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Literary and Ideological Memory in the Octavia by
Lauren Marie Donovan
B.A., Cornell University, 2003

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
MAY 2011
© Copyright 2011 by Lauren M. Donovan
This dissertation by Lauren Marie Donovan is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Date
John Bodel, Advisor

Recommended to the Graduate Council
Date
Shadi Bartsch, Reader

Date Date
Jeri DeBrohun, Reader Joseph Reed, Reader

Approved by the Graduate Council
Date
Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School

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Curriculum Vitae

Lauren Donovan was born in 1981 in Illinois, and spent her formative years in Concord, Massachusetts. She earned a B. A. summa cum laude in Classics from Cornell University in 2003, with a thesis titled “Ilia and Early Imperial Rome: The Roman Origin Legend in Text and Art” and received the Department of Classics prize in Latin upon graduation. Before beginning her graduate work at Brown University, Lauren taught Latin and Greek at the high school level for two years. During her graduate career, Lauren has presented talks on many topics including the idea of learnedness in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the role of Prometheus in Apollonius’ Argonautica, and various aspects of her dissertation work on the Octavia. She has also been the recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (2005) and the Memoria Romana Dissertation Fellowship (2010). She is currently a visiting instructor at Wesleyan University.

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Acknowledgements

My dissertation has benefited from the support of countless people. First and foremost is my advisor, John Bodel, who introduced me to the Octavia in a Tacitus seminar and who has given many hours to the project’s development over the years. My work has benefited greatly from the insightful comments of my readers, Shadi Bartsch, Jeri DeBrohun, and Jay Reed. I remain grateful to the faculty and staff in the Classics Department at Brown University for their constant encouragement. The Memoria Romana Dissertation Fellowship provided me with a crucial source of intellectual and financial aid; it also brought me to Rome for a colloquium with other young scholars of memory who in turn gave me invaluable advice on my project.
I am indebted to my writing group, Caroline Bishop, Liz Gloyn, Isabel Köster, and
Darcy Krasne, from whose close readings, challenging comments, and support I have benefited in innumerable ways. My fellow graduate students at Brown have always provided wonderful colleagues with whom to discuss works in progress; Jennifer Thomas in particular provided me with much intellectual support, especially regarding the Octavia’s engagement with Vergil and Lucan. I also participated to great benefit in reading groups on Statius and Tacitus with fellow graduate students Bryan Brinkman, Scott DiGiulio, Timothy Haase, Karen Kelly, Leo Landrey, and Mitchell Parks.
Finally, I thank my husband, Zachary Ginsberg, and my parents, Marion & Brendan
Donovan, whose love and support have always been a source of strength and inspiration.
I dedicate this dissertation to two extraordinary teachers. To Alex Banay for fostering my love of Latin poetry; to Judy Ginsburg, requiescat in pace, for setting me on this path and for introducing me to the complexities of Julio-Claudian memory.

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For Alex Banay and Judy Ginsburg

optimis magistris

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • INTRODUCTION
  • 1

CHAPTER 1: ON THE MODEL OF AUGUSTUS Seneca’s Augustan Narrative Nero’s Bloodless Accession and Octavian’s Bloody Past
20 27 41

CHAPTER 2: ON THE MODEL OF OCTAVIAN Nero and the Triumvirate: A Lesson in Family History Actium and the Augustan Legacy
57 58 76

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  • Conclusion: Towards and Ideology of Imperial Rule

CHAPTER 3: OCTAVIA AND THE POETICS OF CIVIL STRIFE Towards a Poetics of Civil War
96 98
The Octavia and Generic Markers of Civil War The Seditious Nature of Nero’s Citizens Civil War and Civil-War Poets Nero’s Prefect and the Suppression of the Riot Conclusion
105 112 121 135 144

CHAPTER 4: MODELS OF STRIFE Pompey the Great and Narratives of Loss Nero, Collective Guilt, and Caesar’s Assassination

The Aeneid Undone

147 149 170 183

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  • Conclusion

CHAPTER 5: THE ROMAN PEOPLE’S EXEMPLARY STRIFE (PART I) The Problems of the Octavia’s Chorus Over Her Dead Body: Ode I
203 205 208

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  • Roman Identity and the “Crush, Kill, Destroy” Mentality: Ode II

CHAPTER 6: THE ROMAN PEOPLE’S EXEMPLARY STRIFE (PART II) Burning Down Troy: Ode III The Danger of Favorable Factions: Ode IV Exemplary Women: Ode V Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean: Ode V Conclusion
234 234 248 262 271 277

  • CONCLUSION
  • 278

  • 282
  • BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION
The Octavia is one of the mysteries of imperial literature. We are not sure who wrote it, exactly when it was written, or for what purpose.1 We are not even sure to what genre it ultimately belongs.2 The question of its staging and stageability likewise remains hotly debated, as do the implications of potential staging on the interpretation of the drama as a whole.3 Despite these difficulties, however, the play remains an early witness to the period after the Julio-Claudians when the dynasty’s celebrated literature was being reread in light of its tragic fall and the civil strife that followed. At least one scholar, while noting its near-certain composition in the period after Nero, classifies it as the final work

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1 For a history of the question of authorship, see Goldberg (2003). The dating, however, remains controversial. Some argue for a composition under Galba, while others prefer a Flavian date, either under Vespasian (as I think most likely) or Domitian. For various positions, see Boyle (2008) xiii-xi; Ferri (2003) 1-30; Wilson (2003a). As will be evident, I consider the memory of 69 CE to inform the text’s response to Julio-Claudian ideology; its precise date, however, matters little to my analysis of the play’s themes.

2 Scholars are still at odds as to whether the Octavia is best classified as a tragedy or a praetexta. Manuwald (2001, 259-339) gives a complete history of the question before advancing her own opinion that the Octavia exemplifies the “darker” imperial type of praetexta. See also Kragelund (2002) with the responses of Flower, Manuwald, and Wiseman. I will refer to the Octavia predominantly as a drama, as it is not necessary for us to decide between the two generic classifications of “tragedy” and “praetexta” in order to interpret its themes. I use the terms “tragedy” or “tragic” when explicitly discussing its reflections of tragic conventions, but I do not seek to classify it exclusively in these terms.

3 Unlike its Senecan counterparts, many have felt that the Octavia, more than any other surviving imperial drama, demands performance on the public stages of imperial Rome (e.g. Flower [2006] 2003 on the Theater of Pompey; Wiseman [2001] on the Theater of Marcellus). It has none of the “problems” that make the staging of Senecan drama so controversial and it contains many stage directions or other cues that suggest that the playwright had performance in mind (Boyle [2008] xxv-lv; Kragelund [2005] 86-96; Smith [2003]; Sutton [1983]). While my interpretation does not require us to decide whether, when, or how the play was staged, its status as a drama remains important to any analysis. Thus, following Littlewood (2004), I use the language of “audience” and spectatorship throughout the dissertation, and note where ideas of performance become important for individual points of interpretation.

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of Julio-Claudian literature.4 That the play is wholly invested in the Julio-Claudian family, its literature, and the way the dynasty will be remembered is clear from its very beginning. In this sense it is indeed a “Julio-Claudian” text: it is haunted by Rome’s first dynasty, both literally and literarily, even as it reshapes that dynasty’s memory and reinterprets its literary monuments for a new age. In this dissertation, I explore how the Octavia confronts a brief moment in Neronian history and restages it as a powerful challenge to the Julio-Claudian dynasty’s historical claim to have put an end to civil war.5 Civil strife in the Octavia functions as a structural and thematic motif; this motif in turn strips from the Julio-Claudians their public projection of peace and security, and connects their politics inescapably with civil war and its destructive passions. The play advances this theme through its complex engagement with Julio-Claudian literature, and especially the era’s civil-war literature. Intertextuality thus becomes the play’s central mode of shaping both the literary memory of Julio-Claudian literature and the cultural or ideological memory of the Julio-Claudian family after the dynasty’s fall.
Three interrelated propositions inform how I approach my subject, two methodological and one thematic.6 First, the Octavia is a self-consciously intertextual play, by which I mean that one of its fundamental modes of generating meaning derives from its echoes of literature that came before. Second, the Octavia is a play about memory, in terms of both how its characters remember the past and also how the play as

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4 Sullivan (1985, 73) suggests that thematically and literarily the play belongs more to Julio-Claudian literature than to what follows. I view the play more as a transition, having much in common with the concerns of Flavian poetry (e.g. the role of civil war under a monarchy).

5 The Octavia focuses on 62 CE, Octavia’s divorce, and the riots in her favor. Nevertheless, the events mentioned in the play span from the monarchy through the Republic and the Julio-Claudian period, and thus 62 CE becomes, in essence, a microcosm through which the playwright confronts larger themes.

6 I borrow this language of “propositions” from Boyle’s (1987) twelve “propositions” about the defining markers of Senecan dramatic artistry and the methodologies through which it is best approached.

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a whole masterfully reshapes the memory of Neronian and Julio-Claudian Rome. Third, the Octavia is a play about Roman identity; more specifically, it is a play about civil strife, past and present, and the role that civil strife has played in Roman history as a constitutive element of Roman identity.7 None of these approaches to imperial literature is necessarily unusual on its own, but the text privileges each as a means of interpreting it, and each also raises its own set of questions and brings with it its own intellectual history. Thus it will be of use to lay out precisely what I mean by these three propositions and what about the text has led me to categorize it in these terms.
The study of an ancient text’s allusive program has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decades, especially in the study of imperial poetry.8 This does not mean, however, that a unified methodology has developed that would please all working in this area. Rather, the plurality of ways of understanding intertextuality has engendered a plurality of studies on the subject, as each scholar articulates his or her own way of reading a text’s allusive language. Nevertheless, several fundamental advances have been made with wide influence on how we currently approach the subject. First, we have freed ourselves from the idea that we can recover how an author “intended” his work to be read, and instead we locate meaning in the point of a text’s reception.9 At the same time, we are no longer as driven to remove the author completely from the process, and recent studies approach intertextuality in terms of the space created between author and

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7 While this might seem obvious, the play’s “Romanness” has often been underestimated. Both Kragelund (2002 and 2005) and Smith (2003) recently argued for the its predominant interest in Rome and Roman identity, and my work both advances and builds on their arguments as will be noted throughout.

8 See e.g. Edmunds (2001); Hinds (1998); Pucci (1998); Wills (1996); Conte (1986). Schiesaro’s (2003, 221-51) and Boyle’s (1987; 2008, lix-lxvi) discussions of intertextuality in Senecan drama have especially informed my own thinking on the subject, as has Edmunds (2001) and Hinds (1998).

9 Fowler (1997, 127) nicely summarizes the issue: “meaning is realized at the point of reception, and what counts as an intertext and what one does with it depends on the reader.” Cf. also Pasquali (1968) 275.

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audience in which meaning is generated.10 Throughout my study, I refer both to the author’s creation (whether intentional or not) and the audience’s perception; I nevertheless avoid such fraught terms such as “allusion” or “reference” in preference for “intertext,” “echo,” “parallel,” and “reminiscence.” I reserve the language of allusive reference for historical (rather than literary) allusions in the text.11 A further advance has been a move away from what Stephen Hinds terms “philological fundamentalism,” or the desire to impose a strict sense of criteria through which “reference” can be distinguished from “accidental parallel.”12 Even commonplace language or topoi are not forbidden from consideration.13 The “proof” must rest in the intertext’s ability to generate meaning upon analysis, as it is this very meaning that makes it relevant for the text’s interpretation. Thus not every parallel will be an intertext for every reader, and it is likely that not all will agree with every echo I analyze.
My analysis focuses on echoes that engage their model text on both a lexical and thematic level, but I also examine how topoi and marked vocabulary (which I often describe as allusive “texturing”) reinforce the play’s allusive program. At times lexical parallels are further marked by metrical position, “Alexandrian footnotes,” the

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10 See Fowler (1997) 115-37 and Hinds (1998) esp. 47-51. Outside of Classics, literary memory has long been approached in these terms. Especially influential in the development of my own thought has been Renate Lachmann (1997). In Lachmann’s (largely poststructuralist) formulation, intertextual meaning arises from the space between texts generated by the textual memories that an author—consciously or unconsciously—leaves behind in his text and the textual memories that the reader brings to it.

11 For the difficulty of terminology, see Edmunds (2001) 133ff. Edmunds (138) rejects the term “intertext” as inherently problematic, preferring to use “allusion” without intentionalist associations.

12 Hinds (1998) 17-51. 13 Hinds (1998) 34-47. “[That anything can be an intertext] is a truth often suppressed by professors of Latin for reasons of pedagogy and (perhaps) peace of mind; but it is a truth none the less,” (Hinds [1998] 26). Cf. also Edmunds (2001) xvii.

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sequencing of ideas, or other structural and linguistic cues.14 For example, Seneca and Nero (Oct. 440-3) echo the four imperial virtues of Augustus both in their language and also by the order in which they present the virtues through which they look back to Augustus’ clupeus virtutis, his Res Gestae, and other Augustan texts.15 Here too is a recent advance in intertextual studies: no longer is it understood exclusively in poetic terms. Instead, we have turned to prose texts, and especially historiography.16 In the study of allusion, our definition of “text” is expanding to include non-poetic examples and thus I also analyze echoes that may seem far removed from the traditional realm of literature.
Within the Octavia, literary echoes work both intertextually and intratextually.17
Certain passages are especially marked moments where the Octavia engages its literary predecessors as clearly as possible. Such moments become “gateway intertexts” that authorize us to seek further points of connection between the two dialoguing texts. For example, when Octavia calls herself the “shadow of a great name” (magni resto nominis

umbra, Oct. 71) and aligns herself with Lucan’s Pompey (stat magni nominis umbra,

Luc. 1.135), we are invited to seek additional complementary echoes throughout the text, even if subsequent points of contact are less marked.18 Thus the Octavia generates meaning not only from singular echoes but also from wider patterns across the text.19

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14 Hinds (1998, 26) describes Morgan’s “philological criteria” from his study on Ovid (Morgan [1977] 3). The term “Alexandrian footnote” was coined first by Ross (1975, 78), but cf. also Hinds (1998) 1-5.

15 For a discussion of this passage, see Chapter 1 pp. 23-6. I follow Boyle’s (2008) text, noting alternative readings from Zwierlein’s OCT (1986) when significant for my argument.

16 Intertextuality in historiography is now a hot topic. Cf. Polleichtner (2010); Damon (2010a); Levene (2010) 82-163; Marincola (2010); O’Gorman (2007) and (2009) 233-40.

17 Similarly, Gaisser (2009, 136) speaks of the different “reverberations” which Catullus’ intertexts create through their intratextual reminiscences throughout the corpus.

18 For Octavia’s echoes of Pompey, see Chapter 4 pp. 149-61. The names “Octavia,” “Seneca” and “Nero,” etc. refer to the Octavia’s characters, not their historical counterparts. When reference is made to historical

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These patterns are further aided by its dialogic or agonistic structure. The Octavia uses its dramatic structure to pit different readings of canonical Julio-Claudian texts against each other, asking the audience to engage with these texts from divergent interpretive positions. Thus we see Seneca and the Nurses offer readings of the Aeneid that emphasize its teleological promise of peace to the Julio-Claudians (e.g. Oct. 82-3; Oct. 479-81; Oct. 752-3), while Nero and Octavia read the epic in terms of its civil-war undertones and its conflicting voices (e.g. Oct. 465; Oct. 523-26; Oct. 652-3).20 These divergent readings create not only a plurality of models through which to remember Julio-Claudian Rome, but also a plurality of readings of those Julio-Claudian texts.21 As

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figures, the distinction will be carefully noted (e.g. “the historical Seneca” vel sim.). 19 This mode of engagement is not unique to the Octavia, and can be found in authentic Senecan tragedy as well. Cf. Littlewood (2004, 142) on patterns of Horatian echoes in the Thyestes. The Aeneid’s more notable and overarching engagement with the Iliad and Odyssey can be felt both in individual echoes and in its large-scale patterns even in the absence of precise markers at every turn (cf. Edmunds [2001] 140-41). “The more obvious, and obviously intended aspects of Vergil’s allusive program encourage the reader to look further for less obvious, less obviously intended examples as well…here a situation arises in which, if a Homeric scene is not represented by an obvious Vergilian imitation, the reader is encouraged to hunt for it,” (e-mail from Joseph Farrell quoted by Edmunds [2001] 154). Despite the prevalence of such arguments in previous studies of Latin literature, it nevertheless bears repeating as the Octavia’s echoes have often been read in terms of singular points of contact between two texts without regard for wider patterns.

20 On the allusive engagement with Vergil in these passages, see Chapter 1 pp. 29-35 (Seneca); Chapter 3 pp. 112-21 (Seneca and Nero); Chapter 4 pp. 183-199 (Octavia; the Nurses; Agrippina). While the Octavia’s engagement with Greek and Roman drama has been well studied, its equally pervasive engagement with non-dramatic models remains less so, a balance my dissertation implicitly addresses. Littlewood (2004, 2) has similarly called for a wider study of the influence of non-dramatic models on Senecan drama, suggesting that its generic identity as tragedy has narrowed our perspective unhelpfully.

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  • Newton's Seneca: from Latin Fragments to Elizabethan Drama

    Newton's Seneca: from Latin Fragments to Elizabethan Drama

    Colby Quarterly Volume 26 Issue 2 June Article 4 June 1990 Newton's Seneca: From Latin Fragments to Elizabethan Drama Douglas E. Green Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Quarterly, Volume 26, no.2, June 1990, p.87-95 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Green: Newton's Seneca: From Latin Fragments to Elizabethan Drama Newton I S Seneca: From Latin Fragments to Elizabethan Drama byDOUGLASE.GREEN s H. B. CHARLTON and many others have noted, firsthand experience ofGreek A tragedy was rare in Renaissance England. 1 It is no accident, then, that when Shakespeare wanted to parody the high style ofearly English tragedy, he drew on Seneca, at least indirectly, in the meter of his Elizabethan translators. Not surprisingly-especially in light of the prolonged agony of the hero in Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus-Bottom dies in "Ercles' vein" (MND I.ii.40)2: Come, tears, confound, Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop. [Stabs himself] Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now anl I fled; My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light, Moon, take thy flight, [Exit Moonshine.] Now die, die, die, die, die. [Dies.] (V.i.295-306) Seneca stood as virtually the sole classical model for tragedy-and perhaps mock-tragedy as well. Thus, along with the de casibus narrative tragedies and the moralities,3 Senecan drama reveals sonlething ofthe complex nature of"classi­ cal example" in the Renaissance.
  • Condidit Suos Enses: Allusion to Vergil and Lucan in the Octavia It Has

    Condidit Suos Enses: Allusion to Vergil and Lucan in the Octavia It Has

    Condidit suos enses: allusion to Vergil and Lucan in The Octavia It has long been noted that, during his dialogue with Seneca in the middle of The Octavia (Oct. 440—592), Nero virtually quotes the opening of Lucan’s Bellum Civile (Hosius 1922; Ferri 2003; Boyle 2008). Recently Boyle has also suggested that Nero’s use of the verb condere (Oct. 524), recalls the multifaceted use of the verb in Vergil’s Aeneid, especially at the epic’s end (Boyle 2008). In this paper I will argue that these intertexts are part of a wider and significant nexus of allusions to these two somewhat programmatic Julio-Claudian epics, and that a proper understanding of the famous dialogue between Nero and Seneca is in part predicated on how each character ‘reads’ these epics and their ideological underpinnings. As Seneca instructs Nero on the proper duties of kinship and Augustus’ rise to power (Oct.472-491), he rewrites the opening of the Aeneid with Augustus as its star, emphasizing what is now often called “the Augustan voice” of Vergil’s epic (Thomas 2001; Ganiban 2007). Augustus, like Aeneas, has been tossed about on land and sea by the hand of fate (illum tamen fortuna iactavit diu/ terra marique Oct.479-480; fato…ille et terris iactatus et alto Verg.A. 1.2-3). Both men suffered much at war (Oct. 480; Verg.A.1.5) and both undertook their toils in order to found something great: Aeneas founds the Roman race and a home for his gods (dum conderet urbem Verg.A.1.5), while Augustus pursues his enemies across the globe, weighed down by his pietas, so that he could refound the city once again (hostes parentis donec oppressit sui Oct.481).
  • Mark User CV (PDF)

    Mark User CV (PDF)

    M. D. USHER Home: 619 Tottingham Road, Shoreham, Vermont 05770; phone: (802) 897-2822; Office: University of Vermont, Department of Classics, 481 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont 05405; phone: (802) 656-4431; fax: (802) 656-8429; Internet: [email protected] PERSONAL: Born: February 16, 1966, Bad Kreuznach, Germany (U.S. citizen); Spouse: Caroline (British citizen); married October 1986; Children: Isaiah (b. 1988), Estlin (b. 1990), Gawain (b. 1996) ACADEMIC POSITIONS: Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classics and faculty member in The Environmental Program, University of Vermont (2017-); Professor of Classics (2014- 2017); Associate Professor of Classics (2004-2014); Assistant Professor of Classics (2000-2004); Assistant Professor of Classics, Willamette University (1997-2000) EDUCATION: Ph.D. (University of Chicago, 1997) with distinction, Classical Languages and Literatures; M.A. (University of Chicago, 1994) Classical Languages and Literatures; B.A. (University of Vermont, 1992) summa cum laude, ΦΒΚ, Greek and Latin PROFILE: For a feature story about me and my work as a scholar, writer, and farmer in Tableau, the University of Chicago’s Division of Humanities quarterly magazine, see: http://tableau.uchicago.edu/articles/2013/08/adaptation. PUBLICATIONS Academic Books: (4) Cosmos [to] Commons: Greek and Roman Sources for Sustainable Living, a book tracing the roots of sustainable systems in Greek and Roman literature, society, philosophy, and myth, under review with Cambridge University Press; video interview by the Center for Research on Vermont: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj7yyqAPiUo&index=5&list=PLQXjCavV467GPMR3xge Cy2FL8bg_SirUt) (3) A Student's Seneca: 10 Letters with Selections from De providentia and De vita beata (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006) (2) Homerocentones Eudociae Augustae (B.
  • Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger)

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger)

    LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA (SENECA THE YOUNGER) “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Seneca the Younger HDT WHAT? INDEX SENECA THE YOUNGER SENECA THE YOUNGER 147 BCE August 4: On this date the comet that had passed by the sun on June 28th should have been closest to the earth, but we have no dated record of it being seen at this point. The only Western record of observation of this particular periodic comet is one that happens to come down to us by way of Seneca the Younger, of a bright reddish comet as big as the sun that had been seen after the death of the king of Syria, Demetrius, just a little while before the Greek Achaean war (which had begun in 146 BCE). ASTRONOMY HDT WHAT? INDEX SENECA THE YOUNGER SENECA THE YOUNGER 2 BCE At about this point Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born as the 2d son of a wealthy Roman family on the Iberian peninsula. The father, Seneca the Elder (circa 60BCE-37CE) had become famous as a teacher of rhetoric in Rome. An aunt would take the boy to Rome where he would be trained as an orator and educated in philosophy. In poor health, he would recuperate in the warmth of Egypt. SENECA THE YOUNGER HDT WHAT? INDEX SENECA THE YOUNGER SENECA THE YOUNGER 31 CE Lucius Aelius Sejanus was made a consul, and obtained the permission he has been requesting for a long time, to get married with Drusus’ widow Livilla.
  • The Pseudo-Senecan Seneca on the Good Old Days: the Motif of the Golden Age in the Octavia

    The Pseudo-Senecan Seneca on the Good Old Days: the Motif of the Golden Age in the Octavia

    The Pseudo-Senecan Seneca on the Good Old Days: The Motif of the Golden Age in the Octavia Oliver Schwazer I. Introduction In his fabula praetexta entitled Octavia, the playwright stages the historical events that occurred during the reign of the last Julio-Claudian emperor in 62 CE.1 Following the divorce from his wife Octavia and re-marriage to another woman, Poppaea Sabina, the emperor gives the order for the former to be exiled. Neither a thorough dispute with his advisor Seneca2 nor the interventions of the pro-Octavia Chorus of Romans can deter Nero from his decision to put down the riots amongst the populace by using the sentence of Octavia as a warning.3 For a number of reasons, the Octavia has always been one of the most intriguing and in many ways most controversial pieces of Latin literature. While the fact that this play has been almost fully preserved can be regarded as extremely gratifying, not least because it stands in contrast to the number of praetextae known to us from no more than a few fragments, or even just one, it is particularly its textual transmission that has overshadowed scholarly dispute. Due to its sharp opposition to the eight mythological plays — excluding the Hercules Oetaeus of doubtful authorship — doubts have been raised about the assumption that the Octavia has been transmitted in manuscripts along with the tragedies now unanimously assigned to Seneca the Younger. To many researchers it seems inconceivable that the earlier advisor and later adversary of Nero would choose to appear as a dramatis persona on stage, particularly in a play where the contemporary emperor was presented in such a disreputable light.
  • On Seneca, Mussato, Trevet and the Boethian "Tragedies"

    On Seneca, Mussato, Trevet and the Boethian "Tragedies"

    Heliotropia 10.1-2 (2013) http://www.heliotropia.org On Seneca, Mussato, Trevet and the Boethian “Tragedies” of the De casibus hile good work has been done on the so-called Paduan prehu- manists since Billanovich put them in the critical spotlight half a W century ago,1 very little has subsequently been accomplished with regard to their influence on Boccaccio, especially his ideas on the relationship among poetry, philosophy and theology. I believe that there is a rich vein yet to be mined in this area, one that will aid us in understanding more profoundly not only his pre-Christian sources, which (always mediated, of course, by the influence of medieval interpretations) range broadly from the Pre-Socratics to Plato and Aristotle, to the Stoics and Neoplatonists, but also the way in which he creatively and convincingly interwove them into a tapestry of Christian doctrine. In other words, there is still something to be learned before we can confidently reconstruct his line, or lines, of humanistic thought. Unfortunately, it has become quite commonplace to think of Boccaccio’s defense of poetry in his final works as something that popped up almost spontaneously when, in reality, those pages actually depict a hypothesis of theologia poetica that evolved over a period of twenty-five years or so. Indeed, we may even say that his development of these holistic ideas, his attempts to unlock the wisdom of the ancients — whether enshrined in highly complex cosmological creations like the Calcidian Timaeus or simply glimpsed in flashes of literary brilliance in a handful of carefully chosen passages here and there — never really assumed a definitive form.
  • Apocalypses and the Sage. Different Endings of the World in Seneca

    Apocalypses and the Sage. Different Endings of the World in Seneca

    ARTÍCULOS Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua ISSN: 0213-0181 http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/GERI.63869 Apocalypses and the Sage. Different Endings of the World in Seneca Francesca Romana Berno1 Recibido: 9 de abril 2018 / Aceptado: 29 de octubre de 2018 Abstract. This paper deals with apocalypse, intended as a revelation or prediction related to the end of the world, in Seneca’s prose work. The descriptions and readings of this event appear to be quite different from each other. My analysis will follow two main directions. Firstly, I will show the human side of the question, focussing on the condition of the sage facing the universal ruin in the context of the macroscopic narrative structure of most passages, and on the differences between the Epicurean and the Stoic view on this point. Secondly, I will turn to the descriptions of the end of the world which we can find in the Naturales Quaestiones. I will argue that Seneca’s choice of flood or conflagration as representations for the apocalypse are not haphazard, but may be motivated by a subtle political narrative, and thus linked to the Stoic struggle for taking part in the governing of the state. In particular, the end of book three represents a flood which probably alludes toTiber’s floods. Keywords: Seneca; Final flood;ekpyrosis ; End of the world; Fire of Rome; Tiber’s flood. [esp] El sabio y los apocalipsis. Diferentes fines del mundo en Séneca Resumen. Este artículo trata del apocalipsis, entendido como una revelación o predicción relacionada con el fin del mundo, en las obras en prosa de Séneca.
  • A Thirteenth-Century Manuscript of the Octavia

    A Thirteenth-Century Manuscript of the Octavia

    C. J. Herington: A thirteenth-century manuscript of the Octavia 353 man antworten müssen, daß dieser schon für die Quelle oder gar schon für die ihr vorausliegende überlieferung so wenig mehr aufhellbar oder auch nebensächlich war, daß man nicht eigens vermerkte, war u m die 17. Kohorte von Ostia nach Rom verlegt werden sollte. Das eine dürfen wir mit Sicherheit sagen: wenn die Quelle auch nur die Spur eines Hinweises darauf enthalten hätte, daß der Waffentransport mit der Mobilmachung Othos zusammenhing, hätte, um von allem anderen zu s<;hweigen, Tacitus kaum von einem par v u m initium (80,1) gesprochen. Wer! i. Westf. Heinz Heubner A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT 1 OF THE OCTAVIA PRAETEXTA IN EXETER ) 1. DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY. Exeter Cathedral Library MS no. 3549 (B); vellum; assigned to the middle of the thirteenth century; 296 leaves (16 by 22. 5 cm.) in 26 irregular gatherings. The text (with one negligible exception) is written in the same hand through­ out, in double columns apart from the tragic items, which are in tripie columns. There are 53 lines to the column. The principal contents are Isidore's Etymologiae and other works, followed by the majority of the younger Seneca's prose writings. A complete list of these is given in the appen­ dix; but the body of the present anicle is devoted to the Octavia and the short excerpts from the other Senecim trage­ dies, which are found towards the end of the manuscript. Of the book's history little is known. It belonged to John de Grandisson, one of the greatest of Exeter's mediaeval bishops (born 1292, consecrated 1327, died 1369), but was to wander 1) The writer wishes particularly to thank the Librarian of the Cathe­ dral Library, Mrs.
  • A Commentary on the De Constantia Sapientis of Seneca the Younger

    A Commentary on the De Constantia Sapientis of Seneca the Younger

    1 A Commentary on the De Constantia Sapientis of Seneca the Younger Nigel Royden Hope Royal Holloway, University of London Submitted for the degree of PhD 1 2 Declaration of Authorship I, Nigel Royden Hope, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 3 Abstract The present thesis is a commentary on Seneca the Younger’s De constantia sapientis, one of his so-called dialogi. The text on which I comment forms part of the Oxford Classical Texts edition of the dialogi by L. D. Reynolds. The thesis is in two main parts: an Introduction and the Commentary proper. Before the Introduction, there is a justificatory Preface, in which I explain why this thesis is a necessary addition to the scholarship on De constantia sapientis, on which the last detailed commentary was published in 1950. The Introduction covers the following topics: Date; Genre (involving discussion of what is meant by the term dialogus and the place of De constantia sapientis in the collection of Seneca’s Dialogi as a whole); Argumentation: Techniques and Strategies (including a discussion of S.’s views on the role of logic in philosophy); Language and Style; Imagery; Moral Psychology (an analysis of Seneca’s account of the passions); The Nature of Insult (including types of insult, appropriate responses to insults, and interpretation of the meanings of two of the verbal insults presented by Seneca); and Legal Aspects (the question of the distinction between iniuria and contumelia in legal terms and what sorts of actions were pursued by an actio iniuriarum in Seneca’s day).