at least as read by Propertius. Such a reading of Hercules’ seruitium in an oriental dress (Sidonia…palla) would find support within the Aeneid in, for example, Iarbas’ characterisation (Aen. 4.215-7) of his rival for Dido’s affections (cf. Sidonia Dido, Aen. 1.446). As a politician as well as a lover, Iarbas’ rhetoric gives an indication of the role played by orientalism in propagandistic discourse.
27 Just as orientalism is an intensively politicised discourse, many readers of these texts have found themselves confronted by political allegory and the ‘toils of historicism’.lii Such possibilities can be considered within the parameters of intertextuality broadly defined. Political intertexts will rise to the surface in 4.9 all the more promptly for any reader who had extracted political significance from (or imposed it upon) the duel of Hercules and Cacus in the corresponding passage of Aeneid 8, where Hercules’ triumph over evil, however untidy, in some measure anticipates the culture-heroism within the epic of Aeneas and, beyond the epic, of Augustus.liii In so doing, such a reader becomes entangled in a post-Actian reorganisation of allegorical appropriations, since it was Marc Antony (rather than Augustus) who had laid claim to Herculean intertextuality by virtue of familial descent.liv Paul Zanker has argued that the anti-Antonian faction was quick to capitalise on such associations, in this case by associating Hercules and Omphale with Antony and Cleopatra :lv iconographically, such an identification may have been implied in mass-produced Arretine ware, and more generally it would have been one among many associations potentially available to viewers of Augustan and Julio-Claudian images of Omphale such as have been excavated in abundance around the Bay of Naples (even if in themselves these are merely a symptom of Rome’s contact with the East).lvi Such an interpretation of Propertius 4.9 is encouraged by elegy 3.11 where, in a catalogue that culminates with Cleopatra, the myth of Hercules and Omphale provides one of several parallels for the poet’s elegiac subservience (3.11.17-20) : Omphalelvii in tantum formae processit honorem Lydia Gygaeo tincta puella lacu ut qui pacato statuisset in orbe columnas tam dura traheret mollia pensa manu. Omphale, the Lydian girl who had bathed in Gyges’ pool, advanced to such distinction of beauty that the man who had set up columns to mark the world he had pacified plied soft weights [i.e. of wool] with his hand so hard.
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28 The accounts of Hercules’ servitude in the east here in 3.11 and later in 4.9 are expressed similarly (as underlined) but differently allegorised : in the former, Hercules finds his literary and historical counterparts in Propertius and Antony respectively, whereas in the latter they are located in Aeneas and, for some Virgilian readers, Augustus. Any reactivation of Hercules’ Antonian associations in the context of Propertius’ elegiac sequel to the duel of Hercules and Cacus will consequently problematise a straightforward reading of Virgilian allegory in Aeneid 8. It may signal his recent re-appropriation by Augustus (and Virgil) that Hercules in Propertius 4.9 merely reminisces about his former enslavement in the Orient, and is decidedly not cross-dressing in the present (i.e. Hercules is no longer an Antonian heroine), yet his ensuing desecration of the Bona Dea shrine will impose a limit on any such sanitisation.
29 There is, however, no need to be determinative with this, or any, intertext. Other readers of Propertius 4.9 have detected in the recollection of Hercules’ transvestism at the Bona Dea shrine a countervailing reminiscence of Clodius’ alleged desecration of the same cult in 62 BC.lviii It might be seen as a function of orientalist discourse that Antony, Clodius, Hercules, and Propertius should be constructed in like manner. In an important contribution to the literature-versus-life debate, Jasper Griffin argued that Propertius and Antony engaged in a mutually reinforcing self-presentation as elegiac hedonists.lix Orientalism would ascribe less autonomy to its protagonists, such that the Propertian love-affair and the historical record of Antony are each products of, as well as participants in, orientalist discourse. It could be argued, further, that the strength of this discourse continues to manifest in representations of Antony and Cleopatra to this day.lx
Cleopatra (Propertius 4.6)
30 Given the structural similarities between the elegiac love-affair and accounts of Cleopatra’s interaction with Rome, it is hardly surprising that the celebration of the oriental queen’s downfall in Propertius 4.6 is followed by the news of the mistress’ death in Propertius 4.7 : according to this sequence, the end of Cynthia’s regnum (4.7.50) corresponds to the end of Cleopatra’s (cf. 4.6.58). A degree of tension here is inescapable since, as Alison Keith has argued, it was Roman militarism in the east which funded elegiac nequitia at Rome. lxi Thus, if Actium kills Cynthia in 4.7, it also makes possible her resurrection in 4.8. Propertius 4.6 is therefore honest in its closing admission that the otium of poetic activity is predicated on Actium (69-78) ; in the elegy’s opening declaration of oriental intertexts (1-8), the Phrygian origins of the genre are invoked in an act of homage to occidental supremacy (tibia Mygdoniis libet eburna cadis, ‘let the ivory pipe libate a song from Phrygian jars’, 8).
31 The lines which fall within this frame have been described in terms of their extreme masculinity :lxii the assertion that ‘Rome conquers through the good faith of Apollo ; the woman pays the penalty’ (uincit Roma fide Phoebi ; dat femina poenas, 57) is the culmination of a reductivism in which Actium is progressively reformulated as a kind of ‘battle of the sexes’ (19-24) :lxiii huc mundi coiere manus; stetit aequore moles pinea; nec remis aequa fauebat auis: altera classis erat Teucro damnata Quirino pilaque femineae turpiter apta manu;
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hinc Augusta ratis, plenis Iouis omine uelis, signaque iam patriae uincere docta suae. Here met the forces of the world ; a pine mass stood in the sea ; but no equal omen favoured the oars. One fleet was doomed by Trojan Quirinus, and its legionary javelins were shamefully fitted into a female hand ; on the other side the August ship, its sails filled by Jupiter’s favour, and standards already taught to conquer for their own country.
32 In Teucrian Quirinus, Rome’s Phrygian heritage has been sanitised and assimilated to the patria to the point that it can now oppose itself to Rome’s eastern foes, here embodied in a single woman. This reductiveness takes its lead from the depiction of Actium in the ecphrasis of Aeneas’ shield (Aen. 8.675-728)lxiv where, as David Quint has shown, Virgil brings into confrontation a series of binary opposites (one v. many ; male v. female ; control v. loss of control ; order v. chaos ; Olympians v. monsters ; permanence v. flux) under the banner of West versus East.lxv
33 Transposed from the centre of the Shield of Aeneas to the centre of Propertius 4, the historical Cleopatra takes on the aspect of the disruptive elegiac domina, as in 3.11, only now in retreat. Just as Horos predicted that una puella (Cynthia) will frustrate Propertius’ uictrices … palmas (4.1.140, above), so Propertius describes the mulier una (Cleopatra) who eluded the emperor’s triumph (4.6.63-66) : illa petit Nilum cumba male nixa fugaci occultum, iusso non moritura die. di melius ! quantus mulier foret una triumphus, ductus erat per quas ante Iugurtha uias ! Unpropitiously reliant on a fleeing cutter, she makes for the Nile, hidden river, with no intention of dying on a demanded day. Thank heaven ! What a triumph a single woman would have been in the streets through which Jugurtha was led in the past !
34 As well as consolidating the implicit connection between Cleopatra and the elegiac mistress, these lines also more immediately recall the depiction of Cleopatra’s flight to the Nile on Aeneas’ shield (Aen. 8.709-13) : illam inter caedes pallentem morte futura fecerat ignipotens undis et Iapyge ferri, contra autem magno maerentem corpore Nilum pandentemque sinus et tota ueste uocantem caeruleum in gremium latebrosaque flumina uictos. Amid the carnage, the Lord of Fire had fashioned her pale at the coming of death, borne on the waves and the wind of Iapyx ; while over against her was the mourning Nile, of massive body, opening wide his folds and with all his raiment welcoming the vanquished to his azure lap and sheltering streams.
35 What is striking about this more obvious connection is that it pinpoints the precise moment at which Virgil’s Cleopatra herself looks back to an elegiac and oriental queen within the Aeneid : fleeing to the Nile pallentem morte futura (709), Cleopatra cannot but evoke Dido, pallida morte futura (4.644) in the denouement of her tragedy four books earlier.lxvi By means of this intratextual echo, Virgil retroactively confirms the historical echo of Antony and Cleopatra in the affair of Dido and Aeneas in Aeneid 4. Propertius, at any rate, would appear to have read Virgil in this way : in the context of the similarity in 63-4 to Cleopatra’s getaway on Aeneas’ shield,lxvii the future participle moritura does more than condense the phrase by which the Virgilian Cleopatra recalls her Sidonian analogue, for moritura is itself expressly applied to Dido four times in Aeneid 4 (308, 415, 519, 604). Propertius, therefore, advertises his awareness of the
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intratextual connection with Dido’s death in the demise of Cleopatra in Aeneid 8 by applying to his own moribund Cleopatra a different future participle, but one which nonetheless directly connotes Dido. The connection is of particular interest to Propertius, given Dido’s construction as an elegiac lover.lxviii
36 Propertius’ reading of the Aeneid for its oriental, feminine, and elegiac elements thus extends to the epic’s exploration of the assertion of western male dominance, the art of imperium sine fine, through the demise of its female protagonists.lxix As Keith has argued in her analysis of women in Latin epic, the reassertion of Roman order through Cleopatra’s annihilation is prefigured in the Aeneid’s sequence of female deaths : “Just as Aeneas inaugurates his imperial mission over his wife’s ghost (2.272-95) and reaffirms his devotion to the project over the entreaties of the dying Dido (4.345-50 ; cf. 6.460-4), so Vulcan depicts Augustus, Aeneas’ descendant on the shield, restoring order to the Roman world with the defeat and death of Cleopatra.”lxx Whether read ‘pessimistically’ or otherwise,lxxi this apparent misogyny is no less a feature of Propertius 4 which, like the Aeneid and other Augustan texts, makes of the female corpse a locus for the interrogation, if not valorisation, of occidental hegemony.lxxii
Excursus : [Helen] (Propertius 4.6)
37 In the context of a poetry book which presents a sequence of women who are either dead or moribund, and of a poem which reduces the Battle of Actium to a ‘battle of the sexes’, it can be seen as an expression or strategy of patriarchal and orientalist discourse that the Propertian narrator pours scorn on the notion of being worsted by an oriental woman (4.6.45-6), asserts that Rome wins and the female pays (57), and recuperates her escape by questioning the glory to be derived from subjecting a single woman to a Roman triumph (65).lxxiii
38 In the Aeneid, similar thoughts are articulated in the so-called ‘Helen Episode’, a passage of twenty-two lines transmitted by none of the principal Virgilian manuscripts and attested by no ancient authority other than Servius,lxxiv who alleges (ad Aen. 2.592) that the lines were expunged from the Aeneid by Virgil’s literary executors on account of their inappropriateness to Aeneas’ uirtus and inconsistency with Helen’s whereabouts as later reported (Aen. 6.511-29).lxxv Whatever the authenticity of the lines, it is interesting to note that, like the narrator of Propertius 4.6, Aeneas abhors the prospect of being worsted by an eastern queen, sees the vindication of the fatherland in her punishment, and concedes that punishing women confers no lasting glory (Aen. 2.571-87) : illa sibi infestos euersa ob Pergama Teucros et Danaum poenam et deserti coniugis iras praemetuens, Troiae et patriae communis Erinys, abdiderat sese atque aris inuisa sedebat. exarsere ignes animo ; subit ira cadentem 575 ulcisci patriam et sceleratas sumere poenas. ‘scilicet haec Spartam incolumis patriasque Mycenas aspiciet, partoque ibit regina triumpho ? coniugiumque domumque patris natosque uidebit Iliadum turba et Phrygiis comitata ministris ? 580 occiderit ferro Priamus ? Troia arserit igni ? Dardanium totiens sudarit sanguine litus ? non ita. namque etsi nullum memorabile nomen
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feminea in poena est, habet haec uictoria laudem ; exstinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis 585 laudabor poenas, animumque explesse iuuabit ultricis †famam et cineres satiasse meorum.’ She, fearing the Trojans' anger against her for the overthrow of Pergamum, the vengeance of the Greeks, and the wrath of the husband she abandoned - she, the undoing alike of her motherland and ours - had hidden herself and was crouching, hateful creature, by the altars. Fire blazed up in my heart; there comes an angry desire to avenge my ruined country and exact a penalty for her sin. 'So is she to look unscathed on Sparta and her native Mycenae, and parade a queen in the triumph she has won? Is she to see husband and home, parents and children, attended by a train of Ilian ladies and Phrygian captives? For this is Priam to have perished by the sword? Troy burnt in flames? The Dardan shore so often soaked in blood? Not so! For though there is no glorious renown in punishing a woman and such victory gains no honour, yet I shall win praise for blotting out villainy and exacting just recompense; and it will be a joy to have filled my soul with the flame of revenge [reading ultricis flammae] and satisfied the ashes of my people.'
39 Ideologically, this outburst and the Propertian narrator’s misogyny are on the same page. Contemplating Troy’s humiliation in Helen’s triumph (partoque ibit regina triumpho), Aeneas’ impulse to take revenge quickly overrides his reflection that there is no glory in punishing a woman (feminea in poena). The Propertian narrator similarly concedes that Cleopatra’s appearance in a Roman triumph would have made for a shallow spectacle (quantus mulier foret una triumphus), but conversely the female in this case is punished (dat femina poenas), now by Aeneas’ typological and familial successor (Auguste, Hectoreis cognite maior auis, ‘Augustus, recognized as greater than Hector and your ancestors’, 4.6.38). Intertextually, Augustus’ punishment of Cleopatra thus inverts the infamous case of Helen’s crime and impunity (on which the elegist had previously remarked : cf. 2.1.50 and 2.32.31-2). Female punishment may not be an uncommon theme in Augustan literature, but the words femina/femineus and poena are rarely found in such close combination.lxxvi A contrasting absence of marked lexical sharing between the Helen Episode and Horace’s accounts of Cleopatra’s demise (Epode 9 and Ode 1.37) throws the Propertian correspondences into yet sharper relief.lxxvii Lexically as well as thematically, therefore, Propertius 4.6 strikes a chord with what is conspicuously (some would say suspiciously)lxxviii Aeneas’ only soliloquy in his two-book after-dinner narrative of the sack of Troy and the subsequent wanderings of his people.
40 A parallel for the possible intertextual connection of Propertius 4.6 and the Helen Episode can be found in Lucan’s description of Cleopatra (De Bello Ciuili 10.55-67) which (as underlined) also recalls the Helen Episodelxxix and is generally agreed to establish for it a terminus post quem of 65 BC (unless, as has been argued,lxxx Lucan was also a ‘source text’ for the Helen Episode) :lxxxi obside quo pacis Pellaea tutus in aula 55 Caesar erat, cum se parua Cleopatra biremi corrupto custode Phari laxare catenas intulit Emathiis ignaro Caesare tectis, dedecus Aegypti, Latii feralis Erinys, Romano non casta malo. quantum inpulit Argos 60 Iliacasque domos facie Spartana nocenti, Hesperios auxit tantum Cleopatra furores. terruit illa suo, si fas, Capitolia sistro et Romana petit inbelli signa Canopo Caesare captiuo Pharios ductura triumphos ; 65
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Leucadioque fuit dubius sub gurgite casus, an mundum ne nostra quidem matrona teneret. With him [Ptolemy] as hostage, Caesar was secure | in the Pellaean court, when Cleopatra bribed the guard | to undo the chains of Pharos, and in a little two-oared boat | she entered the Emathian halls without Caesar’s knowledge - | the disgrace of Egypt, deadly Erinys of Latium, | promiscuous to the harm of Rome. As much as the Spartan woman | with her harmful beauty knocked down Argos and the homes of Ilium, | so Cleopatra swelled the madness of Hesperia. | With her rattle she alarmed the Capitol, if such a thing can be, | and she attacked the Roman standards with unwarlike Canopus, | in her intent to lead a Pharian triumph with Caesar as a captive ; | and doubtful was the outcome on the Leucadian flood : | would a woman – not even Roman – rule the world ?
41 Thus, both Lucan and Propertius describe Cleopatra in terms of Virgil’s Helen. By the reciprocity of intertextuality, such a reading of the Aeneid will, however anachronistically, invest Virgil’s Helen with traces of the literary Cleopatras of Lucan and Propertius, thereby exposing (or imposing) an historical allusion in this section of the Aeneid.lxxxii The association of two oriental queens whose politico-erotic intrigues sparked war between east and west (cf. Lucan 10.60-62) might further be encouraged should Aeneas’ contemplation of his people’s subjugation in Helen’s triumph (Aen. 2.578-80) recall the scaremongering rumours peddled about Cleopatra’s ambitions.lxxxiii At least one critic has found it “hardly conceivable” that Virgil could have cast Helen in the role of victorious general.lxxxiv Rather than pointing to the non-Virgilian authorship of the Helen Episode, however, this moment of perplexity might be the very point at which the surface of the text begins to shimmer over its allegorical depths. Those depths come more clearly into view when Helen is described in terms consistent with how Cleopatra is handled in Augustan poetry : as Maria Wyke has observed in her discussion of the Augustan Cleopatras, “[n]o name or title is used to identify her. She is once called ‘the Egyptian wife’ (Aegyptia coniunx), but more frequently is entitled only ‘queen’ (regina) or ‘woman’ (femina, mulier, illa).”lxxxv So too, after an initial patronymic (Tyndarida, 569), Virgil’s unmentionable Helen is denoted as illa (571), a fury (Erinys, 573), haec (577), regina (578), and nefas (585). lxxxvi It may be instructive, retroactively, that the last byword in this catalogue, nefas, is applied explicitly to Cleopatra on the shield of Aeneas (Aen. 8.688)lxxxvii where it is indicative of the reticence shared by the Augustan poets when it comes to naming her. With a virtual damnatio memoriae imposed on Cleopatra’s name by Virgil and his contemporaries, Aeneas’ nullum memorabile nomen | feminea in poena (Aen. 2.583-4) packs an ironical punch.
42 The susceptibility of Virgil’s Helen to allegorical interpretation as the historical Cleopatra may become especially acute for any reader who had already read in the immediately preceding scene of Priam’s decapitation an historical allusion to the decapitation of Pompey (a crime from which Cleopatra indirectly benefitted : cf. Lucan 10.100-103). Servius was one such reader (ad Aen. 2.557 : Pompei tangit historiam) ;lxxxviii so too, once more, was Lucan, whose prophecy of Pompey’s decapitation at Bellum Ciuile 1.685-6 alludes back to, and thereby de-allegorizes (or ‘rehistoricizes’) Virgil’s Priam.lxxxix With this in view, Lucan’s ensuing description of Cleopatra in terms of Virgil’s Helen seems to recognise in Aeneid 2 an allegorical sequence on Romano- Egyptian themes introduced in the death of Priam and developed in the ensuing near- death of Helen. When Lucan’s entire narrative of Pompey’s flight from Italy to the east is read as a sustained inversion of Aeneas’ flight west to Rome,xc these become but two points on a wider allegorical continuum.xci
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43 In recontextualising the Helen Episode within a poem about Augustus’ defeat of Cleopatra at Actium, Propertius 4.6 becomes a kind of interpretative commentary on Virgilian allegorical technique : comparing the two texts, the reader finds that the punishment of Helen’s analogue by Aeneas’ successor in Propertius 4.6 inverts either triumphantly or darkly the escape of Cleopatra’s analogue from Augustus’ ancestor in Aeneid 2. De-allegorized in this way, the Helen Episode becomes imbued with a further level of irony in that it is narrated by Aeneas to another eastern queen who herself is taking on ever stronger affinities with Cleopatra.xcii This may lend further significance to the observation above that Propertius’ Cleopatra recalls her Virgilian counterpart at precisely the moment where the latter recalls Dido.
44 In this way, Propertius 4.6 recognises and responds to Virgil’s double-allegorization of Cleopatra in the figures of Helen and Dido. With this understood, the Helen Episode, when narrated to Dido, becomes an inset allegory in which the narrative of the eastern queen (Helen) who abandons her husband and is almost killed by Aeneas is, in the very moment of its telling, in the process of being reversed in the framing narrative, in which an eastern queen (Dido) is abandoned by the man she calls her husband (Aen. 4.172) and on whose sword she will kill herself.xciii When decoded by Propertius and Lucan, and by Virgil himself in Aeneid 8, this narrative finds further variation in the Liebestod of Cleopatra at Actium, where Aeneas’ typological and familial successor emerges as no more or less responsible for the death of Cleopatra than is Aeneas for the death of Dido. The same ambivalence radiates outwards from post-Actian Propertian elegy with the death of Cynthia in elegy 4.7 followed by her resurrection in 4.8. Readers may or may not be amenable to the implication that Augustus, like Aeneas, did not balk at the thought of killing a woman, just as they may or may not heed the protestations of Cynthia (allegedly poisoned by a Numidian slave : 4.7.37) when she accuses Propertius of complicity in her demise (4.7.47-8) with more than a faint echo of Dido’s laments.xciv
45 Those who believe the Helen Episode to be authenticxcv will find in Propertius 4.6 the possibility of a contemporary allusion. Within a discourse of accepted ‘truths’ about oriental and female inferiority, however, the fact that Aeneas and the Propertian narrator have a similar outlook will not on its own authenticate the Helen Episode. For those who believe the Helen Episode to be an interpolation,xcvi therefore, its similarities to Propertius 4.6 can be ascribed to the cultural dominance of gendered and orientalist discourse. Whether authentic or not, the quality of the Helen Episode, as it stands, lies less in its rhetoric, language, and prosody (as Virgil’s hero loses control, so too, perhaps, does Aeneas’ author) than in its manipulation of literary and political intertexts within its own narrative framework.
Afterword
46 It has been suggested above that Propertius reads the Aeneid in an elegiac, or Propertian (that is not to say anti-Augustan) way. Starting with Elegy 4.1, Propertius exposes the tensions in the foundation myth, where the Orient floods into native Italy, be that in the form of Phrygian effeminacy, Aeneas’ furor, or the intertextual orientalism of the Augustan poets. It is important to remember that elegiac exoticism is itself always already imported through imperialist appropriation, and that Propertius is offering this elegiac and oriental reading of the Aeneid within an elegiac framework
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that, in Book 4, has become more openly occidental than Propertian elegy was formerly prepared to be. Indeed, the journey from east to west made by Phrygian Aeneas offers a further parallel for the journey made by Propertian elegy from oriental and emasculating Cynthia prima to western and superlative maxima Roma. In this way, Propertius rewrites the foundation story of Virgil’s Aeneid as another ‘staging’ of the generic influx underway from the beginning of Book 4. Propertius rewrites Virgilian legend as a clash between epic and elegy, a story of generic as well as ethnographic immigration, now renewed or continued in the importation into Latin poetry of Greek models. This importation is enabled by Roman conquest, and the conquest is legitimised by orientalist discourse. Thus, as Alessandro Barchiesi has written, there is a kind of “circulation within the text between political and literary intertexts”,xcvii a circulation into which the reader, too, is pulled by the invitation to interpret. In this interpretation we must recognise our own complicity with these texts : in reading an exotic literature that itself has determined what can be deemed exotic, we may be forced to conclude that it has been a strategy of the text to make orientalists of us.
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Actes du colloque international de Lyon et Saint-Étienne 18-20 janvier 2007. Saint-Étienne : Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne.
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Sullivan, J.P. 1976. Propertius : A Critical Introduction. Cambridge.
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NOTES i. Said 1978: 12. ii. On the historical origins of elegy, see West 1974: 1-21 and Bowie 1986. On ancient views of Homer’s provenance, see Graziosi 2002. iii. On the absence of barbarian stereotyping in Homer, see Hall 1989: 19-47; Erskine 2001: 51-7. On the barbarization of the Trojans, see Erskine 2001: 8-9 (in modern scholarship) and 61-92 (in Athens after the Persian Wars). On the Iliad as “the father of fifth-century Greek historiography”, see Dench 2005: 55-6. iv. Uniquely, at Il. 2.867 the Carians are described as barbarophónoi, but the adjective here seems to be used in a technical rather than pejorative sense of those whose language was not Greek (cf. Il. 2.804): see Cartledge 1993: 13 and 37-8; Erskine 2001: 52; Dench 2005: 305-6. v. On this passage, see Graziosi 2002: 197, and Erskine 2001: 51-2. vi. Quint 1993: 8. See further Syed 2005. vii. Virgil is quoted from the text of Mynors 1969; the translation is by Fairclough (rev. Goold) 1999 and 2000. viii. In Aeneas’ mouth the adjective is perhaps more ironic than Austin 1964: ad loc. allows; see the excellent note of Horsfall 2008: ad loc. On Aen. 8.685, see Fordyce 1977. On the association and estrangement of Roman imperialism and Homeric epic in Ennius’ Annales, see the nuanced remarks of Dench 2005: 57-6. ix. Griffin 1977. x. On Hellenism in Propertian language, see Maltby 1999; Coleman 1999; Deschamps 1980. For some reflections, see Keith 2008: 139-65, esp. 155-6 and 158 (“Propertian elegy … participates in its very linguistic texture in the Roman imperial project that it characteristically elides in its narrative”). xi. See Kennedy 1993: 35-7 on the reader’s situatedness as the determining factor in political interpretation. xii. For a full exploration of this tension, see Keith 2008: 139-65 (with p. 146 on the name of the elegiac mistress). xiii. On the gender of epic, see Keith 2000 and Hinds 2000. xiv. On the gender of elegy, see Wyke 2002: 155-91. xv. See, however, Said 1978: 5-6, 20-1, 54, 55-7. xvi. On the link between representations of cultural and sexual difference, see Yegenoglu 1998. Female interventions in orientalist art and literature are studied by Lewis 1996. xvii. For these characteristics, see Kennedy 1993: 31-2. xviii. On the generic dynamics of Propertius 4, see especially DeBrohun 2003. xix. See Cairns 1986. xx. Text (unless otherwise stated): Heyworth 2007; translation: Heyworth 2007a. xxi. On the date of Propertius 4, see Hutchinson 2006: 2-3. On the interplay of elegiac and epic interests at 4.1.1, see O’Rourke 2010. xxii. Hutchinson 2006: ad loc.; see also Van Sickle 1974-75: 125 and 130. xxiii. On the geographical, mythological and historical causes of enmity between Asia and Europe in the Alexandra, see Amiotti 2000. On myth in Lycophron (and Apuleian ceramics) as a
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mediator of east-west relations in Italy, see Pouzadoux (and Prioux) 2009 (451-67 on Lycophron). See also the remarks of Momigliano 1942: 61: “Lycophron accepted the Herodotean philosophy of the contrast between Asia and Europe and included in his scheme the new great power of the West as a representative of Asia. It is the first real attempt known to us to introduce Rome into a design of universal history”. xxiv. The date of the Roman sections of the Alexandra (on which see West 1984) is less at issue when considering Lycophron as received in Augustan poetry (see, however, Horsfall 2005 for the hypothesis that [some of] the Roman lines are post-Virgilian): see West 1983: 132-5 and Gigante Lanzara 1999 (Lycophron in the Aeneid); Klein 2009 (Lycophron in Propertius, Virgil, and Ovid). xxv. For the allusion to Lycophron at 4.1.51-4 and 87-8, see esp. Klein 2009: 564-6. On the former, see also, e.g., Rothstein 1920: ad loc.; Marr 1970: 161-2. For these and other parallels, see now Hutchinson 2006: ad loc. xxvi. Whether 4.1a and 4.1b are a continuous elegy or contiguous elegies, Horos’ speech may still be taken as a response to what precedes: see now Heyworth 2007a: 424-5. On Horos as representative of the other pole of the book, see e.g. Suerbaum 1964: 360-1; Conte 1994: 123; Wyke 2002: 81-2; DeBrohun 2003: 13-22, 73-82, 112-3. xxvii. Following the textus receptus; for longa sepulchra, Heyworth 2007 prints candida regna (see subsequent notes). xxviii. The Lycophronian ‘prediction’ is less controversial insofar as the formula ‘on land and sea’ is conventional: see Momigliano 1942. xxix. So now Heyworth 2007a: 421 (who adds that dicam reproduces the opening Λέξω of the Alexandra and is paralleled at Aen. 6.722 where Anchises begins his cosmic and imperialist prophecy), following Murgia 1989 (who also argues that Fasti 1.523-6 parallels the sequence 4.1.87-8, 53-4: however, it cannot be excluded that Ovid unites Propertius’ prophecy with Horos’ counter-prophecy for the same reasons that compel editors to transpose) and Marr 1970: 162-3 (who argues that the transposition adds Propertius’ prophecy to those of the Sibyl and Cassandra: however, as a post eventum prophecy it is also in keeping with Horos’ charlatanries). xxx. Heyworth 2007a: 421 notes that longa sepulchra “does not fit the optimistic tone” and therefore recommends emendation as well as transposition; Klein 2009: 565 with nn.11 and 13 notes the closeness of the conjecture regna superba (Housman) to Alex. 1229 but of the textus receptus to Alex. 366 (τοὺς κενοὺς τάφους). xxxi. On Horos’ adversarial response to the themes of 4.1a, see DeBrohun 2003: 75-9 at 76: “any sense of Greek victory is downplayed; instead, emphasis is placed on the negative aftermath of the Greek venture.” xxxii. Hutchinson 2006: ad loc.: “Umbria is made to sound strange and perhaps unattractive … The historical connotations of Mevania are also pertinent: there Rome defeated an Umbrian and Etruscan uprising (308 BC, Livy 9.41.8-20).” xxxiii. On the Callimachean allusion, see now Miller 2009: 321-2. xxxiv. On the ‘counter-cultural’ posture of Propertian elegy, see Hallett 1973. xxxv. I am grateful to Dr Catherine Ware for drawing my attention to this similarity. xxxvi. On the collapse of aetiological and erotic categories in Propertius 4, see e.g. Wyke 2002: 83 (“cross-references and overlaps abound”); DeBrohun 2003, esp 22–4; Hutchinson 2006: 2. xxxvii. See Horsfall 1971; Hardie 1994: 188-98; Keith 2000: 19-22; Erskine 2001: 258. xxxviii. On arma uirumque as epic tag and incipit/title of the Aeneid, see Barchiesi 1997: 16-17. xxxix. Thomas 1982: 99. xl. Gruen 2007 and 2011: 243-9. See also Edwards 2003. More pessimistically, see Isaac 2004 and Sherwin-White 1967. For the sources, see Balsdon 1979. xli. O’Hara 1994 and 2007: 96-8. See also Zetzel 1997: 188-92. xlii. Dench 2005 (esp. 102-3 and 212-4 on the Aeneid). xliii. Rothwell 1996; Weeber 1978. For the intervention of Tibullus 2.5, see Maltby 2002.
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xliv. On the provenance and effect of the theatre, see Edwards 1993: 98-136. xlv. Hutchinson 1996: ad loc. xlvi. On the Trojan and non-Trojan aspects to the Roman reception of the Magna Mater, see Erskine 2001: 205-18. xlvii. See, respectively, Knauer 1964; Nelis 2001; George 1974. xlviii. See Hardie 1998: 41 (on the Georgics), 57 (on the Aeneid) and 71 (on Aen. 6.847-53, whence the quotation). xlix. DeBrohun 2003: 135-40, 157-65. For a gendered more than generic reading of Propertius 4.9, see Lindheim 1998; with a Lacanian slant, see Janan 2001: 128-45. l. On elegy’s rivalry with Virgilian epic in Propertius 4.9, see Warden 1982. li. On the elegiac template behind this section of Propertius 4.9, see originally Anderson 1964. lii. From the title of Fox 1999. liii. For the importance of Prop. 4.9 in this regard, see Spencer 2001: 262-3; see also Fox 1996: 169-75 and 1999; Harrison 2004; Welch 2005: 112-32. On Hercules and Augustus in Aen. 8, see Galinsky 1966 and 1972: 141-6; Camps 1969: 98-100; Binder 1971; Gransden 1976: 14-20. liv. Cf. Appian BC 3.16, 19 and Plutarch, Ant. 4.1-2, 36.4 and 60.3 with Pelling 1988: 124. For the Augustan reappropriation, see Galinsky 1972: 141. lv. Zanker 1988: 57-60. See also Kampen 1996. lvi. See LIMC VII.1: 45-53 with VII.2: 30-43. lvii. Mistrusting Omphale, which requires correption (rare in Augustan elegy), Heyworth prints quin etiam (Heinsius): see Heyworth 2007a: 332. If Omphale is a redundant gloss, the identification is nonetheless correct. lviii. Welch 2005: 117-20; Fox 1999: 165-7. lix. Griffin 1977. lx. Wyke 2002: 195-320. lxi. Keith 2008: 139-65 (164-5 on 4.6). lxii. Janan 2001: 102 (“unquestioning nationalistic ‘masculinism’”); Hutchinson 2006: 154 (“a very male poem”); on the elegy’s consolidation of male homosocial networks, see Keith 2008, 136-7. lxiii. Gurval 1995: 227; DeBrohun 2003: 218. lxiv. On Virgilian allusion in 4.6, see Caston 2003, Hubbard 1974: 134-6, and Williams 1968: 51-7. lxv. See especially the analytical table at Quint 1993: 25. lxvi. See Quint 1993: 28-9; Putnam 1998: 148; Keith 2000: 119. lxvii. Pace Hutchinson 2006 ad loc., Virgil’s description of the Nile’s streams as latebrosa encourages Rossberg’s emendation (accepted by Heyworth) of hoc unum to occultum (also of the Nile) at Prop. 4.6.64. lxviii. Cairns 1989: 129-50. lxix. On the ‘erasure’ of women and its implications in Virgil, see Perkell 1981; Nugent 1999; James 2002; Keith 2000. For this theme in Livy, see Joshel 1992 and Braund 2002: 20-36. For some related ideas in Propertius and Ovid, see Greene 1998. lxx. Keith 2000: 118. lxxi. For views of 4.6 as in some way consistent with an ‘official’ Augustan ideology, see Grimal 1952: 192-3; Paladini 1958; Pillinger 1969; Cairns 1984; Keith 2008: 164-5. On 4.6 as a pragmatic or reluctant concession to Augustan politics, see Sweet 1972; Hubbard 1974: 116-8; La Penna 1977: 88-9; Stahl 1985: 252-3, 259. On 4.6 as in some way resistant to an ‘official’ Augustan ideology, see Johnson 1973; Sullivan 1976: 146-7; Connor 1978; Mader 1990; Gurval 1995: 250, 267-8, 272-4; J.F. Miller 2004; Janan 2001: 100-104 (insofar as 4.6 is critiqued by 4.7); Welch 2005: 79-111. For some nuanced remarks on the “fluctuating responses elicited by the poem”, see Hutchinson 2006: 154-5; on the ironic subject position that occasions “antinomies of interpretation” in 4.6, see P.A. Miller 2004: 203-9.
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lxxii. On the dead women of Propertius 4 and the “virtual absence of living female voices” in Roman poets generally, see Habinek 1998: 122-36; see also Dufallo 2007: 74-98. On Propertius 4 as in some way resistant to patriarchalism, see Janan 2001 (esp. 85-113 and 146-63 on its dead females); Wyke 2002: 78-114 (on the females of Propertius 4 providing counterpoint to the book’s epic agenda) and 185-8 (on the sympathies/identity of Propertius 4 as more feminine than masculine); Hallett 1973 on ‘counter-cultural feminism’ in Propertius 4; Gold 2007. lxxiii. Cf. Dio’s report (43.19.3-4) that the appearance of Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe in Julius Caesar’s triumph of 46 BC had the unintended effect of eliciting sympathy rather than pride from the Roman spectators. lxxiv. See Goold 1970 (= 1990), esp. Table 4 (p. 164 = p. 123) for non-quotations of the Helen Episode in the ancient commentary/scholarly tradition (an absence already noted by a dissenting Nettleship in his revised edition of Conington’s Virgil [Conington and Nettleship 1884 ad Aen. 2.567-88, p. 148]: “Not a line of it is quoted by a single grammarian”). Against the possibility of a “quotation” of the Helen Episode in a sequential depiction of scenes from the fall of Troy on a gladiator’s helmet, see Van Burren 1920. lxxv. For responses to this narrative inconsistency that do not assume Virgil or his alleged interpolator to have nodded, see Bleisch 1999; Suzuki 1989: 94-102; Reckford 1981. lxxvi. Allowing for a maximum interval of nine words in a search of the LLT-A (accessed via http://www.brepolis.net), the words femina or femineus and poena, in any inflection(s), appear to be meaningfully connected in non-Christian Latin texts only at Ovid, Ars 1.339 (Phineus’ poena stems from feminea libido), Valerius Maximus 6.3.9 (Egnatius Mecenas makes an example of his wife for drinking wine), Tacitus, Ann. 12.53.1 (repercussions for noblewomen who sleep with slaves), Suetonius, Tib. 35.2 (punishment for matrons of ill-repute). lxxvii. Nor will Aeneas’ speech here in the second book of the Aeneid find itself echoed in the penultimate when Arruns acknowledges that no glory will accrue from killing Camilla (Aen. 11.785-93): for the parallel, see Conington (who attributes it to J. Henry) in Conington and Nettleship 1884 ad Aen. 2.583 (p. 150). lxxviii. So Heinze 1993: 27 (= 1928: 46-7). For Austin 1964: 223, by contrast, the soliloquy is ‘strikingly dramatic’. lxxix. See Bruère 1964. lxxx. Murgia 2003. lxxxi. Text: Housman 1927; translation: Braund 1992. lxxxii. On the affinities between Helen and Cleopatra (also noted in Plutarch’s synkrisis of Demetrius and Antony [3.4]), see Suzuki 1989: 258-64. lxxxiii. Cf. Dio 50.24.3-7; Hor. Od. 1.37.6-8, Ep. 9.11-16; Prop. 3.11.31-2 and 49; Eleg. in Maecen. 1.53-4; Manil. 1.917; Lucan 10.62-5; Prop. 4.6.65 might be added insofar as victor and vanquished are not identified without ambiguity. lxxxiv. Murgia 2003: 417. lxxxv. Wyke 2002: 205; cf. Nisbet and Hubbard 1970 on Hor. Od. 1.37.7. Some specific references: Cleopatra and/or [Helen] as regina (Hor. Od. 1.37.7; Prop. 3.11.39; cf. Aen. 2.578), mulier (Hor. Od. 1.37.32; Prop. 3.11.49, 4.6.65), and femina (Hor. Ep. 9.12; Prop. 3.11.30, 4.6.22, 57; cf. Aen. 2.584); references to their emasculation of Romans (Hor. Od. 1.37.9-10; Ep. 9.11-14; Prop. 3.11.31-2, 4.6.45-6; cf. Aen. 2.580) and evasion of a triumph (Hor. Od. 1.37.31-2; Prop. 3.11.49-52, 4.6.63-6; cf. Hor. Ep. 9.21-6; cf. Aen. 2.578). Instructive, too, might be the description of Cleopatra as fatalis Erinys at Luc. BC 10.59 and fatale monstrum at Hor. Od. 1.37.21. lxxxvi. Similarly, when Deiphobus’ shade relates how Helen directed his murder ( Aen. 6.511-530), he refers to her as Lacaena (511), illa (512, 517), ipsa (518), and coniunx (523), but never by name (as Donatus notes on this passage: nec supra nomen eius propter odium nimium dixit neque hic eam nominauit, ut Helenam diceret, sed dixit illa, dixit Lacaenae; cf. Norden 1926 ad Aen. 6.511 [p. 266]: ‘Mit Namen nennt Deiphobus die Helena überhaupt nicht’; Fairclough/Goold 1999: 568:
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“[h]e disdains to name Helen”); moreover, the manner of her revelry (illa, chorum simulans euhantis orgia circum | ducebat Phrygias, ‘she feigned a solemn dance and round the city led the Phrygian wives, shrieking in their Bacchic rites’, 517-8) recalls the Dionysiac ritual in which Cleopatra was said to participate with Antony (cf. Plutarch, Ant. 24.3-4, 26, 33.6-34.1, 75.4-5 with Pelling 1988 ad locc.). lxxxvii. The use of nefas substantively of a person at Aen. 2.585, not quite unparalleled (see Austin 1961: 190 and 1964 ad loc.), may suggest an alternative interpretation of its counterpart at Aen. 8.688 (pace Austin 1961: 190), usually taken as an exclamatory parenthesis (so Eden 1975, Gransden 1976, and Fordyce 1977 ad loc.). lxxxviii. On Virgil’s Priam as Pompey, see Bowie 1990. lxxxix. On Lucan’s Pompey as Virgil’s Priam, see Narducci 1973 and Hinds 1998: 8-9; see also Mayer 1981 ad BC 8.711. For this and another Lucanian rehistoricization in Aeneid 2 also suspected by Servius, see Hardie 1993: 30 n.27. xc. For a thoroughgoing analysis of the inversions, see Rossi 2000. See also Ahl 1976: 183-9 and Fantham 1992: 8-9 and ad 85-6, 601-9, 724-5 and 728-30. xci. Lucan’s vitriolic diatribe on Ptolemy (degener, incestae sceptris cessure sorori, 8.693) and noxia … Aegyptia (8.692-7 and 823-34) is reminiscent also of Propertius’ denunciation of Cleopatra (incesti meretrix regina Canopi, 3.11.39) and noxia Alexandria (3.11.29-68, a passage which laments Pompey’s decapitation: cf. esp. vv. 35-8, 68): isolated parallels are noted by Haskins 1887 ad locc.; for one possible connection, see Butrica 1993: 345-6. xcii. On Dido as Cleopatra, see Syed 2005: 184-93; Pease 1935: 24-8; Camps 1969: 95-6. xciii. Cf. Aen. 1.647-52 (Aeneas gifts Helen’s veil to Dido) and Aen. 4.300-303 (Dido bacchatur: cf. Aen. 6.517-8 with n.86 above). On Dido replacing Helen as Aeneas’ “unwitting victim and sacrificial substitute”, see Suzuki 1989: 98-99 (whence the quotation) and 101-2. On the ironies created by the inset narrative, see Gransden 1985: 62: “How prophetically Dido ought to have understood, and in retrospect interpreted, the events of Book 2. How brilliantly Virgil, the author behind the voice of the heroic narrator, presented the book as a structural paradigm of book 4.” On the Helen Episode as an admission to Dido of Aeneas’ aberrations from Stoic self-control years earlier, see Hatch 1959; cf. Fish 2004 on the (Epicurean) lessons to be drawn from Aeneas’ anger. xciv. On Dido in Propertius 4.7, see Allison 1980. For a Lacanian response to the different levels of credence given to Cynthia’s testimony, see Janan 2001: 100-113. xcv. Thus the majority of critics since Austin 1964: 217-30 and Conte 1986: cf. e.g. Panoussi 2009: 43-4; Syed 2005: 74-9; Fish 2004: 111-38; Bleisch 1999. xcvi. See especially Goold 1970 and Murgia 2003. xcvii. Barchiesi 2001: 161.
RÉSUMÉS
This article explores the extent to which the genres of epic and elegy can be considered ‘occidental’ and ‘oriental’ respectively. Such a polarity is apparently constructed in the ‘epic’ and ‘elegiac’ movements of Propertius 4.1, but it is also progressively deconstructed in Propertius’ reception of Virgil’s Aeneid in elegies 4.1, 4.6 and 4.9. On the one hand, Propertius reads the Aeneid for its oriental components (e.g. the Phrygian immigration as viewed by native Italy ; its oriental ‘heroines’ : Dido, Cleopatra and, if the episode to which she lends her name is not an
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interpolation, Helen). On the other hand, Propertian elegy has for its part become more occidental (Propertius sings of maxima Roma and the Roman victory at Actium ; Cynthia is dead). In this way, Propertius shows that the narrative of elegy is no less bound up with occidental hegemony than that of Virgilian epic, and that elegy’s literary exoticism is, like Virgil’s intertextual appropriation of Greek literature, itself contingent on Roman imperialism.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Actium, Aeneid, Cleopatra, Dido, elegy, epic, gender, Helen., Hercules, intertextuality, Lycophron, orientalism, Propertius, Said, Virgil
AUTEUR
DONNCHA O’ROURKE University of Oxford, Corpus Christi College [email protected]
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India, Egypt and Parthia in Augustan verse: the post-orientalist turn
Grant Parker
1 Orientalism, in the sense pioneered by Edward Said in an eponymous book, is in many ways the obvious paradigm for considering western representations of the east. The work focuses on the modern period, basically nineteenth- and twentieth-century French and British artistic productions, yet it makes wide-ranging claims that stretch back to antiquity.1 In it, Said insists on a political, even military, framework for western fascination with the east at a scholarly or artistic level. This fascination has been manifested in a discourse, in which representations are inescapably informed by power relations. Orientalism has become a foundational text in cultural studies, still providing a direct point of departure more than three decades after it first appeared.2 Since 1978 the term ‘orientalism’, in English at least, cannot be used without invoking the book. To be sure, the term itself brings critical difficulties, for in common use it may denote either a critical approach fostered by Said or the very artistic productions that are the subject of Saidian critique. In ancient studies the book has had a visible impact, admittedly small and belated compared to modern literary studies. Nonetheless, its reception in classical studies has been very predominantly positive.3
2 Is Saidian Orientalism in fact a useful concept in the study of Augustan verse ? The issue is much less resolved than scholarship would lead us to believe and is open to a fresh examination. The focus here will be on poetry of the Augustan age, with occasional reference to prose works of the same period. In these comments I would like to take up one particular aspect of Said’s critique, namely the way in which different gentes and places are conflated in poetic discourse. In doing so I seek at some level to read ancient texts against modern theory, with the goal of critically evaluating the applicability of Orientalism as a paradigm. What are the differences between far and near in Augustan poetry, and how can we make sense of those differences ? I shall argue, from a brief threefold case-study focusing on India, Egypt and Parthia, that Orientalism à la Said is only one approach, and a limited one at that. The term ‘post-
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orientalist’ in the current title at once acknowledges the ongoing importance of Said’s work and the search for ways beyond the impasses that have come to characterize its reception. Virgil provides the framework for this discussion : we begin with the shield of Aeneas near the end of Aeneid book 8, with its parade of foreign peoples, then more generally consider the Augustan literary presentation of the three gentes in turn, before canvassing an alternative possibility to Said’s Orientalism. It is as part of the quest for alternatives that we return briefly to two other Virgilian passages, namely the travels constituting Aeneid 3 and the lines preceding the laus Italiae in the Georgics (2.109-35).
Varia arma on the shield of Aeneas
3 There are several reasons to use the shield of Aeneas as a point of departure. Coming as it does at a point of climax in the poem, this passage constitutes arguably the classic representation of foreigners in Augustan poetry, and it can easily be considered in relation to Augustus’ manipulation of images.4 In particular, it does present an assemblage of foreign peoples, and it is the character of that assemblage that will demand our attention. As Hardie has shown in a cosmological context, the shield is an ekphrasis par excellence and an ideological centerpiece of the poem. Given its familiarity, only a few specific points need be made here.5 When we get to the description of the Battle of Actium, Antony is presented as both conqueror of eastern peoples and their military ally : Hinc ope barbarica variisque Antonius armis, victor ab Aurorae populis et litore rubro, Aegyptum virisque Orientis et ultima secum Bactra vehit, sequiturque (nefas) Aegyptia coniunx. (8.685-88)
4 Antony was hardly a ‘victor’, for his Parthian campaign of 36 BC ended in disaster.6 The exact phrase ‘ope barbarica’ had already been used by Ennius, referring to Troy’s allies : 7 that use resonated here, showing the malleability of the concept of ‘barbarus’, also Antony’s ambiguous status, and even Troy’s.8 Grammatically parallel to the ‘ope barbarica’ is the variegated armour in which his allies are dressed (‘variis … armis’), an expression that functions in part as a transferred epithet. It is this variegation that deserves further consideration. Line 686 combines toponyms that are more or less generalized : ‘Aurorae populis’ and ‘litore rubro’. The latter is more than the Red Sea, namely the northwest Indian Ocean of the Periplus Maris Erythraei of just a few decades later.9 Immediately following is ‘Orientis’. The broad term ‘oriens’ carries both a cosmological and a topographic sense,10 here most productively to be taken in conjunction. Contrast the names of Egypt and Bactra, a land and a city. The repeated ‘Aegyptia’ adds point to the avoidance of Cleopatra’s name – itself the standard poetic procedure11 – especially as it follows, as it were, the interjection ‘nefas’. Indeed, it is worth remarking that Antony himself is named in this passage, for we know from Dio (51.19.5) that in the triumph over his Roman enemies, Octavian went to great lengths to suppress the names of his Roman opponents.12 The rare use of Antony's Roman name seems just as pointed as the avoidance of Cleopatra's Graeco-Egyptian one.
5 Later, at 704-6, assorted foreigners take evasive action, displaying cowardice : Actius haec cernens arcum intendebat Apollo desuper ; omnis eo terrore Aegyptus et Indi, omnis Arabs, omnes vertebant terga Sabaei. (8.704-6)
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6 Here, within two lines, we have the conflation of Egypt, India, Arabia and Sabaea, expressed in the typical poetic mixture of toponyms with ethnonyms, of collective singular with plurals. The battle description foreshadows the triumph, lines 714 following, which contains a great profusion of toponyms as the pace increases from 724 onward : these add enargeia to the climactic phrase ‘victae longo ordine gentes’ (722). The conquered nations exhibit different kinds of variety, audible and visible : ‘quam variae linguis, habitu tam vestis et armis’ (723). This explanatory line compactly outlines the criteria that typically determine ethnographic description ;13 ‘variae’ is a faint but telling echo of the earlier ‘variis … armis’. With the river-names of 726 following – Euphrates, Rhine and Araxes, that is, north amidst east – we should remember that such natural features were present at triumphs in personified form, as Appian tells us,14 a standard political use of synecdoche.It is no coincidence that rivers also played an important role in ancient maps, to judge from the Peutinger map and possibly the new Artemidorus papyrus.15 Indeed rivers featured in ancient descriptions of both Egypt and India.16
7 In the passage under discussion Egypt receives special prominence among foreign peoples, which is predictable enough in the context of Actium. Apart from the Egyptians, there is much conflation of foreigners, creating an intensified, vivid effect – as if the triumphal procession speeds up as it passes by. The repeated adjective ‘varius’ is a mark of the vividness implicit in this passage.
8 These climactic lines are central to the current essay, even though their mention of the Parthians is indirect. Here is, prima facie, a good case of Orientalism : the forces of disorder, combined into an undifferentiated, even essentialized, other ; the dangerous east freeze-framed at a foundational moment of empire. Warfare dramatizes cross- cultural confrontation, distancing Virgil’s readership from Antony, once a Roman and now become an eastern foreigner. By his friends shall ye know him : here at Actium a Roman nobleman goes native, the furthest antithesis of the triumph. Here is, further, an encounter between foreign gods, troublingly theromorphic like Anubis (698), and the Roman ones, Neptune, Venus and Minerva. The political distinction between Rome and Egypt is mapped onto the religious domain.
India, Egypt and Parthia compared
9 If the shield contains several different gentes, with some conflation, it will be uesful to broaden our purview, so as to consider the poetic representation of three particular gentes, as a triple test case for the broader question framing this paper. In what ways can the various ‘victae gentes’ be disaggregated within Roman discourse ? To what degree is it even possible to do so ? The Saidian answer would be that conflation is central to the creation of orientalist discourse. In this section, in comparing the three gentes, I shall consider the social contexts in which Romans encountered these people, physically or otherwise, namely commodities, imperial ideology and wisdom.
10 Certainly the Egyptians were by far the best known to Romans, and the only ones to constitute a Roman province by the Augustan age (30 BC) : there is of course Herodotean precedent, constituting the entire second book of the Histories, though that is itself an excursus in an account of Greco-Persian conflict.17 Egypt presents enormous variety in Greek and Latin texts. This image is largely negative, with the exceptions of
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Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.18 In a Roman imperial context it is clear that in the short term Actium provided direct impetus for and was the focus of Augustan poetic ethnology.19 Nonetheless, the longer-term factor of religion is prominent in the poems, not only the more sympathetic account of the Isis cult in Tibullus 1.3 but also the hostility of Juvenal’s 15th satire.20 The cult of Isis was at once distinctively Egyptian, as Virgil reminds us in a strongly gendered way (696f.), and something pan- Mediterranean : its diffusion, via Delos and Attica by the fourth century BC, and present in Italy by the late second century (evidenced in the Palestrina Mosaic, linked with Fortuna), is something unmatched before the advent of Christianity. The variety of responses over time on the part of the Roman state is in itself remarkable.21
11 The mosaic would seem to suggest that the priorities expressed in the literary discourse are skewed – and this brings us to the first of the three contexts. For Egypt produced not only weird religious paraphernalia such as the sistrum but also commodities, including a huge percentage of the metropolis’ food supply. It comes as a surprise, therefore, that the nutritional lifeline between Nile and Tiber is largely passed over by literary texts and also by coins. Roman fascination for things Egyptian, even if focused on esoterica, took place against a background noise of trade, not only of grain but of papyrus – the single most important material form of literature in this period. Certainly obelisks were highly visible symbols of power, but it was the humbler grain exports that sustained the city from day to day. In the end, Egypt is a special case in that it presents a literary image of great complexity, largely negative ; its basic commodities are at the edge of visibility, much less than one might have expected from, say, the new Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World.22 Grain, so important to Rome’s relation with Egypt, represents a remarkable case of non- representation.23 Egypt’s role in the Roman economy thus appears to be expressed indirectly rather than directly, if one is to consider obelisks and other objects more elaborate and more monumental than coins.24
12 By contrast, in the case of poetic representations of India, commodities and their supposed effects are central. Poets emphasize luxury goods, such as precious stones and pepper, whereas the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea shows that everyday items such as low-quality fabrics were part of the same cargoes, again attracting less attention.25 From a Mediterranean consumer’s point of view, it must have been hard to distinguish the exact origins of merchandise, and in practice that is unlikely to have been the decisive point. It appears that, as in many societies, ancient Roman commodities had value depending on their supposed origin : the farther, the more valuable, within a kind of phenomenological economics.26 It is not merely Pliny the Elder that frets over the corrupting effect of those commodities in the metropolis : his concern is shared also by the poets. Horace even mentions an Indian slave at the dinner with Nasidienus, something reminiscent of the Periplus.27
13 Parthia and Parthians feature in Augustan poetry in a military context, part of a political discourse. This is well and good, but neglects their role in the long-distance trade that brought so many commodities from Asia to the Mediterranean. The first- century AD geographical work the Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax points to such trade activity. Even if it is misleading to talk of ‘caravan cities’ or an integrated Silk Road it is still clear that land routes linked the Roman empire with south and central Asia no less than sea-routes.28 Alexandria and the Egyptians were thus not the only conduit of Rome’s Asian trade.
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14 With the Parthians we come to a second ethnological context, which we may describe as imperial discourse. On the cuirass of the Prima Porta Augustus there is a vivid representation of the return of the standards.29 This is humbug, in that Augustus in 20 BC obtained the standards from Carrhae through diplomacy rather than warfare.30 However, so much had Crassus’ defeat festered in Roman minds that the task of vengeance had rested first with Julius Caesar, but he was denied the opportunity.31 When Augustus claims vengeance we should sense less its actual realisation than the intensity and length of its expectation.32 Ovid seems to play along with the ruse of ‘mission accomplished’. At Fasti 5.579-96 and 6.461-69 we see much apparent celebration. But in the second case, the same calendrical date, 9 June, celebrates both Junius Brutus’ victory over the Callici in northwest Spain in 136 BC and Crassus’ defeat – a juxtaposition that is not lost on Ovid. Surprising is Ovid’s choice of topic : if books 5 and 6 were in progress by the time of relegatio in AD 8, then the memory of the death of Gaius would have been still a touchy subject : it was in the course of his Parthian campaign of AD 1-4 that the prince fell ill and died, compromising Augustus’ plans for his succession.33 Just a little later, Manilius builds up the Parthians as if a sizeable empire, ruling other eastern and southern people. Manilius is hampered only by the distasteful nomenclature : Magna iacet tellus magnis circumdata ripis Parthis et a Parthis domitae per saecula gentes, Bactraque et Aethiopes, Babylon et Susa Ninosque, nominaque innumeris vix complectanda figuris. (4.802-5)34
15 The notion of Parthia as ‘another world’, here within a larger cosmological frame, is later matched by Tacitus.35 But the visual dossier warns us against taking such discourse too literally. Parthians are subject to a wide range of presentation, sometimes in a military context. Among different types of Parthian image, the ‘beautiful oriental’ is notable and cannot be written off as the product of ethnocentric prejudice. Rather, it reveals demonstrable idealization, especially when linked with youthfulness. As Rolf Michael Schneider has shown, the othering of Parthians in plastic arts is complex, offering no simple, symmetrical opposite to Roman identity.36 By the same token, for Strabo at the beginning of his Geography the Arsacid empire is a source matching the Roman as a generator of topographical information.37 It is in such settings that any binaristic vision of Rome-versus-Parthia proves misleading.
16 The third context concerns the mystique that surrounds holy persons and other instances of barbarian wisdom ; but it will not detain us, since it applies to prose rather than verse. In the case of India, brahmans and naked philosophers are an important part of the Alexander story. Herodotus’ Egypt is peopled by priests and other religious experts. Indeed, wisdom is most readily conceived at the edges of the known world.38
17 All in all, the Parthians are part of Roman imperial discourse, a looming but abstract presence.39 They are not linked to commodities, even though other evidence suggests they were involved in long-distance trade. India is merely on the fringes, as the source of luxury commodities, and as such would become caught up in the moralizing discourse of the later first century AD. Even more so than Parthia, India constitutes an abstract field of possibility, an ‘oneiric horizon’ :40 for Trajan, India would be the ultimate object of conquest, enabling emulation of Alexander. Dio describes the sickly Trajan arriving at the Arabian Gulf, viewing cargo boats sailing to India, wishing he was young enough to proceed to India à la Alexander.41 This passage is a significant articulation of imperial desire, linking real commerce with impossible military dreams.
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It is the further development of sentiments found among the Augustans, and was made at a time when there was less political peril attached to the emulation of Alexander.
18 Each foreign people has its own ethnological moment : a particular historical point in relation to which they are firmly and discernibly imprinted on Roman minds. But the temporal distance of these moments from the Augustan age is varied : in the case of India, Alexander’s expedition lay furthest in the past, and indeed it is clear that the idea of India was largely frozen in that early Hellenistic period. In the case of Parthia and Egypt, both the disaster at Carrhae and the victory at Actium had taken place within living memory : only the latter of these was resolved whereas in the former case resolution, ultio, is asserted speciously. These historical moments should be seen in counterpoint to an ethnographic tradition going back to Herodotus : that is no absolute continuity by any means, but a range of expectations. They are a counterpoint also to commerce that make little impression on the poetic radar screen. When there are similarities, these owe something to trade-routes : Egypt, via its major port Alexandria, funnelled goods from all over western Asia into the Mediterranean. From this viewpoint some overlap of characteristics is predictable enough.
Orientalism revisited
19 Orientalism à la Said is best geared to an us-and-them relation that happens at a distance: its immediate historical frame of reference is Napoleon in Egypt—who was accompanied by notions of Alexander the Great, and his own scientists and historians— as well as the nineteenth-century British empire. It is less suited to a situation in which foreign persons and objects come to the metropolis, in which a ‘brownian motion’ of ancient people was the norm rather than the exception. The overall view of movement within the ancient Mediterranean has changed with the appearance of The Corrupting Sea by Horden and Purcell (2000) : ‘connectivity’ is the mantra according to which, over the very longue durée, different groups remained connected, by land and sea, across the highly differentiated Mediterranean landscape.42 And it is clear, most concretely from David Noy’s detailed study, that varied geographic origins were present in the city : actual persons who are epigraphically attested.43 It is also true that the past three decades have seen ever increased global flows, where cosmopolitanism risks banality and where postcolonial immigration is neatly if glibly summed up in the British activist slogan : ‘We’re here because you were there.’ In fact, global history has moved beyond even that phase to one in which individual persons and families are internationally spread over networks which engender the ongoing circulation of goods, humans and ideas.
20 Saidian Orientalism tends to posit ‘empire’ as a monolith, a habit of expression and mind later manifested in Hardt and Negri’s book of 2000.44 The historicist worry about the validity of such a broad characterization, when it glosses over the varieties of social control, of technology and even of ideology, is not something that can be easily overlooked. It would be more salutary, in ancient studies, to make no assumptions about continuity or of useful similarity between then and now : more intellectually productive is the comparative approach to the study of empires.45
21 Furthermore, to what extent does Islam constitute an intellectual firewall in the critical study of antiquity ? Histories of late antiquity have tended to conclude with a requisite chapter on the coming of Islam.46 But for classical philologists the Arabic language in
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particular has given Islam a status of otherness that defies negotiation. Now there is a real practical and intellectual problem here, given the difficulties of learning Arabic as a foreign language.47 But a priori it seems likely that Islam plays a part in the representational continuities Said claims existed from antiquity till the present.48 It is under the Ummayid caliphate that all the eastern and southern edges of the Mediterranean became a political unity, an orbis alter from a Roman perspective, even if Rome had meanwhile changed.
22 There is a further complication, which likewise cannot receive full consideration here but at least deserves to be flagged, in the relation between the south and the east of the Mediterranean. This is a variant on the question of conflation raised earlier. It is true that the southern littoral is much less populated, and much less agriculturally productive, with its proximity to desert. The broad point is that the underdeveloped south has seemed to take on characteristics of the east – the latter being long familiar in Greek literature and linked to ancient societies possessed of monumental architecture and writing technology. Since Homer’s famous lines on the division of Ethiopians into east and west (Od. 1.22-24), there has been some sense of shared characteristics within Mare Erythraeum, the north-western Indian Ocean.49 In a Roman context the Carthaginians constituted a link between the south and the east.50
23 For Said in Orientalism south and east are obvious partners under the sign of Islam. Here his critique of western views may have brought him unintentionally close to that which is, in terms of political sympathy, its opposite. The Clash of Civilizations is the name of a North American best seller,51 and it has come to epitomize an approach that is invested in positing unchanging essences : civilizations (basically Islam versus Europe and the United States) have clashed because they have been and will always be at odds. This is antithetical to Said’s approach. But it is also true that, ironically, Said himself tended to create a monolith of the West,52 something he tried to redress in his subsequent book Culture and Imperialism. Ultimately, however, he may be unwillingly caught up the very nexus he criticized.53
Space and place: the experiential dimension
24 Where to from here ? Far from any static vision of cross-cultural contact, a dynamic paradigm is needed for our times. On this basis it will be useful to canvass the concepts of space and place, even though they undoubtedly bring problems of their own. In the influential book by Yi-Fu Tuan, space and place are mutually defining : in the latter case, personal experience adds concreteness and limitations.54 Thus, in this stricter human geographical sense, space is where one might go whereas place is where one has been. These concepts are not symmetrical equals, but they have been used to emphasize different aspects of human interaction with the physical environment. In the Aeneid Tiberinus’ confident prophecy gives a strong sense of place : ‘hic locus urbis erit, requies ea certa laborum’ (8.46). Indeed, we might say, prophecy leads to an overdetermined sense of place. This approach pushes us towards ‘global flows’ rather than collections of places – a difference that engages modern cultural geography. It is one thing to imagine the geographies of Strabo, Pliny or Pausanias as collections of places ; they begin to look different if one seeks to find between the lines a sense of the interconnectedness of individual places, and of their dynamic relation. Even the
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seemingly static Peutinger map at some level represents a great deal of on-land movement, with its many roads.55
25 Certainly Aeneid 3 contains a dynamic geography. Aeneas’ route, via a mixture of mythological and more easily mappable places,56 defines particular places via Aeneas’ experiences. Yet at another level it also opens up a broader realm of Mediterranean- wide possibility. One could point to the contemporaneity of the Aeneid with Rome’s expanded control over the entire inland sea. In this oblique sense, Aeneid 3 is simultaneously about Mediterranean space, namely Rome’s military and economic domain following the Carthaginian wars. Thus the symbolic geography of the Aeneid is found as much in the shield of Aeneas as in the wanderings of book 3—itself a mini- Aeneid57—and indeed in Aeneas’ calm journey up the Tiber (8.81-101) and tour with Evander of the future site of Rome (8.306-58). Whereas the shield of Aeneas, like its Homeric precedent,58 offers an image of the cosmos, book 3 gives a highly dynamic view of the hero’s movement within the broader Mediterranean. One might therefore argue that a sense of luxurious consumption attends representations of the east no less than imperialist desire. It is clear that, under the rubric of human geography, Aeneid 3 forms a revealing counterpoint to the shield of Aeneas.
26 Likewise, a brief comparison with the 26 lines (Georg. 2.109-35) preceding the laus Italiae is revealing. In the earlier work the products of the various lands are listed, in keeping with a deep sense that products are topographically defined (thus line 109). From the different kinds of territory preferred by trees (109-13), Virgil moves to particular territories : beginning with line 120, there is one line for Ethiopians, one for Chinese, four for India, then nine for the Medes, which we might broadly take as the Parthians. Line 125 is interesting in that it in effect conveys us from Indian trees to the Parthians, rather better known for their poison arrows. This list of thaumata, with its Golden Age resonances, is recapitulated just before the move to Italy itself : now in even more compact form we move by an amended route from Medes to Indians to Lydians (i.e., the river Hermus), to Bactra and India and Arabia (the mythical island of Panchaia).59 What we see here is not merely the direct comparison of Italy with the rest of the orbis terrarum, with eastern lands looming large ; there is also a submerged sense that exotic products had become commodities by the age of Augustus, products linked with places far away, but increasingly available within the cosmopolis.60 The Georgics passage differs from the geography of the shield by virtue of the fact that Italy itself is present, or at least follows soon after ; further, it gives prominence to the natural world, including its products, something not present in the Aeneid passage.
Conclusion
27 In the matter of conflating eastern peoples, seen above in the hyperbole of the shield of Aeneas, Said’s Orientalism has undoubted heuristic value. Indeed, the usefulness of the concept is, at an important level, beyond debate. Having deeply infused the very fabric of cultural studies, its legacy has been considerably complicated by its author’s vigorous cut-and-thrust in debate ; by his political advocacy ; and not least by amicitia and inimicitia over the decades. 61 Many critiques have been levelled at a narrowly empirical level, concerning detailed points of interpretation, in the course of which broader ideological and methodological considerations are obscured or lost. More importantly, there is no easy answer to the problem of what might come in place of the
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tainted representations, à la Said : it is not as if Indian, Parthian and Egyptian subaltern speech can be produced in ways that offset the (Greek and) Roman discourse of the exotic. Even for sympathetic critics there is the undeniable danger that the concept of Orientalism runs the risk of unsubtle deployment, something seen in uncritical use of the term ‘empire’.62 Rather, cultural geography allows Roman encounters with eastern others to include admiration, desire, awe, pleasure ; it links them to a highly fluid world defined as much by representations as by experiences.63
28 It would of course be a mistake to use the data sample here, drawn mostly from poetry, as a direct index of Augustan ideology, let alone the princeps’ own views. That would be to miss the pragmatics of literary production and consumption. It would be better to imagine that the texts under discussion negotiated the hopes and fears of contemporary individuals, reflecting the public discourse of their times, but also at some level shaping it. Admittedly, it is hard to know exactly what level. Rather than any dichotomous vision, it would be more productive to attend both to spatialities, actual and imagined, by which people come together under the sign of imperial power, and to temporalities, in which particular images appear to be frozen in time. Care is needed to avoid a contradiction : the necessity of historicizing on one hand and that of seeking long-term resonance on the other. It is not clear that Said’s book was able to resolve this contradiction.
29 The evidence adduced here, from Virgil and others, clearly reveals a real, live Roman notion of the east ; it reveals a combination of commodities, imperial ideology and mystification within the same discourse. In the end, it is this combination that broadly distinguishes the east (and to some degree south) from the west and north of the empire. There is a transferability of qualities that are themselves well known from Herodotus’ Egypt : India shares some of the features of Egypt, such as rivers ; it shares some of the features of Parthia, especially the need to be conquered. This, at least, is a way to read the world of the shield ; Aeneas’ wanderings would seem to require a more flexible kind of mapping that centres on the concepts space and place and, not least, their complex relation.64
30 Said’s ongoing usefulness in the post-9/11 era has been to keep bringing attention to the contexts within which discourse was produced, and ultimately to encourage people to unthink supposed dichotomies of us-and-them, even more so than Said himself might have been able to do in his own work.65 A major difficulty with Orientalism is that, for all its radical critique, it fails to offer viable alternatives. At a tangent from Said I have preferred here to work with the related notions of space and place, where the difference between them foregrounds human experience and its varied temporalities. Cultural geography, itself originating in part in Saidian-inspired cultural studies, offers greater scope to identify fear and hope, celebration and loss – the range of responses projected by discourse onto a wide canvass. It is in this sense that narrow adherence to the Saidian paradigm may today be considered too limiting ; in this sense that a post- orientalist approach may begin to set a new agenda.66
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NOTES
* 1. Said (1978: 56f.). 2. Hardly even the tip of the iceberg, the following offer a glimpse at the breadth of responses: Moore-Gilbert (1997); Ashcroft and Ahluwalia (1999); MacFie (2000); and Varisco (2007) – the last of these deploying humour as part of its own critique. 3. See for example Webster and Cooper, eds. (1996); Mattingly, ed. (1997); and especially Vasunia (2003); more skeptical is Adler (2008a). 4. Zanker (1988). 5. Still fundamental is the discussion of Hardie (1986: 336-76), who presents the shield as a ‘blend of cosmic allegory and political ideology’ (342). 6. Pelling (1996: 30-34). This turned the tide in that Octavian, who had up to then played second fiddle militarily, was victorious elsewhere at a time when Antony needed to reassert himself. 7. Enn. Scaen. 94 Vahlen, cf. Jocelyn (1967: 248f.) ad loc., and Eden (1975: 183) ad loc. 8. Schneider (forthcoming).
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9. Casson (1989: 7). 10. TLL s.v. ‘oriens’ vol. IX.2.1001.51 ff.. 11. Treves (1996: vol. I 691). 12. By the same token, the name of Lepidus is studiously avoided, by periphrasis, at RG 10. See further Powell (2008: 15), with Scheid (2007: 45) and Cooley (2009: 150). Powell’s analysis of Virgil’s politics is hamstrung by an unsubtle adherence to the concept of ‘propaganda’. 13. Thomas (1982); Parker (2008: 69-120). 14. Punica 66: ‘Trumpeters led the advance and wagons laden with spoils. Towers were borne along representing the captured cities, and pictures showing the exploits of war: then gold and silver coin and bullion …’ (tr. H. White, Loeb vol. I 507). See further Beard (2007: 150). 15. Assuming that the ‘Artemidorus papyrus’ does in fact contain a map: note esp. the caution of Talbert (2009). 16. On the centrality of rivers, see Versluys (2002) and Dihle (1984) on Egypt and India respectively. 17. Among the more recent scholarship on Herodotus’ Egypt, note especially Bichler (2000: 145-212) and Vannicelli (2001); Lloyd (2002) summarises his earlier, fundamental researches on Histories book 2 from an Egyptological standpoint. 18. Conveniently summarised by Assmann (2010: 300). 19. Gurval (1996). 20. Note esp. Tib. 1.3.27-32; on Juvenal, see Courtney (1980: 590-612). Roman views of Egypt are well canvassed by Versluys (2002); in comparative frame by Sonnabend (1986) and Isaac (2004: 352-70). Isaac and now Bowditch (2011), on Tib. 1.7, emphasize ambivalence in Roman responses to Egypt. 21. Takacs (1995) plots the changing political fortunes of the Isis cult; on its diffusion, Vidman (1969). The Palestrina Mosaic is treated by Meyboom (1995). 22. Scheidel et al. (2008); still valuable is Rickman (1980). Two post-Augustan passages reveal Roman senatorial distress over Rome’s dependence on Egyptian grain: Pliny, Paneg. 31.2 (failure of the grain supply through drought should remind Egyptians of their subordination to Rome); and Tacitus, Hist. 1.11 (the Roman state’s irresponsibility caused the city’s dependence). See further, Isaac (2004: 360f.). 23. One example of Augustan coinage shows that grain could depict provinces other than Egypt: e.g. Pergamene cistophorus, whose reverse has six ears of wheat, bound at their stalks, dividing the imperial name, AVGV-STVS. The obverse depicts Augustus, IMP CAESAR, and is dated to 27-26 BC. See Zanker (1988: fig. 36c). 24. Parker (2003: 208). 25. Casson (1989: 18). 26. On the value deriving from exotic status, see the fundamental anthropological work of Helms (1988); some Roman implications are explored by Parker (2004). 27. Hor., Serm. 2.8.14f.: ‘procedit fuscus Hydaspes/ Caecuba uina ferens’. 28. Millar (1998); Young (2001). 29. Zanker (1988: 188f.). 30. Suet., Aug. 21.7. See further Campbell (1993: 213-40). 31. Dio 43.51.1. 32. Gruen (1985: 51-72). 33. Gruen (1996: 158-63). 34. ‘Surrounded by these vast coasts [of the Red Sea] is the vast land of Parthia, and the nations vanquished over the ages by the Parthians, the Bactrians and Ethiopians, Babylon and Susa and Nineveh, and places where names could scarce adequately be conveyed by countless turns of speech.’ 35. Ann. 2.2: ‘petitum alio ex orbe regem’.
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36. R. M. Schneider (1998: 96-146); and idem (forthcoming). 37. Strabo 1.2.1 C49-51: ‘Indeed, the spread of the empires of the Romans and of the Parthians has presented to geographers of to‑day a considerable addition to our empirical knowledge of geography, just as did the campaign of Alexander to geographers of earlier times … For Alexander opened up for us geographers a great part of Asia and all the northern part of Europe as far as the Ister River; … and, again, the Parthians have increased our knowledge in regard to Hyrcania and Bactriana, and in regard to the Scythians who live north of Hyrcania and Bactriana, all of which countries were but imperfectly known to the earlier geographers.’ (Loeb tr.). In practice, Strabo’s coverage of Parthia is ‘feeble’, according to Drijvers (1998: 292). Be that as it may, the sentiment expressed by Strabo would appear to resonate with Said’s concept of Orientalism. 38. Parker (2008: 251-307). 39. Isaac (2004). 40. Le Goff (1980: 189-200). 41. Dio 68.29.1: ‘Then he arrived at the ocean itself, and having found out about its nature and having caught sight of a ship setting sail for India, he said he would definitely have crossed over to the Indians, were he still young. He began to cogitate the Indians and inquired into their affairs, and he deemed Alexander blessed.’ 42. See also Moatti (2006). 43. Noy (2002). 44. Hardt and Negri (2000). It is ironic that a comparable deployment of the concept of ‘empire’ can be found in books of an entirely different political complexion: Ferguson (2002) and (2005). See Adler (2008b) for a survey of the image of Rome in recent American discourse about imperialism. 45. Note esp. Alcock et . (2000). 46. Nor does it help that an important recent synthetic study of alterity in the classical world does not venture beyond the early second century AD: Gruen (2010). No doubt there are reasons to justify this choice; still, its consequence is to leave Islam solidly out of the picture. 47. The present author has no bragging rights in this regard. 48. The Islamic faith per se receives little coverage from Said: Kerr (1980). 49. For late antiquity the Ethiopian-Indian link has become the subject of a major book: P. Schneider (2004). The lack of a developed ancient sense of a north-south axis may perhaps be attributed to the shape of the Mediterranean (Bowersock 2005). 50. A point that emerges nowhere more clearly than when Dido first addresses the shipwrecked Trojan party, making common cause – both are refugees from their east Mediterranean home – while offering Carthaginian hospitality: Aen. 1.561-78. 51. Huntington (1996). 52. And compare also Carrier (1995). 53. This same criticism was made in an oft-cited paper by Al-‘Azm (1981). 54. Tuan (1977); in a Roman context see now Riggsby (2009). 55. See Talbert (2010: 86f.): even if the symbolic dimension of the Peutinger map is rightly emphasized over any practical one, it is clear that the texture of the empire depends heavily on a network of roads. The Peutinger map would thus seem to represent movement at a more abstract level than has usually been imagined. 56. Mappable, that is, in the sense of the Barrington Atlas, which tends to favour the localities of Greek and Latin historiography but is also cognizant of excavations and surface survey: Alcock et al. (2001). As in the case of any map, choices need to be made as to what is included and excluded. 57. Hershkowitz (1991).
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58. For a diagram representing Achilles’ shield, see Harley and Woodward (1987: 131); and Willcock (1976). Cf. Hardie (1985); and, for an attempt to represent the Virgilian shield visually, West (1990). 59. Euhemerus FGrH 63 F2 = Diod. Sic. 5.41.3 and 6.1.4; with commentary by Clay and Purvis (1999: 98-106). 60. Even Cicero had spent half a million sesterces for a table made of citrus-wood; Pliny knew of tables that cost more than double that (HN 13.92: sections 91-99 discuss citrus-wood tables). On timber as a high-end commodity, see W. Speyer, ‘Holz’, RAC 16 (1994) cols. 87-116. 61. Apart from Varisco (2007) see also Viswanathan (2001); Singh and Johnson (2004); Irwin (2006). 62. Contrast the careful and illuminating comparisons in Alcock et al. (2000). 63. Thus, a subtle study suggests that the Persian wars in Roman memory were not merely a way of legitimising the Romans’ own dealings with Parthians, but also a way of coming to terms with the classical Greek world: Spawforth (1994). 64. It is in this latter sense of mapping that Dido’s speech towards the end of book 1 may be understood: both the Trojans and Carthaginians are there located within Mediterranean space, focused at that point on a trajectory from the eastern to the southern Mediterranean. 65. Burke and Proschka (2008: 8) criticize Said for deficient attention to contexts. 66. For critical responses and other help I warmly thank Michèle Lowrie; Friedrich Spoth; the editor and anonymous readers of Dictynna; and audiences at La Sapienza and the University of Washington. The support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation – as well as my two host institutions in Munich, the Institut für klassische Archäologie (LMU) and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae – is gratefully acknowledged. None of these parties should be thought to bear responsibility for the end result.
RÉSUMÉS
Orientalism, as a paradigm expounded by Edward W. Said, has been influential in literary studies. Here it is critically evaluated with reference to Augustan poetry, in relation to three different ethnic groups : Indians, Egyptians and Parthians. The shield of Aeneas is the point of departure. Some of the shortcomings of Saidian Orientalism can be circumvented by the adoption of concepts from human geography.
INDEX
Mots-clés : Egypt, human geography, India, Orientalism, Parthia, shield of Aeneas
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