VENUS’ OTHER SON: THE FIGURE OF CUPID IN AUGUSTAN LITERATURE AND ART Andrew C. Ficklin A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics. Chapel Hill 2021 Approved by: James O’Hara Sharon James Hérica Valladares Patricia Rosenmeyer Eric Downing © 2021 Andrew C. Ficklin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Andrew C. Ficklin: Venus’ Other Son: The Figure of Cupid in Augustan Literature and Art (Under the direction of James O’Hara) This study examines the figure of Amor in the Augustan period with an emphasis on poetic responses to imperial visual rhetoric. Through close textual and intertextual analysis, I argue that the Amor of Vergil, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid carries different associations across the poets’ corpora and that these changes reflect contemporary cultural preoccupations. In particular, the Augustan poets engage with Amor’s appropriation into Augustan political imagery, as is reflected in extant monumental art. I here consider the statues of the so-called Algiers relief, the reliefs on the “Augustus” cup from Boscoreale, the so-called Sorrento base, the statue of Augustus from Primaporta, and the Gemma Tiberiana. Amidst rising imagery of the Pax Augusta and Aurea Aetas through the 20s BCE—and despite the ubiquity of Amor’s more troublesome aspects in art and literature of the previous decades—the god of love comes to represent peace and abundance in political contexts. As a child of Venus and “distant relative” to Augustus himself, Amor also becomes a symbol of the princeps’ divine lineage and favor. The boy-god is then integrated into the imperial household itself and, as an extension of these same associations, mapped onto Augustus’ heirs. As an immortal embodiment of Rome’s future generations, and those of the Julii in particular, Amor marks the legitimacy and stability of Rome’s newly dynastic ruling family. Nonetheless, interpretation of this figure remains a matter of debate. While the artists of iii Augustan public monuments mold Amor to suit developing political imagery, Augustan poets problematize narrow readings by capitalizing on the manifold inconsistencies (often intentionally misreading the images themselves). The interaction is generally ambiguous or light-hearted enough to avoid becoming outright criticism, but nonetheless creates an air of resistance that contributes to this Amor’s development. As a result, the figure of Amor becomes a means through which artist and poet alike can engage in contemporary discourse on love, war, peace, and the princeps’ role in each. iv To my wife and family, I am forever grateful for your love and unwavering support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 Julian Claim to Divine Ancestry ................................................................................................. 3 The Figure(s) of Eros .................................................................................................................. 6 Contemporary Developments ................................................................................................... 11 Augustan Moral Reforms ...................................................................................................... 11 Children and the Aurea Aetas ............................................................................................... 13 Chapter Overview ..................................................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2: THE HELLENISTIC EROS IN ROME ................................................................ 25 Conscious Continuity ................................................................................................................ 27 Vergil’s Eclogues .................................................................................................................. 28 Propertius 1 and Tibullus 1 ................................................................................................... 36 Continuity in Amor’s Attributes ............................................................................................... 40 Consistency in Amor’s Attributes ............................................................................................. 45 Amor’s Childlike Appearance .............................................................................................. 46 Amor’s Wings ....................................................................................................................... 48 Amor’s Bow and Arrows ...................................................................................................... 50 Amor’s Attributes and Traditional Roman Morality ................................................................ 55 Amor’s Childlike Appearance .............................................................................................. 55 Amor’s Wings ....................................................................................................................... 61 vi Amor’s Bow and Arrows ...................................................................................................... 64 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 3: THE AUGUSTAN AMOR, A GOD OF PEACE ................................................. 68 Amor is a God of Peace: The Algiers Relief and Propertius 3.4-5 ........................................... 69 Amor Disarmed ......................................................................................................................... 81 Propertius 3 and Tibullus 2 ................................................................................................... 81 Vergil’s Aeneid ..................................................................................................................... 90 Amor and Augustus: The Boscoreale Cup and Sorrento Base ................................................. 99 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 105 CHAPTER 4: AMOR AND THE AUGUSTAN HOUSEHOLD .............................................. 108 Amor and Augustus’ Mythic Past ........................................................................................... 110 Amor and Augustus’ Present .................................................................................................. 119 The Primaporta Statue and Gemma Tiberiana ........................................................................ 122 Ovid’s Amores 1.1 and 1.2 ...................................................................................................... 126 Ovid’s Propemptikon for Gaius Caesar (Ars Amatoria 1.177-228) ....................................... 133 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................. 141 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................. 142 Amor, the Pax Augusta, and Rome’s Future .......................................................................... 142 The Augustan Amor’s Iconography........................................................................................ 143 Responses in Late Augustan Poetry ........................................................................................ 145 FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... 148 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 159 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The battle of Actium (31 BCE) left Octavian with undisputed power in the Mediterranean, but cultural perception of this power remained a staunch—and fickle—adversary for the emerging princeps. Over the subsequent decade, the soon-to-be Augustus leveraged all manner of established social, political, religious, and cultural systems in an effort to legitimize his position. Such complicated image-crafting, however, is hardly unidirectional. As Paul Zanker demonstrated in his foundational work, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, the success of the princeps’ reign depended on a complex interplay between self-conscious projections of imperial authority and manifold contributions by individual statesmen, religious authorities, artists, architects, authors, and their various audiences. Collectively, as it were, Rome produced a myth of rebirth for itself with the figure of Augustus conspicuously placed at its center.1 Nonetheless, the relationship between these many voices has remained a topic of interest over the past thirty years of scholarship.2 Most recently, Nandini Pandey’s The Poetics of Power in Augustan Rome reemphasized the give and take inherent in such a process, examining the Augustan poets as readers of political imagery and their poetry as a means of asserting individual 1 Vergil’s “Shield of Aeneas” (Aen. 8.617-731) remains the clearest example of Augustus’ centrality within Rome’s new narrative. 2 E.g., Hardie 1992; Barchiesi 1997; Welch 2005; Miller 2009; Pandey 2018. See esp. Pandey 2018: 6-8 on key