The Figure of Cupid in Augustan Literature and Art

VENUS’ OTHER SON: THE FIGURE OF CUPID IN AUGUSTAN LITERATURE AND ART

Andrew C. Ficklin

A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics.

Chapel Hill 2021

Approved by:

James O’Hara

Sharon James

Hérica Valladares

Patricia Rosenmeyer

Eric Downing

ABSTRACT

Andrew C. Ficklin: Venus’ Other Son: The Figure of Cupid in Augustan Literature and Art (Under the direction of James O’Hara)

This study examines the figure of Amor in the Augustan period with an emphasis on

poetic responses to imperial visual rhetoric. Through close textual and intertextual analysis, I argue that the Amor of Vergil, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid carries different associations across

the poets’ corpora and that these changes reflect contemporary cultural preoccupations. In

particular, the Augustan poets engage with Amor’s appropriation into Augustan political

imagery, as is reflected in extant monumental art. I here consider the statues of the so-called

Algiers relief, the reliefs on the “Augustus” cup from Boscoreale, the so-called Sorrento base, the statue of Augustus from Primaporta, and the Gemma Tiberiana.

Amidst rising imagery of the Pax Augusta and Aurea Aetas through the 20s BCE—and despite the ubiquity of Amor’s more troublesome aspects in art and literature of the previous decades—the god of love comes to represent peace and abundance in political contexts. As a child of Venus and “distant relative” to Augustus himself, Amor also becomes a symbol of the princeps’ divine lineage and favor. The boy-god is then integrated into the imperial household itself and, as an extension of these same associations, mapped onto Augustus’ heirs. As an immortal embodiment of Rome’s future generations, and those of the Julii in particular, Amor marks the legitimacy and stability of Rome’s newly dynastic ruling family.

Nonetheless, interpretation of this figure remains a matter of debate. While the artists of

iii Augustan public monuments mold Amor to suit developing political imagery, Augustan poets

problematize narrow readings by capitalizing on the manifold inconsistencies (often intentionally

misreading the images themselves). The interaction is generally ambiguous or light-hearted

enough to avoid becoming outright criticism, but nonetheless creates an air of resistance that

contributes to this Amor’s development. As a result, the figure of Amor becomes a means

through which artist and poet alike can engage in contemporary discourse on love, war, peace, and the princeps’ role in each.

To my wife and family, I am forever grateful for your love and unwavering support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Julian Claim to Divine Ancestry ...... 3

The Figure(s) of Eros ...... 6

Contemporary Developments ...... 11

Augustan Moral Reforms ...... 11

Children and the Aurea Aetas ...... 13

Chapter Overview ...... 20

CHAPTER 2: THE HELLENISTIC EROS IN ROME ...... 25

Conscious Continuity ...... 27

Vergil’s Eclogues ...... 28

Propertius 1 and Tibullus 1 ...... 36

Continuity in Amor’s Attributes ...... 40

Consistency in Amor’s Attributes ...... 45

Amor’s Childlike Appearance ...... 46

Amor’s Wings ...... 48

Amor’s Bow and Arrows ...... 50

Amor’s Attributes and Traditional Roman Morality ...... 55

Amor’s Childlike Appearance ...... 55

Amor’s Wings ...... 61

vi Amor’s Bow and Arrows ...... 64

Conclusions ...... 65

CHAPTER 3: THE AUGUSTAN AMOR, A GOD OF PEACE ...... 68

Amor is a God of Peace: The Algiers Relief and Propertius 3.4-5 ...... 69

Amor Disarmed ...... 81

Propertius 3 and Tibullus 2 ...... 81

Vergil’s Aeneid ...... 90

Amor and Augustus: The Boscoreale Cup and Sorrento Base ...... 99

Conclusions ...... 105

CHAPTER 4: AMOR AND THE AUGUSTAN HOUSEHOLD ...... 108

Amor and Augustus’ Mythic Past ...... 110

Amor and Augustus’ Present ...... 119

The Primaporta Statue and Gemma Tiberiana ...... 122

Ovid’s Amores 1.1 and 1.2 ...... 126

Ovid’s Propemptikon for Gaius Caesar (Ars Amatoria 1.177-228) ...... 133

Conclusions ...... 141

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ...... 142

Amor, the Pax Augusta, and Rome’s Future ...... 142

The Augustan Amor’s Iconography...... 143

Responses in Late Augustan Poetry ...... 145

FIGURES ...... 148

WORKS CITED ...... 159

vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The battle of Actium (31 BCE) left Octavian with undisputed power in the

Mediterranean, but cultural perception of this power remained a staunch—and fickle—adversary for the emerging princeps. Over the subsequent decade, the soon-to-be Augustus leveraged all manner of established social, political, religious, and cultural systems in an effort to legitimize his position. Such complicated image-crafting, however, is hardly unidirectional. As Paul Zanker demonstrated in his foundational work, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, the success of the princeps’ reign depended on a complex interplay between self-conscious projections of imperial authority and manifold contributions by individual statesmen, religious authorities, artists, architects, authors, and their various audiences. Collectively, as it were, Rome produced a myth of rebirth for itself with the figure of Augustus conspicuously placed at its center.1

Nonetheless, the relationship between these many voices has remained a topic of interest over the past thirty years of scholarship.2 Most recently, Nandini Pandey’s The Poetics of Power in Augustan Rome reemphasized the give and take inherent in such a process, examining the

Augustan poets as readers of political imagery and their poetry as a means of asserting individual

1 Vergil’s “Shield of Aeneas” (Aen. 8.617-731) remains the clearest example of Augustus’ centrality within Rome’s new narrative.

2 E.g., Hardie 1992; Barchiesi 1997; Welch 2005; Miller 2009; Pandey 2018. See esp. Pandey 2018: 6-8 on key developments in scholarly approaches to the production and reception of imperial images in the Augustan period.

1 authority.3 Along these lines, I here turn to an image over which a great many individuals claimed authority—statesmen, philosophers, artists, and poets alike—and the interpretation of which they sought to influence. This study examines the figure of Amor in the Augustan period with a continued emphasis on poetic responses to imperial visual rhetoric. First, I argue that amidst growing imagery of the Pax Augusta and Aurea Aetas through the 20s BCE, and despite the prior ubiquity of his more troublesome aspects, Amor comes to represent peace and abundance in political contexts. Responses to this change, however, vary across media. Even as the artists of Augustan public monuments mold Amor to suit developing political frameworks,

Augustan poets capitalize on inconsistencies (often intentionally misreading the images themselves) and problematize narrow interpretations of the god of love. The interaction is generally ambiguous or light-hearted enough to avoid becoming outright criticism, but nonetheless creates an air of resistance that contributes to the image’s development.

Of course, Amor is hardly the only deity to be imbued with political significance during this period. As Zanker demonstrated for Mars and Venus, John Miller for Apollo, and Julia

Hejduk more recently for Jupiter, certain gods become potent symbols in the negotiation of

Augustus’ position.4 Miller, in particular, stresses the poets’ simultaneous collaboration with and resistance to consolidation of divine imagery around the figure of the emperor.5 Patterns of appropriation and re-appropriation are especially clear for Apollo, whose patronage of both

3 Pandey 2018: 5.

4 Zanker 1988; Miller 2009; Hejduk 2020. Vesta and Magna Mater likewise received special honors as Augustus relocated their cult sites to the Palatine. In Chapter 3, I briefly examine these figures’ prominence alongside Apollo, Mars, Venus(?), Amor, and Augustus on the Sorrento Base.

5 See esp. Miller 2009: 5-6.

2 princeps and poet gave each a degree of authority over his representation. Therefore, I seek only

to show that Amor, like other key Augustan deities, takes on additional significance as a symbol

of the princeps’ divine lineage and favor. Whether a work responds positively or negatively to

this significance (or neither, or both at once), the figure of Amor becomes a means through

which artist and poet alike can engage in contemporary discourse on love, war, peace, and the

princeps’ role in each.

Julian Claim to Divine Ancestry

Shortly after Actium, Octavian commissioned a denarius containing his portrait on the

obverse and, on the reverse, a Venus flanked by the legend CAESAR DIVI F[ilius] (“Caesar, son

of a god”).6 Through this combination of image and text, Octavian signaled to wide audiences

that he was favored not only by his adopted father, the deified Julius Caesar, but also by his

family’s patron goddess. Nor would contemporary Romans have had any trouble interpreting the divine connection. The promotion of Venus, in particular, as a personal patron had become

something of a commonplace in the late Republic.7 Half a century earlier, Sulla had claimed

Venus’ favor for his military success in the east and there assumed the title Epaphroditus.8 The

obverse of a Sullan aureus (84-83 BCE) likewise depicts the head of Venus above the

6 BMC 599.

7 On Greek precedents of an armed Aphrodite and her associations with victory, see Budin 2010. On the relationship between this figure and the Venus that dominates Augustan art, see Kousser 2010.

8 App. Bell. Civ. 1.97; Plut. Sull. 34. In response to an oracle promising Aphrodite’s favor, Sulla also sent gifts to Aphrodisias and claimed that an armed Aphrodite appeared to him in a dream.

3 imperator’s name, accompanied by an Amor holding a palm branch.9 Pompey, too, had

commemorated his martial success with the theater and temple complex dedicated to Venus

Victrix (55 BCE).10

The Julii, however, took the connection one critical step further: they traced their

ancestry back to the goddess herself.11 Julius Caesar famously claimed this lineage in a public

funeral oration for his aunt (68 BCE):

amitae meae Iuliae maternum genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis inmortalibus coniunctum est. nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Venere Iulii, cuius gentis familia est nostra. Suetonius, Diuus Iulius 612

The family of my aunt Julia is descended on her mother’s side from the kings, and is joined on her father’s side to the immortal gods. For the Marcii Reges, her mother’s family name, are in the line of Ancus Marcius; the Julii, of which family ours is a branch, the line of Venus.

More prominently, Caesar went on to construct a Temple of Venus Genetrix (46 BCE) in the forum bearing his family name.13 The message was clear: Venus was not only Genetrix to the

Roman people (as evoked by Lucretius’ Aeneadum genetrix at De Rerum Natura 1.1), but also to

its most prominent ruling family. Octavian’s denarius, in combining Venus’ portrait with

reference to his divinized father, evokes this very connection.

9 RRC 359/1. Keaveney 2005: 98-99.

10 Kuttner 1999: 345-48. Cf. App. B. Civ. 2.68, Luc. 7.7-12, and Plut. Pomp. 68 on Pompey’s dreams regarding Venus Victrix and her temple.

11 On numismatic evidence dating back to the 2nd c. BCE, see Evans 1992: 28-29, esp. n.52.

12 Text of Suetonius is from Rolfe 1914. Translation is my own.

13 Around the temple was a frieze of Cupids engaged in celebratory activities such as sacrificing bulls and setting up trophies. On these friezes, the current form of which dates to the temple’s restoration under Trajan, see Squarciapino 1950.

4 More specifically, the Julii traced their ancestry through Venus’ son Aeneas, whose role

as heroic ancestor to the Roman people had been established since the 3rd c. BCE.14 It would be

Vergil, though, who effectively canonizes these interwoven associations by conflating Aeneas’

son Ascanius with the more etymologically useful Iulus (Aen. 1.267-68: puer Ascanius, cui nunc

cognomen Iulo / additur, “the boy Ascanius, to whom the cognomen Iulus is now added”).15

Aeneas’ own son thus becomes the namesake of the Julian gens (Aen. 1.286-88: nascetur

pulchra Troianus origine Caesar…Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo, “Trojan Caesar will

be born from this beautiful line…Iulius, a name handed down from great Iulus”).16 Thereafter,

images of Rome’s and the Julii’s descent from their Trojan ancestor become nearly

indistinguishable.17 By the time Aeneas appears across from Romulus in the Forum Augustum

(inaugurated in 2 BCE), carrying father and son in overt display of pietas, the image can evoke at

once both the city’s divine favor and that of the princeps.

Amor, however, Venus’ other son, carried a tradition more stubbornly at odds with the

Augustan program. There had been some adoption of Amor’s image into political messaging, like Sulla’s aureus above [fig. 1] and the Cupid frieze in the temple of Venus Genetrix [fig. 2],

14 Naevius, Ennius, and Cato the Elder all engaged with the myth as Rome sought to establish itself within broader Mediterranean narratives. Horsfall 1987; Gruen 1992: 6-51; Casali 2010.

15 O’Hara 2017: 121, 220; Dingel 2001; Rogerson 2017. Text of Vergil is from Mynors 1969. Translation is my own.

16 This is not to say, however, that Vergil’s Aeneas was a faultless paragon. See, e.g., Casali 1999 and Scafoglio 2013 on alternate traditions of Aeneas’ escape from Troy. I will return to Vergil’s ambiguous treatment of Augustan political themes in Chapters 3 and 4.

17 On Augustus’ promotion of the Aeneas myth, see esp. Zanker 1988: 193-210 and Galinsky 1996: 141-224, 312-21.

5 but these remained largely isolated examples.18 In poetry, Amor was depicted almost exclusively as a flighty and wanton child wielding his bow and arrow for mischief. It is therefore noteworthy that by the mid-20s BCE, a decade marked by Augustus’ consolidation of influence, the god’s image evokes similar political values across various media. Both in public monumental art and in the period’s poetry, Amor becomes a symbol of peace and fertility, a poster child for Rome’s blossoming golden age. More specifically, he epitomizes the Pax Augusta (“Augustan Peace”), promoting in one image both the period of prosperity and his “distant relative” that ushered it in.

Tensions remain, however, between the various interpretations. Ultimately, the symbol becomes

a focal point for themes central to Augustan ideology as multiple individuals shape it to their

own creative ends.

The Figure(s) of Eros

Divergent Traditions:

This shift in Amor’s associations is striking for its scope and relevance to ongoing

political discourse, but it should come as no surprise that Augustan artists and poets find in Amor

a malleable symbol. By the time Amor appears in Augustan literature and art, the nature and

appearance of the god of love had long been a topic of intense scrutiny.19 Even Hesiod, in the

earliest extant account of the god’s origins, seems to have grappled with multiple preexisting

18 In both cases the god also remains secondary to Venus, an extension of her power and authority.

19 For overviews of the image’s development (predominantly in literature), see Spencer 1932a-c; Carson 1986; Cyrino 1995; Calame 1999; Sanders et al. 2013. For a concise discussion of philosophical approaches to eros in Greek thought, see Brown 1987: 111-18. See also Stuveras 1969 on the image of the putto.

6 traditions.20 Eros’ first appearance in the Theogony is as a primordial force of attraction,

facilitating the creation of the universe (116-22), but less than one hundred lines later he takes his place as Aphrodite’s familiar attendant (201-2).21 Over the following centuries, these distinct

forms of Eros only continued to diverge (albeit with frequent overlap and ambiguity).22 For

example, the former, cosmogonic Eros reappears as a demiurge in a number of subsequent

theogonies,23 including his syncretism with the Orphic deity Phanes.24 Thus, Aristophanes places

Eros at the center of the parodic cosmogony in his Birds:

τίκτει πρώτιστον ὑπηνέμιον Νὺξ ἡ μελανόπτερος ᾠόν, 695 ἐξ οὗ περιτελλομέναις ὥραις ἔβλαστεν Ἔρως ὁ ποθεινός, στίλβων νῶτον πτερύγοιν χρυσαῖν, εἰκὼς ἀνεμώκεσι δίναις. Aristophanes, Birds 695-9725

First, black-winged Nyx laid a windy egg, from which, after the turning seasons, lovely Eros was born, glittering with golden wings upon his back like swift whirlwinds.

Aristophanes’ birds fixate, naturally enough, on the splendor of Eros’ golden wings, but this

20 See, e.g., Sanders et al. 2013: 163-74.

21 Hesiod sidesteps the issue of parentage with a neutral verb (Theog. 201: τῇ δ᾽ Ἔρος ὡμάρτησε, “Eros accompanied her”). On Hesiod’s reworking of contradictory myths, see most recently Loney 2014. For the additional qualities of Hesiod’s primordial Eros, see esp. Cyrino 1995: 46-48.

22 Note: in order to illustrate Eros’ most common representations, I here favor concision over lasting influence. Similarly, any search for earliest extant appearances lies beyond the scope of this study.

23 Calame 1999: 177-81.

24 The clearest connection between Eros and Phanes comes from the much later Orphic Argonautica (5th-6th c. CE): διφυῆ περιωπέα, κυδρὸν Ἔρωτα, / Νυκτὸς ἀειγνήτης πατέρα κλυτόν· ὅν ῥα Φάνητα / ὁπλότεροι καλέουσι βροτοί· πρῶτος γὰρ ἐφάνθη (14-16: “two-sexed, double-faced, glorious Eros, the renowned father of immortal Nyx, whom men of later generations call Phanes because he appeared first”). Calame 1999: 193-97.

25 Text of Aristophanes is from Henderson 2000. Translation is my own.

7 figure was more fully depicted as a youthful hermaphrodite with bulls’ heads on his torso and a

serpent either upon his head or coiled around his body.26 Born from the World Egg at the

creation of the universe, this protogonos remained a self-sufficient generative force.

The latter Eros, Aphrodite’s attendant, gives rise to the more familiar figure of Greco-

Roman art and poetry: the beautiful, winged youth or child. Even this figure, however, fragments

into multiple traditions of representation and interpretation. In some contexts, Eros and the desire

he elicits are blessings and conducive to the proper functioning of the polis. Attic vase painting,

for example, frequently portrays Eros as an attendant to the bride-to-be, helping the young

woman through various stages of the marriage ceremony.27 Similarly, as is clearest in the altar to

Eros before the Athenian gymnasium, the god was subsumed into homophilic, propaedeutic

customs and thus presented as beneficial to the ordering of society.28 By establishing bonds

between young boys and older men, Eros was thought to encourage the development of proper

citizen males. The Chalcidians preserved a legendary song by one such eromenos upon the

heroic death of his erastes:

ὦ παῖδες <ὅσ>οι Χαρίτων τε καὶ πατέρων λάχετ᾿ ἐσθλῶν μὴ φθονεῖθ᾿ ὥρας ἀγαθοῖσιν ὁμιλεῖν· σὺν γὰρ ἀνδρείᾳ καὶ ὁ λυσιμελὴς Ἔρως ἐνὶ Χαλκιδέων θάλλει πόλεσιν. Carmina Popularia 87329

Boys who are allotted Graces and

26 See, e.g., the 2nd c. CE bas-relief in Modena (Galleria Estense, inv. 2676). Edmonds 2013: 160-89.

27 Calame 1999: 117-29.

28 On this Eros and the legend of its establishment, see Pl. Phdr. 255bc; Ath. 13.561de, 609d; and Paus. 1.30.1. On Eros’ role in pederastic institutions, see esp. Calame 1999: 92-109.

29 Preserved in Plut. Amat. 17. Text is from Campbell 1993. Translation is my own.

8 noble fathers, do not grudge joining your youth to good men, for alongside courage does Eros, the loosener of limbs, thrive in the cities of the Chalcidians.

The combination of nobility (ἐσθλῶν; ἀγαθοῖσιν) and courage or “manliness” (ἀνδρείᾳ) makes

this Eros, and hence the cities and their citizenry, thrive (θάλλει).30

The concept of a beneficial Eros is most famously developed by Socrates’ second speech

in Plato’s Phaedrus, in which a properly moderated Eros leads both man and boy to

philosophical revelation (243e-57b).31 Socrates’ emphasis on moderation, however, highlights an

additional—and often opposing—characterization. If left unchecked, this revelatory force

becomes a distraction that leads to unnecessary suffering. In fact, Socrates’ praise of Eros is

presented as a palinode, for he had just given a speech condemning the god as utterly harmful for

the beloved (237a-41d). Thus, Plato draws upon a separate tradition developed primarily through

lyric, tragedy, and comedy, wherein Eros’ benefits are generally subordinated to his destructive

tendencies.32 This Eros is instead an impish trickster, armed with bow, torch, or a variety of other

implements with which he seizes and oppresses his victims. Most of all, this Eros inflicts an all-

consuming madness. Socrates may argue that this madness is a benefit to mortals and seek to

minimize suffering in love, but many authors and artists revel in the paradoxical coexistence of

pleasure and pain.33 Such depictions come to particular prominence in art and literature of the

Hellenistic period and, from there, as I examine at length in Chapter 2, have the greatest impact

30 Calame 1999: 108-9.

31 Calame 1999: 186-91.

32 Sanders et al. 2013: 233-50. On tragedy, in particular, see Calame 1999: 146-50.

33 On this Eros and its paradoxical nature, see Carson 1986.

9 on Roman poetry.

Analysis of Eros’ Representation:

As a result of these varied interpretations, a tradition of explicitly analyzing Eros also becomes popular. The earliest surviving example is Plato’s Symposium, in which several

speakers attempt to describe love in the terms they best understand.34 The physician

Eryximachus uses medical analogies (185e-88e), Aristophanes recounts a fantastical and amusing myth (189c-93d), and Socrates’ Eros is, of course, a great daemon (201d-12c).

Moreover, the Symposium again displays conscious engagement with divergent representations.

Pausanias, in particular, returns to Hesiod’s Theogony to argue that Eros is from an early point a

dual-natured god with many different attributes and associations (180c-85c).

This consciously analytical approach seems to proliferate in the Hellenistic period, as

well. If surviving examples are representative, analysis of Amor’s attributes reaches its height in

the 2nd c. BCE. Both Moschus and Meleager, for example, engage directly with the god’s

representation by framing their descriptions as notices for a runaway slave.35 Evidence suggests that Apollodorus of Athens included a detailed description of Eros in his Peri Theon, as well.

More importantly, these immediate predecessors again seem to have the greatest influence on

Roman conceptions of Amor. As I also examine in Chapter 2, Propertius’ own analysis of Amor in poem 2.12 draws heavily on such sources.

Interrogation of Amor’s attributes, especially the paradox of a god of love bearing arms,

34 Calame 1999: 181-85. On the Platonic erōs see esp. Price 1989, Halperin 1990: 113-52, and Sanders et al. 2013: 13-26, 95-142.

35 Moschus’ Eros Drapetes and Meleager A.P. 5.177.

10 even becomes a commonplace unto itself. By Quintilian’s time (ca. 35-100 CE), the trope was a standard school exercise:36

Solebant praeceptores mei neque inutili et nobis etiam iucundo genere exercitationis praeparare nos coniecturalibus causis cum quaerere atque exequi iuberent ‘cur armata apud Lacedaemonios Venus’ et ‘quid ita crederetur Cupido puer atque uolucer et sagittis ac face armatus.’ Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 2.4.2637

My teachers used to prepare us for conjectural cases with a type of exercise that was rather useful and even fun for us, when they told us to consider and explicate “why Venus was armed among the Spartans” and “why it was so believed that Cupid was a boy, winged, and armed with arrows and torch.”

It is difficult to say whether Quintilian’s teachers invented this progymnasma in the mid-

1st c. CE or adopted it from earlier sources, but the account nonetheless demonstrates a continuation of the same trends. Suffice it to say that by the time Augustus came to power, Roman audiences were well experienced—and perhaps even explicitly versed—in interpreting images of Amor and recognizing the various traditions of his representation.

Contemporary Developments

Augustan Moral Reforms:

In some ways, changes in Amor’s representation and interpretation are extensions of other contemporary developments. Augustus’ insistence on moral reform, for example, all but ensured that the question of the state’s authority over marriage and sex remained a cultural preoccupation throughout his reign.38 Nor was this altogether a pleasant debate. Augustus seems

36 On Quintilian’s discussion of this particular progymnasma, see Fedeli 2005: 340-42.

37 Text of Quintilian is from Russell 2002. Translation is my own.

38 Treggiari 1991: 277-98; Galinsky 1996: 128-40; McGinn 1998; Evans Grubbs 2002: 83-88; Wallace-Hadrill 2009: 63-78.

11 to have attempted legislation as early as 28-27 BCE, but the upper classes were so opposed that the idea was set aside for nearly a decade. Propertius’ poem 2.7 is generally thought to celebrate the repeal of this very law (1: sublatam…legem), as it would have kept him from his mistress

Cynthia (3: ni nos diuideret).39 In 18 BCE, however, Augustus succeeded in passing two laws

that had sweeping implications for the marriage and sexual rights of the aristocratic classes: the

lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus (“Julian law on marriages between the social orders”) and lex

Julia de adulteriis (“Julian law on adultery”). Nonetheless, tensions remained high through to the

end of Augustus’ reign, and public protest continued even after additional concessions were

granted in the lex Papia-Poppaea of 9 CE.40

Representationally, the Julian laws had the clearest impact on Rome’s divine “mother”

and “father,” Venus and Mars. The mythic couple’s infidelity, infamous from Homer onward,

became a point of contention for the Augustan moral program and a playground for Augustan

poets. As I briefly examine in Chapter 3, artists of public monumental works sought to downplay

those elements that contrasted with contemporary political messaging, creating a tension which

poets could then exploit. In other words, there was an indirect, cultural link between Augustan legislation and the representation of Mars and Venus in political contexts. The same holds true for Amor, who had come to represent a form of passion that was explicitly uncontrollable (and often illicit). Thus, the question of whether or not Amor can be tamed or disarmed becomes a recurring motif with wide-reaching implications.

39 Richardson 1977: 229-230; James 2003: 228-31; Fedeli 2005: 221-25.

40 Cf. Tac. Ann. 3.28 and Suet. Aug. 34.

12 Children and the Aurea Aetas:

Similarly, shifting interpretations of Amor’s childlike appearance are due in large part to

broader changes in the representation of children. Most famously illustrated by Vergil’s Fourth

Eclogue, a new concept of the child and its role had recently taken root in Rome.41 After

heralding a new age (4: ultima aetas; 5: saeclorum nascitur ordo) and Saturn’s imminent return

(6: redeunt Saturnia regna), Vergil makes clear that this age is born (5: nascitur) alongside the

birth of a child (8: nascenti puero).42 It is because of him (8-9: quo) and for him (18: tibi…puer) that Saturnian abundance comes, blossoming even from the infant’s cradle: ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores (23: “the little cradle itself will pour forth charming flowers for you”).

As this child then grows, so too does the blessedness of the world (26-30; 37-45).

At the heart of this Golden Age abundance is also the peace that facilitates it. Thus, the mythical iron race, infamous for its warlike tendencies (31-36), must fall before the golden race can take its rightful place (8-9). For this reason, too, the child will be indebted to his father’s strength: pacatumque reget patriis uirtutibus orbem (17: “he will rule the world pacified by his father’s courage”).43 Whether this child was a son of Asinius Pollio, a son of Mark Antony,

Octavian himself, or any number of other proposed identifications, the political import remains

largely the same.44 The Treaty of Brundisium in 40 BCE, the year in which the poem sets itself

by naming Pollio’s consulship (11-12: te consule…Pollio), gave hope that the worst of Rome’s

41 On children and the public sphere in ancient Rome, see Wiedemann 1989; Severy 2003: 1-32; Krause 2011; McWilliam 2013.

42 Clausen 1994: 121. See also Manson 1978: 49-62.

43 As the participle pacatum makes clear, the world he will inherit is not “peaceful” but “pacified.” See Clausen 1994: 122 on paco and its significance both here and in the Aeneid.

44 Coleman 1977: 150-52; Courtney 2010.

13 civil wars were done and that the coming generation might finally know peace. Perhaps, as Jean

Beaujeu and Mark Petrini argue, Vergil has no single child in mind at all but instead a universal

puer.45 Either way, as Michel Manson identifies, “the essential novelty resides in the rooting of this Golden Age inside the historic destiny of Rome and its sons.”46

Despite his divinity and cosmic responsibility, though, the child in Vergil’s Eclogue is also just that: a child. At the center of all the Saturnian growth is the infant’s tiny cradle (23: cunabulum), and he will soon look upon his mother with a tender, Catullan smile: incipe, parue puer, risu cognoscere matrem (60: “Begin, little boy, to recognize your mother with a smile”).47

Vergil’s adoption of the epithalamic genre allows him to retain a sensitivity that is key to the image.48 The child becomes a symbol for Rome’s potential future, and that future is precious and

worth protecting.

What was suggested by Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue only continued to grow in the decades

that followed. Leading into the Secular Games of 17 BCE, children’s role in the Golden Age

imagery was groomed into an Augustan commonplace. Thus, children play a key role in

Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, a poem composed for the festival and self-consciously emblematic

of the Augustan age:

rite maturos aperire partus

45 Beaujeu (1982) compares Hesiod’s singular boy who stands in for the collective race of the Silver Age (Op. 130-34). Petrini (1997: 112-21) suggests that the progression of ages in Eclogues 4 represents a child’s growth and perspective more generally: “The child is not miraculous and he will not change the world, and the riddle of the poem is not his identity but his universality: he is every puer, every iuuenis, and every uir, in a world without change” (121). See also Galinsky 1996: 91-93; Trimble 2013; Houghton 2018.

46 Manson 1983: 157.

47 Cf. Catullus 61.209-13.

48 Manson 1983: 156-57.

14 lenis, Ilithyia, tuere matres, siue tu Lucina probas uocari 15 seu Genitalis: diua, producas subolem patrumque prosperes decreta super iugandis feminis prolisque nouae feraci lege marita. 20 Horace, Carmen Saeculare 13-2049

Duly, you who open wombs in season gently, Ilithyia, watch over mothers, whether you approve of being called Lucina or Genitalis. Goddess, bring forth offspring and grant favor to the senate’s decrees on women’s weddings and the marriage law, bountiful in new offspring.

As is evident in the final lines of the stanza, the intertwining of Golden Age abundance and the

birth of Roman children was by this time entrenched in Augustan policy and pageantry. The

program certainly had ulterior motives (such as filling out Rome’s diminished armies), but

Horace’s language of hopefulness and divine blessing shows the same sensitivity to developing

trends as in Vergil’s Eclogue.

The crystallization of these developments in the visual arts comes a few years later still,

in the famous Ara Pacis Augustae (“Altar of Augustan Peace”).50 Constructed by order of the

Senate between 13 and 9 BCE, the altar was completed as much in honor of the princeps as of

the peace won (hence Augustus’ emphasis on Pax’s epithet at RG 2.37-41).51 Such being the case, nearly a third of its “Great Friezes” is devoted to depictions of the imperial family and, for

49 Text of the Carm., Epod., and Carm. saec. is from Rudd 2004. Translation is my own.

50 Zanker 1988: 172-83; Severy 2003: 104-11; Uzzi 2005: 14-16.

51 Augustus states that it was set up for his return (RG 2.39: pro reditu meo) from Spain and Gaul. It was also erected in the Campus Martius as part of a complex honoring Augustus and his family (including his own monumental mausoleum).

15 the first time in Roman monumental art, their children:52 two boys in barbarian garb, followed

(as indicated by the procession’s movement from west to east) by four boys and two girls in

Roman attire. Various identities have been suggested, but I am inclined to agree with Simon,

Kuttner, and Rose that the former are recent pacati, while the latter put on display the fruits of

this newfound pax.53 On the north frieze appear to be Augustus’ heirs Gaius and Lucius with

their sister Julia, while the south frieze shows a young Germanicus followed by the two oldest

children of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Antonia Maior.54 The organization puts each family’s fecundity on full display, both celebrating the age of peace and providing models for all Roman citizens to follow. The image of the child, and the imperial child in particular, is thus by this point integral to Augustan ideology and intimately tied to visualizations of pax.

Children play key roles in several of the monument’s remaining panels, as well. The

scene to the right of the entryway, for example, which seems to depict Aeneas’ sacrifice to the penates,55 includes two attendant boys at the composition’s center (one of whom is often

identified as Aeneas’ son, Iulus).56 The fragments of the panel across from it then depict Mars

and Faustulus upon the discovery of Romulus and Remus. Taken together, the western façade

thus represents the two foundation myths that Augustan authors rationalized into the founding of the Roman race and city. At the center of both, however, are the children who made that future a

52 Slightly predating the Ara Pacis, busts of the young Gaius and Lucius appear flanking their mother Julia on a denarius of 13 BCE (RE1.106).

53 Simon (1986: 73); Rose 1990; Kuttner 1995: 100-107.

54 Ryberg 1949.

55 Cf. Rehak (2001), who instead identifies the sacrificant as Numa. Either way, the inclusion of children in the ritual is consistent with the rest of the altar.

56 Rehak (2001: 92-93) provides a concise overview and thorough bibliography.

16 reality.

The pair of reliefs on the eastern façade feature two goddesses. The panel to the right is

mostly lost, but fragments indicate that it depicted Roma sitting upon the spoils of conquered

peoples. To the left, a goddess wearing a vegetal wreath sits upon an earthen throne surrounded

by diverse vegetation [fig. 3].57 Her precise identity is a matter of debate, but the scene’s iconography and position as pendant to Roma make its meaning clear. Whether she is Tellus,

Italia, Ceres, Venus, Cybele, Pax, or some combination thereof, this goddess embodies the peace

and fertility that accompany Rome’s (i.e., Augustus’) victory.58 Held in this goddess’ arms and

the subject of her gaze is then another pair of children, one pulling at the thin garment over her

breast while the other lifts a piece of fruit from her lap.59 The latter, through this simple gesture,

is even the clearest indication of the goddess’ connection to peace, for he evokes a well-known

image type.60 Kephisodotos’ widely-copied sculpture of Eirene (“Peace”) [figs. 4 and 5] depicted

57 This reclining mother goddess is a recurring figure in Augustan state art. Strong (1937: 118- 24) discusses the well-known “copy” of the Ara Pacis panel from Carthage, three additional breastplates of possible Augustan date, as well as the pediment of an Augustan temple of the Dioscuri in Naples. There is also a statue from Cumae of a female goddess whom Galinsky (1992: 466-68) identifies as the same as in the Ara Pacis relief; she is seated on a rocky throne covered by stylized acanthus tendrils, and holds an infant in her left arm. See Levi 1947: 263-269 for a broader view of the Tellus type.

58 Spaeth (1994) contains extensive footnotes with scholarship on each of these identifications. On associations with pax, cf. esp. Tibullus 1.10.45-48, 67-68.

59 In many ways, this relief is Vergil’s Saturnian imagery come to fruition: salue, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, / magna uirum (G. 2.173-74: “Greetings, great mother of crops, Saturnian land, great mother of men”). The goddess in the Ara Pacis panel demonstrates each of these aspects (Galinsky 1969a: 195).

60 Moreover, the panel may allude to Hesiod’s inclusion of “blossoming Peace” (Theog. 901-2: Εἰρήνην τεθαλυῖαν) as one of the three Horai (de Grummond 1990: 669).

17 the infant Ploutos (“Wealth”) extending a fruit in similar fashion.61 Thus the child of the Ara

Pacis relief contributes much to the composition’s meaning.62 He is not only an attribute of pax,

but also a manifestation of prosperity itself.

One particular interpretation of this goddess is worthy of special note in the context of

this study. As I mentioned briefly above, some scholars also identify her as Venus, the strongest

evidence being Venus’ own role as a mother goddess (to both the Roman people and the Julii)

and increased sovereignty over land, air, and sea.63 The opening of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura,

for example, combines all of these aspects into a twenty-line tour de force. She is the “mother of

Aeneas’ race” (1: Aeneadum genetrix) and “nourishing Venus” (2: alma Venus), “who fills the

ship-laden sea and fruit-bearing lands” (3-4: quae mare nauigerum, quae terras frugiferentis / concelebras). The “winds and clouds of the sky flee her” (6: te fugiunt uenti, te nubila caeli), the

“skillful earth sends up sweet flowers for her” (7-8: tibi suauis daedala tellus / summittit flores),

and “the plains of the sea smile for her” (8: tibi rident aequora ponti).64 Given the overlap

between this Venus and the three female figures in the Ara Pacis relief, Karl Galinsky goes as far

as to claim Lucretius’ proem as “the poetic inspiration for the Ara Pacis Venus.”65 Nonetheless, I will maintain only that similar themes occupied the thoughts of several authors and artists in the late republic and early empire, and that they manifested in various but interconnected ways.

For my purposes, the greater significance of this interpretation is that the two children in

61 De Grummond 1998: 667-68; Horster 1970: 37-9.

62 Cf. Gardthausen 1908: 14-16; de Grummond 1990: 668; Galinsky 1992: 458-60.

63 Galinsky 1969a, 1992; Torelli 1982: 39-43.

64 Text of Lucretius is from Rouse 1924. Translation is my own.

65 Galinsky 1969a: 218-19.

18 her lap would consequently be Amores. The notion is not as farfetched as it may seem. In

addition to Venus’ frequently being the mother of multiple Amores, in Ovid’s Fasti (8 CE) she is

specifically the “nourishing mother of twin Amores” (4.1: alma…geminorum mater amorum).66

Horace, too, in Odes 1.2 (ca. 30-27 BCE), gives her precisely two children/attendants (33-34:

Erycina ridens / quam Iocus circum uolat et Cupido, “smiling Erycina, around whom Iocus and

Cupido fly).67 In fact, the context of Horace’s Ode is particularly apt for this reading of the Ara

Pacis relief, for he laments the state’s recent disasters (1-24) and calls upon Augustus as a bringer of peace (25-52). Horace then focalizes recent loss through the eyes—or rather the ears—of the next generation:

audiet ciuis acuisse ferrum quo graues Persae melius perirent, audiet pugnas uitio parentum rara iuuentus. Horace, Odes 1.2.21-24

They’ll hear how citizens honed the iron that should have killed harsh Persians, they’ll hear of battles—the youth made sparse by their fathers’ crime.68

The delayed nominative (24: rara iuuentus) and its isolation within the final Adonic verse makes

the stanza’s emphasis clear. The scarcity of Rome’s future is illustrated precisely through that of

its youth. It is in this context that Horace then calls upon the gods for aid, moving from Apollo (a

natural starting point so soon after Actium and Augustus’ rise to power) to Venus and her two

66 See Wlosok 1975 for a summary of the twin Amores’ possible identities.

67 Galinsky 1969a: 235.

68 The causal ablative uitio may also apply to the previous battles (C. 1.2.23: pugnas) fought.

19 attendants.69

Venus, Iocus, and Cupid thus stand opposed to the harsh realities of war and loss, and in

this regard well complement the figures of the Ara Pacis relief. Of course, they do not account

for all of the relief’s imagery. Most noticeably, Iocus and Cupid explicitly “fly” (34: uolat),

whereas the children in the relief are clearly wingless. Therefore, although some scholars refer to

these and other idealized children as Amores, I would again go so far as to say only that similar

evocations are at play.70 The children in this panel are as polysemous as their mother, reflections of an increasingly multifaceted concept. Whether they represent karpoi, Ploutoi, Amores,

Romulus and Remus, Gaius and Lucius, or any of the many other paired figures important to

Augustan ideology, the children of the relief represent Rome’s desire for peace and prosperity—

and Augustus’ claim to provide it.

Chapter Overview

In the three chapters that follow, I explore how the figure of Amor comes to evoke peace,

prosperity, and Augustus’ legitimacy in literature and art of the Augustan period. Note, however,

that each attribute and association I here examine has clear precursors across the Greco-Roman

world. Of even the few examples already mentioned, the Amor on Sulla’s aureus holds a palm

branch as a symbol of peace through victory, and the Amores in the frieze around the Temple of

Venus Genetrix illustrate Julian lineage and favor. Indeed, the image of Amor that emerges

during this period is not remarkable for its novelty. The Augustan Amor stands apart from its

69 After Apollo and Venus, Horace lists two other deities connected to Octavian at this early point: Mars and Mercury. On early consideration of Mercury as Octavian’s patron deity, see Brendel 1935; Scott 1935; Harrison 1982; Miller 1991; Mayer 2016.

70 See, for example, Kuttner 1995 on the Tellus relief (106) and Aquileia dish (28).

20 precursors, though, both in the way that it combines traditional elements into a new, coherent whole, and in the way that it communicates with larger trends in political messaging. Ultimately,

Amor becomes an extension of the same imagery that dominates the Augustan program, and one of many means by which artists and poets can engage in developing political discourse.

The Augustan Amor is also remarkable for the speed with which it comes to prominence.

In Vergil, for example, we find strikingly different preoccupations between the Amor of the

Eclogues (39 or 35 BCE) and that of the Aeneid (left unfinished in 19 BCE). Comparable changes in Latin love elegy provide even greater resolution. Between Tibullus’ Book 1 (27-26

BCE) and Book 2 (ca. 19 BCE), as well as between Propertius’ Book 2 (25 BCE) and Book 3

(22 BCE), Amor’s associations take a similar turn. The late 20s BCE thus seem to be a sort of tipping point across multiple genres of Augustan poetry. To demonstrate this shift as fully as possible, I begin in Chapter 2 with each of these authors’ earliest works. Through close textual and intertextual analysis, I argue that Vergil, Propertius, and Tibullus developed their initial depictions of Amor within well-defined, inherited traditions.71 Indeed, the first mention of amor in each author’s corpus contains an overt allusion to their immediate Hellenistic predecessors.72

All three poets signal their indebtedness to specific models, providing a lens through which their conceptions of love are to be interpreted.

Along these lines I also examine Propertius’ poem 2.12, which provides the fullest and most self-conscious depiction of Amor from the period. Participating once again within a well- attested tradition, Propertius examines each of Amor’s most common attributes as if studying a

71 On intertextuality in Roman poetry, see esp. Hinds 1998 and Edmunds 2001.

72 Although each of these allusions has long been recognized in modern scholarship, no one has yet assembled them in the context of Amor’s representation.

21 painting. More importantly, he interprets these attributes within a contemporary moral

framework, providing a model for viewing and reading such representations. Using Propertius’

interpretation as a guide, I conclude Chapter 2 with philosophical views of love from the late

Republic, further situating Amor and his attributes within the context through which he was

interpreted by contemporary audiences. In short, the Amor of these poets’ earliest works reflects

a Hellenistic fascination with Eros at his most troublesome, and therefore stands playfully

opposed to traditional Roman morality.73

Against this backdrop, the changes of the late-20s BCE stand in sharper relief. In Chapter

3 I turn to the Amor that acquires distinctly Augustan characteristics—or, rather, a distinctly

Augustan combination of associations. First and foremost, Amor becomes a god of peace, as is most visible in public, monumental art. The statue group of the Algiers relief, for example, reinterprets a popular depiction of Amor, Venus, and Mars in order to isolate and amplify the motif of Mars’ disarming. As Zanker first recognized, Amor has here taken Mars’ sword, but dutifully hands it to his mother as a symbol for the transition to peacetime.74 Similarly, the

Sorrento base and side 1 of the “Augustus” cup from Boscoreale depict Amor in divine

procession beside Augustus himself, offering his blessings of peace and abundance to the

princeps’ reign.

This association appears in poetry, as well, for the later works of Vergil, Propertius, and

73 This is not to say that such depictions of Eros are original to Hellenistic literature, but only that they came to a certain prominence during the Hellenistic period and through these authors most directly entered the Roman world.

74 Zanker 1988: 196.

22 Tibullus display these same preoccupations.75 The unarmed Amor of Vergil’s Aeneid works to ensure Aeneas’ peaceful reception in Carthage, while Tibullus exclusively wishes that the god be disarmed and pacified. In particular, Propertius’ diptych of poems 3.4 and 3.5 engages with many of the same themes as in the Algiers relief, suggesting the poet’s direct engagement with the sort of imperial iconography there represented. All three poets, however, introduce degrees of complexity that artistic representations tend to downplay. The figure of Amor thus becomes more of a focal point for engagement with these motifs. By appropriating and reinterpreting the figure from the works of predecessors and contemporaries, each artist and poet contributes to the image’s overall significance.

The association between Amor and Augustan peace then continues to grow as Amor becomes increasingly integrated into the imperial household, and in Chapter 4 I trace these connections through into the Tiberian period. In addition to Amor’s appearance beside Mars and

Venus as part of Augustus’ divine “family,” the image is gradually assimilated to depictions of the Julio-Claudian youth. Most famously, in Aeneid 1 Amor literally replaces Aeneas’ son, Iulus, the very namesake of the Julian gens (e.g., Aen. 1.267-88 quoted above). More directly, though,

Suetonius tells how Livia herself dedicated an image of the deceased young Gaius, a child of

Germanicus, in the guise of Cupid (Calig. 7). Augustus was apparently so fond of the votive that he moved it to his own bedroom and kissed it each time he entered. Drawing largely on these two passages, many scholars have sought to identify imperial children in the depictions of Amor on the Primaporta statue of Augustus and Gemma Tiberiana, as well. I will not here argue for specific identifications, but I will defend the underlying association that leads others to do so.

75 On poetic responses to and participation within cultural and political developments, see most recently Pandey 2018.

23 Not only does this assimilation reinforce Julian descent from Venus and the Julio-Claudians’

quasi-divine status, but it also reaffirms Amor’s association with Augustan peace. As Augustus’ heirs and the future of Rome, the imperial family’s children represent the same peace and abundance that their divine avatar came to embody. Even Ovid takes up the theme in his elegy, parodying Augustus’ relation to Amor in Amores 1.2 and drawing humorous parallels between

Gaius Caesar and the boy-god in Ars Amatoria 1. As in the engagement by Vergil, Propertius, and Tibullus above, Ovid’s play with the motif demonstrates how widely recognized the image had become, and how it could be reshaped to engage with contemporary political concerns.

By arranging this study in loosely chronological order, I hope to examine Amor’s

transformation over the course of Augustus’ reign and to trace the shifting preoccupations that

contribute to it. I do not, however, wish to argue that Augustan poets respond to individual

monuments. Not only does the chronology of extant works fail to support such interpretations,

but they would also remain speculative even if it did. Instead, I seek to trace the development of

an image across various media and to read extant works as representative examples of broader,

ongoing conversations. Nor do I favor chronology over thematic organization when the latter

proves beneficial. My discussions of Ovid, in particular, are spread out across this study, for

despite writing half a generation later, much of his engagement with Amor’s image is an

expansion on the themes established by his predecessors. As is so often the case, Ovid proves an

invaluable reader of earlier Augustan poetry and is therefore worth bringing into the

conversation at multiple points. In all, though, I hope to show that whether they are responding

to individual works, intuiting cultural shifts, or adding novel interpretations of their own, the

authors and artists of the Augustan period use the figure of Amor to comment on the role of love

in the principate and the princeps’ role in love.

CHAPTER 2: THE HELLENISTIC EROS IN ROME

omnia uincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori (Vergil, Eclogues 10.69)

In order to better understand the emergence and significance of an “Augustan Amor,” it will be helpful first to examine the poetic, artistic, and philosophical landscape from which it emerged. In this regard, we are especially fortunate to have three authors whose works span

Augustus’ rise to power and engage at length with Amor’s image both before and after it becomes established within political discourse. In this chapter I examine depictions of Amor in these authors’ earliest works—Vergil’s Eclogues (39 or 35 BCE), Propertius’ Books 1 (28 BCE) and 2 (25 BCE), and Tibullus’ Book 1 (27-26 BCE)—focusing primarily on continuity with inherited depictions of Eros from Hellenistic pastoral, epigram, and epic. This is not to say that these authors are uninventive, or that their Amor lacks distinctive Roman qualities, but only that each initially constructed Amor as an extension of immediate precedent. Furthermore, I seek to contextualize these poetic depictions within contemporary moral frameworks, for Amor is integrally linked with conceptions of the love he personifies. It is my hope that, set against the god’s prevailing representation and interpretation in the late Republic and early principate, the changes of the late-20s BCE will stand in sharper relief.

As I outlined in Chapter 1, Eros was far from a monolithic figure. Even by his first appearances in literature and art of the Archaic period, there were multiple competing traditions of representation. These forms then spiraled outward over subsequent centuries, accruing

25 attributes and associations that became more or less crystalized within their various contexts. The

full complexity of this centuries-long process, however, lies beyond the scope of this study, for

the Eros that enters and dominates Roman poetry is the result of one tradition above all. This

Eros brings pain just as often as pleasure, as famously encapsulated in Sappho’s “bittersweet

creature” (LP 130.2: γλυκύπικρον ὄρπετον),76 and is therefore characterized as a disease and

madness.77 Anne Carson’s summary of this figure after its proliferation in Archaic lyric and

Hellenistic epigram remains a concise and evocative description:78

The poets represent eros as an invasion, an illness, an insanity, a wild animal, a natural disaster. His action is to melt, break down, bite into, burn, devour, wear away, whirl around, sting, pierce, wound, poison, suffocate, drag off or grind the lover to a powder. Eros employs nets, arrows, fire, hammers, hurricanes, fevers, boxing gloves or bits and bridles in making his assault.

In short, this Eros is distinctly unlike the cosmogonic force of attraction from Hesiodic or Orphic traditions. Nor is he Plato’s agent of philosophical revelation. Most importantly for the Amor that develops alongside Augustus’ rise to power, this Eros is the antithesis to domestic and social

stability.79

My aim, however, is not to construct a comprehensive view of this Eros’ influence on

early Augustan literature. I seek only to demonstrate that, long after it had been distilled into a

widely popular and recognizable form, a particular tradition of representing and interpreting the god of love came to prominence in Roman poetry. In fact, my discussion will focus only on the

76 Carson 1986: 3-9; Cyrino 1995: 137; Calame 1999: 14-19.

77 For the development of eros as nosos and mania, see esp. Cyrino 1995.

78 Carson 1986: 148. On Archaic and Hellenistic variations on erotic motifs, see also Cyrino 1995: 71-164 and Calame 1999: 57-62.

79 Of course, exceptions can be found, such as the Cupid who sneezes good omens for mutual lovers in Catullus 45.

26 most immediate Greek precedents, insofar as Vergil, Tibullus, and Propertius all allude to

Hellenistic models in their initial characterizations of the god. In the first section below, I examine these allusions at length to argue that the poets’ early conceptions of Amor were rooted within those of Theocritus’ Idylls and Meleager’s Garland, most of all. Then, turning to

Propertius 2.12, I argue that the god’s most common attributes were also conscious continuations of Hellenistic tropes. The Amor of early Augustan poetry is a fiery source of disease, madness, and strife and, as an extension of these same associations, depicted as a child with wings, bow, and (to a lesser extent) torch.

Finally, beginning again from Propertius 2.12, I trace this figure’s interpretation within

Roman culture of the late 1st c. BCE. Propertius’ explanations for Amor’s most common

attributes reflect not only the tradition upon which he builds, but also prevailing Roman

sentiments toward love and its impact on society. In particular, the Amor that dominates the

early Augustan period represents a form of desire that is unrestrained, unpredictable, and

destructive, and therefore contrary to traditional Roman morality.

Conscious Continuity

Augustan poets regularly positioned themselves as the heirs to Greek poetic traditions.80

Even as Latin became increasingly refined, engagement with Greek models remained a mark of

high poetic achievement. Thus, long after establishing himself a premier poet of the age,

80 Scholarship on the influence of Greek authors on the Augustan poets is extensive and often delineated by individual authors’ interactions. I include a number of such studies as they become relevant below.

27 Propertius presents himself as the “Roman Callimachus” (4.1.64).81 This sense of continuity extends to many aspects of Augustan poetry—meters, genres, aesthetics, commonplaces (topoi), etc.—and literary depictions of the gods are no exception. Even when these gods display distinctively Roman characteristics, they remain in close communication with their earlier counterparts. I therefore seek to demonstrate that the Amor of early Augustan literature is not only akin to Eros in general, but a conscious extension of a particular representational tradition.

Specifically, Amor’s introduction in Vergil’s Eclogues, Tibullus 1, and Propertius 1 recalls the

Eros inherited from Theocritus and the poets of Meleager’s Garland.

Vergil’s Eclogues:

Vergil’s Eclogues provide a natural starting point. Not only are they the earliest of the works under examination, but “desire” constitutes one of their major themes. Three of the ten poems explore desire at length (Ecl. 2, 8, and 10), and it provides topoi for the singers of at least four others (Ecl. 3, 5, 6 and 7).82 Love, it would seem, is as much a part of the bucolic landscape

as the landscape itself. Moreover, Vergil’s imitatio has long been recognized. As Servius

explains in his prologue, “the poet’s intention is to imitate Theocritus of Syracuse” (intentio

poetae haec est, ut imitetur Theocritum Syracusanum).83 Indeed, Vergil signals the inspiration

81 On the influence of Callimachus on the noui poetae and Augustan poets, see Acosta-Hughes and Stephens 2012: 212-69. Whether or not Propertius is the “Callimachus/Mimnermus” of Horace Epist. 2.2.100-101 is debated, but the comparison between Roman poet and Greek model remains. Heslin (2011: 66-67) provides a concise summary of previous scholarship.

82 Breed 2013. See also the final words of Ecl. 4: dea nec dignata cubili est (“nor did a goddess think him worthy of her bed”).

83 See Paraskeviotis 2020: 5 n.18 for extensive bibliography.

28 for his amor the moment he enters upon the theme:84

formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin, delicias domini, nec, quid speraret, habebat. tantum inter densas, umbrosa cacumina, fagos adsidue ueniebat. ibi haec incondita solus montibus et siluis studio iactabat inani. Vergil, Eclogues 2.1-5

The shepherd Corydon was aflame for the beautiful Alexis, his master’s delight, and had nothing to place his hope in. All he could do was go out continuously among the thick beeches with their shady treetops. There he would belt out these artless verses, alone in the mountains and forests, with vain passion.

Theocritus’ Idyll 11, the famous lament of the Cyclops Polyphemus, begins with much the same combination of motifs:85

Οὐδὲν ποττὸν ἔρωτα πεφύκει φάρμακον ἄλλο, Νικία, οὔτ’ ἔγχριστον, ἐμὶν δοκεῖ, οὔτ’ ἐπίπαστον, ἢ ταὶ Πιερίδες· … οὕτω γοῦν ῥάιστα διᾶγ’ ὁ Κύκλωψ ὁ παρ’ ἁμῖν, ὡρχαῖος Πολύφαμος, ὅκ’ ἤρατο τᾶς Γαλατείας Theocritus, Idylls 11.1-3, 7-886

Nature provides no other remedy for love, Nicias, neither ointment nor, it seems to me, powder, than the Muses. … Thus the Cyclops passed his time as well as he could, the one from our country, old Polyphemus, when he loved Galatea.

Vergil’s Corydon, like Theocritus’ Polyphemus, is a lover scorned and finds solace in poetry

84 Eclogues 2 may also have been among the earliest composed. Clausen 1994: 61-62, 238-39.

85 Du Quesnay 1979; Clausen 1994: 61-63; Cucchiarelli 2017: 171-74. Of course, Theocritus is not the only model at play. Corydon’s retreat to the trees recalls Callimachus’ Acontius, and there is much engagement with Meleager A.P. 12.127 (Fernandelli 2008). See also Day 1938: 105, 111-12.

86 Text of Theocritus is from Hopkinson 2015. Translation is my own.

29 alone. With this introduction Vergil begins an extended allusion to the Cyclops’ song.87

Unlike Theocritus, however, who introduces eros in the first line (1: ἔρωτα), Vergil withholds amor itself until the end of the poem. Only as the light begins to fade, and the shepherd’s song comes to a close, does Corydon realize the extent of his passion:

aspice, aratra iugo referunt suspensa iuuenci, et sol crescentis decedens duplicat umbras; me tamen urit amor; quis enim modus adsit amori? a, Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia cepit! Vergil, Eclogues 2.66-69

Look, the bullocks in the yoke bring back the hanging plows, and the setting sun doubles the growing shadows. Still love burns me. Truly, what limit is there for love? Ah, Corydon, Corydon, what madness has seized you?

The rearrangement, subtle as it may be, reemphasizes the shepherds’ shared experience. In this final moment, Vergil not only characterizes amor with a combination of distinctly Theocritean motifs (love’s fire is the most common description of eros in the Idylls,88 with love’s madness

falling not far behind89), but also has Corydon echo his predecessor nearly verbatim: ὦ Κύκλωψ

Κύκλωψ, πᾷ τὰς φρένας ἐκπεπότασαι; (Idyll 11.72: “Oh Cyclops, Cyclops, have you lost your

mind?”). The appearance of amor, together with Corydon’s dramatic cry, thus forms the poem’s

climax and cements the allusion.

Yet my interest lies in Amor the god, and there is little in Eclogues 2 to suggest

87 For a list of the most direct borrowings, see Du Quesnay 1979: 211n.79.

88 For love’s fire, see Idylls 2, 3, 7, 11, and 14. See esp. 2.133-34: Ἔρως δ’ ἄρα καὶ Λιπαραίω πολλάκις Ἁφαίστοιο σέλας φλογερώτερον αἴθει (“Eros often kindles a blaze more fiery than even Liparaian Hephaistos”). Images of “melting” are a close second in frequency.

89 For the madness of love, see Idylls 2, 5, 11, and 14.

30 personification.90 Amor himself does not appear until Eclogues 8 when Damon, another forlorn shepherd, laments the loss of his beloved. We find there, however, a similar confluence of

elements:

saepibus in nostris paruam te roscida mala (dux ego uester eram) uidi cum matre legentem. alter ab undecimo tum me iam acceperat annus, iam fragilis poteram a terra contingere ramos: 40 ut uidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error! incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus. nunc scio quid sit Amor: nudis in cautibus illum aut Tmaros aut Rhodope aut extremi Garamantes nec generis nostri puerum nec sanguinis edunt. 45 Vergil, Eclogues 8.37-45

I saw you, when you were a little girl, picking dewy apples with my mother in our garden (I was your guide). The year after my eleventh had then just welcomed me; I was just able to reach the delicate branches from the ground. I saw you and was done for! Wicked madness stole me away! Begin, my flute, Maenalian verses with me. Now I understand what Amor is: on bare crags did Tmaros, or Rhodope, or the farthest Garamantes give birth to him, a boy of neither our race nor blood.

First, Amor’s appearance is once again a climactic moment in the poem.91 Damon’s song is structurally divided into nine stanzas with concentric thematic connections,92 and the lines quoted here, in Brooks Otis’ words the “true kernel of the poem,” mark Damon’s shift from the earliest memory of his beloved to his recent revelation of losing her. Now (43: nunc), unlike

then, Damon understands the god’s nature (43: scio quid sit Amor). The appearance of Amor the

90 Consider, for example, the lexical variety in Corydon’s “vain passion” (5: studio…inani). Corydon’s experience is with the emotion, not the divinity.

91 Granted, it does not become clear that Damon personifies Amor until line 45.

92 For the full structural analysis, see Otis 1963: 106-9.

31 god underscores the defining contrast of Damon’s experience with love.

The pair of stanzas is also replete with additional Theocritean allusions.93 First, Vergil

draws again on Idyll 11, modeling Damon’s meeting with Nysa (37-38) on Polyphemus’ meeting

with Galatea.94 He then turns to Idylls 2 and 3 for the emphatic syntax of line 41.95 Finally, Idyll

3 remains at the fore in the moment of Damon’s revelation:

νῦν ἔγνων τὸν ῎Ερωτα: βαρὺς θεός: ἦ ῥα λεαίνας μαζὸν ἐθήλαζε, δρυμῷ τέ νιν ἔτρεφε μάτηρ, ὅς με κατασμύχων καὶ ἐς ὀστίον ἄχρις ἰάπτει. Theocritus, Idylls 3.15-17

Now I understand Eros: he’s an oppressive god. Surely he suckled at a lioness’ teat, and his mother reared him in the thicket. He consumes me with a smoldering fire and shoots all the way to the bone.

Vergil’s Damon thus echoes another of Theocritus’ herdsmen (Ecl. 8.43: nunc scio quid sit Amor

= Id. 3.15: νῦν ἔγνων τὸν ῎Ερωτα), and the Amor of the Eclogues is again revealed to be the wild and fierce Eros of the Idylls.96

Yet Theocritus is hardly Vergil’s only model. In fact, the very next stanza of Eclogues 8

draws on an additional source and, in so doing, presents one of the more striking depictions of

the god in Vergil’s poetry. Damon, after attributing Amor’s character to his distant birth and lack

93 Otis 1963: 105-20; Clausen 1994: 237, 249-51.

94 Cf. Id. 11.25-27.

95 Ecl. 8.41: ut uidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error ≈ Id. 2.82: χὡς ἴδον, ὡς ἐμάνην, ὥς μευ πυρὶ θυμὸς ἰάφθη (“I saw! I went mad! My heart was struck with fire!”) and Id. 3.42: ὡς ἴδεν, ὡς ἐμάνη, ὡς ἐς βαθὺν ἅλατ᾽ ἔρωτα (“She saw! She went mad! She fell into a deep love!”).

96 Vergil takes the opportunity to demonstrate his learning, as well, for he recognizes in Theocritus a Homeric allusion. Patroclus, in Iliad 6, accuses Achilles of being born from the wilderness and being thus similarly savage (34-35: γλαυκὴ δέ σε τίκτε θάλασσα / πέτραι τ᾽ ἠλίβατοι, ὅτι τοι νόος ἐστὶν ἀπηνής, “but the grey sea bore you, and steep rocks; so unyielding is your mind”). Vergil reintroduces the cliffs that Theocritus omitted.

32 of “humanity,”97 concludes that the god is both saeuus (“savage”) and improbus (“shameless”):98

saeuos Amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem commaculare manus; crudelis tu quoque, mater: crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille? improbus ille puer; crudelis tu quoque, mater. Vergil, Eclogues 8.47-50

Savage Amor taught the mother to stain her hands with the blood of her children, but you were cruel, too, mother. Was the mother crueler, or that shameless boy? That shameless boy was, but you were cruel, too, mother.

In these lines, which paint a particularly grim image of Amor as complicit in Medea’s filicide,

Vergil turns instead to Meleager.99 Vergil’s marked repetition in puer improbus ille / improbus

ille puer (compounded by the repetition of crudelis mater for Medea) recalls the first lines of

A.P. 5.176: Δεινὸς Ἔρως, δεινός. τί δὲ τὸ πλέον, ἢν πάλιν εἴπω / καὶ πάλιν οἰμώζων πολλάκι

“δεινὸς Ἔρως”; (1-2: “Eros is terrible, terrible! But why go on, even if I say again and again, sighing many times, ‘Eros is terrible?’”).100 I will return to Meleager’s influence when I examine

Propertius and Tibullus below, but for the moment it suffices to note that nothing here is out of

place alongside the Amor already introduced.101 Even as Vergil moves from one model to others,

97 Serv., on Ecl. 8.45: id est nihil habentem in se humanitatis (“that is, having nothing of humanity in him”).

98 The epithet improbus becomes especially popular for Amor in the Augustan period. See Aeneid 4.412; Prop. 1.1.6, 2.33.42; Fasti 2.331; and possibly Hor. Sat. 1.3.24.

99 For additional parallels between the Eclogues and Meleager, see Day 1938: 105, 111-12; Fernandelli 2008. Vergil’s collocation of Medea and saeuos Amor may also echo Ennius’ Medea exul (254 V2 = 216 J: Medea animo aegro amore saeuo saucia, “Medea, her sick mind wounded by savage love”) (Clausen 1994: 252).

100 Text of Meleager is Gow-Page (1965). Translation is my own.

101 Cf. Du Quesnay (1979: 59) on the synthesis of Theocritus and Meleager in the opening lines of Eclogues 2.

33 the image of Amor remains largely consistent.102

Such is certainly the case for Amor’s final (and most famous) appearance in the

Eclogues, the poet Gallus’ lament in Eclogues 10. On the one hand, Eclogues 10 demonstrates

much the same Theocritan experience of amor. Gallus’ love is “troubled” (6: sollicitos…amores)

and his experience near to dying (10: Gallus amore peribat), when a group of pastoral figures gathers around in consolation: omnes “unde amor iste” rogant “tibi?” (21: “they all ask, ‘where does this love of yours come from?’”). Apollo and Pan then press him further, and through their

questions link the Eclogues’ final lover back to its first. Echoing Corydon’s cry in Eclogues 2,

Apollo asks what madness he suffers (10.22: Galle, quid insanis? ≈ 2.69: Corydon, quae te

dementia cepit?). Pan then wonders when Gallus’ condition will end, much as Corydon himself

did (10.28: Ecquis erit modus? ≈ 2.68: quis enim modus adsit amori?).103 And just as the

introduction of amor in Eclogues 2 evoked Theocritus, so does this portion of Eclogues 10.

Priapus and a group of shepherds ask much the same of Daphnis in Idyll 1: πάντες ἀνηρώτευν, τί

πάθοι κακόν. ἦνθ᾽ ὁ Πρίηπος / κἤφα: ‘Δάφνι τάλαν, τί τὺ τάκεαι; (Id. 1.81-82: “Everyone was asking him what ill he suffered. Priapus came and said, ‘Poor Daphnis, why are you wasting

102 For a relevant example from the visual arts, compare the painting of Polyphemus and Galatea in the so-called “House of Livia” on the Palatine (30-25 BCE; Ling 1991: 37, 113). Eros/Amor there stands upon Polyphemus’ shoulders, holding reins wrapped around the Cyclops’ neck. He leans back, pulling the reins tight, forcing the newly tamed lover forward. Although the painting has no connection to Theocritus’ Idylls (it depicts a different moment in the lovers’ story), the depiction of Amor is similarly oppressive.

103 For play on modus in love, see also Prop. 2.15.29-30: errat qui finem uesani quaerit amoris: / uerus amor nullum nouit habere modum (“Whoever seeks the end of a raging love is mistaken: true love can have no limit”). What Propertius accomplishes with word placement (modum), polyptoton (amoris…amor), alliteration (nullum nouit), and homoeoteleuton (nullum…modum), Seneca the Elder later states more plainly: facilius in amore finem inpetres quam modum (Controv. 2.2.10: “In love you’ll more easily reach an end than a limit”).

34 away?’”).104 Vergil’s initial question (10.21: unde amor iste) becomes in part metaliterary, and his allusion to Idyll 1 provides the answer.

Vergil’s engagement with Theocritus continues when Pan, immediately after this string of questions, considers Amor himself:

Amor non talia curat, nec lacrimis crudelis Amor nec gramina riuis nec cytiso saturantur apes nec fronde capellae. Vergil, Eclogues 10.28-30

Amor does not care for such things. Cruel Amor is not sated by tears, nor the grass by streams, the bees by clover, the goats by leaves.

Theocritus’ Aphrodite makes a similar assessment of Eros’ cruelty just after Priapus’ statement above: τύ θην τὸν Ἔρωτα κατεύχεο, Δάφνι, λυγιξεῖν· / ἦ ῥ’ οὐκ αὐτὸς Ἔρωτος ὑπ’ ἀργαλέω

ἐλυγίχθης; (Id. 1.97-98: “You kept boasting, Daphnis, that you’d take Eros down; have you not, rather, been taken down by cruel Eros?”). Vergil’s repetition of Amor’s name (Amor…Amor vs.

Ἔρωτα…Ἔρωτος) and translation of Ἔρωτος…ἀργαλέω as crudelis Amor completes the link not only between desire in these two works, but also the gods of desire.

On the other hand, any discussion of Eclogues 10 and its influences is complicated by

Servius’ additional comment that “all of these are Gallus’ verses, copied from his own poems”

(hi autem omnes uersus Galli sunt, de ipsius translati carminibus). Without wading too deeply into the debate this note has sparked, I am inclined to agree that Servius refers only to lines 46-

49, where the note itself appears and where Gallus (the character) switches briefly to a second- person address of the beloved.105 Nonetheless, the question remains significant because this

104 For further parallels, see Ross 1975: 96-99, Clausen 1994: 296-97, and Perkell 1996.

105 On Gallus in Eclogues 10, see, e.g., Skutsch 1906; Coleman 1962; Ross 1975: 85-106; Clausen 1994: 290-92; Perkell 1996. Lines 46-49 bear a striking resemblance to Propertius 1.8.5-

35 Gallus speaks one of the most influential statements on Amor ever put to verse: omnia uincit

Amor, et nos cedamus Amori (69: “Amor conquers all things. Let us, too, yield to Amor”).106

Through this second poet’s own voice, Vergil thus sets the outcome of the Eclogue directly

against that of Idyll 1.107 Whereas Daphnis remains defiant even unto death (Id. 1.130: ἦ γὰρ

ἐγὼν ὑπ᾽ ἔρωτος ἐς ῞Αιδαν ἕλκομαι ἤδη, “for I am already being dragged to Hades by love”), the

culmination of Gallus’ speech is his unconditional surrender and choice to live. Yet even so, as

with the combination of Theocritus and Meleager in Eclogues 8, Vergil’s representation of Amor

remains consistent. His power remains absolute, and humanity’s only options are submission or death.

Propertius 1 and Tibullus 1:

It will come as little surprise that Amor’s power reigns also in surviving Latin elegy.

Even a cursory look at the opening books of Propertius and Tibullus reveals the elegists’

fascination with Amor as an unstoppable force. So, too, their insistence on establishing

continuity with Hellenistic precedent. Whereas Vergil’s primary influence was Theocritus, though, the elegists give pride of place to Meleager’s Garland.108

8, which may (when Servius’ note is also take into account) indicate that both poets drew upon the same Gallan passage. See Fedeli 1980: 203-6.

106 In addition to Vergil’s own echoes of the line at G. 1.145-46 and Aen. 6.823, cf. Tib. 1.40.40, 1.5.60, and 2.3.14; Prop. 1.6.21 (argued below), 2.30.31 (argued below) and 3.5.1 (argued in the next chapter); and Ov, Am. 3.2.46, 3.4.12, and 3.11.42; Rem. am. 462; and Pont. 9.26.

107 Perkell 1996. See also Harrison 2007: 59-74.

108 Meleager’s Garland was immensely popular in Rome throughout the 1st c. BCE. On the influence of Greek epigram on Latin poetry (and elegy in particular), see Day 1938: 102-37; Schulz-Vanheyden 1970; Pino 1972: 63-65; Bulloch 1973: 71-89; Papanghelis 1987: 60-61, 83- 84, 87, 188-89; and Ypsilanti 2005: 100-110.

36 Amor’s first appearance in Propertius is none other than the programmatic opening to his

Monobiblos:

Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus. tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus et caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus, donec me docuit castas odisse puellas 5 improbus, et nullo uiuere consilio. ei mihi, iam toto furor hic non deficit anno, cum tamen aduersos cogor habere deos. Propertius 1.1.1-8109

Cynthia first caught me, poor me, with her gaze, never before contaminated by desires. Then Amor cast low my look of unwavering pride and pressed my head beneath his feet, until he taught me to despise chaste girls, 5 shameless as he is, and to live with no sense. Ah me, this madness has not let up for a whole year now, though I’m still forced to endure opposing gods.

In these famous lines, Propertius draws heavily upon an epigram by Meleager himself:110

τόν με πόθοις ἄτρωτον ὑπὸ στέρνοισι Μυΐσκος ὄμμασι τοξεύσας τοῦτ᾽ ἐβόησεν ἔπος· ‘τὸν θρασὺν εἷλον ἐγώ· τὸ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὀφρύσι κεῖνο φρύαγμα σκηπτροφόρου σοφίας ἠνίδε ποσσὶ πατῶ.’ τῷ δ᾽ ὅσον ἀμπνεύσας τόδ᾽ ἔφην· ‘φίλε κοῦρε, τί θαμβεῖς; καὐτὸν ἀπ᾽ Οὐλύμπου Ζῆνα καθεῖλεν Ἔρως.’ Meleager, A.P. 12.101

I was unwounded by desires when Myiscos shot me with his eyes, right below the chest, and made this declaration: “I got the bold man! And that scoff of scepter-toting wisdom upon his brow? Look how I trample it beneath my feet!” Only just breathing, I said to him, “Dear boy, why are you surprised? Eros took Zeus himself down from Olympos.”

Several parallels stand out: the eyes are a source of forceful love (Prop. 1.1.1: cepit ocellis ≈ A.P.

109 Text of Propertius is from Fedeli 1985. Translation is my own.

110 Allen 1950: 264-270; Fedeli 1980: 62-63; Lyne 1998: 194.

37 12.101.2: ὄμμασι τοξεύσας), the lover is harmed by desires (2: [me] contactum nullis ante

cupidinibus ≈ 1: τόν με Πόθοις ἄτρωτον), the lover has a haughty countenance (3:

constantis…lumina fastus ≈ 3: τὸ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὀφρύσι κεῖνο φρύαγμα), and that countenance is subsequently trampled underfoot (4: caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus ≈ 4: ἠνίδε ποσσὶ

πατῶ).111 Propertius also differentiates between cupidines (2: “desires”) and Amor (4: “Love”) in

the same way that Meleager does between πόθοις (1: “desires”) and Ἔρως (6: “Love”).112

Nonetheless, Propertius replaces Meleager’s metaphor of “love’s arrows” with that of

“love as a disease.”113 Meleager’s τοξεύσας gives way to the more neutral cepit (which instead

recalls Meleager’s εἷλον and καθεῖλεν), and his ἄτρωτον (“unwounded”) becomes Propertius’ contactum (literally “touched,” but also “contaminated” in a contagious sense).114 This simple shift lays the foundation for the primary theme of poem 1.1, demonstrating how Propertius has not merely reworked Meleager’s epigram, but fully integrated it. Most importantly, Propertius

transfers Myiskos’ oppressive actions not to Cynthia, but to the god of love himself. Cynthia

may be prima, but it is Amor that occupies the poet-speaker’s thoughts. Thus, as for Vergil,

Propertius’ introduction of Amor is far from derivative, but rather a learned interpretation of the

Meleagrian Eros.

The introduction of Amor in Tibullus’ first book is less programmatic, but nonetheless rooted in the same tradition. Amor appears at the start of Tibullus’ second poem, where he is similarly a source of pain:

111 Gow-Page 1965: 661; Fedeli 1980: 62-67.

112 Propertius greatly favors the name Amor, using Cupido only once more (2.18a.21-22).

113 On love and its cures in Propertius, with additional bibliography, see Merriam 2001.

114 Camps 1961: 42; Cairns 1974: 103.

38 adde merum uinoque nouos compesce dolores, occupet ut fessi lumina uicta sopor; neu quisquam multo percussum tempora Baccho excitet, infelix dum requiescit Amor. Tibullus 1.2.1-4115

Make the drink stronger and curb fresh pains with wine, so sleep can seize a weary man’s beaten eyes. And let no one wake me, struck senseless by much Bacchus, while luckless Amor rests.

Tibullus’ inspiration, too, is an epigram by Meleager:116

ζωροπότει, δύσερως, καὶ σου φλόγα τὰν φιλόπαιδα κοιμάσει λάθας δωροδότας Βρόμιος. ζωροπότει, καὶ πλῆρες ἀφυσσάμενος σκύφος οἴνας ἔκκρουσον στυγερὰν ἐκ κραδίας ὀδύναν. Meleager, A.P. 12.49

Have a strong drink, poor lover. And your flame of love for the boy? Bromios, giver of forgetfulness, will lay it to rest. Have a strong drink and, after you’ve drained a full cup of wine, drive hateful pain from your heart.

Tibullus begins with a metrically equivalent translation of Meleager’s imperative (Tib. 1.2.1:

adde merum = A.P. 12.49.1: ζωροπότει), then continues with much of the same language in his

adaptation of the motif: love is ill-fated (4: infelix Amor ≈ 1: δύσερως), love is painful (1:

dolores ≈ 4: ὀδύναν), it must be struck out (3: percussum = 4: ἔκκρουσον) by wine (1: uino = 3:

οἴνας; 3: Baccho = 2: Βρόμιος), and sleep is the welcome result (2: sopor ≈ 2: κοιμάσει).

Like Vergil and Propertius, though, Tibullus adapts the model to his own ends. He

115 Text of Tibullus is from Maltby 2002. Translation is my own. I here capitalize Maltby’s amor, however. Not only was the Hellenistic “Sleeping Eros” an immensely popular image, widely copied throughout the Roman period (see n.118), but the pairing of Bacchus and Amor at the ends of lines 3-4 suggest metonymic associations for both as deities. Cf. Ov. Am. 1.6.59-60 (nox et Amor uinumque nihil moderabile suadent: / illa pudore uacat, Liber Amorque metu). On slippage between amor and Amor in Augustan poetry, see Park 2009.

116 Maltby (1995) examines the close similarity between these two poems at length. See also his commentary on Tib. 1.2.1-4 (2002: 153-56).

39 transfers all mention of love from Meleager’s first line (δύσερως…φλόγα τὰν φιλόπαιδα) to his own fourth (infelix Amor), withholding Amor until the very end of this epigrammatic introduction. The placement then emphasizes a key addition: the presence of the god himself.

Meleager addresses a poor lover (1: δύσερως), but nowhere mentions Eros as a personified being. Tibullus transfers the forlorn lover’s epithet to Amor117 and, drawing on another well- known image from the Hellenistic period, describes the boy as sleeping.118

In isolation, each of these examples provides little that has not been long recognized. It is hardly surprising that Vergil draws heavily on Theocritus in his Eclogues, or that Meleager was a major influence on Latin elegy. Taken together, though, these brief but prominent allusions offer a representative view into these authors’ conceptions of Amor. It would be only slight exaggeration to say that the early Augustan poets, when they pictured the god of love, pictured a distinctly Hellenistic Eros.119 At the very least, Vergil, Propertius, and Tibullus consciously constructed their Amor as an extension of that which immediately preceded it.

Continuity in Amor’s Attributes

I say that these authors “pictured” Amor, but the fact remains that none of the descriptions above is particularly visual. The poems describe the god’s behavior and effect—he

117 Maltby 2002: 156.

118 Over 180 copies of the Sleeping Eros survive from the Roman period (1st-4th c. CE). See Söldner 1986: 596-696; Sorabella 2007.

119 Horace describes Amor only once in his Epodes (Ep. 11.1-4), but the conclusion is much the same. The speaker is struck (percussum) by Amor, who “aims” (expetit) to burn (urere) him. After all, Horace draws on many themes from Greek lyric and Hellenistic epigram (Fraenkel 1957: 67), though perhaps sometimes through the intermediate of Gallus (Luck 1976) or other Latin poets (Woodman 2015: 673-78).

40 is savage, shameless, burning, maddening, etc.—but not his actual appearance. I now turn to

Amor’s most common attributes in early Augustan poetry, for these, too, show clear continuity with the inherited Hellenistic tradition. In this regard, a single poem stands out. Propertius 2.12, published ca. 25 BCE, begins with an analysis of the god’s prevailing image at the time:120

quicumque ille fuit, puerum qui pinxit Amorem, nonne putas miras hunc habuisse manus? is primum uidit sine sensu uiuere amantis et leuibus curis magna perire bona. idem non frustra uentosas addidit alas, 5 fecit et humano corde uolare deum: scilicet alterna quoniam iactamur in unda, nostraque non ullis permanet aura locis. et merito hamatis manus est armata sagittis et pharetra ex umero Cnosia utroque iacet: 10 ante ferit quoniam tuti quam cernimus hostem, nec quisquam ex illo uulnere sanus abit. in me tela manent, manet et puerilis imago: sed certe pennas perdidit ille suas; euolat heu nostro quoniam de pectore nusquam, 15 assiduusque meo sanguine bella gerit. quid tibi iucundum est siccis habitare medullis? si pudor est, alio traice tela tua! intactos isto satius temptare ueneno: non ego, sed tenuis uapulat umbra mea. 20 quam si perdideris, quis erit qui talia cantet, (haec mea Musa leuis gloria magna tua est), qui caput et digitos et lumina nigra puellae et canat ut soleant molliter ire pedes? Propertius 2.12

Whoever he was, who painted Amor as a boy, do you not think he had marvelous hands? He first noticed that lovers live without sense and waste their great fortunes on frivolous concerns. Not in vain did the same man add windy wings, and make the god fly within the human heart, no doubt because we are tossed on a varying wave, and our breeze remains nowhere steady.

120 Propertius 2.12 contains dense lexical interplay with poem 1.1, indicating the god’s continued programmatic importance. Lyne (1998), citing these parallels, goes so far as to suggest that poem 2.12 was the first in Propertius’ original third book (“Book 2b”).

41 And rightly is his hand armed with barbed arrows, and a Cretan quiver lies across his shoulders, since he strikes us when we’re safe, before we perceive our enemy, and no one departs healthy from that wound. His shafts remain in me, and his boyish image remains, but he’s certainly lost his wings, since, ah! He never flies from my chest, and he continuously wages wars in my blood. Why do you enjoy dwelling in my dried-out marrow? If you have any shame, cast your shafts at another. It’s better to try those untouched by that poison of yours. It isn’t I, but my thin shade that’s beaten. If you destroy it, who will there be to sing such things (this light Muse of mine is your great glory), who will sing of my girl’s face, fingers, and dark eyes, and how softly her feet are accustomed to move.

Structurally, Propertius 2.12 divides neatly into two halves.121 In the first, the speaker considers

Amor’s most common artistic attributes, with four lines dedicated to each: his childlike appearance (1-4), his wings (5-8), and his bow and arrows (9-12). The speaker’s focus then turns inward (13: in me), paving the way for personal laments (15: heu), an appeal to poetry (21-22), and the final lapse into adoration of the puella (23-24). Even this second half, though, revolves ultimately around interpretations of Amor. The lover’s experience is at each step an extension (or refutation) of the god’s longstanding representation.

And longstanding it is. With this poem, Propertius establishes himself within the extensive tradition of analyzing the god of love (see Chapter 1).122 The earliest literary comparand is a short fragment of Middle Comedy by Eubulus (or possibly Araros, the son of

121 Camps 1961: 112; Richardson 1977: 245; Fedeli 2005: 340. Fedeli, in particular, provides a thorough structural analysis.

122 On the examination of Amor’s attributes, culminating in Quintilian’s discussion of its use as a progymnasma, see Fedeli 2005: 340-42.

42 Aristophanes):123

τίς ἦν ὁ γράψας πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων ἄρα ἢ κηροπλαστήσας Ἔρωθ᾿ ὑπόπτερον; ὡς οὐδὲν ᾔδει πλὴν χελιδόνας γράφειν, ἀλλ᾿ ἦν ἄπειρος τῶν τρόπων τῶν τοῦ θεοῦ. ἔστιν γὰρ οὔτε κοῦφος, οὔτε ῥᾴδιος 5 ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῷ φέροντι τὴν νόσον, βαρὺς δὲ κομιδῇ. πῶς ἂν οὖν ἔχοι πτερὰ τοιοῦτο πρᾶγμα; λῆρος, εἰ κἄφησέ τις. Eubulus, Campulion fr. 41124

Who among men was the first painter, or the first modeler, of a winged Eros? He knew how to draw nothing but swallows, and was ignorant of the god’s character. For he’s neither light nor easy to be rid of once you carry the disease, but altogether heavy. How, then, could such a thing be winged? Anyone who says so is a fool.

Like Propertius 2.12, the speaker evokes a “first painter” (Eub. fr. 41.1: ὁ γράψας πρῶτος =

Prop. 2.12.1-3: qui pinxit…primum) only to assert that the depiction is ill-suited to his own

experience. Moreover, he targets the same attribute. Love’s wings supposedly represent

fickleness and shiftiness, but the god refuses to depart (5-6: οὔτε ῥᾴδιος ἀπαλλαγῆναι ≈ 15:

euolat…de pectore nusquam). Lastly, the fragment follows the same progression from love’s

tenacity to the metaphor of love as an illness. Eubulus’ Eros clings to one who “carries the

disease” (6: τῷ φέροντι τὴν νόσον), much as Propertius situates Amor “in dried-out marrows”

123 The fragment is preserved in a section of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai (262c-d) dedicated to discussions of Eros. Immediately before and after are fragments by the Middle Comic poet Alexis, both of which also contain reflections on Eros’ representation. The former, however, constructs an Eros far different from the tradition that Propertius chooses to follow. The latter offers another refutation against Eros’ wings, but in a manner less relevant for poem 2.12. See Long 1978; Lyne 1998: 198-200.

124 Text of Eubulus is from Hunter 1983. Translation is my own.

43 (17: siccis…medullis).125

Analysis of Eros’ attributes gained far greater popularity in Hellenistic literature, though,

and much of Propertius’ inspiration can be traced through closer sources. Among the fullest

accounts is Moschus’ Eros Drapetes, in which Venus describes Eros’ appearance and attributes

as a mock notice for the escaped god’s recapture. Meleager’s A.P. 5.177 uses this same conceit,

but even prioritizes the attributes we find in Propertius: ἔστι δ᾽ ὁ παῖς γλυκύδακρυς, ἀείλαλος,

ὠκύς, ἀθαμβής, / σιμὰ γελῶν, πτερόεις, νῶτα φαρετροφόρος (3-4: “He’s the child crying

sweetly, babbling incessantly. He’s swift and impudent, smiling with a sneer, winged, and

bearing a quiver on his back”).126 The closest parallel, however, seems to have come from

Hellenistic prose. A passage from Cornutus’ Theologiae Graecae Compendium (2nd c. CE),

likely summarized from the Peri Theon of Apollodorus of Athens (2nd c. BCE), provides nearly

the same attributes and associations that Propertius adopts in 2.12:127

ὃς δὴ παῖς μέν ἐστι διὰ τὸ ἀτελῆ τὴν γνώμην καὶ εὐεξάπατητον ἔχειν τοὺς ἐρῶντας, πτερωτὸς δέ, ὅτι κουφόνους ποιεῖ ἢ ὅτι ὡς ὄρνις ἀεὶ προσίπταται ταῖς διανοίαις ἀθρόως, τοξότης δ’, ἐπεὶ πληγῇ τινι ὅμοιον ἀπὸ τῆς προσόψεως οἱ ἁλισκόμενοι αὐτῷ πάσχουσιν, οὔτε πλησιάσαντες οὔθ’ ἁψάμενοι τῶν καλῶν ἀλλὰ μακρόθεν αὐτοὺς ἰδόντες. ἀποδίδοται δὲ καὶ λαμπὰς αὐτῷ, πυροῦν δοκοῦντι τὰς ψυχάς. Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium 25128

125 On the marrow as a locus eroticus and its physiological connotations, see Rosenmeyer 1999.

126 The pentameter’s caesura leads me to take νῶτα more closely with φαρετροφόρος. Cf. Gow- Page 1965: 629.

127 Cornutus often acknowledges that he is summarizing earlier sources (see esp. his epilogue in section 35: διὰ πλειόνων δὲ καὶ ἐξεργαστικώτερον εἴρηται τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις φιλοσόφοις, ἐμοῦ νῦν ἐπιτετμημένως αὐτὰ παραδοῦναί σοι βουληθέντος, “This has been said at greater length and in greater detail by earlier philosophers, but I wanted to provide it to you now succinctly”). Nearby sections also show connections with surviving fragments of Apollodorus. See Schmidt 1912: 44-78 and Nock 1929: 126.

128 Text of Cornutus is from Lang 1881. Translation is my own.

44 [Eros] is a child on account of lovers’ having an immature mindset and being easily deceived; he is winged because he makes men light-minded, or because he always flies like a bird, suddenly, into their thoughts; he is an archer since those captured by him suffer some kind of blow, as if from the very sight of beautiful things, neither drawing near nor touching them, but seeing them from far away; a torch is given to him as he seems to set souls on fire.

The connection to Apollodorus is too tenuous to draw any specific conclusions, but even in broad strokes the descriptions are almost identical. Not only is Eros/Amor childish, winged, and armed with far-reaching arrows, but each attribute is also presented in the same order and with similar consequences for a lover’s demeanor.129 Eros’ childishness manifests in the lover’s

dulled mental state (τὸ ἀτελῆ τὴν γνώμην καὶ εὐεξάπατητον ἔχειν τοὺς ἐρῶντας ≈ Prop. 2.12.3:

sine sensu uiuere amantis), his wings represent the lover’s fickle heart (ὅτι κουφόνους ποιεῖ ≈ 7-

8: scilicet alterna quoniam iactamur in unda, / nostraque non ullis permanet aura locis), and his

arrows reflect the sharp, unforeseen pain that this love so often brings (πληγῇ τινι… πάσχουσιν ≈

12: nec quisquam ex illo uulnere sanus abit; μακρόθεν ≈ 11: ante ferit quoniam tuti quam

cernimus hostem).130 Even if Propertius is not drawing upon Apollodorus directly, suffice it to

say that they are both participating within the same representational tradition.

Consistency in Amor’s Attributes

Of greater importance for this study, though, is how widely influential these attributes

and their precedents were immediately prior to the late 20s BCE. Propertius 2.12 is key for its

129 Nock 1929: 126-127.

130 Propertius, however, omits Amor’s torch, despite its appearance elsewhere in his corpus. E.g., 2.29.5 (quorum alii faculas, alii retinere sagittas, “some of whom held little torches, others arrows”) and 3.16.16 (ipse Amor accensas percutit ante faces, “Amor himself shakes kindled torches in front”). Commentators generally attribute this change to the poem’s overall structure and symmetry.

45 concision and engagement with inherited representations, but Amor’s attributes were hardly

limited to this single poem. Using Propertius’ opening stanzas as a sort of framework, let us

examine the image in greater detail, tracing further the development of each attribute and

establishing their near-ubiquitous presence across early Augustan poetry.

Amor’s Childlike Appearance:

As opposed to the ephebe of Archaic and early Classical vase painting, or the “Ancient of

Days” from Hesiodic and Orphic theogonies, Amor is a child in both form and demeanor:131

quicumque ille fuit, puerum qui pinxit Amorem, nonne putas miras hunc habuisse manus? is primum uidit sine sensu uiuere amantis et leuibus curis magna perire bona. Propertius 2.12.1-4

(translated above)

Propertius refers to Amor as “boy” (puer) in at least nine separate poems, making it the god’s most frequent description in his poetry.132 Vergil, too, stresses the epithet through the repetition

in Eclogues 8 (quoted above), and Tibullus addresses Amor as such at least once.133 Simply put,

even when left unstated, there is no reason to assume that the Amor of early Augustan poetry is anything but a child acting in overtly childish ways. Unfortunately for the lover, this behavior is often more trouble than it is worth. Propertius 1.6 well captures the speaker’s usual frustration: et

131 The image returns later in the phrase puerilis imago (2.12.13), which may allude to the traditional difficulty in determining Eros’ age.

132 See Prop. 1.3.10(?); 1.6.23; 1.7.15; 1.9.21; 1.19.5; 2.9a.38; 2.12.1, 13; 2.29.3; 3.10.28; and 4.1.138.

133 Tib. 2.6.5. Some manuscripts also print saeue puer at Tib. 1.6.3, an emendation based largely on Ov. Am. 1.1.5.

46 tibi non umquam nostros puer iste labores / afferat et lacrimis omnia nota meis! (23-24: “may that boy never bring my toils to you and all the marks from my tears!”). The lover’s toils

(labores), tears (lacrimis), and “shameful marks” (nota) fill out the image of Amor’s oppression, but it is the brief phrase “that boy” (puer iste) that best captures the speaker’s vitriol (as it often does, the demonstrative iste here carries a thoroughly condescending tone).

That the Augustan poets associate this attribute with the god’s abuses is unsurprising, for it is an integral part of the tradition upon which they choose to build. From the earliest literary examples this childishness is the lover’s bane,134 and the attribute becomes a mainstay in

Hellenistic literature.135 Take, for example, another of Meleager’s epigrams:136

ματρὸς ἔτ᾿ ἐν κόλποισιν ὁ νήπιος ὀρθρινὰ παίζων ἀστραγάλοις τοὐμὸν πνεῦμ᾿ ἐκύβευσεν Ἔρως. Meleager, A.P. 12.47

Still in his mother’s lap, a baby playing in the morning with knucklebones, Eros gambled with my soul.

The first line remains deceptively vague: a baby simply plays in his mother’s lap.137 Aphrodite is

134 Cf. esp. Alcman PMG 58.1-2: Ἀφροδίτα μὲν οὐκ ἔστι, μάργος δ᾿ Ἔρως οἷα <παῖς> παίσδει, / ἄκρ᾿ ἐπ᾿ ἄνθη καβαίνων, ἃ μή μοι θίγῃς, τῶ κυπαιρίσκω (“It’s not Aphrodite, but greedy Eros who plays like a child, lighting upon the tips of the galingale’s flowers. For my sake, don’t touch them”). Unlike his mother (μὲν…δ᾿), Eros is wanton (μάργος) and sportive (παίσδει), and should thus be avoided. If we accept Bentley’s supplement, as most do, Alcman also etymologizes παῖς and παίσδει at line end, confirming that Eros’ age is central to this characterization. See Nock 1924; Easterling 1974; Cyrino 1995: 81-81; and Rosenmeyer 2004.

135 Among the most famous representations is the Eros of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica 3, whose imitation by Vergil I examine in the following chapter.

136 See also AP 5.58 (Archias), AP 12.46 (Asclepiades), and Argonautica 3.83-127. See esp. Moschus’ Eros Drapetes 11: δόλιον βρέφος, ἄγρια παίσδων (“a crafty child playing savage games”). Moschus also uses diminutives or words meaning “small” seven times in the poem’s central ten lines. For a well-known Latin intermediate, see Catullus 64.96: sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces (“divine boy, you who mix joys with the cares of men”).

137 On ambiguity in the term παίζειν and its manipulation by love poets, see Rosenmeyer 2004.

47 reduced to an unspecified mother (ματρὸς) and Eros is yet unnamed. The second line, however,

adds that this baby plays with knucklebones and has in fact gambled with (ἐκύβευσεν) the

speaker’s soul. The learned reader may here recognize Anacreon’s ἀστραγάλαι δ’ Ἐρωτός (fr.

398), but only with the final word does Meleager reveal the child’s identity (Ἔρως). The

epigram’s wit is thus an examination of the god’s character: Eros is not a child who happens to

be mischievous, but mischievous because it is in his childish nature.138 So, too, Propertius 2.12

sets Amor’s age at the center of his tendency to cause problems. Not only does this attribute

drive the opening stanza, but it is also the first word of the poem describing Amor. As in

Meleager’s epigram, the reader learns first about a boy and only then that he is the god of

love.139

Amor’s Wings:

Reacting to what is perhaps the most persistent trend in Eros’/Amor’s iconography, the

speaker of Propertius 2.12 next considers the artist’s addition of wings:

idem non frustra uentosas addidit alas, fecit et humano corde uolare deum: scilicet alterna quoniam iactamur in unda, nostraque non ullis permanet aura locis. Propertius 2.12.5-8

(translation above)

The poet will come to question these wings in the second half of the poem, but for now they are

presented as another of the god’s standard attributes. In fact, the second half of poem 2.12 is the

138 Meleager further emphasizes this connection by etymologizing παῖς in νήπιος…παίζων. Cf. Alcman PMG 58.1-2 in n.134 and Moschus’ Eros Drapetes 11 in n.136.

139 Propertius also places puerum outside its relative clause, after the caesura.

48 only time in Propertius’ corpus where Amor’s wings are anything but certain.140 As with the

god’s childish appearance, they seem instead to be taken for granted. In poem 2.30, Amor’s

wings are such an integral part of his identity that the adjective “winged” stands for the god

substantively: quod si nemo exstat qui uicerit Alitis arma, / communis culpae cur reus unus

agor? (2.30.31-32: “But if no one alive has conquered the Winged One’s arms, why am I alone

led to trial for a shared crime?”).141

Also consistent are the values with which Propertius imbues this attribute. After

connecting wings and wind (2.12.5: uentosas…alas), he moves to the larger metaphor of love as

a stormy sea. Lovers are then thrown around on fluctuating waves (7: alterna…iactamur in

unda), and this very “wind of love” becomes unreliable (8: nostraque non ullis permanet aura

locis).142 In other words, like each of the precedents for poem 2.12 above, Propertius connects

Amor’s wings to the lover’s fickle behavior.143 For Eubulus (Campulion fr. 41), Eros was “light”

(5: κοῦφος) and “easy” (5: ῥᾴδιος),144 both of which carry the same connotations in this

140 Cf. 1.9.23, 2.24c.20, and 2.30.31. See also 3.10.28.

141 See also Tib. 2.2.17-22, where Amor flies on whirring wings (17: utinam strepitantibus aduolet alis) and, if Maltby’s (2002: 390) interpretation is correct, is called a bird (21: auis).

142 For the image itself, compare Plaut. Cist. 203-22. The adulescens similarly connects Amor’s fickle nature to the movements of the sea (221: maritumis moribus) and uses the storms of love to explain his “broken” heart as a shipwreck (222: frangit for naufrangit).

143 Servius, upon Amor’s introduction at Aen. 1.663, analyzes Amor’s iconography in much the same way (and may have had Propertius 2.12 in mind). Regarding Amor’s wings, he says “because there is nothing lighter or more changeable than lovers” (quia amantibus nec leuius aliquid nec mutabilius inuenitur). For alternate traditions of interpreting Eros’ wings, see Carson 1986: 154-64.

144 Part of the line’s wit lies in the enjambment of ἀπαλλαγῆναι (6), creating a temporary ambiguity in the meaning of ῥᾴδιος.

49 context.145 Meleager’s runaway Eros was likewise deemed savage only because of his untimely departure: Κηρύσσω τὸν Ἔρωτα τὸν ἄγριον· ἄρτι γὰρ ἄρτι / ὀρθρινὸς ἐκ κοίτας ᾤχετ᾽

ἀποπτάμενος. (A.P. 5.177.1-2: “Attention! Eros is a savage, for just now, early in the morning, he left my bed and flew away.”) The repetition in Meleager’s ἄρτι γὰρ ἄρτι / ὀρθρινὸς stresses the suddenness, and the image of flight (ἀποπτάμενος), withheld until the final word of the pentameter, concludes the image with wonderfully epigrammatic concision. To Meleager’s image, in particular, we may also compare Propertius 2.24c, in which the speaker accuses

Cynthia’s Amor of flying away: me modo laudabas et carmina nostra legebas: / ille tuus pennas tam cito uertit Amor? (19-20: “You were just praising me and reading my poems. Did that Amor of yours so quickly turn his wings?”). The collocation of wings (pennas), swiftness (modo…tam cito), and changeability (uertit) demonstrates the same key point: Amor’s wings provide the means for his rapid betrayals.

Amor’s Bow and Arrows:

Finally, the Amor of Propertius 2.12 wields his infamous bow and arrows,146 and no attribute better encapsulates this god’s power or violent tendencies:147

et merito hamatis manus est armata sagittis et pharetra ex umero Cnosia utroque iacet: ante ferit quoniam tuti quam cernimus hostem, nec quisquam ex illo uulnere sanus abit.

145 Cornutus (TGC 25) specifies that this lightness applies to the mind (κουφόνους, “light- minded”).

146 On the iconography of Eros’ arrows, see Furtwängler 1874 and Blanc-Gury 1986. For literary representations, see Lasserre 1946, Spatafora 1995, Pace 2001, and Pagán Cánovas 2011.

147 Sometimes, however, a similar violence manifests in the form of slavery. On seruitium amoris in Latin love elegy, see Copley 1947; Ross 1975: 103-4; Murgatroyd 1981; Lyne 1979; Fulkerson 2013. On the related motif of “Love Punished” in Roman art, see George 2013.

50 Propertius 2.12.9-12

(translated above)

Amor is explicitly armed (9: manus est armata), and lovers perceive him as an enemy (11: hostem) who strikes (11: ferit) even when they think themselves safe. The result of Amor’s assault is a wound (12: uulnere) from which “no one escapes unharmed” (12: nec quisquam sanus abit).148

Eight of Propertius’ poems (all within the first two Books) mention Amor’s bow or

arrows, and the same association stands out in each.149 Consider, for example, the speaker’s

warning to Ponticus in poem 1.7:

te quoque si certo puer hic concusserit arcu, †quod nollim nostros euiolasse† deos, longe castra tibi, longe miser agmina septem flebis in aeterno surda iacere situ. Propertius 1.7.15-18

You, too, if the boy should strike hard with unerring bow (an act of violence I’d not wish our gods to commit), you’ll weep that your distant camps and seven distant troops lie silent in eternal disuse, a wretched man.

As the alliteration of hard k’s reinforces, Amor’s bow is here inescapable (15: certo arcu) and

hard-hitting (denoted by the intensifying prefix con- in concusserit).150 His attack is nothing

148 In this motif Propertius shows the greatest overlap with the tradition preserved by Cornutus: the lover feels some kind of blow (illo uulnere ≈ πληγῇ τινι) from afar (ante quam cernimus ≈ μακρόθεν). “Love’s wound” is also a favorite image of Meleager, who develops the idea in at least five separate epigrams (Kenney 1970: 380-85). A.P. 12.72 is the most direct in its phrasing: ἀλλά μοι ἔγρεο, Δᾶμι δυσάμμορε· καὐτὸς Ἔρωτος / ἕλκος ἔχων ἐπὶ σοῖς δάκρυσι δακρυχέω (5- 6: “But please wake up, ill-fated Damis. I, too, bear Eros’ wound and shed tears upon your tears”). For a particularly graphic interpretation of love’s wound in Latin, see Lucr. 4.1048-57.

149 Prop. 1.7.15-16; 1.9.21; 2.9.38-40; 2.12.9-13, 18; 2.13a.1-2; 2.29.4; and 2.30.31.

150 Camps (1961: 61) views the unexpected prefix as a Propertian mannerism, but also grants that it heightens the shot’s power.

51 short of divine violence upon mortals (16: euiolasse† deos)151 and, as a result, Ponticus will be

left wretched (17: miser) and weeping (18: flebis). So, too, in poem 1.9, which is also addressed to Ponticus (and generally viewed as a pendant to poem 1.7):

tum magis Armenias cupies accedere tigris et magis infernae uincula nosse rotae, quam pueri totiens arcum sentire medullis et nihil iratae posse negare tuae. Propertius 1.9.19-22

Then you’ll rather approach Armenian tigers, and rather know the chains of the infernal wheel, than so often feel the boy’s bow in your marrows, and be unable to deny anything to your angry girl.

Turning to mythological exempla, the speaker elevates Amor’s bow above Dionysus’ fearsome

chariot team and Juno’s eternal punishment of Ixion. If Ponticus is not careful, he will feel the

dreaded arrow often (21: quam totiens) and deeply (21: medulis).

No wonder, then, that despite Amor’s being “the winged one” in Propertius 2.30.31

(nemo exstat qui uicerit Alitis arma, [translated above]), the god’s flightiness is not there the speaker’s true concern. Rather, in another allusion to Eclogues 10.69 (omnia uincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori), he yields to Amor’s militaristic power. In addition to the reuse of Vergil’s uincere, Propertius effectively rephrases the same sentiment. Insofar as Vergil’s Amor “conquers all things” (omnia uincit), it stands to reason that “no one can conquer” (nemo exstat qui uicerit)

him. To Vergil’s sentiment, however, Propertius now adds the long-standing association between

Amor’s conquest and his weaponry. The god conquers all things precisely through his use of

arma.

Among Propertius’ models for the linkage between Amor’s arms and his destructive

151 Regardless of one’s preferred reading for line 16, the violence in euiolasse/uiolasse is clear.

52 power are some of the god’s most famous depictions in Greek literature. In the choral odes of

Attic tragedy, for example, the ill effects of Eros’ warfare are put on full display for the knowing audience.152 Again, however, it is Hellenistic literature that has the most direct influence. In fact,

Propertius evokes specific literary models for his description of love’s arrows in poem 2.9:

tela, precor, pueri, promite acuta magis! figite certantes atque hanc mihi soluite uitam! sanguis erit uobis maxima palma meus. Propertius 2.9.37-40

Boys, I beg you, bring forth your sharper arrows! Pierce me in competition, and release from me this life! My blood will be for you the greatest prize.

Meleager’s Garland contains several variations on this theme, but the closest parallel is an epigram by Posidippos:153

Ναὶ ναὶ βάλλετ᾿, Ἔρωτες· ἐγὼ σκοπὸς εἷς ἅμα πολλοῖς κεῖμαι. μὴ φεισησθ᾿, ἄφρονες· ἢν γὰρ ἐμὲ νικήσητ᾿, ὀνομαστοὶ ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἔσεσθε τοξόται, ὡς μεγάλης δεσπόται ἰοδόκης. Posidippos, A.P. 12.45154

Yes! Yes! Shoot, Erotes! I’m set up as a single target for many at once. Don’t spare me, senseless children, for if you conquer me you’ll be famous among the immortals as archers, as masters of a great quiver.

Both poets, after an exclamatory aside (1: ναὶ ναὶ ≈ 38: precor), make a vocative address to the gods themselves (1: Ἔρωτες ≈ 38: pueri) and an imperative command to use their arrows (1:

152 See Soph. Ant. 781-90, Eur. Hipp. 525-34, and Eur. fr. 430 (N).

153 Fedeli 2005: 298-99. Cf. similar epigrams by Asclepiades (A.P. 12.166) and Archias of Mytilene (A.P. 5.58). For the great number of Amor’s arrows, see also Propertius 2.13a.1-2.

154 Text of Posidippos is from Paton 1918. Translation is my own.

53 βάλλετ᾿ ≈ 38: tela…promite).155 In crying for such a death, the speakers of both poems also

elevate their own status as worthy targets. Posidippos, claiming the Erotes would achieve renown for the size of their quivers (4: μεγάλης…ἰοδόκης), implies that it would take a great many arrows to overcome him. Propertius likewise asserts that his blood would be not just any prize, but the greatest (40: maxima palma).

A better parallel for the arrows’ effects, though, comes from the Argonautica of

Apollonius Rhodius. The epic’s narrator provides a striking description of their power in

Argonautica 4:

σχέτλι᾿ Ἔρως, μέγα πῆμα, μέγα στύγος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐκ σέθεν οὐλόμεναί τ᾿ ἔριδες στοναχαί τε γόοι τε, ἄλγεά τ᾿ ἄλλ᾿ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν ἀπείρονα τετρήχασιν. δυσμενέων ἐπὶ παισὶ κορύσσεο, δαῖμον, ἀερθείς, οἷος Μηδείῃ στυγερὴν φρεσὶν ἔμβαλες ἄτην. Apollonius, Argonautica 4.445-49156

Wretched Eros, great calamity, great horror for mankind, from you accursed strife, groaning, wailing, and endless other pains in addition to these stir up. Rise up and arm yourself against my enemies’ children, god, just as you shot hateful ruin into Medea’s heart.

Like Propertius after him, Apollonius first emphasizes the pain and destruction that love can

cause (445: πῆμα; 447: ἄλγεά; 449: ἄτην). Then, in the final two lines, he links this pain directly

to love’s arrows, bidding Eros to “arm himself” (448: κορύσσεο) and recalling the time he “shot

at” (449: ἔμβαλες) Medea. Moreover, the passage combines the same fear/aversion (445: στύγος;

44: στυγερὴν), weeping and wailing (446: στοναχαί τε γόοι τε), and exaggerated frequency (447:

ἀπείρονα) that mark Propertius 1.7 and 1.9 above. The Apollonian narrator even draws the same

155 Archias of Mytilene (A.P. 5.58) also addresses Eros as “child” (1: Νήπι᾽ Ἔρως).

156 Text of Apollonius is from Race 2008. Translation is my own.

54 sharp line between Eros the god (448: δαῖμον) and the mortals he abuses (445: ἀνθρώποισιν).

There is no reason here to assume that Propertius alludes to Apollonius directly, as he does to the

epigrams of Meleager’s Garland above, but we nonetheless find another influential distillation of

the tradition that came to dominate early Augustan poetry.

Amor’s Attributes and Traditional Roman Morality

Before turning to the Amor that breaks from this tradition, there is one final contextual

consideration to bring to bear. After all, I hope to demonstrate not only that representations of

Amor change over the coming years, but also that they are linked to larger, cultural shifts and

part of an ongoing dialogue over the figure’s role in political imagery. Therefore, in the final

section of this chapter, I seek to establish the god’s early associations within Roman cultural

norms. Propertius 2.12 proves indispensable once again, for it demonstrates how Amor’s

attributes might have been interpreted by an Augustan audience. In short, Propertius makes clear

that the figure adapted to early Augustan poetry stands at odds with traditional Roman values—

the very values that form the cornerstone of Augustus’ political and moral reforms.

Amor’s Childlike Appearance:

Amor’s childishness, for example, first manifests in 2.12 as a representation of the lover’s

senselessness (2.12.3: sine sensu uiuere).157 This particular senselessness, though, evokes less a

lack of wits than Amor’s mastery over them. Such a distinction is especially significant for the

elegist, whose wits are his only means of possessing his beloved. In fact, this lover is “senseless”

157 Cf. Propertius 1.1, in which the same Amor that teaches to “live without sense” (1.1.6: nullo uiuere consilio) is in the next line a source of insanity (1.1.7: hic furor). Allen 1950: 261-64; Shackleton Bailey 1956: 84; Lyne 1998: 200-201.

55 only insofar as he acts contrary to the mos maiorum.158 His actions put on display the deep-

rooted feud between Roma and Amor, for to indulge one’s passions was viewed as a sign of

weakness and effeminacy and therefore as a danger to the welfare of the state.159 Cato once

praised a youth for visiting a brothel, but later chastised him when the visits became too

frequent: adulescens, ego te laudaui, tamquam hic interuenires, non tamquam hic habitares

(“Young man, I praised you for stopping by this place, not for living here”).160 Cicero’s condemnation in his Tusculan Disputations is even stronger:161

Et ut turpes sunt qui efferunt se laetitia tum, cum fruuntur Veneriis uoluptatibus, sic flagitiosi, qui eas inflammato animo concupiscunt. Totus uero iste, qui uulgo appellatur amor—nec hercule inuenio quo nomine alio possit appellari—, tantae leuitatis est, ut nihil uideam quod putem conferendum. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.68162

And just as men are foul who get carried away with delight when they experience the pleasures of Venus, so are they shameful who lust after them with their mind inflamed. In fact that whole passion, commonly called “love” (and by god I can’t find any other name to call it), is so frivolous that I see nothing I can think to compare it with.

Indeed, in this criticism Cicero anticipates both the tone of Latin love elegy and even some of its

158 On the counter-cultural stance of the elegiac lover, particularly in Propertius 1.1, see Allen 1950. On the adoption of this position as a reaction to political changes, specifically Augustus’ consolidation of traditionally masculine honors, see Skinner 1998: 145 and Miller 2004: 159.

159 On traditional Roman views of love, particularly in relation to Augustan poetry, see Allen 1950; Grimal 1967: 136-81; Lyne 1980: 1-18, 1998: 186-89.

160 This summary of Cato (which Gowers [2012: 98] believes was taken from the Apophthegmata Catonis) is related by Ps.-Acro in his commentary on Hor. Sat. 1.2.31. Text is from Hauthal 1866. Translation is my own.

161 Cicero’s discussion of love, its consequences, and its cures is rather extensive (Tusc. 68-76). See esp. Graver 2002: 174-81 for philosophical context. See also Lyne’s lengthy note (1998: 187 n.9) on the Pro Caelio, where Cicero calls such love “play” (28, 42: ludus) and the “desires of youth” (28: adulescentiae cupiditates).

162 Text of Tusc. is from King 1927. Translation is my own.

56 most distinctive vocabulary. His conclusion that amor is utterly frivolous (tantae leuitatis est)

strikes not only at the heart of Propertius’ “childish senselessness,” but also at the heart of what it

means to be an elegiac lover.163

Of course, Amor’s opposition to traditional Roman values is the sine qua non of Latin

love elegy. In poem 1.6, the speaker contrasts Amor and the state by establishing an explicit dichotomy:

nam tua non aetas umquam cessauit Amori, semper at armatae cura fuit patriae; et tibi non umquam nostros puer iste labores afferat et lacrimis omnia nota meis! Propertius 1.6.21-24164

For your youth never once yielded to Amor, but your concern was always for the armed country; and may that boy never bring my toils to you and all the marks from my tears!

Tullus, the poem’s addressee, grew up as an exemplary Roman youth: not once (21: non

umquam) did he yield (21: cessauit) to Amor’s influence.165 He instead dedicated all his energy

(22: semper…cura fuit) to the protection of the state (22: armatae…patriae). Ultimately, though,

Propertius foreshadows Tullus’ downfall by alluding once more to Vergil’s Eclogues 10.69

(Propertius’ cessauit Amori appears in the same sedes as Vergil’s cedamus Amori). In a

characteristically elegiac twist, Tullus’ sense of duty is poised to collapse in the face of Amor’s

163 Latin elegy often places its “lightness” (leuitas) in moral opposition to the “heaviness” (grauitas) of epic and the mos maiorum. On the notion of nequitia in Latin love elegy, see esp. Sharrock 2013. On the influence of Hellenistic poetry on this stance, cf. Gutzwiller and Michelini 1991: 75-76; Miller 2004: 4.

164 The capitalization of Amor in 1.6.21 is my own.

165 Following Richardson (1977: 163), I translate cessauit as a frequentative of cedo with (non) umquam.

57 inevitable victory. Such, in short, is the threat that “that boy” (23: iste puer) poses.

The second manifestation of Amor’s childishness in Propertius 2.12 is his opposition to

wealth (4: leuibus curis magna perire bona), which can be understood as an extension of this

same underlying sentiment. Simply put, living sensibly included the responsible use of one’s

economic resources. In his Pro Sestio, Cicero defines the “best citizens” (optimates) as “those

who are honest, of sound mind, and well established in domestic affairs” (97: qui et integri sunt

et sani et bene de rebus domesticis constituti).166 Thus, in the Pro Caelio, Cicero fears for a

young man in love, “lest he waste his inheritance or be hobbled by debt” (42: ne effundat

patrimonium, ne faenore trucidetur). Unfortunately, as Tibullus 1.6 warns, Amor leads precisely

to that end:

‘parcite quam custodit Amor uiolare puellam, ne pigeat magno post tetigisse malo. attigerit, labentur opes, ut uulnere nostro sanguis, ut hic uentis diripiturque cinis.’ Tibullus 1.6.51-54

“Do not harm the girl whom Amor guards, or, at great cost, you’ll later regret the touch. Should someone touch her, his wealth will slip away like the blood from my wound, as this ash is snatched away by the winds.”

Where this Amor dwells, wealth does not.

This association, perhaps even more so than the lover’s general senselessness, is firmly entrenched in traditional Roman mores. When Lucretius attacks the destructiveness of excessive amor (in uncharacteristic agreement with Cicero and Cato),167 it is the loss of property that best

166 Lyne 1998: 200-201.

167 Cicero himself points out the rare overlap between Epicurean doctrine and his own thinking at Tusc. Disp. 4.33. For Epicurean views on passion, see Brown 1987: 101-22 and Nussbaum 1994: 149-54. On Stoic views (and on their engagement with Platonic models), see Babut 1963; Nussbaum 1995; Inwood 1997; Schofield 1991: 26-56; Graver 2002: 174-81.

58 illustrates the problem (Lucr. 4.1121-40). Anticipating both Propertius’ and Tibullus’

formulations above, the Lucretian lover’s “wealth slips away” (1123: labitur…res) and “the

honest earnings of their ancestors” (1129: bene parta patrum) turn to frivolous gifts.168 Both

Lucretius and the elegists, however, are preceded by Roman new comedy, for the association

reflects precisely the sort of childishness senselessness characterized by the comic adulescens

amans.169 Take, for example, the unusually self-aware Lysiteles of Plautus’ Trinummus:

sed hoc non liquet nec satis cogitatumst utram potius harum mihi artem expetessam, utram aetati agundae arbitrer firmiorem: amorin med an rei opsequi potiu’ par sit, 230 utra in parte plus sit uoluptati’ uitae ad aetatem agundam. Plautus, Trinummus 227-32170

But this isn’t clear, and it hasn’t been thought out enough which of these arts should I pursue, which I should judge a better use of my time. Should I chase after love or wealth instead? On which side is there more pleasure in life for the use of my time?

Through this hyper-philosophical youth, Plautus demonstrates the same dichotomy between love

(amor) and wealth (res). Moreover, as he then weighs the benefits of each, he turns to a detailed

168 Ten of the section’s twenty lines recount the lover’s stereotypically frivolous expenditures. As is so often the case, this extravagance is indicated by leisure (1124: languent officia; 1131: conuiuia ludi; 1136: desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire) and Eastern luxury (1123: Babylonia; 1125: Sicyonia; 1126: zmaragdi; 1127: thalassina; 1129: anademata mitrae; 1130: pallam atque Alidensia Ciaque). See Brown 1987: 252-67.

169 On the influence of Roman comedy on Lucretius, see Brown 1987: 135-36. On the influence of Roman comedy on elegy, see James 1998 and 2012. On Amor in Plautus, in particular, see Maltby 2004.

170 Text of Plautus is from Lindsay 1905 (reprinted 2004). Translation is my own.

59 characterization of Amor the god.171 The diatribe continues for 32 lines, but generally elaborates

on the sentiment established in the first seven:

numquam Amor quemquam nisi cupidum hominem postulat se in plagas conicere: eos petit, eos consectatur; subdole blanditur, ab re consulit, blandiloquentulus, harpago, mendax, cuppes, auarus, elegans, despoliator, latebricolarum hominum corruptor 240 blandus, inops celatum indagator. nam qui amat quod amat quom extemplo sauiis sagittatis perculsust, ilico res foras labitur, liquitur. Plautus, Trinummus 237-43

Amor never asks that any man, unless desirous, cast himself into his nets. Those he seeks, those he pursues. He cleverly enchants, advises against their interests, a little enchanting and chattering thief, a lying, gluttonous, greedy, luxurious bandit! He seduces men to make brothels their homes, a charming, needy, hunter of hidden things. For as soon as one who loves what he loves is struck by the arrowlike kisses, instantly his wealth slips right out the door, melts away.

Reinforcing the opposition between love and wealth, the young man stresses that Amor advises against their best interests (238: ab re consulit) and that the lover’s resources depart as soon as

Amor strikes (243: ilico res foras labitur, liquitur).172 From Rome’s earliest surviving poetry,

171 It is worth noting that Plautus’ is the only other of these passages to personify Amor. Also like Propertius, he participates in the long tradition of describing Amor’s attributes in light of the lover’s experiences. For example, Amor is greedy (239: cuppes, auarus) just as he preys upon a greedy man (237: cupidum hominem). This aspect of Amor/Cupid’s relationship to wealth is perhaps stronger in Latin due to the etymology of his name, but nonetheless draws upon some of the most familiar sources in Greek literature.

172 Trinummus lines 259-60 (quamquam illud est dulce, esse et bibere, / Amor amara dat tamen, satis quod sit aegre, “although it is sweet to eat and drink, Amor gives bitter things nonetheless, enough to make you sick”) also anticipate Lucr. 4.1133-34 (nequiquam, quoniam medio de fonte leporum / surgit amari aliquit, quod in ipsis floribus angat, “but all in vain, since from the center of this fountain of charms rises a bit of bitterness that, among these very flowers, chokes”). Granted, this notion has long been at the heart of the lover’s experience. Ever since Sappho first described Eros as a “bittersweet, irresistible creature” (L-P 130.2: γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον), poets have reveled in this image of bitterness (Plautus’ amara = Lucretius’ amari) amid sweet abundance (Plautus dulce ≈ Lucretius’ leporum). See also Posidippos’ A.P. 5.134 and Meleager’s A.P. 12.109 and 154.

60 then, Amor stands opposed to the youth’s maturation, and the battleground is the family’s

wealth.173

Yet we sometimes find an alternate and seemingly opposing characterization. In

Propertius 1.14, as the speaker pits his desire against Tullus’ wealth, he asserts that “still none of

it can compete with my love: Amor doesn’t know how to yield to great riches” (7-8: non tamen

ista meo ualeant contendere Amori: / nescit Amor magnis cedere diuitiis).174 Instead of urging a

lover to spend lavishly (presumably on his beloved), this Amor is immune to wealth altogether.

The stance, however, is not as inconsistent as it may seem. On the one hand, Amor prevents the responsible stewarding of resources. On the other, he negates the power that such wealth should afford. Either way, Amor’s childish opposition to wealth remains. The lover may try to work this trope in his favor, as here in Propertius 1.14, but he nonetheless remains at odds with the prevailing Roman sentiment.

Amor’s Wings:

Equally contemptable to traditional Roman morality is the storm-like fickleness (2.12.7-

8: scilicet alterna quoniam iactamur in unda, / nostraque non ullis permanet aura locis) that

Propertius ascribes to Amor’s “windy wings” (2.12.5: uentosas…alas). Compare, for example, the similar image in Horace’s Satires 2.3, focalized through a long-winded lecture of the Stoic

Stertinius:

in amore haec sunt mala, bellum,

173 I do not suggest that the motif is original to Plautus, but only that it manifests clearly in Roman contexts from an early point.

174 See also lines 15-16: nam quis diuitiis aduerso gaudet Amore? / nulla mihi tristi praemia sint Venere! (“For who rejoices in wealth when Amor is turned against them? Let no rewards come to me when Venus is grim”).

61 pax rursum: haec si quis tempestatis prope ritu mobilia et caeca fluitantia sorte laboret reddere certa sibi, nihilo plus explicet ac si 270 insanire paret certa ratione modoque. Horace, Satires 2.3.267-71175

In love are these evils: war, peace again. They are changeable, almost like a storm, flowing according to blind chance. If someone should work to render them fixed for himself, he would no more explain them than if he should prepare to go mad by a fixed plan and method.

According to Horace’s parody of philosophical thought,176 love vacillates like the gales and

waves of a storm at sea (270-71: tempestatis prope ritu / mobilia et…fluitantia) between even the

extremes of war and peace (267-68: bellum, / pax rursum).177 Such aspects of love are explicitly

“evils” (267: mala) and akin to madness (271: insanire).

Moreover, in crafting this image Horace associates the behavior with yet another

adulescens amans of Roman new comedy.178 In the opening dialog of Terence’s Eunuchus, the slave Parmeno offers much the same advice to his love-crazed master, Phaedria:

in amore haec omnia insunt uitia: iniuriae, suspiciones, inimicitiae, indutiae, 60 bellum, pax rursum: incerta haec si tu postules ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas quam si des operam ut cum ratione insanias. Terence, Eunuchus 59-63179

In love are all these vices: offenses,

175 Text of Hor. Sat. is from Fairclough 1926. Translation is my own.

176 On the parodic character of Stertinius (whose name stems from stertere, “to snore”) and his relationship to attested Stoic doctrine, see Bond 1998: 100-103; Sharland 2009.

177 Cf. Plaut. Cist. 203-22, where Amor’s fickle nature is also likened to the movements of the sea (221: maritumis moribus).

178 Muecke 1993: 160-61; De Vecchi 2013: 334-35.

179 Text of Terence is from Kauer-Lindsay 1926. Translation is my own.

62 suspicions, hostilities, truces, war, peace again. If you expect through reason to make these uncertain things certain, you’ll do no more than if you put your mind to becoming mad with reason.

Horace’s “evils” (mala) are thus Terence’s “vices” (uitia), and Horace’s fluctuations between

“war and peace again” (bellum, pax rursum) are but the conclusion of Terence’s extended list.

Both poets then go on to claim that a lover’s fickleness is as opposed to rational thought as madness itself. As with the lover’s senselessness and loose wallet in Plautus’ Trinummus above, excessive changeability is the mark of a stock character whose very role is contrary to the proper behavior of adult citizen males.

Nor must we rely on poetry alone to determine how such behavior was received by moral philosophers of the late Republic. When Cicero attacks the fickleness of love in his Tusculan

Disputations, he quotes these lines, as well:180

iniuriae, suspiciones, inimicitiae, induciae, bellum, pax rursum: incerta haec si tu postules ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas quam si des operam ut cum ratione insanias. haec inconstantia mutabilitasque mentis quem non ipsa prauitate deterreat? Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.76

Offenses, suspicions, hostilities, truces, war, peace again. If you expect through reason to make these uncertain things certain, you’ll do no more than if you put your mind to becoming mad with reason. This inconstancy and changeability of the mind, whom would it not terrify by its very depravity?

Cicero’s final, rhetorical question makes Propertius’ analysis clear. The lover’s inconstancy

(inconstantia) and changeability (mutabilitas) are nothing less than depravity itself (ipsa

prauitate). Amor’s wings, like his boyish appearance, thus reflect an aspect of love utterly

opposed to traditional Roman morality.

180 Graver 2002: 180.

63 Amor’s Bow and Arrows:

Finally, Propertius’ description of Amor’s bow evokes a specific opposition to Roman mores, as well. Not only is it associated with pain and suffering in love, but also—in a word— with the very bellum that Terence’s Parmeno, Horace’s Stertinius, and Cicero himself all abhor.181 After describing this armed Amor’s effect as an enemy’s assault (2.12.11: ante ferit quoniam tuti quam cernimus hostem) and a wound (2.12.12: uulnere), Propertius even claims that the god “continuously wages wars” (16: assiduusque…bella gerit) against him. Thus, despite love’s supposed opposition to military matters (as, for example, in Propertius 1.6.21-22 above),182 this Amor is decidedly warlike.183

The metaphor’s impact, though, lies ultimately in its humorous incongruity: love’s weapons and wounds are markedly not those of actual combat. Rather, as is especially clear in

Propertius 1.1.1-6 and 2.12.3 above, the motif of love as a form of warfare is another stance against the expectations for Roman citizen males.184 By claiming that love is a sort of military service unto itself, these authors humorously justify their rejection of the actual soldier’s role. In

Augustan elegy, in particular, this mock heroism of submitting to Amor’s militaristic might is a

181 In fact, Stertinius goes on to consider violence in love, as well: adde cruorem / stultitiae atque ignem gladio scrutare. modo, inquam, / Hellade percussa Marius cum praecipitat se, / cerritus fuit? (Hor. Sat. 2.3.275-78: “Add bloodshed to the foolishness and stir the fire with a sword! Recently, I say, when Marius killed Hellas and jumped to his death, was he mad?”).

182 Cf. Tib. 1.3.54-64. He firsts grants Amor the epithet “tender” (57: tenero), contrasting him with Messalla’s military campaign. Amor then frolics in a fertile, Saturnian paradise, and imagery of lush growth abounds. At the end of this same passage, however, Amor incites battles (64: proelia) of his own.

183 Fedeli 2005: 349-50.

184 See esp. Drinkwater 2013: 194. The development of militia amoris is well studied in elegy. Cf. Spies 1930; Thomas 1964; Murgatroyd 1975; Cahoon 1988; McKeown 1995; Davis 1999.

64 denial of traditional uirtus. I will examine the connection between Amor’s bow and bellum

further in the next chapter, but for now it suffices to note that the attribute remains a clear

manifestation of the god’s counter-cultural application of might and violence. And as such,

Amor’s bow exhibits the same disjunction between Amor and Roma as the god’s childish

appearance and wings.

Conclusions

With the brief phrase in me (13: “in my case”), Propertius marks a turning point in poem

2.12’s focus. Overt engagement with artistic precedent gives way to the speaker’s own

experience. The Amor that emerges from the remainder of the poem, however, is no less

evocative than that above. Taking the remainder of the poem into account, the Amor of poem

2.12 contains nearly every attribute and trait that Propertius uses throughout his first two Books.

In addition to the consistency with which the Propertian Amor appears as a senseless and prodigal boy (1-4), a winged and fickle creature (5-8), and a belligerent force armed with bow and arrows (9-10), so too is the Propertian Amor a tenacious (13-15), oppressive (16-20), and

shameless (18) source of disease (17) and poison (19). I here fall far short of a comprehensive examination of Amor’s characterization in early Augustan poetry, but can stress in closing that the overarching sentiment remains much the same. The Amor of Propertius’ early elegy, like that of Vergil’s Eclogues, Tibullus 1, and the numerous sources from which they drew their inspiration, is a force of unbridled passion that leaves conflict and suffering in his wake.

In characterizing Amor’s representation, its influences, and its interpretation in early

Augustan literature, I hope to have laid a foundation for the analysis that follows. Two points, in particular, provide a foil for the image that emerges in the mid-20s BCE. First, although the

65 Amor of early Augustan literature has a multifaceted genesis, it demonstrates strong continuity with the Eros inherited from Hellenistic models. The Amor of the Eclogues is largely indebted to the Eros of Theocritus Idylls, and Vergil signals as much through overt allusion in Eclogues 2 and 8. Likewise, the Amor of early elegy finds an origin in the epigrams of Meleager’s Garland, several of which Tibullus and Propertius rework into their own poetry. Again, this is not to say that Theocritus and Meleager are the only influences, nor that the figure of Amor lacks a distinctively Roman character, but only that this Amor is an extension of a particular, well- established tradition.

Second, and more importantly, this inherited tradition stands at odds with traditional

Roman morality. The figure of Amor in early Augustan literature is a fiery, violent, and oppressive obstacle to negotium. The love that this Amor inflicts is thus a madness, and lovers are viewed as childish, fickle, and easily goaded on to behavior deemed unsuitable for the

Roman state. Amor’s attributes then carry these same associations and, as Propertius 2.12 makes especially clear, were so interpreted by Roman audiences. As a personification of frivolous and destructive desire, Amor is himself a flighty, winged child armed with bow and arrows.

It is the very consistency of this representation that makes the emergence of an

“Augustan Amor” so remarkable. Shifts in the god’s most famous characteristics and attributes across each of these poets’ works suggest the rise of a powerful new influence, and the interplay between these shifts and contemporary political imagery points to Amor’s adoption into

Augustan visual rhetoric. As I will argue in the following chapters, the violent connotations of

Amor’s bow bring it into conflict with Augustan peace, making the attribute a means of engaging

(positively or negatively) with that very motif. Amor’s childishness likewise transitions from a mark of his petulant behavior to a symbol of fertility and imperial succession. Even Amor’s

66 wings gain new meaning as an easily recognizable marker of his divinity, and their shedding a symbol of his assimilation into the Augustan imperial family. In other words, the figure of Amor is rewritten and reinterpreted in a variety of responses to the unfolding Augustan visual program.

CHAPTER 3: THE AUGUSTAN AMOR, A GOD OF PEACE

pacis Amor deus est, pacem ueneramur amantes (Propertius 3.5.1)

In the previous chapter I sought to establish continuity: that the Amor of the early

Augustan period followed directly upon its Hellenistic predecessors. This is not to say that the

image remained static—continuity does not mean stagnation—but that it remained largely rooted

in established attributes and associations. In this chapter and the next, I turn to an Amor that

breaks from this tradition.185 Beginning in the mid-20s BCE (concurrent with Augustus’

consolidation of influence), the god of love becomes increasingly intertwined with cultural and

political developments.186 In particular, Amor comes to epitomize the Pax Augusta (“Augustan

Peace”), promoting in one image both the period of abundance and his “distant mortal relative”

that ushered it in. Of course, Amor is not alone in this regard; a great many images are imbued with political significance during this transitional period.187 I thus seek not to set Amor apart, but

185 As I touched on in Chapter 1, individual aspects of this new Amor are not without precedent. The form is only novel for its combination of attributes and the specifically Augustan associations they assume.

186 See Chapter 1, for example, on the influence of Augustus’ marriage legislation and the representation of children more broadly.

187 Apollo, Venus, and Mars remain the most common examples, but Vesta and Magna Mater likewise received special honors as Augustus relocated their cult sites to the Palatine. See especially Zanker 1988 and Miller 2009. More recently, Julia Hejduk (2020) examined Jupiter along these lines, as well.

68 to show that he, like other key Augustan deities (Venus most of all), takes on additional significance as a symbol of the princeps’ divine lineage and favor.

It would be more accurate, however, to say that Amor becomes a nexus for elite discourse on love, war, peace, and the princeps.188 On the one hand, the figure appears with these associations across both public monuments and poetry of the Augustan period. In this chapter, I examine Amor in the statue group of the Algiers relief, the “Augustus” cup from

Boscoreale, and the Sorrento base, along with a number of poetic depictions containing similar themes. On the other hand, these same poetic depictions are just as quick to highlight incongruity with more popular traditions. Therefore, even as I demonstrate that Propertius, Tibullus, and

Vergil take a sudden interest in Amor’s role within Augustan political contexts, I hope to show that they complicate and problematize such interpretations. In all, it is the interaction between visual rhetoric and poetic response that provides an enlightening (and often highly amusing) glimpse into the development and reception of an Augustan Amor.

Amor is a God of Peace: The Algiers Relief and Propertius 3.4-5

Two works, in particular, demonstrate the blossoming debate around this figure. First is the so-called “Algiers relief,” which depicts a popular representation of Amor recast and reinterpreted within a markedly Augustan political context [Fig. 6]. With his usual associations of adultery and mischief suppressed, Amor appears among Mars, Venus, and Divus Julius as the very agent of the Pax Augusta. Second is the poetic diptych of Propertius 3.4 and 3.5, from which comes the epigraph to this chapter. On the one hand, the poet, too, recasts a popular description of Amor to present him as a “god of peace” amidst rhetoric of Augustan victory.

188 The influences that drive such transformations are hardly unidirectional. See n.2 above.

69 Propertius goes on, however, to fold even this Amor into his characteristically elegiac world. In

the end, Augustus’ own Amor becomes a symbol for the elegist’s markedly un-Augustan stance

on love and war.

The Algiers relief, despite its name, originally stood as part of a public monument in

Carthage.189 Although this monument was likely erected under Tiberius, both it and a second

monument from the same area (near the Byrsa hill) reproduced a number of well-known images from the Augustan program.190 Between them we find Aeneas’ escape from Troy with Anchises

and Ascanius (as in the northwestern exedra of the Forum Augustum), Apollo seated on a griffin

(as on the Primaporta Augustus’ breastplate), and copies of both panels from the eastern façade

of the Ara Pacis: the so-called “Tellus” holding her twins [fig. 7] and Roma seated atop her

spoils. Thus, it would seem that the figures of the Algiers relief, given the squared bases beneath

their feet, reflect an influential Augustan statue group.

The prevailing interpretation, since Zanker’s suggestion in 1969, has been that the

Algiers relief depicts cult statues from the Temple of Mars Ultor (“the Avenger”).191 Nor is the

interpretation without merit, for the statue of Mars is of an attested Ultor type and the group’s

central message is consistent with the temple’s upon its completion in 2 BCE. Edmund Thomas,

however, has recently assembled a wide range of evidence that disputes this identification.192

Most persuasive (to my mind) are the structural unsuitability of the temple’s podium for such a

189 Thomas 2017: 188-89.

190 Thomas 2017: 189; Rives 1995: 52-54.

191 Zanker 1969 and 1988: 196-97. See, e.g., Galinsky 1996: 208; Kellum 1997: 176; Pollini 2012: 147.

192 Thomas 2017: 153-74.

70 statue group,193 the absence of any evidence that Divus Julius was present there, and agreement in both literary and material evidence that the temple’s cella contained a different Mars and

Venus type altogether (one depicting Venus with her arm draped around Mars’ neck).194 Thomas instead argues, drawing upon historical evidence195 and a variety of comparanda, that these figures occupied a prominent position in the Agrippan Pantheon, completed ca. 25 BCE.196

Either dating, however, or indeed any date within the Augustan or early Tiberian period, is sufficient for my purposes. Whether an early example or later manifestation of this figure and its context, the Algiers relief remains a concise representation of Amor’s new role within Augustan political imagery.

Of far greater significance are the figures themselves and what they represent. Mars, with a beard to mark his maturity and grauitas, takes pride of place in the composition’s center. This is Mars at his most warlike, armed with spear (now lost), shield, cuirass, crested helmet, boots, and draped paludamentum. But this Mars also stands in an easy contrapposto, resting against his

193 See esp. Ganzert 1996: 190-92.

194 Ovid’s description of the group emphasizes their being “joined” (Tr. 2.296: iuncta), and a fragment of this statue type was indeed found in the Forum Augustum (on which see also Kousser 2008: 47-53).

195 Thomas’ primary evidence is an account of the Pantheon’s statuary by Cassius Dio: “At that time [25 BCE], [Agrippa] completed the so-called Pantheon. It may be called this because it contained images of many gods alongside the statues of Ares and Aphrodite, but I think it’s because the structure is domed and resembles heaven. In fact, Agrippa wanted a statue of Augustus installed there, too, and for the building to be named after him. When he rejected both, however, Agrippa erected a likeness of the earlier Caesar in the temple, and of Augustus and himself in the portico” (53.27.2-3; translation my own). Dio makes no mention of Amor, but his omission of the god as Venus’ attribute would be entirely appropriate given that Amor shares a single statue base with his mother.

196 The inscription on the Hadrianic Pantheon dates its original construction to the period after Agrippa’s third consulship (after 27 BCE). Dio then places its completion in Augustus’ ninth consulship (25 BCE).

71 spear with its tip pointing downward (as indicated by other examples of this image type).197 His

shield, too, engraved with a wreath of oak leaves, sits on the ground and is held only lightly by

the god’s lowered hand.198 The prevailing image is thus not one of war, but of victory and well-

earned respite. As identifying labels elsewhere attest, this is indeed Mars Ultor (“the

Avenger”),199 the Mars to whom Octavian prayed before facing Caesar’s assassins at Philippi (42

BCE).200

Caesar himself stands to Mars’ left as Divus Julius.201 Eternally youthful and half-nude in

“hip mantle” pose, the figure represents Augustus’ adopted father upon his death and deification.

A small drill hole at the top of the figure’s head contains traces of a bronze sidus Iulium (“Julian

star”), the comet that marked this very apotheosis.202 Of equal importance, though, are the items

once held in this figure’s hands: Divus Julius cradled a spear/scepter in his left and a small

Victory upon a globe in his right.203 The prevailing message, consistent with that of Mars Ultor,

is that Caesar’s vengeance is already won.

197 See Thomas (2017: 154 and figs. 5-6) for comparison with the Marlborough Gem and an Antonine sestertius. On the inversion of the spearpoint as a symbol of peace, see Pollini (2012: 190).

198 The oak wreath (corona ciuica) likely alludes to that granted to Augustus in 27 BCE.

199 Gsell 1899. Thomas (2017: 154) provides a concise review of scholarship on the Mars Ultor type.

200 Suet. Aug. 29.2; Ov. Fast. 5.569‑578.

201 On the identification of Divus Iulius (as opposed to a younger Julio-Claudian prince), see Koortbojian 2013: esp. 45-46. On the statue of Divus Julius in the Pantheon, see Fishwick 1992.

202 The earliest discussion of the sidus Iulium in this context is Gsell 1899. Most recently, see Pandey 2013 and 2018: 35-82.

203 Thomas 2017: 154-57.

72 Venus then stands on the base to Mars’ right, leaning against a small column with legs crossed and right arm on her hip. Although it has become commonplace to identify this goddess as Venus Genetrix (“the Ancestress” of both Rome and the Julii), it is worth noting that attested

Genetrix types are identifiable by lifted chiton, exposed breast, and an apple in the goddess’ extended hand.204 Save for her left shoulder, the Venus on the Algiers relief is completely covered. A thick, draping mantle even provides additional covering around her waist. Thus, while her role as the Julian ancestress would undoubtedly come to mind for an engaged viewer, it does not seem to be her primary iconographical association. Her style of dress and hair instead resemble the only other goddess known to adorn the original, Carthaginian monument,205 a copy of the “Tellus” from the Ara Pacis [fig. 7] (variously identified as Tellus, Italia, Venus, Pax, or some combination thereof).206 I will not here use either image to “identify” the other, but do wish to draw out their overlapping symbolism. Just as the goddess on the Ara Pacis sits as a pendant to Roma and her spoils, at play in the Algiers relief is the long-attested notion that only Venus can pacify the god of war.207 Compare, most famously, part of the proem to Lucretius’ De Rerum

Natura:208

effice ut interea fera moenera militiai per maria ac terras omnis sopita quiescant; 30 nam tu sola potes tranquilla pace iuuare mortalis, quoniam belli fera moenera Mauors armipotens regit, in gremium qui saepe tuum se

204 Thomas 2017: 169-70.

205 Wuilleumier 1928: 40; Thomas 2017: 188-89. Weinstock 1960: 54-5.

206 See Spaeth 1994 for additional scholarship on each of these identifications.

207 On the complementary nature of victory and peace in Roman literature and art, see esp. Pollini 2012: 204-70.

208 See Edmunds 2002 on Hellenistic models available to Lucretius.

73 reiicit aeterno deuictus uulnere amoris. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1.29-34

Bring it about that, in the meantime, the savage works of war across all seas and lands rest and fall still. For you alone are able to help mortals with calm peace, since Mars, strong in arms, rules the savage works of war. He often casts himself back into your lap, thoroughly conquered by the eternal wound of love.

Whether the Venus of the Algiers relief reflects a lost Classical Aphrodite or is an Augustan invention, her association with peace remains the operative attribute.

Finally, sharing the statue base with this Venus is Amor, and it is within this context that he must be interpreted. Depicted as a well-nourished child (much like the twins in the Tellus relief), he stands fully nude as he peeks out from under his mother’s draped mantle. His characteristic ringlets are just visible, as is one of his wings. There is no sign, however, of quiver or bow. Instead, this Amor holds a sheathed sword, which he extends upward toward his mother.

As Paul Zanker first recognized, the sword belongs—or, rather, belonged—to Mars, and the group can thus be read as an allegory for the transition into peacetime.209 In other words, Amor

here alludes to the very same peace as does the figure of Venus. Moreover, Amor’s role within

this particular context would have been recognizable to contemporary audiences.210 Compare,

for example, the series of eight Campanian frescos that depict Mars and Venus in amorous

encounter while Amores play around them.211 Despite variations on the theme, these Amores

209 Zanker 1988: 196.

210 Such depictions of Venus and Amor may also recall pairings of the Greek Eirene (“Peace”) and Ploutos (“Wealth”), particularly the well-known statue made by Kephisodotos for the Athenian agora (ca. 375-50 BCE).

211 LIMC II.1: 547 (s.v. “Ares/Mars”) fig. 376, 376a-f, and 377. See Swetnam-Burland 2018: 174. On depictions of Mars and Venus and their interpretation by Roman audiences, see also Strocka 1997 and Lorenz 2008: 264-69, 428-29. The frescos themselves date to the 1st c. CE, but

74 invariably toy with Mars’ weapons or armor and, in so doing, illustrate the “disarming” or

“unmanning” of Mars at the hands of love. In fact, the best-preserved example (from the eponymous House of Mars and Venus in Pompeii [fig. 8]) depicts an Amor standing directly beside Venus with Mars’ sword similarly in hand.

That the Mars, Venus, and Amor of the Algiers relief form such a group is indicated by several compositional elements. First, Mars’ and Venus’ draped garments join to form a continuous flow of folds around them. The physical connection joins these two figures much more closely than, say, Mars and Divus Julius.212 Second, Mars and Venus lean inward toward each other and turn their gazes to the space between. The sharp vertical of Mars’ spear would have drawn the eye toward this central area, as well. The strongest link of all, though, is Amor himself. Occupying this same central space, he creates the very point of contact by lifting up his mother’s draping. He then further binds the group together by transferring an attribute of one into the power of the other. Indeed, the boy god is the only figure who shows any dynamic movement at all. Contrasted with the static poses of those around him, Amor’s uplifted eyes and pronounced gesture creates the only sense of motion in the work. This Amor is just as much the linchpin of the composition as he is of the allusion and allegory.

Of course, this composition also differs rather prominently from more popular versions.

Most noticeably, the Algiers relief does not (explicitly) depict an amorous encounter.213 In

the popularity of the image and close overlap between the versions indicate a strong possibility of an earlier model. On the variations between series of Roman wall paintings and their relationships to earlier models, see esp. Bergmann 1995.

212 Kraus (1964: 72) first acknowledged that the four figures do not seem equally integrated into a single whole.

213 Granted, many of these same compositional details could imply intimacy. On the interpretation of Mars and Venus in Augustan contexts, see esp. Kousser 2008: 47-53.

75 accordance with Augustan moral reforms, the altered composition downplays the immorality of

Mars’ and Venus’ infamous affair by casting the paramours as an idealized family.214 Likewise,

while the Amores in the frescos display their typical childishness, taking Mars’ arms only for

their own pleasure, the motif is here redirected.215 Amor has still stolen Mars’ sword, but now

looks to his mother and dutifully hands it up to her.216 Simply put, this is hardly the shameless child that I examined in the previous chapter. Just as for Mars and Venus, the statue group of the

Algiers relief reframes Amor’s gesture, alluding only to a specific portion of the narrative. Thus, the Algiers relief indicates a new form of Amor taking root in Augustan Rome.

It is with this same set of associations that Propertius begins poem 3.5 (24-21 BCE): pacis Amor deus est, pacem ueneramur amantes / stant mihi cum domina proelia dura mea (1-2:

“Amor is a god of peace. Let us lovers worship peace. Before me stand harsh battles with my mistress”). On the surface, the elegist’s statement seems perfectly familiar. Line 1 establishes an age-old contrast between love and war, which the pentameter then reframes via militia amoris;

214 Ovid takes particular pleasure in drawing attention to this irony in Augustan political imagery. In his account of the affair in Met. 4, Ovid makes liberal use of language from Augustus’ own Julian laws: Venus is a wife (182: coniunx), Vulcan a husband (173: marito), the act an adultery (171: adulterium), and Mars an adulterer (182: adulter). More famously—and more relevant for the statues of the Algiers relief—Ovid in Tr. 2 calls attention to Augustus’ own Temple of Mars Ultor: uenerit in magni templum, tua munera, Martis, / stat Venus Vltori iuncta, uir ante fores (295-96: “If [a married woman] comes into the temple of great Mars, your own gift, Venus stands joined to the Avenger while her husband’s outside the doors”). See Swetnam- Burland 2018: 177-84. On the love affair’s different connotations to Greek and Roman audiences, see Strocka 1997.

215 Amor’s childish form in the Algiers relief evokes the same fertility as the children in the Tellus relief, again indicating a close relationship between these two works.

216 Cf. Amor’s threefold obedience to his mother in Vergil’s Aeneid (1.689: paret Amor dictis carae genetricis, “Amor obeys the commands of his dear mother”; 1.695: iamque ibat dicto parens…Cupido, “Cupid now departed, obeying her command”; 1.719-20: memor ille / matris, “[Cupid], mindful of his mother”), discussed below.

76 Amor represents an alternative to conquest only by displacing battles onto the bedroom.

Familiarity with the elegiac motif, however, seems to have concealed just how novel the opening

line is. This “god of peace” is hardly the Amor of, say, Propertius 1.1 or 2.12 (examined in the

previous chapter). In fact, the hexameter is an outright reversal of Amor’s most influential

appearance of the previous decade, the climax of Gallus’ lament in Vergil’s Eclogues 10:217

omnia uincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori (Ecl. 10.69) pacis Amor deus est, pacem ueneramur amantes (Prop. 3.5.1)

Amor conquers all things. Let us, too, yield to Amor. Amor is a god of peace. Let us lovers worship peace.

Each line opens with a metrically equivalent statement of the god’s character, then pivots to an injunction for “us” to respond accordingly. Both 1st person, plural, subjunctive verbs also appear

in the same sedes (though the first foot in Propertius’ ueneramur is resolved into two shorts).

Finally, both lines exhibit polyptoton and parallelism in repetition of key terms: Vergil’s Amor

and Amori both appear at the end of their respective phrases, Propertius’ pacis and pacem at the

beginning of theirs. Nonetheless, Propertius recalls Vergil’s Amor and Amori with his own Amor

and the participle amantes. Simply put, Propertius’ engages with Vergil’s depiction of Amor at a deeply literary level. Yet, whereas Vergil’s “Gallus” famously casts Amor as a conqueror and yields to his power, the Propertian speaker begins with a bold declaration that “Amor is a god of peace.”218 The carefully wrought allusion thus highlights a fundamental difference in the god’s

217 In addition to Vergil’s own echoes of the line at G. 1.145-46 and Aen. 6.823, cf. Tib. 1.40.40, 1.5.60, and 2.3.14; Prop. 1.6.21 (argued in the previous chapter), 2.30.31 (argued in the previous chapter) and 3.5.1 (argued here); and Ov. Am. 3.2.46, 3.4.12, and 3.11.42; Rem. am. 462; and Pont. 9.26. The passage in Am. 3.2 may also engage with Propertius’ reversal here. Though the amator prays that “love conquer” in line 46 (uincat amor), by line 50 he claims that “peace is pleasing, and love is found in the middle of peace” (pax iuuat et media pace repertus amor).

218 On Gallus’ surrender and its interaction with previous models, see esp. Perkell 1992.

77 associations. Like the Amor of the Algiers relief, the god of Propertius 3.5 marks a sharp

divergence from prior tradition.

Furthermore, this Amor exists within much the same context as the figure of the Algiers

relief. Poem 3.5 engages not with war and peace in the abstract, but together with poem 3.4

forms a diptych on Augustus’ Parthian expedition.219 “The god Caesar,” poem 3.4 begins, “plans

war against wealthy India” (3.4.1: arma deus Caesar dites meditatur ad Indos). This campaign would eventually end with Augustus’ diplomatic “victory” of 20 BCE, but in the meantime— during which Propertius composed the pair of poems—rhetoric remained fixated on conquest.220

Thus the speaker in 3.4 adopts a tone of exaggerated patriotism, foretelling victory (4-6) and

Caesar’s inevitable triumphal procession (3).221 The elegist later distances himself by desiring to

watch only from the sideline (11-22), but the expedition’s success and legitimacy remain for the

moment firm.222 When Amor then appears in the first line of poem 3.5, he is once again a

symbol of peace juxtaposed with rhetoric of Augustan victory.

Moreover, this Amor is set beside a similar group of Augustan deities. When the speaker

prays that he might live to witness Caesar’s triumph, it is specifically to “father” Mars (3.4.11:

219 On the relationship between Propertius 3.4 and 3.5, see Richardson 1977: 330, Stahl 1985: 192-205, Fedeli 1985: 174-75, and Conte 2000. In particular, the final couplet of 3.5 returns to the Parthian expedition, binding the diptych together with a compositional ring.

220 Fedeli 1985: 157. Richardson (1977), citing Cassius Dio (54.6.1), suggests the poems were composed during Augustus’ preparations for departure in 22 BCE.

221 On the speaker’s comical exaggeration, see Wilkinson 1960: 1094-1103; Gale 1997: 81; Holzberg 2005.

222 See esp. Pandey 2018: 206-10, who remarks both on the cognitive dissonance inherent in Rome’s motivations for conquest and the speaker’s apparent naivety.

78 Mars pater).223 He entreats Venus, too, as ancestress to both Rome and the Julian family: ipsa

tuam serua prolem, Venus: hoc sit in aeuum, / cernis ab Aenea quod superesse caput (3.4.19-20:

“protect your own offspring, Venus: may he last forever, the man you see descended from

Aeneas”). Propertius even casts Augustus himself as a god, obliquely referring to him as “divine

Caesar” (3.4.1: deus Caesar).224 Thus Mars, Venus, Amor, and an ambiguously phrased deus

Caesar appear together here much as they do in the Algiers relief. Rather, they would appear

together if not for Propertius’ arrangement of the diptych. In withholding Amor until the start of

the second poem, Propertius effectively separates him from this group and thus reinforces his

central theme. Among the more well-known features of this diptych is the contrast between each

poem’s opening three words: “the wars” of “the god Caesar” (3.4.1: arma deus Caesar) give way

to “Amor, the god of peace” (3.5.1: pacis Amor deus).225 Rather than participating in imperial

conquest as a symbol of the Pax Augusta, as he does in the Algiers relief, Amor now stands

outside of and directly opposed to Augustus’ wars.

223 Propertius here includes Vesta, as well, another of the key deities whose images were consolidated around Augustus (3.4.11: et sacrae fatalia lumina Vestae, “and the fated lights of sacred Vesta”). Vesta’s cult was one of three to be relocated to the Palatine: Apollo (28 BCE), Vesta (12 BCE), Magna Mater (3 CE). A statue base from Sorrento, discussed below, depicts all of these deities in a single work (McDaniel 1995).

224 Propertius’ use of the epithet is rather brazen, for Augustus did not allow his numen to be worshipped in Italy until 2 BCE (Fedeli 1985: 159-60). The statues of the Agrippan Pantheon, however, may shed light on the poet’s emphasis. According to Dio’s account (quoted in n.195 above), the addition of Divus Julius into the Agrippan Pantheon was a contentious occasion. Agrippa originally wanted to include Augustus himself in the niche with Venus and Mars. Only when Augustus vetoed the action was Divus Julius selected as the more appropriate option. In his depictions of Venus, Mars, and deus Caesar, Propertius may be drawing upon a recent and prominent controversy.

225 Stahl 1985: 196-98; Fedeli 1985: 174-76; O’Rourke 2014: 8-10. The concept is later picked up by Ovid, who mockingly calls Amor a pacis amator as he blames him for lovers’ deaths (Rem. am. 20).

79 The opening couplet of poem 3.5 is thus a masterful bridge, for Propertius adopts a final element of Augustan rhetoric only to turn it against itself. With this reversal, and with Amor reclaimed as his own patron, Propertius trades the exaggerated patriotism of 3.4 for playful condemnation.226 The “gem-bearing sea” (3.4.2: gemmiferi…maris) loses its luster as wars become endless: “Now we’re tossed by the wind into so great a sea, we seek an enemy, and we join wars to wars anew” (3.5.12: nunc maris in tantum uento iactamur, et hostem / quaerimus, atque armis nectimus arma noua). Likewise, the “great rewards” (3.4.3: magna, uiri, merces!) of the Tigris and Euphrates give way to the waters of the underworld, where wealth has no power: haud ullas portabis opes Acherontis ad undas (3.5.14: “It’s not like you’ll carry any riches to the waves of Acheron”). Thus, anyone who pursues wealth through conquest is a “fool” (3.5.14: stulte)—a point made all the stronger by the suddenly singular vocative. By the end, even the speaker’s prior willingness to attend Caesar’s triumph becomes a full withdrawal into poetry and philosophy: “This is the end of life that remains for me. You, to whom wars are more pleasing, bring home Crassus’ standards” (3.5.47-48: exitus hic uitae superest mihi; uos, quibus arma / grata magis, Crassi signa referte domum). In other words, rather unlike the figures of the Algiers relief, the opening contrast between Amor’s peace and Caesar’s war begins an extended dismissal of the Parthian campaign and all rhetoric surrounding it.

Taken together, Propertius’ diptych and the statues of the Algiers relief thus demonstrate not only the emergence of this new figure, but also its polarization. Though artist and poet draw upon a shared system of references, they ultimately construct opposing images. The statues of the Algiers relief suppress connotations of socially de-stabilizing sexual desire, reinterpreting

Amor as a symbol of the Pax Augusta. Propertius, however, uses elegy’s familiar tropes to

226 Cf. Conte 2000, which frames this contrast as a recusatio.

80 problematize just such a reading, manipulating the incongruities inherent in viewing the god of love as a symbol of imperial conquest. By the late 20s BCE, Amor’s new image had thus become

not only a recognizable symbol of Augustan peace, but also a means of engaging in

contemporary discourse on the nature of love and war.

Amor Disarmed

Propertius 3 and Tibullus 2:

It must be stressed, however, that the development of this “Augustan Amor” was not all-

encompassing. Elements of the new image can be traced from the late 20s BCE well into the

Tiberian period, but they continue to appear alongside depictions of Amor as the popular

troublemaker. Not long after Propertius calls Amor a “god of peace,” for example, “that boy”

reappears “lashing a lover with his heavy wings” (3.10.28: grauibus pennis uerberet ille puer).

In the figure of Amor, like so many images during this revolutionary period, we see a dynamic

interchange of ideas. That the new associations take hold in this sea of imagery, though, makes them all the more worthy of detailed examination.

Nonetheless, one change does take rather sudden hold. The most consistent development

in Amor’s iconography, appearing across a number of literary and monumental works

throughout this period, is the removal of his weaponry.227 More than any other attribute, Amor’s bow seems to have become a point of contention within this developing interpretive

227 In addition to the poetry discussed here, Amor appears unarmed in each of the public monuments under examination. To my knowledge, the only monumental work from the period that depicts an armed Amor is the Cherchell cuirass. Even there, though, the figure contributes to themes of Augustan peace through victory (Kuttner 1995: 29-30 and 226 n.75-76).

81 framework.228 Consider, for example, the remainder of Propertius’ corpus. Although he makes

extensive use of Amor’s bow and arrow in his first two books,229 the attribute disappears

suddenly and completely from Books 3 and 4.230 Amor remains a strong presence, appearing in

roughly a third of these later poems, but never again with his infamous arms.

Evidence for this trend, however, is not merely an argumentum ex silentio, for Tibullus’

engagement develops in the opposite direction. That is, although Tibullus make no mention of

Amor’s weaponry in Book 1, he develops a sudden fixation on them around this same time.231

Amor appears with his bow and arrows in three of the six elegies in Tibullus Book 2.

Nonetheless, the result is much the same, for all of these appearances focus on a single motif:

Amor’s disarming. What is more, Tibullus makes explicit connections between the removal of

Amor’s weaponry and pax.232

Even in general terms, Tibullus’ engagement with Amor takes a drastic turn between his

first and second books. Most noticeably, Amor no longer operates at the edges of the poet’s

thoughts. Rather, as in Propertius, the god of love becomes a programmatic figure around which

228 When Quintilian’s teachers used images of Venus and Amor as rhetorical exercises, they likewise focused on the contrast between amor and arma (Inst. Or. 2.4.26). See Chapter 1.

229 Prop. 1.7.15-16; 1.9.21; 2.9.38-40; 2.12.9-13, 18; 2.13a.1-2; 2.29.4; 2.30.31.

230 Prop. 3.1.7-12; 3.5.1-2; 3.10.27-28; 3.16.16; 3.19.24; 3.20.6, 17-18; 3.21.1-10, 33-34; 3.23.15-16; 4.1.137-38; 4.7.5-6.

231 Tibullus 2 was published ca. 19-18 BCE, possibly posthumously. On the dating of Tibullus’ works, see Maltby 2002: 39-40.

232 Regarding the association between Amor’s disarming and peace, cf. Anacreontea 5.10-15: μᾶλλον ποίει Διὸς γόνον, / Βάκχον Εὔιον ἡμῖν. / μύστις νάματος ᾖ Κύπρις / ὑμεναίους κροτοῦσα· / χάρασσ᾿ Ἔρωτας ἀνόπλους / καὶ Χάριτας γελώσας· (“Rather, depict for us the son of Zeus, Bacchus Evius. As initiator of flowing drink, let Cypris be there clapping the bridal songs. Engrave unarmed Loves and laughing Graces.”)

82 several other motifs interweave. Thus, poem 2.1, a dramatization of a country festival (often

associated with the Ambarvalia),233 culminates in what Antoinette Novara describes as a “Hymn to Amor”:234

ipse quoque inter agros interque armenta Cupido natus et indomitas dicitur inter equas. illic indocto primum se exercuit arcu: ei mihi, quam doctas nunc habet ille manus! 70 nec pecudes uelut ante petit: fixisse puellas gestit et audaces perdomuisse uiros. hic iuueni detraxit opes, hic dicere iussit limen ad iratae uerba pudenda senem; hoc duce custodes furtim transgressa iacentes 75 ad iuuenem tenebris sola puella uenit, et pedibus praetemptat iter, suspensa timore, explorat caecas cui manus ante uias. a miseri quos hic grauiter deus urget! at ille felix cui placidus leniter afflat Amor. 80 sancte, ueni dapibus festis, sed pone sagittas et procul ardentes hinc, precor, abde faces. Tibullus 2.1.67-82

Cupid himself, too, was born among fields and among herds, and (it’s said) among untamed mares. There he first trained himself with an unlearned bow: Ah me! How learned are the hands he has now! He does not aim at beasts, as before: piercing girls is his delight, and thoroughly taming bold men. He drains riches from the youth, he orders the old to speak shameful words at an angry girl’s door. With him as her guide, sneaking past her sleeping guards, the girl comes alone to her lover in the shadows. She tests the path with her feet and, hanging in fear, her hand searches the dark way before her. What wretched men, whom this god presses heavily! But he’s happy, if a peaceful Amor breathes softly upon him. Sacred One, come to our festive banquets, but set aside your arrows and leave far from here, I pray, your blazing torches.

233 On Tibullus 2.1 and the Ambarvalia, see Pöstgens 1940 and Maltby 2002: 359. See also Ross 1986 and Feeney 1998: 121-23.

234 Novara 1989.

83 Like Bacchus, Ceres, and the “paternal gods” (17: di patrii) who watch over fields and farmers,

Amor becomes a god of the Tibullan countryside, “the last and most important of the agricolae

caelites.”235

Nonetheless, the image of Amor that Tibullus adopts places him at odds with the poem’s

other deities.236 The god of love may have rustic origins, but the speaker quickly reverts to the more familiar, troublesome figure. The transitional exclamation ei mihi (70) signals a turn to the

Amor of Roman Comedy, in particular, and the subsequent description is not far removed from the adulescens’ rant in Plautus’ Trinummus (237-69).237 This Amor breaks (72: perdomuisse),

plunders (73: detraxit opes), humiliates (73-74: dicere iussit…uerba pudenda), and oppresses

(79: hic grauiter deus urget). He is a god of illicit trysts (75-78) who, in short, opposes the very

call for chastity at the poem’s start: uos quoque abesse procul iubeo: discedat ab aris / cui tulit

hesterna gaudia nocte Venus. / casta placent superis (11-13: “I bid you, too, to be far from here.

Let all depart from the altars who received the joys of Venus last night. Chastity pleases the

gods”).

The difference, though, is that Tibullus now uses the image to establish a contrast. Amor has long been a terror, to be sure, but the speaker of poem 2.1 anticipates change: in place of the

“wretched men” (79: miseri) whom the god pressed “heavily” (79: grauiter) comes the “blessed

man” (80: felix), upon whom he now breathes “lightly” (80: leniter). The boy god need only be

“pacified” (80: placidus). “He does not aim at beasts, as before” (71: nec pecudes uelut ante petit), but has instead come to “delight in in piercing girls” (71-72: fixisse puellas / gestit). Thus,

235 Maltby 2002: 378.

236 Ross 1986; Cairns 1979: 173.

237 For a brief discussion of this passage, see Chapter 1.

84 at the conclusion of this passage and as a symbol of the god’s pacification, the speaker calls for

Amor to set his arms aside: sancte, ueni dapibus festis, sed pone sagittas (81: “Sacred One, come

to our festive banquets, but set aside your arrows”).238

This motif reappears in poem 2.6, as well, bookending the collection and effectively

securing Amor’s programmatic significance. Moreover, Tibullus’ final poem brings the

connection between Amor’s disarming and peace to the fore, beginning with a direct

juxtaposition of love and war:239

castra Macer sequitur: tenero quid fiet Amori? sit comes et collo fortiter arma gerat? et seu longa uirum terrae uia seu uaga ducent aequora, cum telis ad latus ire uolet? ure, puer, quaeso, tua qui ferus otia liquit, 5 atque iterum erronem sub tua signa uoca. Tibullus 2.6.1-6

Macer’s headed for the camps: what will come of tender Amor? Should he be an attendant and bravely bear arms around his neck? Whether a long path of earth leads the man, or the shifting seas, will he want to be at his side with weapons? Burn him, boy, I beg you, the fierce man who’s departed from your leisure, and call the deserter back to your standards.

From the start, this Amor is incongruous with conquest. The tender god has no place bearing

arms (2: arma gerat) upon his neck or setting out on campaign with weapons (4: cum telis). He

burns (5: ure), but only to bring the soldier back from war. This Amor is a god of leisure (5:

otia), and as such opposed to the quintessentially Roman business of warfare. Thus, just ten lines

238 Amor’s torches seem here to be of secondary importance. As in Propertius 2.12 and Tibullus 2.5, they can be omitted without great loss to the motif.

239 “Tender Amor” also appears at Tibullus 1.3.57 (in the same sedes), again in the context of militia amoris. In eternal paradise (59-62), “a line of youths plays, mixed in with tender girls, and Amor mixes his battles continuously” (63-64: ac iuuenum series teneris immixta puellis / ludit et assidue proelia miscet Amor).

85 later, the speaker prays once more for Amor’s own arms to be removed:

acer Amor, fractas utinam tua tela sagittas, si licet, extinctas aspiciamque faces! Tibullus 2.6.13-16

Piercing Amor, if only I could see arrows, your weapons, broken and (if it were allowed) torches put out!

As in poem 2.1, Tibullus crafts an image of the god in his destructive guise only to wish him

disarmed. The god is “piercing” (15: acer Amor) precisely because arrows (15: sagittas) are his own weapons (15: tua tela), and the only way to achieve peace—in love as in war—is to have them broken (15: fractas).240

Tibullus’ most evocative conflation of these elements, however, occurs in his penultimate

poem 2.5, a hymn to Apollo celebrating the induction of Messalla’s son as Quindecimvir (one of

the priests who cared for and interpreted the Sibylline Books). After all, the poem is well-known

for showing Tibullus at his greatest engagement with Augustan political messaging.241 To begin

with, the Apollo of poem 2.5 is unmistakably the Palatine Apollo. Not only were the Sibylline

Books recently relocated to Augustus’ Palatine complex, but Apollo’s prominent cithara (2-3),

“special garment” (7-8), and “triumphal laurel” (5) also recall Scopas’ statue of Apollo and the

reason for its dedication in that temple.242 Tibullus’ Apollo, in short, is the very god with whom

Augustus claimed a special relationship, and who secured his victory at Actium. Thus, the speaker calls upon Apollo to destroy the omens of civil war by “plunging them into the wild

240 On Amor’s torches, see n.238 above.

241 Gosling 1987.

242 See esp. Miller 2009: 234-47. See also Gosling 1987: 334n.4 for the scholarly history of this identification.

86 seas” (79-80: sed tu iam mitis, Apollo / prodigia indomitis merge sub aequoribus).243

Augustan secular themes, too, recur throughout poem 2.5, both in Jupiter’s victory over

Saturn (9-10) and the turning of a new year (82).244 Then come nearly twenty lines (83-100) of peaceful abundance, evoking both the aurea aetas and Pax Augusta. Tibullus’ vignette at lines

91-94 even offers a tender view of a fruitful, multi-generational family, evoking Augustus’ push for patricians to bear children. The relationship between Messalla and Messallinus is likewise one of proud father and son (115-20).245

Finally, the poem’s centerpiece, the Sibyl’s prophecy and Rome’s ktisis narrative, is replete with Augustan motifs and imagery. For example, Tibullus here juxtaposes the dual mythical founders Aeneas and Romulus, who were currently being rationalized into a single narrative in Vergil’s Aeneid and would soon thereafter appear in monumental state art like the

Forum Augustum and Ara Pacis. In fact, Tibullus engages with several aspects of the foundation narrative soon-to-be canonized by Vergil. The description of pre-Roman Latium (23-38);

Aeneas’ flight from Troy (19-20), victory over Turnus (45-48), and apotheosis (43-44);

Ascanius’ founding of Alba Longa (49-50); Romulus’ walls and “eternal city” (23-24); and

Rome’s fate to rule the world (57-60) all find parallels in Vergil’s treatment of the various myths involved.246 In short, Augustan symbolism is on full display in Tibullus 2.5.

Within this context, the disarming of Amor appears once more. First, Tibullus ties Amor

243 Gosling 1987: 335.

244 Miller 2009: 260-65.

245 Bright 1978: 72-74.

246 See esp. Buchheit 1965 and Gerressen 1970. Ball 1975 catalogues a number of additional parallels and the scholars who support them.

87 directly to this very program, for in place of an epic patronymic or divine matronymic, the Sibyl addresses Aeneas by his relation to the winged god of love: impiger Aenea, uolitantis frater

Amoris (39: “diligent Aeneas, brother of flitting Amor”).247 Once again, however, Tibullus’

Amor proves unfit for the new association. When Amor reappears near the poem’s end (101-

108), it is as an intrusion into the very peace he is supposed to represent. Set against the extended description of golden age abundance (83-100), Amor enters as a cause of erotic strife when the drunk young lover curses his girl (101: ingeret hic potus iuuenis maledicta puellae) and, maddened (104: mente…mala), becomes savage with her (103: ferus ille suae).248

Thus, before the Amor of Tibullus 2.5 can participate in Rome’s destiny, he must once more be disarmed:

pace tua pereant arcus pereantque sagittae, Phoebe, modo in terris erret inermis Amor. ars bona sed postquam sumpsit sibi tela Cupido eheu quam multis ars dedit ista malum. Tibullus 2.5.105-108

By your peace, Phoebus, let bows perish and arrows perish, too, only let Amor wander unarmed across the land. The art is good, but after Cupid took up the weapons for himself, ah! to how many has that art brought evil!

The repetition of pereant…pereant (105) places special emphasis on the god’s weaponry. Only if bow and arrows are utterly destroyed, seemingly piece by piece, can Amor be tamed. The nominative inermis Amor (106: “unarmed Amor”), withheld until the final position, thus presents

247 Cf. Aeneid 1.667, where Vergil also juxtaposes Venus’ two sons. There, after an elaborate and flattering address to Amor, Venus begins with “your brother, Aeneas” (frater ut Aeneas). The fuller implications of Aeneas’ and Amor’s relationship are a subject of the next chapter.

248 Cf. the “wars of Venus” (Veneris…bella) at Tib. 1.10.51-58.

88 a concise summary of the poet’s prayer.249 It is the first word of the passage, though, that stresses

the principal motif. As reflected in each of the works discussed thus far, it is because of peace

(105: pace) that Amor might at last be disarmed. Nor is it here just any peace. As emphasized by the 2nd person pronoun and vocative address at the start of the following line, the means of

Cupid’s pacification is specifically the peace of Apollo, the god most closely associated with

Augustus and his ideological program.250 Amor, at least as it seems on the surface, is to be

disarmed and pacified by Augustus’ patron deity in order to comply with the full range of

Augustus’ political and moral reforms.

Thus, across each of the armed Amor’s appearances in Tibullus’ second book, the god’s

bow represents his more violent aspect and its removal his recharacterization. More importantly,

this development is consciously equated with Augustan peace. Yet, although the speaker’s goal

is ostensibly in line with the messaging of public monuments, an element of playful resistance

remains. Like Propertius in poem 3.5, Tibullus ultimately highlights how little the god of love

suits his new context. In the end, poem 2.1 makes clear only that Amor is currently unsuited to

the idyllic country festival. Likewise, poem 2.6 casts Amor as the antithesis both to imperial

affairs abroad and to moral reforms at home. Poem 2.5 sets the god firmly within an Augustan

mythological narrative, but as an opponent rather than ally. Despite engagement with Augustan

symbolism and imagery at every turn, the lasting image of Tibullus’ poetry is that Amor is not

yet disarmed, not yet peaceful, and not yet as harmless as some may wish to present him.251

249 The names Phoebe and Amor are also visually opposed to one another by their respective line positions.

250 Gosling 1987: 336-37; Miller 2009: 263-64; O’Rourke 2014: 5-8.

251 See esp. Miller 2009: 264: “Augustus’ god of victory ended Rome’s civil wars but, from the elegiac perspective, the pax Augusta is incomplete. Cupid is still on the loose, and needs to be

89 Perhaps it is for this reason that the motif of an armed Amor became for Ovid a defining

feature of Tibullus’ poetry. When the amator of Ovid’s Amores claims his place among the great

poets at the end of Book 1, he characterizes the legacy of each by their singular poetic

achievements. Homer’s name will live as long as the locations he describes (1.15.9-10), as will

Hesiod’s as long as grapes and grain continue to be cultivated (1.15.11-12), etc. Rather than

characterizing Tibullus’ verse by his beloveds, though, Ovid recalls these very depictions of

Amor: donec erunt ignes arcusque Cupidinis arma, / discentur numeri, culte Tibulle, tui

(1.15.27-28: “As long as flames and bow are Cupid’s arms, your verses, refined Tibullus, will be taught”). The humorous implication, of course, is that Amor will never be disarmed, and that

Tibullus will remain immortal. Only later, in Amores 3, does Ovid fondly rework the motif in his

elegy on Tibullus’ death: ecce, puer Veneris fert euersamque pharetram / et fractos arcus et sine

luce facem (3.9.7-8: “Look, Venus’ boy carries his quiver overturned, his bow broken, and his

torch without light”). In honor of the late poet, Ovid has Amor willingly disarm himself.252

Vergil’s Aeneid:

Much of this chapter, perhaps as should be expected, has focused on the figure of Amor

in Latin love elegy. Specifically, I hope to have demonstrated that marked changes occur in

Amor’s associations between individual elegists’ books, and that these changes reflect elegy’s

familiar engagement with contemporary political rhetoric. The trends in question, however, are

unconstrained by generic boundaries. The Amor of Vergil’s Aeneid (roughly contemporary with

disarmed. Since this is an impossibility, the present request to Apollo gently undermines the surety of Tibullus’ prediction above but in a funny, not a politically provocative, manner.”

252 Cf. Perkins 1993, with extensive bibliography.

90 Tibullus’ second book) appears suddenly disarmed, as well. At the climax of the god’s role in

Vergil’s “Augustan epic,” he makes Dido fall in love not by way of an arrow, as might be expected, but by sitting sweetly in the queen’s lap (Aen. 1.717-22). More telling, though, is the way Vergil makes this absence felt. Even as he models the scene on Eros’ attack on Medea in the

Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (3.6-166, 275-98), among the most well-known depictions of the god and his bow, Vergil reshapes Amor’s image and role within Rome’s mythological origins.253 Rather than showing continuity with his predecessor, as he does with Theocritus’ Eros in the Amor of the Eclogues (examined in the previous chapter), Vergil uses his model as an overt and extended foil.

When the storm-tossed Aeneas lands on the shores of Libya at the outset of the poem, the fate of the Trojans hangs upon their reception by the Carthaginian queen, Dido. Thus Jupiter, after prophesying that Rome’s future remains yet unchanged (1.254-96), sends Mercury to soothe the Libyans’ hearts and make Dido amenable (297-304). The queen then provides a warm welcome, offering either to escort the Trojans at her own expense or even to accept them into her kingdom as equals (561-78). Peace is sealed with lavish sacrifices, preparations are made for a feast, and Aeneas sends for his son Iulus to bring Trojan gifts to the palace (631-56). All things, it seems at this point, proceed according to Jupiter’s vision and patronage over the Homeric guest-host relationship.254 Aeneas’ mother Venus, however, wary of the “treacherous Tyrians” and Juno’s continued antagonism (661-62), sends a winged attendant of her own. In order to secure Dido’s good will toward his mortal brother, Amor must make the queen fall in love (657-

688).

253 Nelis 2001: 93-96.

254 On xenia in the Aeneid, see Gibson 1999.

91 Just as Vergil’s first use of amor in the Eclogues signals indebtedness to Theocritus, so this Amor evokes a specific Hellenistic predecessor. As soon as Venus’ plan comes to light, it unfolds as an extended allusion to Hera’s in Argonautica 3. The numerous connections between these two scenes are well covered by Damien Nelis, and can be summarized briefly.255 Both goddesses seek a “trick” against a defenseless woman (Argon. 3.12: δόλος = Aen. 1.673, 682, and 684: dolus) and both approach Eros/Amor as a suppliant (Argon. 3.128: γναθμοῖο

κατασχομένη ≈ Aen. 1.666: supplex).256 The boy god then agrees to help (Argon. 1.154-57; Aen.

1.689-90), approaches the young woman’s palace (Argon. 3.158-66 and 275-81; Aen. 1.695-98), moves directly from male to female (Argon. 3.281-84; Aen. 1.715-17), and afflicts the latter with an all-encompassing passion (Argon. 3.284-98; Aen. 1.717-22). Subsequently, Medea “holds on to no other memory” (Argon. 3.289-90: οὐδέ τιν᾽ ἄλλην / μνῆστιν ἔχεν), much as Dido’s memory of her late husband is Amor’s primary target (Aen. 1.719-21: at memor ille / matris Acidaliae paulatim abolere Sychaeum / incipit). Both women are also consumed specifically by the “fire of love” (Argon. 3.287 and 291-98; Aen. 1.660, 673-74, 710, and 713). Thus, in broad strokes and even several particulars, the goddesses’ plans, execution, and outcomes are the same.

But is the Amor of the Aeneid really an extension of Apollonius’ Eros? The answer, as so often in Vergil, is multifaceted and left ultimately to interpretation. Some descriptions, such as the opening to Venus’ address, display strong continuity with Hellenistic precedent:

ergo his aligerum dictis adfatur Amorem: “Nate, meae vires, mea magna potentia, solus, nate, patris summi qui tela Typhoëa temnis, 665 ad te confugio et supplex tua numina posco.” Vergil, Aeneid 1.663-66

255 Nelis 2001: 93-96.

256 On the meaning of Aphrodite’s gesture, see Hunter 1989 ad loc.

92 Thus, with these words, she addresses winged Amor: “My son, my strength, my great power, you alone, my son, who scorn the Typhoean bolts of our mighty father, I flee to you and, as a suppliant, seek your divine will.”

With these words Venus unambiguously recalls Amor’s troublesome past. Prominent repetition

stresses two points: the double vocatives at the start of consecutive lines (664-65: nate…nate)

establish the relationship of mother and son, while the escalation in meae uires, mea magna

potentia (664) underscores the goddess’ humorous submission to her child’s might. Venus then

adds that he scorns even Jupiter’s thunderbolts, further insisting upon the god’s infamous

misbehavior.257 Amor’s leading characteristics, that he is Venus’ inordinately powerful and

unruly child, are indeed consistent with his characterization in Argonautica 3. In so recalling

Amor’s literary past, Vergil sets the expectation that he will act this way in the epic’s present.

It is no coincidence that Servius (4th-5th c. CE), in explaining Amor’s introduction at this

point in the Aeneid, gives an account strongly reminiscent of the tradition adopted in Propertius

2.12 (examined at length in the previous chapter):

nam quia turpitudinis est stulta cupiditas, puer pingitur, ut ‘inter quas curam Clymene narrabat inanem,’ id est amorem, item quia inperfectus est in amantibus sermo, sicut in puero, ut ‘incipit effari mediaque in uoce resistit.’ alatus autem ideo est, quia amantibus nec leuius aliquid nec mutabilius inuenitur, ut in ipsa probatur Didone; nam de eius interitu cogitat, cuius paulo ante amore deperibat, ut ‘non potui abreptum diuellere corpus.’ sagittas uero ideo gestare dicitur, quia et ipsae incertae uelocesque sunt. Servius, In Vergilii Aeneidos Libros 1.663.6-13258

Desire is foolish because of its shamefulness, as [in Georgics 4.345]: “among them Clymeme was telling of [Vulcan’s] worthless care” (“care” here means “love”). Thus, it is depicted as a boy. Likewise, because lovers’ speech is

257 Cf. Venus’ earlier address to Jupiter, to which Amor is suddenly the exception: O qui res hominumque deumque / aeternis regis imperiis, et fulmine terres (Aen. 1.229-30: “You who govern the affairs of both men and gods with everlasting authority, and frighten them with the thunderbolt”).

258 Text of Servius is from Thilo 1878-84. Translations are my own.

93 incoherent like a child’s, as [in Aeneid 4.76]: “she begins to speak and stops mid- utterance.” Desire is winged, too, because there is nothing lighter or more changeable than a lover, as is evident in Dido herself. For she contemplates the death of the man whom she loved desperately just a little before, as [in Aeneid 4.600]: “Was I not able to seize him and tear his body apart?” Indeed, it is also said to equip arrows because they are dubious and swift.

Using the same language of painting (pingitur; cf. Prop. 2.12.1: pinxit), Servius examines the

same three attributes in the very same order (puer…alatus…sagittas; cf. Prop. 2.12.1-12:

puerum…alas…sagittis). Moreover, he interprets them in comparable ways. Much as Propertius

attributes Amor’s childish appearance to lovers’ senselessness (2.12.3: sine sensu uiuere) and

frivolous concerns (2.12.4: leuibus curis), Servius cites foolishness and shamefulness (quia

turpitudinis est stulta). Likewise, the god’s wings indicate changeability (nec leuius aliquid nec

mutabilius; cf. Prop. 2.12.7-8) and his arrows reflect the unexpected nature of his attacks

(incertae uelocesque; cf. Prop. 2.12.11-12). In short, upon reading Venus’ description of her son,

Servius is appropriately reminded of Amor at his moment of greatest continuity with Hellenistic

literature.259

Yet, when Amor himself appears, discrepancies arise between these descriptions and his

actual behavior (or, more accurately, between internal characters’ descriptions and those from

the presumably reliable narrator).260 In fact, over the twenty-six lines where Amor takes direct

action in the Aeneid, Vergil rewrites all three of these central attributes. First, this Amor is hardly

the “petulant Eros” (μάργος Ἔρως) whom Aphrodite finds cheating in a game of knucklebones

259 Servius’ discussion of these attributes also follows directly upon a comparison between Latin and Greek names for the god: Latini deum ipsum ‘Cupidinem’ / uocant, hoc quod facit ‘amorem.’ sed hic imitatus est Graecos, qui / uno nomine utrumque significant; nam Amorem dixit deum (“Speakers of Latin call this god ‘Cupid,’ that which makes ‘love.’ But [Vergil] imitated the Greeks, who designate both with one name, for he called the god ‘Amor’”).

260 On overlapping and often incompatible descriptions of the gods in the Aeneid, see Feeney 1991: 129-87.

94 (Argon. 3.114-30) and must repeatedly chastise or manipulate (Argon. 3.129-53).261 Despite the

popularity of such characterizations well into the Augustan period, Vergil turns the image of

Amor’s childishness on its head: the figure of the Aeneid is perfectly obedient to his mother.

Twice within seven lines Amor “obeys her commands” (1.689: paret Amor dictis; 696: dicto

parens), and he remains “mindful of his mother” at the very point of accomplishing his task

(719-20: memor ille / matris).262 Without thought of recompense, or really any thought at all,

Amor sets out and brings Venus’ plan to fruition.

Second, Amor’s first direct action is to “shed his wings” (Aen. 1.689-90: alas / exuit).

The phrase’s brevity—a mere two words—is almost humorously succinct set against Eros’ flight

from Olympus in the Argonautica (3.158-66), a nine-line tour de force for Apollonius’

descriptive skill.263 As I will examine at length in the following chapter, Amor’s wings lose

almost all connotations of “flightiness” in political contexts. Instead, as he is increasingly

incorporated into the Julian household, they serve more often as a means by which to recognize

his divinity. Likewise, their removal in the Aeneid marks the beginning of his transformation into

Iulus, and thus the beginning of his association with the Julian youth.

The most striking difference between Vergil’s Amor and Apollonius’ Eros, though,

remains his lack of weaponry. That Apollonius emphasizes Eros’ bow is an understatement; the

details he provides about its arming, stringing, drawing, and firing generate a significant portion

261 Nelis (2001: 94): “Vergil’s Cupid is no petulant child like Eros, who cheats Ganymede and is known to be a troublesome character (Argon. 3.91-99; 114-27). He is instead immediately and almost chillingly obedient when approached by Venus.”

262 Nelis comments that Amor is “immediately and almost chillingly obedient” (2001: 94). He is right, I think, to distrust the god’s abrupt change in behavior.

263 Nelis 2001: 94.

95 of the episode’s vividness and dramatic tension.264 After Aphrodite twice asks him to “shoot the

girl with an arrow” (Argon. 3.142: παρθένον…ὀιστεύσας; 153: ἐνισκίμψῃς κούρῃ βέλος), Eros

“straightaway slings on his quiver with its golden strap, which was leaning against a tree stump,

and takes up his curved bow” (156-57: αὐτίκα δ᾽ ἰοδόκην χρυσέῃ περικάτθετο μίτρῃ / πρέμνῳ

κεκλιμένην: ἀνὰ δ᾽ ἀγκύλον εἵλετο τόξον). When he later enters the palace, he pauses at the threshold to “string his bow and draw from his quiver a grievous arrow that had never been shot before” (278-79: τόξα τανύσσας / ἰοδόκης ἀβλῆτα πολύστονον ἐξέλετ᾽ ἰόν). Then, from his final

position at Jason’s feet, Eros “sets the notches at the center of the bowstring and, drawing

straight back with both hands, shoots at Medea” (282-84: γλυφίδας μέσσῃ ἐνικάτθετο νευρῇ, /

ἰθὺς δ᾽ ἀμφοτέρῃσι διασχόμενος παλάμῃσιν / ἧκ᾽ ἐπὶ Μηδείῃ). Eros’ bow remains a focal point

at each step of the process, punctuating Apollonius’ account of Medea’s downfall.

Yet, despite the bow’s centrality to Vergil’s model, the attribute is conspicuously absent

from the Aeneid.265 Compare Venus’ initial request with Hera’s:

σὺ δὲ παρθένον Αἰήταο / θέλξον ὀιστεύσας ἐπ᾿ Ἰήσονι (Argon. 3.142-43) sed magno Aeneae mecum teneatur amore (Aen. 1.675)

But you must shoot Aietes’ daughter and bewitch her for Jason. But let [Dido] be kept on my side by a great love for Aeneas.

Though Aphrodite specifies that Eros is to shoot Medea with an arrow (ὀιστεύσας, related to

ὀιστός, “arrow”), Venus uses only teneatur (“let her be held”). Vergil thus evokes the power of love’s spell without its martial connotations.266 So, too, when Amor moves against the queen, he

264 On Apollonius’ “painterly style” and use of enargeia, see Phinney 1967, Elvira 1977-78, Lombardi 1985, Zanker 1987: esp. 65-79, and Fowler 1989: esp. 15-20.

265 Nelis 2001: 94-95. Cf. Hinds 1987b: 167 n.45.

266 Vergil’s choice of verb may also anticipate the physical embrace that leads to Dido’s downfall. See also Aen. 1.687: cum dabit amplexus (“when she will embrace you”).

96 merely sits in her lap: haec oculis, haec pectore toto / haeret et interdum gremio fouet, inscia

Dido / insidat quantus miserae deus (Aen. 1.717-19: “With her eyes, with her whole heart, she

clings to him and for some time cuddles him in her lap. Little does Dido know, the poor woman,

how great a god sits there”). In place of a violent assault, he gradually “erases” (720: abolere)

memory of her previous husband and “preoccupies” (721: praeuertere) her mind with Aeneas.267

All the same, Vergil maintains a clear awareness of prior tradition even as he takes a new

path. He alludes to the Apollonian Eros’ bowshot, for example, at the equivalent moment in his

adaptation. His choice of verb when Amor “seeks the queen” (Aen. 1.717: reginam petit) recalls

the moment when Eros “shot at Medea” (Argon. 3.284: ἧκ᾽ ἐπὶ Μηδείῃ), for petere means “to

aim or shoot at” as often as “to seek.” So, in Book 4, is Dido likened to a deer pierced by the

hunter’s arrow (4.68-73).268 According to Servius, Vergil’s obscure epithet for Venus when

Amor “remains mindful of his Acidalian mother” (Aen. 1.720: memor ille / matris Acidaliae)

etymologizes the Greek ἀκίς (lit. “arrow point”).269 Even the name Iulus, whom Amor here

impersonates, was thought to be etymologically related to ἰοβόλος (“archer”).270 In short, Amor’s

bow and love’s arrow remain a strong presence throughout Vergil’s account, even if never

explicitly described.

267 Venus describes the process as “breathing in a hidden flame and deceiving with poison” (Aen. 1.688: occultum inspires ignem fallasque ueneno), but there is again a slight discrepancy between the character’s and the narrator’s accounts.

268 When Iulus then returns to the fore in Book 7, it is as an archer hunting the prized stag (Aen. 7.475-510). See Ziogas 2010: 162-65.

269 Serv. 1.720.1-3: Acidalia Venus dicitur uel quia inicit curas, / quas Graeci ἄκιδας dicunt, uel certe a fonte Acidalio qui est in / Orchomeno Boeotiae ciuitate (“Venus is called Acidalia either because she inflicts cares, which the Greeks call ἄκιδας, or surely from the Acidalian spring, which is in the city of Orchomenos in Boeotia”). See O’Hara 2017: 129-30.

270 O’Hara 2017: 121-2; Paschalis 1997: 52.

97 That Vergil’s Amor remains disarmed is therefore a highly conscious choice, and one for

which developments in the god’s associations provide an explanation. Where Vergil deviates

from Apollonius’ Eros, he draws instead upon contemporary representations and incorporates

their new associations into the episode’s themes. Amor’s mission in the Aeneid is, after all, one

of peace; Venus sends Amor to forestall conflict between Trojans and Carthaginians and to

safeguard Rome’s future. At this level, at least, Amor’s representation is not far removed from

the Algiers relief above.

Still, as in both Propertius and Tibullus, alternate readings abound. As I emphasized in

my summary of the episode’s opening, peace was already in motion when Iulus was summoned.

Venus’ paranoia and Amor’s intervention, while ostensibly for Aeneas’ (and Rome’s) benefit, bring only destruction and misery in the end.271 Indeed, Juno’s complaint of the Trojan war in

Book 10 could apply just as well to the situation in Carthage:272 aut ego tela dedi fouiue

Cupidine bella? (Aen. 10.93: “Did I give him weapons, or foment wars with Cupid?”).273 How

fitting, then, that much of the imagery used to describe Amor in Book 1 recurs in Book 7 of the

fury Allecto.274 Just as Amor “weaves fire in [Dido’s] bones” (1.660: ossibus implicet ignem), so

does Allecto in Amata’s (7.355: ossibus implicat ignem). Likewise, after she fixes her torches

into Turnus’ heart (7.457: fixit sub pectore taedas), “he cries for arms, maddened, and seeks

arms in his bed and in his halls; his desire for the sword rages, as does the wicked madness of

271 On the ill-omened foreshadowing of Amor’s love see esp. Khan 2002.

272 Ziogas 2010: 164.

273 On Venus’ seduction of Vulcan for the production of arma for her son Aeneas, see esp. O’Rourke 2014: 3-5.

274 Moskalew 1982: 165; Nelis 2001: 288-93; Ziogas 2010: 158-61.

98 war” (7.460-61: arma amens fremit, arma toro tectisque requirit; / saeuit amor ferri et scelerata insania belli). From the bed (toro), the standard elegiac locus of tossing and turning in love,275

Turnus is mad instead for war. Turnus’ “love rages” (saeuit amor), as the personified Amor so often does, but his is a love “of the sword” (ferri). In this way, tensions proliferate between the god’s representations and their meanings across different spheres.276 As is so often the case in the Aeneid, point and counterpoint exist in masterful harmony.

Amor and Augustus: The Boscoreale Cup and Sorrento Base

As the image of this Amor gains traction though the end of the 1st c. BCE, it returns to state art with increasing frequency. Moreover, as Amor’s association with peace continues to grow in popularity, so too does his association with the one responsible for that peace. Though the Algiers relief most clearly demonstrates the god’s new role in a key Augustan statue group, the final works examined in this chapter place Amor beside Augustus himself.277 Two separate scenes that set Augustus ahead of divine processions, one recorded on a silver cup from

Boscoreale [figs. 9a-b] and another on a statue base from Sorrento [fig. 10], include this

Augustan Amor among the supporting deities and personifications. In both, Augustus is the recipient of Amor’s blessing and thus a sanctioned provider of all that this figure represents.

The former scene appears on one of the famous Boscoreale cups, a pair of silver skyphoi found in a villa near Mt. Vesuvius (modern Boscoreale). Together, these cups contain

275 Valladares 2012: 321-26.

276 On the “desire” for riches and empire and its relation to civil war in Vergil, see Marincola 2010: 197-204.

277 For the figure beside the Primaporta Augustus, see Chapter 4.

99 miniaturized reproductions of four monumental state reliefs depicting moments in the lives of

Augustus and Tiberius.278 The “Tiberius cup,” for example, shows the general’s votive sacrifice

prior to military campaign (II.1) and subsequent triumph in 7 BCE (II.2), while one side of the

“Augustus cup” depicts the princeps receiving children from Gallic chieftains (I.2). The other

side of the Augustus cup, however, diverts from historical themes to the allegorical (I.1) [fig. 9a].

Augustus again sits in a curule chair, but instead of subjects receives gods and ethnic

personifications. Immediately to the left of Augustus stands Venus, followed by Amor, the

Genius of the Roman people, and Roma [fig. 9b]. On the right are then Mars and a number of

captured provinces (Gallia, Hispania, Africa, Asia, et al.).

The scene’s central focus (emphasized by the direction of Augustus’ gaze) is a globe held

in the princeps’ outstretched right hand. He extends this globe toward Venus, who moves in turn

to place a small Victory upon it. The overarching message of this scene is thus Augustus’

achievement of peace through victory and the divine sanction of his rule. Moreover, the

combined globe and Victory, familiar attributes of Divus Iulius, are here transferred to Augustus

as the diui filius and rightful successor to Caesar’s rule.279 As if attempting to fulfill the prophecy

of Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue, “he receives the life of the gods, sees heroes intermixed with gods

and is himself seen by them, and rules the world that was pacified by his father’s deeds” (15-17:

ille deum uitam accipiet diuisque uidebit / permixtos heroas et ipse uidebitur illis, / pacatumque

reget patriis uirtutibus orbem).

278 On the Boscoreale cups as reproductions of monumental state reliefs, see Kuttner 1995: 1-6. Such an argument certainly aligns well with my observations, but is not necessary. Even if the cups were entirely a private commission, they are drawing upon the same developments in Amor’s iconography.

279 On the globe and Victory as an attribute of Divus Julius, see Thomas 2017: 154-57.

100 In this regard, the scene shares much in common with the statues of the Algiers relief.

Nonetheless, the tone is markedly different. Augustus extends the globe toward Venus as Amor

extended the sword, but she is here far from a passive and leisurely embodiment of pax. This

Venus strides forward as Venus Victrix, the force that brings pax about.280 In the same way,

Mars is also depicted as far more active. He, too, strides toward Augustus with mantle flowing

dramatically behind. This is hardly a Mars at rest. Beardless (and thus more in the vigor of

youth), he now stands with spear held tip-up and sword-hand ready on his hilt. This Mars looks

backward toward the conquered peoples in tow, leading them onward and ensuring their

obedience. The message on the Boscoreale cup is more of conquest and rule than peace itself.

I take it as strong evidence, then, that Amor’s image remains largely consistent with that

from the Algiers relief.281 The Amor on the Boscoreale cup stands again beside his mother, nude

with his characteristic ringlets and wings. He holds a small vessel in his lowered right hand,

suggesting that his gift is a poured offering of oil or perfume. In his extended left hand is then a

small shell. Despite the common appearance of Erotes/Amores with vessels or shells in scenes of

Venus’ bath and toilette, they had never before appeared in overtly political allegory.282 The closest these figures come to the political sphere is an association with aristocratic weddings.283

Nonetheless, Amor’s shell dish does much to explain his presence in this particular procession.

Amor’s offering and position take on additional significance within the scene’s larger context,

280 For a concise discussion of this figure as Venus Victrix, see Kuttner 1995: 22-25.

281 On Amor in images of victory, see esp. Hölscher 1967: 100-101.

282 Kuttner 1995: 225 n.61.

283 Two famous examples are Lucian’s description of The Wedding of Alexander and Roxanne (Herod. 5) and Dio Cassius’ Cupid-like deliciae at the wedding feast of Octavian and Livia. See Kuttner 1995: 27.

101 especially given his position beside the Genius of the Roman people. Like Amor, the Genius offers a libation with one hand. This figure, however, instead holds his usual cornucopia in the other. Paired with Amor and his sea shell, the two thus represent abundance across the universalizing dichotomy of land and sea. Much as Augustus’ uictoriola is depicted as a separate globe and Victory (in the process of being assembled), the Genius’ cornucopia and Amor’s shell dish communicate more by their proximity than they would in isolation. Given his connection to the sea via his mother’s birth, Amor’s blessing is thus that of abundance from his particular sphere. Although he is no longer the compositional linchpin and agent of change that he was in the statue group of the Algiers relief, his attributes and gesture associate him just as strongly with notions of peace and its fruits.

A second relief that depicts Amor before Augustus [fig. 10] appears on the so-called

Sorrento base. One of four classicizing reliefs on a fragmentary statue base, the scene is part of a unified whole portraying Augustus’ close relationship with his various patron deities. More specifically, each relief features a cult centered around Augustus’ own house on the Palatine.284

The base’s two long sides depict the Vestal Virgins’ procession toward Vesta (whom Augustus moved to the Palatine in 12 BCE)285 and an enthroned Magna Mater (whose temple on the

Palatine he reconsecrated in 3 CE).286 The better preserved of the two short sides contains a cithara-playing Apollo (for whom Augustus constructed the famous Palatine temple of 28

284 Rizzo 1932; McDaniel 1995.

285 Cass. Dio 54.27.3; CIL I2 213 and 236, s.v. April 28, on which see Degrassi 1955. See also Ov. Met. 15.864-65.

286 RG 19.2; Val. Max. 1.8.11; Ov. Fast. 4.347-48.

102 BCE).287 Finally, what remains of the opposing short side depicts the Genius of Augustus

himself (officially an object of worship by 7 BCE)288 seated before his Palatine residence. The

monument thus depicts much the same view of the Palatine as at the end of Fasti 4:

Phoebus habet partem. Vestae pars altera cessit; quod superest illis, tertius ipse tenet. state Palatinae laurus, praetextaque quercu stet domus: aeternos tres habet una deos. Ovid, Fasti 4.951-54289

Phoebus dwells in one part. Another part has yielded to Vesta. What remains, [Augustus] himself inhabits as third. Long live the laurels of the Palatine, and long live the house wreathed with oak. One house holds three immortal gods.

The Sorrento base represents in visual form the gradual accretion of sacred spaces and symbols around not only Augustus’ image, but also his physical residence.

That the scene on side C is set in front of Augustus’ house on the Palatine is indicated by the structure’s ashlar masonry, ionic columns, and (most directly) the corona ciuica above what remains of the central doorway.290 Nonetheless, the depiction is elevated above a simple

domicile. Architecturally, the space is a continuation of the adjoining Vesta panel; there is no

separation between mortal and divine. The corona ciuica is also not fixed above the doorway,

but held above Augustus’ head by a pair of winged Victories. Likewise, in addition to Augustus’

cornucopia, which indicates his own divinity as a genius, he is surrounded by his now-familiar

287 RG 19.1; Cass. Dio 53.1.3-6.

288 Cf. Kuttner (1995: 33-4), who refers to the seated figure as Romulus, and Cecamore (2004), who argues that it is a genius loci for the Palatine itself. On the dating for Augustus’ genius as an object of worship, see Niebling 1956.

289 Text of the Fast. is from Goold 1931. Translation is my own.

290 On the corona ciuica, see RG 34.2. On the architecture of the Palatium, see Richmond 1914: 206 and 220.

103 immortal family.291 To the right stand Mars and Amor. The former is once more a bearded male

in full armor, though it is difficult to say what he once held in his uplifted right arm. Amor is

again a nude boy with ringlets, his wings mostly concealed behind Mars’ armor and tunic.292

Venus likely appeared on the left half of the relief, now lost.293

Yet it is striking that Amor appears beside Mars instead of being lost alongside his mother. Amor’s left arm even extends up and backward to rest on Mars’ side, forming a direct connection between them. As with the child who reaches back toward Tellus on the Gemma

Augustea, or the many children who clutch adults’ garments on the Ara Pacis, the gesture suggests a level of intimacy. Rizzo suggests that the artist followed a type showing Eros leading

Paris to Helen, but this scene lacks erotic connotations.294 Rather, the Sorrento base combines

Mars and Amor as adopted father and son. As in the Algiers relief, Mars, Venus, and Amor are

presented as a divine family unit with the reality of infidelity suppressed.

Moreover, as I hope to have shown with the Algiers relief and Boscoreale cup, Amor is

more than a mere attendant or adornment when he appears in Augustan monumental art. He is a

participant, symbolizing a key component of developing Augustan ideology. On the Sorrento

base, the angle of Amor’s right arm indicates that he held an object just beneath his chest,

perhaps a libation bowl similar to that on the Boscoreale cup. Either way, his presence again

shows divine support for his distant relative, a blessing of abundance in honor of the peace he

291 See Kunckel 1974.

292 Cf. Aicher 1990, who instead identifies the armored male as Aeneas. She makes no mention, however, of one the stronger pieces of evidence in her favor: Amor’s suitability beside Aeneas in light of Aeneid 1.

293 Rizzo 1932: 82-83.

294 Rizzo 1932: 89-91.

104 has won. Indeed, Amor’s proximity to Mars in this composition juxtaposes that peace and

abundance with the militaristic victory itself. Joann McDaniel is entirely right, I think, to notice a

similarity between this Amor and that beside the Primaporta Augustus, and to “interpret the

entire composition—or rather this fragment that we have—as a statement linking the military successes of the emperor with the abundance he has brought forth.”295 That the whole

composition is placed before the princeps’ own residence beside a divinized Augustus only further integrates the images and associations of this Amor with the imperial household.

Conclusions

To conclude this chapter, I turn once more to Vergil, for the transformation of Amor into

a political symbol is perhaps most visible in the poet’s own play with one of his most famous

lines.296 I argued above that Propertius 3.5.1 alludes to Eclogues 10.69 to emphasize

contradictions inherent in the Augustan Amor, but Vergil himself recasts the line to suit the

prevailing sentiment in each of his three works:297

omnia uincit amor, et nos cedamus amori (Ecl. 10.69) labor omnia uicit / improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas (G. 1.145-46) uincet amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido (Aen. 6.823)

Love conquers all things. Let us, too, yield to love. Toil conquered all things, shameless as it is, and oppressive poverty in hard times. Love of the state will conquer, and immeasurable desire for praise.

Each variation on the line presents a theme central to its context. As I explored in Chapter 2, the

295 McDaniel 1995: 53-54.

296 For a list of allusions to Ecl. 10.69, see n.217 above.

297 Batstone 1992: 294; Petrini 1997: 58.

105 Amor of Eclogues 10 is an unstoppable destructive force. Like his predecessor in the Theocritean

Eros, he burns with such intensity and afflicts with such madness that no cure avails.298 That this

Amor “conquers all things” is therefore but a succinct summary of his character. When love

gives way to toil in the Georgics, however, Vergil appropriately replaces the nominative. It was

labor, alongside egestas, that “conquered all things” when Jupiter displaced Saturn. Yet Vergil does not abandon Amor even here, for the enjambed adjective improbus (“shameless”) recalls one of his most prominent epithets for the god of love.299 The troublesome force of the Eclogues

thus lurks just behind that of the Georgics, and even returns to power in Book 3 when “the same

love [occupies] all” (G. 3.224: amor omnibus idem).

Lastly, though amor returns as the subject in Aeneid 6, it appears in altered form. In

Anchises’ prediction of exemplary Romans to come, he ascribes an amor to one of Rome’s most famous statesmen, Lucius Junius Brutus. Brutus’ love, however, is specifically a “love for the state” (amor patriae). So, too, will he possess an immeasurable desire, but specifically a “desire for praise” (laudum…immensa cupido). Such is the amor of the Aeneid: desire suited to and actively engaged in the aims of Rome. At the same time, however, the passage further demonstrates how complex poetic engagement with state imagery can be. Vergil’s line in the

Aeneid may seem patriotic at a glance, but contains troubling undertones. First, this amor patriae is attached to none other than the legendary king slayer, a polarizing figure in the wake of

Caesar’s death. Second, this amor refers not to his famous act of tyrannicide, but instead to his

298 Ross 1975: 85-106.

299 On improbus Amor, see n.98 above. See also Batstone 1992: 289-95. There may also be play in this line with Poverty (πενία) as parent to Eros (Plato Symp. 178).

106 turn to filicide, when he put his own sons to death for fomenting civil war (6.820-21).300 His

“love of the state” and “desire for praise” are thus left morally ambiguous, as Vergil himself states: infelix, utcumque ferent ea facta minores (6.822: “an unfortunate man, however posterity speaks of his actions”). The Amor of the Aeneid may be engaged in Rome’s destiny, but nonetheless leaves destruction in its wake.301 Such is the poet’s adoption of and engagement with

the Augustan Amor.

300 The passage also draws a stark contrast between Brutus and Aeneas, whose amor patrius (“paternal love”) is emphasized in Book 1 (643-46).

301 After all, Amor’s bow may be absent from the Aeneid, but his madness (1.659), fire (1.660, 673-74, 688, 713), poison (1.688), and deceit (1.684, 710, 716) all remain. An SCS talk by Shannon DeBois (2018) examined the destructive qualities of Ascanius’ relationship with Cupid in the Aeneid and Maffeo Vegio’s 15th c. Supplementum.

107

CHAPTER 4: AMOR AND THE AUGUSTAN HOUSEHOLD

adspice cognati felicia Caesaris arma (Ovid, Amores 1.2.51)

Thus far I have focused predominantly on Amor’s newfound association with the Pax

Augusta. After establishing the figure’s prior, counter-cultural associations in Chapter 2, I sought in Chapter 3 to demonstrate Amor’s emergence as a symbol of peace and its resulting abundance.

Moreover, as a child of Venus Amor connects this peace to Augustus himself, his distant mortal relative. As part of Augustus’ divine family and entourage, Amor even appears in scenes alongside the princeps, offering his blessing for a prosperous reign. In this final chapter, I trace this association’s continued evolution as the connection between Amor and Augustus’ household deepens. Especially as imperial imagery shifts from concerns of legitimacy to anxiety over succession, the figure of Amor is increasingly mapped onto the imperial family’s youngest members. As a divine surrogate for Augustus’ potential heirs, this Amor represents Julian favor and the stability of their newly emerging dynasty.

I begin by returning to Vergil’s Aeneid, this time to characterize Amor’s insertion into

Rome’s—and the Julii’s—mythic past. Though the family had traced their ancestry back to

Venus through Aeneas since at least the 3rd c. BCE, it is Vergil who expands on the role of her divine son within this narrative.302 And expand he does. By having Amor takes the form and

302 Horsfall 1987; Gruen 1992: 6-51; Casali 2010.

108 place of Aeneas’ own son Iulus in Aeneid 1, Vergil associates him with the very namesake of the

Julian gens. Amor’s traits then become intertwined with those of the young Iulus, suggesting a

lasting impact of this transformation.

From there I turn to the assimilation of Amor to Augustus’ mortal relatives.303 Most

directly, Livia herself dedicated a votive of their deceased great-grandchild, a son of

Germanicus, “in the guise of Cupid” (Cal. 7: habitu Cupidinis). Though similar images appear elsewhere across Roman funerary art, the choice takes on additional significance for a member of the imperial household—particularly a member of Germanicus’ family, whose fecundity

Augustus held up as an example for all Roman citizens to follow. Along similar lines, I then examine two additional depictions of Amor that scholars have sought to equate with imperial children: the figure beside the statue of Augustus from Primaporta and that in the upper register of the Gemma Tiberiana. Although I make no effort to ascribe fixed identifications, I do find value in associating these figures with the Julian youth more generally. As a distant member of

Augustus’ family and divine counterpart to its youngest mortal members, Amor symbolizes the hope that peace will continue through the next generation of Augustus’ heirs.

Lastly, I examine the figure of Amor in Ovid, who pushes these associations to their breaking point. The relationship that Vergil is content to imply in Aeneid 1, for example, Ovid lays humorously bare. In the penultimate line of Amores 1.2, included as the epigraph to this chapter, Ovid implores Amor to “look to the fortunate arms of his kinsman Caesar.” Ovid’s

Amor is no longer a part of Augustus’ distant past, but an active force in his present. Similarly, when Ovid draws parallels between Amor and the Augustan household in Ars Amatoria 1, it is

303 On the assimilation of the imperial family to various divinities, particularly in the Hellenistic East, see Severy 2003: 114-15.

109 no mythic ancestor he describes. Rather, in the very work that may have led to his exile, Ovid

blurs the line between Amor and Augustus’ grandson and adopted heir, Gaius Caesar. In so

doing, though, Ovid points out every conceivable inconsistency in mapping the god of love onto

the young leader and conqueror.

Amor and Augustus’ Mythic Past

Amor’s integration into the Augustan household begins with the earliest of their supposed ancestors. As a child of Venus Amor is half-brother to the epic hero Aeneas, and it is for this reason that he intervenes in Book 1 of Vergil’s Aeneid (as I introduced in Chapter 3). Venus herself alleges this cause in enlisting the boy-god’s aid:

ergo his aligerum dictis adfatur Amorem: nate, meae uires, mea magna potentia, solus, nate, patris summi qui tela Typhoëa temnis, 665 ad te confugio et supplex tua numina posco. frater ut Aeneas pelago tuus omnia circum litora iactetur odiis Iunonis acerbae, nota tibi, et nostro doluisti saepe dolore. Vergil, Aeneid 1.663-69

Thus, with these words, [Venus] addresses winged Amor: “My son, my strength, my great power, you alone, my son, who scorn the Typhoean bolts of our mighty father, 665 I flee to you and, as a suppliant, seek your divine will. That your brother Aeneas is tossed at sea around all shores by the hatred of bitter Juno is known to you, and you have often grieved in our grief.”

Unlike Apollonius’ Aphrodite, who addresses Eros as an “unspeakable evil” (Argon. 3.129:

ἄφατον κακόν) and resorts to bribery to solicit his aid (3.131-53), Venus need only evoke only

their relationship as a means of persuasion.304 The prominent repetition of nate… nate (664-65,

304 On Vergil’s extended allusion to Apollonius’ Argonautica in this scene, see Nelis 2001: 93- 96.

110 both in the first position) is a pathetic appeal from mother to child, much as frater… Aeneas… tuus (667) evokes his fraternal bond.305

This close-knit mythological family then inclines toward the Julian gens when Amor

“obeys the commands of his dear genetrix” (Aen. 1.689), recalling Julius Caesar’s temple to

Venus Genetrix in the Forum Iulium (46 BCE). Of course, the most direct link comes in the very next line, as Amor impersonates Aeneas’ son: et alas / exuit et gressu gaudens incedit Iuli (689-

90). In a remarkably literal way, Vergil inserts Amor into the Julian gens itself,306 for although the Julii claimed Aeneas as their earliest mortal ancestor (see Chapter 1), it was Iulus that came to represent their etymological origins.307 Vergil himself makes this point when he explains the boy’s dual names:

at puer Ascanius, cui nunc cognomen Iulo additur (Ilus erat, dum res stetit Ilia regno) … nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar, imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris, Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo. Vergil, Aeneid 1.267-68, 286-88

But the boy Ascanius, to whom the cognomen Iulus is now added (it was Ilus as long as the kingdom of Ilium yet stood) … Trojan Caesar will be born from this beautiful line, who bound his rule with Ocean and his fame with the stars: Iulius, a name handed down from great Iulus.

305 Cf. Tib. 2.5.39, where the elegist humorously reverses the relationship: impiger Aenea, uolitantis frater Amoris (“diligent Aeneas, brother of flitting Amor”).

306 In conflating Amor and a young mortal, Vergil again follows in a tradition best known from Meleager (A.P. 12.76). Unlike Meleager’s Eros-Zoilus, though, this Amor-Iulus is not an object of sexual desire. He instead “fulfills the father’s love” (716: impleuit genitoris amorem) before sitting in Dido’s lap as a child with its mother (Aen. 1.685-88, 717-18; 4.83-85). Cf. also Aeneas’ “paternal love” (patrius…amor) at Aen. 1.643-46. 307 O’Hara 2017: 121, 220; Dingel 2001; Rogerson 2017.

111 Thus, in his bold conflation of key mythological figures—Ascanius with Iulus with Amor—

Vergil draws a series of lines between mythic past and historical present. In the end, Amor is not

only a distant divine cousin, but also a surrogate for the family’s very namesake.

Nor does the assimilation cease after Dido’s banquet, for there are shades of ambiguity

around Amor’s departure.308 Though Venus specifies that he is to impersonate the boy “for no

more than a single night” (683: noctem non amplius unam), and Amor is said three separate times to obey his mother (689: paret Amor dictis carae genetricis; 695: dicto parens; 719-20: memor ille / matris), Vergil never confirms Iulus’ return.309 Instead, when Dido again takes

Ascanius into her lap in Book 4, Vergil plants a subtle reminder of the unresolved switch:

illum absens absentem auditque uidetque, aut gremio Ascanium genitoris imagine capta detinet, infandum si fallere possit amorem. Vergil, Aeneid 4.83-85

Though distant, she hears and sees the distant man, or holds Ascanius in her lap, taken by his father’s likeness, in hopes she can cheat unspeakable love.

In Dido’s attempt to “cheat love” (85: fallere…amorem), Vergil recalls Amor’s own earlier deceptions (1.683-84: faciem…falle; 688: fallasque ueneno).310

Moreover, Iulus continues to appear and behave in ways that recall his divine

impersonator.311 For example, Vergil’s most common description of Iulus, pulcher (“beautiful”),

308 Ziogas 2010; Rogerson 2017: 75-77.

309 I am inclined to interpret this repetition as an “over emphasis,” forcing the reader to consider a question that would otherwise pass unnoticed.

310 Ziogas 2010: 154-55. In the original text, the distinction between amor and Amor would be even more difficult to make (cf. Park 2009).

311 Rogerson (2017: 124-30) also identifies language of fire as a link between Iulus and Amor.

112 appears only after the transformation.312 Beginning from the moment that Dido’s banqueters

“marvel at Iulus and the blazing face of the god” (1.709-10: mirantur Iulum / flagrantisque dei uultus), Iulus persistently evokes Amor’s longstanding place as “the fairest among the immortal gods” (cf. Hes. Theog. 120: ἠδ᾽ Ἔρος, ὃς κάλλιστος ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι).313 Similarly, Iulus makes conspicuous use of the bow and arrow. Take, for example, his ill-fated hunt in Latium

(7.475-502).314 The shot of this “beautiful Iulus” (7.477-78: pulcher…Iulus) is replete with amorous language and motifs:

ipse etiam eximiae laudis succensus amore Ascanius curuo derexit spicula cornu; nec dextrae erranti deus afuit, actaque multo perque uterum sonitu perque ilia uenit harundo. saucius at quadripes nota intra tecta refugit. Vergil, Aeneid 7.496–500

Ascanius, too, enflamed by a desire for distinguished praise, fired an arrow from his curved bow. Nor did the god leave his right hand to miss, and the shaft, shot with a great sound, passed through belly and loins. But, wounded, the creature fled into its familiar home.

Iulus is himself “enflamed by desire” (496: succensus amore) as he “fires an arrow from his curved bow” (497: curuo derexit spicula cornu). The shot then pierces the stag’s “belly” (499: uterum) and “loins” (499: ilia), both commonly sexualized terms.315 The stag itself recalls

312 Aen. 5.570; 7.107 and 477-78; 9.293 and 310. In my discussion of Ov. Ars am. 1 below, I argue that this same adjective creates a link between Cupid and the young Gaius Caesar.

313 Rogerson 2017: 131-44.

314 Much as Hera manipulated Eros’ bowshot in Argon. 3, Juno uses Ascanius’ bowshot toward her own ends here. Ziogas 2010: 158.

315 See Adams 1982: 50-51 and 100-103. Following this line of thought, Putnam (1995: 112) claims that Ascanius’ shot emasculates the stag. Cf. Horsfall 2000: 334.

113 Dido’s suffering in love, as well, when Vergil likened her to a wounded doe (4.66-73).316 Both

deer flee (7.500: refugit; 4.72: fuga) wounded (7.500: saucius; cf. 4.1: saucia) by the shaft

(7.499: harundo; 4.73: harundo). An unnamed god (498: deus) even aids Ascanius’ “erring right

hand” (498: dextrae erranti), sparking much uncertainty among modern scholars.317 While it is

possible that the term deus is here of common gender and refers to the fury Allecto,318 or that it

refers to no god in particular but rather divine favor more generally,319 it remains possible that it

evokes Amor himself, the god whose bow is so often “unerring.”320 Given that Allecto and Amor

are already so closely intertwined by this point in the text, and given Vergil’s tendency toward

multivalence, the association is indeed not difficult to make.321

Later, in Book 9, Iulus even engages in a Cupid-like rivalry with the god of archery,

Apollo. After his first foray into warfare, when Iulus shoots and kills the boastful Numanus

Remulus (Aen. 9.590-637), Apollo appears with the following command:322

‘sit satis, Aenide, telis impune Numanum oppetiisse tuis. primam hanc tibi magnus Apollo concedit laudem et paribus non inuidet armis; cetera parce, puer, bello.’

316 Pavlock 1992: 75-76; Ziogas 2010: 162-63.

317 Horsfall (2000: 333-34) provides a concise summary of the various viewpoints and additional scholarship. Moreover, the Latin itself is ambiguous. The phrase can mean either that the god prevented his hand from erring, or that he intervened so it would.

318 Cf. Timpanaro 1986: 145 n.6 and Courtney 1993 on Calvus fr. 7: pollentem deum Venerem (“the powerful god Venus”). Goold (1970: 115), however, speaking of Aen. 2.632 (ducente deo), asserts that “Virgil never uses deus of a goddess.”

319 Jenkyns 1985: 76 n.66.

320 Ziogas 2010: 164; Rogerson 2017: 149.

321 On Allecto and Eros, see Nelis 2001: 288-93 and Ziogas 2010: 158-59.

322 Ziogas 2010: 166-71.

114 Vergil, Aeneid 9.653-56

“Let it be enough, son of Aeneas, that you met Numanus with your weapons without harm. Great Apollo grants you this first glory, and he does not begrudge your use of similar arms. In all else, boy, refrain from war.”

Why should Apollo begrudge a mortal’s use of the bow (655: paribus… inuidet armis) in the first place? The overlap between Iulus and Amor provides a possible explanation. Tibullus 2.5, which engages with the Aeneid at numerous points (see Chapter 3),323 intimates a similar, adversarial relationship between Apollo and the god of the love:324

pace tua pereant arcus pereantque sagittae, Phoebe, modo in terris erret inermis Amor. ars bona sed postquam sumpsit sibi tela Cupido eheu quam multis ars dedit ista malum Tibullus 2.5.105-8

Amor, it seems, has laid claim to Apollo’s arms (107: sumpsit sibi tela Cupido) and turned the

once good art (107: ars bona) to evil (108: malum). Thus, the poet prays for Apollo to reassert his authority, even if it means destroying both bow and arrows for good (105: pereant arcus pereantque sagittae). Moreover, in describing this rivalry Tibullus establishes a contrast between

Amor’s aggression and Apollo’s peace (105: pace tua). So, too, in the brief meeting between

Apollo and Iulus, peace is the ultimate aim (Aen. 9.56: cetera parce, puer, bello). As Amor

323 See esp. Buchheit 1965 and Gerressen 1970.

324 See also Tib. 2.3.11-14 and 27-28, where Amor overpowers the god’s healing (14: quidquid erat medicae uicerat artis amor, “Whatever medical skill he had, love had conquered”) and forces him out of Delphi (27-28: Delos ubi nunc, Phoebe, tua est? ubi Delphica Pytho? / nempe Amor in parua te iubet esse casa, “Where is your Delos now, Phoebus? Where is your Delphic Python? Amor surely orders you to live in a small hut”).

115 becomes a symbol for the Pax Augusta, so Iulus-Amor represents the centrality of coming generations—the Julii in particular—to that goal.325

The most famous account of this rivalry, though, comes nearly 30 years later in Ovid’s

Metamorphoses 1.326 The story of Apollo and Daphne (1.452-567) begins as a contest between the boastful Apollo, fresh from his defeat of the Python, and Cupid scorned:

Primus amor Phoebi Daphne Peneia, quem non fors ignara dedit, sed saeua Cupidinis ira, Delius hunc nuper, uicta serpente superbus, uiderat adducto flectentem cornua neruo 455 ‘quid’ que ‘tibi, lasciue puer, cum fortibus armis?’ dixerat: ‘ista decent umeros gestamina nostros, qui dare certa ferae, dare uulnera possumus hosti, qui modo pestifero tot iugera uentre prementem strauimus innumeris tumidum Pythona sagittis. 460 tu face nescio quos esto contentus amores inritare tua, nec laudes adsere nostras!’ filius huic Veneris ‘figat tuus omnia, Phoebe, te meus arcus’ ait; ‘quantoque animalia cedunt cuncta deo, tanto minor est tua gloria nostra.’ 465 Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.452-65327

Phoebus’ first love was Peneian Daphne, though it was not blind chance brought it about. It was because of Cupid’s fierce wrath. The Delian, proud after defeating the serpent, had recently seen him bending his bow with the string drawn tight and had said, “What business do you have, petulant boy, with brave arms? That equipment fits my shoulders, I who can give sure wounds to beast and foe alike, I who just laid low the swollen Python, pressing so many acres with its plague-bearing belly, with innumerable arrows. You should be content in arousing unknown lovers with your torch, and not lay claim to my praises!” To him the son of Venus replied, “Your bow may pierce all things, Phoebus, but mine pierces you. As much as all living things yield

325 Petrini 1997: 87-110.

326 Nicoll 1980.

327 Text of the Met. is from Anderson 2008.

116 to a god, so much lesser is your glory than mine.”

Like Tibullus 2.5, Ovid’s description shows a clear awareness of Vergil’s passage.328 Vergil’s

Apollo bids the “boy” (Aen. 9.653: puer) to “let it be enough” (Aen. 9.656: sit satis); Ovid’s tells

the “petulant boy” (456: lasciue puer) to “be content” (461: esto contentus). Vergil’s Apollo

calls himself “great” (Aen. 9.654: magnus); Ovid’s is “proud” (454: superbus). Vergil’s Apollo

“does not begrudge the use of similar arms” (Aen. 9.655: paribus non inuidet armis); Ovid’s

mocks their use (456: ‘quid’ que ‘tibi, lasciue puer, cum fortibus armis?’) and asserts sole

ownership (457: ‘ista decent umeros gestamina nostros’). Vergil’s Apollo “yields praise” (Aen.

9.655: concedit laudem); Ovid’s claims it for himself (462: nec laudes adsere nostras). Despite

reversing Apollo’s characterization, Ovid clearly maps his contest onto Vergil’s encounter

between Apollo and Iulus. Thus, regardless of whether Vergil’s Iulus physically returns or not,

Ovid indicates that the two boys remained interchangeable.329

Nor is this the only time that Ovid engages with Tibullus and Vergil on the subject. In

Amores 3.9, as Amor mourns the death of Tibullus himself, Ovid again alludes to both poets

while suggesting a link between Amor and Iulus:

ecce, puer Veneris fert euersamque pharetram et fractos arcus et sine luce facem; adspice, demissis ut eat miserabilis alis pectoraque infesta tundat aperta manu! 10 excipiunt lacrimas sparsi per colla capilli, oraque singultu concutiente sonant. fratris in Aeneae sic illum funere dicunt

328 Ziogas 2010: 169-71.

329 Cf. Servius, who instead compares Vergil’s Ascanius to Apollo himself: “as the boy Apollo avenged his mother’s injury by killing the Python, so Ascanius defends the Trojans’ camp and avenges their injuries by killing Numanus” (Aen. 9.655: nam ut Apollo puer occiso Pythone ultus est matris iniuriam, sic Ascanius occiso Numano Troianorum castra iniuriasque defendit). Ovid’s Apollo recalls Ascanius’ transition from hunter to warrior, as well (cf. Met. 1.441-42 and Aen. 9.590-91).

117 egressum tectis, pulcher Iule, tuis. Ovid, Amores 3.9.7-14330

Behold, Venus’ boy holds his overturned quiver and broken bow, and his torch devoid of light. Look how sadly he goes, his wings cast down, and how he beats his bare chest with hostile hand! His curls, scattered about his neck, receive his tears, and his lips sound with shaking sobs. Thus, they say, he was at the funeral for his brother Aeneas, when he came out from your home, beautiful Iulus.

First, complete with the “Alexandrian footnote” dicunt, Ovid alludes to Vergil’s depiction of

Amor as Aeneas’ grieving brother (Aen. 1.667-69, quoted above).331 Ovid’s fratris in Aeneae

(13) appears in the same sedes as Vergil’s frater ut Aeneas (Aen. 1.667), and the details of

Amor’s anguish are a characteristically Ovidian expansion on Vergil’s nostro doluisti saepe dolore (Aen. 1.669: “you often grieved our grief”). By alluding to Vergil in his lament for

Tibullus, though, Ovid simultaneously pays homage to the late elegist’s engagement with this same passage: impiger Aenea, uolitantis frater Amoris (Tib. 2.5.39: “restless Aeneas, brother of flitting Amor”).332 Thus, Ovid honors Tibullus’ memory by joining in his predecessor’s poetic

game. Of course, in the following pentameter, Ovid goes a step further. By having Amor come

forth from Iulus’ own house (with the possessive adjective tuis held until the final position), he

again evokes Vergil’s ambiguity around Amor’s departure.333 While certainly consistent with

330 Text of the Am. and Ars am. is from Kenney 1994. Translations are my own.

331 On the “Alexandrian footnote” see esp. Norden 1903: 122-124; Ross 1975: 78; Hinds 1998: 1-5.

332 Tibullus, however, humorously evokes this relationship in the opposite direction. Whereas Vergil elevates Amor through his fraternal grief for the epic hero, Tibullus diminishes Aeneas’ active nature (impiger) by likening it to the elegiac god’s flightiness (uolitantis).

333 Cf. Ziogas 2010: 169 n.66.

118 Roman funeral rites (the pompa funebris moved from the home of the deceased to the place of

burial), the detail forges a final connection between Amor and the once more “beautiful Iulus”

(14: pulcher Iule).

Amor and Augustus’ Present

Amor’s assimilation to his Julian relatives, however, is not confined to oblique references in the mythic past. The boy-god becomes increasingly intertwined with members of Augustus’ own household, and to much the same effect. Specifically, Amor’s likeness is mapped onto the

youngest members of the Julio-Claudian family as Augustus’ focus shifts from legitimacy to

succession. The association not only elevates the Julio-Claudian youth by blurring the line

between mortal and divinity, but also expresses their role as the inheritors and lasting future of

Augustus’ hard-won peace.

The most direct example of Amor’s assimilation to one of Augustus’ family members

comes from Suetonius’ Life of Caligula. One of Germanicus’ children, a Gaius who was born in

11 CE and seems to have died around the age of two, was posthumously depicted as Amor in a

votive portrait:

habuit in matrimonio Agrippinam, M. Agrippae et Iuliae filiam, et ex ea nouem liberos tulit: quorum duo infantes adhuc rapti, unus iam puerascens insigni festiuitate, cuius effigiem habitu Cupidinis in aede Capitolinae Veneris Liuia dedicauit, Augustus in cubiculo suo positam, quotiensque introiret, exosculabatur. Suetonius, Caligula 7

[Germanicus, in 5 CE,] married Agrippina, the daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia, and with her had nine children. Two of these passed while still infants, and one, who had a remarkably kind demeanor, just as he was becoming a boy. Livia dedicated a portrait of this child in the guise of Cupid in the temple of Capitoline Venus, and Augustus, after placing it in his own bedroom, used to kiss it whenever he entered the room.

Suetonius even places Augustus and Livia at the development’s center. Livia herself dedicated

119 (Liuia dedicauit) this portrait of their deceased great-grandson “in the guise of Cupid” (habitu

Cupidinis), and Augustus apparently liked it enough to move it to his own bedroom (in cubiculo suo). That Augustus kissed the votive as often as he came into the room (quotiensque introiret, exosculabatur) adds a sentimental touch to Suetonius’ depiction of the princeps in his final years.

On the one hand, the dedication of this child’s portrait as Amor reflects larger trends in children’s funereal customs.334 By the 2nd-3rd c. CE, at least, Amor becomes popular on children’s monuments and sarcophagi for much the same reasons as Suetonius here gives.335 The

god’s similar age (cf. iam puerescens) and playful demeanor (cf. insigni festiuitate) make him an

ideal representation for fond memories of lost children. A 2nd c. CE altar from Germania

Superior, for example, contains both a full-figure portrait of the deceased child with Amor’s

ringlets and wings and an inscription describing his “having the appearance and manner of

Cupid” (9-10: Cupidinis / os habitumque gerens).336 In fact, six of Mander’s catalogued funeral

monuments (all also from the 2nd c. CE) contain portraits of boys with Amor’s features,

following only Horus and Mercury in frequency.337

334 On posthumous votive portraits more generally see, e.g., Dillon 2010: 9-59 and Dillon’s review of Krumeich 1997 (BMCR 2001.10.02).

335 Stuveras 1969: 33-40; Huskinson 1996: 41-54, 105-9; 2007; Dimas 1998: 166-97. With similar associations, children were also dressed up as Cupids for entertainment (deliciae), as at Suet. Aug. 83 and Plut. Ant. 26.2. See Slater 1974: 133-40; Birt 1918: 134-64.

336 Mander #454. The inscription alludes to Verg. Aen. 1.315, which describes Venus in the guise of a Spartan maiden. It goes on to say “nor would I be afraid to say he was Apolline” (10-11: nec metuam dicere Apollineus). Mander (2013: 14) suggests that, in addition to bearing Cupid’s likeness, the child’s portrait reflects Apollo’s pose and muscle definition.

337 Mander’s catalog also includes representations of young boys as Harpocrates, Hercules, Apollo, and Ganymede.

120 On the other hand, as with Octavian’s infamous costume party in the 30s BCE,338 such

comparisons take on additional significance for those in power.339 Not only was the Julian

ancestry from Venus well established by the time of this young Gaius’ death, but Augustus’

numen had already been worshipped in Italy for over a decade. The significance of Augustus’

own great-grandson in the guise of Amor could hardly pass unnoticed within this context.

Moreover, Augustus’ descendants—Germanicus’ family, in particular—symbolized the very

associations that this Amor had come to bear. Suetonius tells of a public event where

Germanicus and his children were brought forth as an overt political statement. Facing public

opposition as the final versions of his marriage legislation were being put into place, Augustus

presents them as examples to follow:

leges retractauit et quasdam ex integro sanxit, ut sumptuariam et de adulteriis et de pudicitia, de ambitu, de maritandis ordinibus. hanc cum aliquanto seuerius quam ceteras emendasset, prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum lenitaue parte poenarum et uacatione trienni data auctisque praemiis. Sic quoque abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite, accitos Germanici liberos receptosque partim ad se partim in patris gremium ostentauit, manu uultuque significans ne grauarentur imitari iuuenis exemplum. Suetonius, Augustus 34

[Augustus] reexamined the laws and established some from scratch, like those on extravagance, adultery, chastity, bribery, and marriage between the classes. He reformed the latter somewhat more sternly than the rest and, because of public outcry, couldn’t pass it until he’d removed (or at least lightened) some of the penalties, granted a three-year exemption, and increased the rewards. When, at a public event, the equites again obstinately demanded its repeal, he summoned Germanicus’ children and, bringing some to himself and others to their father’s

338 Suet. Aug. 70. Servius also mentions a statue of Augustus in the guise of Apollo in his note on Ecl. 4.10. For analysis see Miller 2009: 15-16, 30-39.

339 Lindsay (1993: 63) and Hurley (1993: 16-17) both connect Livia’s votive to notions of Julian descent from Venus. According to Diodorus Siculus (4.83), the Temple of Venus Erycina (Capitolinae Veneris) was also associated with the Aeneas foundation myth (Schilling 1954: 233-66). Wardle (1994: 124), however, asserts that “any dynastic significance of Cupid and the Julian family was probably coincidental.” Eitrem (1932: 29-31) compares Livia’s dedication to Cleopatra and Caesarion’s appearance as Aphrodite and Eros on coinage.

121 lap, made a show of them, indicating by gesture and expression that they should not think it a burden to follow the young man’s example.

Germanicus’ children, much like the child Germanicus himself on the Ara Pacis, thus represent

the fruits of peace and the flourishing future of Rome. That these children were likened to Amor,

their own divine relative, only solidifies this same political messaging.

The Primaporta Statue and Gemma Tiberiana

Drawing largely on Suetonius’ account at Caligula 7, many scholars have sought to

identify imperial children in surviving depictions of Amor, as well. Two works, in particular,

have dominated the conversation: the dolphin-riding Amor beside the statue of Augustus from

Primaporta [fig. 11a]340 and the Amor in the upper register of the Gemma Tiberiana [fig. 12].341

In this section, I will examine these images within the framework I have established. Rather than arguing for specific identifications, however, I here suggest the figures’ suitability as representations for Julio-Claudian youth more generally. In further blurring the line between mortal and divine, these figures symbolize not only the imperial family’s continued favor, but also Rome’s lasting peace through the stability of succession.

Beside the famous statue of Augustus from Livia’s villa at Primaporta—one emphasizing the princeps’ martial success, cosmological significance, and own quasi-divinity—is Amor [fig.

11a].342 Depicted as a well-nourished, naked, and winged child, the figure sits on a dolphin,

340 E.g., Hohl 1938; Müller 1941. For identification as Gaius Caesar, son of Agrippa and Julia (20 BCE-4 CE), see Studniczka 1910: 50-55; Simon 1957: 64-65; Pollini 1987: 41, 2012: 420.

341 The earliest identification was by Fabri de Peiresc in 1619. See also Furtwängler 1900: 270; Hohl 1938, 1948-49.

342 For interpretations of the statue as a whole, see Kähler 1959; Simon 1959; Grozz 1959; Pollini 1978: 8-74, 2012: 186-90; Zanker 1988: 188-92; Cadario 2004: 251-82.

122 holding onto its tail with his raised left hand. A drill hole through the figure’s lowered right fist indicates that he held an additional item, as well, most commonly reconstructed as a whip or goad. His gaze is then turned upward as he looks toward Augustus above. Structurally, the boy- god is part of the necessary support for a free-standing marble statue. Amor, his dolphin mount

(turned at an awkward angle to suit the vertical space), and the tree branch behind them all strengthen the princeps’ right leg. Given, however, that the statue appears to be an early Tiberian copy of an Augustan bronze original,343 where such a support would have been unnecessary, it is likely that this Amor is original to the private context of Livia’s own garden.344

Thematically, the figure carries many of the same associations examined over the course of this study. Amor’s appearance as a naked and well-nourished child, for example, exemplifies the same Augustan fertility motif as the children on the Ara Pacis (discussed in Chapter 1). In fact, a similar Tellus appears with twins and cornucopia in hand at the base of Augustus’ cuirass

[fig. 11b]. The image of children as a symbol of abundance is thus twice accounted for in one and the same work. Nonetheless, Amor remains visually distinguishable from other children by virtue of his wings.345 As an inverse of Amor’s shedding his wings in Aeneid 1 (689-90), the mark of his assuming Iulus’ human form, their presence in the Primaporta statue makes clear his divinity (and by extension reinforces that of Augustus).346

The meaning of Amor’s position on a dolphin is slightly less direct, but equally

343 Loeschcke 1906; Müller 1941.

344 On the statue’s findspot, see Pollini 1987-88. See also Pollini 2012: 186-87.

345 On Amor’s wings as a criterion for identification, and their absence as a blurring between mortal and divine, see Huskinson 1996: 41.

346 Augustus’ bare feet heroize him, suggesting the Primaporta statue was made after Augustus’ death and deification.

123 consistent. First, as a connection to the sea like his small shell dish on the Boscoreale cup

(examined in Chapter 3), the dolphin further illustrates Amor’s—and thus Augustus’—relation to

Venus.347 His wings may mark him as divine, but his role as dolphin-rider reiterates just whose divine child he is. Second, as is also apparent on the Boscoreale cup, Amor’s connection to the sea evokes life-giving abundance in its own right.348 Beside the cuirassed figure of Augustus, much like Amor’s pairing with Mars on the Sorrento base (examined in Chapter 3), Amor once again represents the fruits of peace as a pendant to conquest.349 Specifically, the dolphin might also recall Octavian’s naval victory at Actium in 31 BCE.350

Nonetheless, this Amor differs in one prominent way from the examples discussed thus far: his portrait-like face. Specifically, he has a close-cropped hair style in place of the boy-god’s characteristic ringlets,351 an unusual head shape and size compared to other idealized putti,352

347 Hannestad 1986: 51; Zanker 1988: 189. On Amor’s appearance in marine settings and his tendency to ride sea creatures, see Huskinson 1996: 45-46; Guerrini 1982 n.78.

348 If this Amor once held a flower in his lowered right hand (a combined image type attested in later Greek epigram, A.P. 16.207), the motif of abundance at land and sea would indeed be much the same as on the Boscoreale cup. For Amor with such a flower, see esp. the “Maenad and Amor” fresco from the House of Caecilius Iucundus.

349 On the Primaporta statue’s similarity to the Mars and Amor on the Sorrento base, see McDaniel 1995: 53-54.

350 Kleiner 1992: 65; cf. Zanker 1988: 82-85. Granted, Actium was something of a distant memory by the time of the statue’s creation. Even if the original bronze statue included this Amor, the composition could not have been designed until after the return the Parthian standards in 20 BCE—over a decade after the battle. If the Amor and dolphin were added only to the later marble copy, as is more likely, three and a half more decades would have passed.

351 Huskinson (2007: 326) separates children’s hairstyles into three categories: “Hair is often arranged in distinctive styles of childhood: some imitate the imperial children, a few have the ‘top-knot’ style of Hellenistic cupids, and several wear ornaments in their hair.”

352 Pollini (1987: 41n.4) notes that the ratio of this figures head to it body is larger than that of most putti. The larger ratio is more common of adult statues and may therefore suggest

124 and an uncharacteristically slack-jawed facial expression. Thus, scholars have long proposed that

this Amor contains a portrait bust of a Julio-Claudian prince. He is, to reuse another of Vergil’s

phrases, “Cupid, changed in face and appearance” (Aen. 1.658: faciem mutatus et ora Cupido).

The most common suggestions are Gaius, the son of Germanicus mentioned by Suetonius above,

and Gaius Caesar, the son of Agrippa and Augustus’ adopted heir. I will here, however, avoid

associating the Primaporta Amor with any single child. It is sufficient for my purposes that this

figure’s portrait-like face has reminded so many viewers of Augustus’ mortal descendants. The

Amor beside the Primaporta statue continues to evoke themes of peace and fertility, and once

again links these themes to images of the imperial children.

Much the same can be said of Amor’s inclusion in another well-known work from the

Tiberian period, the Gemma Tiberiana [fig. 12].353 This large (31 x 26.5 cm), five-layered sardonyx cameo is a masterful projection of imperial stability near the end of Tiberius’ reign.

Each of the cameo’s three zones contributes to this same, overarching message. The central register depicts Tiberius and Livia seated on thrones, before whom a Julio-Claudian prince

(whose identification remains uncertain) either departs for or arrives from military campaign. A

number of other imperial family members are also present, including women and a young boy in

military uniform, whose presence indicates Julio-Claudian fertility and the strength of imperial succession. Beneath them, in the cameo’s lowest register, are then various foreign peoples shown in a state of subjugation. The imperial family’s prosperity thus rests quite literally upon those it has recently conquered. Amor, however, occupies the final, uppermost register, accompanying

portraiture (cf. the young Germanicus on the Ara Pacis, whose adult-like proportions function in similar fashion).

353 Jeppesen 1974; Megow 1987: 202-7; Boschung 1989: 64-68; Giard 1998; Giuliani and Schmidt 2010.

125 the family’s deceased members in the heavens. Augustus himself reclines in the center, flanked by two relatives rising upward in apotheosis. One appears to ascend upon his shield, while the other is borne aloft by a Pegasus. Amor, again depicted as a nude, winged child just beside

Augustus, guides this Pegasus’ reins and leads his relative heavenward.

This Amor, too, has been likened to the young Gaius of Suetonius’ account, particularly given that the figure being led upward might be Germanicus himself. Nor would Amor be the only figure to blur mortal and divine in the work. Tiberius sits semi-nude in the guise of Jupiter with aegis, laurel wreath, and scepter, and beside him sits his mother Livia in the guise of Ceres, holding sheaves and poppies in her right hand.354 Regarding this Amor, however, I am even less inclined to push for any particular mortal identification. While the Amor beside the Primaporta statue displays strong portrait-like features and hairstyle, this Amor has nothing to differentiate him from other depictions of the god during this period. His idealized face and shoulder-length locks are decidedly Cupid-like. Nonetheless, I again maintain that scholars are correct to connect this figure with the imperial children more generally. If nothing else, the god’s seamless appearance beside his mortal relatives indicates integration into Augustus’ household. As a representation of the family’s divine ancestry and favor, Amor here legitimizes their own deification and the continued right of this line to rule.

Ovid’s Amores 1.1 and 1.2

As with Amor’s connection to the Pax Augusta, though, his assimilation to the imperial children becomes more complicated in Augustan poetry. Ovid, in particular, engages with this motif across his corpus and (in typical Ovidian fashion) pushes the relationship to its often-

354 Kleiner 1992: 150-52.

126 unflattering breaking point. Indeed, Amor’s relation to Caesar appears as early as Amores 1.1 and 1.2, setting the tone for much the poet’s subsequent play with the image.

Ovid’s heightened engagement with the motif is in part a matter of timing. Compared with the authors studied thus far, Ovid’s poetry moves us forward by half a generation. Born in

43 BCE, a year after the assassination of Julius Caesar, Ovid had no personal experience of a world before Octavian. Moreover, Ovid did not assume the toga uirilis until around 27 BCE, four years after the battle of Actium and the year in which Octavian became Augustus. Unlike

Vergil, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius, whose poetry all engages with the tumultuous period of civil war and subsequent transition into Augustus’ control, Ovid rests squarely within the early empire.355 In other words, anxiety over succession is by far the more pressing cultural concern

by the time the Amores are published.356

Nonetheless, Ovid remains fully engaged in the trends I have set out in each of my

previous chapters. For example, Amor is just as programmatic a figure in the Amores as in the

works of Propertius or Tibullus (if not more so).357 Vergil’s arma is famously the first word of

Amores 1.1, but Cupid is the first named figure:358

arma graui numero uiolentaque bella parabam edere, materia conueniente modis. par erat inferior uersus—risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem. ‘quis tibi, saeue puer, dedit hoc in carmina iuris?’ Ovid, Amores 1.1.1-5

355 Hardie 2002: 34; Habinek 2002: 46; Knox 2009: 4-5.

356 On the complicated chronology of Ovid’s publications, see McKeown 1987: 74-89.

357 On amor/Amor in Ovid, see Fyler 1971; Myerowitz 1985; Athanassaki 1992; Park 2009; Drogula 2012.

358 Labate 1984: 17-20; Tarrant 2002: 23-27.

127 Arms and violent wars, in a heavy meter, I was preparing to put forth, with the material suited to its rhythms. The second line was of equal length—but Cupid laughed, they say, and stole a single foot. “Who gave you, fierce boy, this right in poetry?”

In a witty take on the conventional recusatio, it is the god of love himself who forces Ovid away

from epic.359 In fact, it is solely because of the boy-god’s mischievousness that Ovid writes

elegy, for the amator is not even yet in love (19-20: nec mihi materia est numeris leuioribus apta

/ aut puer aut longas compta puella comas, “Nor do I have material suitable for lighter meters, neither a boy nor a girl with long, neatly arranged hair”).

Also like his predecessors, Ovid’s first mention of Amor indicates his poetic indebtedness (see Chapter 2). The Alexandrian footnote dicitur (4) draws particular attention to the allusive nature of the elegy’s opening. Whereas Vergil alludes to Theocritus, however, or

Propertius and Tibullus to Meleager, Ovid alludes to his immediate Roman predecessors.360

Amor is here the “fierce” god of Eclogues 8.47 (saeuos Amor) and Tibullus 1.6.3 (quid tibi, saeue, rei mecum est?).361 Even so, it is noteworthy that Ovid hearkens back to an Amor of the

30s and early 20s BCE. Instead of recalling the obedient Amor of Aeneid 1, as the opening

allusion might lead one to expect, Ovid breaks from the most recent depictions of Amor. In other

words, from the start, Ovid’s Amor is overtly at odds with the Augustan program.

359 Morgan 2003: 74-75.

360 Ovid’s suggestion that Cupid is said to have laughed and stolen a foot corresponds neither with Vergil’s nor Tibullus’ Amor directly. Yet, just as the dicunt of Am. 3.9.13 points to an Amor only vaguely reminiscent of Vergil’s, perhaps Amor’s laughter and theft of a foot is a play on Amor’s joy at impersonating Iulus’ “step” (Aen. 1.690: gressu gaudens incedit Iuli).

361 Major manuscripts of Tibullus contain seuicie (saeuitiae), for which saeue rei is Postgate’s emendation. Others print saeue puer, drawing on Ovid’s allusion. Compare also Met. 1.456: (‘quid’ que ‘tibi, lasciue puer, cum fortibus armis?’).

128 Take, for example, the attribute of greatest interest in my previous chapter: Amor’s bow

and arrow. Despite Tibullus’ fixation on removing the god’s arms in Book 2, their complete

disappearance from Propertius’ Book 3 and Vergil’s Aeneid, and their exclusion from Augustan

public monuments, Ovid reequips the god with his most devastating attribute:362

questus eram, pharetra cum protinus ille soluta legit in exitium spicula facta meum, lunauitque genu sinuosum fortiter arcum, ‘quod’ que ‘canas, uates, accipe’ dixit ‘opus!’ me miserum! certas habuit puer ille sagittas. 25 uror, et in uacuo pectore regnat Amor. Ovid, Amores 1.1.21-26

I had just finished my complaint when, his quiver opened, he chose a dart made for my ruin, bent the curved bow over strongly with his knee, and said, “Receive, bard, a work that you can sing!” Wretched me! That boy had sure arrows. I’m on fire, and Amor reigns in my empty heart.

Simply put, Ovid refuses to set the attribute aside. Amor’s bow and arrows appear thirteen times

across ten poems in the Amores alone.363 Nor are they confined to that work. When Venus again seeks the boy-god’s aid in Metamorphoses 5, she addresses him by this very attribute: arma manusque meae, mea, nate, potentia (Met. 5.365: “My son, my arms and army, my power”). By alluding to Venus’ similar address in Aeneid 1 (Aen. 1.664: nate, meae uires, mea magna potentia, “My son, my strength, my great power”), Ovid even draws attention to the

362 Cf. Hinds (1987b: 167 n.45) on “Ovid’s ‘restoration’ to Cupid of the traditional bow and arrow with which he had operated in the Apollonian version, but which Vergil had suppressed.”

363 Am. 1.1.21-26; 1.2.7, 22; 1.11.11; 2.1.7; 2.5.1; 2.7.27; 2.9a.5, 11, 13-14; 2.9b.34-38; 3.2.55; 3.9.7-8. Cf., however, 1.10.19-20: nec Venus apta feris Veneris nec filius armis— / non decet inbelles aera merere deos (“Neither Venus nor Venus’ son are suited to savage arms. It is not fitting for unwarlike gods to earn military pay”).

129 discrepancy.364 Whereas Vergil is consistent in disarming the god of love, arma is here Venus’

very first description of Amor.

In this and several other regards, the Amor that Ovid constructs is directly opposed to the

“Augustan Amor” I have sought to characterize. Yet, as the allusion to Vergil suggests, the

opposition is not by accident. Ovid’s Amor is consistently a confrontational being, overstepping

his bounds and upsetting order, but nonetheless continues to engage with contemporary themes.

Later in Amores 1.1, Amor becomes a symbol not of peace and prosperity, but of excessive

ambition and the resulting disorder:365

sunt tibi magna, puer, nimiumque potentia regna; cur opus adfectas, ambitiose, novum? an, quod ubique, tuum est? tua sunt Heliconia tempe? 15 vix etiam Phoebo iam lyra tuta sua est? Ovid, Amores 1.1.13-16

You have great and overly powerful kingdoms, boy. Why do you reach for a new work in your ambition? Or is everything everywhere yours? Are the vales of Helicon yours? Is even Phoebus’ own lyre scarcely safe?

Rather than having Amor submit to Phoebus’ authority, Ovid characterizes the god as an

overreaching conqueror. In other words, instead of presenting Amor as he has been constructed

within the Augustan program, Ovid puts on full display an Amor that reflects Augustan reality—

one who mirrors even the negative aspects of his mortal kinsman.

The same can be said of Amores 1.2, where Ovid makes this relationship explicit. The poem opens with the amator’s tossing and turning in bed (1-4), exhibiting the symptoms of

364 Morgan 2003: 84-85; Hinds 1987b: 133-34.

365 Rather than producing harmony (concordia deorum), Amor’s actions prompt Ovid to envision the collapse of the Roman pantheon. Cupid’s intrusion humorously threatens the very fabric of cosmic order.

130 love’s madness. While contemplating his condition, the amator begins an analysis of the nature

of Amor:

nam, puto, sentirem, siquo temptarer amore. 5 an subit et tecta callidus arte nocet? sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae, et possessa ferus pectora uersat Amor. cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem? cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus. 10 Ovid, Amores 1.2.5-10

For I think I would feel it, if I were assailed by some love. Or does he sneak in and cleverly wound me with a hidden art? That must be it; his thin arrows have stuck in my heart, and savage Amor twists my possessed chest. Do I yield, or do I kindle the sudden flame by struggling? Let me yield! The burden is light which is borne well.

As in Amores 1.1, Ovid’s Amor is again the savage conqueror of Vergil’s Eclogues. The amator’s repetition of cedimus… cedamus (9-10, emphasized by their position as the first words in successive lines) recalls Vergil’s famous injunction to do just that: omnia uincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori (Ecl. 10.69).366 Ovid again evokes Tibullus 1.6, as well:

En ego confiteor! tua sum noua praeda, Cupido; porrigimus uictas ad tua iura manus. 20 nil opus est bello—ueniam pacemque rogamus; nec tibi laus armis uictus inermis ero. Ovid, Amores 1.2.19-22

Look, I confess! I am your new spoils, Cupid. I stretch out my hands, conquered, to your laws. There is no need for war—I seek pardon and peace. There’ll be no praise for you if I, an unarmed man, am conquered by arms.

The suggestion that Amor will gain no praise (22: nec tibi laus) recalls Tibullus’ similar

366 Cf. McKeown 1989: 38. McKeown, however, suggests that the allusion is to Vergil’s Gallan model (based on Servius’ remark at Ecl. 10.46: hi autem omnes versus Galli sunt, de ipsius translati carminibus, “but these are all the verses of Gallus, extracted from his own poems”). I briefly address this issue in Chapter 2.

131 rhetorical question: an gloria magna est / insidias homini composuisse deum (Tib. 1.6.3-4: “Or is

there great glory for a god to have laid traps for a mortal?). Whereas Tibullus emphasized

Amor’s divinity, though, Ovid again recasts the power disparity in terms of arma.

Also as in Amores 1.1, Ovid contrasts Amor’s behavior with the political associations

most recently placed upon him. For example, when the amator begs for “peace and pardon” (21:

ueniam pacemque rogamus), he pairs the god’s connection to pax with Caesar’s own penchant

for clemency. Then, when Ovid envisions the god of love leading a mock triumph (23-50), he makes a clever statement on Amor’s integration into Augustus’ household.367 Over the course of

his reign Augustus had restricted this honor to members of the imperial family, and the last

triumph for a non-relative was in 19 BCE.368 As an extended relative, however, Amor humorously maintains the right.369 Even so, over the course of Amor’s triumph, Ovid proceeds

to re-outline the many ways in which Amor stands opposed to traditional Roman morality (see

Chapter 2).370 Personifications of “Sound Mind” (31: Mens Bona) and “Modesty” (32: Pudor)

have their hands bound behind their backs, while “Flatteries” (35: Blanditiae), “Blunder” (35:

Error), and “Madness” (35: Furor) march by Amor’s side.371 This Amor’s triumph contradicts

the very morals Augustus sought so long to reform.

367 As if to ensure this point does not pass unnoticed, Ovid repeats the word “triumph” five times (25, 28, 34, 39, 49).

368 Barini 1952: 27-47; Galinsky 1969b: 77; McKeown 1989: 32-33; Holzberg 2005: 443-44; Pandey 2018: 210-12.

369 Galinsky 1969b: 92-93; Harvey 1983; Miller 1995: 293-94; Davis 1999: 439.

370 Galinsky 1969b: 91-94.

371 Ovid’s addition of Furor is especially pointed, for “in the Forum of Augustus, on the left as you enter, there was a painting of War and Furor bound, seated on weapons” (Serv. ad Aen. 1.294). Cf. Plin. NH 35.27. Daut 1984; Phillips 1980: 275; Pandey 2018: 210-11.

132 Then, to conclude the poem, Ovid pairs Amor directly with his mortal kinsman in a final

plea for mercy: adspice cognati felicia Caesaris arma— / qua uicit, uictos protegit ille manu (51-

52: “Look to the fortunate arms of your kinsman, Caesar—the hand with which he conquers, he protects the conquered”).372 Ovid’s Amor is explicitly not living up to Augustus’ peaceful aims, and the relationship between Amor and the imperial family provides the foundation for Ovid’s

punchline.

Ovid’s Propemptikon for Gaius Caesar (Ars Amatoria 1.177-228)

Ovid’s most extended engagement with this relationship comes much later, in the first

Book of his Ars Amatoria. Nestled within his advice for aspiring lovers, the praeceptor amoris

“digresses” into an extended propemptikon for Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ grandson and adopted heir.373 The praeceptor’s ultimate aim is to use Gaius’ triumph as a place to meet and seduce

girls (drawing heavily upon Propertius 3.4), but for nearly thirty lines he extols Gaius’ virtues,

divine favor, and remarkable ability despite his age. The shift in tone has led some to conclude

that Ovid lapses into “sincere panegyric.”374 Others, however, have begun to notice that in

describing the young triumphator, Ovid draws overt parallels to Amor’s triumph in Amores

1.2.375 In this final section, I will expand on these examinations (suggesting also a number of

372 For the relationship between Amor and Caesar see Cahoon 1988: 295 and Miller 1995: 293-4. Galinsky 1969b: 92-93 also notes that Ovid addresses Cupid and the Caesars with the same language.

373 On the didactic function of Ovid’s digressions, see Sharrock 2007.

374 Meyer 1961: 82-86; Hollis 1977: 72-73; Williams 1978: 74-80; Steudel 1992: 175-83; Heyworth 1995: 145-49; Wildberger 1998: 60-76; Schmitzer 2002: 287-304. Cf. also Hinds 1987a: 23-29.

375 Holzberg 2005: 445-51; Pandey 2018: 212-213.

133 new parallels) to argue that Ovid constructs a parody of Gaius’ association with Amor.

Overlapping emphases on youth, divinity, and family suggest the image’s continued association with the legitimacy and stability of the imperial family, but Ovid again draws out humorous inconsistencies. Here, Ovid focuses especially on the image’s incongruity within militaristic contexts.

The most direct of the allusions to Amor’s triumph is examined at length by Niklas

Holzberg.376 Gaius, the praeceptor predicts, will “go forth golden” in his triumphal procession:

ergo erit illa dies, qua tu, pulcherrime rerum quattuor in niueis aureus ibis equis. Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.213-14

Thus will be that day, when you, most beautiful of all, will go forth golden on four snowy horses.

Triumphators famously wore an embroidered toga picta in the procession, but Ovid’s phrasing

recalls his own earlier play between this gold and Amor’s golden appearance:

tu pinnas gemma, gemma uariante capillos ibis in auratis aureus ipse rotis. Ovid, Amores 1.2.41-42

You, with gems ornamenting your wings and hair, will go forth on golden wheels, golden yourself.

McKeown is right, I think, to suggest that the adjective aureus applies doubly to Amor, son of

“Golden Aphrodite” (e.g., Hom. Il. 3.64: χρυσέη Ἀφροδίτη).377 For this same reason, though, it

also bears additional meaning for Gaius, connecting the two “sons of Venus” across Ovid’s

poems. So, too, in the preceding line Ovid addresses Gaius as “the most beautiful of all” (213:

376 Holzberg 2005: 449-51.

377 McKeown 1989: 54-55.

134 pulcherrime rerum),378 recalling again Amor’s long-attested status as “the fairest of the gods”

(Hes. Theog. 120). Just as Vergil uses the adjective pulcher as a recurring connection between

Amor and Iulus (see the first section of this chapter), so does Ovid for Amor and Gaius.379

Gaius’ similarity to Amor, however, extends far beyond this single couplet. Three themes

dominate Ovid’s description of the would-be conqueror, and each reinforces the bond between

deity and mortal counterpart. First, and most prominently, the praeceptor stresses Gaius’

remarkably young age to be given such a command. Ovid develops his pueritas for the opening

twelve lines:

ultor adest, primisque ducem profitetur in annis, bellaque non puero tractat agenda puer. parcite natales timidi numerare deorum: Caesaribus uirtus contigit ante diem. ingenium caeleste suis uelocius annis 185 surgit et ignauae fert male damna morae: paruus erat manibusque duos Tirynthius angues pressit et in cunis iam Ioue dignus erat; nunc quoque qui puer es, quantus tum, Bacche, fuisti, cum timuit thyrsos India uicta tuos? 190 auspiciis annisque patris, puer, arma mouebis et uinces annis auspiiciisque patris. Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.181-92

An avenger is at hand, and he is declared a leader in his first years. The boy conducts wars which by a boy ought not to be waged. Stop counting the gods’ birthdays, cowards; manly virtue embodies Caesars before their appointed day. A heavenly genius rises more swiftly than its years and does not bear well the losses of idle delay. The Tirynthian was small and he strangled two snakes with his hands; in his cradle he was already worthy of Jove. Bacchus, too, you who are a boy even now, how great were you when conquered India feared your thyrsus?

378 Hollis (1977: 81) refers to pulcherrime rerum as “a surprisingly informal mode of address.”

379 Rogerson 2017: 131-44. Ovid’s repetition of gemma, gemma and auratis aureus (Am. 1.2.41- 42) emphasizes the god’s extravagant beauty, as well. McKeown 1989: 54; Athanassaki 1992: 132.

135 With the omens and years of your father, boy, you’ll rouse arms, and you’ll conquer with the years and omens of your father.

After an opening remark on his being “in his first years” (181: primis…in annis), the praeceptor refers to Gaius as puer twice in the very same line (182). He then chastises those who count his birthdays (183: parcite natales…numerare), claims that his “manly virtue arrives before the appointed day” (184: uirtus contigit ante diem), and draws attention to his limited years (185: annis). The praeceptor even includes two mythological comparanda, the “small Hercules” (187: paruus Tirynthius) “in his cradle” (188: in cunis) and Bacchus, “a boy even now” (189: nunc quoque…puer), before addressing Gaius as puer one last time (191).380

Ovid’s very focus on pueritas, though, creates an extended link between Gaius and a third divine boy. After all, the term puer appears only eight times in Ars 1: four describing Gaius

(including the puer Bacchus, to whom Gaius is compared) and four describing Amor (including the puer Achilles, to whom Amor is compared). Moreover, Ovid emphasizes Amor’s pueritia in similar ways. Just after the praeceptor introduces Amor as “a boy, a soft age and suitable to be ruled” (10: puer est, aetas mollis et apta regi), he reinforces the identification by comparing

Amor to “the boy Achilles” (11: puer Achilles). He then repeats the connection a third time just seven lines later: saeuus uterque puer (18: “each is a savage boy”). The repetition of the term in the poem’s opening section stresses the attribute at this early stage, and the rapid succession creates an expectation that Ovid will continue to equate Amor and puer as the work progresses.

The next time Ovid uses the term puer, however, he introduces a level of ambiguity.

When the praeceptor mentions the arena as a fitting place to find a girl, like the theatre and

Circus before it, he describes “Venus’ boy” as a usual participant in the games:

Hos aditus Circusque nouo praebebit amori,

380 Ovid compares Amor to Bacchus at Amores 1.2.47-48, as well.

136 Sparsaque sollicito tristis harena foro. Illa saepe puer Veneris pugnauit harena, Et qui spectauit uulnera, uulnus habet. Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.163-66

And the Circus will provide these advances for new love, and the mournful sand scattered in the disturbed arena. In that sand Venus’ boy has often fought, and whoever has witnessed the wounds, has gained a wound himself.

Unlike in the first three instances, Amor is not first named and then described as a puer. Rather, the phrase puer Veneris (165) stands as the only identification and the task of connecting it to

Amor falls upon the reader.381 The conclusion is not difficult to reach, but the brief ambiguity marks an abrupt turn in Ovid’s use of the word. It is the fourth and final reference to Amor as puer in Ars 1, and all four remaining uses occur in the propemptikon for Gaius just ten lines later.

The conspicuous portrayal of Amor in a gladiatorial context anticipates the transition to Gaius’ militaristic image, and one “child of Venus” gives way to another.382

Second, the praeceptor evokes Gaius’ divinity. In chastising those who question Gaius’ age, he specifically condemns “counting the birthdays of the gods” (183: parcite natales…numerare deorum). The Caesars are set apart from mortal men (184), and theirs is “a heavenly genius” (185: ingenium caeleste). So, too, are both mythological comparanda, Hercules and Bacchus, gods (187-90). As a descendant of a goddess and the adopted son of a diui filius,

Gaius’ claim to divine lineage thus legitimizes his unusual military appointment. Yet, once again, alternate readings lie just beneath the surface. Quite unlike Hercules and Bacchus, Gaius

381 It may be noteworthy that scholars have had a difficult time explaining precisely why Amor is fighting in the arena. Hollis (1977: 62) suggests that there may have been some custom of including mock Cupids in gladiatorial events.

382 Cf. Galinsky 1969b: “The repeated emphasis on Gaius’ pueritia is prepared for by the mention of the puer Veneris in the gladiatorial shows. For Venus also is Gaius’ ancestress; we have here the same ironic ambiguity as in Amores I 2, and Propertius III 4” (98).

137 is no son of Jupiter383 but descended from the goddess of love.384 Like the puer Veneris Amor in

the gladiatorial arena just above (165), Gaius’ suitability within this context remains an open

question.

Lastly, the praeceptor emphasizes Gaius’ association with succession. As with his

pueritas and divinity, Ovid includes a high concentration of terms denoting paternity and

fraternity:385

auspiciis annisque patris, puer, arma mouebis, et uinces annis auspiciisque patris: tale rudimentum tanto sub nomine debes, nunc iuuenum princeps, deinde future senum; cum tibi sint fratres, fratres ulciscere laesos: 195 cumque pater tibi sit, iura tuere patris. induit arma tibi genitor patriaeque tuusque: hostis ab inuito regna parente rapit; tu pia tela feres, sceleratas ille sagittas: stabit pro signis iusque piumque tuis. 200 uincuntur causa Parthi: uincantur et armis; eoas Latio dux meus addat opes. Marsque pater Caesarque pater, date numen eunti: nam deus e uobis alter es, alter eris. Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.191-204

With the omens and years of your father, boy, you’ll rouse arms, and you’ll conquer with the years and omens of your father. Such a beginning you owe, under so great a name. Now first among the young, later to be first among the old. Since you have brothers, avenge wounded brothers. Since you have a father, defend a father’s rights. The ancestor to both the state and your own, has equipped you with arms. The enemy takes kingdoms from an unwilling parent. You will bear pious weapons; he wicked arrows.

383 Granted, insofar as both Hercules and Bacchus are children of Jupiter by mortal women, the comparisons may allude to Gaius and Lucius’ association with the Castores (see Pollini 2012: 420-34).

384 Amor’s earlier comparison with Achilles (Ars am. 1.111-18) plays with the same juxtaposition of love and war. On Venus’ association with victory, however, see n.7.

385 Cf. Severy 2003: 179.

138 Justice and piety will stand before your standards. The Parthians are conquered by this cause; let them be conquered also by arms. May my leader add Eastern riches to Latium. Father Mars and Father Caesar, grant your power to him as he goes, for one of you is a god and the other will be.

First, Gaius’ reliance on his “father” is twice repeated in quick succession (191-92: auspiciis

annisque patris…annis auspiciisque patris), and it is presumably this same “ancestor” who

provides the arms he now commands (197: induit arma tibi genitor). Gaius’ future success is thus dependent on, and indeed owed to (193: debes), the past successes of his adopted father

Augustus. Second, Gaius is to defend the “father” and “brothers” of Parthia’s ruling family precisely because he himself has a father and brothers (195-96). More specifically, Ovid frames the disputed Parthian succession as a perversion of proper familial bonds: “the enemy takes kingdoms from an unwilling parent” (198: hostis ab inuito regna parente rapit). The campaign is of particular concern to the young avenger because it mirrors—and ultimately threatens—his own family’s dynastic aims.386

Despite these many references to paternity, though, Gaius’ own father emerges as a

vague conflation of two possibilities, Mars and Caesar (203: Marsque pater Caesarque pater).

Even prior to their climactic juxtaposition of line 203, though, the identity of Gaius’ father

remains highly ambiguous. After twice referring to an unnamed pater vaguely noted for his

“omens and years” (191-92), Ovid then evokes an unspecified genitor patriaeque tuusque (197:

“the ancestor to both the country and you”) who provides the weapons of war (197: induit arma).

Throughout the passage Ovid thus plays with overlapping descriptions in order to muddle the

issue of Gaius’ paternity, complicating the emphasis on dynastic succession. Moreover, Ovid

uses this ambiguity to forge an additional connection between Gaius and Amor. The uncertain

386 Casali 2007: 224-26.

139 paternity, especially where Mars is concerned, brings to bear Amor’s own notoriously difficult lineage.387 Suggestions for Eros’ parents are many and diverse, but Servius provides a concise

view of the issue as it was received in Roman literature.388 Commenting on Aeneid 1.664-65, in

which Venus twice calls Amor “my son” (nate…nate), he lists the four most popular traditions:

secundum Simoniden qui dicit, Cupidinem ex Venere tantum esse progenitum: quamquam alii dicant ex ipsa et Marte, alii ex ipsa et Vulcano, alii uero Chai et primae rerum naturae eum esse filium uelint. Servius, In Vergilii Aeneidos Libros 1.664.2-5

Following Simonides, who says Cupid was born from Venus alone, although some say he was born from her and Mars, others from her and Vulcan, and others truly wish him to be the son of Chaos and the first nature of things.

Thus, leaving aside the primal and parthenogenic possibilities, the question of Amor’s paternity boils down to the politically charged question of Venus’ fidelity. Is he the son of Vulcan, Venus’ husband, or the son of Mars, Venus’ paramour?

This very question manifests in Amores 1.2, as well, further establishing Ovid’s intertextual link between his two divine triumphators:

necte comam myrto, maternas iunge columbas; qui deceant, currus uitricus ipse dabit, inque dato curru, populo clamante triumphum, stabis et adiunctas arte mouebis aues. Ovid, Amores 1.2.23-26

Plait your hair with myrtle, yoke your mother’s doves; your stepfather himself will give you a chariot that is fitting. And in the given chariot, as the people shout “triumph!”, you’ll stand and direct the yoked birds with skill.

After highlighting familial ties through his “mother’s doves” (23: maternas…columbas), Ovid

387 Am. 2.9.47-8. See also Spencer 1932a: 125n85. Cf. Janka 1997: 407-8 and Armstrong 2005: 128.

388 For a concise list, see Spencer 1932a: 125.

140 turns to the gift of his “stepfather” (24: uitricus). Scholars have long been divided, however, on

the precise identity of this figure.389 If Cupid is the child of Venus alone (or of Venus and

Jupiter), Vulcan would indeed his stepfather. Mars, though, is Cupid’s uitricus at both Am.

2.9.48 and Rem. 27. The gift of a chariot is also frustratingly ambiguous, for it applies equally to

the god of crafts and the god of war. Nonetheless, the question is of greater importance than any

answer. In Amores 1.2, the uncertainty of Amor’s parentage provides a humorous counterpoint to

Augustus’ moral reform. In the context of Gaius’ propemptikon, it provides a poignant backdrop

for his mortal counterpart’s right to succession. The emphasis on Gaius’ paternity and the

association with Amor thus both contribute to the same end. By pointing out how ambiguous and

tenuous such familial bonds are, Ovid undermines the very legitimacy and stability that the

Augustan Amor had come to represent.

Conclusions

From the mythic past to the mythologized present, Amor is incorporated into the

Augustan household. Beyond representing an idealized child in the divine “family” of Mars and

Venus, the god of love is inserted into key Augustan narratives and mapped onto representations

of the princeps’ own mortal kin. By linking Amor, Iulus, and contemporary generations of Julian

youth in a complex web of mutual identification, artists and poets reinforce the motifs common

to each. As an immortal embodiment of Rome’s future through its coming generations, the

Augustan Amor becomes a means for engaging with the legitimacy and stability of Rome’s newly dynastic ruling family.

389 For the ambiguity of Cupid’s stepfather, see esp. McKeown 1989: 46-47. See Athanassaki 1992: 129n.16 on scholarly interpretations.

141

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS

Amor, the Pax Augusta, and Rome’s Future

First and foremost, the Amor of Augustan monumental art is a symbol of peace. As an embodiment of fertility, he represents the resulting abundance of the proclaimed Aurea Aetas.

More specifically, though, this Amor is a symbol of the Pax Augusta. He not only represents the fruits of peace, but calls attention to the one who has provided it. As Venus’ son, he evokes in these contexts the Julian claim to divine descent through Aeneas, signaling Augustus’ favor and legitimacy. With each of these interpretations in view, the statue group of the Algiers relief remains to my mind the most concise representation of the figure and its significance. Having stolen Mars’ sword, this Amor hands it to this mother in an overt representation of the transition to peacetime. Amor’s is also the single active gesture in the composition, drawing attention to his role within it. Moreover, the scene’s divergence from more popular representations suggests a conscious reshaping of Amor within the distinctly political context. This is not the Amor who steals Mars’ arms for his own pleasure, facilitating Mars’ and Venus’ illicit tryst, but rather a dutiful son to the divine ancestress of Rome and the Julii. Finally, the scene takes place beside none other than Divus Julius, further solidifying the connection between this peace and

Augustus, the self-proclaimed diui filius.

Second, and largely as an extension of Amor’s association with the Pax Augusta, the god of love is assimilated to the youngest members of the imperial household. Just as Augustus appears in the guise of Apollo or Jupiter, or Livia as Ceres or Venus (among others), the Julio-

142 Claudian children can assume the likeness of Cupid. Also like Augustus’ and Livia’s appearance

as divinities, representations of the imperial children as Amor reinforce their overlapping

iconographic associations. Not only do these children symbolize Rome’s prosperous future more generally, as in the processions of the Ara Pacis or other public displays of fecundity (Suet. Aug.

34), but they are also members of the imperial household, representing the stability of Augustus’ rule. Amor’s associations with peace and abundance, combined with his connection to the mythic origins of the Julian gens, thus complemented established themes and further legitimized

Rome’s newly dynastic ruling family.

The Augustan Amor’s Iconography

As a result of Amor’s developing associations, the god’s most common attributes undergo transformations, as well. Amor’s bow is the most directly affected, insofar as his arms so often stood opposed to a peaceful existence. The “love” that Amor’s arrows had come to represent was a source of strife and madness, an uncontrollable impulse that drove men and women to shameful acts. Thus, the attribute all but entirely disappears from Augustan monumental art (the Cherchell cuirass remains, to my knowledge, the only exception). Likewise,

Amor’s disarming becomes a motif unto itself in Augustan poetry. The god’s bow vanishes from

Propertius’ Books 3-4, despite being a mainstay in the elegist’s earlier works. Vergil, too, disarms the Amor of his Aeneid, even as he makes the absence felt through extended allusion to

Apollonius’ Eros. Tibullus then gains a sudden fixation on Amor’s bow around this time, but specifically in the context of wishing him disarmed. In all, the consistency of this shift across both visual and textual sources suggests a significant cultural impetus. The god’s growing association with Augustan peace not only provides the most likely explanation, but is also

143 directly linked to the motif by Tibullus himself (Tib. 2.5.105-6).

Amor’s second most affected attribute is his childlike appearance, though this change is more interpretive than iconographic. He remains the same, well-nourished child throughout the

Augustan period (again excepting the Cherchell cuirass), but the form takes on markedly different associations. The Amor of Augustan monumental art no longer represents a lover’s childish behavior, but rather abundance and the fruits of peace. Like the idealized twins who sit in the mother goddess’ lap on the Ara Pacis, or even the many mortal children included in the

Ara Pacis’ great friezes, Amor’s childlike form epitomizes the very fertility he provides. Nor does Amor’s own childish behavior remain. Rather than acting out of his usual playfulness (or outright impishness), the Augustan Amor becomes an obedient attendant to his mother Venus.

Lastly, whereas Amor’s wings in early Augustan poetry represent fickleness in love, these negative associations disappear from political contexts. Instead, as an extension of his assimilation to the Julian youth, Amor’s wings become a visible marker of his divinity and elevation above mortal kind. When Amor descends to the earth in Aeneid 1 and takes the form of his mortal relative Iulus, the god’s first action is to “shed his wings” (Aen. 1.689-90: alas / exuit).

Conversely, in monumental art, the appearance of wings suffices to set the child apart and indicate his relationship to the divine. Whether or not the Amores on the Primaporta statue and

Gemma Tiberiana represent one of Augustus’ relatives, the figure’s divinity remains a primary visual cue.

As I mentioned in Chapter 1, though, these changes are not remarkable for their novelty.

Precedents for Eros/Amor’s association with peace and abundance and his assimilation to mortal children can be found in several periods of Greco-Roman art and literature. Nonetheless, their consolidation around the figures of Augustus and the imperial family and the level of

144 engagement with these images across both poetry and art indicate that the “Augustan Amor” had

become a recognizable symbol and a powerful means of engaging with Augustan political

rhetoric. Nor, as I mentioned in Chapter 3, were these changes all-encompassing. Indeed, some of the clearest examples of Amor’s reinterpretation exist right alongside more familiar imagery.

The “god of peace” that serves as a focal point for Propertius’ poems 3.4 and 3.5 soon gives way to an Amor who once again inflicts pain and misery upon the beloved. Still, the image’s significance remains. After all, that is in many ways Propertius’ point: despite Augustan trappings, Amor cannot be shoehorned into representations of imperial conquest.

Responses in Late Augustan Poetry

The widespread engagement with this image remains to my mind the most significant contribution of this study. The figure of Amor is instrumental for several of the period’s most influential poets, and their responses to this figure’s use as an imperial symbol reveals a great deal about the development and negotiation of Augustan political imagery. On the one hand, beginning in the late 20s BCE, poetic portrayals of Amor start to reflect the same associations as appear in extant monumental art. On the surface, the Amor of Vergil’s Aeneid, Propertius’ Books

3-4, and Tibullus 2 is (or is in the process of becoming) disarmed, pacified, and an obedient participant within the Augustan program. Even Ovid, who joins the conversation half a

generation later, engages with the image’s political significance as early as Amores 1.1.

On the other hand, these same poets seem to resist the appropriation of Amor into

imperial visual rhetoric. In highlighting incongruities between politicized representations and

more popular forms of the god, sometimes even playfully misreading monumental art itself,

these poets problematize interpretations of the Augustan Amor. Elegy, of course, proves the most

145 vocal, as the genre had come to adopt Amor as its patron. Poet and princeps thus have competing

claims to authority over the god’s interpretation. The opening of Propertius 3.5, for example, pits

“Amor, the god of peace” (3.5.1: pacis Amor deus) against “the god Caesar” and his “wars”

(3.4.1: arma deus Caesar). Propertius’ wit, however, goes beyond the standard elegiac opposition between love and war. Propertius evokes Augustus’ own Amor, the emerging symbol of the Pax Augusta, to justify his rejection of Caesar’s newest wars. In other words, beyond reasserting poetic authority over Amor as the patron of love elegy, Propertius turns Augustus’ own authority—his own use of the image to evoke a peaceful Aurea Aetas—against his designs for conquest.

Along these same lines, Tibullus 2.5, the poet’s only extended and explicit engagement with the Augustan program, evokes this Amor only to highlight his incongruity. Even as the poet suggestively prays for the “peace of Apollo” (2.5.105-6: pace tua…Phoebe) to destroy Amor’s weapons (105: pereant arcus pereantque sagittae) and render him unarmed (106: modo in terris erret inermis Amor), he draws out the god’s opposition to this very process. Instead of offering his willing support to the princeps, as he comes to do in monumental art, Tibullus’ Amor remains opposed to Apollo, opposed to peace, and unfit to participate within the destiny of his mortal brother, Aeneas (cf. 2.5.39: Aenea, uolitantis frater Amoris). Ovid, approaching this incongruity from the opposite angle, uses Amor’s assimilation to the imperial children to highlight the latter’s unsuitability. Nestled within Ars Amatoria 1, Ovid’s propemptikon for

Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ grandson and adopted heir, likens the young would-be conqueror to the very Amor that characterizes Ovidian elegy. Just as Amor is unfit to represent Augustan conquests, so is the Cupid-like, Julian puer unfit to lead them.

Of course, I also hope to have shown that this engagement is not limited to elegy. Even

146 Vergil’s “Augustan epic” juxtaposes competing traditions in the god’s appearance, character, and role within the narrative. While the Amor of Aeneid 1 obediently works to secure the Trojans’ peaceful reception in Carthage, taking the form of the gentle Julian namesake to do so, the violent Eros of Apollonius’ Argonautica remains just beneath the surface. Through this extended allusion and several ambiguous conflations of the various figures involved, Vergil draws attention to inconsistency as he constructs it. Then, with this dissonance established, he explores the consequences of such a god’s interference. Despite this Amor’s apparent attempts to protect

Aeneas and Rome’s future, Amor’s (and Iulus’) actions culminate only in fire, war, and ruin.

In short, the Augustan poets were active readers of Amor’s transformation in political contexts and, in many cases, active participants in reframing its broader reception. In place of the circumscribed Amor of Augustan monumental art, Vergil presents a multivalent figure whose actions, though they may align with Augustan aims, nonetheless have ambiguous or outright troubling outcomes. Propertius, too, adopts the image only to misinterpret it within an elegiac framework, using the symbol of Augustan conquest to justify his counter-cultural rejection of war. Tibullus then observes the discrepancy largely from the sidelines, finding humor in Amor’s incompatibility with his new role. Ovid, of course, confronts the image head on, pushing each interpretation to its inevitable breaking point. Consistent and central to poet and artist alike, however, is the Amor adopted into Augustan political imagery, and the use of this figure to comment on the intersection of love, war, and peace in Augustus’ Rome.

147 FIGURES

Figure 1. Gold Aureus of Sulla. 84-83 BCE. RRC 359/1.

Figure 2. Frieze from the Temple of Venus Genetrix, depicting Cupids setting up trophies. Marble. 113 CE. Rome, Museo dei Fori Imperiali.

148

Figure 3. So-called “Tellus Relief” of the Ara Pacis Augustae. Marble. 13-9 BCE. Rome.

149

Figure 4. Roman copy of the Eirene of Kephisodotos (ca. 370 BCE). Marble. Munich, Glyptothek.

Figure 5. Gem depicting Eirene of Kephisodotos (ca. 370 BCE). London, Robinson Collection.

150

Figure 6. So-called “Algiers Relief,” depicting statues of Venus, Amor, Mars, and Divus Julius. Marble. Tiberian period. Findspot: Carthage. Algiers, Musée Nationale d’ Antiquités.

151

Figure 7. Copy of the so-called “Tellus Relief” from the Ara Pacis Augustae. Marble. Tiberian period. Findspot: Carthage. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

152

Figure 8. Fresco from the House of Mars and Venus, Pompeii. 60-79 CE. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

153

Figure 9a. Side 1 of the “Augustus cup” from Boscoreale. Silver. Augustan period. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

Figure 9b. Detail of the “Augustus cup” from Boscoreale, depicting Roma, the Genius of the Roman people, Amor, and Venus.

154

Figure 10. Side C of the so-called “Sorrento Base,” depicting the genius of Augustus, Amor, and Mars. Marble. Augustan period. Sorrento, Museo Correale.

155

Figure 11a. Amor beside the statue of Augustus from Primaporta. Tiberian copy of bronze original (after 20 BCE). Marble. Rome, Musei Vaticani.

156

Figure 11b. Detail of Tellus on the statue of Augustus from Primaporta.

157

Figure 12. Gemma Tiberiana (Grand Camée de France). Sardonyx. Tiberian period. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale (Cabinet des Médailles).

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