CIRCUMNAVIGATING TACITUS’ AGRICOLA: MISE EN ABYME AND THE MUTINY OF THE USIPI by KYLE KHELLAF (Under the Direction of Erika T. Hermanowicz) ABSTRACT This study examines the bizarre account of the mutiny of the Usipi in Tacitus’ Agricola. It argues that this centrally placed, ostensible digression actually functions as a mise en abyme for the work. Just as the Agricola presents its readers with a complex series of generic and thematic elements, so too does the mutiny narrative contain all of these features and reflect them in a single episode: historiography and the commemoration of great deeds, anti-Domitianic rhetoric and the central theme of liberty versus servitude, ethnography and foreign interactions, and circumnavigation as a symbol for the conquest of Britain. Moreover, by taking these elements to various extremes, the mutiny of the Usipi exhibits the tendency of the mise en abyme to distort the work that it reflects. INDEX WORDS: Tacitus, Agricola, Mutiny, Usipi, Mise en abyme, Agr. 28, Domitian, Roman Britain, Circumnavigation, Periplous CIRCUMNAVIGATING TACITUS’ AGRICOLA: MISE EN ABYME AND THE MUTINY OF THE USIPI by KYLE KHELLAF B.A., Swarthmore College, 2008 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2012 © 2012 Kyle Khellaf All Rights Reserved CIRCUMNAVIGATING TACITUS’ AGRICOLA: MISE EN ABYME AND THE MUTINY OF THE USIPI by KYLE KHELLAF Major Professor: Erika T. Hermanowicz Committee: James C. Anderson, Jr. Jonathan Master Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2012 DEDICATION hic interim liber I dedicate to my grandparents, whose endless support and limitless affection is hardly repaid by this professio pietatis. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This two-year beatissimi saeculi ortus at the University of Georgia, coming not long after a very dark period in my life, owes so much to countless individuals who have helped me along the way. To begin, I offer my deepest thanks to my faculty here in Athens, a number of whom played a tremendous part in shaping this study and my own intellectual development (I hope they forgive my impertinence for addressing them here in a more personal manner). James Anderson, in whose Tacitus seminar this project first began, I cannot thank enough for his time and support at every turn (including frequent incursions into his office before his classes), and for his unrelenting faith in my ability to succeed when my own was in short reserve. I owe a great deal to Erika Hermanowicz, under whose watchful eye this thesis progressed, and under whose guidance I was able to grow as a scholar. It is no doubt ironic that she filled in for James Anderson on the day the mutiny of the Usipi was first discussed in seminar. Finally, I would like to thank Nancy Felson both for the mentoring she gave me while I was her student and for a number of fruitful conversations (several last summer and one the previous winter) on various topics relating to this thesis. With respect to this endeavor in particular, I owe a great deal of thanks to Jonathan Master at Emory, whose willingness to take on this project as my third reader from across the Channel of I-285, without ever having met me, was exceedingly generous. His rigorous comments and detailed feedback on early drafts of this thesis v provided much insight into issues I would have otherwise overlooked. He was also meticulous in catching more rudimentary errors that (and I am slightly embarrassed to say this) I should have spotted on my own. I would also like to thank William Turpin at Swarthmore, as well as Chris Kraus, Emily Greenwood, and Egbert Bakker at Yale, who were willing to dedicate at least some of their time to discussing and giving feedback on elements of this study. Lastly, several key issues in this thesis were brought to light at a February Classics Colloquium in my own department here at the University of Georgia and at the 107th Annual Meeting of CAMWS, so I would like to acknowledge the audience members for their insights, and also thank Nick Rynearson for organizing and inviting me to present at the former of these two events. On a more personal level, I would like to thank my colleagues and office mates in the department for putting up with my interminable talk of Tacitus. It is to Natalie Fort that I am most grateful: for numerous rides home in the middle of the night, for her unrelenting kindness and generosity, for the frequent games of misery poker at which I usually lost, and for showing me time and again that exemplum of a tireless reader and researcher which I can only hope to become. It would be remiss of me not to mention my mother, who put up with endless phone calls and badgering about the most trivial matters. Her support and faith in my ability to succeed was unwavering. Finally, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to my fellows in Media, Swarthmore, and Athens, as well as to Neil S. in Columbus. They have given much meaning to the phrase nunc demum redit animus, and without them any ideas for this project would have never materialized. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................1 2 CONSCRIPTA ET IN BRITANNIAM TRANSMISSA: HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE MUTINY .........................................................................................8 3 EXEMPLUM ET RECTORES HABEBANTUR: RHETORIC AND THE MUTINY ..........................................................................................................28 4 COHORS USIPORUM PER GERMANIAS: ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE MUTINY ..........................................................................................................51 5 ATQUE ITA CIRCUMVECTI BRITANNIAM: CIRCUMNAVIGATION AND THE MUTINY .................................................................................................70 6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................92 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................................118 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Midway through the Agricola, after detailing the successful military campaigns of the work’s namesake and just prior to the climactic battle of Mons Graupius, Tacitus breaks from his main narrative in order to recount the remarkable adventure of the Usipi. In this episode, the historian describes how a cohort of Germanic Roman auxiliaries revolts, commandeers three Liburnian ships, and accidentally circumnavigates Britain. Even more striking is how the strange misadventure plays out. With only one captain remaining after the uprising, a series of raids on and skirmishes with coastal Britons ensues. The destitute cohort resorts to cannibalism, and the tiny contingent which makes it back to the Rhineland is taken hostage by other Germans and sold into slavery. At last, a select few find their way back to Roman territory and become the living proof of their exploits. The mutiny of the Usipi is without a doubt an extraordinary moment in Tacitus’ Agricola. Upon first glance the episode seems noteworthy for several reasons. For one, it appears to abruptly usurp Tacitus’ account of his father-in-law’s campaigns. Given the preceding descriptions of the war preparations by the Romans and the Britons, its placement just prior to the battle of Mons Graupius creates a clear break in the main narrative.1 Likewise, Tacitus makes no effort to hide his interest in the event he is 1 Ogilvie and Richmond (1967) rightly note that Tacitus follows the historiographical tradition in deliberately pausing before the battle of Mons Graupius: “Tacitus follows the practice of Sallust and Livy in marking off and introducing major sections of his work by digressions,” p. 245. 1 narrating. He concludes his first sentence by declaring that the cohort “dared a great and memorable deed” (magnum ac memorabile facinus ausa est, Agr. 28.1). Throughout the episode he draws attention to the exceptional nature of the events using similar expressions, suggesting that the Usipi would become “as wonder in everyday gossip” (vulgato rumore ut miraculum, 28.1) and declaring that they eventually became “the proof of so great an incident” (indicium tanti casus, 28.3). Yet above all else it is the subject matter that catches the reader’s attention: sedition, suspicion, slaughter, piracy, cannibalism, and reenslavement guarantee that almost nothing ordinary transpires in this second narrative. In sharp contrast to Tacitus’ focus on Agricola and the British mainland, the mutiny of the Usipi transports the reader to the barely mentioned British backwaters wherein a series of astonishing events takes place. Attempts to explain the mutiny narrative have most often focused on the accidental circumnavigation of Britain by the Usipi and its relation to the deliberate circumnavigation ordered by Agricola (10.4 and 38.3).2 More recently, scholars have found other Agricola-defining elements at work in the passage, including ethnographic material, geographic content, and various rhetorical topoi.3 Yet several aspects of the episode remain unexplored. The commemoration theme, which plays a central role in defining the Agricola, lies at the heart of the mutiny narrative.4 Likewise, efforts to 2 Ogilvie