On the Way: a Poetics of Roman Transportation

On the Way: a Poetics of Roman Transportation by Jared McCabe Hudson A dissertation in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ellen Oliensis, chair Professor Maurizio Bettini Professor Dylan Sailor Professor Carlos Noreña Spring 2013 On the Way: a Poetics of Roman Transportation © 2013 by Jared McCabe Hudson Abstract On the Way: a Poetics of Roman Transportation By Jared McCabe Hudson Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Berkeley Professor Ellen Oliensis, Chair The first chapter examines the role played by the litter (lectica) and sedan chair (sella) in Roman literature and culture. The portrait of the wealthy freedman, lounging in his deluxe octaphoros (litter carried by eight imported slaves), is one which appears repeatedly, taking shape in the late Republic and reaching a climax of frequency in the satires of Juvenal and the epigrams of Martial, in the late first century CE. While by this stage the conveyance undeniably functions as a satirical symbol, the origins and constructedness of its role as such have been surprisingly under-examined by modern scholars. In order to excavate the litter’s developing identity, I first unravel Roman accounts of the vehicle’s origins. The lectica was repeatedly framed by Roman authors such as Cicero as an exotic import from the near east (Bithynia, in particular), only available to Romans upon their exposure, through the process of imperial expansion, to eastern softness. However, such a projection involved carefully distinguishing this “decadent” litter from already existing, sanctioned litter use: thus the lectica also encompasses a category closer to our “stretcher.” Indeed, the litter’s status as a newfangled import is belied by coexisting narratives of republican-era patriarchs riding in the lectica, usually because of injury, old age, or disability. At the same time, there are numerous accounts of able-bodied Roman commanders who take the field in a lectica. That the notion of the litter as a stand-in for decadent luxury was still up for negotiation in the late Republic is demonstrated by Cicero, who could at one moment lambaste his juridical or political opponents for employing the litter, and at the next boast of his latest litter acquisition or invite his friends on a litter joy-ride at his villa. I argue that the litter’s repeated configuration as an awkward boundary-crosser, constantly out of place whether in public or in private, contributes to the strengthening of dominant categories. Chapter Two treats the more central image of the chariot (currus) in Roman literature and culture. The Roman chariot was a symbol of unique power and prestige in part because of built- in, inherited features: its role as the vehicle of the Homeric battlefield, as the preferred mode of transport for divinities and celestial bodies, as the metapoetic chariot of song of Greek lyric, and as a Platonic metaphor for the soul’s constitution. While the complex reception of these individual and often overlapping strands in Roman poetry has been extensively examined, less studied is their intersection with the more distinctively Roman uses to which the chariot was put. In fact, the resonances of the four-horse currus triumphalis, in which generals rode during the triumphal procession, and the circus chariot, the breakneck-fast racing vehicle of the Roman 1 circus, are frequently far more vital to understanding the function of the chariot in Roman literature. Starting from the assumption that the opposition between the two is central to understanding the Roman concept of currus, I explore how, on the one hand, literary chariots constantly invoke the transcendent power of the triumphal chariot, and yet, with increasing frequency, are represented as suffering terrible crashes. I read this obsessive fetishization of chariot crashes, which reaches a peak by the late first century CE, as attesting to an underlying anxiety about matters of imperial succession and expansion, and, at the same time, a willful articulation of a collective desire on the part of Romans to witness the collapse of the princeps. A counterpoint to Rome’s most central vehicle is the essedum, of which I offer an account as a postscript to the second chapter. This war-chariot of the Britons, first encountered and described by Caesar during his British expedition, was subsequently appropriated as an exotic and fashionable means of getting around Rome and its environs. As the vehicle’s original associations fade through time, the conveyance becomes increasingly normalized for quick trips and even seems to have become a kind of light stage-coach for long-distance journeys. Nevertheless, as I argue, the essedum’s lingering identity as mobile spoils of war available for leisure use by elites allowed the vehicle to function as a safe, subordinate alternative to the pinnacle achievement represented by the triumph. The third and final chapter explores the cultural significance of the carpentum and its prestigious relative, the pilentum, two special carriages sanctioned for use by Roman matrons, but nearly always portrayed as problematic or else dangerous. Through an examination of several stories involving the carpentum—most importantly that of Tullia, who famously drove over the corpse of her father, King Servius, in the carriage—I show how this conveyance served to focalize Roman patriarchal anxieties surrounding women’s conflicting loyalties as daughters and wives. Next, I analyze accounts of the prohibition of women’s privilege of using the carpenta, the attempts of moralizing senators such as Cato the Elder to oppose the repeal of this ban, and the dramatic protest of the women themselves. I demonstrate how its occasional, but conspicuous use by men was represented as effeminizing, and I trace the recurring theme of hybridity in its depictions. I conclude by arguing that, rather than being exclusively about Roman attitudes towards women’s mobility, the representations of the carpentum reveal an underlying crisis of individual agency in the late Republic and early Principate, for which vehicular transport—and the carpentum especially—functioned as a most powerful metaphor. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Lectica 32 Chapter Two: Currus 75 Chapter Three: Carpentum 115 Bibliography 146 i Acknowledgements This investigation has been guided throughout by my dissertation committee, the members of which I would like to thank first of all here: Nelly Oliensis, Maurizio Bettini, Dylan Sailor, and Carlos Noreña. I am grateful to all of them for their helpful comments and feedback, which have been the most precious fuel. Nelly set things in motion and sent me on my way, keeping track of my itinerary all along. Maurizio, who graciously extended the invitation of a reinvigorating stopover at the Centro Antropologia e Mondo Antico in the Università degli Studi di Siena, helped outline the terrain I was to traverse and gave me a motivating stimulus in the final stages. Dylan Sailor’s insightful and meticulous comments throughout made sure the engine parts were functioning in working order and would actually survive the journey. An Ehrman Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge helped the project to pick up further speed and there John Henderson’s onboard computer, always firing on all cylinders, gave my work a turbo charge. There are few (if any) places I visit in the ensuing pages where I didn’t encounter his footsteps. It goes without saying that I, and not these scholars, am responsible for the project’s many divagations and changes of pace. For help and inspiration during my curriculum as a graduate student at Berkeley, I wish to thank, together with my committee members, John Ferrari, Sumi Furiya, Andrew Garrett, Mark Griffith, Leslie Kurke, Tony Long, Donald Mastronarde, Kathy McCarthy, Charles Murgia, Trevor Murphy, and Nikolaos Papazarkadas. Maceo Montoya, rhetor comes Heliodorus, offered unflagging friendship en route. He and Bidisha Banerjee helped me press on and gave me a much-needed wheel change one chilly San Francisco evening. I am grateful to my parents for their encouragement and support throughout this process. In particular, I want to thank my mother for sharing her unbelievable stores of generosity, endurance, and wisdom with me from the very outset. Hannah, my true travelling companion and pacesetter, has helped keep me going throughout this research, especially when the path became most arduous. She heard, and offered astute responses to, my ideas all along the way. Lastly, I would like to thank the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, Bay Area Rapid Transit, and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency for providing me countless hours of transport, in every sense. I am tempted to hold them indirectly responsible for what follows. ii Introduction: Setting Out Let us begin with two stories of Romans on the move, and others who get in the way. The first comes from a section of Aulus Gellius, in which the lettered collector offers a focused collatio of the style of three orators, Gaius Gracchus, Cicero, and the elder Cato. Gellius quotes the following anecdote from Gracchus: quanta libido quantaque intemperantia sit hominum adulescentium, unum exemplum vobis ostendam. his annis paucis ex Asia missus est, qui per id tempus magistratum non ceperat, homo adulescens pro legato. is in lectica ferebatur. ei obviam bubulcus de plebe Venusina advenit et per iocum, cum ignoraret, qui ferretur, rogavit, num mortuum ferrent. ubi id audivit, lecticam iussit deponi, struppis, quibus lectica deligata erat, usque adeo verberari iussit, dum animam efflavit. I shall give you just one example of the excessive wantonness and lack of self- control of young men. A few years ago, a young man who had not yet held office as a magistrate was sent as an envoy from Asia.

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