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Mnemotechnics and Virgil: The Art of Memory and Remembering by Elizabeth-Anne Louise Scarth B.A. (Hon.), University of Victoria, 2004 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies © Elizabeth-Anne Louise Scarth, 2007 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. ii Mnemotechnics and Virgil: The Art of Memory and Remembering by Elizabeth-Anne Louise Scarth B.A. (Hon.), University of Victoria, 2004 Supervisory Committee Dr. Gordon S. Shrimpton, Supervisor (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. Cedric A.J. Littlewood, Departmental Member (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. John P. Oleson, Departmental Member (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. Elizabeth Grove-White, Outside Member (Department of English) iii Supervisory Committee Dr. Gordon S. Shrimpton, Supervisor (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. Cedric A.J. Littlewood, Departmental Member (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. John P. Oleson, Departmental Member (Department of Greek and Roman Studies) Dr. Elizabeth Grove-White, Outside Member (Department of English) ABSTRACT Cicero, Quintilian and the anonymous author of the ad Herennium each describe the art and practice of using an artificial memory system to help aid remembrance. Each of the authors‘ respective treatises offers an exploration of how both loci (places) and imagines (images) were used to facilitate remembrance of both res (things) and verba (words). The methods delineated by each author provide valuable insight into the visual process, used by educated Romans to retrieve and recall information stored in their memories. The goal of this paper is to look at the rhetoricians‘ discussions of the art of memory and posit that Virgil uses the artificial memory system features of sequential order, discriminability, and distinctiveness when describes the way his characters look at various images in the Aeneid. iv Table of Contents Title Page i Supervisory Committee Page ii Abstract iii Table of Contents iv List of Illustrations v Acknowledgements viii Dedication ix Note on Translations x Introduction 1 Chapter One 7 I. The City of Rome- Memory and Remembering 8 II. The City of Rome- An Urban Narrative 18 III. Place, Space, and Rome- A City of Remembering and Forgetting 29 Chapter Two 43 I. The Roman Art of Artificial Memory and Three Latin Sources 44 II. Memory and the Modern Practitioner 53 Chapter Three 64 I. Memory and Remembering in Virgil‘s Aeneid: The Past 68 II. Memory and Remembering in Virgil‘s Aeneid: The Future 86 Conclusion 104 Bibliography 106 Illustrations 110 Appendix I: The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre and Translation 128 Appendix II: Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 152 v List of Illustrations 1a. Rome, Via Appia. Zanker 1990. Ca. 30B.C. 1b. Rome, Via Appia. Rehak 2006. Ca. 30B. 2a. Rome, before the Porta Maggiore. Zanker 1990. Ca. 40-30B.C. 2b. Rome, close-up of tomb before the Porta Maggiore. Zanker 1990. Ca. 40- 30B.C. 2c: Rome, the funerary inscription of M. Vergilius Eurysaces. Nash 1962. Ca. 40- 30B.C. 2d. Rome, the portraits of Eurysaces and his wife Atistia, found near the tomb. Nash 1962. Ca. 40-30B.C. 3a. Rome, Via Statilia. Zanker 1990. Ca.100-80B.C. 3b. Rome, Via Statilia. Zanker 1990. Ca.100-80B.C. 3c: Rome, Via Statilia. Nash 1962. Ca. 100-80B.C. 4. Rome, Praetextatus Catacomb. Whitehead 1993. Fourth century A.D. 5. Rome, Campus Martius. Zanker 1990. At the time of Augustus (ca. late first century B.C. early first century A.D.). 6a. Rome, Mausoleum of Augustus. Zanker 1990. Ca. 28B.C. 6b. Reconstruction of Mausoleum of Augustus by H. von Hesberg. Davies 2000. 7. Reconstruction of Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, adapted from Adler. Rehak 2006. Ca. 353BC. vi 8. Rome, Obelisk from the Mausoleum of Augustus in Piazza dell‘Esquilino. Davies 2000. 9. Rome, Obelisk from the Mausoleum of Augustus in Piazza del Quirinale. Davies 2000. 10. Cerveteri (Caere), Tumulus in the Banditaccia cemetery. Davies 2000. 11. Rome, Obelisk in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio. Zanker 1990. 12. Rome, Solarium Augusti, excavated section beneath Via di Campo Marzio. Davies 2000. 10-9B.C. 13. Reconstruction of the Solarium Augusti by Edmund Buchner. Buchner 1976. 14a. Rome, Ara Pacis Augustae, Zanker 2000. 13-9B.C. 14b. Rome, Close-up of the Ara Pacis Augustae, Davies 2000. 13-9B.C. 15a. Rome, Ara Pacis: south frieze. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 15b. Rome, Ara Pacis: south frieze. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 16a. Rome, Ara Pacis: north frieze. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 16b. Rome, Ara Pacis: north frieze. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 17. Rome, Ara Pacis: Tellus relief. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 18. Rome, Ara Pacis: Aeneas panel. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 19. Rome, Ara Pacis: south frieze. Rehak 2006. 13-9B.C. 20. Forum Augustum. Detail of model. Zanker 2000. vii 21a. Rome, Forum Augustum, north-west exedra with niches for statues. Nash 1962. 21b. Rome, Ground plan of Forum Augustum with reconstruction of sculptural programme. Zanker 2000. 22. Rome, Reconstruction of a summus vir complete with titulus and elogium, in the gallery of the Forum Augustum. Zanker 2000. viii Acknowledgements I have had the opportunity over the past eight years to be a part of the Greek and Roman Studies Department at the University of Victoria. While the entire eight years have been notable I would especially like to acknowledge and thank those who have impacted my life and education in the course of doing my Masters degree. I would like to thank Dr. Cedric Littlewood, Dr. John Oleson, Dr. Luke Roman, and Dr. Greg Rowe, who have played a huge part in helping me get through my Masters degree. They have all been supportive and encouraging and have served as valuable resources and sounding boards. I would also like to thank some of the people in my life: my parents, Eva Bullard, Barbara Martin, Milorad Nikolic, Tina Ross, Jennifer Seper, Tamara Sheehan, and Derek Sou. They have been a great source of support and help and have always been there to listen when I needed it most. To all of them I am extremely grateful. Last, but not at all least, is Dr. Gordon Shrimpton. By offering me a chance to be his research assistant during the past two years, he not only gave me opportunity to hone my research skills, but also to learn about the fascinating fields of memory, historiography, and cognition. Without this opportunity and Dr. Shrimpton‘s keen interest in these fields I would never have happened upon my thesis topic, have had a chance to develop it, or been able to write it. Dr. Shrimpton has been a great source of inspiration to me. ix Cui dono meum libellum? meis parentibus x Note on translations The following published translations have been used in this work: CICERO: De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum , Loeb Classical Library, translated by H. Rackham, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931; De Oratore Books I & II, Loeb Classical Library, translated by E.W. Sutton, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948; De Senectute. De Amicitia. De Divinatione, Loeb Classical Library, translated by William Armistead Falconer , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971; Pro Archia Poeta. Post Reditum in Senatu. Post Reditum ad Quirites. De Domo Sua. De Haruspicum Responsis. Pro Plancio, Loeb Classical Library, translated by N.H. Watts, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958; Rhetorica ad Herennium, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Harry Caplan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1981; HESIOD: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universtiy Press, 1970; HOMER: VOLS. I/II: The Odyssey, Loeb Classical Library, translated by A.T. Murray, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966/1924; VOLS. I/II: The Iliad, Loeb Classical Library, translated by A.T. Murray, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974/1967; HORACE: The Odes and Epodes, Loeb Classical Library, translated by C.E. Bennett, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927; Horace Satires and Epistles and Perisus Satires, translated by Niall Rudd (Penguin Classics). Published by Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth 1997; LIVY: Books I and II, Loeb Classical Library, translated by B.O. Foster, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919; LUCRETIUS: De Rerum Natura, Loeb Classical Library, translated by W.H.D. Rouse, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943; OVID: Epistulae ex Ponto Book I. Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, by Jan Felix Gaertner. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005; Fasti, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Sir James George Frazer, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951; The Art of Love, And Other Poems, Loeb Classical Library, translated by J.H. Mozley, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University xi Press, 1985; PLATO: Theaetetus and Sophist, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Harold North Fowler, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962; POLYBIUS: The Histories, Loeb Classical Library, translated by W.R. Paton, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960; QUINTILIAN: VOL IV:The Institutio Oratoria, Loeb Classical Library, translated by H.E. Butler, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958; SENATUS CONSULTUM de PISONE: The Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre, edited by D.S. Potter, translated by Cynthia Damon, (American Journal of Philology 120 (1): 13-41), 1999; TACITUS: The Annals. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by A.J. Woodman. Published by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, Indianapolis and Cambridge, 2004; Tacitus: Agricola, Germania, Dialogus, Loeb Classical Library, translated by Sir W. Peterson, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980; THEOCRITUS: VOL I: Theocritus. Edited with a Translation and Commentary, by A.S.F.
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