Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2014 Reading Committee: Catherine Connors, Chair Alain Gowing Stephen Hinds Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Classics © Copyright 2014 Laura Zientek University of Washington Abstract Lucan’s Natural Questions: Landscape and Geography in the Bellum Civile Laura Zientek Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Catherine Connors Department of Classics This dissertation is an analysis of the role of landscape and the natural world in Lucan’s Bellum Civile. I investigate digressions and excurses on mountains, rivers, and certain myths associated aetiologically with the land, and demonstrate how Stoic physics and cosmology – in particular the concepts of cosmic (dis)order, collapse, and conflagration – play a role in the way Lucan writes about the landscape in the context of a civil war poem. Building on previous analyses of the Bellum Civile that provide background on its literary context (Ahl, 1976), on Lucan’s poetic technique (Masters, 1992), and on landscape in Roman literature (Spencer, 2010), I approach Lucan’s depiction of the natural world by focusing on the mutual effect of humanity and landscape on each other. Thus, hardships posed by the land against characters like Caesar and Cato, gloomy and threatening atmospheres, and dangerous or unusual weather phenomena all have places in my study. I also explore how Lucan’s landscapes engage with the tropes of the locus amoenus or horridus (Schiesaro, 2006) and elements of the sublime (Day, 2013). The epic’s first simile, which compares the end of the Republic to the Stoic theory of cosmic conflagration, is a programmatic image expressed through landscape and environment. The geographical scope of the Roman civil wars, stretching from Spain to Greece and even including parts of Northern Africa, is reflected in Lucan’s poem and in my reading of it. My first chapter focuses primarily on Italy, from the Rubicon in the north to Brundisium in the south; aside from being the center of Roman power, in Bellum Civile 1 and 2 Italy is defined by its transgressed limites and is home to a countryside ravaged by time and neglect. Chapter Two focuses on the battle at Massilia in Gaul and the flood and conflict at Ilerda in Spain. The progression of events at Massilia – cutting down the grove, the siege, the sea battle – and the deluge and floods in Spain both demonstrate the threatening aspects of nature and the consequences of its violation; both episodes are venues for renewed images of cataclysmic destruction. The topic of Chapter Three is the geologic and mythic history of the Greek landscape in Delphi and Thessaly, and the climactic moment of tension and disarray in the Stoicized universe of Lucan’s poem. My fourth and final chapter is devoted to Libya, as portrayed during Curio’s campaign against Juba in book four and Cato’s desert march in book nine. The environment is bound to anxieties about water and the changing boundary between land and sea, as well as by the characteristic heat, aridity, and pathlessness of the desert. Mythical digressions on Hercules and Antaeus (book four) and Medusa (book nine) introduce creatures native to Libya that, in their confrontations with Romans, embody the dangers inherent in the landscape. Dedication To my grandparents Contents Acknowledgements ii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Italy 15 I. Universal Landscape: Italy and the Stoic Cosmos 16 II. Fracta Limes, Rupta Quies: The Rubicon and Ariminum 37 III. Shifting Power and Transformed Landscapes 62 Chapter 2: The West: Massilia and Ilerda 87 I. Maiorque iacens apparuit agger: The End of the World at Massilia 88 II. Hazardous Lands: Flood, Chaos, and Thirst 118 Chapter 3: Greece: Delphi, Thessaly, Pharsalus 142 I. The Cosmic Singularity at Delphi 144 II. Deep Time: The Evolution of Thessaly 164 III. Venit summa dies: The End of the World at Pharsalus 178 Chapter 4: North Africa 197 I. A More Hazardous Land: Desert Anxieties 199 II. Natura vetabat: Geographic and Environmental Challenges in Libya 210 III. Myth and Landscape Incarnate: Antaeus, Medusa, and Libya’s Snakes 245 Conclusion 277 Bibliography 282 i Acknowledgements When I started graduate school, I knew the path ahead of me was full of challenges, but it has been my privilege and pleasure to discover the many wonderful people and opportunities I have encountered during my time in the UW Classics Department. My most heartfelt thanks go first to Cathy Connors, the chair of my dissertation committee and a mentor who has shared her insight and helped me so many times: during her classes, while learning to teach my own classes, completing exams, exploring new ideas and interests, and more. During the course of this project, she has shared her knowledge of ancient geography and geographers with me, and not only improved my scholarship, but peaked my interest in karstic landscapes, the true meaning of Oceanus, the genius of Posidonius, and more. I have also benefitted professionally and personally from the advice and guidance of Alain Gowing and Stephen Hinds during the course of this project and throughout my time at the UW. I could not have hoped for more supportive, helpful, and kind mentors than these, and I am immeasurably grateful for their insight. Of course, neither this project nor the body of knowledge and experience I have gained in recent years would have been possible without the entire Classics Department. I am grateful to the faculty, who have shared their wisdom and time, to the staff, who keep everything moving, to my students, who have shown me that I love teaching, and also to the Greenfield family, whose generous endowment has given me so many opportunities for travel and independent research. My thanks also go to the Classics Departments at the University of Puget Sound which introduced me to the field, to the University of Pennsylvania which helped prepare me for graduate school, to Alex Hollmann, who first taught me Latin, and to Aislinn Melchior, who introduced me to Lucan in the first place. ii I could not have made it this far without the love and support of my family and friends. I am endlessly grateful to my mom and dad, who encouraged me to pursue what makes me happy and who instilled in me a love of learning, a curiosity about the world, and an interest in nature and geology (via many trips into the outdoors – hiking and biking in Montana, Idaho, and Eastern Washington, where we could see traces of the ancient Missoula floods and the scablands they left behind; and searching for fossils in Texas while learning to avoid deadly snakes). Thank you, also, to my brother John, whose talent is truly inspiring; to my patient roommate and longtime friend, Sara; and to my fellow graduate students, especially Jessica, Rachel, and Allison, who have been there through thick and thin. And finally, thanks to the history teacher who greeted a classroom of sixteen year olds every day with the same call to action: “We’ve got a lot to do today!” iii Introduction Etiam periere ruinae.1 So Lucan describes the site of Troy at the end of the ninth book of his Bellum Civile. When Caesar travels to Troy on his way to Egypt in pursuit of Pompey after the battle of Pharsalus, Lucan portrays the ruins of the once-great city as crumbling and so overgrown that they are unrecognizable to anyone without local knowledge. Caesar’s visit to Troy is not recorded in any extant historical text, but Lucan looks to Alexander the Great’s visit to Troy as a model for Caesar’s.2 Vergil’s Aeneas, who tours Evander’s Pallanteum and the pre- Roman Capitoline in Aeneid 8, provides another model, this time within the Roman epic tradition.3 The abundant vegetation that grows without order on the future site of Rome in Aeneid 8, though itself more reminiscent of the poetic Golden Age, has a parallel in the overgrown ruins of Troy, reclaimed by nature.4 With its layers of historical and poetic significance, Lucan’s Troy is, as Spencer presents it, “graveyard, locus amoenus, and urban ruin all at once.”5 The nexus of past grandeur, current decay, and an atmosphere augmented by the presence of nature in a sometimes-urban context binds Troy’s fall into ruin to the narrative of the civil wars and the end of the Roman Republic. Troy and Rome are, for Lucan’s illustrative purposes, 1 BC 9.969. 2 Rossi (2001) 313-14. See also Ahl (1976) 215, Bartsch (1997) 132, Johnson (1987) 119, Zwierlein (2010) 416-20. 3 Thompson and Bruère (1968) 17-18, Zwierlein (2010) 421-24. Hardie (2013) 111 argues that Lucan’s Vergilian model is threefold, including Troy (Aen. 2), the site of Rome at Pallanteum (Aen. 8), and the miniature replica of Troy at Buthrotum (Aen. 3). 4 From Lucan’s description of Troy: the great city walls are not easily visible (magnaque Phoebei quaerit vestigia muri, 9.965), woods and rotting trees grow where the palace once stood (iam silvae steriles et putres robore trunci / Assaraci pressere domos, 9.966-67), roots hold the temples (templa deorum / iam lassa radice tenent, 9.967-68), and brambles cover the whole site (tota teguntur / Pergama dumetis, 9.968-69); the wood has reclaimed Anchises’ home (silvaque latentes / Anchisae thalamos, 9.970-71), the great stream of the Xanthus has dwindled (inscius in sicco serpentem pulvere rivum / transierat, qui Xanthus erat, 9.974-75), and even Hector’s grave is overgrown with grass (in alto / gramine, 9.975-76).