Julius Caesar in Latin Literature from Tiberius to Trajan Bridget England UCL A thesis presented to the Department of Greek and Latin, University College London, in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Thesis supervisor: Professor Maria Wyke November 2018 I, Bridget England, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. ……………………………………………. 1 ABSTRACT A thesis on the literary reception of Julius Caesar from the reign of Tiberius to that of Trajan is needed because, until now, the main focus of scholarly attention has been on Caesar’s place in the literature of the triumviral period and the Augustan age (44 BC – AD 14). Scholarship has also identified a seeming revival of interest in Caesar that took place during Trajan’s reign (AD 98 – 117), with texts from this era and beyond seeming to portray Caesar (and not Augustus) as the founder of the Empire. The current investigation will address the relatively neglected period in between – neglected despite the introduction of Caesar as an epic character in Lucan’s Pharsalia – and explore wider questions surrounding Caesar’s textual representation, including its relationship with the many other ways in which he was being remembered in Rome. By conducting close readings of texts, and using the material culture and urban landscape of Rome as well as other evidence of the political use of Caesar to pose questions to the literature, this critical part of Caesar’s early reception is carefully surveyed. Caesar appears as conqueror, writer, orator, assassinated tyrant, divine forefather and monstrous literary construct – to name just some of his depictions. A potentially dangerous point of reference given his fate, Caesar is relevant and valuable to the texts under discussion because in his evocation authors can tackle topics such as politics, statesmanship, religion, family relations, morality and even literature itself. Working chronologically through this period, key considerations include the relationship of text to state and between texts, the role of the reader in recognising traces of Caesar, and the impact that genre and narrative context (not just era) can have on an author’s treatment of Caesar. 2 IMPACT STATEMENT The central benefit of this study lies in its ability to increase readers’ appreciation of the sensitives surrounding the literary representation of Julius Caesar, one of the most famous and controversial people in history. Analysis of literary techniques (encompassing, for example, the role of the narrator and the use of intertextual allusion) gives rise to a better understanding of how valuable but how problematic writing about Caesar was during the period in question. Complemented by examination of numismatic, epigraphic and topographic evidence, this study makes accessible to the general public an informed historical understanding of the continued relevance of Caesar’s legacy. It tracks how different events or episodes in history affected how Caesar was remembered, and it demonstrates that discussion of Caesar’s actions and the actions of others towards him regularly carried a contemporary resonance. This thesis thus combines reputation studies and reception studies, focussing on the reader’s (or viewer’s) understanding and interpretation of the material in question. My holistic approach to the topic represents a departure from the previous scholarly view that literary texts from a specific era all convey a uniform message about Caesar, and the idea that this, in turn, is a reflection of attitudes from the top down. There are in fact occasions on which completely different aspects of Caesar are brought to the fore by authors from the same period, and instances when Caesar’s textual presence stands in contrast to his absence from the non-literary material. Moreover, my approach invites broader questions about memory and memorialisation, including the relationship between cultural familiarity and a reader’s interpretation of a text. Might a person’s awareness of Caesar’s monumental legacy, for example, have rendered him/her more alert to Caesar’s trace in literature? This study will continue and complement recent scholarship on the subject of memory, and will be valuable above all to those with an interest in literature’s role in cultural memory. But it will also benefit anyone who uses literary texts as evidence for imperial attitudes about Caesar, since my analysis demonstrates that an author’s treatment of Caesar depended on the time at which he was writing, the agenda and genre of each work, and, even within the same work, the topic in question and the flow of that particular argument. It is hoped that this study will lead to an improved understanding about the complexities of using literature to evaluate reputation. 3 CONTENTS List of figures 6 Translations of classical sources 8 INTRODUCTION 12 0.1. Scholarship on Caesar’s literary reception 17 0.2. Approach, aim and structure 27 0.3. Caesar’s literary reception under Octavian / Augustus 32 1. TIBERIUS: Velleius Paterculus’ presentation of Caesar’s place in history 47 1.1. Background to the Historia: the text and Caesar’s relevance 50 1.2. External evidence: the co-existence of different strands of Caesar’s legacy 53 1.3. Caesar’s first appearances in Velleius’ Historia 58 1.4. Civil war 63 1.5. Assassination 71 2. CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, NERO: The moral and philosophical relevance of Seneca’s Caesar(s) 81 2.1. Historical context: the various strands of Caesar’s legacy from Caligula to Nero 85 2.2. De Consolatione Ad Marciam 93 2.3. De Ira 98 2.4. Apocolocyntosis 104 2.5. De Beneficiis 105 2.6. Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 109 3. NERO: Lucan’s Pharsalia and Caesar’s epic tracks 117 3.1. Civil war, epic and Lucanian scholarship 122 3.2. Lucan’s Caesar and his engagement with the past 127 3.3. Exemplarity 136 3.4. Troy episode 143 4 4. POST-NERO: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica and Statius’ Silvae 153 4.1. The lingering memory of Julius Caesar after Nero 156 4.2. The trace of Lucan’s Caesar in post-Neronian literature 162 4.3. Valerius Flaccus: contrast and departure in the Argonautica 168 4.4. Statius Silvae 1.1 and 2.7: physical and literary space 177 5. THE DAWN OF TRAJAN’S REIGN: Tacitus’ Agricola, Germania and Dialogus 191 5.1. Political and literary context 194 5.2. Agricola 199 5.3. Germania 207 5.4. Dialogus 211 CONCLUSION 218 FIGURES 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY 238 5 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1: Sestertius, c. 38 BC, RRC 535 / 1 224 Fig. 2: Aureus, AD 14-37, RIC 1, no. 24, p95 224 Fig. 3: Dupondius, AD 18-37, RIC 1, no. 38, p97 225 Fig. 4: Dupondius, AD 18-37, RIC 1, no. 31, p107 225 Fig. 5: Plan of the Forum Romanum 226 Fig. 6: Denarius, AD 68, RIC 1, no. 25, p205 226 Fig. 7: Denarius, 43-42 BC, RRC, 508 / 3 227 Fig. 8: Denarius, AD 69, RIC 1, no. 10, p260 227 Fig. 9: Plan of Rome’s imperial fora 228 Fig. 10: Denarius, AD 69, RIC 2.1, no. 2, p58 228 Fig. 11: Denarius, 46-45 BC, RRC 468 / 1 229 Fig. 12: Head from an over-life-sized marble statue of Vespasian 229 Fig. 13: Aureus, AD 69-70, RIC 2.1, no. 1360, p157 230 Fig. 14: Aes, AD 69-79, RPC 2, no. 894 230 Fig. 15: Sestertius, AD 95-96, RIC 2.1, no. 797, p324 231 Fig. 16: The sightline from the Forum Transitorium 231 Fig. 17: The sightline from the Forum Transitorium 232 Fig. 18: Denarius, AD 96-98, Reg. number (British Museum) 1976, 0413.1 232 Fig. 19: Denarius, 15-13 BC, RIC 1, no. 167a, p52 233 Fig. 20: Aureus, AD 98-99, RIC 2, no. 15, p246 233 Fig. 21: Aureus, AD 85, RIC 2.1, no. 325, p287 234 Fig. 22: Denarius, AD 112-114, RIC 2, no. 801, p309 234 Fig. 23: Denarius, 47-46 BC, RRC 458 / 1 235 Fig. 24: Aureus, AD 108-117, RIC 2, no. 806, p309 235 6 Fig. 25: Aureus, AD 108-117, RIC 2, no. 816, p311 236 Fig. 26: Aureus, AD 108-117, RIC 2, no. 815, p311 236 Fig. 27: Aureus, AD 116, RIC 2, no. 324, p267 237 Fig. 28: Denarius, AD 96, RIC 2, no. 31, p. 225 237 RRC Crawford (1974) Roman Republican Coinage. London: Cambridge University Press. RIC 1 Sutherland and Carson (1984) (eds) The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. 1 (second edition). London: Spink. RIC 2 Mattingly and Sydenham (1986) (eds) The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. 2. London: Spink. RIC 2.1 Carradice and Buttrey (2007) (eds) The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. 2, Part 1. London: Spink. RPC Burnett, Amandry and Carradice (1999)(eds) Roman Provincial Coinage, Vol. 2. London: British Museum Press; Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale. 7 TRANSLATIONS OF CLASSICAL SOURCES App. B. Civ. Appian, Bella Civilia, translated by H. White (1913), in Roman History, 4 vols, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Caes. BC. Caesar, Bellum Civile, translated by C. Damon (2016), Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Caes. BG. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, translated by H. J. Edwards (1966), Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cass. Dio Cassius Dio, Roman History, translated by E. Cary (1916-1917), 9 vols, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cic. Att. Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey (1999), 4 vols, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cic. Brut. Cicero, Epistulae ad Brutum, translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey (2002). Loeb Classical Library.