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Grant Parker (Stanford) INFLECTIONS of MYTH in AUSONIUS

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Grant Parker (Stanford) INFLECTIONS of MYTH in AUSONIUS Grant Parker (Stanford) INFLECTIONS OF MYTH IN AUSONIUS’ EPIGRAMS 1. Defining terms Definitions are more than usually necessary, so rich is the theme uniting this volume, with Ausonius adding complications of his own. For present purposes at least, we need criteria by which to pin down concepts, while recognising that their very slipperiness is unavoidable and even an important datum to consider. First of all, the concept of ›myth‹ (mythos) involves narratives. These ›serve a purpose: to explain the origin of something …; to justify something …; to serve as a warning, or as an example, or a symbol. For a story to be mythical it is necessary for it to be in some sense common property, not the pure invention of a writer; and it should have a sort of simplicity‹.1 Myths, some have said, differ from legend and folklore in that they have greater importance to people’s lives.2 But that distinction is harder to maintain here, as is Jane Ellen Harrison’s limitation of myth to rites of passage and other rituals. In Ausonius, mythological themes may be touched on in passing, along with figures from Greek and Roman history, such as Agathocles (epigr. 9) or Cato the elder (parent. 22). Griffin’s point that other narratives about the past serve a function similar to that of myth is worth bearing in mind. Nonetheless, mythology stricto sensu is often linked with the chreiai, short anecdotes that were part of elementary rhetorical training and thus the obvious subject matter for poetry.3 The effects of this we see in the tenth of his technopaegnia, de historiis, where the mythical and the historical coexist. Here, in a tribute to Victorius, usher or assistant of his schooldays, abstruse knowledge from books also spans the mythical-historical divide: both are the stuff of memoria.4 Second, the ›everyday‹ should be considered very much an urban phenomenon. Indeed Horace, sat. 2,6 and especially Juvenal 3 appear to valorise the rural at the expense of the urban. But even these poems are ultimately rooted in city life.5 Attitudes to the countryside in Martial’s epigrams are, likewise, not to be taken 1 Jasper Griffin: The Mirror of Myth: classical themes and variations, London 1986, 13. 2 Eric Csapo: Theories of Mythology, Malden, Mass. 2005, 9. 3 Of the examples above, the brief tale of the tyrant Agathocles in epigr. 9 is likely linked with the chreia, here given the added point of moralizing about luxury: Kay (2001) 88 ad loc. According to Aelius Theon, a chreia (unlike a maxim) would typically be attributed to a person: George A. Kennedy (ed.): Progymnasmata: Greek textbooks of prose composition and rhetoric, Leiden 2003, 15. 4 Victori, studiose, memor, celer, ignoratis / assidue in libris nec nisi operta legens … (prof. 22,1f.). 5 Susan H. Braund: City and country in Roman satire, in: Satire and Society in Ancient Rome, ed. by Susan H. Braund, Exeter 1989, 23–47. 162 Grant Parker at face value.6 Indeed, it is no coincidence that one of Martial’s most important commentators was also the author of a major synthesis on Roman daily lives, namely Ludwig Friedlaender (1824–1909).7 Friedlaender’s social historical legacy lives on in works such as Balsdon’s Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, which has remained in print for some four decades.8 Martial’s rather than Ausonius’ epigrams are a staple for Friedlaender and Balsdon, more so also than late Greek or late Latin epigrams. Balsdon’s book begins by focusing on ›the shape of the day‹ (pp. 17– 55): in an important sense, the everyday is all about how days are divided, and the power of individuals to determine those divisions. Since the appearance of such works, archaeologists have provided new means of understanding the rural landscape: surface survey or landscape archaeology gives evidence of lives that are usually little reflected in literary texts, if at all.9 On such a topic the eighteenth century has much to offer. For example, Diderot mocks the antiquarian Fougeroux de Bondaroi, who became excited about describing collections of everyday items excavated at Herculaneum: ›This man [wrote Diderot] cannot get over the fact that the ancients had cooking-pots, spoons, forks; in a word that, having the same needs, they had come up with the same means [as ourselves] for satisfying them. Presumably he was no less surprised to find they were endowed with mouths and behinds.‹10 It has been the task of epigram and satire to bring ancient mouths and behinds into view. Finally, epigram. Now it is true that Ausonius at no point uses the term, nor is there evidence that he himself collected together his smaller poems into such a collection. These are grouped at the head of Z (their main source) and at the end of V. In fact, there is little agreement among his modern editors as to what belongs in that group, let alone in what order. The obvious point of departure for any consideration of Ausonius’ epigrams is the grouping postulated by R. Green, to which N. Kay has recently added a detailed commentary.11 Yet it will be essential to draw widely from the Ausonian corpus as well as from the short poems, sometimes 6 On the urban/rural divide, see now Art L. Spisak: Martial: a social guide, London 2007, 74–91. Martial’s desire for rural quiet (e.g. 2,90. 10,47) is contradicted by his eventual dislike of municipalium rubigo dentium (12 praef.) once he actually retires to his native Bilbilis in Spain. 7 The magna opera are M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton, Leipzig 1886, 2 vols. and Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von Augustus bis zum Ausgang der Antoninen (hrsg. von Georg Wissowa, Aalen 101964). The seventh edition of the Sittengeschichte would be translated into English as Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, London 1913, 4 vols. Friedlaender’s older contemporary was Joachim Marquardt (1812–82), whose Privatleben der Römer (hrsg. von A. Mau, Leipzig 21886) would likewise be destined to have a long life. 8 J. P. V. D. Balsdon: Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, London 1969, subsequently reprinted. 9 For recent outlines, see Nicola Terrenato: The essential countryside: the Roman world, in: Susan E. Alcock and Robin Osborne (eds.): Classical Archaeology, Malden, Mass. 2007, 139–60; and Stephen L. Dyson: The Roman Countryside, London 2003. 10 Oeuvres complètes de Diderot, edited by J. Assézat, Paris 1875, 379. 11 Green (1991) 65–96 and 375–420; Kay (2001)..
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