Donovan B.A., Cornell University, 2003

Literary and Ideological Memory in the Octavia by Lauren Marie Donovan B.A., Cornell University, 2003 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2011 © Copyright 2011 by Lauren M. Donovan This dissertation by Lauren Marie Donovan is accepted in its present form by the Department of Classics as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date John Bodel, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date Shadi Bartsch, Reader Date Date Jeri DeBrohun, Reader Joseph Reed, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">iiiꢀ </li></ul>Curriculum Vitae Lauren Donovan was born in 1981 in Illinois, and spent her formative years in Concord, Massachusetts. She earned a B. A. summa cum laude in Classics from Cornell University in 2003, with a thesis titled “Ilia and Early Imperial Rome: The Roman Origin Legend in Text and Art” and received the Department of Classics prize in Latin upon graduation. Before beginning her graduate work at Brown University, Lauren taught Latin and Greek at the high school level for two years. During her graduate career, Lauren has presented talks on many topics including the idea of learnedness in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, the role of Prometheus in Apollonius’ Argonautica, and various aspects of her dissertation work on the Octavia. She has also been the recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies (2005) and the Memoria Romana Dissertation Fellowship (2010). She is currently a visiting instructor at Wesleyan University. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ivꢀ </li></ul>Acknowledgements My dissertation has benefited from the support of countless people. First and foremost is my advisor, John Bodel, who introduced me to the Octavia in a Tacitus seminar and who has given many hours to the project’s development over the years. My work has benefited greatly from the insightful comments of my readers, Shadi Bartsch, Jeri DeBrohun, and Jay Reed. I remain grateful to the faculty and staff in the Classics Department at Brown University for their constant encouragement. The Memoria Romana Dissertation Fellowship provided me with a crucial source of intellectual and financial aid; it also brought me to Rome for a colloquium with other young scholars of memory who in turn gave me invaluable advice on my project. I am indebted to my writing group, Caroline Bishop, Liz Gloyn, Isabel Köster, and Darcy Krasne, from whose close readings, challenging comments, and support I have benefited in innumerable ways. My fellow graduate students at Brown have always provided wonderful colleagues with whom to discuss works in progress; Jennifer Thomas in particular provided me with much intellectual support, especially regarding the Octavia’s engagement with Vergil and Lucan. I also participated to great benefit in reading groups on Statius and Tacitus with fellow graduate students Bryan Brinkman, Scott DiGiulio, Timothy Haase, Karen Kelly, Leo Landrey, and Mitchell Parks. Finally, I thank my husband, Zachary Ginsberg, and my parents, Marion & Brendan Donovan, whose love and support have always been a source of strength and inspiration. I dedicate this dissertation to two extraordinary teachers. To Alex Banay for fostering my love of Latin poetry; to Judy Ginsburg, requiescat in pace, for setting me on this path and for introducing me to the complexities of Julio-Claudian memory. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">vꢀ </li></ul>For Alex Banay and Judy Ginsburg optimis magistris <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">viꢀ </li></ul>TABLE OF CONTENTS <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">INTRODUCTION </li><li style="flex:1">1</li></ul>CHAPTER 1: ON THE MODEL OF AUGUSTUS Seneca’s Augustan Narrative Nero’s Bloodless Accession and Octavian’s Bloody Past 20 27 41 CHAPTER 2: ON THE MODEL OF OCTAVIAN Nero and the Triumvirate: A Lesson in Family History Actium and the Augustan Legacy 57 58 76 <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">91 </li><li style="flex:1">Conclusion: Towards and Ideology of Imperial Rule </li></ul>CHAPTER 3: OCTAVIA AND THE POETICS OF CIVIL STRIFE Towards a Poetics of Civil War 96 98 The Octavia and Generic Markers of Civil War The Seditious Nature of Nero’s Citizens Civil War and Civil-War Poets Nero’s Prefect and the Suppression of the Riot Conclusion 105 112 121 135 144 CHAPTER 4: MODELS OF STRIFE Pompey the Great and Narratives of Loss Nero, Collective Guilt, and Caesar’s Assassination The Aeneid Undone 147 149 170 183 <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">199 </li><li style="flex:1">Conclusion </li></ul>CHAPTER 5: THE ROMAN PEOPLE’S EXEMPLARY STRIFE (PART I) The Problems of the Octavia’s Chorus Over Her Dead Body: Ode I 203 205 208 <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">223 </li><li style="flex:1">Roman Identity and the “Crush, Kill, Destroy” Mentality: Ode II </li></ul>CHAPTER 6: THE ROMAN PEOPLE’S EXEMPLARY STRIFE (PART II) Burning Down Troy: Ode III The Danger of Favorable Factions: Ode IV Exemplary Women: Ode V Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean: Ode V Conclusion 234 234 248 262 271 277 <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">CONCLUSION </li><li style="flex:1">278 </li></ul><ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">282 </li><li style="flex:1">BIBLIOGRAPHY </li></ul><ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">viiꢀ </li></ul>INTRODUCTION The Octavia is one of the mysteries of imperial literature. We are not sure who wrote it, exactly when it was written, or for what purpose.1 We are not even sure to what genre it ultimately belongs.2 The question of its staging and stageability likewise remains hotly debated, as do the implications of potential staging on the interpretation of the drama as a whole.3 Despite these difficulties, however, the play remains an early witness to the period after the Julio-Claudians when the dynasty’s celebrated literature was being reread in light of its tragic fall and the civil strife that followed. At least one scholar, while noting its near-certain composition in the period after Nero, classifies it as the final work ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ 1 For a history of the question of authorship, see Goldberg (2003). The dating, however, remains controversial. Some argue for a composition under Galba, while others prefer a Flavian date, either under Vespasian (as I think most likely) or Domitian. For various positions, see Boyle (2008) xiii-xi; Ferri (2003) 1-30; Wilson (2003a). As will be evident, I consider the memory of 69 CE to inform the text’s response to Julio-Claudian ideology; its precise date, however, matters little to my analysis of the play’s themes. 2 Scholars are still at odds as to whether the Octavia is best classified as a tragedy or a praetexta. Manuwald (2001, 259-339) gives a complete history of the question before advancing her own opinion that the Octavia exemplifies the “darker” imperial type of praetexta. See also Kragelund (2002) with the responses of Flower, Manuwald, and Wiseman. I will refer to the Octavia predominantly as a drama, as it is not necessary for us to decide between the two generic classifications of “tragedy” and “praetexta” in order to interpret its themes. I use the terms “tragedy” or “tragic” when explicitly discussing its reflections of tragic conventions, but I do not seek to classify it exclusively in these terms. 3 Unlike its Senecan counterparts, many have felt that the Octavia, more than any other surviving imperial drama, demands performance on the public stages of imperial Rome (e.g. Flower [2006] 2003 on the Theater of Pompey; Wiseman [2001] on the Theater of Marcellus). It has none of the “problems” that make the staging of Senecan drama so controversial and it contains many stage directions or other cues that suggest that the playwright had performance in mind (Boyle [2008] xxv-lv; Kragelund [2005] 86-96; Smith [2003]; Sutton [1983]). While my interpretation does not require us to decide whether, when, or how the play was staged, its status as a drama remains important to any analysis. Thus, following Littlewood (2004), I use the language of “audience” and spectatorship throughout the dissertation, and note where ideas of performance become important for individual points of interpretation. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">1ꢀ </li></ul>of Julio-Claudian literature.4 That the play is wholly invested in the Julio-Claudian family, its literature, and the way the dynasty will be remembered is clear from its very beginning. In this sense it is indeed a “Julio-Claudian” text: it is haunted by Rome’s first dynasty, both literally and literarily, even as it reshapes that dynasty’s memory and reinterprets its literary monuments for a new age. In this dissertation, I explore how the Octavia confronts a brief moment in Neronian history and restages it as a powerful challenge to the Julio-Claudian dynasty’s historical claim to have put an end to civil war.5 Civil strife in the Octavia functions as a structural and thematic motif; this motif in turn strips from the Julio-Claudians their public projection of peace and security, and connects their politics inescapably with civil war and its destructive passions. The play advances this theme through its complex engagement with Julio-Claudian literature, and especially the era’s civil-war literature. Intertextuality thus becomes the play’s central mode of shaping both the literary memory of Julio-Claudian literature and the cultural or ideological memory of the Julio-Claudian family after the dynasty’s fall. Three interrelated propositions inform how I approach my subject, two methodological and one thematic.6 First, the Octavia is a self-consciously intertextual play, by which I mean that one of its fundamental modes of generating meaning derives from its echoes of literature that came before. Second, the Octavia is a play about memory, in terms of both how its characters remember the past and also how the play as ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ 4 Sullivan (1985, 73) suggests that thematically and literarily the play belongs more to Julio-Claudian literature than to what follows. I view the play more as a transition, having much in common with the concerns of Flavian poetry (e.g. the role of civil war under a monarchy). 5 The Octavia focuses on 62 CE, Octavia’s divorce, and the riots in her favor. Nevertheless, the events mentioned in the play span from the monarchy through the Republic and the Julio-Claudian period, and thus 62 CE becomes, in essence, a microcosm through which the playwright confronts larger themes. 6 I borrow this language of “propositions” from Boyle’s (1987) twelve “propositions” about the defining markers of Senecan dramatic artistry and the methodologies through which it is best approached. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">2ꢀ </li></ul>a whole masterfully reshapes the memory of Neronian and Julio-Claudian Rome. Third, the Octavia is a play about Roman identity; more specifically, it is a play about civil strife, past and present, and the role that civil strife has played in Roman history as a constitutive element of Roman identity.7 None of these approaches to imperial literature is necessarily unusual on its own, but the text privileges each as a means of interpreting it, and each also raises its own set of questions and brings with it its own intellectual history. Thus it will be of use to lay out precisely what I mean by these three propositions and what about the text has led me to categorize it in these terms. The study of an ancient text’s allusive program has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decades, especially in the study of imperial poetry.8 This does not mean, however, that a unified methodology has developed that would please all working in this area. Rather, the plurality of ways of understanding intertextuality has engendered a plurality of studies on the subject, as each scholar articulates his or her own way of reading a text’s allusive language. Nevertheless, several fundamental advances have been made with wide influence on how we currently approach the subject. First, we have freed ourselves from the idea that we can recover how an author “intended” his work to be read, and instead we locate meaning in the point of a text’s reception.9 At the same time, we are no longer as driven to remove the author completely from the process, and recent studies approach intertextuality in terms of the space created between author and ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ 7 While this might seem obvious, the play’s “Romanness” has often been underestimated. Both Kragelund (2002 and 2005) and Smith (2003) recently argued for the its predominant interest in Rome and Roman identity, and my work both advances and builds on their arguments as will be noted throughout. 8 See e.g. Edmunds (2001); Hinds (1998); Pucci (1998); Wills (1996); Conte (1986). Schiesaro’s (2003, 221-51) and Boyle’s (1987; 2008, lix-lxvi) discussions of intertextuality in Senecan drama have especially informed my own thinking on the subject, as has Edmunds (2001) and Hinds (1998). 9 Fowler (1997, 127) nicely summarizes the issue: “meaning is realized at the point of reception, and what counts as an intertext and what one does with it depends on the reader.” Cf. also Pasquali (1968) 275. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">3ꢀ </li></ul>audience in which meaning is generated.10 Throughout my study, I refer both to the author’s creation (whether intentional or not) and the audience’s perception; I nevertheless avoid such fraught terms such as “allusion” or “reference” in preference for “intertext,” “echo,” “parallel,” and “reminiscence.” I reserve the language of allusive reference for historical (rather than literary) allusions in the text.11 A further advance has been a move away from what Stephen Hinds terms “philological fundamentalism,” or the desire to impose a strict sense of criteria through which “reference” can be distinguished from “accidental parallel.”12 Even commonplace language or topoi are not forbidden from consideration.13 The “proof” must rest in the intertext’s ability to generate meaning upon analysis, as it is this very meaning that makes it relevant for the text’s interpretation. Thus not every parallel will be an intertext for every reader, and it is likely that not all will agree with every echo I analyze. My analysis focuses on echoes that engage their model text on both a lexical and thematic level, but I also examine how topoi and marked vocabulary (which I often describe as allusive “texturing”) reinforce the play’s allusive program. At times lexical parallels are further marked by metrical position, “Alexandrian footnotes,” the ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ 10 See Fowler (1997) 115-37 and Hinds (1998) esp. 47-51. Outside of Classics, literary memory has long been approached in these terms. Especially influential in the development of my own thought has been Renate Lachmann (1997). In Lachmann’s (largely poststructuralist) formulation, intertextual meaning arises from the space between texts generated by the textual memories that an author—consciously or unconsciously—leaves behind in his text and the textual memories that the reader brings to it. 11 For the difficulty of terminology, see Edmunds (2001) 133ff. Edmunds (138) rejects the term “intertext” as inherently problematic, preferring to use “allusion” without intentionalist associations. 12 Hinds (1998) 17-51. 13 Hinds (1998) 34-47. “[That anything can be an intertext] is a truth often suppressed by professors of Latin for reasons of pedagogy and (perhaps) peace of mind; but it is a truth none the less,” (Hinds [1998] 26). Cf. also Edmunds (2001) xvii. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">4ꢀ </li></ul>sequencing of ideas, or other structural and linguistic cues.14 For example, Seneca and Nero (Oct. 440-3) echo the four imperial virtues of Augustus both in their language and also by the order in which they present the virtues through which they look back to Augustus’ clupeus virtutis, his Res Gestae, and other Augustan texts.15 Here too is a recent advance in intertextual studies: no longer is it understood exclusively in poetic terms. Instead, we have turned to prose texts, and especially historiography.16 In the study of allusion, our definition of “text” is expanding to include non-poetic examples and thus I also analyze echoes that may seem far removed from the traditional realm of literature. Within the Octavia, literary echoes work both intertextually and intratextually.17 Certain passages are especially marked moments where the Octavia engages its literary predecessors as clearly as possible. Such moments become “gateway intertexts” that authorize us to seek further points of connection between the two dialoguing texts. For example, when Octavia calls herself the “shadow of a great name” (magni resto nominis umbra, Oct. 71) and aligns herself with Lucan’s Pompey (stat magni nominis umbra, Luc. 1.135), we are invited to seek additional complementary echoes throughout the text, even if subsequent points of contact are less marked.18 Thus the Octavia generates meaning not only from singular echoes but also from wider patterns across the text.19 ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ 14 Hinds (1998, 26) describes Morgan’s “philological criteria” from his study on Ovid (Morgan [1977] 3). The term “Alexandrian footnote” was coined first by Ross (1975, 78), but cf. also Hinds (1998) 1-5. 15 For a discussion of this passage, see Chapter 1 pp. 23-6. I follow Boyle’s (2008) text, noting alternative readings from Zwierlein’s OCT (1986) when significant for my argument. 16 Intertextuality in historiography is now a hot topic. Cf. Polleichtner (2010); Damon (2010a); Levene (2010) 82-163; Marincola (2010); O’Gorman (2007) and (2009) 233-40. 17 Similarly, Gaisser (2009, 136) speaks of the different “reverberations” which Catullus’ intertexts create through their intratextual reminiscences throughout the corpus. 18 For Octavia’s echoes of Pompey, see Chapter 4 pp. 149-61. The names “Octavia,” “Seneca” and “Nero,” etc. refer to the Octavia’s characters, not their historical counterparts. When reference is made to historical <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">5ꢀ </li></ul>These patterns are further aided by its dialogic or agonistic structure. The Octavia uses its dramatic structure to pit different readings of canonical Julio-Claudian texts against each other, asking the audience to engage with these texts from divergent interpretive positions. Thus we see Seneca and the Nurses offer readings of the Aeneid that emphasize its teleological promise of peace to the Julio-Claudians (e.g. Oct. 82-3; Oct. 479-81; Oct. 752-3), while Nero and Octavia read the epic in terms of its civil-war undertones and its conflicting voices (e.g. Oct. 465; Oct. 523-26; Oct. 652-3).20 These divergent readings create not only a plurality of models through which to remember Julio-Claudian Rome, but also a plurality of readings of those Julio-Claudian texts.21 As ꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀꢀ figures, the distinction will be carefully noted (e.g. “the historical Seneca” vel sim.). 19 This mode of engagement is not unique to the Octavia, and can be found in authentic Senecan tragedy as well. Cf. Littlewood (2004, 142) on patterns of Horatian echoes in the Thyestes. The Aeneid’s more notable and overarching engagement with the Iliad and Odyssey can be felt both in individual echoes and in its large-scale patterns even in the absence of precise markers at every turn (cf. Edmunds [2001] 140-41). “The more obvious, and obviously intended aspects of Vergil’s allusive program encourage the reader to look further for less obvious, less obviously intended examples as well…here a situation arises in which, if a Homeric scene is not represented by an obvious Vergilian imitation, the reader is encouraged to hunt for it,” (e-mail from Joseph Farrell quoted by Edmunds [2001] 154). Despite the prevalence of such arguments in previous studies of Latin literature, it nevertheless bears repeating as the Octavia’s echoes have often been read in terms of singular points of contact between two texts without regard for wider patterns. 20 On the allusive engagement with Vergil in these passages, see Chapter 1 pp. 29-35 (Seneca); Chapter 3 pp. 112-21 (Seneca and Nero); Chapter 4 pp. 183-199 (Octavia; the Nurses; Agrippina). While the Octavia’s engagement with Greek and Roman drama has been well studied, its equally pervasive engagement with non-dramatic models remains less so, a balance my dissertation implicitly addresses. Littlewood (2004, 2) has similarly called for a wider study of the influence of non-dramatic models on Senecan drama, suggesting that its generic identity as tragedy has narrowed our perspective unhelpfully.

Donovan B.A., Cornell University, 2003

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