A Comparative Study of Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
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A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MARCUS ANNAEUS LUCANUS AND SENECA THE PHILOSOPHER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By KAY DON MORRIS, B.S. in Ed., M.A. The Ohio State University 1959 Approved by \ < M M W _______ Adviser Department of Classical Languages ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to acknowledge with grateful appreciation the invaluable assistance given in the preparation of this dissertation by Dr. Kenneth M. Abbott of the Department of Classical Languages, the Ohio State University. I desire also to offer thanks to Dr. John B. Titchener for his continuing advice and guidance over the years and to Dr. Clarence A. Forbes for his special assistance in the later stages. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction .......... v Chapter I. THE SUPERNATURAL AND THE GROTESQUE 1 Interpreters of Fate ............. 3 Soothsayers .... 3 Prophetesses ................ 7 Divination............. Ô Magic ........................... 11 Enchantment ........ 12 Necromancy.................... 13 Horror .......................... 14 The Eerie ................. 15 The Grove of the Druids ........ 15 The Gruesome and Revolting....... 16 Dismemberment and Mutilation .... IG Decay and Corruption ............ 20 Anatomical Horror ................ 21 Summary.................. 27 II. LEARNING 31 Seneca's Sources ................. 32 Lucan's Sources .................. 34 Mythological Allusion ............ 37 Hades ....................... 41 The Argo ...................... 45 Medea and Erichtho ............. 47 Hercules ...................... 51 Historical References ............ 54 Marius and Sulla .......... 56 Massilia ...................... 59 Cato ........................ 59 Astrological Allusion ............ 64 Prodigies ..................... 67 Geographical Allusion ............ 68 Technical Allusion ............... 71 The Nile ...................... 72 Summary ...................... 79 iii Page III. PHILOSOPHY; THE LATE STOA OR NEO-STOICISM 84 The Universe and G o d ............ #7 Heavenly Bodies ........... 97 Fate ............................. 101 The Soul and Will ................ 105 Virtue ........................... Ill Life and Death .................. 117 Summary.......................... 121 IV. LANGUAGE 123 Book I ......................... 125 Book II ......................... 130 Book III ....................... 134 Book I V ........................ 136 Book V ......................... 139 Book V I ........................ 141 Book VII ....................... 143 Book V I I I ............. 144 Book IX ........................ 145 Book X ...................... 148 Language of the Imperial Period .. 149 Neologisms ....................... 150 Rare Words ..................... 150 Technical Terms ............ 150 Philosophic Terms ................ 151 Substantives ..................... 152 Adjectives ....................... 153 Rare Words from O v i d ............. 154 Compound Words with - f e r ......... 155 Summary....................... 158 CONCLUSION 160 BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 172 IV INTRODUCTION The establishment of the principate of Augustus produced a profound change in Roman political history. Politics as practiced during the Republic was no longer possible. Under the new regime there was no place for rival factions with conflicting political beliefs. The princeps might permit critics but dared not condone opposition. Consequently, the political history of Rome narrows to matters of foreign relations and events at the capital where associates and officers of the princeps strove for a dominant voice in his councils. Although it could not yet be said that the will of the princeps was the law of the state, it certainly determined the policy of the government and the character of the laws. Hence the personality of the ruler was a matter of the greatest importance for the empire as a whole and had great effect upon the welfare and happiness of both Romans and provincials. With the introduction of the Julio-Claudian and Fla vian dynasties Rome embarked upon a new era not only in the realm of history but also in the field of literature. This era, which was one of the most brilliant and attractive that Rome had witnessed, is usually designated by the epi thet of "Silver". The Silver Age, even vdien restricted to the years between A.D. 14 and 117, was a longer period chronologically than the Golden Age. Of great historical V Importance, and of great significance for understanding Silver Age literature, is the knowledge that the crucial problem for the empire was consolidation and containment. Rome in the first century had become highly cosmopolitan and although she possessed a miraculous ability to assimilate foreigners, there was certain to be some outside influence on her own life and thought. This large cosmopolitan and international element in the capital city widened the hori zons of literary men and helped to inject the human note idiich can be seen in Silver Age Latin literature. In its literary aspects the whole age makes a fascinating study. The epithet "Silver" concedes the classic superiority of the Golden Age; but silver, whether viewed as a metal or as literature, has a value in itself, and the metaphorical title, whether it calls to mind a glittering style or a literary convention, is both pic turesque and evocative. Parallel with its administrative triumphs and its services to civilization, we discover among Silver Age masterpieces artistic creation of high quality, thought no poorer than the achievement of the times, and vivid portrayal of life. Convention was main tained, and we may trace it among many authors; yet the Silver Age had its own unique geniuses. Nowhere else in Latin literature are there figures comparable to Seneca, vi Lucan, Tacitus, and Juvenal each with certain distinctive traits, and each among the greatest names in literary history. The chief formative features of this literature may be reviewed rapidly. One of the most important in fluences at work was the contemporary education in letters and rhetoric. While the general training opened up the treasures of Greek and Latin literature as sources of in spiration, the special training in rhetoric affected style deeply. The predominant study of poets in the rhetorical schools tended to obliterate distinction between prose and poetry. The imitation of Virgil, traceable in Lucan, was by no means confined solely to epic. Nor is poetic color the only distinction: the language itself was affected by altered syntax and grammar. Mode of expression came to be modified by the sys tematic instruction in rhetoric and by the declamatory exercises (especially the contreversia and suasoria) com posed by the student practicing the use of figures of speech, exclamations, apostrophes, interrogations, and innumerable other artifices, which he had been taught by a rhetor for the purpose of argument or display. Literature, then, in the Silver Age, with this background of rhetorical training, was destined to have the qualities of a show-piece. The ideal desired was the vii production of telling effects. Hence ingenuity was expected in narrative, description, and argument, with the resultant opportunity for the precious and far fetched which at times might result in lapses of taste. A discourse, oration, or a poem frequently was composed to exhibit its author*s ability to transmute common places into sententiae; it also had to be clothed in the vestments of rhetoric, which often caused the style to become wildly baroque. Artificiality driven to such extremes often meant a divorce from ordinary common sense; for natural feeling frequently became lost in the maze of epigram, word-play, antithesis, apostrophe, and other devices. When considering the Silver Age, in style so easily contrasted with its golden predecessor, one must beware of so isolating its artificialities as to produce an im pression that it teems with faults. The truth rather is that the Silver Age does, by a natural process of literary evolution, continue tendencies already present in Augustan times. There are in Horace characteristics which antic ipate Persius and Statius; there are in Ovid ingenuities prophetic of Seneca and Lucan; and in Sallust and Livy aspects of prose which foreshadow Tacitus. There was no violent break, but in time the changes became too obvious to miss. It is not only reasonable, it is indeed nec essary, to state the differences, but they must also be viii categorized to include not merely stylistic variation and viceI but virtue as well. Another phenomenon which must not go unmentioned is the change in the ethnic background of the writers of Silver Age Latin. In Republican times most Latin authors were born and reared upon the Italian peninsula, while the leading figures of the literature of the Empire come not only from Italy, but also Spain, Africa and Gaul. This garnering of talent throughout the Empire was one of the many advantages of being masters of the world. For Rome as the center of the civilized world attracted peoples of various nations as does any center of culture. Now, after various periods of civilizing influence, the provinces could contribute the resources of their minds as well as the material benefits of their territories. Foremost among these regions in the first century A.D. was the old province of Spain. With some claim to a partially independent culture of its own, it spoke a Latin which naturally retained certain words, idioms and sounds