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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerogtaphically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9* black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMÏ TRACES OF DISSENT: PERSIÜS AND THE SATIRE OF NERO'S GOLDEN AGE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy m the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Peter John Nani, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2001 Dissertation Committee: Professor Kirk Freudenburg, Adviser Professor William W. Batstone Adviser Professor Frank T. Coulson Department of Greek and Latm UMI Number 3031235 Copyright 2001 by Nani, Peter John Ail rights reserved. UMI* UMI Microform 3031235 Copyright2002 by Bell & Koweït Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Peter [ohn Nani 2001 ABSTRACT While Horace's Sermones play a prominent role in Persius' Satires, other poetic voices filter into these poems that have gone unnoticed. They are fimdamental to the way Persius negotiates a place for his satires both inside the traditions of formal verse satire and invective, and in opposition to the Neronian literary climate. Nero's presence in Persius' satires is cued by external poetic voices that figure into the way in which Persius formulates the problem of writing under Nero. It is no coincidence that these voices issue fi:om poems where Persius refers to the practices of poetic composition, the prologue and Satires 3 and 5. I focus my study on these poems. Studies of the prologue fail to recognize how Persius' choice of the choliambic meter figures into the makeup of his persona as a poetic outsider. I demonstrate how, in adopting this meter, Persius taps into the ethos of the meter's creator, Hipponax, who also asserted his poetic independence. This claim to poetic independence factors into the prologue where Persius condemns the Neronian literary scene, beholden to Nero's Alexandrian tastes. Scholars have generally overlooked the role the pastoral world plays in Persius' third satire. The ingratiatory Eclogues of Calpumius Siculus offer an ii example of how pastoral under Nero becomes a vehicle for disseminating Neronian Golden Age propaganda. Persius^ third satire responds to this "Calpumian" pastoral voice. In the fifth satire, Persius dismisses trite literary motifs of tragedy, the poetic tradition most actively re-appropriated by Nero, the emperor- performer in the late 50s and 60s A.D. I argue that Persius draws upon his own more overtly "political" voices &om S. 1 and S. 3 to criticize contemporary tragedy for its enslavement to Nero's literary tastes. I show that Nero's patronage of literature posed a considerable problem for Persius, and an excellent opportunity for satire. The difficulties of writing under Nero is a problem that Persius returns to repeatedly. Apart from the Horafian voice featured throughout Persius' poems, other voices filter into his satires which figure into the ways he responds to the contemporary literary scene. Ill To my mother and the memory of my father IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for their assistance with various aspects of this dissertation. Writing a dissertation on Roman satire, I could not have been more fortunate than having Kirk Freudenburg as my adviser. His knowledge and keen insights have not only shaped my understanding of satire and Roman literature in general, but they have greatly influenced my own ideas on Persius that form the basis for this project. To him, I owe great thanks. I am also very grateful to the other members of my committee: Will Batstone and Frank Coulson. Throughout my studies at Ohio State, Will has always challenged me to think critically and to read sensitively. I have learned greatly ftom him. Frank first introduced me to Persius in the Spring of 1995 in his Latin 703 course. He has added far more to this dissertation than "making sure all the Fs are dotted." There are others who have provided support in graduate school and throughout the writing process. These individuals in their own way have made this project more bearable. My heartfelt thanks are owed to Ben Weaver for his encouragement and good humor; to Sean and Nicole Wellington for their warm hospitality, fidendship, and levity; to Eric Schwendeman for his wit and readiness to provide a synonym when I was looking for just the right word; and especially to Katherine Panagakos for helping in innumerable ways, particularly for nagging me to get this firüshed. I owe a great deal of thanks to my brothers and sisters who have all provided love and encouragement throughout the years: Dave, Judy, Jane, Steve, and Kathy. Finally, I owe my deepest gratitude to the love and support of my parents who sacrificed a great deal to ensure that all of their children received outstanding educations. I am truly fortunate to have been raised in a household where great value was placed on learning. So it is to my mother and to the memory of my father that I dedicate this dissertation. vr VITA August 22,1970...............................Bom -Laglewood, California 1992 B,A. Classics, University of Notre Dame 1994................................................. M.A. Classical Studies, Tulane University 1994 - present ................................ .Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Greek and Latin VII TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract....................................................................................................................ü Dedication ...............................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments -------------------------------------------------------------------------- .v Vita........................................................................................................................ vii titroduction ___________________________ 1 Chapters: 1. Persius^ Prologue and the Iambic Tradition ....................................................10 2. The Pastoral World of Satire 3 ........................................................................ 76 3. Feasts and Freedom in Satire 5. ................................ 130 4. Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------180 Bibliography----------------------------------------------- 185 v in INTRODUCTION The Roman satiric poet Auies Persius Flaccus ("Persius") died of a stomach disorder on November 24, A.D. 62, ten days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday. What we know about his life largely depends on his Vita attributed to the first century grammarian Probus. According to this brief account, if it can be trusted, Persius was a Roman knight, connected by birth and marriage to some of the most eminent men at Rome. While he was a young boy, his father died, as did his step-father. At the age of sixteen, he began studying under Annaeus Comutus, a prominent teacher of Stoicism, and remained devoted to him thereafter. A shy and gentle man devoted to his mother, sister, and aunt, Persius also associated with leading poets of the day, particularly the lyric poet Caesius Bassus, the dedicatee of his sixth satire. Bassus^ lyrics, which Quintilian ranks as second to those of Horace, no longer survive. We are also told that Persius was a Mend of the poet Lucan, once a close associate of Nero, whose epic on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey is commonly believed to have caused his rift with the emperor that subsequently led to his death. Late in life, Persius is said to have known Seneca but to have been unimpressed by his talent. Persius' six satires and fourteen line choliambic prologue are the rather curious legacy he has left to us. Often faulted for their obscure metaphors and density of expression, these poems are among the most difficult (if not at times the most impenetrable) in all of Roman poetry. Yet, he tells us in these poems that they are to be read as "satire" in the tradition(s) of Ludlius and Horace, a debt he acknowledges explicitly at the end of his first satire and "intertextually" in his nearly every line. We know firom his