UTOPIA ANTIQuA
Utopia Antiqua is a fresh look at conceptions of utopia and dystopia in ancient Rome through narratives of the Golden Age and decline in literature of the late Republic and imperial period (100 BCE – 150 CE). Through the lens of utopian theory, Rhiannon Evans looks at the ways that Roman authors, such as Virgil, Ovid and Tacitus, use and reinvent Greek myths of the ages, considering them in their historical and artistic context. With the infamous ‘Golden Age’ behind them, writers in ancient Rome became highly concerned about their culture’s moral and cultural decline. This book explores the meanings of the ‘Iron Age’ and dystopia for Roman authors, as well as the reasons they give for this decline, and the possibilities for a renewed Age of Gold. As well as considering a wide range of literary genres, this highly readable study also considers Roman art, architecture, numismatics and landscapes. Using case studies, such as the notoriously decadent ex-general, Lucullus, Evans considers the cultural effects of importing luxury goods and the way that it gives rise to a rhetoric of Roman decline. She also looks at the idealisation of farmers, soldiers and even primitive barbarians as parallels to the Golden Race and role models for Romans who had become ashamed of their own extravagance and corruption. Rhiannon Evans is Lecturer at the Centre for Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include Roman geography and ethnography, and Roman imperial literature and culture.
UTOPIA ANTIQuA Readings of the Golden Age and Decline at Rome
Rhiannon Evans
First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Rhiannon Evans All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Evans, Rhiannon. Utopia antiqua : readings of the golden age and decline at Rome / Rhiannon Evans. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Utopias in literature. 2. Utopias—Rome. I. Title. HX806.E94 2008 335’.020937—dc22 2007022560 ISBN 0-203-93740-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–27127–4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–93740–6 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–27127–1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–93740–2 (ebk)
CONTeNTs
Acknowledgements
vi
Introduction: Finding Utopia
1
1 Utopia: Landscape and Symbol
8
2 Myths of the Ages and Decline
31
3 Lucullan Marble and the Morality of Building
93
4 Rust: Enemy of the State
130
Notes Bibliography Index
189 213 231
AckNOwledgemeNTs
This book was written in many different parts of the world, over several journeys to the UK and USA, and at every stage, I have been fortunate to find welcoming friends and family who have made my progress a little more utopian by providing both house-space and good company. In particular, I want to thank Marilyn Ashe-Jones, Tricia Gilson, Peter Huxley, Amy Richlin and Anne Vasey for their generosity and congeniality. The idea for this book came about in my last few months at the University of Southern California, and there Tony Boyle and Amy Richlin were ever candid advisors, and instrumental in guiding my ideas. At the Universities of Tasmania and Melbourne, where this book was largely written, my thoughts on Roman literature and culture have been informed by conversations with my colleagues, Peter Davis and Parshia Lee-Stecum, while Frank Sear helped to clarify some of the issues of marble and architecture. I would like to thank participants at the Pacific Rim Latin Literature Seminar held at the State University of New York, at Buffalo in 2001, for comments on an early version of Chapter 1, and those at the Ancient World Seminar at the University of Melbourne for similar help with Chapter 3. This book was begun and completed during study leaves granted to me by the University of Tasmania and the University of Melbourne and I gratefully acknowledge their support. The Department of Classics at the University of California, Los Angeles gave me a pleasant home for the final stages of my research. I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Sarah Hyslop, Siân McGirvan and Amy Richlin, who generously read extracts of this book and gave me timely and helpful feedback. My research assistant Estelle Strazdins was tireless and meticulous in her efforts. Anne Vasey, with her typical good humour, has been talking utopia with me for many years. My thanks also go to those at Routledge who have been accommodating throughout: to Richard Stoneman for his encouragement at the beginning of this project, and to Amy Laurens for her help in seeing it through to the end. Parts of Chapter 1 of this book have already been published in the journal Arethusa, and I would like to thank the editor of Arethusa, Martha Malamud, and Routledge for organizing permission for republication.
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INTrOducTION: FINdINg UTOPIA Utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality. Albert Camus, Between Hell and Reason
Utopianism and the Golden Age Utopia is a fraught term: it is often interpreted as a naïve and outmoded concept in modern political theory, especially when it is broadly associated with communism or totalitarianism (Bobbio, 1989: passim; Kloppenberg, 1996: 124–6), and, as a single vision, utopia fits uneasily alongside postmodern pluralism. The term was invented in the early modern period with Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), yet is rooted in ancient Greek philosophical writings.1 Even the definition of the term is contentious, although usually critics seek to separate ancient Greco-Roman works, particularly those connected with the past, or ‘Golden Age’ nostalgia, from representations of structured revolutionary social orders. One defining characteristic of utopia is its topicality, for, as was the case with More’s work, most utopian authors set out to critique their own society and throw it into relief by describing a world in which specific institutions, inequalities or vices do not exist. And it is this specificity which marks the utopian out, whereas Golden Age narratives tend to depict a more generalized state of simplicity, usually in the remote past. While More’s Utopia and those written in this tradition have often been viewed as texts which offer a critical perspective on the society which produced them,2 it is easy to see narratives of the Golden Age and faraway paradise as tales which simply reproduce a nostalgic desire for easy primitivism.3 Moses Finley made the distinction between utopia, which is not attainable, but does exist as a goal, and is specific in its proposals, as opposed to the ‘various primitivistic images’ of what he calls the ‘Garden of Eden’ types (1967: 6). So, for Finley, utopias have a political and social agenda, whereas Golden Age narratives seem to exist outside of, or before, contemporary society. Both, however, depend upon the erasure of conflict, as Finley acknowledges: There is a sense in which a Garden of Eden shares a quality of criticism with Utopia, specifically in the idea, explicit or implicit, that a
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world without evil is not even conceivable, let alone possible, so long as the two chief roots of evil are present, namely, strife over wealth and property and strife arising from sexual drives. 1967: 6–7 This points to one of the important shared qualities of utopian and Golden Age narratives: neither is imaginable unless the binary opposite of discord and vice has already been identified. The question of why society produces so much criminality and immorality lies at the foundation of the oldest account we have of the Golden Age, in Hesiod’s Works and Days, which begins by speculating on the nature of ÒEri~ (‘Strife’, WD 11–26), and proceeds to describe the arrival of conflict in the wake of the Golden Race (WD 121–201).4 The distinction is firmly maintained by one of the most significant writers on utopias in recent years, Krishan Kumar, who sees utopia as a product of the revolution in thought brought about by the Renaissance and Reformation (1991: 33, 51), and dismisses the ancient utopian texts discussed by John Ferguson in his 1975 Utopias of the Classical World as ‘more like Baron Munchausen stories than the realistic fiction of the utopia’ (Kumar, 1991: 38; and 1987: 2–9).5 On the other hand utopia has also been interpreted as an essential facet of humanity, stemming from the human ‘perception of possibilities’, a recognition that the future is modifiable (Quarta, 1996: 158). Quarta is attempting to save utopia from irrelevance by claiming that its meaning is far wider than communism, and reclassifying homo sapiens as homo utopicus; but this universalizes the utopian impulse (basically reducing it to ‘hope’) to the point where it is a generalized trope and lacks cultural specificity.6 Ruth Levitas refocuses this debate, concentrating upon ‘desire’ as the central element in the utopian impulse: the desire for a different life, although it commonly covers areas such as a lack of violence or heavy labour, will be formulated in such a way that it reveals particular tensions and concerns. As Levitas claims, ‘we learn a lot about the experience of living under any set of conditions by reflecting upon the desires which those conditions generate and yet leave unfulfilled. For that is the space which utopia occupies’ (1990: 8). This definition encourages us to see all narratives of idealization in their historical context, and it is within this framework that Golden Age descriptions of the past, as well as fictional and geographical fantasy worlds, can encompass the utopian as much as prescriptive and radically alternative systems of existence. So although Roman narratives of the ideal state of existence may not be utopias in the strictest terms, as they do not lay out a systematic model of society, it is also a mistake to see them merely as cross-cultural remnants of primitive yearning, near-identical to all other Golden Age/Garden of Eden tales. In contrast, looking at the utopian as ‘the repository of desire’ (Levitas, 1990: 199) allows for the investigation of Golden Age narratives as they are specifically mobilized, rather than
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s eeing them as repetitive examples of a universal trope.7 Their function is historically determined, and the evocation of Golden Age mythology is particularly important in harnessing the political and cultural potential of the utopian. The Golden Age in Roman texts transforms Hesiodic and Hellenistic models in ways which are telling in their particular context, and texts which deal with the return of the age or its decline to the present are especially revealing: this is dealt with primarily in Chapter 2. In Chapter 1, the textual and visual infiltration of Golden Age, millennial and faraway landscapes into Rome is investigated, along with the historical implications of such phenomena. The words ‘utopian’ and ‘dystopian’ are therefore used in this book not to indicate the post-Morean genre at the centre of Utopian Studies, but in the broader sense of the ideal, liveable community, and its hellish opposite. I am, however, conscious that this may be perceived as a misuse of the terms by many cultural theorists, and I do think that there are distinctions to be made between texts which deal with the Golden Age (or paradisal) and utopia. Yet the expressions of desire and discontent which pervade Roman texts make use of aspects of both forms. The Golden Age and the ‘fall’ is particularly pertinent in Chapter 1, in which the idea of paradise is discussed with particular regard to landscape, and Chapter 2, which deals with the myth of the ages in Roman literature. In Chapters 3 and 4, utopia (or more prevalently dystopia) informs Roman narratives concerning society’s moral and cultural collapse, which is mirrored by writers’ anxieties about their physical environment. Utopia is relevant to depictions and projections of idealized communities, particularly those which involve the city, the urbs, which for Romans could only mean one city, that of Rome itself.
The city as utopia Despite the exclusion of the pre-modern from utopia proper, antiquity is invoked as the origin of the idea that utopia is a fundamentally urban phenomenon: Lewis Mumford, who believed that there had been a utopian origin to the formation of the city in Greece and the Near East, claimed that ‘the city itself was transmogrified into an ideal form – a glimpse of eternal order, a visible heaven on earth, a seat of the life abundant – in other words, utopia’ (Mumford, 1966: 13). Mumford’s connection of the city and the utopian is one which resonates with the history of town planning. Although their own city had grown in an apparently haphazard way over centuries, Romans built many of their colonies to a much-repeated grid plan,8 which suggests that, for them, it formed the ideal, in terms of practicality and layout. It created a version of Rome, complete with forum and Capitol, comitium and basilica, which lacked the seemingly random nature of the original city, creating a kind of utopia, or at least a unified vision of a town. In these colonies, the economic, religious and entertainment zones had their set
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places, indicating the categories which mattered to the Roman town planner.9 Not all planned communities live up to their utopian aspirations (early new towns in particular were notoriously soulless), while most towns and cities are never planned according to one coherent vision, but evolve over time, as an amalgam. This is one reason why, overall, the city much more easily attracts images of the dystopian (overpopulated, noisy, crime-ridden, polluted – all of which are attributed to ancient Rome) and why the city is often the subject of present and future dystopian projections through films such as Metropolis, Blade Runner and Falling Down.10 Ancient Rome is frequently depicted as a dystopian city of dysfunctional people – both feature heavily in Roman satire, particularly in the work of Juvenal: nos urbem colimus tenui tibicine fultam magna parte sui; nam sic labentibus obstat vilicus et, veteris rimae cum texit hiatum, securos pendente iubet dormire ruina. vivendum est illic, ubi nulla incendia, nulli nocte metus. We live in a city held up by thin props for the great part; for in this way the landlord prevents it from falling down, and when he has covered the gaping hole of an old gap, tells us to sleep securely in an unstable shack. We should live in a place where there are no fires, no night-time fears. Sat. 3.193–8 One of the results of this pessimistic cultural complex is that many texts seek the city’s utopian opposite, as the speaker here, Umbricius, leaves Rome for the ancient, uncorrupted and sleepy town of Cumae (see Chapter 3). The other solution was to remodel Rome, and plans to redraw the city, particularly under Augustus and Nero, could be interpreted as qualified utopian urban visions – certainly Augustus claimed that his building programme was a transformative act: ‘he justly boasted that he left made of marble [the city] which he had found made of brick’ (iure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset, Suet. Aug. 28.3). Augustan developments focused on open, public spaces (in the Campus Martius), along with elegant inner-city spaces (such as the Forum of Augustus), but did not replan the whole city, hence the necessity for the huge firewall behind the Augustan Forum, blocking out the ugly Subura. Nero’s plan for a grand country estate, complete with villa and horti in the centre of Rome, failed first because of the fire of 64 CE, and second because of his death and his successors’ determination to erase the Golden House’s presence. However, had the grand
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scheme been fully realized, it would have revolutionized the cityscape and, as Champlin argues, it was probably intended to be more of an inclusive space for the people of Rome than is suggested by hostile sources and the name ‘house’ (1998: 343).11 The construction of Trajan’s Forum (also discussed in Chapter 3) must have had a similarly revolutionary impact on the city centre, and however much these and other large-scale building schemes worked to glorify the emperor or his ancestors, they undoubtedly also functioned as a response to Rome’s perceived inadequacy as a world city. This is exactly how Suetonius frames the Augustan architectural project: ‘[Augustus said] that the city was not decorated in line with the dignity of the empire, and was exposed to floods and fires’ (urbem neque pro maiestate imperii ornatam et inundationibus incendiisque obnoxiam, Aug. 28.3). The range of texts which feature Romans as a race in moral decline is extremely wide in terms of genre and time period; incidence is found as early as the Elder Cato in the second century BCE (see Chapter 4), but gathers momentum in the late Republic. Thus Sallust, breaking into his narrative of the Catilinarian conspiracy with an extensive moral diatribe, depicts Rome’s exemplary beginnings and subsequent fall from grace: sed ubi labore atque iustitia res publica crevit, reges magni bello domiti, nationes ferae et populi ingentes vi subacti, Carthago aemula imperi Romani ab stirpe interiit, cuncta maria terraeque patebant, saevire fortuna ac miscere omnia coepit. qui labores, pericula, dubias atque asperas res facile toleraverant, iis otium divitiaeque, optanda alias, oneri miseriaeque fuere. igitur primo pecuniae, deinde imperi cupido crevit: ea quasi materies omnium malorum fuere. namque avaritia fidem probitatem ceterasque artis bonas subvortit; pro his superbiam, crudelitatem, deos neglegere, omnia venalia habere edocuit. ambitio multos mortalis falsos fieri subegit, aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere, amicitias inimicitiasque non ex re, sed ex commodo aestumare, magisque voltum quam ingenium bonum habere. haec primo paulatim crescere, interdum vindicari; post ubi contagio quasi pestilentia invasit, civitas inmutata, imperium ex iustissumo atque optumo crudele intolerandumque factum. But when, through industry and fair dealing, the commonwealth grew, great kings were defeated in war, savage peoples and huge populations were subdued by force, and Carthage, the rival of Rome’s empire, was entirely destroyed, all seas and lands lay open, and fortune began to grow angry and to disturb everything. For men who had easily put up with hard work, danger, uncertainty and harsh situations, leisure and riches – things at other times prayed for – were a burden and an affliction. Therefore first the
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esire for money grew, then for power: these were the root of all d evils. For greed undermined trust, integrity and all other honourable behaviour, and in place of these, it taught pride and cruelty, how to neglect the gods and to regard everything as for sale. Ambition drove many men to become deceitful, to have one thing shut up in their hearts, and another ready on their tongues, and to judge friendships and enmities not on the basis of facts, but of their usefulness, and to regard appearance more than character. At first these grew little by little, and at times they were punished; but after the disease attacked like a plague, the state was transformed, and its government, once the most just and the best, became cruel and impossible to bear. Cat. 10.1–6 Sallust here describes a kind of moral dystopia, a situation from which there seems to be no escape, but instead the promise of worse to come – indeed the text continues to bemoan Rome’s downward spiral for a number of chapters (Cat. 11–13). The problem of Rome’s decline is ubiquitous in texts of the late Republic and the imperial period. It incorporates encomia of the past, tirades against individuals and society as a whole, and messianic hopes for the future. These issues are addressed throughout this book, but particularly in Chapters 3 and 4.
The static utopia One of the problems of utopia, if it is ever achieved, is that it demands absolute stability – if any element changes, or there is any questioning of the utopian vision, the equilibrium is destroyed.12 Even if utopia remains a static entity, it eventually stagnates, as it cannot respond to historical change, and it has this in common with Golden Ages. No reason is ever given for the disappearance of the Golden Race: in the oldest account we have (Hes. WD 121–6) it is simply succeeded by the Silver Race; but from a narrative point of view, Golden Ages and utopias have to end, as they provide no possibility for conflict or narrative development: they are fixed, inert, unable to change – because change would result in a degree less of perfection. 13 Alternatively, and commonly, utopias are foreseen as a future prospect (as in messianic narratives) or they are places visited for a short time (More’s Utopia, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1915 novel, Herland). Broadly speaking, utopias are often projected into the future (as an aim or a warning), while the Golden Age usually exists in the past. This is not necessarily the case, however: More’s Utopia is emphatically set in the writer’s present, beginning with the words: ‘Henry VIII, the unconquered King of England . . . sent me into Flanders.’ The Golden Age might be a desired future, and even occasionally claimed for the present, but usually both it and utopia are
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e ither temporally remote or placed at a distant location. They encompass the remote and the exotic, so that idealized communities are found at the edges of knowledge; just as More’s island of Utopia is found on the perimeters of the ‘New World’, so many ideal locations in Greco-Roman texts are situated just outside of mapped spaces: in the Atlantic (the Islands of the Blessed), to the far north (the Hyperboreans), and in the Indian Ocean (Panchaia).14 In these remote regions, they are visited only by travellers and traders, are inaccessible to most people, and exist largely in the imagination as the location of new possibilities and the source of exotic material goods, retaining a degree of mystery and desire. Most dystopias project their vision into the future (unlike utopias which are just as often somewhere else spatially) – it may be the near future, a logical outcome of current behaviours (this is particularly true of climate-change apocalypses such as The Day After Tomorrow).15 This is also the case with the earliest Greek narrative: Hesiod’s Iron Race will get worse, in part because their behaviour is already arrogant, disrespectful and violent, which will drive away the remnants of the gods among them. But for many Roman texts, dystopia is here, now, and its point of comparison is a paradisal past or messianic future – which is usually cast as a return to the past. Rome’s decline narrative is a particularly conservative vehicle, and its many manifestations are investigated in detail in Chapters 3 and 4.
1 UTOPIA: LANdscAPe ANd SymbOl
The location of utopia Utopia’s marginality – physically and conceptually – typically locates it in remote and unfamiliar parts of the world. This is the case for a number of the spaces which were occupied by utopia and particularly paradisal landscapes in the Roman imagination: but while they existed at the far-flung edges of the world, they are also contained within Roman domestic space, in the form of wall paintings. At the same time, associations of the Golden Age conveyed potent political messages, especially when occurring at a temporal distance, particularly in the future. An analysis of paradise as a discourse helps us to understand how the myth of the perfect past can operate as social commentary: its usage is highly historicized, rather than representing the re-emergence of a timeless, essentialised trope. The symbolic language of Golden Age landscape is written into Rome’s literary, artistic and numismatic media, and this chapter explores the resonances of such images in their historical context. This landscape implies ease and leisure, even luxury; it lacks conflict and is aesthetically pleasing – it is complete in itself and needs no addition. Eastern plenty Est locus in primo felix oriente remotus . . . non ibi tempestas nec vis furit horrida venti nec gelido terram rore priuna tegit . . . [Lactantius] de ave Phoenice 1, 21–2 One possible location for the utopian was to the East, building on Greek traditions, and the fact that luxury goods emanated from this direction. Arabia is most commonly associated with plenty and sensuality, and especially with the production of exotic spices and fragrances – an important trading source for these products.1 It was tagged as Arabia Felix (‘Blessed Arabia’), suggesting riches, bounty and luxuriant fertility (Cic. Att. 9.11.4);
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in combination with its relative distance from Rome, this region becomes an ideal location for utopian longing. Although Arabia is not often alluded to in pre-Augustan texts, it does occur as a location of mystery and riches in Plautus’ ‘orientalist’ plays – this is a place where luxury goods can be sourced, as Timarchides explains in Persa: Chrysopolim Persae cepere urbem in Arabia,/ plenam bonarum rerum atque antiquom oppidum (‘The Persians have taken Chrysopolis, a city in Arabia,/ full of good things and an ancient town’ Plautus Persa 506–7; also Truculentus 539–40), and women are kidnapped: liberalem virginem . . . abductam ex Arabia penitissuma (‘a free young woman . . . stolen from deepest Arabia’ Persa 521–2, see also 541).2 However Arabia became progressively ‘knowable’ for Romans of the first century BCE, and in the late Republic, it appears firmly on the map of Roman imperialism, becoming a target for ambitious military leaders like Scaurus (Josephus AJ 14.80–1) and Pompey (Plut. Pomp. 45.2). Both men claimed it as a conquered nation, Pompey in his triumph of 61 BCE, Scaurus on coinage of 58 BCE, even though this was far from the case (Bowersock, 1983: 32–5). Augustus sent Aelius Gallus on a failed military expedition there around 25 BCE (Strabo 16.4.22), and Pliny reports Gallus’ ‘discoveries’ (explorata) in the region, such as the diet of the Nomads, the areas of fertile land and the most warlike tribes, all of which may have been taken from Gallus’ firsthand account (HN 6.160–2). Although the invasion did not occur until the reign of Trajan, even in the Augustan period Arabia is no longer the intangible and remote space on to which exotic or utopian images could be projected: in addition to Gallus’ trip, Augustus’ grandson Gaius had ‘looked at’ it, if only briefly (prospexit tantum Arabiam, HN 6.160), also making it part of the observed and mundane.3 However, no potential conqueror could visit the nearby, vaguely situated island of Panchaia, which was also associated with perfumes and most famously compared with Italy’s agricultural riches in Virgil’s Georgics: totaque turiferis Panchaia pinguis harenis (‘and all Panchaia rich with its incense-bearing sands’, 2.139; also [Tib.] 3.2.23, App. Vir. Culex 87, Met. 10.307–10). Panchaia has a mysterious lineage, as it is the subject of a longrunning debate in ancient geographies: invented by Euhemerus in the early third century, it was the location for his depiction of an idealized society, which eliminated hierarchy and private property, money and slavery.4 Euhemerus apparently narrated a journey he had taken with Kassander, starting from Arabia Eudaimon to a group of islands off the Indian coast, of which Panchaia was the largest. A multicultural republic (amongst the other islands, which are monarchies), Panchaia contains an abundance of natural bounty: all varieties of tree, plant and flower, vines, fruit and nuts and health-giving springs, in fact a prospect worthy of the gods (Diodorus Siculus 5.42–4). This allows for the integration of gods and humans, a trope of the Golden Age and utopian societies, such as Homer’s Phaiakians (Od.
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7.201–5).5 Within decades, Panchaia becomes a byword for both Euhemerus and for his unreliability as a geographical authority: Eratosthenes (276 BC– 194 BCE) calls him a ‘Bergaean’, after Antiphanes of Berga, a well-known fabricator of travellers’ tales (Polybius 34.10), and Strabo claims that you might as well believe in Panchaia as the land of the Kimmerians (Geography 7.3.6).6 The word itself literally means ‘all good things’, but its location remains unknown, a mythical site, an island off Arabia, somewhere in the Indian Ocean. It is a place which does not exist for Pliny in his geographical books, and otherwise only arises in the Historia Naturalis as a possible site for the invention of mining and smelting of gold (HN 7.197), a verbal reminder of the Golden Age, yet paradoxically the very kind of activity which is more typical of the Iron Age.7 A mirage, it emerges and then vanishes in Roman geographical texts. Panchaia’s very insubstantiality is what sets it aside as utopian: it is symptomatic of what Louis Marin describes as the ‘displacement’ practised by utopian discourse – it is found in an ‘unsituatable “other” place’: a critical force of utopia is that it is ‘other’ in time and/or space (Marin, 1984: 195).8 The phoenix and the island In Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there William Shakespeare, The Tempest 3.3.23 Panchaia and its surrounding islands were also associated with rebirth and the beginning of a new age, through its link to the phoenix. In 47 CE, it was recorded in the official records (acta) at Rome that this fabulous creature had been brought to the city itself. This was regarded as an event of such magnitude that Quintus Plautius claimed the miraculous bird was taken to the Comitium and put on display. Despite the official record of the visit, the Elder Pliny, our informant, does not hesitate to add that the narrative is undoubtedly fallacious (HN 10.5).9 However, it is not the existence of the phoenix which is beyond the realms of belief,10 merely the idea that it would appear at Rome – surprising, because it belongs in the faraway perfumed paradise that is Arabia, where it is sacred to the Sun. Pliny mentions only one other location associated with the phoenix, and this comes into play when the bird regenerates itself on a 540-year cycle:11 it builds a nest with scents such as cinnamon and frankincense, and, after its death, its bones turn into a maggot, which grows into a chick and piously carries out the funeral rites for its previous self. But the chick does not stay put: it carries its nest to the City of the Sun (solis urbem), which is identified only as being ‘near Panchaia’ (prope Panchaiam), and there places it on an altar (HN 10.4). 10
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There are various ways to interpret this tale. On the face of it, Pliny’s phoenix stands at the more extraordinary edge of the Historia Naturalis’ ‘bird book’, quickly giving way to the more mundane creatures: eagles down to chickens. But the fantastic bird and the locations of its life, death and rebirth assemble a plethora of utopian associations. Its longevity, relationship to time – through its identification as the bird of the sun and its reappearance at set, regular intervals – and its ability to regenerate on a seemingly endless basis make the phoenix an ideal symbol of eternity12 as well as renewal and change: a constant series of new beginnings, resulting in the creation of the same, utterly fantastic being.13 Life and death coexist within the phoenix, an incongruity which the fourth-century CE author of de ave Phoenice recognized: vivit morte refecta sua ‘she lives, remade by her death’ (32).14 Paradoxically, the phoenix myth is also comparable with the nostalgia and stagnation found in both Golden Age and utopian narratives: the Golden Age tells a story of the desire to return to a time lost, regaining and retaining the bounty of a previous age; utopia is a vision that claims to provide the perfect society – but if it is perfect, it need not, and must not, change. Utopia can easily become dystopia, stable, but stifling.15 Who would really want to live under Plato’s or More’s strict regime? The phoenix myth involves constant rebirth, which is a non-utopian concept, but it is rebirth as the same form. A more direct and literal connection with the Golden Age is the appearance of the startlingly garish bird: it is consistently described as golden (Herodotus 2.73.2, Philostratus Vita Apoll. 3.49, Achilles Tatius 3.25); Pliny, as many others, adds red and purple colours, highlighting both fiery and regal qualities: auri fulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caerulaeam roseis caudam pinnis distinguentibus, ‘with the gleam of gold around its neck, it is otherwise purple; rosy feathers stand out from its blue-green tail’ (HN 10.3).16 The phoenix acquires a nimbus, sometimes with rays, as an attribute in the first century CE (van den Broek, 1972: 233, 245), as is shown on many Roman coins from the Hadrianic period onwards,17 further emphasizing its association with the sun (van den Broek: 237–51). Furthermore, the link with the previous generation and funerary rituals is foregrounded: dreams about painting the phoenix are always connected to the dreamers’ parents, according to Artemidorus: depending on which version of the myth is invoked, they will either be so poor that they will have to bury their parents themselves or they will lose them soon (Oneirocritica 4.47). The care taken by the phoenix in disposing of its predecessor’s remains – wrapping its bones in fragrant plants, carrying them to Egypt, placing it in the Temple of the Sun – represented filial pietas for Romans like Hadrian,18 who was the first to use the phoenix as a symbol on coins: an aureus of 117/8 CE, bearing the legend DIVUS TRAIANUS PATER on the obverse, carries a radiate Phoenix on its reverse (BMC Emp. III 245, 48–9, pl.47.8–9; RIC II Trajan 343, 27). In turn, Alexandrian coinage featuring 11
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the phoenix with a seven-rayed nimbus was released in 138/9 to commemorate the succession of Antoninus Pius (MacDonald, 1905: 459 n. 404). The multivalent phoenix has the power to look forward as well as back, and in commemorating the obsequies owed to Trajan, Hadrian was also marking his own reign as a new age. From the earliest forms of the tradition the bird is associated with huge cosmic movement and the beginning of an era (van den Broek, 1972: 22–3).19 Martial picked up on the links with riches, renewal and rebirth in an epigram congratulating Domitian on the new Rome emerging after the fire of 80 CE: qualiter Assyrios renovant incendia nidos, una decem quotiens saecula vixit avis, taliter exuta est veterem nova Roma senectam et sumpsit vultus praesidis ipsa sui. Just as fires renew Assyrian nests, as often as one bird lived ten ages, so the new Rome has been stripped of old age and she has taken on the face of her ruler. 5.7.1–2 Hadrian took the idea to its logical conclusion, producing an aureus in 121/2 CE which features a phoenix standing on a globe20 on its reverse and declares P.M. TR. P. COS. III. SAEC. AUR. ‘Pontifex Maximus, Tribune of the People, Consul for the third time: the Golden Age’. This emperor’s extensive building programme for Rome and the provinces, and his creation of a living complex in the idyllic setting of Tibur are reflections of this claim in both utopian and paradisal form, combining aspects of city life and country retreat. The villa constructs urban grandeur and rustic perfection on a huge scale: the Historia Augusta describes Hadrian’s building as boundless: opera ubique infinita fecisset (‘he had built everywhere an infinite work’ Hadrian 19.9).21 Its construction is amazing (mire exaedificavit), and it brings together locations from various parts of the empire through the names given to each of its sectors (Hadrian 26.5), including Tempe, the secluded Thessalian valley associated with Apollo and Greek pastoral settings (Call. Del. 104, Theoc. 1.67).22 As such it is an ultimate utopian living project, breaking the laws of space and logistics. And at a remove of thirty-four kilometres from Rome, it contrasts with Nero’s Domus Aurea, which dominated the city itself, while, as if to emphasize the contrast, the Hadrianic Temple of Venus and Roma, the largest temple ever built in Rome, is positioned over the Golden House. In addition, by remodelling Nero’s hated features on the Colossus to those of the sun god (Hadrian 19.13), Hadrian asserts his rejection of that past and a Neronian Golden Age now discredited, and suggests instead Hadrianic renewal through the association of the sun. 12
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Yet in a typical Golden Age move, the Hadrianic regime knew how to maintain the balance between revolution and retrospection, and even the radical design of the Pantheon purports to be the reinstatement of an Augustan temple – an appropriate move, as Augustus himself was also adept at maintaining the equilibrium of past and present.23 And modifying the Colossus so that it becomes the sun god in fact utilizes the same solar associations as those which permeated Nero’s Domus Aurea (as stressed by Champlin, 1998: 338–40) – it erases the man himself, but is otherwise consistent with Hadrianic messages of overall continuity. Hadrian also stressed the comparison with Numa Pompilius (Birley, 1997: 111), a king associated with the virtue and peacefulness characteristic of the Golden Age and attributed with the formation of many of the rituals which had become institutionalized as Roman traditions (Plutarch Numa 13–14.1). Hadrian’s reverence for the past is paralleled in his policy on Rome’s frontiers, which began by moving backwards, for he essentially reversed Trajan’s latest territorial expansion in the East: ad priscum se statim morem instituit (‘at once he re-established the early policy’ Hadrian 5.1; see Dio 68.31, Hadrian 5.3, 9.1). For the remainder of his reign, Hadrian kept the boundaries static, even marking the edge of Roman power with a ninety-kilometre wall, a visual statement that ‘the empire stops here’. Hadrian’s inactivity suggests that, for him, Rome’s empire was at its ideal extent, in a state where no change was necessary. And at this period Golden Age figures, such as Pudicitia holding a cornucopia, are common on coins (RIC II: cxxxi–ii), emphasising the return of moral values and plenty, and recollecting the Hesiodic myth.24 Yet again, the new era is a redeployment of something very old, and the phoenix functions at both ends of the spectrum of time and memory. Marcel Detienne connects the phoenix to his schema of opposites, which sets the heat of the sun and the fragrant dryness of Arabian spices against the putrefaction of wet plants (1977: 20–36). The phoenix represents both the extreme of dryness when it burns on a pyre of perfumed spices, and the contrasting extreme when it is born again as a worm. The worm (or maggot) is present in Pliny, but not found in other first-century texts25 whereas the burning of the aged phoenix is usual by this period (Luc. 6.680, Plin. HN 29.29, Mart. 5.7.1–2, Lucian Peregr. 27, Solinus 33.12). Certainly the connection with the sun’s heat is emphatic throughout the tradition (Lloyd, 1976: 318, van den Broek, 1972: 233, 261–304): as early as Hekataeus the bird flies to Heliopolis from Arabia to bury its father (FGrH 324 = Herod. 2.73). As Detienne comments, the bird’s solar associations and regeneration fix it in the sphere of the celestial and elevated (1977: 33–6), and Roman emperors also capitalized on the obvious associations which could be made between the everlasting bird and the immortality which they lavished on their predecessors and expected to receive in turn. In fact, the combination of the phoenix on coins with the legend Aeternitas or AIWN (‘eternity’) is common in the Antonine era,26 particularly on those commemorating the 13
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deification of the emperor’s wife: on the reverse of a post–141 CE sestertius, the goddess Aeternitas holds a globe, on which sits a phoenix with a nimbus; a bust of the dead empress, diva Faustina, appears on the obverse (RIC III Antoninus Pius, 1103 A & B, 1104–5).27 Aeternitas with a globe had similarly commemorated Hadrian’s apotheosis in a release of 139 (ibid. 18– 9).28 Thus the symbolism of the east and the paradisal become synonymous with the Antonine dynasty.
The outer edges and ambivalence Utopus me dux ex non insula fecit insulam . . . Thomas More, de optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia Latin translation of ‘Tetrastichon Vernacula Utopiensium Lingua’ Although Hadrian and other emperors might implicitly claim to have brought about the new Golden Age at Rome, true utopias are usually inaccessible in either space and/or time. If they exist on this earth, like Panchaia, they are often islands: from Atlantis in Plato’s Timaeus and Krito, to Aldous Huxley’s Island (1966), the island location of the utopian signifies its unattainable status. More’s Utopia is an island actually created by human labour, cut off from the mainland by its founder/dictator Utopus, as the island itself acknowledges in the first line of a quatrain quoted above. In a sense, the story that the island is artificially manufactured reflects More’s understanding that all ideal societies are constructs.29 Locations of desire in Greco-Roman antiquity are similarly isolated, often as islands, always situated on the periphery: as Herodotus noted, ‘the most beautiful regions of the world are the furthest’ (3.106), and here, as elsewhere, their naturally favourable features – the abundance of gold, scents, fruits and fresh springs – are stressed. The northern land of the Hyperboreans is at the furthest extent of one compass point. Although Greek texts stress the piety30 of the inhabitants, Roman poets concentrate on their remote location,31 and Roman geographers draw the contrast more sharply between this gens felix and the savage peoples, such as Nomads and Anthropophagi, whom they live beyond: ultra Amazones ultraque eas Hyperborei, ‘beyond [Scythia] are the Amazons, and beyond them the Hyperboreans’ (Mela Chorographia 1.13, also 3.36 and Pliny HN 4.88–89). This is a pastoral utopia: the Hyperboreans live in nemora lucique (‘woods and groves’), the land and climate are apricus (‘open to sunlight’) and felix (‘blessed’), and some think that they have six months of daylight, leading to a seemingly absurd acceleration of fertility, whereby seeds are sown and the harvest gathered on the same day (HN 4.90). Utopia hijacks time, and refuses to submit to the cosmic law of seasons. In a further subversion of nature, Hyperboreans die only by choice when they have exhausted life, and their mode of suicide 14
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– leaping off a cliff – is said to lead to ‘an extremely blissful burial’: sepulturae beatissimum. Even death creates no labour, as the bodies are self-interred. Their location, however, is subject to debate: Pliny puts them in northern Europe, but tells us that some place them in Asia or in a much more mysterious position ‘midway between both suns, the sunsets of the antipodes and our sunrise’ (inter utrumque solem, antipodum occasus exorientemque nostrum, HN 4.90). The Hyperboreans exist in a shadowy world, cut off from the orbis terrarum, conceptually beyond insurmountable boundaries. Similarly remote, the ‘Fortunate Isles’ or Islands of the Blessed are set outside the Pillars of Hercules in the Ocean, cut off from known continents, inaccessible to travellers. Lucian associates Arabia Eudaimon directly with the Fortunate Isles, as both possess the same sweet smell: the scents of flowers, trees and vines are said to be those which Herodotus ascribes to Arabia Eudaimon.32 A western paradise, they display the labourless abundance of easy primitivism, demonstrating excessive fertility and mystical plenty. Sertorius had apparently attempted to flee the conflict with Sulla in 82 BCE by setting out for these islands off Spain, and Plutarch makes explicit the comparison between the Fortunate Isles and Elysium, the eventual abode of heroes in Greek mythology (Od. 4.563–8): ÆEntau`qa nau`taiv tine~ ejntugcavnousin aujtw`/, nevon ejk tw`n ÆAtlantikw`n nhvswn ajnapepleukovte~, ai} duvo mevn eijsi, leptw`/ pantavpasi porqmw`/ diairouvmenai, murivou~ d¾ ajpevcousai Libuvh~ stadivou~, kai; ojnomavzontai Makavrwn. o[mbroi~ de; crwvmenai metrivoi~ spanivw~, ta; de; plei`sta pneuvmasi malakoi`~ kai; drosobovloi~, ouj movnon ajrou`n kai; futeuvein parevcousin ajgaqh;n kai; pivona cwvran, ajlla; kai; karpo;n aujtofuh` fevrousin, ajpocrw`nta plhvqei kai; glukuvthti bovskein a[neu povnwn kai; pragmateiva~ scolavzonta dh`mon. ajh;r d¾ a[lupo~ wJrw`n te kravsei kai; metabolh`~ metriovthti katevcei ta~ nhvsou~. oiJ me;n ga;r ejnqevnde th`~ gh`~ ajpopnevonte~ e[xw borevai kai; ajphliw`tai dia; mh`ko~ ejkpesovnte~ eij~ tovpon ajcanh` diaspeivrontai kai; proapoleivpousi, pelavgioi de; perirrevovnte~ ajrgevstai kai; zevfuroi, blhcrou;~ me;n uJetou;~ kai; sporavda~ ejk qalavtth~ ejpavgonte~, ta; de; polla; noterai`~ aijqrivai~ ejpiyuvconte~, hJsuch`/ trevfousin: w{ste mevcri tw`n barbavrwn dii`cqai pivstin ijscuravn, aujtovqi to; ÆHluvsion ei\nai pedivon kai; th;n tw`n eujdaimovnwn oi[khsin, h}n ÓOmhro~ u{mnhse. Here [on the west coast of Spain] he fell in with some sailors who had recently come back from the Atlantic Islands. These are two in number, separated by a very narrow strait; they are 10,000 furlongs distant from Africa, and are called the Islands of the Blessed. They receive moderate rains at long intervals, and winds which for the 15
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most part are soft and precipitate dews, so that the islands not only have a rich soil which is excellent for ploughing and planting, but also produce a natural fruit that is plentiful and wholesome enough to feed, without toil or trouble, a leisured people. Moreover, due to the climate and the moderate changes in the seasons, a salubrious air prevails on the islands. For the north and east winds which blow out from our part of the world plunge into fathomless space, and, owing to the distance, dissipate themselves and lose their power before they reach the islands; while the south and west winds that envelop the islands from the sea sometimes bring in their train soft and intermittent showers, but for the most part cool them with moist breezes and gently nourish the soil. Therefore a firm belief has made its way, even to the Barbarians, that here is the Elysian Field and the abode of the blessed, of which Homer sang. Sert. 8.2–3 Sertorius’ attempt to reach paradise paradigmatically uses the utopian and mythical to expose the horror of Rome’s self-destruction by seeking out its polar opposite, for his desire to find the utopian islands is specifically based on his hopes of fleeing conflict: Tau`q¾ oJ Sertwvrio~ ajkouvsa~ e[rwta qaumasto;n e[scen oijkh`sai ta;~ nhvsou~ kai; zh`n ejn hJsuciva/, turannivdo~ ajpallagei;~ kai; polevmwn ajpauvstwn (‘hearing this tale, an amazing desire seized Sertorius to live in the islands and enjoy a life of peace, escaping tyranny and unending wars’, Sert. 9.1).33 But Sertorius never sails for the islands – turning his back on paradise, he goes straight back to war (Sert. 9.1–2).34 Thus the Islands of the Blessed remain in the region of the imagination,35 the implied destination for escapism, such as the trip recommended by Horace’s sixteenth Epode (41–65), where they are beata . . . arva divites et insulas (‘blissful fields/ . . . rich fields and islands’ 41–2) of plentiful food, set in Ocean, which demand no agricultural work and have a perfect climate, but lack dangerous animals or disease. After the violence and savagery of lines 1–14, describing Rome’s civil wars, the poem is saturated with the vocabulary of generation and abundance: beata (‘blissful’, ‘fortunate’, ‘wealthy’ 41), divites (‘rich’ 42), floret (‘flourishes’ 44), germinat (‘grows buds’ 45), felices (‘blessed’, ‘productive’ 53), pinguia (‘fat’ 55). Jupiter has laid these islands aside for the virtuous, after introducing bronze and iron to the rest of humanity (16.63–5): here paradise can only be reached at the limits of Ocean, but access is restricted, as it is to Hesiod’s Islands of the Blessed (makavrwn nh`soi), to which only select warriors gain admittance (WD 167–73, also a place of hyperfertility). A series of adynata, such as mountains moving and tigers and deer lying down in peace, are the conditions for return to the homeland (25–34), indicating the deep pessimism of this poem, which foresees escapism as the only form of rescue. In fact, the injunction to move ‘the whole state’ (eamus omnis . . . civitas 36) away from 16
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Rome (and here away from Italy too) is the kind of final solution which is sometimes rhetorically suggested, but rejected, in Rome’s mythic history – such as the idea of moving to Veii after the Gallic invasion in 390 BCE (Livy 5.49.8–55.2). Although at a spatial remove, the islands are also implicitly stuck in the past, a conservative paradise, reflecting a ‘time-before’ the Bronze and Iron Ages, and specifically before the introduction of sailing (57–60) – ironic as one has to sail to reach them. Even in geographical texts the islands can exist as lands of plenty with supersized flora and fauna. Pliny quotes Juba’s claim that Canaria breeds enormous dogs, Capraria has large lizards and also abounds in date palms, honey and papyrus, while all five islands are replete with fruit and birds (HN 6.204–5). However, the extraordinary scale and fertility displayed by these islands is not entirely positive (the huge dogs, for example); similarly one of the islands is perpetually covered in snow and cloud (Ninguaria, HN 6.204), while idealized climates are temperate. The ambiguity of the paradisal is obvious in Mela’s account of the islands: Contra Fortunatae insulae abundant sua sponte genitis, et subinde aliis super alia innascentibus nihil sollicitos alunt, beatius quam aliae †urbes† excultae. Una singulari duorum fontium ingenio maxime insignis: alterum qui gustavere risu solvuntur in mortem; ita adfectis remedium est ex altero bibere. Facing [the Atlantic coast of Africa] the Fortunate Isles overflow with spontaneously generated life, and they nourish people who lack nothing, as plants are produced in succession, more blissfully productive than other †cities†. There is one island especially notable for the unique nature of its two fountains: those who taste one of them bring on death by laughter; the cure for those affected is to drink from the other. Pomponius Mela Chorographia 3.10236 Ambivalence is typical of utopian scenarios, whose heightened fecundity and involuntary production can generate sinister overtones and suggestions that one might luxuriate oneself to destruction, albeit in a deeply pleasurable way.37 A less extreme parallel are the double-drinks available on Pliny’s Ombrios (6.203), also one of the Fortunate Isles. Here sap of two kinds is extracted from trees: the black juice is bitter (amara) while the lighter fluid is ‘pleasing’ (iucunda). Spontaneous production is a trope of these utopian landscapes, a feature of the Hesiodic golden race, and of ideal sites, both past and elsewhere – so ubiquitous was it that, already in fifth-century texts, it was being parodied as a cliché: Pherekrates and Teleclides have food begging to be eaten, rivers of bean soup and porridge, as nature provides both nourishment and table service.38 Even if labour is required, the crop is 17
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s pectacular in these locations, and hyperfertility becomes competitive in the imperial period: Pliny claims that India has two or three harvests per sowing (HN 6.5, also 6.79), while Mela cites some islands off to the west of Spain as able to generate at least seven per sowing (3.47), and in Lucian’s parody, the Fortunate Isles produce apples and pomegranates thirteen times a year (TH 2.9). Perhaps the most famous invocation of heightened fertility in a locatable region are the laudes Italiae of Virgil’s Georgics 2.136–76, especially lines 149–50: hic ver adsiduum atque alienis mensibus aestas: / bis gravidae pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbos (‘here there is eternal spring and summer in months that do not belong to it:/ twice the flocks are pregnant, twice the tree profitable with fruit’).39 India is another site of multiple harvest, enjoying two summers and harvests per year according to Pliny (6.58), and also abounding in land, cities and population (6.59), while functioning as a location of honey-dripping easy primitivism for Mela (3.62). This is an overproduction which Strabo claims is realized close to home for the Romans in Campania, whose fields produce two to four harvests per year, including the finest grain and olives, and the best wines: Falernian and Calenian (Geography 5.4.3).40 Elements of the utopian invade the depiction of locations near at hand and easily visited, so that fantasy islands like Panchaia, which Strabo derides as products of a feeble mind, inhabit his text in weakened form, as metaphorical islands of plenty, states of prosperity, landscapes of utopia.
Closer to home Italy occupied a superior position in the locatable world, but supernaturally idealized landscapes existed only at a temporal or spatial remove. Even the return to easy primitivism, seemingly promised by the Sibylline prophecies,41 is figured as a non-specific future. In the late first century there is a coalescence of ideas suggesting a new era, including that of the annus magnus or ‘great year’ which begins when all of the heavenly bodies return to the positions they occupied at the beginning of the universe.42 The time frame for the annus magnus is vague,43 but Pliny, citing Manilius, suggests that it is 540 years, coinciding with the lifespan of the phoenix – a theory which connects the great year to the fabulous creature from the east. Furthermore, the new era is cast as that of Apollo, the sun god (Ecl. 10), while the phoenix is reborn in the City of the Sun (HN 10.4). Coleman (1977: 134) points out that there is an inherent contradiction in Eclogue 4, as the idealized age has already been named as that of Saturn (Ecl. 4.6), but sees the apparent anomaly as an indication of the cluster of ideas involving renewal and change. The internal incoherence is typical of illogicalities present in utopian narratives. Virgil’s Fouth Eclogue flirts with the idea of the annus magnus: magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo, ‘the great succession of the centuries 18
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is born afresh’ (4.5), before describing at length the imminent peace and plenty foretold by the Sibyl. In Eclogue 4, then, cyclical time, remote fantasy and paradisal fertility combine, to depict a landscape in which the Golden Age is reborn, the fragrances are worthy of the utopian east, natural dangers are seemingly neutralized and fecundity runs riot: at tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu errantis hederas passim cum baccare tellus mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho. ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capellae ubera, nec magnos metuent armenta leones. ipsa, tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores. occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni occidet; Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum. at simul heroum laudes et facta parentis iam legere et quae sit poteris cognoscere virtus, molli paulatim flavescet campus arista, incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva, et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella. But for you, child, the earth, uncultivated will pour forth your earliest little gifts: ivy wandering randomly with foxglove and lilies mixed with laughing acanthus. The she-goats will return home, their udders swollen with milk, and the flocks will not fear the great lions. Your cradle will stream with alluring flowers. The serpent will die, and deceitful poisonous herbs will die; Assyrian balsam will spring up everywhere. But as soon as you are able to read the praises of the heroes and deeds of your father and to recognize courage, little by little, the field will turn golden with pliant grain and the reddening grape will hang on the wild thorn-bush, and the oak will exude honey, dripping like dew. Ecl. 4.18–30 Wild animals will no longer pose a threat, nor will more pernicious plant life; productive livestock and crops will prove hyperfertile – and all without touching the earth, much as is the case in Horace’s sixteenth Epode (see page 16); however, Virgil’s prophecy implies that the utopian will occur in Italy, and in the near future, rather than on the semi-mythical and distant islands of Ocean.44 But intertwined within this narrative of Golden Age return are the uncontrolled tendrils of ivy, the flowers which flood the cradle, and the seductive scents of the East.45 If Campania represents a contemporary 19
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paradisal scenario, is it any wonder that Strabo (5.4.3) adds that the Etruscans were made weak by contact with this overproduction? Fertility has an uneasy relationship with morality: hence Horace’s metaphorical use of fecundus to denote an ‘era full of sin’ (fecunda culpae saecula, Odes 3.6.17) when describing the wife who prostitutes herself with her husband’s full knowledge; she herself has too much knowledge of the dubious east, in the form of Ionic dances (Odes 3.6.21–32). Paradisal landscapes are morally ambivalent, in addition to being internally incoherent – so Mela’s Fortunate Isles contain within them the means of laughing oneself to death.46 It is clear that idealized locations, in their many forms, are no simple vision of perfection. The Golden Age and associated soft primitivism are complex ideas, capable of bearing ominous meanings, and open to appropriation, as in the case of the parodies noted above. Greek tradition, from Hesiod (WD 109–20) onwards, presents the reign of Kronos as one of absolute harmony, with no strife between gods and men, and the abundant fertility found in geographically remote paradises.47 Yet, in marked contrast, in Roman texts, there are no accounts of Saturn’s rule as the Golden Age before the Augustan era (Lovejoy and Boas, 1997: 53); indeed Ennius claims that the succession of Jupiter initiated civilisation48 in the form of forbidding cannibalism: scriptum sit in Historia Sacra Saturnum et Opem ceterosque tunc homines humanum carnem solitos esitare; verum primum Iovem leges hominibus moresque condentem edicto prohibuisse ne liceret eo cibo vesci. It is written in the Sacred History that Saturn and Ops and the other men at that time used to eat human flesh; but that Jupiter, founding laws and customs, was the first to forbid by edict that they be allowed to eat such food. Euhemerus fr. 9 Vahlen This inability to imagine an unambiguous paradise is linked to a particularly Roman sense of morally dubious origins, which stressed immigration and criminality rather than autochthony; fratricide and belligerence rather than initial harmony.49 Texts of the late first century BCE highlight the ‘easy primitivism’ of not needing to produce food, and are particularly good at showing the malleability of the paradisal landscapes. For example, Augustus’ military coup could be expressed as the return of the Golden Age, in both literary50 and artistic media. For Anchises the prophesied aurea saecula is analogous to Saturn’s age and synonymous with empire:
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hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos proferet imperium This is the man, this is he, whom you have often heard promised to you, Augustus Caesar, the child of a god, who will found the golden ages again in Latium through the fields once ruled by Saturn, and over both the Garamantae and the Indi will he extend his power Vir. Aen. 6.791–5 The abundant bounty associated with the Golden Age is inscribed on to the design of the surrounding wall of the Ara Pacis Augustae (dedicated 9 BCE) from copious foliage of its lower frieze to the gracefully sculpted goddess, seated with fruit and corn overflowing from her lap, holding twin babies who clutch at the food and her breast, and surrounded by grazing animals – all indicators of the opulence and fertility which connect the stability of the principate to the aurea aetas.51 The complexities of utopian landscape pervade this image, and the narrative of abundance and prosperity is nowhere more fully realized than it is here. This visual amalgamation of paradisal themes exemplifies the wide range of signification which can be encompassed by the utopian economy. The Augustan regime shrewdly manipulated the paradox of renewal and stability, opposites which can be united in utopian discourses, as discussed above. In this instance, Golden Age associations are deliberately manipulated to produce a version of the world which pre-dates the criminality of civil war and the loss of farm property due to confiscations. Augustus brings the dawn of a new Roman peace which recasts itself as the world before lack. Senators and the imperial family represent tradition along with the new iconography of a ruling dynasty. ‘Ever new yet changeless’ (aliusque et idem, Carmen Saeculare 10) was how Horace described the sun which would rise over Rome’s future, summing up the collision of antitheses. Golden Age discourses are here employed to contain the paradox of transformation and stability at a time when Rome demands both cures: paradise configures renewal of the most conservative kind.52 Whereas utopian landscapes traditionally existed in remote and hermetically sealed regions, in this case the location of the ideal is left conveniently vague, though implicitly representing the potential for Pax to accomplish such effortless fertility here and now, at the centre of Roman imperium – the goddess is sometimes read as a personification of Italia, and the altar was originally situated in close proximity to monuments celebrating Augustan 21
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victory (the obelisk) and the imperial dynasty (Augustus’ Mausoleum). The swirling patterns of lower Ara Pacis represent seemingly boundless fertility,53 but they are safely enclosed within borders of Corinthian pilasters, surmounted by orderly processions of senators, priests and imperial family members, and sealed in by scenes which freeze moments of Rome’s mythic life – it is a vision of nature, energetic and productive, yet ultimately set in strict control by the forces of the Roman state. The altar thus distances itself from the boundary-free state often ascribed to the Golden Age (Tib. 1.3.41– 4, with Lee-Stecum (1998: 115)). Even the chaotic ivy and acanthus conform to a pattern of balance and harmony when viewed from a distance; in contrast with Eclogue 4, it is neither wandering nor laughing. Such a close guard on fertility mirrors the regime’s social control of sexuality, enshrined into law in 18 BCE, five years before the dedication of the monument. The altar seems to negotiate the difficult territory between discipline and excess. Nevertheless, here too, the menace which afflicts utopia can be glimpsed: disturbing elements invade the tranquil scenes, as scorpions and serpents can be seen among the foliage by the careful viewer.54 This model of contained profusion is repeated in domestic settings, notably in the Roman garden, and in wall paintings which represent garden landscapes. Roman gardens – in a sense all gardens – negotiate a nexus of contradictions, providing the natural, the living and the rural in a built, urban environment. The garden delivers the illusion of spontaneous growth within a fabricated frame; and in Roman contexts this is more than a juxtaposition of the two elements, as in the peristyle garden nature is physically enclosed within a colonnade, a Hellenistic structure55 which delineates the extent of the wilderness.56 The peristyle, a contained, protected space in the natural world, could be made even more secure by a low wall, fence or curtains between the columns.57 Like the Ara Pacis, the Roman garden determines strict limits for growth, creating the effect of cultivated countryside.58 Wall painting is capable of going one step further, situating the pastoral directly within the domestic, by transforming architectural materiality into rural fantasy. From the ‘second style’ (of c.80–c.15 BCE, Ling (1991: 23)) onwards, Roman wall painting breaks through the solid plane of the wall, and garden scenes59 create the double illusion of exteriority in an interior setting, and natural growth in an artificial environment.60 Perhaps the most famous example is that of the garden room from Livia’s Villa at Prima Porta, which once enclosed a subterranean dining room in the coherent illusion of an exterior space.61 The room provides the perfect combination of variety and abundance with stylization and order: the flowers immediately behind the wall – rose, chrysanthemum, poppy, periwinkle – are orderly and inviting, further back into the painting it becomes more wilderness-like. The birds are not only free and flying, but also in cages, indicating the input of human activity, as do the walls and manicured lawn path. As the garden 22
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r ecedes, evidence of human interference decreases, and the contrast between wilderness and garden heightens the effect of control in the foreground. All of these plants are emphatically restrained behind an elaborate stone and lattice-work fence: only a neat border of white flowers, small bushes positioned at regular intervals and strategically placed trees62 invade the territory of the foreground.63 The garden room is unusual in that it minimizes architectural elements – columns and framing at the top and bottom of the painting. To the superficial view, the natural is therefore privileged over the artificial, but it is in fact a fantasy garden: the visual details of the plants are correct, but different seasons appear together. Periwinkles bloom in early spring; irises, roses and poppies later; oleanders in summer; chrysanthemums in September, and pomegranates in late autumn (Gabriel, 1955: 11). The impossible synchronicity of this garden links it to descriptions of hyperfertility in utopian landscapes. Such landscapes markedly allow nature to transgress the laws of nature, displaying a subtle control of time itself, which is mirrored by Augustus’ use of his Egyptian victory monument, an obelisk, as a sundial, the horologium Augusti. Bounty and triumph combine in the new dawn of the princeps’ rise to power, as calendric time is co-opted by Augustus; these monuments confirm Roman control over both empire and the forces of the cosmos.64 The interiorization of landscape therefore indicates a desire to exert a degree of permanent control over nature, a counterpart to the control exercised over real gardens by topiary (nemora tonsilia), the stylized shaping of trees and bushes, an effort to sculpt nature which was invented by Augustus’ friend, Gaius Matius (Pliny 12.13, Masson, 1987: 5). In reality it would require considerable labour to maintain the effect of order, for the peristyle garden is never finished, as Horace explains: nempe inter varias nutritur silva columnas, laudaturque domus longos quae prospicit agros. Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret, et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix. Surely, trees are nursed among the colourful columns, and the house which looks out on distant fields is praised. You will drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she will always hurry back, and stealthily she will burst through your foolish disdain, triumphant. Hor. Epis. 1.10.22–25 Gardening is here depicted as a war against nature, and one which humans are bound to lose, as natura emerges victrix. To prevent or at least stave off 23
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such an indomitable force requires an enormous amount of effort and coercion. Roman gardens reflect the paradisal aspirations and pitfalls of all utopian endeavours, as the attempt to collect together all elements of perfection paradoxically requires compulsion. And, although the mythological accounts of the Golden Age often situate themselves before human intervention with nature (see Chapter 2), espousing spontaneous abundance, the actual achievement of such plenty could only be obtained by organized farming. The garden and wall paintings of garden landscapes offer the illusion of utopian possibility, but at the same time, their fictive nature exposes their unreality and unfeasibility.
Geographical landscapes and environmental determinism Another aspect of landscape for Roman writers is the part it plays in evolving ethnic character and degree of civilisation. Climate is often a major factor in this calculation (Vitruvius 6.1.1–12, Pliny 2.189–90) and might even delimit the extent of the inhabited world (oikoumene, Mela 1.11). And landscape also plays a part in aligning smooth and productive landscapes with harmony and tranquillity, while formlessness and uneven territory consistently result in division and aggression: the rougher the land, the wilder the people. This theory, often named ‘environmental determinism’ is now discredited due to its inherent racism, but was popular in the early twentieth century, and widely utilized by the geographer Griffith Taylor in his studies of Canada and Australia and by Ellen Semple in the USA.65 Environmental determinism posits that landscape and climate regulate ‘virtually everything from culture, regional character, and political organisation to the rise of civilisation’ (Frenkel, 1992: 144). By equating northerners with energy and the ability to plan ahead, while southern Europeans and ‘tropical races’ were ‘emotional’ and ‘impulsive’ (Semple, 1911: 620), environmental determinists sought to explain and naturalize the dominance of European (specifically northern European) peoples. Environmental determinism was embraced to a greater or lesser degree by most ancient geographers and ethnographers, apparently stemming from the Hippocratic Airs, Waters and Places, particularly Chapter 24, which links character and appearance to both landscape and climate. Such theories in Greek and Roman writers tend to place the ideal environment in the ‘middle’ of the world, where the climate is temperate, with the result that Italy or Greece occupies the perfect space.66 This is particularly visible in the Augustan writers Vitruvius and Strabo. Vitruvius (6.1.1–12) claims that, just as climate fosters particular types of bodies, minds and voices, so the amount of sun must influence the building style of each region. The absolute correspondence of climatic conditions and physical forms is itself advanced as proof of this theory (6.1.3), and additionally, Vitruvius invokes empirical parallels to give scientific endorsement: an experiment involving two cups of 24
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the same weight, which make different sounds after one has been immersed in water, proves that humidity affects the voice’s pitch (6.1.8). Mental acuity and physical strength are negatively or positively affected by climate, along a north–south divide, which leaves Italy in the ideal central position: item propter tenuitatem caeli meridianae nationes ex acuta fervore mente expeditius celeriusque moventur ad consiliorum cogitationes; septentrionales autem gentes infusae crassitudine caeli, propter obstantiam aeris umore refrigeratae stupentes habent mentes. . . . cum sint autem meridiane nationes animis acutissimis infinitaque sollertia consiliorum, simul ut ad fortitudinem ingrediuntur, ibi succumbunt, quod habent exsuctas ab sole animorum virtutes; qui vero refrigeratis nascuntur regionibus, ad armorum vehementiam paratiores sunt magnis virtutibus sine timore, sed tarditate animi sine considerantia inruentes sine sollertia suis consiliis refragantur. cum ergo haec ita sint ab natura rerum in mundo conlocata et omnes nationes inmoderatis mixtionibus disparatae, veros inter spatium totius orbis terrarum regionesque medio mundi populus Romanus possidet fines. autem meridiane nationes animis acutissimis infinitaqueque medio mundi populus Romanus possidet fines. namque temperatissimae ad utramque partem et corporum membris animorumque vigoribus pro fortitudine sunt in Italia gentes. quemadmodum enim Iovis stella inter Martis ferventissimam et Saturni frigidissimam media currens temperatur, eadem ratione Italia inter septentrionalem meridianamque ab utraque parte mixtionibus temperatas et invictas habet laudes. itaque consiliis refringit barbarorum virtutes, forti manu meridianorum cogitationes. ita divina mens civitatempopuli Romani egregia temperataque regione conlocavit, uti orbis terrarum imperii potiretur. Further, it is owing to the rarity of the atmosphere that southern peoples, with their keen intelligence due to the heat, are very free and swift in the devising of schemes, while northern peoples, being enveloped in a dense atmosphere, and chilled by moisture from the obstructing air, have but a sluggish intelligence . . . .But although southern nations have the keenest wits, and are infinitely clever in forming schemes, yet the moment it comes to displaying valour, they succumb because all manliness of spirit is sucked out of them by the sun. On the other hand, men born in cold countries are indeed readier to meet the shock of arms with great courage and without timidity, but their wits are so slow that they will rush to the charge inconsiderately and inexpertly, thus defeating their own devices. Such being nature’s arrangement of the universe, and all these peoples being allotted temperaments which are lacking in due mod25
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eration, the truly perfect territory, situated under the middle of the heaven, and having on each side the entire extent of the world and its countries, is that which is occupied by the Roman people. For [in Italy] the inhabitants are exactly balanced in either direction, both in the structure of the body, and by their strength of mind in the matter of endurance and courage. For just as the planet Jupiter is tempered by running in the middle between the heat of Mars and the cold of Saturn, in the same manner Italy presents good qualities which are tempered by mixing from either side, both north and south, and are consequently unsurpassed. And so, by its policy, it curbs the courage of the northern barbarians; by strong-arm tactics, the reasoning of the southerners. Thus the divine mind has located the state of the Roman people in an excellent and temperate region, in order that it might rule the world. De Arch. 6.1.9–11 In this eulogy of Rome and Romans’ natural virtues, the running theme is moderation: variations on tempero recur within this short passage, and it is this quality which ensures Rome’s incontestable power over both racial types.67 For Strabo landscape is far more significant than climate. If the utopian is possible in the known world, Strabo’s Geography would base it in the form of the land and the plants it supports, from which the nature of the inhabitants and the character of their whole society would spring. Those who occupy ‘blessed land’ concern themselves with farming and live at peace. Such races cluster around the shores of the Mediterranean, for example the Balearic Islands off the eastern shore of Iberia, which are eujdaivmone~ kai; eujlivmenoi, coiradwvdei~ de; kata; ta; stovmata, w{ste dei'n prosoch'~ toi'~ eijsplevousi (‘blessed with fertility and good harbours and it is on account of the virtue of the landscape that the inhabitants are peaceable’ 3.5.1). Narbonitis (Provincia) occupies similar physical and conceptual locations: the rivers and seas provide easy transport and interchange of life’s necessities, connecting the south-east with the rest of Gaul by a network of waterways. To Strabo, the landscape seems to have been laid out logically and deliberately by nature, and he devotes some space to eulogizing the ‘harmonious arrangement of the country’ (tw'n o{plwn ejrgavzontai th;n cwvran 4.1.14), and comes close to a paradisal account of the land, which is as productive as Italy, highly fertile, and strongly populated with nurturing women and tough men (4.1.2). In contrast, some landscapes nurture the dystopian. Sardinia, which receives remarkably little attention – being combined with Corsica in a few disdainful paragraphs – is an inhospitable place, and logically the home of violent and undeveloped peoples: ‘the greater part is rugged and not at peace’ (e[sti de; aujth`~ to; polu; mevro~ tracu; kai; oujk eijrhnai`on, 5.2.7), and 26
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the natives live in caves, raiding other islands, instead of farming. This cluster of characteristics is seen as a (literally) natural extension of dwelling on harsh territory. If the land is not productive (literally ‘blessed’: eujdaivmona), the people will be unlikely to practise agriculture, will lack the values and the material benefits of civilization68 and will resort to undisciplined violence, often in the form of robbery, sometimes in the form of civil conflict and disunity. Corsica (5.2.7) is a similarly rough land (tracei`av), through which it is difficult to travel; the people have a wretched lifestyle (oijkei`tai de; fauvlw~), and survive by banditry (ajpo; lh/sthrivwn zw`nta~). Evidence for the effect which landscape has upon character becomes available to Romans when they have the opportunity to see Corsicans taken as slaves – a striking reminder of how empire creates the possibility for ethnographic study, by transposing the conquered to the metropolis: oijkei`tai de; fauvlw~ . . . w{ste tou;~ katevconta~ ta; o[rh kai; ajpo; lh/sthrivwn zw`nta~ ajgriwtevrou~ ei\nai qhrivwn. oJpovtan gou`n oJrmhvswsin oiJ tw`n ÔRwmaivwn strathgoi; kai; prospesovnte~ toi`~ ejruvmasi polu; plh`qo~ e{lwsi, tw`n ajndrapovdwn oJra`n e[stin ejn th`/ ÔRwvmh/ kai; qaumavzein o{son ejmfaivnetai to; qhriw`de~ kai; to; boskhmatw`de~ ejn aujtoi`~: h] ga;r oujc uJpomevnousi zh`n h] zw`nte~ ajpaqeiva/ kai; ajnaisqhsiva/ tou;~ wjnhsamevnou~ ejpitrivbousin, w{ste kaivper to; tuco;n katabalou`sin uJpe;r aujtw`n o{mw~ metamevlein. It [Corsica] gives such a poor livelihood . . . that those who occupy the mountains and live from brigandage are more savage than wild animals. At any rate, whenever the Roman generals have attacked, and, falling suddenly upon the strongholds, have taken a large number of the people as slaves, you can, at Rome, see and wonder at the extent to which the nature of wild beasts, and even that of cattle, is manifested in them; for they cannot endure to live in captivity, or if they live, they so irritate their purchasers by their apathy and insensibility, that, even though the purchasers may have paid for them no more than an insignificant sum, nevertheless they repent the purchase. 5.2.7 The presence of wild beasts often indicates a savage land and race in Caesar and Sallust;69 Strabo collapses the distinction between the wildlife and humans to stress the latter’s uncivilized status. It is the lack of productive land which drives the Corsicans to live by robbery and thus creates a race of people both indomitable and useless from the point of view of the colonizer. However, environmental determinism sometimes fails Strabo, who has to overcome the fact that many of the peoples encountered in his narrative do 27
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not conform to his schema of rough land equating to warfare, versus productive land signifying peace, as he describes those who live in fertile land but are prone to theft and savagery. He approaches these tribes as a problem to be solved – they disrupt the environmental model, which he has taken pains to create. In response, he modifies his paradigm to make room for these aberrations, claiming some other influence upon such peoples. The Artabrians of north-west Iberia live in a country which is: eujdaivmono~ de; th'~ cwvra~ uJparcouvsh~ katav te karpou;~ kai; boskhvmata kai; to; tou` crusou` kai; ajrguvrou kai; tw`n paraplhsivwn plh`qo~, o{mw~ oiJ pleivou~ aujtw`n to;n ajpo; th`~ gh`~ ajfevnte~ bivon ejn lh/sthrivoi~ dietevloun kai; sunecei` polevmw/ prov~ te ajllhvlou~ kai; tou;~ oJmovrou~ aujtoi`~ diabaivnonte~ to;n Tavgon, e{w~ e[pausan aujtou;~ ‘Rwmai`oi tapeinwvsante~ kai; kwvma~ poihvsante~ ta~ povlei~ aujtw`n ta;~ pleivsta~. blessed in fruits, cattle, and in the abundance of its gold and silver and similar metals, nevertheless, most of the people had ceased to gain their livelihood from the earth and were spending their time in continuous warfare both with each other and with their neighbours across the Tagus, until they were stopped by the Romans, who humbled them and reduced most of their cities to mere villages. 3.3.5 The landscape typical of a peaceful nation inexplicably produces a violent and disunited race, and the incongruity requires Strabo’s explanation: that the people living in the mountains began the lawlessness because they inhabited poor land and were jealous of the possessions and prosperity of the lowlanders, who, Strabo assumes, must have been engaged in farming, until the attacks of the mountain peoples made it impossible to continue practising agriculture and they too became bandits. The ‘violent few led the rest astray’ explanation is also brought into operation to account for the behaviour of the people of Ebusus, an island off Iberia (3.5.1), which is of concern to Strabo, as it is geographically close to the idyllic Balearic Isles. Thus, there are occasions on which the categories set up by deterministic theories are disrupted by historical events. An additional and alternative scenario is connected to political structures. When seeking an explanation for why the Tyrrhenians (Etruscans) would turn to piracy, even though their land is ‘blessed’, Strabo claims that they were once united and strong, but their government probably dissolved, and they then ‘yielded to the violence of their neighbors’ (diaspasqh`nai biva/ tw`n plhsiocwvrwn ei[xanta~, 5.2.2). In an important and programmatic passage (2.5.26), Strabo had earlier suggested that the reverse process is also possible: good government can transform a naturally rough environment. His 28
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prime example is the Greeks, who, despite living in a mountainous and rocky land, live well, because they give forethought (provnoian) to political affairs (ta; politika). This passage draws together Strabo’s ideas on the extent of nature’s and civilization’s relative determinative powers, in what is both a eulogy of Europe, and a representation of empire as a civilizing force. Summing up the basic rule, he claims that ‘in a blessed land everything is peaceful’ (to; me;n ejn th`/ eujdaivmoni cwvra/ pa`n ejstin eijrhnikovn) whereas ‘in a wretched one, everything is warlike and manly’ (to; d¾ ejn th`/ lupra`/ mavcimon kai; ajndrikovn). Europe is the perfect balance of both qualities, and there is not even the danger that the warlike element will overcome the peaceful (presumably Strabo means the overall condition of Europe, as he goes on to show that this does occur at the local level). The reason for this optimism is the superior environment of this continent, which is diversified with plains and mountains; there are more cattle than wild animals (wild animals are always a bad sign, as above) so that the agricultural, civic and political exist side by side with the warlike. But the clinching argument is that the peaceful element (to; th`~ eijrhvnh~ oijkei`on) is more pervasive (plevon) and regulates the whole (o{lwn ejpikratei`). Overall, Europe is close to environmental paradise – and this will be reflected in its superior peoples. Europe has good government because it is mostly habitable, due to its good environment, and even cold, mountainous areas where people usually live in poverty and piracy become civilized (hJmerou`tai – literally ‘are tamed’) when they take up good government. Here Strabo directly connects environmental and political factors, implying that they are mutually constructed, rather than affirming a tight model where one (environment) precedes and leads to the other (political system and/or national character). Moreover, there is always one dominating and civilizing race which conditions the behaviour of the rest of the continent: in the past it was the Greeks and Macedonians, and now it is the Romans. Strabo here firmly writes the Greeks into his evolutionary geography and history: Greece was once what Rome is now, and every compliment to Rome’s present is an affirmation of Greece’s past. Moreover, the process of civilization is expressed as one of conquest and pacification: the peaceful element in Europe ejpikratei` (‘conquers’, ‘governs’) the whole; physically rough, and therefore uncivilized, lands are transformed by being tamed and domesticated, or, like the Gauls, enslaved into peace (4.4.2). This process of pacification is attributed to Rome, yet Rome itself is paradoxically portrayed as another anomaly to the basic model connecting nature and character. Although many parts of Italy are described as fertile and prosperous, and Latium itself is entirely blessed in its landscape, Rome holds a poor strategic position and lacks good agricultural land. It is in fact the antithesis of a natural choice for a civilized city: pro;~ ajnavgkhn ouj pro;~ ai{resin e[ktistai ei[rhtai: prosqetevon d¾ 29
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o{ti oujd¾ oiJ meta; tau`ta prosktivsantev~ tina mevrh kuvrioi tou` beltivono~ h\san, ajll¾ejdouvleuon toi`~ prou>pokeimevnoi~. It was founded there as a matter of necessity, not as a matter of choice; and I must add that even those who afterwards added certain districts to the settlement could not as masters take the better course, but as slaves have to accommodate themselves to what had already been founded. 5.3.7 Successive kings attempt to wall in more of the hills as a defensive mechanism, but the city remains vulnerable, according to Strabo: even when a huge trench is dug and a mound built up by Servius, it needs a second set of fortifications. Not only is the site of Rome strategically weak, but the best land originally lay outside of Roman control. In Rome’s case, however, a poor environment does not lead to disunity and piracy, but acts as a spur to initializing empire. Rome must make the surrounding land its own and ‘when, by their courage and labour they made this country their own property, there was obviously a coming together of blessings that surpassed all natural advantages.’ (th`/ d¾ ajreth`/ kai; tw`/ povnw/ th`~ cwvra~ oijkeiva~ genomevnh~, ejfavnh sundromhv ti~ ajgaqw`n a{pasan eujfui?an uJperbavllousa). This includes food supplies, building materials and metals, which can be easily transported to the city by means of the extensive river network that acts as a circulatory system for Latium and the surrounding areas. Rome is thus not blessed in itself, but in its ability to obtain lands that are naturally rich: Rome’s opportunism is what allows it to become a centre of civilization and occupy the central position of organized society, strong empire and high culture. In the end environmental determinism is circumvented in a variety of ways, so that the perfect society depends not so much on possessing an idealized environment – the temperate climate and fertile, flat land – but on knowing how to construct and acquire it and behaving in a moderate way when it is acquired. Landscape can therefore operate in various ways in relation to the paradisal. The search for paradise might involve escape to the periphery, or the promise of a future, which actually returns the past, or, in a rare burst of optimism, it might even exist at home.
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2 MyThs Of The Ages ANd DeclINe
From gold to iron: the myth of ages aujtou;~ ejkeivnou~ fasi; tou;~ ajnqrwvpou~ crusou`~ ei\nai, penivan de; mhde; to; paravpan aujtoi`~ plhsiavzein. hJmei`~ de; aujtoi; me;n oujde; movlubdo~ a]n eijkovtw~ dokoivhmen, ajll¾ ei[ ti kai; touvtou ajtimovteron They say that the men themselves were gold, and poverty was nowhere near. As for us, we could not even be thought of as lead, but something meaner, if it exists. Lucian Saturnalia 20 Decline narratives are common mythic and religious writings: witness the succession of metallic races in Greek mythology (Hesiod WD 109–201), the Judeo-Christian expulsion from Eden (Genesis 1–3) and the Sumerian fall of Enkidu from his natural paradise (Gilgamesh Tablet I, 103–221). Enkidu is corrupted into the evils of sophisticated culture by a woman, and the return to paradise is represented by Gilgamesh’s journey, as he goes through darkness until he reaches the garden of the gods. In fact, in most narratives of humankind’s fall, the promise of recovery, return or rehabilitation is implied, and, as shown in Chapter 1, the prospect of recuperation can prove politically useful.1 Modern western culture is capable of constructing degeneration on several time frames simultaneously: from the long-term, such as the projection of scientific development as a dangerous evil; to the more immediate, which might, for example, be expressed as pessimism over Hollywood film as a formulaic crowd-pleaser;2 to the level of micro-decline – television or pop music are often said to degenerate weekly. Our modern narrative of decline is elaborate, multilayered and interconnected: it is common to think that we live in a world of corporate greed (Klein, 2002), and that, more specifically, this greed fuels the hasty production of unsophisticated, low-cost, mass entertainment.3 Sociological discussions of this situation reflect its complex31
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ity,4 and it is not easy to identify a specific causal factor, but it is certainly clear that the cultural complex which generates our sense of increasing degeneration is far removed from that which produced Hesiod’s gradual descent from gold to iron. Psychoanalytic theory explains the existence of a fall from primitive bliss by relating this narrative to the desire for a return to a life undivided from the mother. ‘[The] original paradise is the memory of the symbiotic situation, and the final paradise is the wish-fulfilling fantasy that answers the unconscious desire to return to symbiosis, a fulfilment possible only after the death of the individual’ (Caldwell, 1989: 157). Life is lived in the intervening period, which can only be seen as inferior to the past and the projected future, and is therefore perpetually expressed in terms of deterioration, ‘the hiatus between the two paradises’ (Caldwell, 1989: 157). In his discussion of the Hesiodic Golden Race, Caldwell cites Freud’s contention that ‘organic instincts are conservative’ and ‘the goal of life . . . must be an old state of things’ (Freud, 1976 [1920]: 37–8, in Caldwell, 1989: 194) to account for the backward vision of paradisal texts and their sense that degeneration has occurred. The conservative uses to which Rome could put the Golden Age were discussed in Chapter 1, but, as previously commented, utopian texts are rarely straightforward and always indicative of specific, historically determined aspirations. Caldwell does relate aspects of easy primitivism to representations of female sexuality in archaic Greek culture (1989: 157–8), but the presence of the myth is ultimately ascribed to ‘the universal human experience . . . of primal gratification, loss and desire’ (Caldwell, 1989: 131). This assertion does, however, point to decline as the inverse of, yet dependent upon, Golden Age and messianic narratives. Degeneration can only exist if seen in association with the utopian, and the two are involved in a complex relationship. Although it is argued here that decline narratives are culturally specific and contingent upon historical circumstances, it should also be noted that there are often similarities between diverse traditions. Perhaps most obviously, technology is frequently suspect, and often cited as either a cause or a result of cultural decline. So William Blake associates industrialization with apocalyptic gloom (e.g. the preface to Milton and Songs of Experience: A Divine Image) while D.H. Lawrence took his hellish vision as a launch pad to claim that England had further declined in the intervening century: The dark, satanic mills of Blake how much more darker and more satanic they are now! Dark Satanic Mills 1–2 Such views of urban life, and the corresponding idealization of the past and of rural existence are the staples of the nineteenth-century novel from Dickens and Gaskell to Zola and Hardy. In them industrialization is the 32
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precursor to squalor and misery in the name of greed and progress. Parallel to this are ancient Greco-Roman narratives which claim that agriculture and navigation are the prime candidates for inaugurating decline in antiquity (e.g. Tib. 2.3.63–74, Ovid Met. 1.95, 101–2, 123–4). And while Hesiod’s Works and Days does not mention agriculture specifically in the races of man narrative, ‘toil’ (kamavto~) afflicts only the Iron Race (Hes. WD 177, cf. the Golden Race who are untouched by ‘work’, povno~ WD 113), and it is agricultural labour which fills much of the text after the description of the Races (WD 383–617) – instructions on how to farm and survive in Hesiod’s own time, which he laments is inhabited by the final, fifth Race of Iron. Alternatively, in Judeo-Christian tradition, agriculture arrives after the expulsion from Eden, as a form of punishment for disobedience: ‘So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.’ (Genesis 3.23). However, even at this level of analysis, it is easy to see that decline narratives operate in entirely different ways. Cultural development is a signifier of decline in the Greco-Roman tradition; so Hesiod’s Works and Days implies that the technologies of bronze and ironwork are a feature of the worst of his five races (WD 150–1 and 176–7). But the causal connection between technology and decline is much stronger in the Roman texts – rather than being an accompaniment to later and worse times, in Roman narratives technology is a spur to decline: it acts as a form of corruption, allowing access to areas which should remain hidden, and encouraging attacks upon the earth itself, through ploughing or mining, and bringing with it excess, greed, violence and impiety (e.g. Horace Epod. 16.43–5, Tib. 2.3, Ovid Met. 1.113–62, [Seneca] Octavia 120–30).5 Technological progress even involves a direct attack on the natural world in many Roman texts (e.g. Virg. Georg. 1.125–6, Tib. 2.3.35–50, Ovid Met. 1.94–102, Sen. Epis. 90.10, [Sen.] Oct. 420–35), so that agriculture and navigation not only lead to further vices, but they are the corruptions suffered by humans.6 The Biblical text, on the other hand, tells of the acquisition of knowledge as corruption, while toil on the land is imposed as punishment by the divine ruler. And the conceptions of divinity and nature are widely dissimilar. Western narratives of decline too have been transformed from the nineteenth century, just as areas of interest in the sciences have moved on, so that the external hardships and dehumanization which were decried in the past have given way in large part to fears of internal corruption, such as viruses, chemical poisons, pollution and genetic modification.7 The anxieties attached to these agents of corruption often represent uncertainties about a future apocalypse rather than an evil already present, and they seem to indicate that interference with nature is now seen as a disturbing development (hence the sinister overtones of the phrase ‘playing God’). In this respect there are some parallels between the rhetoric of decline in contemporary western culture and the Greco-Roman world – both show 33
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concerns centred around damaging what should be left intact. But the similarities should not be pressed. Modern narratives are connected to issues of bodily integrity and the breakdown of a subject identity, whereas ancient texts deal with humans’ apparent enslavement of the land, on which they are dependent for survival.
The tradition of the races Roman decline narratives occur in specific political and moral contexts, and although they may draw on earlier paradigms, they are infused with their own brand of anxiety, didacticism and despair. The myth of the races or ages, which deals with the degeneration of humankind through its successive incarnations, is a prime example of overt cultural borrowing from Greek mythography. Hesiod’s Works and Days (approximately 700 BCE) provides the earliest extant account of the races, and the most extended Roman discussion of the successive, waning ages is contained in Book One of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1.89–215). Lovejoy and Boas stress the continuity of this narrative, tracing a direct line from Hesiod through Aratus to Ovid (1997: 43). While the Metamorphoses is obviously heavily dependent on the Greek mythological tradition, there are significant modifications in each version. The account in Hesiod’s Works and Days (106–201) traces through the Races of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes and Iron, and concentrates on the ease or harshness of the conditions in which each race must live, and their eventual separation from the personified virtues of Shame and Moral Indignation (WD 200). Although the races become more violent, it is the ‘grim sufferings’ (calepa;~ . . . merivmna~, WD 178) which remain for mortals of the Iron Race, deprived of divine contact, that define this account. For the Iron Race not only are there the burdens of grief and care, but its future is bleak, life will inevitably become worse, and the race will be destroyed by Zeus (WD 180–1). In Aratus (Phainomena 96–136) it is also separation from the divine – the gradual disappearance of the goddess Astraea or Divkh (Dike = Justice) from the earth to the mountains, to the sky – which registers the descent of humankind from gold to silver to bronze. Significantly, there is neither a Heroic nor an Iron Age in Aratus’ account, and the lack of the latter has led critics to read this as a more optimistic rendering of the myth, with Astraea remaining in the sky to watch over humans (Phain. 133–6; see Kidd, 1997: 9 and 216). The Age of Heroes appears in no account other than Hesiod’s: it appears to have been a later imposition into an original Near Eastern myth (West, 1978: 174–7 and accompanying bibliography), and was dropped by later versions, presumably because it interrupts the succession of metallic races. The absence of the Iron Race in Aratus is a surprise, given the narrative thrust of the passage and its parallel disappearance to the skies of a goddess who personifies high principles: Works and Days prophesies the 34
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disappearance of Aidos (‘Shame’) and Nemesis (‘Moral Indignation’) in the Iron Age (WD 200)); its third race was praised for excellence in soldiering (WD 148–9), but also prone to aggression (WD 145–9), while criminality belongs to the destructive and deceitful Race of Iron (WD 189–94). Aratus merges the negative aspects of these two Hesiodic Races: calkeivh geneh; protevrwn ojlowvteroi a[ndre~, oi} prw`toi kakoergo;n ejcalkeuvsanto mavcairan eijnodivhn, prw`toi de; bow`n ejpavsant¾ ajrothvrwn. The Bronze Race was born, more deadly men than the previous race, they were the first to forge the evil-doing sword of the roadside robber, and the first to eat of the plough oxen. Phainomena 130–2 Here the Bronze Race has become the ultimate in vice, as this account privileges the existence of justice over all other aspects of the races. Aratus equates justice with the time of an early, agricultural Golden Race – this was when Astraea communicated with mortals (Phainomena 105–7) – a time when sustenance depended on the oxen and their plough, when justice and a vegetarian diet provided everything needed for life. This is why Astraea is driven off by the violence of the Bronze Race, whose unacceptable behaviour includes eating the oxen who pull the plough (Phainomena 132), a crime which militates against a pure agricultural lifestyle, both by introducing meat-eating and by necessitating the death of the animals who work agricultural land. In stressing organized agriculture as a feature of the Golden Race, Aratus avoids both hard and soft primitivism (see Introduction note 3), producing instead an idyllic middle way, neither labour-free nor labourintensive, by eliding the labour involved in agriculture. Humans are in harmony with both land and livestock. ajlla; bove~ kai; a[rotra kai; aujth; povtnia law`n muriva pavnta parei`ce Divkh, dwvteira dikaivwn. Tovfr¾ h\n o[fr¾ e[ti gai`a gevno~ cruvseion e[ferben. But oxen and the plough and Justice herself, mistress of the people, giver of just things, provided all things in plenty. Such it was while Earth nourished the Golden Race. Phainomena 112–4 Although the oxen serve the plough, their labour is not depicted in terms of slavery or domination by human masters (in contrast to Ovid Metamorphoses 35
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1.101–2, see below); in fact the animals are juxtaposed with Justice herself, as providers of plenty to the Golden Race. Similarly, there is no mention of agriculture as hard toil for humans at any stage in Aratus’ account: even though the land is farmed by the Golden Race, the oxen and plough seem to work independently of human labour, and, paradoxically, they supply humans with the plenty (muriva, Phainomena 113) which is needed to live simply (au{tw~, Phainomena 110). Aratus gives an agricultural paradise, which is elsewhere an oxymoron (although it arguably reappears in Roman nostalgia texts, addressed later in this chapter). Neither the Silver nor Bronze Race engages with agriculture at all: the Silver Race is, in some unspecified way, wicked and thus begins to alienate Astraea (Phainomena 115–124), and the Bronze Race is defined solely in terms of its violence towards one another and the oxen (Phainomena 130–2). In contrast with Hesiod and most other Greco-Roman accounts, in which agriculture features as an early marker of decline, the Phainomena aligns agriculture with primal innocence, and suggests that decline is associated with a neglect of both farming and justice.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses: utopia and absence Aratus’ Phainomena shows that the myth of the Races was open to variation and reinterpretation, and the poem was widely read and admired throughout the Roman period, with multiple commentaries and translations including versions by Cicero, Germanicus and Festus Avienus. Yet the Metamorphoses consciously spurns Aratus’ poem, and returns to the older narrative, giving Hesiod’s soft primitivism to a Golden Age, in which nourishment is spontaneously produced by the earth: aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo, sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat. poena metusque aberant, nec verba minantia fixo aere legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat iudicis ora sui, sed erant sine vindice tuti. nondum caesa suis, peregrinum ut viseret orbem, montibus in liquidas pinus descenderat undas, nullaque mortales praeter sua litora norant; nondum praecipites cingebant oppida fossae; non tuba directi, non aeris cornua flexi, non galeae, non ensis erat: sine militis usu mollia securae peragebant otia gentes. ipsa quoque inmunis rastroque intacta nec ullis saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus, contentique cibis nullo cogente creatis arbuteos fetus montanaque fraga legebant cornaque et in duris haerentia mora rubetis 36
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et quae deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes. ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores; mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat, nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis; flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant, flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella. Golden was the first age, which, with no avenger, worshipped faith and uprightness, of its own accord, without any law. Punishment and fear were absent, nor were threatening words read on immovable bronze, nor did the pleading crowd fear the voice of its judge, but they were safe without a protector. The pine tree, not yet cut from its own mountain, had not gone down into the flowing waters, so that it might see a foreign world, and mortals did not know any shores outside their own; steep ditches did not yet surround towns; nor were there trumpets of straight bronze, nor horns of twisted bronze, nor helmets, nor swords: without need of a soldier the peoples passed their lives in easy leisure. The earth herself, unharmed and untouched by the hoe, nor wounded by any plough, gave all things by herself, and content with foods produced with no one compelling, they gathered the fruit of the wild strawberry and the mountain berries and cornel-cherry and blackberries clinging to the rough bramble and the acorns which had fallen from the spreading tree of Jupiter. Spring was eternal, and the soothing west winds, with their warm breezes gently touched the flowers, born without seeds; soon even the earth, unploughed, bore her fruits, and the untilled field grew white with heavy ears of grain; now rivers of milk, now rivers of nectar were flowing, and yellow honey was dripping from the green oak. Met. 1.89–112 As is commonly found in paradisal utopias, change is impossible (Kumar, 1991: 18), and the eternal spring emphasizes that everything about Ovid’s Golden Age is static (ver erat aeternum, ‘spring was eternal’ Met. 1.107). Food grows of its own accord, but even this is predictable and constant. Another utopian trope is that this age is characterized by absence, and a string of negatives (highlighted), while only two brief moments represent the 37
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actuality of the Golden Age (1.104–8, 111–12). All of the ‘evils’ found in the complex society which produced the text are missing, as the age lacks violence, agriculture, legal systems, navigation and seasons. This creates a utopian text in the sense that it positions itself elsewhere, for it is predicated upon the fact that the reader inhabits a world in which these evils do exist and are accepted norms. In this way, as Kumar argues, the utopian text implies a twin perspective, with its author inhabiting both utopia and reality: The utopian writer lives in two worlds. His is correspondingly a double vision. He looks down from utopian heights with a sometimes exasperated or pitying mien but more often with comic relish for the follies and vanities of his own world. He looks up from his own world with a tragic sense of the unattainability of the ideal. The utopia he constructs in his imagination is a perfect world, shot through with reminders of the stubbornly flawed world he inhabits outside his imagination, in his own society. Kumar, 1991: 96 In Ovid’s Golden Age technology is entirely absent, far more emphatically than in Works and Days, which deals only with the Golden Race’s peaceful deaths and long lives of abundant plenty – that is with what was, rather than what was not. The Roman text represents the Golden Age as a photographic negative of the Iron Age and engages to a much greater extent with a rhetoric which critiques technology. Not only is there no sign of the reprehensible practice of sailing, but agriculture, never mentioned throughout Hesiod’s account of all five races (although present for Aratus’ Golden Race, Phainomena 111), is here decried as an act of injury towards the earth, with the striking metaphor of saucia . . . tellus ‘wounded earth’ (1.102) – saucius conveys extreme violence, and often applies to the damage which warfare inflicts on the human body.8 As in all accounts, the Golden Age is here figured as a pre-war era, when weapons and armour do not exist, but, in addition, the easy primitivism which is characteristic of this age is assimilated to the trope of non-violence. Through the word saucia, the image of the earth wounded by metal tools – an event which will inevitably follow the Golden Age – is a reminder of the outcome when the technology to produce armour finally arrives: bellum quod . . . / sanguineaque manu crepitantia concutit arma (‘and war, which shakes clattering weapons with its bloody hand’, Met. 1.142–3). Warfare and agriculture are made analogous, and the Golden Age constructs pre-agricultural society as the extreme of pacifism, rather than as a time of ease, which is the central motif of the Hesiodic version, and even Aratus’, despite the existence of agriculture. Instead Ovid’s Golden Age is an environment in which any assault upon the earth is unnecessary. The Roman Golden Age is far more explicitly predicated upon the inversion of the present age than Greek narratives of the ages. In this sense it partakes of a central utopian trope, or at least 38
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of the positive utopia (‘eutopia’) which can be defined as a device for critiquing contemporary mores (Sargent, 2000: 15).
Starting over The subsequent ages decline exponentially, a gradual descent to the Race of Iron, a race which is never lacking in Roman texts. In Ovid’s version, this final race must be destroyed by divine intervention (Met. 1.208–61). Here, the Metamorphoses responds to the suggestion made by Hesiod, that the Iron Race, the current race of humans (WD 174–6), will face destruction in the future: Zeu;~ d¾ ojlevsei kai; tou`to gevno~ merovpwn ajnqrwvpwn,/ eu\t¾ a]n geinovmenoi poliokrovtafoi televqwsin ‘and Zeus will also obliterate this race of clever-speaking men,/ when they are born grey-haired’ (WD 180–1). Accordingly Ovid has Jupiter destroy this race: the god’s wrath, engendered by human impiety and savagery, enables Ovid to combine the repopulation of the earth by Deucalion with the end of the Iron Race. Fulfilling the prophecy given by Hesiod’s despairing speaker allows Ovid to solve the problem of integrating parallel traditions, that is, the myth of the Races and the myth of Deucalion’s flood. Others would shoehorn the Deucalion narrative into the myth of the Races, for example Apollodorus’ mythic encyclopedia stages the flood at the end of the Bronze Age (Pseudo-Apollodorus 1.7.2 and see Bömer, 1969: 101), so that, in effect, the race created by Deucalion fills the place of the Iron Race. But, in the Metamorphoses the Race of Iron, the nadir of humanity, is very definitely annihilated. Here Deucalion’s race truly is a new beginning, and Ovid, unlike Hesiod, categorically states that we are not one of the Race of Iron – we live in the post-Iron Age and are not necessarily worse than our ancestors, because we are an entirely different race from the mythic races. The Ovidian myth of the races, then, sets up the expectation of the Hesiodic decline narrative, but does not culminate in its litany of self-blame and complaint (as WD 174–5). While this does not preclude nostalgia for a lost Golden Age, or the use of utopia as a device comparing past and present, it does rewrite the history of humanity’s inexorable downward progress. Unlike Works and Days, the Metamorphoses distances the reader from the degradation of the Iron Race. Not only does this dislocate the Metamorphoses’ world from the universalizing tract of decline, it also removes the present of the text from Hesiod’s inevitable pit of despair. This is especially significant as the relationship between foundations and the present is foregrounded in this text, which at the outset requests help to trace primaque ab origine mundi/ ad mea . . . tempora ‘from the earliest beginning of the world/ to my own times’ (Met. 1.3–4). There is a strong suggestion in the proem that a straight line is being drawn from the time of universe’s creation (origine mundi) to the time of the poem’s creation (coeptis . . . meis ‘my beginnings’, 1.2–3; mea . . . tempora ‘my times’, 1.4), as the loaded image of the spun 39
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thread connects past and present (ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen ‘to my times spin out the continuous song’, 1.4). Aside from the generic play of this neoteric epic (Wilkinson, 1958: 231–4, Hollis, 1970: xiii–xiv) – the proem is disingenuous in that it spins a far from straightforward thread – the creation tale potentially misleads the reader into imagining that the Iron Race inhabits the poet’s times, by following closely the Hesiodic model of the Races. The Metamorphoses engages with and twists the temporal logic of Greek genealogies, not only within the myth of the races, but also in placing the birth and death of each of the metallic races before the age of divine contact with mortals is ended. This division between gods and humans is suggested by Hesiod’s Works and Days in the description of the grim future of the Iron Race: kai; tovte dh; pro;~ ÒOlumpon ajpo; cqono~ eujruodeivh~ leukoi`sin favressi kaluyamevnw crova kalo;n ajqanavtwn meta; fu`lon i[ton prolipovnt¾ ajnqrwvpou~ Aijdw;~ kai; Nevmesi~: ta; de; leivyetai a[lgea lugra; qnhtoi`~ ajnqrwvpoisi: kakou` d¾ oujk e[ssetai ajlkhv. Then indeed off to Olympus from the wide-pathed earth, veiling their beautiful faces with white robes, Shame and Moral Indignation will go to join the family of the immortals, abandoning mankind; and grim pains will remain for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil. WD 197–201 Elsewhere the cessation of divine–human contact (effectively the end of the Race of Heroes) signals that gods will no longer be present on earth, a situation made explicit in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, which describes the goddess’ affair with a mortal as a move towards the post-heroic era (HHA 5.247–55). According to Zeus’ plan, after Aeneas, there will be no further offspring of gods and humans on earth – no demi-gods or heroes. As there will no longer be contact between the two spheres, the only way of approaching immortality for humans will be through mortal procreation. For Jenny Clay, the main point of the Hymn is the establishment of a boundary between immortality and mortality in fulfilment of Zeus’ will (1989: 166– 70) and she claims ‘the increased distance between the gods and mortals marks the Age of Iron, which is our own’ (1989: 167). Along with Nagy (1979: 220), she also sees indications that there is a correspondence between the end of the Heroic Age and the separation of gods and mortals in fragmentary works of Hesiod (1989: 167; see Hes. frag. 204.96–100 MW; cf. frag. 1 MW). The human world of the Homeric Hymns, therefore, seems 40
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here to be on the verge of Hesiod’s Race of Iron – a godless state, burdened with care. Ovid follows this logic to a degree, by drawing on Aratus as well as Hesiod, so that the disappearance of Astraea in the Metamorphoses is the marker that criminality and impiety have caused a final breach between mortals and immortals: victa iacet pietas, et virgo caede madentes ultima caelestum terras Astraea reliquit. Duty lies conquered, and the maiden Astraea was the last of the heavenly ones to leave lands dripping with slaughter. Met. 1.149–50 Astraea’s departure should indicate that human–divine relationships will no longer occur. But by destroying and recreating the human race, Ovid overturns the tradition, as the early books of the epic are taken up with precisely these types of relationship. Here gods, demi-gods and humans mix on a regular basis, and, like the Golden Age, there is no sign of any engagement in agriculture. Gods visit humans as lovers, pursuers, jealous rivals and assailants, and their offspring are demi-gods or heroes – in effect, Ovid relocates elements of Hesiod’s Race of Heroes to the post-Iron Age. So the Metamorphoses refuses to engage directly in the narrative of self-reproach suggested by Hesiod and taken up by many Roman writers, who assume the position that they also live in the Iron Age (Vir. Ecl. 4.8, Tib. 2.3.35, Suet. Tib. 59, Juv. 6.23), and often attribute a specific and localized origin to Roman decline. Romulus’ fratricide, compounded and replicated by cycles of civil war, provides a ready basis for Rome’s fall (Vir. Ecl. 4.13, Hor. Odes 1.2, 1.35.32–5, Epod. 7.17–20, Luc. 1.93–7, cf. Vir. Georg. 2.496, 2.510, Luc. 2.151); these activities – murder and warfare – were intrinsic to the Iron Race, but Roman narratives personalize them as self-destructive acts. For Ovid, however, the morally bankrupt Race of Iron was already long dead, and the entire poem from Met. 1.348 takes place in a new, reborn world: redditus orbis erat (‘the world had been returned’), a new first age. On the face of it, then, Jupiter purges the earth, by surgically removing the diseased, human part of it: inmedicabile corpus/ ense recidendum est ne pars sincera trahatur (‘the incurable body must be cut out with a sword, so that the healthy part is not infected’ 1.190–1). He later has it repopulated, with the implication that the behaviour which occasioned this punishment will be stamped out – in fact, Jupiter assures the other gods that, after the flood, there will be a more amenable race of human beings: talia quaerentes (sibi enim fore cetera curae) rex superum trepidare vetat subolemque priori dissimilem populo promittit origine mira. 41
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As they ask such questions the king of the supreme beings tells them not to fear (for the rest was his concern), and promises a generation unlike the former people, and from a miraculous origin. Met. 1.250–2 An attempt to feed Jupiter human flesh by the impious Lycaon is the final insult for the god, but he styles the annihilation of the race as an act of benevolence. Jupiter claims that the destruction of the Race of Iron is a policy intended to keep safe those under his protection, that is, the demi-gods, who have to live amongst such impious humans. Any pious Iron men and women (apart from Deucalion and Pyrrah) are collateral damage. sunt mihi semidei, sunt, rustica numina, nymphae faunique satyrique et monticolae silvani; quos quoniam caeli nondum dignamur honore, quas dedimus, certe terras habitare sinamus. an satis, o superi, tutos fore creditis illos, cum mihi, qui fulmen, qui vos habeoque regoque, struxerit insidias notus feritate Lycaon? I have demi-gods, I have country gods – nymphs and fauns and satyrs and mountain-dwelling woodlanders; since we do not yet think them worthy of the rank of heaven, let us at least allow them to live in the lands we have given them. Or do you, celestial ones, believe that they are safe enough, when Lycaon, known for his savagery, has laid traps for me, the one who holds the thunderbolt, the one who rules you? Met. 1.192–8 Jupiter here casts himself as a divine patron, acting (but apparently so far failing) as protector of his woodland clients’ interests. However, given the direct attempt made on Jupiter’s power by Lycaon’s ‘trap’, the god’s motives for his radical step might seem rather dubious, and less altruistic than vengeful. In what follows, these nymphs, along with humans, are left vulnerable to the assault of the very god who claims to be their guardian. Yet, in a sense, it is clear that any divine attempt to impose order is doomed from the outset, and this is perhaps the lesson contained in Ovid’s unique vision of the creation story, which emphatically gives credit for the cosmos to deus et . . . natura (‘god or nature’, 1.21), a figure not found in Ovid’s apparent models for his cosmogony.9 Chaos, the original form of the universe, is portrayed in terms of struggle or even warfare (discordia ‘conflict’ 1.9, obstabat ‘was opposing’ 1.18, pugnabant ‘were fighting’ 1.19), a state which aligns it with the aggression of the Iron Race. The supernatural 42
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entity ends these divisions and creates the universe through the construction of discrete categories (abscidit ‘split’ 1.22, secrevit ‘divided’ 1.23), ending the dispute (litem . . . diremit ‘he dissolved the struggle’ 1.21). In turn, the earth is separated into lands and seas, being divided into five zones, as are the heavens (1.45–51).10 And it is by imposing peace, the defining characteristic of the Golden Age, that the deity brings about stability and taxonomy: dissociata locis concordi pace ligavit (‘he bound the separated elements in their places with harmonious peace’, 1.25). Thus the newly constructed and ordered universe is the ideal location for the first race, which is not only pacific, but also static and immune to change. Yet the stability abruptly ends, as the successive races detract from the state of concord achieved by the Golden Race, and throughout the poem the physical achievements of creation are frequently under threat (1.291, 2.298–9, 5.356–8, see Tarrant, 2002: 350–1). As Stephen Wheeler has argued (1995: 117), the symmetry of the ordered universe is not matched in the disorder of the Iron Race, nor events which follow, such as the turmoil brought about by Phaethon’s misuse of divine power and the subsequent conflagration (2.103–328). Chaos seems to be brought under control in the cosmogony, but in fact it is chaos which continues to determine the moral economy of both gods and humans throughout the poem (Tarrant, 2002: 350–4). Thus, although regulation is periodically brought to the world of the Metamorphoses, each attempt to enforce a balanced order or utopian vision is met with a return to some form of chaos, a regression which characterizes even seemingly stable worlds (of the Golden Race or the purged Iron Race) as mutable and insecure. So, Deucalion and Pyrrha’s post-Iron Race should be a new start, and a chance to obviate the progressively chaotic states of the metallic races. The idea of a ‘rerun’ of the Golden Age is in fact built into the fabric of Works and Days. As Vernant suggests, Hesiod’s Race of Heroes itself was an echo of the Golden Race (1983a: 6–8), for although the heroes of Troy and Thebes were involved in warfare, they receive an afterlife of ease and plenty in the Isles of the Blessed, and, like the Golden Race, are ruled by Kronos (WD 169–75). Similarly, Ovid’s new age mirrors the Metamorphoses’ Golden Age, at least in its negatives: the original was an age devoid of criminality, violence and impiety, and the new age aims to expunge these impurities and begin afresh, with a worthy and pious man and woman. However, there is no indication in the Metamorphoses that the cycle will begin again, in a new and predictable revolution of the ages, as Stoic theory might have suggested.11 In fact from the first, there are monsters to disrupt the new world order, as Earth repeats her habit (established in earlier texts) of creating aberrant forms. Hesiod’s Earth, Gaia, had generated many of the significant elements of the universe (Heaven, the Mountains, the Nymphs, the Sea, Oceanus and the other Titans, Th. 126–38), along with other, more disruptive ones (Th. 147–53), all in the original creation of the cosmos, but Ovid’s Earth primarily 43
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gives life to minor beings, at seemingly random times; they are all subversive to the Olympian hierarchy, and have to be destroyed by the gods, such as the Giants before the flood (1.157) and Python after it (1.434–9). Python is created unwillingly and quickly killed by Apollo (1.440–4), and his death forms a significant watershed, as it is the very first event after the flood and repopulation of the renewed earth. No mention is made here of a conflict between Earth and Apollo over the control of Delphi (as in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3.287–374). Instead, the positioning of Python’s swift birth and obliteration in the Metamorphoses suggests that the Olympians will not tolerate any monstrosities in the new world – although, like many of the later victims, divine violence seems arbitrary. Python’s only crime seems to be that he is too large for the world: terror eras: tantum spatii de monte tenebas (‘you were terrifying: you took up so much space on the mountain’ 1.440; a very different beast to the hideous monster of HH 3.354–5, see Fontenrose, 1959: 14–22). This is certainly no repeat Golden Age, and instead of a series of everdeclining races, the new world and the new race are something of a pastiche of the metallic ages. Just as the Golden Race lived in a world which existed in its natural state, before any technological developments, so the new age is sylvan and largely populated with innocent nymphs and uncorrupted humans. As the narrative of the poem’s early books takes place almost exclusively in this wilderness setting, Silver Age agriculture seems to be absent – although, in a sense, the new race is created by ‘sowing’ rocks in ‘mother earth’ (Met. 1.393–413). Yet, mysteriously and without being heralded, pastoral elements, such as cattle-herding, appear as if from nowhere by Book Two (2.678–85 Apollo herds cattle in Elis; see also 1.512–14), and agriculture is implied by the mention of crops (seges) burned by Phaethon’s wayward driving of the Sun’s chariot (2.213); it has even entered the narrative via a simile in the very first tale after the recreation of the new race: Apollo’s sudden passion is compared to harvested grain (demptis . . . aristis 1.492). Organized cultivation of the soil has occurred on a large scale by the time Ceres, bereft of Proserpina, withdraws her gifts from humans and brings destruction to the harvest and near-holocaust to the race (5.474–86). Ceres’ starvation tactics echo the annihilation of the Iron Race by Jupiter’s deluge (1.253–312), and are a reminder that, although the new race was meant to be ‘a species entirely different from the previous one’ (subolemque priori dissimilem populo 1.251–2), the gods treat them in much the same way, as objects on which they can vent their anger. Bronze and Iron Age elements are also clearly present in the new age, as weapons, first mentioned by the Bronze Race (1.125–7) do exist. Although Apollo’s (1.441–4) and Cupid’s bows (1.455) may be exempt, as the gods transcend the changing races (and indeed seem unchanging), arms abound in the renewed world, which is inhabited by hunters from the very beginning (e.g. Daphne 1.474–6, Syrinx 1.690–8, Callisto 2.419–21, Actaeon 3.143– 44
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53, Salmacis’ sisters 4.305–7). Images of warfare are present from the earliest narrative of the new race, as Daphne is presented, not only with a hunter’s weaponry, but also as a military figure: et modo leve manu iaculum, modo sumpserat arcum,/ miles erat Phoebes (‘and now she had taken up a light javelin in her hand, now a bow,/ she was a soldier of Phoebe [Diana]’ 1.415). But it is not until another autochthonous race springs forth that actual war takes place. The bellicose race grows from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus (3.102–26, yet more ploughing, cf. 1.400–15), and for the first time the killing of fellow men is introduced, as the result of their creation is instant civil war (3.117). By Book Three, then, as open warfare is added to hunting, a race parallel to the Bronze Race is created, with the reintroduction of arms and military conflict into the narrative (cf. Met. 1.126, Aratus Phainomena 131–2, Hesiod WD 145–6) – so associated with battle is this race, that it is actually born in (literally ‘burdened with’) armour: primaque de sulcis acies adparuit hastae, tegmina mox capitum picto nutantia cono, mox umeri pectusque onerataque bracchia telis exsistunt, crescitque seges clipeata virorum And first from the furrow appeared the point of a spear, then nodding helmets with colourful crests, then shoulders and chests and arms weighed down with weapons spring forth and a crop of men complete with shields grows up Met. 3.107–10 It then almost wipes itself out (Met. 3.118–26), leaving only six warriors to be the co-founders of Thebes, and coming close to the Hesiodic Bronze Race, which in fact did self-destruct (WD 152). Echoes of the Iron Race are also soon present in the new age. In Book One the flaws belonging to the Iron Race include fraudesque dolisque insidiaeque et vis (‘deceit and tricks and treachery and violence’ 1.130–1), and all of these traits enter the new age, primarily via the gods themselves. Deceit and trickery are exemplified by the gods’ numerous disguises: Jupiter as Diana (2.419–40), Mercury’s entrapment of Battus (2.687–707), Juno as Semele’s nurse, Beroe (3.274–86), Apollo as Leucothoe’s mother (4.218–24), Minerva as an old woman visiting Arachne (6.26–42), and all the stories told in Arachne’s tapestry (6.103–28). Theft (1.144) is practised, although only by the gods, from the early books: Mercury steals Apollo’s cattle (2.685–6) and Jupiter regularly steals women, as in the case of Europa (2.846–75) – the impossibility of recovering her is expressed in a rhetorical question quis enim deprendere possit/ furta Iovis? (‘for who could discover the thefts of Jupiter?’ 3.6–7), implying that this is one of many inexplicable disappearances staged by the god. Treachery is a particularly human failing (the gods, 45
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perhaps, having no real allegiances), exemplified by the ‘adultery’ of Coronis (2.542–5), Leucothoe’s betrayal of Clytie’s secret (4.234–40), Medea choosing Jason over her father (7.7–158) and Scylla’s treason, betraying both father and country for an ungrateful Minos (8.8–100). Laomedon lies to gods, breaking his promise to Apollo and Neptune that he will pay gold for their aid in building Troy (11.199–206). And violence saturates the poem, practised by gods and humans alike. Murder and familial discord, which appear at the climax of the Iron Age description (1.145–8), are rife throughout much of the poem: Ino and Athamus, driven mad by Juno, kill their children (4.516–30), Medea is one of the poisoning stepmothers who are first present in the Iron Age (1.147, 7.406–24), and Jupiter and Juno provide the paradigm of the unhappy marriage (1.146, 1.601–24). Sailing regularly occurs from Book Six12 onwards, and although in the closing line of the book, the Argo is called ‘the first ship’ (prima . . . carina 6.721) – as it was by tradition at least since Euripides (Andr. 865) – this is clearly not the case in the Metamorphoses, as at least two trips by boat have already taken place in this book (barbarians who attack Athens: 6.422–3, Tereus and Philomela: 6.444–6, 511–12), and navigation has been previously practised by the Iron Race (1.132–4). Again the mythic narrative of steady decline is disrupted by the early destruction of the Iron Race and the repetition of their crimes by the race which follows. As a foremost signifier of decline in the traditional narrative, the Argo and the introduction of sailing formed an important turning point in a clear chronology of technological progress, drawing humans further away from their primordial Golden Age status, and also further from the gods (Cat. 64.1–18, 384–408, Virg. Georg. 1.136–8, Hor. Epod. 16.57–60, Hyg. Astr. 2.25, Sen. Med. 301–79, Phaed. 530–1). But even though Ovid flaunts the Argo’s status as original ship, his text, which claims to run along chronological lines (Met. 1.3–4), confounds this version of events, not only with Iron Age sailing, but also by including this form of transport frequently in the previous story of Philomela. It is true that there are other inconsistencies in the poem (e.g. there are three narratives which seem to explain the creation of the swan: 2.367–80, 7.371–2, 12.64–145), but the repeated and emphatic reference to ships in Book Six seems a deliberate move to undermine the traditional account of decline. The Argo as a watershed moment in human history is both foregrounded – it literally forms a break point in the text, being emphatically placed at the end and beginning of Books Six and Seven – and subverted. In a text of unstable forms, narratives too are destabilized, reconfigured and repeated. War (1.142–3) is pervasive throughout the poem (especially 3.107–28 , 5.4–235, 12.5-–13.410) and dominates the retelling of Rome’s early history (14.775–802), while Romulus’ war against the Sabines stresses the conflict between fathers and sons-in-law (14.801–2), which was prefigured by the same generational opposition of in-laws during the Iron Age (1.145). Gold 46
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is reintroduced to the narrative via the gods, who have golden weapons: Cupid’s love-bringing arrow is tipped with gold (1.470), Diana’s bow is golden (1.679), and the Sun’s palace flashes with gold (2.2), as does his chariot (2.107); but the first human to be associated with gold is Aglauros, a greedy and sacriligious extortionist (2.749–59), who demands ‘a great weight of gold’ (magni . . . ponderis aurum) from Mercury (2.750) as a bribe for allowing the god to have sex with her sister. For the post-flood generation gold apparently transfers from gods to men in this dubious transaction, although this is logically not the first contact humans have with gold as Aglauros is already aware of its existence. But it is a significant moment in the narrative, and does imply that the gods are partially responsible for the reintroduction of this invidious metal, which does only harm to its possessor (cf. 1.141–2); Aglauros is doubly punished: by Minerva, who has her infected with envy (2.760–811), and by Mercury, who turns her to stone (2.821–32). Cultural laws are flagrantly transgressed by the new race, reminding us that the final act of the Iron Age, Lycaon’s, was a kind of metaphorical selfdestruction, breaking numerous sanctions: by his attempt to cook and feed his own kind to a god (1.226–9), he turns humans into meat, and warps categories – a deliberate disruption of the laws laid down by creation. And ingesting forbidden foods parallels the other fundamental cultural taboos, cannibalism and incest, which provide several of the post-flood narratives: the incest of Myrrha with her father (10.312–502), the attempted incest of Byblis with her brother (9.454–665); and the auto-cannibalism of Erysichthon whose impiety drives him to insatiable hunger, which eventually forces him to consume himself (8.875–8). Thus, once again, it is clear that Jupiter’s attempt to create order by flood and repopulation breaks down, as distinctions are not maintained. Myrrha and Byblis fail to observe the law of exogamy, and Erysichthon (like Lycaon) fails to obey the law of ingestion – that food should be provided by species other than one’s own (or even oneself). In each of these cases, the transgressor chooses from a category within, and by this act dissolves the boundaries of a regulated society. As is fitting in a poem centred around flux, limits are regularly transcended, and categories such as gender are similarly fluid in the tales of Hermaphroditus, who merges both sexes into one body (4.285–388), and of Iphis, who is transformed from a woman into a man (9.666–797). Impiety had been one of the major faults of the Iron Age: victa iacet pietas (‘duty lies defeated’ 1.149). impietas is Lycaon’s crime: inridet primo pia vota (‘at first he laughs at [others’] pious prayers, 1.221), and he manifests his impiety by refusing to acknowledge the power of the god. His plan to murder Jupiter is intended to expose the difference (discrimine 1.222) between god and mortal, as he assumes that Jupiter is not divine. And this lack of belief is the final insult which leads Jupiter to destroy the Iron Race (so in fact it is an attempt to test out distinctions and categories which brings about the end of 47
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the race). The very same impiety continues in the new age, as is clear from the many tales of disbelievers who have to be punished by Bacchus (3.511–4.417). Even Bacchus’ mother, Semele, is led (by Juno) into doubting Jupiter’s divinity, and her consequent need to discover his true nature leads to her annihilation. The crime of blasphemy, doubting or challenging a god’s divinity or power, is a frequent cause of human punishment; notable examples are Pentheus (3.513–26), Acrisius (4.610–1), Arachne (6.5–7, 23–5, 42), Niobe (6.170–202), the Pierides (5.308–14) and Erysichthon (8.739–40). And it could be argued that humans become increasingly irreverent as the poem progresses and their crimes no longer fit into the category of Actaeon’s error (3.142) or Semele’s deception by a jealous god, but become deliberate threats to the gods themselves, resisting their claims to pre-eminence. Arachne’s creation parallels both the creation of the poem and the creation of the universe (Feeney, 1991: 191, Wheeler, 1995: 106), but as demiurge of her own tapestry world, Arachne constructs a universe of chaos, rather than separating and dividing to create order. Her labour undoes the work of the creator god, and also exposes it for what it has become, and although it is as accomplished as Minerva’s, she forfeits her body anyway (Met. 6.129–45). In scenarios such as this, the poem ultimately questions whether the human race created after the flood actually declines, or whether, instead, penalties are imposed on its curiosity and creativity.13 Rome’s moral failings could easily promote a discourse of Augustan ‘rescue’ (Wallace-Hadrill, 1982: 24–7, and see Chapter 1), but the Metamorphoses leaves itself open to no such interpretation. Even though Jupiter here is explicitly compared to Octavian when he waged war against the assassins of Caesar (1.199–205), the comparison turns out to be more unsettling than reassuring. First, civil war is an implied feature of the Iron Race in the Metamorphoses, as family members plot one another’s destruction (1.145– 8), and the reference here to enmity between father-in-law and son-in-law (1.145) is a specific reminder of that between Caesar and Pompey (Hill, 1985: 172). And second, the world which follows the flood in many ways becomes a mirror of the Iron Age, so that Jupiter’s actions amount to wanton destruction, rather than deliverance. Jupiter annihilates humankind, but constructs a society in which the gods dominate and abuse the new race, and thus the parallel with Octavian functions much more readily as a critique of Augustan renewal than a celebration of it, with Jupiter’s limitless and arbitrary power central to the analogy (Feeney, 1991: 220–3).
Renewal and revolution? As Kumar comments, utopias are usually consciously fantastic; that is to say that from the writer’s double-visioned perspective there is no correspondence between the ideal society depicted and the writer’s own, no indication that the latter could actually become the former (1991: 96–7). Ancient 48
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a ccounts of the Golden Age share this aspect with modern utopian writings, as, ultimately, there is no way of tracing one’s way back to the Golden Race – the very fact that those who come after them are distinct and separate races militates against any return to the original state. But Ovid’s Metamorphoses, more than any other account of generational decline, seems to offer the possibility of renewal, only to show that what is in fact inevitable is the resurgence of Bronze Age violence and Iron Age injustice. Clearly elements of all four ages, but particularly the less valued, less moral later ages are present in the post-flood race; but it is the relationship between gods, demi-gods and humans which ties the new age most closely to the metallic ages. Although Jupiter had represented himself as the protector of nymphs and other inhabitants of the woods against Iron Race outrage (1.192–8), in fact, he becomes the greatest threat to their security. The landscape may be reminiscent of the safe and nurturing Golden Age, but it is in this seemingly idyllic, woodland14 setting that scenarios of violence, rape, deceit and coercive metamorphosis take place. As such, it is a radical reinterpretation of Golden Age landscapes. And whereas the Golden Age had lacked bloodshed (1.97–100), hunting features prominently in these new age tales, particularly those which concern the followers and/or victims of Diana. Diana is the only hunter who is ultimately successful, as other figures who wander in the sylvan landscape are preyed upon by the goddess and her fellow Olympians. There is one victim in each of the Metamorphoses’ first three books: Daphne (1.452–567), Callisto (2.409–507) – both virgin hunters and rape victims of the Olympian gods’ lust – and Actaeon (3.138–252) – a hunter who unwittingly sees Diana naked.15 In each of these cases the hunter becomes the hunted: Daphne is pursued by Diana’s twin, Apollo (1.502–3), and a series of similes compare them to a lamb and a wolf, a deer and a lion, and a dove and an eagle (1.505–6 – negative comparisons, ineffectually voiced by Apollo) and also a hare and a Gallic hound (1.533–4); Callisto, as a bear, is almost killed by her hunter son, Arcas (2.496–504); and Actaeon is savaged by his own hounds (3.232–50). Indeed, Actaeon is most obviously subject to this role-reversal: ille fugit per quae fuerat loca saepe secutus,/ heu, famulos fugit ipse suos (‘he flees through places where he had often chased,/ alas, he actually flees from his own servants’ 3.228–9). Just as Actaeon becomes a passive figure in his own hunting ground, so time and time again, woodland dwellers lose their active role (Hinds, 2002: 131), many becoming static through metamorphosis. In this condition, the metamorphosed who are transformed into features of the natural environment (trees, streams, rocks) are in some ways analagous to the Golden Race: they become changeless, static and not prey to the violence which the human body can suffer. But as they often retain active minds within their new hardened exterior,16 metamorphosis never offers complete liberation from Iron Age tropes – the transformed are left in limbo, existing in none of the human ages. 49
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It is the sexualization of the hunting grounds that leads to disaster and metamorphosis for the human hunters. Because the virgin nymphs are sex objects of gods, Daphne turns into a laurel tree, Callisto into a pregnant nymph, then a bear and eventually into a constellation; and, because he unwittingly sexualizes Diana, Actaeon is transformed into a stag. Sexualization disrupts the sylvan landscape, for this landscape is associated with relentless chastity, a concept embodied in the Metamorphoses by characters such as Diana and Daphne.17 Indeed, virginity is intrinsic to the language describing the territory – it is pathless and wild, eternally spring and shaded and the uncultivated trees or reeds (themselves the aetiological outcome of two early rape-related metamorphoses – Daphne (1.450–565), Syrinx (1.690–712)) enclose refreshing pools (2.454–6, 3.161–2, 3.407–12, 4.90, 4.297–301, 5.573 (Arethusa, also a rape victim), 12.413; see Parry, 1964: 276–8). Again the landscape is a disconcerting fusion of Golden Age tropes and features associated with later ages: usually temperate and green, as yet untouched by the plough, and watered naturally by rivers and springs, it seems to be a pure and unadulterated paradise. However, as a scene of violent activities, it breaks one of the cardinal rules of the Golden Race, which spent its time in mollia . . . otia (‘easy leisure’ 1.100) and did not even kill to eat, consuming only wild plants (1.103–6). It is worth noting that their food included acorns from Jupiter’s oak tree (Iovis arbore glandes 1.106) – a remark which, if taken literally, disrupts the customary chronology by implying that it was Jupiter, not Saturn, who held sway during the Golden Age (Aen. 8.319–25). Even the original Golden Age seems to have been infiltrated by the later ages.18 Moreover, the virginal character of the landscape suggests barrenness, or contained fertility, and conflicts with the tradition of Golden Age plenty and spontaneous fertility – and the Metamorphoses’ Golden Age also desexualizes the productive earth: flowers are produced sine semine (‘without seed’, 1.108), the land is intacta (‘untouched’ 1.101) and inarata (unploughed 1.109), giving forth nourishment nullo cogente (‘with no one forcing’ 1.103). The earth is generous and fruitful, yet entirely asexual – in fact like the Hesiodic Earth, who is initially parthenogenic, giving birth to Sea, Heaven and Mountains (Th. 126–32) with no male input; as Page duBois points out ‘the plenitude of the female body is primary’ (1988: 4). However, Theogony’s Earth then takes her offspring, Heaven, as a lover and father to many other children (Th. 133–49). Thus, while the foundations of the landscape are created by Earth alone, its continuity is generated by sexual reproduction. Pucci (1977: 115) aligns the female with the Iron Race, and the male with the Golden Race – largely based on the (apparent) absence of women among the first race – and he reads into the myth of Pandora (WD 69–105) an explanation of both the creation of women and the beginning of Iron Age misery. But there is no mention of Pandora in the Metamorphoses, no easy way to gender the races. 50
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Instead the Metamorphoses plays on the way that land is gendered and (a)sexualized, to expose the inconsistencies of the mythic landscape. This landscape is at once pristine and polluted, virginal and venereal. It incorporates Golden Age spontaneity with Iron Age violence: Earth is non-agricultural, and therefore unwounded by the plough (as in the Golden Age: Met. 1.101–2), implying immunity from violence and sexuality, yet it is also soaked in the blood of human victims. Bleeders include Actaeon (3.232–52), Pentheus (3.722–31), and the children of Niobe, who are killed by the arrows of Diana and Apollo (6.227–666) – the description of Sipylus’ death in particular stresses that human gore contaminates the earth: ille ut erat pronus per crura admissa iubasque volvitur et calido Tellurem sanguine foedat. Leaning forward, he rolled over [his horse’s] loosened legs and his mane and polluted Earth with his warm blood. 6.238–9 Diana is a frequent letter of blood, not only through archery but also via the Calydonian boar, a vehicle of the goddess’ wrath, which kills in a particularly gruesome manner: concidit Ancaeus glomerataque sanguine multo viscera lapsa fluunt: madefacta est Terra cruore. Ancaeus fell and his entrails, rolled together with much blood, slipped and flowed out: Earth was sodden with gore. 8.401–2 And the saturation of earth begins early, during the time of the Iron Race. In this era, Earth is under threat from human interference on several levels, from surveying, agriculture and mining (1.135–42), and warfare leaves ‘the lands drenched from carnage’ (caede madentes/ . . . terras 1.149–50). So humans themselves first defile Earth, but this is soon followed up with the earliest divine punishment, when Jupiter destroys not humans, but the mutinous Giants, with his thunderbolt: obruta mole sua cum corpora dira iacerent, perfusam multo natorum sanguine Terram immaduisse ferunt calidumque animasse cruorem et, ne nulla suae stirpis monimenta manerent, in faciem vertisse hominum. When the terrible bodies lay buried by their own bulk, 51
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they say that Earth, soaked in much blood from her sons, became damp and breathed life into the warm blood and, so that a reminder of her own children would remain, turned it into the form of humans. 1.156–60 Here, Earth is soaked not merely in blood, but in the blood of the beings she helped to create: the Metamorphoses does not relate the whole story, but Earth produced the Giants (along with the Erinyes and Meliai: Hes. Theog. 185) from the blood of Uranos when he was castrated by Kronos (Saturn), so Earth is doubly defiled by their destruction. Ovid has Earth recreate a blood-race from the Giants’ remains, but they too are violent and impious (1.160–2) and presumably die in the flood. Yet the landscape retains its connection with purity through violence, and as the poem progresses, Diana in particular becomes increasingly brutal in her insistence on preserving this unpolluted state. Like many conservative stances, it is based on a fiction of a utopian past, but the goddess is fixated and any possible corrupt influences must be sacrificed. Callisto is thrust out of the goddess’ circle of nymphs, and left exposed to Juno’s harsh punishment, and Actaeon is torn to pieces by his own dogs. Daphne’s conversion to a tree, a transformation conferred on her by her father, at her own, desperate wish (1.545–6) seems like an anticipation of the punishment she might have received if she stayed human and was raped by Diana’s brother. Ironically, Daphne had compared herself to Diana in relation to their shared virginal state (1.487). Diana here is dictator of the primeval landscape, and as such, she sends her own monster, the Calydonian boar, into the woodland. The boar is a punishment for the neglected worship of the goddess, and causes devastation, not least to the hunters whose mutilation and death are described in graphic and gory detail (8.345–443). But as is the case with the earlier scenes of rape and mutilation, the landscape is idyllic, without blemish: silva frequens trabibus, quam nulla ceciderat aetas, incipit a plano devexaque prospicit arva: quo postquam venere viri, pars retia tendunt, vincula pars adimunt canibus, pars pressa sequuntur signa pedum, cupiuntque suum reperire periclum. A wood, crowded with trees which no age had cut down, begins on the flat and looks over the sloping field: here, the men arrived, some stretech out nets, some let their dogs loose from chains, others follow deep footprints, and want to find their own danger. 8.329–33
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In fact, it soon become established that the more peaceful and idyllic the scene, the more likely it is that violence and the obliteration of voice, identity and individuality become (in the early books: 1.552, 1.566–7, 2.482–84, and see Curran, 1984: 270–83 on the emotional effects of the Metamorphoses’ rapes; 3.201–3, 3.229–31, 3.240–1). Segal (1969: 74–85) discusses in depth the subversion of the pastoral which is enacted by Ovidian landscapes; one of the primary transformations of the setting is that it becomes a location of danger, rather than one of ‘refuge and comfort’, as it had been in Theocritus and Virgil’s Eclogues (1969: 74). Virgil in particular had fused pastoral and paradisal landscape, with Eclogue 4’s suggestion that the new age would bring a state of peace and harmony with nature, along with the spontaneous production of food. And the Metamorphoses’ own Golden Age similarly had established this type of setting as the backdrop for the first and best race (1.101–12). But after the flood, Ovid’s seemingly idyllic landscape is a setting in which hunting is a regular pastime and this factor removes it from the harmonious and violence-free Golden Age. The hunters are also prey: this is a place where humans and demi-gods are regularly pursued by gods and animals alike. Although the Iron Race was apparently destroyed because of the brutality of Lycaon (notus feritate Lycaon, ‘Lycaon known for his savagery’ 1.198), who failed to differentiate human and animal worlds (1.224–9), it is precisely this confusion of categories which is imposed on humans by the gods, who frequently transform them into animal and other non-human forms. In fact, the first instance of this is Lycaon’s punishment, fitting in his case, as he initiated the exchange of human for animal (food), and is himself forced to exchange human for animal (form) by being turned into a wolf (1.232–9). While the renewed Earth provides a peaceful setting for violent activity, this is not the only paradox embodied by its landscape, for it also admits discordant elements of artificiality and cultivation into its make-up. Diana’s cave, for example, is the perfect lush, cool paradise, but this woodland grotto is ‘aware’ of the manicured Roman gardens of Ovid’s time, and seems to have based itself, consciously, upon them: vallis erat piceis et acuta densa cupressu, nomine Gargaphie succinctae sacra Dianae, cuius in extremo est antrum nemorale recessu arte laboratum nulla: simulaverat artem ingenio natura suo; nam pumice vivo et levibus tofis nativum duxerat arcum; fons sonat a dextra tenui perlucidus unda, margine gramineo patulos succinctus hiatus. There was a valley, thick with spruce and sharp cypress, Gargaphie by name, and sacred to belted Diana; 53
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in its furthest recess was a woodland cave constructed by no art: nature had imitated art with her genius; for nature had shaped a natural arch from the living pumice and light tufa; on the right was the sound of a spring, clear with gentle water, its open pool surrounded by a grassy bank. 3.155–62 Ovid frequently manages landscape so that it appears both natural and yet so neatly assembled for a particular scene that it seems synthetic. Stephen Hinds writes of Ovid’s ‘manipulation of rhetorical space’ (2002: 129–30), as gods and internal narrators, like Orpheus, construct the landscape of the locus amoenus in a variety of ingenious ways, including the scene ‘stylized’ for Diana’s bath (2002: 136–7).19 Certainly, this passage plays on contemporary attempts to imitate wild nature in a contrived setting. Grottoes were popular as naturalistic elements in Roman gardens (Farrar, 1998: 61–2), and artificial or modified caves and pools could be employed to replicate grottoes, even to the extent of fixing pumice to interior walls to reproduce the effect of the natural landscape (Pliny HN 36.154). If nature replicates art, it is as though art has already been here;20 again the world after the flood elides categories, here temporal categories. And the metallic ages are also conflated here once again, for the peace of the scene reflects the Golden Age, but the Golden Race neither had nor required the technology to change the landscape. In fact Actaeon’s activity as a hunter and Diana’s aggressive reaction to the violation of her space unravel any possible associations with the Golden Age, proving that the landscape deceives once again. The anachronism is less blatant than Ovid’s use of contemporary political terminology in scenes involving the gods (e.g. Met. 1.175, 1.200–5), but it is also a more direct contradiction to the chronology set up by the text, as it inserts sophisticated gardening practices into the primeval landscape, implying that nature had somehow acquired a model from the future on which to base the cave and its watery grove.21 The Ovidian landscape is full of paradox. Earth is at once the beneficent giver of bounty to the Golden Race, who brings the new generation of animals to life after the flood (1.416–37), and the sinister creator of bloodmonsters; she is originally uncontaminated, but abused by both the gods’ violence and humans’ intrusion. Similarly, the idyllic (often shaded, watered, peaceful) landscape is the chaste domain of Diana, yet filled with danger for her followers, as the scene of rape, seduction, death and the dissolution of the body. Sex is very much the problem – once it enters the sanitized environment, violence and injustice arrive. Injustice, in particular, is anathema to any potential Golden Age and the presence of laws and/or injustice are associated with the Silver Age (where there is one), or more commonly with the Iron Age. But the Golden Age itself has an unresolved 54
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relationship with legal codes, and there is no definitive exclusion of law from this age. Saturn can act as a culture-bringer inaugurating a legal code (e.g. Aen. 8.321–5), or Justice/Astraea can be a revered goddess (Arat. Phain. 96–113, [Sen.] Oct. 408–10, Juv. 6.19–20); alternatively the Golden Race is often so entirely artless as to require no legal system at all (Hes. WD 109–20, cf. 134–5, Ovid Met. 1.89–93). Ovid implies that the Golden Race had no crime, but that the Silver Race introduces justice22 – a concept previously unrequired, since the existence of justice is contingent upon its opposite, and is meaningless without criminality – utopia and dystopia are similarly related.23 Seneca points this out, reminding us that so-called virtuous primitives are only so because they exist in a time before immorality (Epist. 90.46). Inevitably, though, Astraea’s return is a prerequisite for the Roman return of the Golden Age (Virg. Ecl. 4.6, Statius Silvae 1.4.2–3; also Cal. Sic. Ecl. 1.43–4 as Themis) which strongly suggests that, in these texts, the dystopian present can at best be replaced by a utopian future in which criminality is restrained by justice, rather than absent. The pristine, crimefree past can never return, and, in some cases, may never have existed. By the time of the Ovidian Iron Race, injustice rules, as crimes remain unpunished, and deceit replaces shame and truth (WD 190–201, Met.1.128– 31). It is in this age that omne nefas (‘every crime’, literally ‘unspeakable thing’ Met. 1.129) makes its terrible appearance in the Metamorphoses. The primary meaning of nefas is a crime against the gods (OLD s.v. 1a ‘An offence against divine law, an impious act, sacrilege’), and indeed the impious actions of Lycaon are used by Jupiter to persuade the council of gods that the flood-destruction of the Iron Race is necessary (1.187–245). In a rhetorical tour de force, he begins and ends, ring composition style, with the idea of deserved punishment: ille quidem poenas (curam hanc dimittite!) solvit, ‘indeed he [Lycaon] has paid the punishment (don’t worry about that!)’ (Met. 1.209) followed by dent ocius omnes,/ quas meruere pati, (sic stat sententia) poenas, ‘let them all the sooner receive the punishment they deserve to suffer (that is my decision)’ (Met. 1.242–3). Jupiter’s first speech is often a significant and programmatic episode in both earlier and later epic, laying down the law and indicating that the future will be markedly different from the past (Naevius fr. 14 = Macr. 6.2.31, Virgil Aeneid 1.257–96, Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 1.531–60, Silius Italicus Punica 3.571–629, Statius Thebaid 1.214–47).24 These speeches often dramatize the prophecy of a known future, culminating in the glorious present day of the contemporary reader – particularly in the Aeneid, Argonautica and Punica, which deal with the evolution of Rome’s imperial mastery. Otherwise, they mark a decisive break with the deficiencies of the past, and an immediate remedy by cataclysmic means – as in the Metamorphoses, Thebaid and, arguably, the Iliad (1.518–27) too, as here Zeus promises the near-destruction of the Greek forces to compensate for the wrong done to Akhilleus. What connects Jupiter’s words in all of the 55
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Roman epics is the idea of major cultural and political change, the transformation of the world into an entirely different model. For Virgil, Valerius and Silius, the new world is Rome, but for Ovid, whose epic actually does culminate in the Roman present (Met. 15.746–871), Jupiter’s first speech promises devastation for the world, and there is no mention that Rome will be the outcome when it is reborn. In fact, this epic begins and ends with the poet’s own claims for the future, and in both cases it concerns his poem: that it will go ad mea . . . tempora ‘to my own times’ (1.4), and that he will live on through his poetry (15.875–9). And, just as it reaches the present (iamque ‘and now’ 15.871), the poem exceeds its own bounds, and its own manifesto, by devoting its final lines very much to the future rather than to Ovid’s own times: the finale looks first to the deification of Augustus (15.868–70) then, at greater length, to the apotheosis of the poet. parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis/ astra ferar (‘however, the better part of me, enduring, I shall be borne, above the high stars’ 15.875–6): he is going to be even more exalted than the constellations – some of which represent the immortalisation of characters from the Metamorphoses (e.g. Callisto and Arcas, 2.506–7; Caesar, 15.843–50). iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas. And now I have completed a work, which neither the anger of Jupiter, nor fire, nor iron, nor devouring old-age will be able to destroy. Met. 15.871–2 All of this is to happen through the repetition of his words, which are indestructible – unlike the earth and the Iron Race, they are not vulnerable to Iovis ira (‘the anger of Jupiter’ 15.871) – exactly the same phrase is used to explain the god’s motivation during the apocalyptic flood near the beginning of the poem (1.274). Jupiter’s vengeful violence frames the poem, but it has no power over the work’s existence. Nor can Ovid’s opus fall victim to other killers: fire, iron weaponry and old age are useless in the face of the literary work (15.871–2). Again there is a relationship – albeit of contrasts – between the poem as the sum total of its subject matter, and the poem as concrete object: for the characters of the poem are all too fragile, and are vulnerable to all four of these death-bringers, which have a strong connection with the poem’s decline narrative themselves. Iovis ira Jupiter’s anger is displayed early, in the transformation of Lycaon and the destruction of both the Giants and Iron Race, as discussed above. However, 56
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when he appears thereafter, it is usually as a player in the poem’s divine comedy: he is the faithless husband, attempting to hide his affairs from Juno by means of ridiculous transformations. In fact, in the new age, Jupiter is hardly a controlling influence, let alone the stern figure which the phrase Iovis ira implies – the exceptions are his decisive pronouncement on Proserpina’s fate (5.523–32), his embargo on rejuvenating mortals at will (9.427–41, see below), and his prophecy of Rome’s great future (finally at 15.807–42). Iovis ira is often taken as a less than subtle reference to Augustus, who is identified with Jupiter several times in the Metamorphoses (1.168–74, 1.199–206, 15.858).25 Ovid makes the correspondence between Jupiter and Augustus even more explicit elsewhere, and specifically with reference to the god’s weapon of choice and the princeps’ anger, which resulted in the poet’s exile: venit in hoc illa fulmen ab arce caput ‘the thunderbolt came down on this head from that citadel [the Palatine]’ (Tristia 1.1.72, see also 1.1.30, 68, 81–2). Jupiter calls himself ‘I who hold the thunderbolt’ (mihi, qui fulmen . . . habeo, Met. 1.197; see also 1.596, 2.60– 1), but he uses the weapon sparingly in the Metamorphoses, and exclusively in the early books:26 he wields his thunderbolt to end the rebellion of the Giants (1.151–62), and he thinks about using it against the Iron Race (1.253–60). Next, it is used to end the fiery destruction caused by Phaethon, annhilating the boy too (2.311–28). Fire and flood are the traditional instruments of apocalypse, and they shape and punctuate the first two books of the Metamorphoses (Otis, 1970: 91–2), as Jupiter consolidates his position on Olympus.27 Yet Jupiter’s motivation for destruction is not always anger, as it is in Lycaon’s case: Phaethon’s death is more complicated, as both the execution of a dissident (he usurps the position of his father in the Sun’s chariot) and the salvation of those who remain to be scorched – again it is easy to read the killing in either (or both) a positive and negative light. However we read Phaethon’s death, it is a rare authoritative action by Jupiter within the body of the work, yet here, the god’s anger does not feature: he shows no emotion, only political acumen, as he ensures he has the support of the other gods for the missile strike (2.304–6); and he is drawn into action only by the pleas of Tellus (Earth), who specifically asks the god why he has not used his ultimate weapon (2.279–80). Jupiter also kills his lover Semele with a thunderbolt (3.298–309), albeit reluctantly, having promised to prove his divinity – something Lycaon had tried to do by underhand means. Wrath, on the other hand, is much more prominently displayed by the other gods, and the vengeance which they take on offenders is a constant theme of the poem (Feeney, 1991: 200–1). Often they merely transform those who antagonize them, but the emphasis on the silencing of many too-vocal critics means that the metamorphosis constitutes the killing off of a dissident voice. There are those who tell more than they should: Echo has her voice removed by Juno (3.359–69), who surely makes a mistake when she blinds 57
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Tiresias rather than silencing him (3.333–5); others include the Crow (2.552– 88), the Raven (2.631–2) and Ocyroe (transformed into a horse, 2.638–75); Actaeon sees more than he should (3.174–82), and Diana claims that his punishment will prevent him from telling what he has seen (3.192–3). Then there are those who challenge the gods to competitions: Arachne (changed into a voiceless spider by Minerva, 5.129–45), the Pierides (turned into magpies for challenging the Muses, 5.298–678), and Niobe (changed to stone, grieving for her children, killed by Apollo and Diana, 6.301–12); while others challenge the gods with their lack of belief in divinity: the daughters of Minyas (who become bats, 4.389–415), or the Cypriot deviants – murderers and disbelievers – punished by Venus (10.220–42). The non-believers in particular act as a reminder of Lycaon’s impiety, and reflect back to the Iron Race, a further sign that the narrator’s own race reproduces the actions of the previous, sinful race.28 Although metamorphosis often silences, death is just as effective, and there are also cases where gods simply kill those who offend them, such as Apollo’s fatal flaying of his rival musician Marsyas (6.382–400); or else a god transforms a human in such a way that death becomes inescapable (Actaeon, 3.138–255, and Pentheus, who is not physically transformed, but appears to be a boar to his mother and aunts who dismember him, 3.710– 731). The gods’ angry retribution, which dominates the poem in so many different forms, and silences so many of its characters, is easily read as a thinly veiled series of references to literary censorship. As Ovid completed the Metmorphoses, this form of suppression was becoming legally viable by the extension of the lex maiestas to include words as well as actions (Tac. Ann. 1.72)29 – just as the poem’s finale implies that Jupiter’s anger might censure the text by destroying it. Jupiter’s weapon is usually the thunderbolt which burns its victims (as above, and see ignis below), and, if the Elder Seneca is right, the works of the orator Labienus were burned some time before 8 CE under the lex maiestas (Contr. 10 praef. 5).30 So the actual destruction of the work by fire may have been conceivable, but is strongly rejected in the final lines – unlike the numerous subjects of the work, this poem is not vulnerable to the gods’ power to transform, and as such it will remain deathless and static, unchanging and unchangeable, a ‘utopian’ text. edax vetustas Old age is the least represented of all – most of the Metamorphoses’ characters transform or die long before old age comes upon them. In fact, it is difficult to think of anyone who does die in old age; some characters’ stories end before death arrives: presumably Pygmalion and Galatea – one of the few ‘happy’ couples (if a rather disturbing and bizarre one) of the Metamorphoses – live on until old age (10.295–7); Philemon and Baucis are already old when they encounter Jupiter and Mercury (8.631–2), and their transformation into trees saves them from death (8.712–24). But the destructive effect of age is 58
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one of the main characteristics separating gods from mortals, and it is this distinction which is central to a debate conducted between the Olympians on the acceptability of restoring youth (9.394–441). The conflicting views of the gods here are perhaps based on the Iliad’s suggestions that there would be resentment on Olympus if Zeus saves his son Sarpedon from his fated death (Il. 16.431–8). Prompted by Hebe’s rejuvenation of Iolaus, the gods engage in a heated discussion of youth, old age and the power to reverse the ageing process (Met. 9.394–441), which according to Jupiter, is available only to those chosen few mortals fated to have youth returned to them (cf. Hera’s warning to Zeus about fate, Il. 16.439–49). He reminds the gods that his own sons grow old, and the narrator adds that one of those sons, Minos, once young and formidable, is now invalidus (‘weak’, 9.443) and unable to counter the threats of youthful Miletus (9.441–6). Although Roman authors liked to represent their culture as one which venerated old age and the traditions of the past, this may not have always been the reality (Parkin, 2003, especially 66–8, 106–10, Cokayne, 2003: 91–111). In the Metamorphoses, old age is presented as an impotent and undesirable state, which leaves one debilitated and vulnerable to attack. As such it represents a dilution of virility, and its rejection by the poet implies that his text will remain both powerful and vital. The inclusion, and denial, of senescence here at the end of the Ovidian epic is a reminder that the most famous characters of epic narrative often did die young, and were not subject to the ravages of age. Nevertheless, young epic heroes, who had amassed enough glory before their early deaths, would be eternally remembered, and would live on in Elysium, where the afterlife is akin to that of the Golden Race (Od. 4.563–8). Most famously Akhilleus was forced to make the choice between immortal fame and a long, anonymous life (Il. 9. 410–416). While in Greek epic the shade of Akhilleus had directly contradicted this equation, rejecting undying fame as recompense for an early death (Od. 11.488–91), Ovid does not allow him to voice this denial of the code of kleos (‘glory’, ‘fame’). Instead, the narrator gives an ambivalent evaluation of Achilles’ fate: iam cinis est, et de tam magno restat Achille nescio quid parvum, quod non bene conpleat urnam, at vivit totum quae gloria conpleat orbem. haec illi mensura viro respondet, et hac est par sibi Pelides nec inania Tartara sensit. Now he is dust, and from such a huge man as Achilles remains some tiny part or other, not enough to fill a jar properly, but his reputation, which fills the whole world, lives on. This amount answers that man, and by this is the son of Peleus equal to himself, nor does he feel the emptiness of Tartarus. Met. 12.615–9 59
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This startling statement seems to reduce Achilles’ strength to almost nothing, while delivering an afterlife which hardly seems to compensate for the annhilation of the body. The jangling echo of conpleat urnam (‘fills a jar’) in conpleat orbem (‘fills the world’) – both phrases filling the final two feet of the line – trivializes Achilles’ supposed victory over death, and is a reminder of the Odyssean Akhilleus’ outright (and, in its context, even more shocking) dismissal of eternal glory. Yet this claim for incorporeal immortality through memory is precisely what Ovid claims for himself in his poem’s final lines: cum volet, illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis huius ius habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi: parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis astra ferar When it wishes, that day may end the span of an uncertain life, that day which has no authority, except over this body: but the better part of me, enduring, I shall be borne, above the high stars 15.873–6 In addition, Ovid’s vivam (‘I shall live’, 15.879) – the last word of the poem – echoes vivit (‘it lives’, 12.617), used of Achilles’ glory: the warrior and the poet’s survival seem to run parallel to one another.31 But Ovid plays down the bodily death that he will suffer: the power that death has over him is expressed negatively, as something insignificant – it has no jurisdiction over anything ‘except this body’. Moreover, what survives of the poet is phrased as parte . . . meliore (‘the better part’), as opposed to Achilles’ nescio quid parvum (‘some tiny part or other’), stressing the bodily disintegration. And, whereas the poet, by identifying himself directly with his text, can claim that he is actually still alive – not so much that he lives through his text, but that the text itself embodies him – it is only through gloria (‘glory’, ‘reputation’, ‘a famous name’) that Achilles can claim life, and this is conferred on him by the poet himself. Achilles’ fame is contingent upon others’ words; Ovid depends only on his own mastery of words and popularity, which, he is happy to claim, is considerable: ore legar populi (‘I shall be read by the voice of the people’, 15.878). The epic hero’s present fame (vivit, he lives), as opposed to the poet’s confidence in his future renown (vivam, I shall live) further separates the glory allotted to each. The references to old age and fame also recall the myth of the races. The Hesiodic Iron Race, will, according to Works and Days (181), eventually be born with grey hair. Hesiod implies that they will be annihilated to the extent that they will not be remembered, and indeed, they are barely present in the Metamorphoses before they die, leaving little to remember. By rejecting 60
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old age, Ovid removes his work from the decay of the Iron Race, and again places it in the realm of the paradisal, of the Golden Race which does not age (WD 113–5) and remains close to the gods, before the separation of the Iron Age. The work will not decline, and will in fact outlive all of its subject matter – the epic heroes, even the gods themselves. ignis Fire is associated with disruption and apocalypse, and also with divine retribution in the case of the Giants, as it originates from Jupiter’s anger. There are internal parallels with death by fire within the poem. Fire appears in various manifestations: Phaethon causes death and devastation by setting fire to the earth, until he himself is burned up by Jupiter’s thunderbolt (2.161–324); likewise Semele is burned because of Jupiter’s inexorable power (3.289–309); and fire features prominently in the summary of Troy’s destruction (13.408–21). After the creation, there is no mention of fire until the Iron Age (1.229, Lycaon cooks human meat), so it shares in the degradation of the despised race. Fire is also the metaphorical force responsible for so many of the irrational and devastating passions which afflict gods and humans in the poem – the image is a common one, used several times in the Metamorphoses (1.495–6, 2.574, 3.371, see Heinze, 1960: 102, Bömer, 1969: 380 and 544). Although the gods are not immune to this force, they are left unmarked in ways that humans are not: Apollo’s hopeless, and ultimately aggressive, love for Daphne sets him alight: sic deus in flammas abiit, sic pectore toto uritur et sterilem sperando nutrit amorem. So the god burst into flames, so he burns through all his breast, and nourishes an empty love by hoping. 1.495–6 Apollo’s love is imposed on him, in an attack by Cupid (1.463–74), and the arrow permeates his body to his very core (laesit Apollineas traiecta per ossa medullas, ‘it wounds Apollo’s marrow through his pierced bones’, 1.473). But, while the god is affected internally, Daphne is untouched within, instead taking on a new outer layer – a protection against divine violence. The meeting of powerful and powerless throws paradox upon paradox, so that the object of punishment, Apollo, subverts Cupid’s intentions, by turning his unrequited love to his advantage: Apollo’s internal ‘fire’ leaves him with a new emblem (the laurel, 1.557–65), and he wanders off to new lovers (Coronis, 2.542–634; an unnamed lover, probably Hymenaeus, 2.683; Hyacinthus 10.162–219): even the introduction to the tale – primus amor 61
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Phoebi Daphne Peneia (‘Phoebus’ first love was Peneian Daphne’ 1.452) – implies that she is to be the first of many. But Daphne, who never even felt the flames, suffers eternal imprisonment within the bark of the laurel tree. On the other hand, humans who suffer the flames of passion rarely escape whole. The destructive force of love’s fire is clear in tales such as that of Byblis, whose illicit passion is often described as ignis or flamma (9.457, 509, 516, 520, 541). It is only when she reaches the land of the monstrous Chimera, whose body is composed of fire (9.647), that her own body turns to water: presumably her tears and the dissolution of her form into a spring quench her internal flames. Love – usually illicit love – is a violent and destructive force in the Metamorphoses, and the human body is rarely able to withstand its power to burn, overwhelm and annihilate. When demi-gods and humans are either the objects of passion, or are inflamed with love, destruction and dissolution are near-certainties. ferrum The conclusion of the Metamorphoses connects fire and iron as Ovid pointedly addresses the gods and extols divine power, begging the gods to spare Augustus from early immortality: di, precor, Aeneae comites, quibus ensis et ignis/ cesserunt, ‘gods, I pray, companions of Aeneas, to whom the sword and fire/ give way’ (15.861–2). Just as they cannot threaten the Ovidian text, these forces have no control over the immortal, and this immunity makes both unchangeable – another link with the utopian. But throughout the text fire and iron are frequently associated with violence and destruction. Fire devastates captured cities, in particular Troy: Ilion ardebat, neque adhuc consederat ignis (‘Troy was burning, and the flames had not yet settled’, 13.408); here fire brings change not only by overturning the fortune of the surviving Trojans and driving them into exile, but also by acting as a linking device between the tale of Ulixes gaining Achilles’ armour and setting off (13.1–403; taking 404–7 as interpolation) and the narratives describing the fates of the defeated (13.409–575). Fire and iron are frequently brought together in the narrative of the Trojan Wars: Aiax describes them as allies of Hector against the Greek ships (Met. 13.91) and the Sibyl sees them as forces which have opposed Aeneas, clearly referring back to the fall of Troy (Met. 14.109). ferrum, which translates as both ‘iron’ and, commonly, ‘sword’, is a clear reminder of the Iron Age, which was rife with warfare and violent death, as well as the brutality which followed the destruction of the Iron Race, such as the cutting out of Philomela’s tongue (6.549–62), the civil war of the Dragon teeth men planted by Cadmus (3.107–26), the extreme violence of the battles between Perseus and Phineas (5.2–209) or the Lapiths and Centaurs (12.219–535). In fact, overall, the instances of ferrum and its derivatives ferreus and ferratus occur with more frequency as the poem progresses (three times in Book One, in relation to the Iron Race, but eleven 62
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times in Book Twelve), as the violence of the Trojan and Italian Wars dominate Books Twelve to Fourteen.
Iron and Rome Although the Metamorphoses‘ theme is perpetual change, it is ironic that in some senses the poem comes full circle, and very little changes at all: the race which follows the Iron Race, it transpires, is dominated by iron. In the latter sections of the final book, we hear of the inpius (‘impious’) killing of animals ferro (‘with iron’) in the world according to Pythagoras (15.464),32 and then, from Venus, of the sceleratos . . . enses (‘criminal swords’) set to kill Caesar (15.776). Though placed close to one another in the poem, the two figures encompass the earliest and most recent history of Rome, as Pythagoras was the teacher of Rome’s second king, Numa, according to tradition (Cic. de Rep. 2.28, Tusc. 4.3, Pliny HN 13.87, Plutarch Numa 1.2–3), while Julius Caesar’s main role here is to pave the way for the greater rule of Augustus (15.850–60).33 Juxtaposing Numa and Caesar seems to unsettle the apparent chronological arrangement of the text (1.3–4), but in fact, the city has been unspectacularly founded only at the end of Book Fourteen (774–5) and no narratives of Rome appear elsewhere in the poem. Hardie points to the displacement of the foundation myth on to the story of Croton’s beginnings at 15.9–59 (1997: 195–6). The effect is to reduce Rome’s place in the universe to a footnote, undermining its significance in the world narrative. Ovid’s demotion of Rome contrasts starkly with its centrality in a poem like Virgil’s Aeneid, which clearly lays out the formation of the Roman race as its teleology (Aen. 1.5–7, 1.33). Here, at the end of the poem, the comparison between Caesar and Augustus brings together the divine and human, the mythology of Greece and the history of Rome, as it is made through analogy with mythological father and son pairings (Atreus/Agamemnon, Aegeus/Theseus, Peleus/ Achilles), and also allows Ovid to take us right back to the beginnings of the universe, adding Saturn and Jupiter to the equation: sic et Saturnus minor est Iove: Iuppiter arces temperat aetherias et mundi regna triformis, terra sub Augusto est; pater est et rector uterque. Thus also Saturn is lesser than Jove: Jupiter regulates the heavenly citadel and the kingdom of the three-formed world, the earth is under Augustus; he is both father and ruler. 15.858–60 sub Augusto (‘under Augustus’) – the earliest extant usage of this formulation – is reminiscent of sub Iove (‘under Jupiter’). As Jupiter is god of the sky, sub 63
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Iove is frequently used by Ovid (and others) to mean ‘out in the open’, ‘under the sky’ (AA 1.726, 2.623, Met. 4.260, Fast. 2.299, 3.527, 4.505), but also to indicate Jupiter’s power (Sen. Contr. 10.5.2, Priapea 20.1; Ov. Fast. 2.138 combines the meanings of ‘sky’ and ‘power’ as Caesar possesses ‘whatever is under high Jupiter’). More specifically sub Iove can refer to the transfer of the universe from Saturn to his son (Met. 1.114, Juv. Sat. 6.15), providing a temporal element to the expression of power; the parallel with sub Augusto is made more emphatic by position: sub Iove occurs early in the poem, indicating the end of Saturn’s reign, while the world sub Augusto appears as the penultimate chapter in the chronological narrative. Thus Jupiter and Augustus emerge as apparent bookends to the poem, although they themselves are circumscribed by the creation (with its demiurge, Met. 1.32) and Saturn’s Golden Age at one pole, and by Ovid and his text at the other – both more celebratory in tone than the world rulers they enclose. In the light of this clear reference to the change from the Golden to Silver Age, Saturn as inferior to Jupiter is questionable, although the emphasis on Caesar’s place in the heavens (15.845–51) reminds the reader that Saturn had been sent down to ‘shady Tartarus’ (1.113), a contrast which might suggest that Augustus has at least treated his father with more consideration than Jupiter. However, Caesar’s deification has already been interpreted by the narrator as a cynical political act to promote Augustus: ne foret hic igitur mortali semine cretus,/ ille deus faciendus erat (‘so that one would not have been born of mortal seed,/ the other must be made a god’ 15.760–1). And as the decline from Golden to Silver Age had been directly linked to the overthrow of Saturn by Jupiter in Book One (1.113–15), this parallel detracts from the overt praise of Augustus (see Feeney, 1991: 220), while also making the uncomfortable comparison with a god who had usurped his father’s place by force. Through his association with Saturn, Caesar is linked to the Golden Race; in addition his patron god, Venus, is often described as ‘golden’ in Roman epic (aurea Venus: Aen. 10.16; Met. 10.277; Statius Silvae 3.4.22).34 Here, foreseeing and fearing Caesar’s assassination, she is aurea . . . Aeneae genetrix (‘the golden mother of Aeneas’ Met. 15.761–2 – the only extant occurrence of this formulation), reinforcing the associations with the Golden Age and fertility. Within Ovid’s text, the primary implication of the Saturn–Jupiter transition is the introduction of the Silver Age, but, in fact, the more common Roman narrative involved a simple, two-stage decline, from the Golden Age to the lacklustre decadence of the contemporary age (Lovejoy and Boas, 1997: 53–5, with references). Jupiter’s prophecy for the future under Octavian is one of war upon war, suggesting that the age is closer to that of the Bronze or Iron Race: tu facies natusque suus, qui nominis heres inpositum feret unus onus caesique parentis nos in bella suos fortissimus ultor habebit. 64
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illius auspiciis obsessae moenia pacem victa petent Mutinae, Pharsalia sentiet illum, Emathiique iterum madefient caede Philippi, et magnum Siculis nomen superabitur undis, Romanique ducis coniunx Aegyptia taedae non bene fisa cadet, frustraque erit illa minata, servitura suo Capitolia nostra Canopo. quid tibi barbariam gentesque ab utroque iacentes oceano numerem? quodcumque habitabile tellus sustinet, huius erit: pontus quoque serviet illi! You will bring this [the deification of Caesar], about, you and his son, who is the heir to his name one man will bear the imposed burden and he, the strongest avenger of his slaughtered father, will have us as his own allies in wars. Under his leadership the conquered walls of besieged Mutina will beg for peace, Pharsalia will recognize him, and Emathian Philippi will again be drenched in gore, and name of Magnus will be overcome in Sicilian waters, and the Egyptian wife of the Roman general will die unwisely trusting in that marriage, and she will have threatened in vain that our own Capitol would be a slave to her Canopus. Why should I number to you the barbarian land and the nations lying on both sides of Ocean? Whatever land is habitable will be his: even the sea will be a slave to him! Met. 15.819–31 Although Jupiter predicts the growth of empire, and slavery of others as Virgil’s Jupiter had (Aen. 1.278–85), there is a vital difference here, as Virgil emphasizes not Roman imperium, but Octavian’s own (stressed by huius and illi, ‘his’ and ‘to him’ Met. 15.831) – the lands and sea belong to, are enslaved by him alone, and Octavian builds his personal empire. And Ovid’s catalogue of war is far more gory. Some of the language used here directly recalls the bloody turning point from Bronze to Iron Race as Astraea departs: victa petent Mutinae (‘the conquered [walls] of . . . Mutina/will beg’ 15.822–3) echoes victa iacet pietas (‘duty lies conqered’ 1.150) – both forming exactly the same metrical pattern at the beginning of their respective lines. And while at the beginning of the epic, the metaphorical defeat of pietas (‘dutifulness’ or ‘piety’) marks the worst excesses of the violent Iron Race (1.127–50), a race later destroyed by Jupiter, instead the walls of Mutina, which will in fact be conquered in warfare, represent a future of bloodshed which is not only condoned, but actually supported by Jupiter: nos in bella suos . . . habebit (‘he will have us [Jupiter and Venus] as his al65
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lies in wars’ 15.821). A central motif of the Iron Age is the spilling of blood, as the race battles one another sanguineaque manu (‘with bloody hand’ 1.143), and even Astraea is in danger of being stained as she abandons the earthly bloodbath: et virgo caede madentis . . . terras Astraea reliquit (‘and the maiden Astraea left the lands drenched with carnage’, 1.149–50). Just as the Iron Race dripped with blood, so Jupiter projects that a generation of Romans will wade through gore: Emathiique iterum madefient caede Philippi (‘and Emathian Philippi will again be drenched in carnage’ 15.824). The image of the land swimming in slaughter graphically illustrates the parallels between the two eras, and iterum (‘again’) refers as much to the rerun of Iron Race belligerance as to Rome’s two sets of civil war battles, at Pharsalus and Philippi. Yet, it is too simplistic to see this as the Iron Age reborn, because as addressed above, features of all ages appear. No age is clearly defined here, for what follows the carnage is peace: pace data terris animum ad civilia vertet (‘after peace has been given to the lands, he will turn his mind to domestic issues’ 15.833), and the clear dividing line, emphasizing the princeps’ place in bringing peace, is consistent with Augustan narratives of the civil wars (Res Gestae Divi Augusti 13, Hor. Odes 3.14.14–16, Suet. Aug. 98). Peace is a constant feature of the Golden Age, but it would also be an overstatement to claim that this brief statement marks a return to the Golden Age under Augustus, for this is certainly never stated in the Metamorphoses. In fact as Duncan Barker (1996: 437), critiquing Zanker (1988), points out, there are very few actual pronouncements in extant Augustan literature that the Golden Age has returned during the Augustan period – during the years 27 BCE to 14 CE, it is only found in Virgil (Aen. 6.791–807) and Ovid (AA 2.277–8), and the Ovidian reference is a joke, claiming that this is the Golden Age because we are obsessed with possessing gold – a state antithetical to any account of the Golden Age, which is always money- and metal-free.35 Ovid, writing the Metamorphoses two decades later than Virgil’s epic, is far more explicit in his representation of peace in the Augustan era than those found in the Aeneid: in the three passages of long-term prophecy (1.257–96, 6.756–853, 8.630–728) the Aeneid never mentions peace in conjunction with his present, and the only use of the word pax in any of these passages is in Anchises’ injunction to the Romans: pacisque imponere morem (‘to impose the way of peace’ 6.852). As a command rather than a prophecy, and a Roman value rather than an Augustan one, this statement is generalized rather than specific to one era. And even though Virgil gives us our only possibly serious outright claim that the Golden Age will return under Augustus (aurea condet/ saecula ‘he will found the Golden Ages’ Aen. 6.792–3), his version is, in its own way, as inconsistent as Ovid’s. Both the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses provide a model of the actual Golden Age elsewhere in the text, and in both cases their accounts of the world in their own time fall short of the model; in the 66
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Aeneid this original Golden Age is placed later in the narrative than the statement of the return, but it is bound closely to Anchises’ statement by verbal echoes. hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos proferet imperium; iacet extra sidera tellus, extra anni solisque vias, ubi caelifer Atlas axem umero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum. This is the man, this is he, whom you have often heard promised to you, Augustus Caesar, the child of a god, who will found the Golden Age again in Latium through the fields once ruled by Saturn, and over both the Garamantae and the Indies will he extend his power; land which lies beyond the stars, beyond the annual path of the sun where Atlas, holding the heavens, turns on his shoulder the axis studded with burning stars. Aen. 6.791–7 The first part of this prophecy is discussed in conjunction with the Ara Pacis Augustae in Chapter 1, but read alongside the rest of the poem, and the Metamorphoses, it becomes a much more complex and multivocal representation of a new Golden Age, because it can never compete with the pristine qualities of the past: primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympo arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis. is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis composuit legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris. aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere saecula: sic placida populos in pace regebat. Saturn was the first to come from heavenly Olympus, fleeing the arms of Jupiter, an exile whose kingdom had been taken away. He settled the race, untaught and scattered over the high mountains, and he gave it laws, and chose that the place be called Latium, since he had lain hidden safe on these shores. 67
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Under this king, they say, was the Golden Age: so he ruled the people in gentle peace. Aen. 8.319–2436 The Saturnian Age in Latium is a central feature of both passages, whereas Augustus’ Golden Age apparently consists solely of conquest and empire – Augustus will take only the concept of ruling over others from the god (regebat 6.824, regnata 8.793); and whereas Saturn’s power is expressed through peaceful leadership (8.824), Augustus’ is demonstrated explicitly through his imperium (6.795) and lists of his conquests (6.795–800). Indeed, Anchises’ commands encourage a very different relationship to peace than that of the Golden Age, despite his clear reference to its return (8.792–3). pacisque imponere morem (‘to impose the way of peace’ 6.852) not only suggests that it can only be maintained by force, but is also a reminder of the control needed to lock up Furor, the impulse for violence, in Jupiter’s prophecy of the Roman future and the Augustan age in particular: dirae ferro et compagibus artis claudentur Belli portae; Furor impius intus, saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus aenis post tergum nodis, fremet horridus ore cruento. the terrible gates of War will be sealed with iron and tight-fastened restraints; impious Furor inside, sitting above vicious weapons, and chained by a hundred bronze bonds behind his back, dreadful, he roars from his bloody mouth. Aen. 1.293–6 Furor is here dramatically and physically contained – in a terrifying description he is bound, but still visible, and a reflection of the Roman practice of closing the gates of Janus’ Temple when the state was at peace (RGDA 13). Just as the gates would inevitably be reopened, so Furor still exists and can be unleashed at any moment. And the word pax (‘peace’) does not occur at all, as only the negation of war is possible: aspera tum positis mitescent saecula bellis (‘then the harsh ages will soften, with wars put aside’ Aen. 1.291). positis (‘put aside’) recalls Anchises’ imponere (‘to impose’ Aen. 6.852), which contains the same core verb pono, and both suggest that peace or the suspension of war demand a deliberate effort – the natural state of warfare has to be resisted as if by force. While Barker (1996) is right to caution against reading every suggestion of rebirth or prosperity as a clear statement of an Augustan Golden Age, it is equally difficult not to read statements that peace, simplicity or natural abundance will return as aspects of the original Golden Age – particularly in 68
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works like the Aeneid or Metamorphoses which contain their own Golden Age narratives, drawing attention to the ways in which the new age fails to match the first age. It is then valid to read new age stories as oblique references to an incomplete Golden Age: the versions of the future given by Jupiter and Ascanius in the Aeneid share certain features with Evander’s description of Saturn’s Golden Age, but the differences are significant. As discussed earlier, versions of each of the races/ages can vary in details, but the Golden Age commonly features plenty, incorporating spontaneous production, eternal youth and health, and a lack of trade and legal institutions. And in Metamorphoses 15, Jupiter – himself linked with the fall of a Golden Age (1.113–5) – emphasizes that peace provides the princeps with the leisure to introduce new legislative programmes – war is followed up with law. pace data terris animum ad civilia vertet iura suum legesque feret iustissimus auctor When peace has been given to the lands, he will turn his mind to domestic justice and the most just leader will bring forward laws 15.833–4 iura (‘justice’) and iustissimus (‘most just’) connect Augustus with Iustitia or Astraea, and thus the time before the Iron Age, when she disappears from the earth. Nevertheless there is no explicit tie to the Golden Age, and in fact the presence of leges (‘laws’) here undermines any pretensions to a revival of the Metamophoses’ first age.37 Ovid’s Golden Race had no need of legalislation (unlike Virgil’s Saturnian Race: Aen. 8.321–5); neverthless, somehow, it was more just than any other race, a near-paradox spelled out by the Metamorphoses in placing lex (‘law’), fides (‘faith’, ‘truth’) and rectum (‘uprightness’) next to one another as the defining aspect of the race, but modifying lex with sine (‘without’): sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat (‘of its own accord, without any law, [the Golden Race] worshipped faith and uprightness’ 1.90). Even the reference to iura . . . civilia (‘domestic justice’ 15.833–4) introduces specific and legalistic language, as the ius civile was technically the law binding Roman citizens. As Feeney comments, ‘Augustus is indeed a great lawgiver, as befits an inhabitant of the Iron Age’ (1991: 221). In essence, the rule of Augustus cannot herald the Golden Age, because the machinery needed to recreate this utopia is itself inimical to utopia. Peace and justice – or at least the retrieval of them – are predicated upon violence, coercion and legislation. The depressing conclusion might be that, as in the case of Lycaon, there has been no real change at all – we are still stuck in the Iron Age. However, it is equally valid to read this as an interrogation of the Golden Age and its potential for realization. Ovid here 69
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touches on the utopian stalemate: how is it possible to create and maintain a perfectly just society without imposing restrictions of some sort upon individuals?38 Neither a clear pronouncement of the Golden Age’s return, nor a denouncement of the idea, the text provides a critical standpoint from which to review any pretensions to a new Golden Age. Significantly the Venus/Jupiter dialogue which provides the opportunity for an early statement of a glorious new age in the Aeneid (1.227–96) does not occupy the same space in the Metamorphoses, but occurs in Book Fifteen, when the poem is near its conclusion (15.761–842). Instead of this encounter, at the beginning of Ovid’s poem there is a speech of Jupiter which foretells not empire, but destruction for all of humankind (1.182–252, discussed above). Indeed the prophetic ending to the poem is a dramatic change of mood from the apparently random and aimless, often trivial and comedic, tales which fill over fourteen books of hexameter. Otis claims that ‘[the] Vergilian apparatus of gods . . . is lugged to the end to satisfy convention and give éclat to a rather routine eulogy’ (1970: 304), and sees it as a kind of concession to epic practice. Like the other elements of Rome’s mythical past, the encounter between the father of the gods and his daughter appears as an afterthought in the Metamorphoses, rather than an announcement of the teleology of all history, for it covers only three generations at most – those of Julius Caesar and Augustus, with a nod to Tiberius’ succession (15.834–7). But the jarring nature of Jupiter’s prophecy is significant: it is as though, at the end, the corporeality of the poem breaks through, and the epic’s form takes over from the subject matter within it. Just as the opening lines of Ovid’s first published poem were sabotaged by form, as his warring hexameter turned into an elegiac couplet, forcing him to write of love (Am. 1.1–2), so here the poet gives the impression that he suddenly remembers that he is writing epic and requires a grander and more unified theme in Augustus, although the real subject celebrated here is not Rome or any of its leaders, but the poem and its poet. The declaration of a new age balances the successive ages of the poem’s opening and acts as a mnemonic device, reminding the reader that change is inevitable for everything and everyone except the text, which remains constant. Again the Metamorphoses’ finale refers back to the myth of the races and the ages to come in the future, for Ovid claims that he will outlive ‘all ages’ (saecula omnia, 15.878). In a sense, it is implied that it does not matter whether the future is an Age of Gold, or Iron, or of Augustus or anyone else, because the text will endure, oblivious to temporal change. But as suggested above, this gives the text a utopian quality: it exists in its own static, Golden Age, unaffected by the transformations around it, and it confers eternal life on its author. Just as the Aeneid’s Jupiter had foretold imperium sine fine (‘empire without end’ Aen. 1.279) for Romans, so Ovid prophesies immortality for himself – while Roman imperialism plays a secondary role, as assistant to his unending fame: 70
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quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, ore legar populi and wherever Roman power spreads over the subdued lands, I shall be read out by the voice of the people Met. 15.877–8 Ovid pre-empts Jupiter, by assuming his role in foretelling the future, and co-opts Rome, making it a means of transmitting his own words. In so doing, he subverts the teleology of Jupiter’s speech in Book One, for, in the end, the race created by Deucalion and Pyrrha does not exist to be better than the Iron Race, nor to expand the glorious Roman empire to infinity, but to read and circulate the poem itself.
The Thebaid: rereading the flood and Jupiter’s failure This reading of the Metamorphoses’ new race as a rerun of the metallic races, telescoped into one, implies that change may occur at a micro-level, but the end result will be a version of what went before (much as many of the victims of metamorphosis are transformed externally but retain many of their human characteristics). Statius reads the Ovidian races in this way, and his Thebaid locates itself firmly in this post-apocalyptic world where crime and violence continue remorselessly. It features a Jupiter who revaluates the capacity of humans to act impiously, and sees it as infinite; and he builds on the Metamorphoses’ narratives of decline, punishment and a failed new age to show the futility of the cycle. As in the Metamorphoses, Jupiter is introduced as a god disgruntled by human criminality – in Ovid’s version this was caused by Lycaon’s impiety. Similarly, the Thebaid’s Jupiter lists a catalogue of crimes executed by the Thebans (Theb. 1.227–47), but he begins by suggesting the never-ending potential of humankind for actions which transgress acceptable boundaries. This Jupiter is a world-weary version of Ovid’s god, and recognizes that punishment may not eliminate deviance, at least not permanently, for he expresses frustration that criminality has continued despite the god’s efforts at correction, while his own weapons are depleted. terrarum delicta nec exaturabile Diris ingenium mortale queror. quonam usque nocentum exigar in poenas? taedet saevire corusco fulmine, iam pridem Cyclopum operosa fatiscunt bracchia et Aeoliis desunt incudibus ignes. atque adeo tuleram falso rectore solutos Solis equos, caelumque rotis errantibus uri, et Phaethontea mundum squalere favilla. 71
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nil actum, neque tu valida quod cuspide late ire per inlicitum pelago, germane, dedisti. I am unhappy with the crimes of the earth and mortal cunning, which never tires of the Dirae. How long should I be forced to punish the guilty? I am weary of venting my rage with the flashing thunderbolt – already the hard-working arms of the Cyclopes are flagging, and the fires of the Aeolian forges are failing. And I had actually put up with the horses of the Sun being let loose with the wrong driver, and the sky being burned by the off-course chariot, and Phaethon’s ashes polluting the universe. Nothing was achieved, not even when you, brother, with your strong trident, allowed the sea to go far through forbidden unlawful places. Thebaid 1.214–23 This Jupiter represents himself as powerless to reform humankind, although amongst the gods he is even more of an autocrat than in the Metamorphoses (Schubert, 1984: 133, Feeney, 1991: 353–4). But here he seems an enfeebled figure, and instead of directing the events of the epic, he tends to withdraw at key moments (e.g. Theb. 11.119–35, Feeney, 1991: 355–7). The ineffectual god seems to have read Ovid and learned the lesson of the Metamorphoses, seeing that there fire and flood change nothing, as perversion and brutality persist unabated after his interventions. Instead, the Thebaid’s Jupiter does not risk undergoing the failures already experienced by his Metamorphoses equivalent, and he excludes himself. Statius emphasizes the ruthless and implacable nature of Jupiter in the vocabulary used by the god, such as saevire (‘to rage’) and poena (‘punishment’); he implies that Jupiter makes frequent use of the Dirae, terrifying agents of vengence, often identified with the Furies. Again he is a natural development of Ovid’s god, who hands out many (often arbitrary) punishments. In the Metamorphoses, the repetition of poena (Met. 1.209, 1.243, 1.260) stresses that the flood is payment for injuries done to Jupiter – poena is primarily a penalty which gives satisfaction for an injury (OLD sv 1a and 2). Moreover, Jupiter claims that this punishment is deserved by Lycaon and by humankind as a whole, and implies that this punishment will bring to an end the behaviour of the Iron Race. Perhaps, though, we should be warned by the fact that Lycaon, transformed into a wolf as the culmination of his punishment, does not in fact change at all: canities eadem est, eadem violentia vultus, idem oculi lucent, eadem feritatis imago est.
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the grey hair is the same, the same violence in the face, the same eyes shine out, there is the same picture of savagery. Met. 1.238–9 His is the first of many examples of metamorphosis which retains the characteristics of the original (e.g. Callisto 2.485–8, Actaeon 3.223, Narcissus 3.504–5, Arachne 6.145, Tereus 6.674). In addition, the degree to which most of the metamorphosed deserve their fate is debatable – literally in the case of Actaeon, as the gods disagree over Diana’s harsh justice (3.253–5). Lycaon sets the standard for human guilt early on, but few are as culpable or demonized by the narrative. Tereus (6.424–674) and Erysichthon (8.725– 878) are among the few exceptions. Just as Lycaon changes only superficially, so justice and criminality in the ‘new world’ of the post-flood era are not substantially different from the age which preceded it. The collective sin of the Iron Race is its facinus (1.242) or ‘crime’, while Lycaon’s crime – the pretext for Jupiter’s flood – is impiety (see especially 1.221), but these transgressions continue unabated after the Iron Age, along with nefas, crimina and scelera. Each occurrence of criminality picks up on the original Iron Race offence against the gods.39 nefas frames the poem, occurring at the beginning (1.129, the Iron Race) and the end (15.785, the murder of Caesar) – the first involves impiety against a god, and the last involves violence against a future god, another indication that little changes despite the early apocalypses and multiple punishments of the poem. But after the flood, nefas multiplies, used to describe crimes involving incest (used of Byblis’ desire for her brother, 9.551, 9.633; Myrrha’s desire for her father, 10.307, 10.322, 10.352, 10.404), assassination (Medea’s attempt to kill Theseus, 7.427, Orpheus murdered by Thracian women, 11.70), rape (Tereus rapes Philomela, 6.524, 6.585), matricide (Callisto almost killed by her son, 2.505), infanticide (Althaea kills Meleager, 8.483), treachery (Medea describes her intention to betray her father, 7.71) and revenge (Procne prepares to punish Tereus, 6.613). The world of the Metamorphoses turns all of these concepts on their head. Criminality is embraced by the gods, particularly with regard to their ubiquitous rapes of nymphs and mortal women: Jupiter, disguised as Diana, betrays his true identity nec sine crimine (‘not without a guilty act’ 2.433), when he rapes Callisto (see also 1.766, the Sun’s rape of Clymene). Injustice rules, but this is not usually brought about by impiety; instead it is gods themselves who are responsible for the random violence exerted on humans. In the Metamorphoses few of the humans or demi-gods are represented as deserving of their extreme punishments – and in fact many are specifically named as innocent: for example Io (1.631), Callisto (2.434–7) and Actaeon (3.141–2, 175–6). Dryope complains, ‘I am suffering the punishment without [having committed] the crime’ (patior sine crimine poenam, 9.372). Her tale contains a double-narrative of the innocent transformed, for she 73
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turns into a tree after picking a lotus, not knowing it was once a girl, who was transformed escaping rape by Priapus. In a strange twist of the equation, Daphne equates marriage with crimen: ‘she hates marriage torches as though they were a crime’ (illa velut crimen taedas exosa iugales 1.483), yet this is exactly what Apollo demands of her: Phoebus amat visaeque cupit conubia Daphnes (‘Phoebus loves and, seeing her, wishes marriage with Daphne’ 1.490). The original cause of Apollo’s passion and Daphne’s indifference is Cupid’s anger (saeva Cupidinis ira ‘the savage anger of Cupid’, 1.453) and his desire to take vengeance upon Apollo for belittling his power (1.453– 74). Their ego-driven brawl is a parodic reiteration of the Jupiter/Lycaon episode, where a god is insulted and driven to disproportionate revenge. Cupid’s part in this analogy though is difficult to catagorize: ira (‘anger’) had previously belonged to Jupiter (1.166, 1.274), but saevus and its derivatives had been used only of notoriously wicked factions: the Bronze Race (1.126), the Race born from the Giants’ blood (1.161), and the assassins of Caesar (1.200). If Cupid were playing the part of Jupiter, Apollo should suffer destruction. But in this case, as Apollo (or Cupid) can never be hurt in any lasting way, it is Daphne who pays the penalty. Cupid’s culpability is lost in the narrative which leaves him behind, and deals at length with Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne and his possession of her after her transformation into his tree (1.490–567). In fact, if there is any logic of blame here, it is Daphne’s beauty which is deemed responsible for attracting the attention of the god, and ultimately the threat of rape: ‘da mihi perpetua, genitor carissime,’ dixit ‘virginitate frui! dedit hoc pater ante Dianae.’ ille quidem obsequitur, sed te decor iste quod optas esse vetat, votoque tuo tua forma repugnat. ‘Let me enjoy everlasting virginity, dearest father!’ she said, ‘Diana’s father gave her this previously.’ Indeed he acquiesced, but your beauty did not allow what you chose, and your appearance fought against your prayer. 1.486–9 Because it is too pleasing (1.546) her body has to be lost (1.549–56). Not only this, but Apollo’s desire means that the decision of Daphne’s father to allow her to remain unmarried is undermined, and he is not consulted about his prospective son-in-law, a social regulation which the gods often ignore, leaving fathers ignorant of their raped daughters’ fates (e.g. Jupiter with Io: 1.583–600, and Europa: 3.1–4), while it is generally maintained by humans (Perseus asks Andromeda’s parents: 4.697–705, Pandion marries Procne to Tereus: 6.424–8). Repeatedly the gods remain immune from punishment while humans receive rough justice, and the poem juxtaposes tales which 74
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show the inequal treatment of mortal and immortal. Daphne’s invocation of Diana’s protected status (1.487) looks forward to the story of Actaeon (3.138–252), which is pared down to make him a martyr, rather than a voyeur (Otis, 1970: 397–9). Daphne and Actaeon’s stories are similar, but inverted, narratives of the destructive male gaze and dangerous female body; but while the nymph Daphne’s form leads to the loss of her own body, the goddess Diana’s leads to the mutilation of another’s. However, in the world of shifting realities, even the exact nature of gods’ and humans’ actions are difficult to define. Behaviour which seems virtuous turns out to be just the opposite, as Tereus’ offer to take Philomela to visit her sister: ipso sceleris molimine Tereus/ creditur esse pius laudemque a crimine sumit (‘Tereus, by the very efforts for his crime is thought of as pious, and takes praise from his wrongdoing’ 6.473–4). The hypocrisy of the seemingly dutiful brother-in-law, a relationship which should make him the protector of Philomela, aligns Tereus with Jupiter when he disguises himself as Diana – a god whom Callisto thinks is her protector. Deception plays a major part in the distortion of right and wrong, as in the memorable, Ovidian paradox, which describes the daughters of Pelias, tricked into dismembering their father by Medea, who convinces them that they are magically restoring him to youth: his, ut quaeque pia est, hortatibus inpia prima est et, ne sit scelerata, facit scelus [the daughters] urged that, as each was dutiful, she should first be undutiful and, so that she should not be criminal, she should carry out a crime 7.339–40 In this twisted world, the daughters’ killing and mutilation of their father, disguised as an act which will reconstitute him anew, turns out to be just what it seemed on the surface: murder. But the relationship between piety and impiety is even more entangled, as some actions constitute both of these glaring opposites. So Althaea, torn between her son and her brothers, whom her son has killed, becomes inpietate pia (‘pious through her impiety’, 8.477) when she decides to end her son’s life. Similarly Agenor, sending his son Cadmus to find the abducted Europa, is both attentive to his daughter and cruel to his son, imposing exile on him if she is not recovered: facto pius et sceleratus eodem (‘by the same deed dutiful and wicked’ 3.5, see also same phrase at 9.407–8). And in this world of warped familial relationships, Myrrha’s love for her father seems the dutiful honour which a daughter should pay, but is in fact a criminal desire for incest (note the combination pia . . . pietatis . . . sceleris, 10.366–7). 75
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Decline, cycle or development? Myths of decline invite comparison with the text’s socio-political context, for they contain utopia (their starting point) and dystopia (their end point) in their simplest forms, and set up these two poles as markers by which ‘reality’ can be measured. In the case of Ovid’s Metamorphoses there are multiple strata of analogy and differentiation: associations exist between the metallic ages and the narratives which follow the flood; but there are also points of identification and antithesis between all stages of the text (ostensibly all the history of the universe) and Augustan Rome. As shown above, there is no definitive assessment of the past or present as an Age of Gold or Iron, but a much more complex vision of society, in which each of the metallic ages can be read into subsequent history. Questions are raised by the myth of ages, but the status of contemporary Rome is deferred. Even the myth of ages may not be as straightforward or pessimistic as it seems, as the idea of decline by increments is not necessarily a feature of the myth of the races: it is found in Aratus, and is consolidated and expanded by the Metamorphoses, but is not an overt feature of Hesiod’s version. West (1978: 173) argues that the Bronze Race is inferior to the Silver Race, not as a result of their behaviour, but because Bronze Race men have a worse death, lacking fame in Hades. Even so, the problematic Race of Heroes, coming between the Bronze and Iron Races, but more worthy than either, interferes with a consistent picture of decline. Vernant (1983a: 6–8) sees the first four races as comprised of two oppositional pairs – the races of Gold and Heroes are superior in dike (‘justice’), while Silver and Bronze represent the oppositional forces of hubris (‘violence’).40 Thus the seemingly redundant Race of Heroes finds a place in Vernant’s scheme as an echo of the Race of Gold. Rather than being a simple model of decline, the pattern here is rather one of contrast, of chiastic rise and fall, fall and rise – as Vernant points out, the Iron Race too is divided into the speaker’s present, when some justice remains, and the future, when everything will be altered (1983a: 8–9) and ‘might will be right’ (divkh d¾ ejn cersiv, literally ‘justice in fists’ WD 192). Although Vernant would later revisit this claim, and concede that the Hesiodic myth of the races did speak of overall decline, he maintained that ‘this process of decline does not follow a regular or continuous course’ (1983b: 39). There is also an argument that each of the subsequent ages is inferior only to the Golden Age – each in a distinct and specific way. Hesiod’s five races consist of one perfect race and four which are, in varying ways, imperfect versions of the Golden Race – certainly Silver, Bronze and the Heroes do not seem to suffer from one another’s faults, although it is clear that the Iron Race is inferior to all (WD 174–5). Moreover, the statement that ultimate destruction awaits the Iron Race (WD 180) might imply that another cycle of ages is about to be created, as does the speaker’s desire to have been born in the past or in the future (WD 175).41 As these competing models suggest, it is by no means clear that a consistent 76
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pattern of decline is a feature of Works and Days. In contrast, in the Metamorphoses, as in the Phainomena, the gradations seem obvious, and Ovid’s text forms the most complete interpretation of the Ages as a degenerative process. This is made clear by the comparatives which introduce the Silver Race: auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere (‘worse than gold, more precious than yellow bronze’ 1.115), and a further comparative which makes the Iron Race lower still: protinus inrupit venae peioris in aevum/ omne nefas (‘suddenly every crime burst forth in an age of a worse vein’ 1.128–9). It is the ever-intensifying onslaught of violence and coercion which marks the stages: in the Silver Age humans make an assault upon the earth and upon animals, and in the Bronze Age they assault one another (1.123–7). The Silver Age is identified by a changing relationship with the natural world: semina tum primum longis Cerealia sulcis obruta sunt, pressique iugo gemuere iuvenci. Then [in the Silver Age] for the first time the seeds of Ceres were buried in the long furrow, and bullocks groaned, weighed down by the yoke. Met. 1.123–4 obruere (‘to cover over’, also ‘to destroy’) is an extremely violent word to describe the process of sowing crops, yet fitting in an account which depicts cultivation as wounding, while pressi (‘weighed down’) stresses the domestication and enslavement of the animals, and gemuere (‘groaned’) conveys their dejection. There is nothing idyllic in the language employed to describe Ovid’s second, agricultural age. It is expressed entirely in negatives: Jupiter reduces spring to a quarter of the year (1.116–20); caves and trees are renounced as adequate homes (1.121–2); the earth is violated and animals are enslaved. But as the Silver Age gradually undoes the Golden Age, it also has the effect of pointing to some of the less attractive aspects of the first age, which turns out to have similarities with less paradisal accounts of humans’ original state – the stage known as ‘hard primitivism’. Apart from taking on the exertions of agriculture, the Silver Race inhabits houses for the first time, moving out of the caves, tree trunks and primitive huts of the Golden Race. Using the Silver Race to reflect back on the Golden Race raises questions of whether this is decline or development, a paradox frequently found in Roman ethnographic texts. In terms of both their non-agricultural existence and rough, basic shelter, the lifestyle of the Golden Race is analogous to that of many barbarian and nomadic peoples (Caes. BG 6.22, Strabo 4.5.2, 7.5.7, Pliny HN 5.1, 5.53, 16.3, Tac. Ger. 14.3, 26.3). But the Silver Race is also involved in this 77
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discourse, as it is oppressed by the extremes of heat and cold (cf. Vir. Georg. 3.356–70, Tac. Ger. 4.1). In fact, each of Ovid’s races reflects aspects of the tough (usually northern) barbarians’ experience, at least as it is reflected by Roman texts. The barbarians are excessively warlike (Caes. BG 1.2, 1.36, 4.1, Strabo 4.4.2, Tac. Ger. 11.2, 13.1, 14.2–3, 22.1, Hist. 4.64.1), as is the Bronze Race (Met. 1.125–7), and they can be fickle and deceitful (Caes. BG 2.1, 4.5, 4.13, 7.59, Strabo 7.1.4), just like the Iron Race (Met. 1.129–30). Ovid’s myth of the ages therefore engages with Roman ethnographic discourse, and the links with representations of primitive barbarians undermine all stages of the myth, particularly the extremes. For the Golden Age is, on the surface, entirely paradisal, but is subsequently aligned with the uncivilized; and the Iron Race, which builds on the Silver and Bronze Race’s violence against the earth and one another, adding further vices including treachery, has all of the faults of the barbarians, but none of their potential virtues, such as strength, bravery or moderation, found in many ethnographic texts (e.g. Caes. BG 1.13, 1.26, 1.28, 2.15, Strabo 4.4.2, Hor. Odes 3.24.9–24, Tac. Ger. 19.1; Thomas, 1982: 110–11, 125–6, O’Gorman, 1993: 146–8). The possibility that the Golden Race might be aligned with barbarian habits depends on the conflation of the Golden Age and primitivism, and the ambiguous utopian values accorded to primitive peoples, at both spacial and temporal distance. In general, primitive groups possess Golden Age moral integrity combined with harsh physical and social realities, and as a result, such peoples are often subsumed under the heading ‘noble savage’ (Lovejoy and Boas, 1997: 287–367, O’Gorman, 1993: 146, and ‘noble primitive’ at 1993: 147). As a phrase first used in the seventeenth century to describe peoples of the Americas, the concept of the ‘noble savage’ is clearly defined by early modern colonial projects, although it also makes use of classical models.42 Germans, and sometimes Gauls, Britons, Scythians and even Africans often meet these criteria in ethnographic works, but there are many variations and subtle modifications to this model; and the earliest extended description of primitive morality is set not at a spatial distance, but in the past, as a general state of all humans, as described by Lucretius (5.925–1,010). This race (genus humanum 5.925) is immediately set in opposition to contemporary peoples as ‘tougher’ (durius 5.926); in fact they are ‘tougher in the fields’ (in arvis/ durius 5.925–6), leading to the expectation that they are farmers, perhaps reflecting Aratus’ agricultural Golden Age (Phain. 111–13). But these people are revealed to be non-agricultural nomads, through a series of indications of what they lack: multaque per caelum solis volventia lustra volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum. nec robustus erat curvi moderator aratri quisquam, nec scibat ferro molirier arva 78
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nec nova defodere in terram virgulta neque altis arboribus veteres decidere falcibus ramos. And through many revolutions of the sun through the sky they led their lives in the wandering manner of wild animals. No one was a strong driver of the curved plough, nor did anyone know how to work the fields with iron nor how to insert shoots in the earth nor how to cut the old branches from high trees with sickles. Lucr. 5.931–6 Like the utopian discourse of Ovid’s Golden Age, this description begins by asserting what is missing, before going on to describe how the race is dependent upon spontaneous production: ‘what earth grew of its own accord’ (quod terra crearat/ sponte sua, Lucr. 5.937–8). Again, this is a Golden Age motif (Hes. WD 116, Tib. 1.3.45–6, Vir. Ecl. 4.45, Georg. 2.9–11 [and see 2.501], Ov. Met. 1.103–12), and, in line with other accounts which make the environment the centre of a utopian past, nature’s creations are bigger and better than the implied present. Bodies are larger and stronger (5.927– 8); even the plants they forage are more plentiful and substantial: plurima tum tellus etiam maiora ferebat (‘then the earth bore more and greater things’ 5.942), and there is overlap with fruits of the Ovidian Golden Age (Lucr. 5.939–41, cf. Met. 1.104–6). They have sex, but no marriage (5.962– 5), real fears, but not superstition (5.973–87, cf. Stat. Theb. 4.282–4), no laws (5.958–9), no war (5.999–1,000), no sailing (5.1,000–8), and no malice (5.1,009–10) – again the lack that defines utopianism. But Lucretius paints an ambivalent picture of the past, in which nature provides humans with benefits, but not with a utopian life of freedom from care and labour. In fact their life is otherwise so harsh and brutal, that it necessitates some advantages to allow for mere survival. Ovid’s Golden Race would have utopian consistency, including a fixed spring climate (Met. 1.107–8) and the fruits of agriculture – corn, milk, honey – without the need to farm (Met. 1.109–12). Agriculture will arrive eventually, of course, in both texts, and in fact Lucretius mentions it in connection with human hardship earlier in the same book as, in a strange mix of toil and spontaneity, crops are described as appearing ‘of their own accord’ (sponte sua 5.212) but only because farmers aerate the soil first. Here, there is no prospect of ease at any stage of development, for there are only relative privations, but Lucretius’ primitives exist in a much more severe environment, and they suffer because of the lack of agriculture and technology: they are forced to be nomadic (5.931–2) and to endure fierce storms without adequate shelter, clothing or the technology of fire (5.953–7). They are successful hunters (5.966–70), which itself puts them into an ambiguous position, as hunting is an activity which is never mentioned in the Golden Age and is occasionally 79
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excised from it ([Sen.] Octavia 420–1); however it can be associated with primitivism, pre-technology and purity (particularly Hippolytus in Eur. Hipp. 51–87, Sen. Phaed. 1–84), and is the earliest activity found in the post-flood world of the Metamorphoses, practised by Apollo (Met. 1.441– 2), Daphne (Met. 1.475–6), and arguably Cupid too (Met. 1.466–73). Hunting is also regularly present for many barbarian peoples, particularly those who are non-agricultural, like the Germans (Caes. BG 4.1.8, Tac. Ger. 15.1).43 For the Suebi, a Germanic tribe, this activity is overdetermined, and Caesar implies that animals killed in the hunt form a major part of their diet, replacing crops. Agriculture is aligned with peace and stability here, and is thus rejected by the Suebi, an entirely militaristic people, for whom working the land would be a distraction and an impediment to war readiness (Caes. BG 4.1.3–7). Hunting, on the other hand, is a much less restrictive activity, as it can be combined with the Suebi’s periodic nomadism and their ‘free lifestyle’ (libertate vitae Caes. BG 4.1.9). Practised by women, hunting is the indication of the ultimate barbarian for Tacitus, as in the case of the Fenni, who are the least developed of any of the peoples Tacitus describes (Ger. 46.3–5, see Chapter 4), but usually hunting is a male activity, and one which is a legitimate substitute for warfare in times of peace. For Lucretius’ primitives, hunting is connected to their main source of fear: despite the lack of violence from warfare and the fact that they are less prone to illness (5.929–30), there is constant anxiety about the injuries and death which might be caused by wild animals (5.982–7, 990–3, see also 5.201–2) or starvation (5.1007–8) – their very fears are an indication that this is realistic primitivism, rather than a utopian scenario. For, whereas utopias are static and perfect in their immutability, Lucretius’ primitives are subject to constant change and are vulnerable to the unknown. Besides, it is clear that some technological progress, such as the development of agriculture, the discovery of fire and building of houses, would improve the lives of these people, although it might easily lead them to be less tough and even into moral decline (as Caesar reports of the Gauls, BG 4.2.1, 6.24, and see Tac. Agr. 11.4). For this passage ends by suggesting that the primitives’ integrity is dependent upon their dangerous innocence: illi inprudentes ipsi sibi saepe venenum vergebant, nunc dant [aliis] sollertius ipsi. Unknowing, they even often poured down poison for themselves, now men are more ingenious and give it to others. 5.1009–10 Although no paradise, there are utopian elements here, especially in the use of the primitive society to alienate the writer’s own, by explicitly critiquing Roman vice. 80
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Self-censure through oppositions of this sort is a standard technique of ethnographic writing, perhaps most heavy-handed in Tacitus’ Germania, which points out that no one needs laws to stop them from committing adultery in Germany (Ger. 19.5). Lucretius also uses the terms of Roman ethnographic discourse44 to construct the primitives as analagous to, yet more than, the traditional depiction of northerners: et maioribus et solidis magis ossibus intus fundatum, validis aptum per viscera nervis, nec facile ex aestu nec frigore quod caperetur And [the race] was built with larger and firmer bones inside, and fitted with strong muscles through the flesh, the type which was easily overcome by neither heat nor cold 5.927–9 The ability to endure extreme cold, and even revel in it, is a trait typical of northern barbarians, who are also physically powerful and have huge, brawny bodies, from the point of view of the Roman ethnographer (Caes. BG 2.30, 4.1.9, Strabo 4.4.2, 4.5.2, Tac. Ger. 4.2). They are used to the cold (Tac. Ger. 4.3) and even bathe in freezing rivers to harden their bodies (Caes. BG 4.1.10), but they cannot endure heat or exertion (Livy 10.28.4, Tac. Ger. 4.3), a characteristic which makes them (or should make them) easily conquerable, for the Italians, by implication, have a great deal of stamina, and by virtue of their climate they are accustomed to heat. In contrast, Lucretius creates a breed of über-barbarians, supernaturally tough and immune to both extremes of temperature. These primitives are the ideal combination of Roman racial stereotyping, and are thus utopian by nature, although they live in a far from Golden Age environment. 45 Roman texts often interrogate the nature of the primitive, debating the value of cultural development and re-imagining what a world without technology might be: harsh? innocent? brutish? moral? chaotic? Few are as even-handed as Lucretius, whose early humans are in most ways morally upright, but live in unenviable squalor. Lucretius leaves the reader in some doubt as to whether this could be a superior existence, but he also lays out a problem which is then frequently readdressed. If moral purity depends on the excision of technology and luxury, does the correlative have to be physical hardship? Juvenal plays with this notion in Satire 6, which claims that the only time when women could possibly have been faithful was in the remote past: credo Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam in terris visamque diu, cum frigida parvas praeberet spelunca domos ignemque laremque 81
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et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra, silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor frondibus et culmo vicinarumque ferarum pellibus, haut similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cuius turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos, sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis et saepe horridior glandem ructante marito. quippe aliter tunc orbe novo caeloque recenti vivebant homines, qui rupto robore nati compositive luto nullos habuere parentes. multa Pudicitiae veteris vestigia forsan aut aliqua exstiterint et sub Iove, sed Iove nondum barbato, nondum Graecis iurare paratis per caput alterius, cum furem nemo timeret caulibus ac pomis et aperto viveret horto. paulatim deinde ad superos Astraea recessit hac comite, atque duae pariter fugere sorores. I believe that Chastity remained on earth while Saturn was king, and was seen for a long time while the cold cave offered up a poor home, and enclosed fire, household god, the flock and its masters in its shared protection, when the mountain wife strewed her woodland bed with leaves and branches and the skins of neighbouring wild animals – not at all like you, Cynthia, nor you, whose dead sparrow messed up your sparkling eyes [with tears], but instead a woman who carried breasts full of milk for large babies, often hairier than her acorn-belching husband. Since then when the world was new and heaven was young men lived differently, men born from broken oak or made up of mud, who had no parents. Perhaps many traces of ancient Pudicitia even remained somewhere under Jupiter, but only when Jupiter did not yet have a beard, when Greeks were not yet ready to swear on the head of another, when no one feared a thief of his cabbages and apples and they lived with unfenced gardens. Then gradually Astraea removed herself to the heavens with Pudicitia as her companion, and the two sisters fled together. Juv. 6.1–20 Juvenal’s tale of how female treachery developed demonstrates how doubleedged the rhetoric of decline had become, so that, despite his speaker’s apparent conservatism, simple nostalgia for the past is undermined. Rather 82
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than bemoaning the immorality of the present, in order to contrast with the purity of the past, the truism is inverted in a complex dialectic, but the grammar of Saturnian paradise and fall is so firmly ingrained that it can be both parodied and upended, yet remains recognizable. Chastity remained (moratam) in Saturn’s Age, or so the speaker believes (credo), and already the reader is encouraged to look beyond to the time when the goddess has left mortals behind. Clearly the tradition from Hesiod to Ovid, and the associations it raises between Kronos/Saturn and the Golden Race/Age, are being employed here, as is the presence of a divine virgin. But the expectation of soft primitivism raised by these signifiers of the Golden Age is quickly destroyed by the shabbiness of the miserable cave, and the age appears ridiculously uncouth, with its unattractive, graceless couple. Juvenal plays on the distance between this primitive cave-dweller and the urbane charms of literary women like Cynthia and Lesbia, and gives the impression that the only two possibilities for the female sex are promiscuous temptress or plain primitive. And by implication the sophisticated, vice-ridden city and the grubby cave (and the lifestyles that go with them) are the only two environmental models available. Neither is close to the ideal, for there is no ideal in Juvenal, and there never was – a case in point is Satire 6 as a whole, which rejects every category of womanhood which it constructs.
Countryside, nostalgia and the ages Agriculture and the Golden Age Yet nostalgia and adulation for the simple, rural lifestyle permeate many Roman texts and persist, over centuries (e.g. Cato de agr. praef. 1 Varro RR 2.1.1–2, Hor. Epis. 1.16.8–18, Serm. 2.6, Sen. Epis. 87.41, Pliny Epis. 1.14.4–6). Varro credits farmers with ‘a good and useful life’ (piam et utilem . . . vitam) and connects this directly with the myth of ages, when he states that farmers ‘are the only remnants from the stock of the king Saturn’ (solos reliquos esse ex stirpe Saturni regis, RR 3.1.5), so that life in the countryside is superior (melior RR 3.1.4) because it is closer to the Golden Age (Edwards 1993: 149). Like Juvenal in Satire 6, Varro separates human lifestyles into two possible strands, but Varro is more explicit than Juvenal, and his division is specifically between urban and rural existence: cum duae vitae traditae sint hominum, rustica et urbana, quidni, Pinni, dubium non est quin hae non solum loco discretae sint, sed etiam tempore diversam originem habeant. antiquior enim multo rustica, quod fuit tempus, cum rura colerent homines neque urbem haberent . . . nec mirum, quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humana aedificavit urbes, cum artes omnes dicantur in Graecia intra mille annorum repertae, agri numquam non fuerint in terris qui coli 83
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possint. neque solum antiquior cultura agri, sed etiam melior. itaque non sine causa maiores nostri ex urbe in agros redigebant suos cives, quod et in pace a rusticis Romanis alebantur et in bello ab his allevabantur. Although two ways of human life, that of the countyside and that of the city, are handed down, Pinnius, of course there is no doubt that these two are not only distinguished by place, but also that they have a different origin in time. For the country life is much older, as there was a time when men lived in the countryside and they had no city . . . Nor is it surprising that godlike nature has given us fields, while human skill has built cities, since all skills are said to have been invented in the last thousand years, whereas there has never been a time when there were not fields which could be cultivated. And not only is agriculture more ancient, but it is also better. Therefore it is not without reason that our ancestors used to direct their citizens from the city into the fields, since they were fed by farmers in peacetime and they were helped by them in wartime. RR 3.1.1 and 3.1.4 Temporality is the key in both Varro and Juvenal. For Juvenal the difference is solely chronological, contrasting the moral past with the despised present (although, as often, ‘the present’ for Juvenal is anything up to two centuries earlier), whereas for Varro the two modes of life (now) run parallel, but agriculture represents a clear inheritance from the earliest age. City life, implies Varro, is a later and useless accretion and contributes nothing to the welfare of the state, whereas agriculture is useful in all possible states (war and peace covering all imaginable conditions). Varro is interested in providing a key to understanding human decline, but, as befits his work on farming, agriculture is the solution to this problem. Here the return to a preurban lifestyle is presented as a conservative, utopian vision, one which is implicit in the many Roman city-country binaries. And Varro’s utopianism, despite its polarized reductionism, is more optimistic than most laments for lost simplicity (as parodied by Juvenal), because it posits that the vestiges of the paradisal past still remain, and has the potential to be reconstructed, although it implies that the city would have to be dismantled. Despite being the founder of the city, Romulus could be associated with agricultural simplicity, and particularly with modest land use. As Varro claims, in Roman tradition, the first king instituted land division, and made two-iugera allotments to the early settlers (RR 1.10.2). Pliny’s book on cereal agriculture begins with Romulus’ allotment of land and immediately time-travels to the recent past to emphasize the vast rift between the origins and the outcome of private property:
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quippe sermo circa rura est agresteque usus, sed quibus vita constet honosque apud priscos maximus fuerit. arvorum sacerdotes Romulus in primis instituit seque duodecimum fratrem appellavit inter illos Acca Larentia nutrice sua genitos, spicea corona, quae vitta alba colligaretur, sacerdotio ei pro religiosissimo insigni data; quae prima apud Romanos fuit corona, honosque is non nisi vita finitur et exules etiam captosque comitatur. bina tunc iugera p.R. satis erant, nullique maiorem modum adtribuit, quo servorum paulo ante principis Neronis contento huius spatii viridiariis? piscinas iuvat maiores habere, gratumque, si non aliquem culinas. Indeed the discussion [of this book] concerns the countryside and rural practices, but life depends on this and it held the greatest respect among early men. At the beginning Romulus instituted the priests of the fields and named himself the twelfth brother, along with the sons of his foster mother Acca Larentia, and to this priesthood was given, as the most sacred emblem, a wreath of corn ears which was tied together with a white ribbon; this was the first crown among the Romans, and the honour ends only when life ends, and it accompanies exiles and even captives. Then two iugera were enough for the Roman people, and no one was allotted a greater amount – which of the men who were a little time ago emperor Nero’s slaves would have been happy with an ornamental garden of this size? People like to have fish ponds that are bigger, and we are grateful if someone does not have bigger kitchens. HN 18.5–7 Here, Pliny’s temporal manipulation cuts through much of the past to present the beginning and the outcome, with no interest in the intermediary development. Nero’s household serves as the ultimate exemplum of luxuria (HN 12.83, 13.22, 16.233, 34.63, 36.111–12), and also as subverter of status boundaries, while issues of status are submerged in Romulus’ equal division of land.46 Presenting the distant Romulan past in terms of Golden Age simplicity and the Neronian near past as Iron Age greed, leaves Pliny the rhetorical space to give implied messianic status to the Flavian present. For Pliny, Romans’ early veneration of the land is connected to the issues of increasing luxury and decline which permeate his text. In this account, simplicity is equated with the sacred, and both are set in the remote and sacrosanct past to throw the present into relief – in fact the countryside is here explicitly aligned with (another Plinian fixation) origins: the first king, the first crown, the first land division. Land division in itself is a feature of the Iron Age in Roman texts (Bömer, 1969: 64), forming a final breakdown of the Golden Race’s communal living (Vir. Georg. 1.126–7, Tib. 1.3.43–4, Ovid Am. 3.8.42–3, Met. 1.121–2, Sen. Epis. 90.36, [Sen.] Oct. 414, Juv. 85
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6.17–18). In addition, communality or equal shares are frequent in ethnographic depictions of primitive peoples, who tend to hold land (and sometimes women) in common, which precludes distinction on the basis of property.47 Romulus does divide land, but equally, forming an intermediate stage between barbarians with no sense of individual property rights and Rome’s developed economy, whereby status is traditionally attached to property ownership. Frequently for moralists like Pliny, the perceived origins of decline are retroactively condemned – even the simplest change or importation of materials allows the grossest extravagance to invade, just as grandeur in public building leads to private decadence (HN 36.5, discussed in Chapter 3). But the earliest and most minimal form of partition provides a hard primitivist point of comparison for contemporary excess. Because both lack of ownership and the equal division of property are idealized, Romulus stands at a conceptual crossroads, associated with the beginnings of land possession, but more commonly with a time before greed, when there were no huge estates, villas or horti. Horace similarly ties together the Romulan (along with Republican) past, religious observation and private moderation, to separate out the simple and complex. His past is exceptionally rule-bound and chooses stern regulation (praescriptum and norma) over Golden Age innocence, suggesting a need for firm measures to restrict rampant consumption:
non ita Romuli praescriptum et intonsi Catonis auspiciis veterumque norma.
priuatus illis census erat brevis, commune magnum; nulla decempedis metata privatis opacam porticus excipiebat Arcton, nec fortuitum spernere caespitem leges sinebant, oppida publico sumptu iubentes et deorum templa novo decorare saxo. Not thus was the rule of Romulus and unshaven Cato nor the standard under the authority of past men. Their private wealth was small, but the commonwealth was great; no portico measured in tens of feet catching the shady north was laid out by private citizens, 86
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nor did the laws allow opportune turf to be scorned, ordering towns and temples of the gods to be ornamented with fresh stone at the public expense. Odes 2.15.10–20 Horace shows here that the apparently trite oppostion of rustic moral past and luxurious urban present was not an immutable narrative. Romulus and Cato’s past was law-bound, and it had grand towns and temples adorned with newly cut marble (novo ‘fresh’ in line 20 indicates that this is not recycled stone, but quarried specifically for its use at Rome). But the significance of Horace’s rhetorically constructed past is that everything is appropriate and in its allotted place. It observes public versus private distinctions, as Augustan discourse dictated (Suet. Aug. 28.3, Dio 56.30; Edwards, 1993: 165–8, see Chapter 3), categories which had already been established by the doomsayers of the late Republic (Sall. Cat. 12.3). Thus, Horace can establish a utopian past which is antithetical to the traditional Golden Age, and he lauds its law-bound morality.48 The freedom of the Golden Age is subsumed by Augustan revisionism, which situates the Roman ideal not in the time of Saturn, but instead in its particular image of the strictly controlled past. This is what Newman calls the ‘sanitized’ version of the Golden Age which appears in texts like Horace Odes 4.15, as distinct from the licence (and particularly licentiousness) of Saturn’s reign as a pre-marriage, pre-monogamy state of sexual promiscuity (1998: 237), explicitly combined with the pre-agricultural by Tibullus: glans aluit veteres, et passim semper amarunt:/ quid nocuit sulcos non habuisse satos? (‘the acorn fed our ancestors, and they made love everywhere, all the time:/ what harm did it do to them that they did not have sown furrows?’ 2.3.69–70). The moral value of pre-agriculture and nomadism But the association between the countryside and utopianism was obviously open to question: agriculture, the chief activity of the Italian countryside, was rarely present in the Golden Age, as shown above. Instead Roman texts on the myth of ages use the idea of soft primitivism in the Golden Age to demonstrate a marked scepticism about this idealization of farming. Once again, there are inherent contradictions and complications: like city life, agriculture can function as a marker of advanced civilization, and cultures which lack it are objects of disgust (e.g. Strabo 4.6.5 on the Britons; Pliny HN 6.53 on the Scythians) – an attitude which stems from at least as far back as archaic Greece, where the cannibalistic Cyclopes lack agriculture (Hom. Od. 9.107–12). But there is also a sense that the non-farming peoples are less restricted, and, playing on this, Tibullus declares that pre-agricultural 87
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life was more conducive to lovers, as there were no boundaries or locked doors in the time before land enclosures (2.3.63–74), while ploughing is one of the markers of slavery imposed upon the lover who follows his girl to the country (2.3.79–80). Non-agricultural peoples also have freedom of movement, as they are often nomadic, and have none of the fears associated with property ownership – anxieties concerning property and the dangers associated with it and its loss are found in a variety of Roman texts (e.g. Sen. Epis. 90.43, Juv. 10.15–27). The carefree nomad is invoked by Horace, when he needs an extreme opposite to amassing wealth of eastern proportions: intactis opulentior thesauris Arabum et divitis Indiae caementis licet occupes terrenum omne tuis et mare publicum: si figit adamantinos summis verticibus dira Necessitas clavos, non animum metu, non mortis laqueis expedies caput. campestres melius Scythae, quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos, vivunt et rigidi Getae inmetata quibus iugera liberas fruges et Cererem ferunt nec cultura placet longior annua defunctumque laboribus aequali recreat sorte vicarius. illic matre carentibus privignis mulier temperat innocens nec dotata regit virum coniunx nec nitido fidit adultero; dos est magna parentium virtus et metuens alterius viri certo foedere castitas, et peccare nefas aut pretium est mori. Although richer than the untouched treasures of Arabia and wealthy India, and you fill the whole land and inshore waters, with your builders’ rubble: if terrible Necessity fixes her adamantine nails in your highest rooftops, you will not free your spirit from fear, nor free your head from the noose of death. The Scythians on the plains, 88
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whose wagons haul their movable homes, by custom, live better, or the fierce Getae, whose undivided acres freely produce fruits and corn, where it is laid down that cultivation is for no more than a year, and when the labour is done, another man carries it on, with the same terms. There the faultless woman is kind to the children who have lost their mother: and the richly dowered wife never rules her husband or puts her faith in an elegant adulterer. Their great dowry is the virtue of their parents and their own chastity, guarded around another’s husband in their solid union, and to sin is wrong, or else its penalty is to die. Odes 3.24.1–24 Here the ethnic clichés of eastern luxury and northern minimalism represent the two extremes of existence, mirroring Juvenal’s past and present Rome in Satire 6 (pages 81–3). But there is neither realism nor comedy here: the nomads’ lifestyle is idealized to the point where it loses any sense of hardship. Freed of material goods and not bound to place, the nomads are liberated from inequality in ways that parallel idealized peoples like Romulus’ first Romans (although they do have land), and the non-agricultural Golden Race (although the nomads do a limited amount of farming). And, as often in such exaggerated scenarios, moral purity, particularly the chastity of women, is fixed on to the barbarian (Odes 3.24.16–24, Tac. Ger. 18–19; this aspect of ‘real’ primitive peoples is retrojected on to the Golden Race at Anth. Lat. 69–70). Agriculture after the Golden Age Agriculture’s position in relation to Roman identity, particularly masculinity and militarism, is discussed in detail in Chapter 4, but here I want to discuss the specific connections between the Ages and the introduction of farming in the mythical tradition. Roman texts explore different aspects of primitivism in the Golden and Silver Ages (or in the times of Saturn and Jupiter), as the introduction of agriculture introduces hardship and sanction (cf. Aes. Prom. 442–68, 478–506; Eur. Supp. 201–3). Virgil’s Georgics had quite specifically associated the ascent of Jupiter with the origins of farming (and land division) by stating that it did not exist until his reign: ante Iovem nulli subigebant arva coloni:/ ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum (‘before Jupiter no farmers subdued/ worked the [ploughed] land:/ it was not even lawful to mark the field or to divide it up’ 1.125–8). Agriculture 89
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and the division of land appear with Jupiter, and neither is positive: agriculture in Georgics 1 ‘is not an easy path’ (haud facilem esse viam 1.122), full of work (labor 1.118) and anxiety (cura 1.123) as stressed by Thomas (1988a, ad loc.).49 And the Metamorphoses makes the connection between Silver Age, Jupiter, agriculture and decline even more explicit, as its agricultural Silver Age is tough, brutal and laborious – even before the advent of (Bronze Age) warfare. Ovid’s text, overloaded with allusion, makes the hierarchy clear: postquam Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso sub Iove mundus erat, subiit argentea proles, auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere. Iuppiter antiqui contraxit tempora veris perque hiemes aestusque et inaequalis autumnos et breve ver spatiis exegit quattuor annum. tum primum siccis aer fervoribus ustus canduit, et ventis glacies astricta pependit; tum primum subiere domos; domus antra fuerunt et densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae. semina tum primum longis Cerealia sulcis obruta sunt, pressique iugo gemuere iuvenci. After Saturn had been sent to shady Tartara, the earth was under the rule of Jupiter, the Silver Race arrived worse than the gold, but more worthy than yellow bronze. Jupiter reduced the length of the old spring and divided the year into four seasons – winter, summer, changeful autumn and a short spring. Then indeed for the first time the air burned with dry heat, and frozen ice hung down in the winds; then for the first time humans entered homes; their homes were caves and thick tree-trunks and twigs bound together with bark. Then for the first time the seeds of Ceres were buried in the long furrow, and bullocks groaned, weighed down by the yoke. Met. 1.113–24 Jupiter’s termination of eternal spring is arbitrary, punitive and pointless. No reason is given for the introduction of seasons hostile to humans – unlike his outrage at the behaviour of bestial Lycaon which precipitates his revenge of the flood (1.163–261). Even the introduction of domestic spaces, often a sign of a positive civilizing drive (Hom. Od. 9.113–14, Lucr. 5.1011, Strabo 7.5.7), is undermined by the humility of these homes. The arrangement of the verse (1.121) emphasizes this point, by repeating the word 90
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‘homes’, placing domos and domus together at the centre of the line, but separating them by the caesura, which forces a pause after domos, immediately followed by domus and the explanation that these are homes in only the most makeshift sense. These primitive dwellings are no real compensation for the harsh climate change with which the earth is now afflicted. Thus the slow progress towards civilization is based on dire necessity, rather than advances in creativity or technology. Jupiter’s capricious exercise of his power is mirrored in other stories of the Metamorphoses’ early books, as the supreme deity rapes his way through humankind (Io 1.588–600, Europa 2.836–3.3, see Richlin, 1992b). The less comfortable version of an agricultural paradise is found in Aeneid 8, in Evander’s ‘Rome’. Virgil elevates the dignity of this poverty-stricken king and his subjects’ simple lives, while, at the same time, highlighting the sophistication of its Augustan inhabitants, an incongruity which stresses the extreme difference between past and present: hinc ad Tarpeiam sedem et Capitolia ducit aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis . . . talibus inter se dictis ad tecta subibant pauperis Evandri, passimque armenta videbant Romanoque foro et lautis mugire Carinis. ut ventum ad sedes, ‘haec’ inquit ‘limina victor Alcides subiit, haec illum regia cepit. aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum finge deo, rebusque veni non asper egenis.’ dixit, et angusti subter fastigia tecti ingentem Aenean duxit stratisque locavit effultum foliis et pelle Libystidis ursae From here he led [Aeneas] to the Tarpeian seat and the Capitoline, gold now, but once bristling with wild brambles . . . After they had said such things to one another, they approached the house of penniless Evander, and saw cattle lowing everywhere in the Roman Forum and the elegant Carinae. As they went to his home, he said, ‘The conqueror Hercules came over this threshhold, this palace welcomed him. Dare, my guest, to despise wealth and also make yourself worthy of the god, and do not come as one who is harsh towards poverty.’ He spoke, and led tall Aeneas beneath the gable of his narrow house and to a couch of strewn leaves and a Libyan bear’s skin Aen. 8. 347–8, 359–68 Although Evander’s command that Aeneas contemnere opes (‘despise 91
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wealth’ 8.364) might imply a critique of the rich Carinae dwellers, this is not simply a narrative of decline brought about by prosperity. Evander’s Latium is not even a hard primitivist version of the Golden Age – Evander himself tells the story of Saturn’s Golden Age in Latium as a tale from the distant past. There is therefore nothing primordial about the state of Evander’s society, as is reinforced by his and Aeneas’ status as exiles, and the experiences of both mark this as a time after removal from elsewhere. But the exile theme also marks Italy’s Golden Age as secondary, as Saturn too is a fugitive, bringing his mixed bag of bounty and regulation to the native primitives. Meanwhile, around Evander’s small patch of idyllic simplicity the reader knows that monstrous predators, such as Cacus (8.188–267), have already disturbed the rustic harmony, and that warfare is approaching. The turmoil is set to tear Evander’s family apart in the remaining books of the poem, as Aeneas’ presence brings overwhelming change to Italy, leaving the relief of this simple Arcadian lifestyle as a searingly brief interlude.
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3 LucullAN MArble ANd The MOrAlITy Of BuIldINg
marmor Luculleum: The politics of naming Just as narratives of utopia and decline permeate Roman written texts, they also are mapped on to the visual culture of the city, and played out in discussions of Rome’s artistic and architectural history; and, in turn, the physical structures of the city are closely bound up with military conquest and imperial power. While moralists blamed the conquest of exotic regions for the presence of extravagant objects in the city, the booty itself was displayed as conspicuous proof of the Roman army’s achievements – and specifically those of the general (Livy 30.15.12, Plut. Aemil. 32–6).1 Often the money raised by the spoils would be used to fund building activity in Rome, as a perpetual reminder of the triumph. And foreign conquest provided new raw materials for building. The strong association between military figures and foreign building materials is stressed by the naming of a black, red-flecked marble after the general Lucius Licinius Lucullus. In contrast to the usual practice of naming the material after its provenance – Chian, Phrygian, Parian, for example – Lucullan was a rare example of a marble named after the man who brought it to Italy from Asia Minor to Rome in 74 BCE.2 The Elder Pliny alone tells this tale, and, for him, conferring one’s name to marble is a dubious honour: post hunc Lepidum quadriennio L. Lucullus consul fuit, qui nomen, ut ex re apparet, Luculleo marmori dedit, admodum delectatus illo, primusque Romam invexit, atrum alioqui, cum cetera maculis aut coloribus commendentur. nascitur autem in Melo3 insula, solumque paene hoc marmor ab amatore nomen accepit. Four years after this man Lepidus [was consul], Lucius Lucullus was consul; the latter gave his name, as it appears from the facts, to Lucullan marble, so much was it admired by him, and he was the first to bring it to Rome; it is in general black, although other marbles are favoured because of their markings or colours. It actually comes from the island of Melos, and this marble is almost unique in that it takes its name from its devotee. HN 36.49 93
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Despite the confusions in Pliny’s text, the marble he describes is identified as from Teos, later labelled ‘africano’ due to its dark colour which, however misleading, makes the marble seems less anomalous, although incorrectly suggesting that it emanates from an African quarry. The custom of naming by place of origin was practical, and the presence of so many exotically named marbles built into the fabric of Rome was a reminder of how far Rome’s commercial and temporal power extended, and also gave a sense that Italian and foreign materials were being incorporated into the city.4 Conversely, attaching Lucullus’ name to a marble Romanized it comprehensively: on the analogy of the usual naming practice it could make it appear that a Roman commander was the origin or author of the expensive material, as it emanates from him: marmor Luculleum parallels noun and adjective name formulations such as marmor Carystium, that is, Carystian marble, or marble from Carystos in Euboea (Pliny HN 4.64, 36.48), or Venus Praxitelia (the statue of Aphrodite created by Praxiteles in the fourth century BCE, Pliny HN 36.22, 36.26). This kind of phrase was also used to refer to a monument paid for or commissioned by an important public figure: marmor Luculleum could therefore mimic a name-designation such as Theatrum Pompeianum – Pompey’s Theatre, or the ‘Pompeian Theatre’ of 55 BCE (Mart. 6.9.1, Flor. 2.13), or Basilica Fulvia, the basilica in the Forum Romanum commissioned in the year that M. Fulvius Nobilior and M. Aemilius Lepidus were censors (179 BCE, Livy 40.51). The naming of this particular building is complicated, but revealing. It was frequently replaced or restored, but a strong association with the Aemilian gens was retained through naming most versions of the building, and in fact it may have been known as the Basilica Aemilia et Fulvia from the beginning (as Varro LL 6.4). The first basilica was replaced by a building known variously as the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Paul[l]i (Richardson, 1992: 55), commissioned by L. Aemilius Paullus in 54 BCE, although the work was apparently funded by Julius Caesar (Plutarch, Caes. 29). Its names provide an interesting case, as they maintain the fiction that Aemilius Paullus’ family built and restored it, although, again, after it burned in 14 CE, Augustus himself undertook its rebuilding (Dio 54.24.2–3), the Aemilii being now impoverished (Nicolet, 1991: 94–5). Tacitus later calls it basilicam Pauli, Aemilia monimenta (‘Basilica of Paulus, an Aemilian monument’), when recording that L. Aemilius Lepidus sought permission to renovate it in 22 CE (Tac. Ann. 3.72). Throughout, the connection with the same Republican family is preserved, and the names attached to the building do not necessarily coincide with the actual name of the person providing the funds for its construction or adornment – incidentally, a part of that adornment was the incorporation of Lucullan marble columns in its later form.5 The retention of the name ‘Paullus’ both concealed that this was the work of the princeps, and flaunted his modesty, much as Augustus’ epitaph advertised the fact that he had not advertised himself with renamings when 94
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renovating Republican buildings: Capitolium et Pompeium theatrum utrumque opus impensa grandi refeci sine ulla inscriptione nominis mei. (‘I restored the Capitol and the Theatre of Pompey, both of them at great expense, without placing my name on them in an inscription’, RGDA 20.1). Nevertheless, in the case of the Basilica Paulli, an Augustan makeover had clearly taken place, and it now included iconography which explicitly referenced Augustan renewal and moral legislation6 – sculptural friezes which depicted the building of city walls and the cautionary tale of the Vestal, Tarpeia, who betrayed Rome for lust or greed.7 The former was a reminder of construction in the public interest – the restoration of the Basilica Paulli was a part of this – and the latter stressed the need for modesty rather than avarice (Zanker, 1988: 160–2), vividly showing that Tarpeia’s greed leads to destruction. Overtly, modesty kept Augustus’ name from the Basilica Paulli, but this action only proved that renouncing the right to name could be as effective as utilizing it. In addition, there is no condemnatory description of the basilica’s use of Lucullan marble, in contrast to the scorn piled upon Scaurus, who used it for the columns transferred from his theatre to his atrium (Pliny HN 36.6, and see pages 122–5). Because of the very different values accorded to public and private extravagance in building (Edwards, 1993: 113), Lucullan marble in public space does not raise comment. Naming a marble ‘Lucullan’ could easily seem hubristic, as the only other instances of marbles named after Romans are marmor Augusteum and marmor Tibereum, terms which designated that these marbles from the imperial province of Egypt were first quarried in the principates of Augustus and Tiberius respectively (Pliny HN 36.55–6). So, during the principate, marmor Luculleum might even throw up the (absurd) possibility of a ‘Lucullan’ period.8 And for those who knew the origin of the name, it was a perpetual reminder that the general had been responsible for its introduction to Rome. ‘Lucullan’ marble also sets up a set of associations involving Roman practices of personal nomenclature. It works in a parallel fashion (yet also in reverse) to the process of geographical naming and claiming, which occurred in two related ways. Firstly, military victors might take on an honorary cognomen, also called an agnomen – basically a fourth title,9 which was the name of a geographical space which they had conquered, in adjectival form: Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus.10 The military leader is then forever marked as a man who symbolically owns that space and its people, and, in strict grammatical terms, he becomes one of their number: the conqueror of Hannibal is ‘Scipio the African’.11 So ‘Lucullan’ marks the marble out as belonging to the general, but it also aligns him with a conquered people; and in a sense, Lucullus is defeated by his very devotion to the foreign marble. Secondly, and related to this practice, empire exports the names of Roman military figures to the provinces, by founding or renaming towns and cities, 95
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such as those which Pliny lists in the ‘geographical’ books at the other end of his Historia Naturalis (Books Three to Six). Pompey, Caesar, Augustus and the early emperors are particularly renowned for this toponymic habit – a habit which had earlier been exploited by the Macedonian kings’ creation of Philippi and many Alexandrias. So Pliny mentions numerous renamed towns, as well as coloniae founded by and named after emperors: Soloe in Cilicia is nunc Pompeiopolis (‘now Pompeiopolis’ 5.92); the ‘most famous [North African] town of Caesarea was once called Iol’ (oppidumque ibi celeberrimum Caesarea, ante vocitatum Iol, 5.20); there is a Claudiopolis in Cappadocia (5.85), and numerous coloniae, towns and other locations given the names Julia, Augusta or Caesaraugusta (3.12, 3.23, 3.24, 3.25, 3.27, 3.36, 3.43, 3.49, 3.119, 3.123, 4.112, 4.117, 4.119, 15.129). The geographical naming process is clearly a demonstration of power, although Pliny’s lists offer no obvious critical insight (Dilke, 1985: 71), not even any further information on these places or when and how they acquired their names.12 Similarly his report of why Lucullan marble was named after the Roman general, rather than its place of origin, receives little explanation: did Licinius Lucullus name it himself, as the conquering and founding leaders imposed their names on far-flung locations throughout the Roman empire? Lucullan marble remained one of the very few building materials to be rebranded under a Roman name – which in itself could be read as a colonialist act of co-option, but seems instead to have been primarily perceived, by Pliny, as a marker of Lucullus’ corruption. So was it, as Pliny seems to want to suggest, a derisory term, a reminder that Lucullus had been in love with, addicted to, an amator (‘devotee’, lover’) of the material? Amongst its other senses, amator has erotic connotations13 – and, to make matters worse, it is a material which Pliny barely seems to rate – being primarily black, it is not even colourful (HN 36.49). The nature, or intention, of this naming practice and the tone with which it was applied by others may not have been consistent. However, this is difficult to gauge, as, while other ancient sources deal with Lucullus’ extreme wealth or near-absurd excesses (Diod. Sic. 4.21.4, Cic. de Leg. 3.30–1, Hor. Epis. 1.6.40–4, Vell. Pat. 2.33.4, Sen. Contr. 9.2.19, Plut. Luc. 38–42, Kim./Luc. 1.2, see Edwards, 1993: 153), Pliny is the only extant ancient writer to tell the tale of Lucullan marble until it reappears in the seventh century CE Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (16.5.17), obviously using Pliny as a source.
The man behind the marble Yet, in line with the rough chronology of his life, which is devoted to luxury only in the last five years, Plutarch’s biography of Lucullus largely covers his military career which is, overall, very successful14 (only in Chapter 38 of 43 chapters does his decline begin).15 However it is excess which marks most 96
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imperial treatments of Lucullus, and the Elder Pliny’s text is no exception. Lucullus’ other appearances in the Historia Naturalis make little mention of his role as a general in the Mithridatic War (except obliquely at HN 2.235 and 15.102). There are instead many references to his importation of foreign statuary – Lucullus appears most frequently in Books 34–36, the books on artworks – and tales of his extravagant lifestyle. These appear to have become synonymous with Lucullus16 but perhaps most telling is one which Pliny takes from Varro: quibus vinis auctoritas fuerit sua iuventa, M. Varro his verbis tradit: ‘L. Lucullus puer apud patrem numquam lautum convivium vidit, in quo plus semel Graecum vinum daretur; ipse cum rediit ex Asia, milia cadum congiarium divisit amplius centum’. M. Varro tells the following about the wines that were held in the highest esteem at table in his youth: ‘L. Lucullus, when a boy, never saw an entertainment at his father’s house, however sumptuous, at which Greek wine was handed round more than once: whereas he himself, when he returned from Asia, distributed more than a hundred thousand jars of wine as a donation’. HN 14.96 Pliny’s use of this anecdote shows that a variety of wines available at the same meal is seen as a modern practice (in the late Republic), and deemed evidence of a decline in standards; and that restraint, a necessary virtue in connection with alcohol,17 is lost in the space of one generation. This loss of self-control is particularly egregious as it relates to the importation of Eastern wines – again Lucullus is associated with excessive devotion to foreign luxury and its introduction to Italy. Lucullus, then, features here as a representative of generational decline, and as such, he parallels the actual shrinkage of the human race claimed by Pliny (HN 7.73). In context, though, Pliny’s immediate reason for quoting Varro is to highlight the expense of overpriced Greek wines – it follows the tale of censors putting a price-cap on Greek wine in 122 BCE (HN 14.95). Juxtaposing these episodes, Pliny’s text suggests that Lucullus’ vast wealth and access to Eastern goods is able to overcome traditional Italian practices, as foreign complexity – one of the touchstones of his text – threatens to drown native simplicity (Beagon, 1992: 74–8; Wallace-Hadrill, 1990: 87). Lucullus’ complicity in the introduction of this extraneous profusion makes him a prime agent in Pliny’s conception of Roman decline. On the other hand, Plutarch’s account, the most lengthy extant discussion of Lucullus’ actions, makes it clear that Lucullus’ life had previously been exemplary. The disjunction between his earlier illustrious political and military career (consul in 78 BCE, triumphator in 63 BCE) and the outrageous 97
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luxury in which he spent his later life is described by Plutarch as being ‘like a plot from ancient comic drama’ (kaqavper ajrcaiva~ kwmw/diva~ Luc. 39.1, see also Mor. 792B [an seni respublica gerenda sit], Keaveney, 1992: 142). Yet it is also a classic paradigm of the Roman decline narrative, a concertinaed version of the Republic’s demise, which was regularly ascribed to decadence by commentators from Sallust (Cat. 10–13, Jug. 4.5–7) onwards. In fact, while Lucullus rejects spoils as the reason for waging war (Luc. 8.4), Plutarch’s opinion is that he unwittingly makes Romans aware of the scale of Eastern affluence; and more particularly that Crassus, seeing the wealth brought back from Asia, decides to attack Parthia specifically to take its treasures (Luc. 36.7), an action which has disastrous consequences in the loss of Roman standards at Carrhae and which could also be portrayed as a factor in the Roman Republic’s downfall. But Crassus’ sordid motives only serve to highlight Lucullus’ purer impulses, and, if Plutarch’s depiction of his near-irreproachable conduct while leading his army against Mithridates is to be believed (Luc. 2.4, 14.2, 33.1, cf. 33.2–3), his later life may seem hard to reconcile – certainly Plutarch found it hard to fathom (Luc. 38.2). The reference to ancient comedy, to fiction engineered to seem ridiculous (Luc. 39.1), is an indication of how problematic it is for the biographer to anchor Lucullus’ life in reality. Lucullus seems to exhibit the extremes of Roman moral values, as his rejection of the material gain being urged on him by his troops is specifically pitted against the moral action of saving a Roman life: Louvkoullo~ de; pro;~ me;n touvtou~ dhmhgorw`n ei\pen, wJ~ e{na bouvloitæ a]n ejk polemivwn sw`sai ÔRwmai`on h] pavnta labei`n ta; tw`n polemivwn: Lucullus, lecturing them, said that he would rather rescue one Roman from the enemy than take every possession of the enemy Lucullus 8.3–418 It is surely no coincidence that the alternative offered up to Lucullus (and then highlighted by him in the indirect speech recorded by Plutarch) is that of wealth, which would fund his later extravagance, against an action for which a Roman soldier could be awarded the hasta pura (see Virg. Aen. 6.760; Serv. ad Aen. 6.760; Festus, s.v. Hasta; Suet. Claud. 28; Tac. Ann. 3.21; CIL 2.2637, 3.1193, 3.6809), or even, in theory, the corona civica (Sen. Clem. 1.26, Pliny HN 16.3, Tac. Ann. 3.21, Gel. 5.6). In 74 BCE, Lucullus chooses to pursue the course which would earn him glory, and one which was seen as highly laudable, according to long-standing Roman tradition (going back to the regal period, according to Pliny (HN 16.11, see also 7.101–6)). Even though the taking of booty was the military commander’s right 98
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(Shatzman, 1972; Damon, 1997: 269) and could add to his prestige, the competing call of ancient values is staged by Plutarch as a more worthy aim. Fittingly, Lucullus’ triumph is marked by what it lacks, namely the ostentatious display of captured goods: oujc w{sper e[nioi mhvkei te pomph`~ kai; plhvqei tw`n komizomevnwn ejkplhktiko;n kai; ojclwvdh qrivambon, ajlla; toi`~ me;n o{ploi~ tw`n polemivwn ou\si pampovlloi~ kai; toi`~ basilikoi`~ mhcanhvmasi to;n Flamivneion iJppovdromon diekovsmhse: He did not have, like some, a triumph which was striking and vulgar in the length of the procession and the number of objects displayed, but he decorated the Circus Flaminius with a great many enemy arms and with the king’s engines of war; Plut. Luc. 37.2 This is despite the fact that the general has to wait three years to claim the right to triumph at all (Plut. Luc. 37.1); clearly, in Plutarch’s narrative, it is the honour of being a triumphator, rather than the display associated with the ceremony, which matters to Lucullus. His life, therefore, consists of stark contrasts in Plutarch’s biography, and until his retirement he prefers the traditional, moral course, choosing the morally good (a soldier’s life) over the ostentatious and self-aggrandising (spoils). Both choices represent Lucullus’ priority to act as a soldier rather than a plunderer. Lucullus’ seemingly sudden lapse on his retirement encompasses an absolute rejection of his earlier commendable behaviour, as well as ending his active participation in the appropriate career of a Roman aristocrat, as a military commander and political actor. In effect, Lucullus abrogates himself from core Roman values and traditions; he no longer follows the proper and expected career path of an esteemed, elite Roman male – politician, general and philosopher (Cic. Academica 2.1.1–4) – and, although expected to oppose Pompey over the leadership of the senate, he refuses the challenge (Plutarch Lucullus 38.2, Pompeius 46). In many ways, Lucullus’ retirement parallels, and is as puzzling as that of Sulla, his close colleague – Lucullus had even edited Sulla’s memoirs and was guardian to his children (Keaveney, 1982: 211, 214). Sulla’s mysterious choice to resign the dictatorship and retire to private life spawned many mock debates in the rhetorical schools (Quintilian 3.8.53, Juv. 1.16; cf. Quintilian 5.10.71): why, after his success in a bloody civil war, did Sulla not capitalize on his victory and retain power? Was he right to retire at the height of his achievements? And like Lucullus, the ex-dictator lapsed into a less than commendable lifestyle after retirement – according to Plutarch, Sulla spent his days drinking, lounging around on couches, mixing with musicians and actors, and, even worse, being influenced by their opinions (Sulla 36.1); even in old age, he acted 99
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with the recklessness of a young man, marrying for reasons of lust (Sulla 35.5) and having an affair with the actor Metrobius (Sulla 2.3, 36.1). These habits, claims Plutarch, aggravated the infestation of parasites which killed him – described in gruesome detail at Sulla 36.2–3. His death was probably caused by liver failure, due to excessive consumption of alcohol (Keaveney, 1982: 211); if so, the fatal illness was indeed connected to Sulla’s dissolute lifestyle. As arguably ‘the last Republican’ – the subtitle of Keaveney’s biography – Sulla also provides Plutarch with a paradigm of the dying Republic: militarily invincible, but diseased, corrupted and literally eaten away from within. But Sulla’s moral decline is of far less interest to moralists than Lucullus’ later years, for a number of reasons. As he died within a year of giving up the consulship, Sulla had far less time to indulge himself in profligate leisure,19 and Plutarch suggests that he had always associated with figures of dubious moral reputation, and particularly that he had been dissolute in his youth (Sulla 2.2), so that his life could not be represented in such dichotomous terms. But, more importantly, Sulla did not commission any extraordinary building or engineering works for himself, nor was he connected with extravagant or excessive dining practices.20 As these two most egregious markers of decadence in individuals for Roman writers are missing, Sulla’s reputation centres instead around his infamous crudelitas (‘cruelty’)21 – this is the attribute which belongs to Sulla as extravagance does to Lucullus. In fact the Elder Seneca puts the two of them side by side and places them in analogous positions, making Sulla’s crudelitas and Lucullus’ luxuria their distinguishing characteristics: ipse Montanus illum locum pulcherrime tractavit, quam multa populus Romanus in suis imperatoribus tulerit: in Gurgite luxuriam, in Manlio inpotentiam . . . in Sulla crudelitatem, in Lucullo luxuriam, in multis avaritiam. Montanus dealt very well with the topic of how much the Roman people bore from their generals: in Gurges,22 his extravagance, in Manlius, his lack of self-control . . . in Sulla, his cruelty, in Lucullus, his extravagance, in many of them, greed. Contr. 9.2.1923 luxuria, then, becomes the domain of Lucullus, and his retirement is a moral issue, an action for which he is negatively judged, while Sulla’s crimes – summed up as his crudelitas – are performed while in office. In many ways Sulla’s retirement is a relief; and while he gives up absolute power (the dictatorship) after presiding over civil war, Lucullus has fought in foreign wars, and has the opportunity to contribute to state affairs, but gives up this chance in favour of an entirely private and self-serving life, dedicating himself to the indulgence of the senses. In other words, Sulla’s retirement is de100
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picted as an appropriate Republican response, whereas Lucullus’ choice is an abrogation of his responsibilities. Through elaborate cuisine and extravagant private building, he debauches the vast wealth he earned by virtus. He feeds his senses of taste and vision with the very spoils of war which should glorify him in his old age: instead this prosperity destroys his reputation. And, by importing multifarious foreign goods, he spends the spoils of Roman victory on Eastern luxury – again a perversion of Lucullus’ intended course, which would have led him to conquer the East.24 This subversion of the conqueror’s spoils is made manifest in Plutarch’s Comparison (suvgkrisi~) of Kimon and Lucullus, which places Kimon’s public building programme on the south wall of the Acropolis up against Lucullus’ private villas (described as ‘Neapolitan palaces’: tou;~ ejn Neva/ povlei qalavmou~) and building projects (‘sea-washed belvederes’ ta;~ perikluvstou~ ajpovyei~, Kim./Luc. 1.5). Lucullus’ identification with the East is only strengthened by his patronage of the Greek-Syrian poet Archias (Cic. Arch. poet. 5–6), along with two anecdotes frequently recorded to exemplify his extravagance. In the first tale, he has a ready collection of purple chlamydes (Greek cloaks) on hand; in fact twice as many as the praetor who asks for one hundred requires (Plut. Luc. 39.5). For Horace, recommending moderation and greatly inflating the number of cloaks to 5,000 (Epis. 1.6.40–4), this tale indicates that Lucullus does not value what he has, or even know the full extent of it, like Trimalchio, who exhibits ignorance over the size of his land (Petr. Sat. 48.3). Significantly, in Horace, the praetor requests the cloaks for a public performance (scaenae, ‘for the stage’ Epis. 1.6.41), whereas Lucullus keeps these ostentatious items for private use (sibi . . . domi, ‘for himself, at home’ Epis. 1.6.43–4). The other instance involves a much quoted quip which aligns Lucullus with an Eastern despot: Lucullus exciso etiam monte iuxta Neapolim maiore inpendio quam villam exaedificaverat euripum et maria admisit, qua de causa Magnus Pompeius Xerxen togatum eum appellabat. XL HS e piscina ea defuncto illo veniere pisces. Lucullus even excavated a mountain near Naples and, at more expense than it had cost to build his villa, constructed a channel and let in the sea; and this is the reason that Pompey the Great25 used to call him ‘Xerxes in a toga’. When he died the fish from his fish pond sold for four million sesterces. Pliny HN 9.170 According to Velleius and Plutarch, Lucullus not only created artificial water channels on land, but also built sections of his villa complex at Baiae out 101
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over the sea (Vell. Pat. 2.33.4, Plut. Luc. 39.3), compounding the confusion of land and sea. This ambitious building project makes him analogous to the Persian king Xerxes, who famously had a channel cut through Mount Athos (Herod. 7.22–4), subverting the normal division of land and sea (Varro RR 3.17.9; Jolivet, 1987; Edwards, 1993: 145–9). Building on this scale was castigated by writers from the late Republic onwards (Sall Cat. 13.1), and building out over the sea was particularly disreputable (Hor. Odes 3.1.33– 7). At the same time, it is possible to praise the same types of building as both spectacular for the viewer and as amazing feats of technology, with their fabulous imported marbles and impressive ability to counter the limits of nature (e.g. Statius Silvae 1.2, 1.5, 2.2, and 4.3.72–94, Mart. 6.42, 8.68). As Edwards comments, the same categories are used for lauding or enjoying luxury as for deploring it (1993: 142). She suggests that there is gratification in breaking the moral codes; certainly the overlap between positive and negative views of building activity show that the ‘anti-luxury and technology as progress’ or ‘as a status symbol’ discourses were interdependent. This is one area of human activity which can easily be depicted as a marker of both a utopic and a dystopic present (and implied future). Lucullus’ later life, however, is always represented as reprehensible, perhaps due to his position as a symbol of the dying Republic. It is probable that Lucullus, by building out over the sea, was hoping to inspire the kind of awe and admiration which Statius, in an imperial context, would later accord to Flavian constructions, but instead the Republican general rouses only disgust and ridicule. The Xerxes insult works at various levels: by aligning Lucullus with a king, it suggests that his extravagance has separated him off from the Republican system; by comparing him to a Persian, it reminds us of a race often castigated as morally inferior, degenerate and prone to luxury – a view which had transferred into Roman cultural stereotypes.26 The distinction between Persians and others is clearly seen in Horace Odes 1.38, a poem which plays with eastern complexity and Roman simplicity: Persicos odi . . . adparatus (‘I hate Persian ostentation’ 1.38.1) versus (implicitly Italian) simplici myrto (‘uncomplicated myrtle’ 1.38.4). In some senses Horace extends a binarism already present in Greek thought (Archil. 25 and Anth. Pal. 11.3; see duBois, 1982: 78–91), but the adjective simplex (‘one-stranded’, ‘uncomplicated’, ‘plain’) has particular resonance in the Roman construction of unaltered nature as typically benevolent, pure and native, as opposed to cultivated nature as ruinous, contaminated and foreign – an opposition seen throughout Pliny’s Historia Naturalis. As Conte, discussing Pliny’s views on grafting plants, comments ‘[the] artificial, inasmuch as it is not natural, is almost impious; indeed in certain cases it is impious tout court’ (1994: 79). And the original Greek-Persian conflict was still meaningful to Romans in the imperial period: part of the celebrations for the dedication of the Forum Augustum in 2 BCE was a naval battle – a restaging of the Battle of Salamis (RGDA 23, Ovid AA 1.172–4; Dio 102
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55.10.7–8; Gurval, 1995: 289). Additionally, by referring to Xerxes in particular, Xerxes togatus makes allusion to Herodotus’ characterization of the Persian king as insane – another of his infamous acts was to order the whipping of the Hellespont, because its seas destroyed his first attempt to bridge Asia and Europe (Herod. 7.34–5). Both the whipping and the building of the canal are attempts to exert control over nature.27 According to Herodotus the digging was difficult and, initially, the channel collapsed (7.23) – he clearly sees the operation as an unnecessary act of arrogance on the part of Xerxes (megalofrosuvnh~ ei{neken; . . . ejqevlwn te duvnamin ajpodeivknusqai kai; mnhmovsuna lipevsqai ‘because of pride . . . wanting to demonstrate his power and to leave a reminder of his presence’ 7.24). This judgement is probably unfair (How and Wells, 1912: 135–6) but had long been a rhetorical commonplace28 as something unnatural, even unfeasible, while Cicero had pointed to the absurdity of Xerxes’ actions in a neat chiasmus: Xerxes, cum tantis classibus tantisque equestribus et pedestribus copiis Hellesponto iuncto Athone perfosso mari ambulavisset terra navigavisset (‘when Xerxes, with such a great number of ships, horsemen and infantry, yoked the Hellespont and dug out Athos, he walked across the sea and sailed over the land’ de Fin. 2.112). According to the narrator of Juvenal’s tenth Satire, everything which Xerxes attempts is supernatural; he acts with greater force than even Aeolus and Neptune, the gods of elemental forces – lashing the winds and chaining up the god of earthquakes (10.180–2). Xerxes extends the power he has over humans to the natural world, by acting as its master and enslaving the winds and waters (10.180–4). Literary depictions of Xerxes as insane and hubristic are significant in any comparison between the Roman aristocrat and the Persian king. The analogy not only associates Lucullus with representations of Xerxes as mentally unstable, arrogantly extravagant and unable to confine himself within natural boundaries, it also raises the spectre of both projects as essentially empty: indeed in Juvenal’s Satire 10 Xerxes is included as an example of the pointlessness of military action and the vacuous search for glory, a man who ends up with nothing but one ship struggling through the bloody waves and corpses (10.185–6). Xerxes’ eventual failure to conquer Greece made the whole enterprise invalid, suggesting that all of Lucullus’ ostentation – whatever might be its motive – is ultimately pointless.29 Ironically, Lucullus’ properties – at least those at Misenum and Rome – fell into the hands of the imperial family.30 There is a sense that the Julio-Claudians are the natural inheritors of Lucullus’ decadence, just as this is implicit in the use of similar rhetoric directed at Caligula and Nero (discussed on pages 105–8).
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Lucullus’ foreignness All the analogies to a tyrannical king aside, the immediate joke of Xerxes togatus is the incongruity of the ancient Persian king being dressed up as a Roman citizen. So, conversely, as Xerxes togatus Lucullus embodies foreignness: an easterner in a thin veneer of Romanness. This joke then is particularly barbed, as it suggests that Lucullus’ inner core is not Roman at all, and that if he were to remove his toga, his Romanness would disappear. But clearly Lucius Licinius Lucullus’ ethnicity is fixed by his name, his lineage and his role as a public figure, so that the corollary is that even in his native Roman dress, Lucullus perverts the national costume by acting as a foreign tyrant in a toga. The comparison can work to draw attention to the differences between the two enterprises: Xerxes engaged in an enormous military expedition, involving the movement of troops and supplies between continents, and Lucullus, having given up his army leadership, devoting himself to frivolous pursuits, whose object is purely visual, rather than providing any practical benefit.31 Such comparisons associating Lucullus with the trivial or unreal occur elsewhere. For example, Varro compares Lucullus negatively with Scrofa, who is both virum omnibus virtutibus politum (‘a man who was refined with every manly quality’) and de agri cultura Romanus peritissimus (‘the most learned Roman concerning agriculture’, RR 1.2.10), claiming that it is ‘a more pleasing sight’ (iucundiore spectaculo) to see Scrofa’s working farm than the ‘showpiece’ villas, regie polita aedificia (‘regally refined buildings’) – note the transfer of the word politus (‘refined’) from the positive application to Scrofa’s character to a pejorative use. Scrofa has real orchards, while Lucullus has only picture galleries, and to prove the point with clever (Greek) wordplay, Varro juxtaposes pinacothecas (literally ‘picture rooms’) with oporothecas (‘fruit storage rooms’).32 Thus Lucullus’ endeavours in various texts are a symbol that late Republican culture no longer maintains proportion or correct priorities; and this in turn fits the model which Pliny sets up when he despairs that marble, once a building material valued for its strength, now merely provides a veneer over the material actually supporting the structure (HN 36.45, discussed below) – much as the insult Xerxes togatus implies that Lucullus’ toga covers a less attractive reality. Similarly Cato’s complaint, that men now pay more for cooks than for horses, was concerned with an inversion of categories, which placed the sensory above the practical (Gel. NA 11.2, see also Pliny HN 9.67). Although such distinctions between the practical and the aesthetic are commonly made in Roman texts, this equation glosses over the symbolic significance of villa building. Lucullus’ extravagant Baiae villa, along with his Pincian villa and renowned gardens, can easily be interpreted as a display of his economic power, performing the same function as other building projects and conspicuous wealth, which provided the traditional arena in which the republican elite battled for status (Strabo 9.5.16; Pliny HN 36.48, 36.109– 104
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10; La Rocca, 1986; Coarelli, 1989; Purcell, 1996: 135; Habinek, 1998: 62; de Nuccio and Ungaro, 2002: 4). Lucullus may have gone further than many of the fabulously rich in displaying his wealth, but, to an extent, criticism of him in the Imperial period depends on the negative associations which writers attached to large-scale projects carried out by emperors such as Gaius and Nero (HN 36.110–12, Suet. Gaius 19, Suet. Nero 39.2, Tac. Ann. 15.42.1, [Lucian] Nero 2). Pliny directly compares the republican Scaurus, a consumer of Lucullan marble (on which, see below) with Gaius and Nero, claiming that his insania (‘madness’) for extravagant building was even greater than that of the two emperors (HN 36.113). Such a statement is extreme and unexpected in its anachronism, as late Republican extravagance is normally represented as the precursor to imperial excess. Pliny betrays himself with his illogicality – two paragraphs earlier, he claimed that Gaius’ palace and the Domus Aurea ‘defeated’ (vicerunt) all of the late republican houses he had previously described (HN 36.111). But there is great rhetorical effect in condemning a republican aristocrat for outdoing Gaius or Nero: it brands him as decadent beyond the crimes of his age, and even beyond the crimes of future ages.33 Moreover, there is likely to be more rhetoric than substance in Pliny’s statement, as the resources commanded by the emperors were far larger than any individual could claim in the late Republic. Indeed the domestic use of marble was unusual in the republican period (de Nuccio and Ungaro, 2002: 4), and Lucullus, Scaurus and a handful of other republican elites are marked out for comment precisely because their use of expensive marbles was relatively rare at that time (Sear, 1992: 85).34 Pliny reads the increase in extravagant domestic building as a commensurate increase in depravity (HN 36.48–50, 109, 113–15), but in great part the reason that more marble was imported in the later period is quite mundane, as the emperors’ reorganization, and in some cases ownership of quarries made marble distribution to Italy more efficient (Bruno et al., 2002: 291). While Pliny concentrates on the absurdity of how much money was spent on Lucullus’ engineering project, Velleius gives him the honour of being luxuriae primus auctor (‘the first inventor of luxury’, 2.33.4) – another less than desirable first. And Lucullus, perhaps more than other republican aristocrats, can easily be seen as the forerunner of emperors whose building was represented as out of control. Gaius, for example, like Lucullus, makes constructions over the sea, when he builds a bridge of ships from Puteoli to Baiae – the location of Lucullus’ seaside villa. And the two are further linked by association with Xerxes: Dio Cassius claims that Gaius laughed at Xerxes’ aspirations (59.17.11); Seneca hints at the comparison by calling Gaius’ actions furiosi et externi et infeliciter superbi regis imitatio (‘an imitation of a mad, foreign and calamitously proud king’ Brev. Vit. 18.5), while Suetonius reports the idea that Gaius may have actually been emulating the Persian king: 105
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novum praeterea atque inauditum genus spectaculi excogitavit. nam Baiarum medium intervallum Puteolanas moles, trium milium et sescentorum fere passuum spatium, ponte coniunxit contractis undique onerariis navibus et ordine duplici ad anc[h]oras conlocatis superiectoque terreno ac derecto in Appiae viae formam. per hunc pontem ultro citro commeavit biduo continenti, primo die phalerato equo insignisque quercea corona et caetra et gladio aureaque chlamyde, postridie quadrigario habitu curriculoque biiugi famosorum equorum, prae se ferens Dareum puerum ex Parthorum obsidibus, comitante praetorianorum agmine et in essedis cohorte amicorum. scio plerosque existimasse talem a Gaio pontem excogitatum aemulatione Xerxis, qui non sine admiratione aliquanto angustiorem Hellespontum contabulaverit; alios, ut Germaniam et Britanniam, quibus imminebat, alicuius inmensi operis fama territaret. sed avum meum narrantem puer audiebam, causam operis ab interioribus aulicis proditam, quod Thrasyl
us mathematicus anxio de successore Tiberio et in verum nepotem proniori affirmasset non magis Gaium imperaturum quam per Baianum sinum equis discursurum. Besides, he also thought up a new and unheard-of form of spectacle. For he joined by a bridge the space between the middle of the Bay of Baiae and the cliffs at Puteoli, a distance of around three thousand six hundred paces, by bringing together cargo ships from all around and anchoring them together in two lines and piling up earth on them, to look like the Appian Way. He rode back and forth over this bridge for two days in a row: on the first day on a decorated horse, and marked out with an oak-leaf crown, Spanish shield, sword and a gold cloak, and the next day in a charioteer’s outfit and drawn by two well-known horses, carrying a boy called Dareus, one of the Parthian hostages, before him, and accompanied by the ranks of the Praetorian guard and a gang of his friends in Gallic war chariots. I know that many thought that such a bridge was contrived by Gaius out of rivalry with Xerxes, who attracted some wonder when he bridged the much narrower Hellespont with boards; others thought that he did it so that the reputation of some great work might strike fear into Germany and Britain, which he was planning to attack. But, as a boy, I heard my grandfather say that the reason had been divulged by the emperor’s closest courtiers, that Thrasyllus the astrologer assured Tiberius, who was worried about his successor and leaning towards his actual grandson, that it was no more likely that Gaius would become emperor than that he would ride over the Bay of Baiae on horses. Suetonius Gaius 19.1–3 106
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Again the engineering project is associated with arrogant and insane behaviour by its author: Gaius attempts to exceed the excess of Xerxes himself, at least according to one of Suetonius’ possible explanations. But again, the scheme is represented as a vanity project, without even the excuse of practical need – the incredible idea that tales of this bridge could have any meaning to the Germans or the British seems to be a faint reminder of the real fear that Xerxes’ bridge would have inspired in contemporary Greeks; while the tale of Thrasyllus’ prophecy is a reminder of how contra-nature Gaius’ five-kilometre35 bridge is (Beacham, 1999: 173–5). Gaius, unlike Lucullus, had a laughable reputation in warfare, and this episode is a precursor of his undignified campaign against Germany (Suet. Gaius 43–8). Like the worst of Suetonius’ emperors, Gaius is interested in novelty – novum, ‘new’ is the first word of this passage (see also Gaius 45.1, Nero 16.1); but even more pointed is Gaius’ misuse of military accoutrements. Everything is a contorted and spurious version of reality, from the fake road on which he parades, to the strange mix of dressing up first as a triumphator (Dio has him wearing a breastplate which, Gaius claimed, had been Alexander’s, 59.17.3), then as a public performer in the circus. Gaius performs public roles in private, though not at private expense: Seneca claimed that the building of such structures used up the resources of the empire and nearly starved the Roman people (Sen. Brev. Vit. 18.5–6, and see Josephus Ant. Iud. 19.6, Dio 59.17.5). The actions of the emperor, then, have immediate and serious implications for the empire as a whole; by comparison, Lucullus’ behaviour seems trivial, though it did of course betray Pliny’s, and others’, idea of the correct role for an elite Roman man. If Lucullus’ bipartite life might mirror the Romans’ sense of their own decline from military actors to self-indulgent aesthetes, Gaius’ behaviour seems to show that these categories no longer have any discrete meaning – the emperor indulges himself at the very same time that he pretends to be a military figure. Yet Gaius is also the logical, imperial outcome of Lucullus’ subversion of Republican ideals. Just as Lucullus betrayed his father’s restraint, and even his own former virtus (HN 14.96), so Gaius perverts the military feats of Germanicus (who triumphed in 17 CE) with empty displays of victory, dressed as a triumphator. It is this vacuous display which Juvenal derides in the fake militarism of the puer (‘boy’) Automedon, a young man with pretensions to armed command who has squandered his fortune on horses, and, wearing a military cloak, races his chariot to impress his girlfriend (Sat. 1.58–62).36 The only triumph which Gaius can celebrate is that over nature, not in fact over Britain or Germany. His misuse of power is made clear by Seneca, who stresses the inappropriateness of Gaius’ actions by juxtaposing imperium (‘empire’) and vis (‘resources’, ‘strength’) with ludere (‘to play, fool around’): dum ille pontes navibus iungit et viribus imperi ludit, ‘while he links together a bridge of boats and plays with the resources of empire’ (Brev. Vit. 18.5). The emperor is wasting Rome’s assets and making a mockery of a role he should be performing in earnest, by play-acting it in trivial circumstances. 107
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Nero too is associated with crimes against natura in his building programme: he introduces a new style of architecture (Suet. Nero 31) and considers both extending the city wall to Ostia, and building a canal to Rome (Suet. Nero 16). He begins to construct a covered pool from Misenum to Lake Avernus, which, it is planned, would incorporate all the hot springs from Baiae, fittingly subsuming all the waters of the Roman pleasure resort (Suet. Nero 31.3). Pliny comments that Nero’s attempt to construct a ship canal and redirect water interferes with viticulture on the Bay of Naples, resulting in the loss of the vineyard which produced Caecuban wine (HN 14.61) – here construction is equated with disruption, and again, water is artificially led where it should not naturally flow. Like Xerxes, Lucullus and Gaius before him, Nero tries to subvert the separation of land and sea,37 and worst of all, is responsible for innovation and novelty. And it is significant that Lucullan marble also associates the Roman republican general with the principate: as commented above, only he and the first two emperors give their names to that most extravagant of building materials (Pliny HN 36.49, 36.55–6, discussed above). In this way, the scale of Lucullus’ decline (and the decline of the republic) depends on an anachronistic (and specifically post-Augustan) reading of republican culture. While these texts, which come largely from the Flavian period onwards, associate Lucullus’ extravagance with retirement and self-indulgent leisure, at the time, and soon afterwards, Cicero depicts Lucullus as actively involved in political affairs (Hillman, 1993: 224–7).38 Similarly, Xerxes’ canal, along with his Hellespont bridge and other feats of engineering, can be read not only as a practical enterprise to convey his army into Greece, but also as an unmissable message that he is capable of reconfiguring nature.
Changing Nature: Escaping the imperial city Such interference with the natural landscape is severely criticized in unpopular emperors. But a similar criticism could plausibly have been made of Trajan’s Forum, as the inscription below Trajan’s Column boasts of having excavated a spur of the Quirinal Hill to provide the space for his glittering new forum: AD·DECLARANDVM·QVANTAE·ALTITVDINIS·MONS·ET·LO CVS. TANTIBVS·SIT·EGESTVS in order to illustrate how high were the hill and earth, which were removed for such great <works> as these.39 CIL 6.960 However, while Trajan’s Forum was a victory monument, commemorating, and built with booty from, the emperor’s successful military campaign 108
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against Dacia which ended in 107 CE, Xerxes’ canal remained merely physical evidence of a failed attack, and as such open to Herodotus’ critique as the act of a maniac. Writings about the building activities of both Lucullus and Xerxes are, then, heavily coloured by subsequent events and particular readings of history. Trajan’s Column implicitly equates the levelling of the hillside with his Dacian conquests: the emperor controls the landscape of central Rome, much as he dominates the distant province, where there was also at least one victory monument marking the landscape (at Adamklissi). Nevertheless, the creation of the emperor’s forum did necessitate the reconfiguration of Rome’s natural topography, and at some level his grand project would be open to interpretation as a crime against nature. A passage from Juvenal’s third Satire (3.254–61) is sometimes read as a critique of Trajan’s enterprise:40 here Umbricius complains of a huge cart of building materials (described as a ‘mountain’ (montem), 3.258) being dragged through the streets, with scant concern for the environment and people of Rome. The passage is reminiscent of the stock scene whereby trees are removed from forests for ship building, which is often portrayed as a sign of interference with natura, and the onset of technology and warfare.41 And indeed Umbricius does use the language of military attack when referring to the incongruous planks of wood (populoque/ minantur, ‘and they threaten the general public’ 3.256). But there is also reference to agriculture, as farming implements are misappropriated to carry the tree-trunks (pinum plaustra uehunt ‘wagons drag the pine-tree’ 3.255–6), and the two topics – aggression and the neglect of agriculture – are combined at the end of the satire, when Umbricius stresses the criminal violence of city life, which causes iron to be used for chains rather than ploughs, hoes or mattocks (3.302–11).42 The attack on nature and specifically forests is prefigured in the satire’s early joke about the Jewish appropriation of what the speaker claims as a traditionally ‘Roman’ grove: omnis enim populo mercedem pendere iussa est/ arbor ‘for every tree is ordered to pay its dues to the people’ (Sat. 3.15– 16). Umbricius’ speech condemns the disordered, inverted social hierarchies of the new Rome, but just as strongly, he despises the city’s evolving physical structure, as is seen in his remarks on the dangers of building works (Sat. 3.254–61), and the description of the travesty which is Egeria’s grove (Sat. 3.11–20). This satire is founded on the idea of decline at Rome, and sets out rival, paradisal settings as antitheses which are aligned with Rome’s preimmigrant past, notably the Latian towns where a garden and self-sufficiency are still possible and excessive building work does not occur (3.223–9; also 3.313–4, cf. 3.32–4). Nostalgia of this sort fits well with the post-Golden Age resonances which saturate the poem: from oblique allusions to the beginning of navigation, to more direct reference to the abuse of natural resources, and specifically interference with agricultural processes. As if to seal this anti-urbs rhetoric, the last word of the poem is agros (3.322), although agriculture itself is often represented as an abuse of natura in 109
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Roman texts (Leach, 1988: 182), and Umbricius uses the word ager here to refer to the narrator’s birthplace, the cold fields (gelidos . . . agros) of Aquinum, another Latian town, in the hope that he might encourage the narrator to return there. Yet ironically, Aquinum was probably still a flourishing town (Brunt 1971: 346), associated with the production of dyes: Aquinum was wealthy and famous for its purple dye. Horace compares dye from Aquinum with the Tyrian product, though he suggests it is far less luxurious than its eastern counterpart (Epis. 1.10.27), and dyes, like veneer are easily associated with deceit and falsification by moralists (Mayer, 1994: 185): fucosus, related to fucus, ‘dye’, means ‘sham’ or ‘deceitful’. The divide between past and present, or moral and corrupt, which seems to correspond so neatly to rural and urban, is brought into question by Umbricius’ casual use of location – anywhere that is not Rome represents the purity of the past for him, regardless of the fact that many of these places might be far from rural idylls themselves. The other places represented as utopian in Satire 3 are Cumae, where Umbricius is going (3.2–5), Praeneste, Volsinii, Gabii, Tibur (3.190–2), Sora, Fabrateria and Frusino (3.223–4): all are in Latium, except for Volsinii in Etruria, and Cumae in Campania. Each of these towns represents an inversion of what Rome has become, and perhaps a version of its simpler past. While Sora, Fabrateria and Frusino are, for Umbricius, simply places where much cheaper accommodation can be obtained than that of Rome, he emphasizes the idyllic qualities of other towns – they are cooler, leafier and less perplexing than the city: quis timet aut timuit gelida Praeneste ruinam aut positis nemorosa inter iuga Volsiniis aut simplicibus Gabiis aut proni Tiburis arce? Who fears or has feared falling buildings in ice-cold Praeneste or among the wooded ridges of remote Volsinii or in artless Gabii or the hill-top of sloping Tibur? Juv. Sat. 3.190–2 For Umbricius, the attraction of these towns is the safety and tranquillity which they represent, specifically as opposed to the dangerous and alarming state of Rome’s precarious buildings – here he prefigures his later criticism of the city’s perilous construction work at Rome (3.254–61, discussed above). But none of these towns is Umbricius’ destination; as is made clear from the very beginning – before the protagonist’s name is even mentioned – he is going south to Cumae: laudo tamen, vacuis quod sedem figere Cumis destinet atque unum civem donare Sibyllae. 110
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ianua Baiarum est et gratum litus amoeni secessus. ego vel Prochytam praepono Suburae. But I praise him, because he plans to make his home at deserted Cumae and to give one citizen to the Sibyl. It is the gateway to Baiae and the pleasing shore of a delightful retreat. I even prefer Prochyta to the Subura. Juv. Sat. 3.2–5 Umbricius’ hypocrisy is revealed by his readiness to embrace a town founded by Greeks – in fact the oldest Greek colony in Italy (Strabo 5.4.4), despite his disgust at the Graecam urbem (‘Greek city [of Rome]’ 3.61). The only escape from the city now infested with Greeks is a place invented by Greeks, and it is a place made doubly suspect by its position as a refuge for Rome’s last king, Tarquinius Superbus, when he was expelled in 510 BCE (Livy 2.21, Dionys. 6.21). By retreating to Cumae, is Umbricius retreading the steps of the despised dictator, and does this mean that he himself is aligned with the Etruscan king?43 Perhaps a more compelling reading would see the repetition as a stark pointer to Rome’s moral and social decline: whereas the Tarquins were driven out to create the Roman Republic, which was, by universal accord, a healthier and better-functioning social system, Umbricius retires from Rome because it has become a distinctly unhealthy place to live, both physically and morally. In a sense, the Tarquins have retaken the city, in the form of the Greek interloper – and the Tarquins could also be seen as interlopers, being Etruscans, whose origins were possibly in the East (Lydia: Herod. 1.94). Greeks have become undisclosed tyrants of Rome, holding Roman citizens to ransom (3.113) and literally acting as king (regnat) of the household: non est Romano cuiquam locus hic, ubi regnat Protogenes aliquis vel Diphilus aut Hermarchus There is no place here for any Roman, where rules some Protogenes or Diphilus or Hermachus Juv. Sat. 3.119–20 Not only have Greeks taken control of the household, the whole city is in their sway, as it is famously now an urbs Graeca (‘Greek city’, Juv. Sat. 3.61), and they have therefore accomplished something even the Tarquins did not attempt: the rebranding of Rome itself. Similarly, as the rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquin is the spur for Romans to rid themselves of kings, so the sex crimes of Greek interlopers (the seduction of the entire family) is one of the factors which Umbricius claims is driving him away (3.109–12). The withdrawal to Cumae, therefore, marks the ascent and de111
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scent of Rome’s moral wellbeing, and this pattern fits easily into the rhetorical schema of decline under the monarchy, followed by reconstruction and ideal social conditions during the republic, with a return to corruption, abuse of power and debauchery in the empire: the dystopic hell which has become Umbricius’ Rome. Moreover, as the narrator exaggerates that Umbricius will be the only person to inhabit Cumae (unum civem), he is in effect capturing, even taking total possession of, a once-Greek town – and emphasising that there he will be a citizen, a role he seems no longer able to play in Rome. Cumae had severely declined since its glory days of the archaic era, and had been described as quieta (‘peaceful’) by Statius (Silv. 4.3.65); but it was not Rome’s depredations which had brought it to this position, as Cumae suffered attacks from Etruscans and Samnites, and was violently stormed by Campanians around 420 BCE (Livy 4.44.12, Diod. Sic. 12.76.4). Its citizens were brutally killed or enslaved, and after this the town never recovered its position. Thus the Cumaeans were already conquered before the process of incorporation into a Romanized town began (in the fourth to second centuries BCE), and Cumae was slow to take on the dominant culture, only using Latin officially after 180 BCE (Livy 40.42.13). In this, it was unlike many of Satire 3’s towns, which had been conquered and forcibly Romanized (e.g. Volsinii was sacked by Rome in 264 BCE; Praeneste was defeated by Cincinnatus in 370 BCE). Although Cumae had probably later become a colonia for Augustan veterans (Brunt, 1971: 337, but cf. 609), it has a fairly low profile by the second century CE, and occupies a conceptual space far from the city Umbricius hates, as well as the towns created or co-opted by Rome. The latter are places which had a good chance of becoming Romelike themselves – as Juvenal’s second Satire implies, Roman corruption is being exported to the empire (Sat. 2.159–70). As a town which has been largely free of Roman influence, Cumae is also free of these perils; and in addition it gives Umbricius the opportunity to be the first Roman conqueror, and to accumulate the respect (honor) he is denied in Rome – after all he aspires to being ‘master of a single lizard’ (unius sese dominum fecisse lacertae, Sat. 3.231), implying that, at Rome, he is forced to occupy, instead, a servile role. His very first complaint had been that there is no place in this city for ‘respectable skills’ (artibus honestis, Sat. 3.21); in Juvenal’s poetry, honor is tied closely not only to maintaining dignity, but also to livelihood and even survival.44 In Satire 5, it equates to being offered decent food at Virro’s feast of inequalities (Sat. 5.10), and here in Satire 3, Umbricius claims that his means are shrinking by the day, as he rhetorically juxtaposes present with recent past and immediate future: res hodie minor est here quam fuit atque eadem cras/ deteret exiguis aliquid (‘my property is less today than it was yesterday and tomorrow will wear away something of what little remains’ Sat. 3.23–4). And it is this diminution of resources, along with his diminished position, which is driving Umbricius out of Rome. 112
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These complaints are placed emphatically at the beginning of his long monologue, and a direct causal link between decline and exile is made: quando . . . / . . . proponimus illuc/ ire (‘when [my status and money depreciate] . . . I resolve to leave this place’ Sat. 3.21, 24–5). Formerly, it is implied, Rome was a city where the respectable would be well-maintained,45 and not passed over for a Graeculus esuriens (‘thirsty Greekling’, Sat. 3.78). More disturbingly, while Cumae puts Umbricius in a position of superiority, there is the suggestion of moral laxity given by the proximity of Baiae, which appears at the beginning of the poem (Sat. 3.4) – not only is it nearby, but Cumae is the ianua (‘gateway’) to it. Is Cumae, then, just an entry point to the immoral activities of the wealthy at play? For Baiae had long been seen as the seaside pleasure-resort of the rich and idle; it was notorious for its elaborate and over-sized villas, like Lucullus’, and it stood at one end of Gaius Caligula’s sea bridge – certainly not the location of the simple life, and a seemingly strange reference in a satire so focused on Rome’s immorality. As a coastal resort, Baiae also participates in the dubious negotiation between land and sea, and the Bay of Baiae is where oyster ponds are first introduced by Sergius Orata (Pliny HN 9.168), another mixing up of nature and culture, and an encroachment on the sea (similarly Pliny HN 9.172). However, Pliny praises the volcanic waters of Baiae for their healing qualities (HN 31.4–5), and it appears in poetic contexts as a place of beauty (Hor. Epis. 1.1.83, Stat. Silv. 3.5.96, 4.3.25–6, 4.7.18–19) – it is only human interference with Baiae which produces its reputation for luxury and debauchery (Cic. Cael. 38). Prochyta, on the other hand (Sat. 3.5), is included as an ironic utopia, an absurd alternative to the most sleazy district of Rome, the Subura; as an island assaulted by frequent earthquakes (Pl. HN 2.203), it would be as dangerous a place to live as Rome, with its perilously weak housing, prone to collapse and fire (Sat. 3.190–214). By situating this unlikely choice of habitation for an urban dweller at the beginning of the poem, the narrator sets up Rome as the ultimate dystopia. No matter how poor the opposition, it is outdone by Rome’s excess. From the outset, like the Latin and Etruscan towns of Sat. 3.190–2, it is the remoteness and tranquillity of Cumae which are presented as its appealing qualities: it is a secessus, a place literally ‘drawn apart’ or detached from the mainstream (also at Cic. de leg. agr. 2.96). The narrator also places Cumae towards the end of the poem, so that within three lines, we read of Rome (the despised city, Sat. 3.319), Aquinum (the narrator’s birthplace, Sat. 3.319) and Cumae (Sat. 3.321), found in the second-last line, as it was in the second line of the satire, giving the poem a kind of ring-composition style, as the ideal, empty place surrounds the anarchy of the chaotic city. And it is quiet because it is vacuus, literally ‘empty’, depicted as an abandoned or devastated town. Denis Feeney (1986) discusses the uses of such abandoned or shrunken towns in the context of the Aeneid, particularly 113
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Anchises’ roll-call of Latin towns, yet to be built in Aeneas’ age (Aen. 6.773– 6), and barely surviving in Virgil’s time. To Aeneas they are only names (Aen. 6.776), and Feeney suggests that they have once again become nothing but nomina, exposing Rome’s future imperial project as one which enlarges Rome to the detriment of all others (1986: 8). In the satiric context, the allusion to dead and dying towns functions differently, as the anti-urbs rhetoric explicitly promotes tranquillity (rather than greatness) and prefers it to the city’s clamour, and Juvenal delivers the standard list of shrinking towns, which represent the traditional group of local retreats from the city. What links these towns in the Roman literary tradition is their reputation for being deserted: they had long been overshadowed by Rome, and in many cases were now bywords for remoteness. But what also links them is that they may not have actually been as empty as their reputations suggest. Gabii in particular, although believed to be the place where Romulus was brought up (Plut. Rom. 6.1), is often cited as the embodiment of a deserted settlement in the late Republican and early Augustan period (Cic. Planc. 9, Hor. Epis. 1.11.7, Prop. 4.1.34); but it actually had quarries of sperone (tufa) at least until the Augustan era.46 Whether it actually did later shrink to the degree suggested in Satire 3 is difficult to determine, given that its reputation was already sealed (cf. Dion. Hal. 4.53.1). Tibur had been called vacuus (‘empty’) by Horace (Epis. 1.7.45), but is wrongly cast as a nowhere place, given that it housed quarries of the finest travertine, which had been accessed for Roman building since the second century BCE, and continued to be significant through the imperial period (Richardson, 1992: 444). As is often the case, an elite source can misrepresent any alteration in circumstances as desertification.47 Umbricius’ position summarizes the paradoxes at the heart of Roman utopias and dystopias, as it exaggerates the utopian potential of so-called rural retreats, which may in fact have been noisy commercial or industrial towns – Cumae too was a centre for quarrying stone (Pliny HN 35.166) – providers of raw materials for the very building work which Umbricius despises. Yet at the same time, whatever the true situation in these places, Umbricius elevates to idyllic status towns which conventionally hold a much more negative position: in the literary tradition they are depicted as utterly squalid and derelict. But as Braund has pointed out (1989: 26–7), satire (as other genres which privilege the rural over the urban) often idealizes the countryside, missing the dirt, deprivation and hard work involved in farming, for instance. And equally, despite its overwhelming critique of city life, satire is dependent on the urbs for its material. Ferguson argues that one of the reasons that Satire 3’s narrator needs Umbricius to be the Rome exile, is that the narrator himself cannot leave (1979: 136), because he would lose his subject matter. Although this implies that all of Juvenal’s Satires feature a consistent narrator,48 it does show just how indivisible the satirist and the city are felt to be. 114
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Mining disaster It is disturbing that so many of Satire 3’s idealized alternatives to Rome seem to have housed quarries: not only would it make them less than perfect escapes from the rigours of city life, being both noisy and full of slaves and criminals, but also they could seem menacing attempts to destroy the very face of nature. Pliny compares the scaling of the Alps by Rome’s enemies to the excavation of the mountains for building materials (HN 36.2). Past military assaults on Italy, he implies, are nothing to the destruction we exert, just to acquire marble. Again interference with nature, with the landscape, is bound up with military activity. But here it is not carried out to celebrate victory (as Trajan’s Column), or to facilitate attack (as Pliny says that Hannibal and the Cimbri had) – instead it is represented as a corrosive activity, whereby Romans themselves needlessly do more damage to the natural environment than their foreign enemies had accomplished. Mining is represented as conquest, but it is a conquest which leaves only devastation: spectant victores ruinam naturae (‘as conquerors they look upon the wreckage of nature’ HN 33.73). As such it is self-defeating, a civil war with the landscape of Italy on which its inhabitants depend. Pliny makes the connection between mining the earth and earthquakes, as though the death and destruction which can be wrought by tremors is the earth’s revenge upon humans for digging beneath her surface, into her very innards (imus in viscera, HN 33.2). In addition, mining underground is unnatural, as the miners could spend months working through the day and never seeing the light of the sun (HN 33.70–1); equally, it is dangerous to those engaged in it, and, if a mining shaft collapsed, it had the potential to bury bodies without proper ritual, suggesting impiety (HN 33.70, Stat. Theb. 6.876–86; see also Hor. Odes 3.3.49–53, Ovid Met. 1.140). The Historia Naturalis values natura above all else, and attacks many forms of human interference with nature (Conte, 1994: 80). Quarrying is one of Pliny’s particular bêtes noires, as he claims that montes natura sibi fecerat (‘nature had made mountains for herself’ HN 36.1), as a frame to keep in check the rivers, seas and the earth’s ‘guts’ (viscera – also used at HN 2.158; Ovid Met. 1.138; cf. Cic. de domo sua 124), yet caedimus hos trahimusque nulla alia quam deliciarum causa (‘we have cut and dragged them off for no other reason than on a whim’ HN 36.1). Cutting away a hillside, then, had the potential to unleash the earth’s more violent elemental forces, and what seems like a means of exerting control over landscape might be read as an action which misunderstands the earth’s self-regulating functions, one which in fact breaks down the barriers to chaos, a reversal of the creation narrative, which begins with chaos and results in orderly categories.
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Building an appetite A chaotic lack of regulation is also visible in the private habits of Xerxes and Lucullus: although they attempt to exert unnatural control over nature, both are linked by an inability to restrain themselves, and lack of self control is closely associated with luxuria. This is a theme which recurs in connection with Lucullus, particularly in connection with food. When discussing the effects of gluttony and dieting, Pliny reports that Lucullus was so incapable of limiting his appetites that he required a slave to be present at his meals to prevent him from overeating: L. Lucullus hanc de se praefecturam servo dederat, ultimoque probro manus in cibis triumphali seni deiciebatur vel in Capitolio epulanti, pudenda re servo suo facilius parere quam sibi. Lucius Lucullus had given this duty to oversee him to a slave, and in the ultimate disgrace, when he was an old man – a man who had celebrated a triumph – even when dining on the Capitol his hand was removed from food. It is a shameful thing that it was easier to be governed by his slave than by himself. HN 28.56 The public nature of Lucullus’ immoderate behaviour is stressed, as is his public role as a triumphator, and the marker of his decline is that he has moved from achieving the conquest and enslavement of others and actively controlling Roman soldiers, to being controlled by a slave (Beagon 1992: 210). Lucullus’ treatment of food is emblematic of decline in a variety of ways: while Pliny’s anecdote makes him a public disgrace, Plutarch tells a tale of him dining alone, but insisting on an extravagant meal, claiming that ‘today Lucullus dines with Lucullus’ (o{ti shvmeron para; Leukovllw/ deipnei` Leuvkollo~; Luc. 41.3). Again Lucullus’ dining habits are inappropriate, but this time because his ostentation occurs in private – this is exactly the kind of showiness and greed condemned in epigram and satire: both Martial (7.59) and Juvenal (1.140–1) attack those who dine alone on boar, which would normally feed a full table. Lucullus’ behaviour is epigrammatic in itself here, and generally worthy of sententia, because Lucullus lives at the extremes. Not content with showing his dissolution outside, Lucullus lives it in his own home, and in effect he performs his debauched self for himself. Plutarch centres Lucullus’ decline around food, and here he is again represented as a Persian, rather than a Roman, aristocrat, as he ‘eats like a satrap’ (trapevzh/satrapikhvn, Kim./Luc. 1.5). Not only that, but he also repudiates his elite birth, eating like the ‘newly rich’ (neovplouta, Luc. 40.1), which itself partakes of the association between luxury and democracy, according to Lavery (1994: 268, citing Mor. 801 A–B for support) – this is the type of lifestyle which the masses will covet, but which the well-born should despise: 116
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‘[in] the biographer’s eyes, luxurious indulgence is a betrayal of aristocratic standards of behaviour, as well as being a political danger signal’ (Lavery, 1994: 268). Cicero had also criticized Lucullus for competing with a freedman over his villa (de Leg. 3.30–1). To elite Romans the extravagance of the ‘newly rich’ suggests the excesses they ascribed to, and despised in freedmen (Edwards, 1993: 153–5) – which adds another layer to the status inversions performed by Lucullus. As commented earlier, Plutarch’s account lays Lucullus’ return to Rome, triumph, divorce, retirement and descent into luxury side by side in his linear narrative (Chapters 37–9), suggesting that he renounced public life and embraced his extravagant lifestyle immediately after his triumph in 63 BCE (strongly implied by Plutarch Luc. 38.2–3, see Hillman, 1993: 214–5). In fact, the date of Lucullus’ retirement is debated, with modern scholarship coming down strongly for 59 BCE or shortly after, as it seems that Lucullus had little involvement in politics after this (Hillman, 1993, Keaveney, 1992: 156–7). Although Plutarch’s chronology may be misleading, it gives a satisfying narrative cohesion and strong bipartite structure to Lucullus’ life: from high-minded, moral leader to overindulgent debauchee in one easy step. Moreover, it balances and inverts the life of Kimon, which is set in parallel to Lucullus’, as he is portrayed as debauched in youth, but changing for the better (Kim./Luc. 1.4). Swain (1989: 67) suggests that Plutarch sees character change as rare, but possible, and particularly caused by the influence of political power. But Plutarch gives no definitive answer, as he ponders the possible reasons for Lucullus choosing decadent retirement over the defence of the aristocracy: was it disillusionment with the moral decay of the Republic, or did Lucullus simply feel that he deserved a rest after lengthy military campaigns (Lucullus 38.2)? Again, the suggestion made by the biographer, with the benefit of hindsight – that Lucullus saw that the Republic was doomed – increases the parallel between the representations of the republican system and Lucullus himself: both fall into decline through immorality. The only difference is that, at least according to one of Plutarch’s versions, Lucullus retains the agency in his own collapse, whereas he can only look on as the state gives way to anarchy: ejgkatevlipe kai; prohvkato th;n politeivan, ei[te duskavqekton h[dh kai; nosou`san oJrw`n (‘he left behind and abandoned public affairs, perceiving that they were already beyond proper control and diseased’ 38.2). Reading Plutarch’s text, it is easy to interpret Lucullus’ later laxity as behaviour stemming from disillusionment – he is removed from his command against Mithridates (in 66 BCE, Luc. 35.7), and then has to fight to obtain a triumph (Luc. 37.1–2). Keaveney, Lucullus’ modern biographer, also implies that Lucullus eventually gave way to despondency with political life, although not until 58 BCE, after the departure of Cicero and Cato from Rome (1992: 163). Van Ooteghem, taking the ancient sources at face value, claims that Lucullus’ refusal to engage with Pompey after 63 BCE stemmed from his desire to immerse himself in the lux117
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ury for which he became infamous (1959: 174), yet if Lucullus retires after his triumph, his attempt to counter Pompey’s plans for settling his veterans in 59 BCE (Vell. Pat. 2.40.5; Plut. Luc. 42.6, Pomp. 46.3; Dio 37.49.4–5) means a brief return to politics. Whenever the retirement is dated, even the division of Lucullus’ life into two entirely discrete stages seems suspect. Suggestions that he enjoys extravagant material goods are made by his enemies long before he abandons politics (Pliny HN 14.96, 35.126, Plut. Luc. 1.4, Luc. 33.4, 34.3, Pomp. 31.4, Vell. Pat. 2.33.2). Certainly his family already owned at least one villa, on the southern coast of Italy, at Heraclea (van Ooteghem, 1959: 171). The clear separation of lifestyles in Plutarch and elsewhere serves to reinforce broader divisions of history and culture, and Lucullus’ downfall tracks Rome’s trajectory of decline. He acts first the part of an elite male Republican – magistrate and general – and then the part of the worst kind of emperor. As a military leader, he is so careful to impose rules and strictures that he is, at times, unpopular with his soldiers, and as a fabulously wealthy individual with no role in the Republican system (technically, a position which emperors also found themselves in) he observes no regulation except that of a slave. Failing to some degree in his first role, Lucullus’ subsequent powerlessness highlights a perceived weakness at the heart of the imperial system – that the emperor may be subject to his servants, and this fear recurs as a trope of imperial writing (see, for example, Tac. Ann. 11.29–30, 11.38, Suet. Claud. 29.1, Nero 29, Pliny Epis. 8.6.11, Dio 63.12).
Being number one Lucullus’ appearances are dotted through the Historia Naturalis, often exemplifying luxuria (9.170, 14.96, 18.32, 28.56, 34.36), but the tale of Lucullan marble is particularly significant in that it combines the type of extravagance which Pliny tends to chastise (over-consumption, as well as use of foreign materials) with the primus factor. As the Lucullus tale suggests, one of the obsessions of Pliny’s encyclopaedia is firsts. Lucullus piles up the firsts – his aedileship sees the first elephants fighting boar in the circus (HN 8.20) and he introduces the cherry tree from Pontus to Italy (HN 15.102, Serv. ad Georg. 2.18).49 The first person to do almost anything is suspect in the Historia Naturalis, as his action combines the danger of novelty with the likely introduction of something that is not native to the area, and this has serious implications for his character. Uncovering the base forms and origins of luxurious materials is one of the tasks of Pliny’s encyclopaedia (Murphy, 2004: 98) and thus innovation is usually tainted by luxuria, particularly in the areas of decoration and building: the first man who put gold rings on his fingers is pessimum . . . scelus (‘the worst rogue’ HN 33.8); similarly, recently invented ways of making marble appear more ‘natural’ are condemned as luxuria (HN 33). Menander first mentions coloured marbles 118
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(36.44); the first example of marble veneer which Pliny can discover is in the Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnasus (fourth century BCE: 36.47); Scaurus was the first to have marble walls on his stage (36.50); the first to have only marble columns was Mamurra, who was also the first to have thin-cut marble veneer at Rome (36.48). Veneer, like dye, was a symbol of superficiality for moralists, as was any kind of covering which sought to hide a less attractive structure. Pliny is explicit about the link between Mamurra’s innovation and his dubious character, referring to his infamous behaviour in public office: primum Romae parietes crusta marmoris operuisse totos domus suae in Caelio monte Cornelius Nepos tradit Mamurram, Formiis natum equitem Romanum, praefectum fabrum C. Caesaris in Gallia, ne quid indignitati desit, tali auctore inventa re. hic namque est Mamurra Catulli Veroniensis carminibus proscissus, quem, ut res est, domus ipsius clarius quam Catullus dixit habere quidquid habuisset Comata Gallia. Cornelius Nepos claims that Mamurra, a Roman eques born at Formiae and the Prefect of Works for Gaius Caesar in Gaul, was the first to have covered all the walls of his house (which was on the Caelian Hill) with marble veneer. So that no dishonour should be lacking, the practice was discovered by such a man. For he is the Mamurra attacked in the poems of Catullus of Verona, whose house, as a matter of fact, proclaims more notoriously than anything Catullus said, that he has whatever Long-haired Gaul had possessed. HN 36.48 Mamurra infamously acquired vast riches by dubious means through his attachment to Caesar (Cic. Att. 7.7.6). Because Mamurra is associated with provincial corruption and greed, clearly any of his actions is tarnished, as Pliny attests by paraphrasing Catullus’s damning assessment (Carm. 29.3– 4). Affluence on this scale was potentially dangerous – as Wiseman argues of Mamurra’s wealth, it ‘could regard itself as above the law’ (1985: 105).50 So, this is no chance combination of facts about Mamurra – for Pliny, his character and actions are complementary. It is fitting that such a degraded official should be involved in introducing such a suspect practice, and it adds to the outrageousness of marble veneer existing in Rome that a moral reprobate like Mamurra introduced it. Each of the ‘firsts’ highlighted by the Historia Naturalis is a cultural turning point – in the case of Mamurra’s use of veneer the change marks the movement from reality to unreality, as veneer gives the illusion of a marble structure, while in fact concealing a less glamorous (but practical) reality 119
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beneath. For Pliny has already critiqued the use of marble for its aesthetic qualities, praising the past when marble was used purely for its strength, rather than as an ornament: versicolores quidem maculas et in totum marmorum apparatum etiam Menander, diligentissimus luxuriae interpres, primus et raro attigit. columnis demum utebantur in templis, nec lautiiae causa – nondum enim ista intellegebantur – sed quia firmiores aliter statui non poterant. Markings of various colours and decorations of marble in general are first mentioned by that most accurate exponent of the details of high living, Menander, and even he rarely alludes to them. Marbled columns were certainly used in temples, not, however, as an embellishment, since embellishments as such were not yet appreciated, but merely because there was no way of erecting stronger columns. HN 36.44–5 As a distinction between substance and appearance emerges, so Romans lose their moral integrity: the fashion for marble veneer is a perfect metaphor for Rome’s moral decline, as it involves the introduction of a foreign practice, the deception of the eye and meddling with the natural state of marble – or at least its relatively natural state, that is in large blocks. Pliny is not alone in his condemnation of veneer: for Seneca, it represents deceit, albeit a kind of knowing self-deception – we admire it even though we are aware of what it covers up; as is the case with gilded panels, we are cheating our own eyes, scimus enim sub illo auro foeda ligna latitare (‘for we know that, underneath that gold, ugly wood lies hidden’, Sen. Epis. 115.9). But for Pliny, veneer holds the added flaw of being an amalgam, as it falls into the category of combining materials – concrete or brick core covered with thin scraps of marble, and Pliny exhibits considerable anxiety with this type of hybridizing process, although it was not new – both veneer and the use of stucco over travertine to give the effect of coloured marble had been common in elite Roman houses during the Republic (Pensabene, 2002: 4). As commented above, in the Historia Naturalis luxury is often associated with complexity and with mixing together disparate elements – for example, the use of rich dyes from seashells to colour garments is condemned, because clothing should have nothing to do with the sea (9.105). Andrew WallaceHadrill connects this ‘unnatural complexity’ to xenophobic attitudes towards the East – often posited as the origin of such practices (1990: 87–8). Thus Pliny’s condemnation of luxuria involves much more than a rejection of excess: it is an excess that often incorporates hybridity, foreignness and unnaturalness, and, it could be argued that, to a certain extent, foreignness 120
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is unnaturalness, or at least that the two run in parallel. Pliny is well-known for championing native, Italian products and cures for their simplicity (e.g. herbal medicines HN 24.4–5), as opposed to the hybrid or complex forms of foreign artefacts. Read in this light, Lucullan marble from Teos combines elements from different spheres, that is, a Roman name for Greek material, while Xerxes togatus, a Persian king in Roman citizen garb, similarly unites eastern and western icons. Neither is desirable in Pliny’s eyes, but both are highly indicative of the cultural mixing at play by the late Republic. In the eyes of elites like Pliny, these hybrid forms attack and debase aristocratic Roman identity; nevertheless for Lucullus and other Hellenophiles, they may have provided a means of rejecting the tyranny of the past, or at least the dominant, monocultural perception of the past.51
Name and shame In a similar episode of using name-calling to ridicule ostentation, Pliny records that Brutus labelled Crassus ‘Palatine Venus’ (Venerem Palatinam, HN 36.8) for putting up six columns of Hymettian marble, also taken from his theatre in 92 BCE (17.6–7). This type of insult seems to be typical of the time: in the Pro Caelio (18) Cicero calls Clodia Medea Palatina, again incorporating the adjective which locates her at Rome with an incongruous figure – here also a foreign one, parallel to the Xerxes togatus slur against Lucullus. Even more offensively, Caelius apparently named her quadrantaria Clytaemestra (‘Clytemnestra who sells herself for a quarter of an as’ Quint. 8.6.53), making her, not only a mythological murderess (as both Clytemnestra and Medea), but also a prostitute, who costs a mere fraction of a small Roman coin – again a non-Roman figure made Roman by the modifying adjective. Sexual deviance is also raised by the ‘Palatine Venus’ insult, which works by casting doubt on Crassus’ masculinity and sexual continence, literally feminizing him and associating him with lasciviousness; so the (for the time) ostentatious decoration of one’s home laid a Roman male open to charges of moral and sexual laxity. This accusation is even more serious in context, as Crassus inhabits a gravely important position in Roman society: because he is a public speaker (as emphasized by Pliny: oratorem illum, ‘that orator’, 36.7), he is necessarily ‘on show’, and must maintain a public persona which is both manly and controlled (Richlin, 1997; Gleason, 1995). Pliny casts Crassus’ behaviour as an early chapter in Rome’s decline by luxury – nothing compared to the crimes Lucullus and Scaurus would later commit – while Brutus, recognising the danger, throws out his witty slur as a missile in the (ultimately unsuccessful) moral crusade against the onslaught of showiness and novelty. Although his words are typical of the political backbiting in which Roman orators frequently engaged, and which often involved an attack on an opponent’s virility and/or sexual conduct (e.g. Cic. Cael. 53, Verr. 2.2.24), Brutus is also engaging in a discourse which equates 121
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the east with emasculation. Because of the easy association between effeminacy, the East, and the luxury goods imported from this region, the joke fits neatly with Pliny’s intolerance of extravagant, non-Italian materials. Pompey, for example, is chastized for feminine luxury, when Pliny describes how, along with other extraordinary displays of precious stones and metals, his third triumph is accompanied by a portrait of the triumphator done in pearls: e margaritis, Magne, tam prodiga re et feminis reperta, quas gerere te fas not sit, fieri tuos voltus (‘that your face should be made out of pearls, Magnus, such a wasteful thing meant for women, which it is not right that you should even wear’, HN 37.15). His victory over Asia and Pontus (61 BCE) is credited with creating the desire for pearls and other gems at Rome, as he ‘turned fashion’ (mores inclinavit, 37.12) towards these expensive imports. The symbolic value of Pompey’s face actually being composed of pearls has the power to transform mores in a negative way. The secondary implication of Brutus’ snide remark is that, in his extravagance, Crassus is setting himself up as a godlike figure: the term Venus Palatina suggests the designation of an imaginary temple; there was no Temple of Palatine Venus (or aedis Palatinae Veneris) – but such a concept could be a play on the Temple of Capitoline Venus (aedis Capitolinae Veneris, e.g. Suet. Gaius 7.1), the later designation of the Temple of Erycinian Venus. Crassus’ self-deification fits well with Pliny’s indignation that the gods are less well housed than men, when he sets up Scaurus’ expensive and enormous columns (tantas moles) in opposition to the clay gables (fastigia) of contemporary temples (HN 36.6). Temple statues and ornaments made from earthenware are a frequent symbol of frugality and the simpler past (Cic. Att. 6.1.13; Parad. 11; Tib. 1.1.39; Sen. Epis. 31.11; Juv. 11.116), but Pliny’s statement that this was the situation in 58 BCE seems to be an exaggeration – the first entirely marble temple in Rome was built by Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus after his triumph in 146 BCE.52 However, there is a kind of hubris implied by Pliny’s narratives of Crassus and Scaurus, as their behaviour challenges the gods themselves. moles – used to describe the columns – is often a morally loaded term: it carries connotations of superfluity, of excess, and can be used of building projects which are out of control (e.g. Cicero Pro Milone 85, Suet. Gaius 19.1, 37.3). Its base meaning defines a chaotic, shapeless mass, and it is used in exactly this way to describe the universe’s original state of Chaos by Ovid (Chaos, rudis indigestaque moles, Met. 1.7) – a state which has to be brought under control to create the Earth. Brutus’ jibe Venus Palatina also assimilates Crassus to his home, so that just like the over-adorned building, this insult implies that Crassus himself is uncontrolled and given to excess: his personal failings are manifested by the disproportionate ornamentation of his home. Although Pliny rhetorically appeals for insurance to be taken out against moral damage, there is clearly no means for giving monetary compensation for loss of principles – in fact the irony is that it is money, Scaurus’ financial 122
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power, which lies at the root of the problem. There is only one way to ensure that integrity is preserved: avoid the morally damaging materials, keeping them away from private hands. The Historia Naturalis is replete with references to Scaurus’ extravagance. One of his firsts was to be the first man at Rome with a gem collection, or, as Pliny pointedly remarks, quod peregrino appellant nomine dactyliothecam (‘what they call by the foreign name a dactyliotheca (‘ring cabinet’)’ HN 37.11). Like decorative columns or veneer, the gems are useless in practical terms – a cardinal element of luxuria in Pliny. Apart from sharing his decadence and foreignness, Scaurus is also connected to Lucullus through Lucullan marble, the material used for the largest columns of his temporary theatre in 58 BCE (Pliny HN 36.6). Scaurus was considered morally reprehensible, not because he imported 360 columns to adorn a theatre used for just one month, but because he then took the thirty-eight-foot-long (approximately 11.2 metres) columns of Lucullan marble, and placed them in the atrium of his own house (Asc. Scaurus 27 [2.45]). Again the strong distinction which existed, in the late Republic and early empire, between public and private use of extravagant materials and building styles is visible (Edwards, 1993: 157, citing Cicero Pro Mur. 76), as this incident and negative reaction to it indicate: nonnumquam elevandae invidiae gratia quae asperius dicta sunt eluduntur, ut a Cicerone Triarius. Nam cum Scauri columnas per urbem plaustris vectas esse dixisset: ‘ego porro’ inquit ‘qui Albanas habeo columnas clitellis eas adportavi’. Sometimes playful jest can be used in order to relieve the hostility created by speaking rather harshly, just as was used on Triarius by Cicero. For when it had been alleged that the columns of Scaurus were driven through the city on wagons, he said, ‘I’m having those Alban columns transported in pack-saddles.’ Quintilian 5.13.40 Cicero (apparently) was able to laugh about the incident,53 but other commentators viewed the Scaurus story much more sternly, and saw it as proof of moral decline. Unfortunately, we rely on Quintilian alone for this portion of the speech, which is missing from the manuscripts of the pro Scauro. Cicero’s joke about the columns seems to slot into the section of the speech which, according to Asconius, excuses the extravagance of Scaurus’ house (Asc. Scaurus 27 (2.45)). Certainly, if it is placed here, it precedes a long panegyric of Scaurus’ ancestors and the public buildings of the city associated with their bravery and generosity (Asc. Scaurus 27–8 (2.45–6)). As if to counter the accusations of private luxury directed at this generation’s Scaurus, Cicero points to the achievements of earlier Aemilii Scauri and Caecilii Metelli, and he just has to look around him at the Forum Romanum 123
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and the Capitol to find physical evidence of their greatness: the senate house is a reminder of Scaurus’ father (who was princeps senatus) and the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus contains gifts dedicated by him; Lucius Metellus (consul in 251 BCE) had saved the Palladium from the burning Temple of Vesta; and a more recent Lucius Metellus restored the Temple of Castor and Pollux (Asc. Scaurus 28 (2.46)). Reminders of the family’s generosity and bravery abound, and the two are intertwined, as Cicero’s audience would know that Metellus had funded the Temple of Castor’s restoration ex manubiis (Claridge, 1998: 92; Coarelli, 1997: 89). And clearly, the material immediacy of the structures mentioned by Cicero adds to the rhetorical effect of the speech, as Cicero finds evidence to acquit Scaurus quocumque non modo mens, verum etiam oculi inciderunt (‘not only wherever my mind, but also where my eyes fall’ (Asc. Scaurus 27 (2.46)). His close association with these public figures benefited Scaurus, who was acquitted, but the comparison would have to be handled carefully, as it could also serve to highlight the contrast with Scaurus’ behaviour. His ‘privatization’ of magnificence was to become notorious. Augustus ensured that the columns were returned to the theatre, when he put them on the stage of the Theatre of Marcellus (Asc. Scaurus 45 (2.61); Zanker, 1988: 137) – implying that he was re-establishing the balance between public grandeur and private simplicity. While this is likely to have been the general perception, Pliny takes a far more stringent stance on the existence of public opulence, and indicates that any appearance of luxury, in any venue, is the inevitable precursor of decline: CCCLX columnas M. Scauri aedilitate ad scaenam theatri temporari et vix mense uno futuri in usu viderunt portari silentio legum. sed publicis nimirum indulgentes voluptatibus. id ipsum cur? aut qua magis via inrepunt vitia quam publica? quo enim alio modo in privatos usus venere ebora, aurum, gemmae? When Marcus Scaurus was aedile [58 BCE], there was the spectacle of 360 columns being taken on to the stage of an improvised theatre that was intended to be used for barely a month, and the laws were silent. Of course it was the official pleasure of the community for which some allowance was being made by our laws. But why should this excuse be made? And by what route do vices more commonly creep in than the official ones? For in what other way did ivory, gold, precious stones come into personal use? Pliny HN 36.5 In his damning conclusion to this story, however, Pliny emphasizes that there is a distinction between physical and moral destruction – reparation can be made for the destruction of property, and for this reason a drain contractor 124
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forced Scaurus to give him security against harm done to the drains, when the columns were being dragged to the Palatine (Pliny HN 36.6). Surely, it was more important to take out insurance for morals, claims Pliny, in dismay; but the implied comparison – that Rome rates its sewers above its morals – is perhaps not as damning as it may seem. Sewers, as well as being filthy themselves, do cleanse the city (Gowers, 1995; 1993: 15), and Pliny praises the cloaca maxima as a miracle of engineering (HN 36.94 and 36.104–8), sturdy against all the attacks of the Tiber floods and the building work above. Sewers contain the corrupt and disgusting and keep it away from the city, which Pliny graphically sees as being suspended above (an urbs pensilis or ‘hanging city’, HN 36.104). Moreover, the protection of the cloaca maxima is venerably ancient, having been inaugurated, Pliny believes, by Tarquin Priscus (traditionally dated to the late seventh/early sixth century BCE; HN 36.106). The cloacae, therefore, provide a suitable analogue to the mores maiorum: they too are ancient, hence their power, and they should preserve Romans from degrading behaviour, just as the sewers prevent contact with filthy substances.
Before luxuria In his pursuit of luxury’s origins, Pliny sees a genealogy, which he traces back beyond Scaurus’ outrageous behaviour: Rome had already been importing marble, and Scaurus’ actions are merely a logical extension of this. Pliny proves his point by reference to the tale of Crassus being heckled as ‘Palatine Venus’ for the columns of Hymettian marble which adorned his theatre and then his house. These columns were merely twelve feet high (approximately three and a half metres), and the marble was less expensive, and by extension a lesser evil, than Lucullan; nevertheless, Pliny identifies them as detrimental to Roman integrity. Lucullus himself follows on from the tale of Lepidus’ domestic use of Numidian marble (36.49). Crassus’ name-calling had occurred twenty years before the Scaurus incident, another story about another ‘first’: Crassus is oratorem illum, qui primus peregrini marmoris columnas habuit in eodem Palatio (‘that orator, who was the first to have columns of foreign marble, also on the Palatine Hill’, HN 36.7). Perhaps, though, Pliny had extrapolated two ‘firsts’ out of one, as the anecdotes of Crassus and Scaurus are remarkably similar, and the two houses were, at some point, incorporated into one another (cf. HN 17.6) – Richardson argues for Crassus’ columns as the more likely account (1992: 134). The effect, however, of Pliny’s narrative is to highlight the ontology of luxuria, the text’s search for the genesis of decline, which (here) stretches back to the early first century BCE. Crassus’ columns are the precursor of Scaurus’ extravagance, but organized in this way they stress the search backwards. The Historia Naturalis of course makes no claims to overall chronological arrangement of its massive body of information, but Pliny’s 125
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stated purpose in relating these anecdotes is to show that marble was being imported earlier than is commonly thought, and that sumptuary legislation on the importation of marble could have been passed during the Republic, as it was on other luxuries in the second century BCE (HN 36.4–5). Scaurus looked like a first, but in fact it was Crassus (and, one suspects, if he looked further, Pliny could find another forerunner), proving his point that the smallest concession to luxuria encourages its uncontrolled growth. The belief that there was a definite, datable time before luxuria is common to Roman texts, and as Servius comments, Romans were traditionally frugal, while foreigners were rich: et notandum, quia affluentiam ubique exteris gentibus dat, Romanis frugalitatem, qui et duobus tantum cibis utebantur et in atriis sedebant edentes: unde Iuvenalis ‘quis fercula septem secreto cenavit avus?’ And it should be noted, because [Virgil] gives excess to foreign peoples everywhere, but frugality to the Romans – they made use of only two foods and used to sit in the atrium to eat: as Juvenal writes, ‘which of our grandfathers has dined by himself on seven courses?’ Servius ad Aen. 1.637 Again, food provides the focus for excess – although the original context goes further. Servius does not quote it, but Juvenal actually juxtaposes extravagant eating and extravagant building for private housing, for the whole question is: quis totidem erexit villas, quis fercula septem/ secreto cenavit avus? ‘Which of our grandfathers built so many villas or dined by himself on seven courses?’ (Sat. 1.94–5). secreto (‘on his own’, ‘divided off’) is particularly important, as it stresses the secluded nature of present-day Roman wastefulness, recalling the public versus private distinction in luxury architecture. Although boar was a meal associated with luxury (Gowers, 1993: 248 n.122), had it been a feast for many guests, the seven courses would be more acceptable (as Plut. Luc. 41.3 and Mart. 7.59 above). And in avus (‘grandfather’) the excessive behaviour of contemporary Romans is juxtaposed with that of an implied simpler past.54 But another model implies that luxuria is the mark of a young culture, and will fade with time. The desire for expensive materials is seen by Seneca as puerile, as though it could be outgrown, and he compares the pleasure Romans take from possessing foreign marbles to children pleased by toys and pebbles (Sen. Epis. 115.8). Seneca implies the inutility of extravagant building, while he (probably hypocritically) sets himself apart from the majority who value such ostentation: they are stunted in immaturity; he is the adult who sees through the glitz, and realizes the worthlessness of marble – just as everyone would regard pebbles as worthless. Seneca’s hyperbole 126
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here stresses the enormous scale of contemporary building programmes, as he claims that the huge, foreign (Egyptian or African) columns are imported to hold up colonnades or dining rooms ‘big enough to hold an entire population’ (capacem populi, Epis. 115.8). However, Seneca also makes use of the pre-luxuria model, along with nostalgia for a simpler, purer time before conflict, competition and extravagant building (Epis. 90.36–43); in fact there was no building of artificial structures at all in Seneca’s utopian past, nor even use of natural shelters such as caves, as humans slept in the open air. And exaggeration is stacked on hyperbole, as Seneca describes a present with houses as big as cities (domos instar urbium, Epis. 90.43).55 The pre-eminent, outrageously large home at Rome at this time was Nero’s Domus Transitoria, replaced by the Domus Aurea after the fire of 64 CE, and one or both may have provoked Seneca’s disgust here: the Domus Transitoria joined the Palatine home of the Julio-Claudians to the Gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline, which was over a kilometre away; while the Domus Aurea transformed Rome by dominating three of its hills, operating on the scale of a country villa, rather than an urban house, and would be particularly pertinent in an attack on ‘city-sized’ houses. Both of Nero’s homes were extravagantly decorated, with coloured glass and marble mosaic floors, marble colonnades and high-quality stucco on the walls. And if this letter is late enough for the plans of the Domus Aurea to have been known, Seneca may be targeting its famous domed room: ‘the extraordinary rotunda of the dining-rooms, which constantly revolved, day and night, like the heavens’ (praecipua cenationum rotunda, quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur, Suet. Nero 31.2), with his criticism that movable ceilings are unnecessary and impractical (Epis. 90.15).56 Epistula 90’s whole tirade is overtly concerned with delineating which areas of life were created by sapientia (‘wisdom’, ‘philosophy’), and which should be excluded from this category. Seneca frames the debate as sapientia versus ars (‘the artificial’, or ‘man-made’) – sapientia has provided all of the necessities for life, but, through ars, we have added unnecessary sophistication, such as panelled ceilings (Epis. 90.42) and rotating ceilings (Epis. 90.15). sapientia is here aligned with natura (Epis. 90.18), and they in turn are aligned with the past, which has been corrupted by artistic and technological developments. Thus the issues are set up in similar terms to those which Pliny the Elder would later employ (but see Beagon, 1992: 58–9 for a discussion). But throughout Seneca’s letter, there are indications that this model of modern decline is informed by categories of status: quid loquar marmora quibus templa, quibus domus fulgent? quid lapideas moles in rotundum ac leve formatas quibus porticus et capacia populorum tecta suscipimus? quid verborum notas quibus quamvis citata excipitur oratio et celeritatem linguae manus
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s equitur? vilissimorum mancipiorum ista commenta sunt: sapientia altius sedet nec manus edocet: animorum magistra est. What should I say about the marbles with which temples and houses gleam? What about the smoothed and rounded stone masses with which we put up porticoes and buildings large enough to contain whole peoples? What of the shorthand by which speech is captured and the hand follows the speed of tongue? These were all devised by the cheapest of slaves: wisdom sits higher up and does not train hands – it is the teacher of our minds. Epis. 90.25 He repeats his claim that, in his own time, huge marble structures have been devised by man, again excluding himself, the wise (and aristocratic) man – it is one of the many inventions too petty for wisdom, made instead by men who are mere possessions. So Seneca implicitly associates the decline of Roman society with the intervention of low-status ideas, low-status artisans, and low-status skills. This kind of rhetoric is paralleled, or parodied, by Petronius at the opening of the Satyricon, as Encolpius criticizes contemporary oratory and painting in the same breath, and for the same faults: namely taking short cuts and being overly ornamented (Satyr. 2). Similar models of decline are formulated, with the introduction of ars at fault: Encolpius evokes a past in which Homer and the writers of Classical Athens needed no training at declamatory schools, and wrote more naturally for precisely that reason. And painting declined after a ‘short cut’ (compendiariam) was invented by the Egyptians. But here, artificiality, and therefore decadence, is not of servile origin, but (as the related vice of complexity, above) from the east: the ‘great and chaste style’, with its ‘natural beauty’ (grandis et pudica oratio, . . . naturali pulchritudine 2.6) is superseded by that of Asia, which is implicitly ‘stained’ and ‘bloated’ (maculosa . . . turgida 2.7): nuper ventosa istaec et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia commigravit animosque iuvenum ad magna surgentes veluti pestilenti quodam sidere afflavit, semelque corrupta eloquentiae regula . . . Recently that windy and unwieldy volubility has moved to Athens from Asia, and has blasted the minds of our young men, aspiring to great things, as though with a certain plague-bearing star, and immediately the rules of good speaking are broken . . . Satyr. 2.7 Evident in both Seneca’s and Encolpius’ tirades against the present is an anxiety regarding elite identity being afflicted by outside threats, setting up 128
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an original and unspoiled purity (pudica ‘chaste’ having distinct overtones of sexual continence) against decadence introduced from elsewhere. But while the view that oratory had suffered because of the ‘Asiatic’ style was not uncommon (e.g. Tac. Dial. 25–35, Messalla’s speech), the Attic style, seen as gruff and archaic, was rarely espoused (Richlin, 1997: 106–7). And an inherent contradiction also exists in Seneca’s letter, as Roman elites were in fact commissioning and attaching their names to large and/or spectacular buildings from the Republican era – the Porticus Aemilia, which was built between the Forum Romanum and the Campus Martius in 193 BCE, and was named after the two aediles of that year, would fit Seneca’s criteria of a massive building (almost 500 by sixty metres), with porticoed walkways and 200 barrel-vaulted chambers.57 The Forum Romanum’s Basilica Porcia (184 BCE) was commissioned by and named after Cato the Elder himself (Livy 39.44.7, Plut. Cat. Mai 19.2), who, although a novus homo, was far from servile, and was, for later generations in particular, the paradigm of strictness and simplicity. Marble and veneer, in any case, had both been in use for well over a century (see above). Just whom Seneca is referring to by the term ‘cheapest of slaves’ is unclear – perhaps the association between ornate styles and the east also permeates here, recalling that artists and artisans were taken as captives from Greece and Asia; but the idea of elites passively accepting these newfangled and extravagant forms of architecture from those of servile status is a ridiculous exercise in scapegoating. Both Seneca and Pliny construct an overly simple, under-ornamented picture of the Republican past: both account for Rome’s decline as stemming from the infiltration of complex and extravagant forms of knowledge and material culture.
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4 RusT: ENemy Of The STATe kako;n eJkavstw/ ti kai; ajgaqo;n levgei~; oi|on ojfqalmoi`~ ojfqalmivan kai; suvmpanti tw`/ swvmati novson, sivtw/ te ejrusivbhn, shpedovna te xuvloi~, calkw`/ de; kai; sidhvrw/ ijovn, kaiv, o{per levgw, scedo;n pa`si suvmfuton eJkavstw/ kakovn te kai; novshma; Do you say that there is for everything its special good and evil, as for example for the eyes ophthalmia, for the entire body disease, for grain mildew, rotting for wood, rust for bronze and iron, and, as I say, for practically everything its congenital evil and disease? Plato Republic 608e–9a Chapter 2 analysed the themes around which Golden Age and decline narratives were set out through the prism of the Greek myth of races, and Chapter 3 the specific ways in which Roman writers saw their own moral collapse – most prominently through luxury, ostentation and sexual depravity. This chapter investigates some of the metaphors of decline which Roman writers use to express their sense of despair and the impression that the present is a depleted form of the past. The images of rust and decay occur frequently in literary texts: they convey ideas of loss and deterioration, and suggest a form which is no longer fit for its original use. These metaphors allow for a re-exploration of the Hesiodic tradition, and play a distinct role in relation to the significant themes of agriculture and warfare.
Cato, Gellius and temporal disjunction Rust (robigo/rubigo, occasionally ferrugo or aerugo) is notable for its applicability to the myth of metallic ages. Gold is immune to rust (Pliny HN 33.62), a quality which reinscribes its position as unchanging, much like the Age of Gold, and which makes it a useful metaphor in its own right. For rust denotes change, a process which can destroy the strongest of metals, and by extension the strongest of empires. As Quintus Curtius’ Scythian ambassadors to Alexander suggest: ferrum robigo consumit . . . nihil tam firmum est, cui periculum non sit etiam ab invalido (‘rust can wear away iron . . . nothing is so tough that it is in no danger even from something feeble’ 7.8.15). Their overt message is that Alexander should never assume that a small force cannot undermine his power, and further, Curtius suggests that rust, or some unprepossessing enemy, might do the same for any empire, even 130
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Roman imperium. In relation to imperial and military force, robigo provides an apt image, as rust literally has the power to eat away at a soldier’s weapons, attacking the tools of war and the primary means of gaining and maintaining control. But the Latin word robigo has a wider semantic range than just metal rust – it is also used to describe tooth decay and ulcerous sores, and, as in English, it can indicate a crop disease (wheat rust). robigo is thus an enemy of agriculture, and as such, attacks one of the foundations of Roman life and identity, at least as it is constructed by many texts. In all of these guises robigo overwhelms whatever it attacks – wheat, weapons, the body – and takes away its vitality and functionality. It becomes a fitting agent of inactivity, bringing torpor and dejection, and taking away the ability to write. Certainly there is no recovery from robigo’s malign influence, and its victims remain permanently disabled. The preserved fragments of Cato’s Carmen de Moribus (Cato Carmen de Moribus 2 Jordan) in Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae (11.2) sum up the way in which various sumptuary, literary and moral strictures intersected and were, for the Roman conservative, symptomatic of a general decline. Gellius quotes Cato at length, concluding with a simile which reduced humankind to the metal of warfare: praeterea ex eodem libro Catonis haec etiam sparsim et intercise commeminimus: ‘vestiri’ inquit ‘in foro honeste mos erat, domi quod satis erat. equos carius quam coquos emebant. poeticae artis honos non erat. Si quis in ea re studebat aut sese ad convivia adplicabat, “crassator” vocabatur.’ illa quoque ex eodem libro praeclarae veritatis sententia est: ‘nam vita’ inquit ‘humana prope uti ferrum est. si exerceas, conteritur; si non exerceas, tamen robigo interficit. item homines exercendo videmus conteri; si nihil exerceas, inertia atque torpedo plus detrimenti facit quam exercitio.’ Besides in the same book, Cato also made these brief and cutting remarks, ‘It was the custom to dress properly in the forum, and to wear only what was sufficient at home. They paid more for their horses than their cooks. There was no glory in the art of poetry. If anyone was devoted to this subject or frequented banquets, he was called “vagabond”.’ This is another maxim of distinct truth from the same book, ‘For human life is almost like iron. If you use it, it is worn away; if you don’t use it, however, rust destroys it. Similarly we see humans worn away by hard use; if you use nothing at all, lassitude and apathy do more harm than use.’ 11.2.5–6 Despite the apparent equivocation of the second maxim, it is clear that rust, the result of inaction, is the greater evil (plus detrimenti facit ‘it does more 131
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harm’) – though the original context may have formed a plea for balance. Further, the analogy is a reminder that humans inhabit the Iron Age, and that their existence is circumscribed by complex paradoxes. This passage seems to point to the work as a whole having an essentially pessimistic world view, situating itself in a position of nostalgia, of longing for the past, and of despair for both present and future – as indeed befits a work entitled ‘The Song on Traditions’ (or ‘Morals’). Even in the second century BCE, it seems, Cato had a strong sense of a culture in decline. But the only version of the work which we have – the sections compiled by Gellius in the second century CE – isolates and juxtaposes this series of morally charged precepts, indicating that these maxims resonated for imperial Rome. Gellius situates his quotations in a discussion of attitudes towards the homo elegans (‘refined man’), and employs Cato, along with Cicero, to prove that the term has altered over time. Originally, according to Gellius elegans was a term of abuse, fere verbum . . . vitii (‘almost a word denoting vice’), but it has become a compliment, [verbum] laudis (‘[a word] of praise’, 11.2.1). In fact, the first and most relevant passage quoted from the Carmen de Moribus (11.2.2) is an attack on avaritia (greed) – what Cato actually claims is that the elegans, along with various other malefactors, used to be praised (laudabatur), while greed was the ultimate vice. The statement seems rather obscure, at least as extracted by Gellius, who extrapolates from it that elegans referred to the man who paid too much attention to lifestyle (cultus, victus), rather than character (ingenium, 11.2.3). What the quoted extract of Cato’s work suggests is that superficial lapses in behaviour should not be equated with moral failings, yet Gellius’ use of it gives a different impression – by following up the definition of elegans with Cato’s condemnation of those who value expensive clothing, cooks and poetry, Gellius suggests that these vices are those of the elegans, at least as it is defined by the second century CE. This arrangement of the text, bringing together aphorisms from apparently distinct sections of Cato’s work,1 creates an equivalence of morally corrupt practices, all of which create people who are deeply flawed and degenerate: in Gellius’ reading, the over-dressed man, the elegans, is produced as a result of bad practices – indulgence in extravagant food and equally extravagant literary tastes – while an absolute absence of energy and movement creates a stagnant and indolent life: inertia atque torpedo ‘lassitude and apathy’ invade the vita humana ‘human life’. Organizing the text in this way suggests a causative link between extravagant consumerism and the perceived paralysis of contemporary Rome. The time of valuing horses above cooks is in the past (erat), and the explicit comparison between the useful animal and the servant who can feed only one’s appetite makes clear that priorities have changed for the worse. The horse and cook are treated as analogous workers in relation to their owner or employer, but the difference in the work that they carry out shows that concern has moved from practical labour, beneficial to all, to that which appeals to the senses2 132
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and gratifies only the individual. The horse, as a participant in battle, trade, circus racing and agriculture3 connects soldiers and civilians, bridging the spheres of warfare and peace, and encompassing the various roles which inform the identity of the Roman male. Moreover, the ability to possess and maintain a horse originally designated the rank of eques (Dionysius of Halicarnassus 2.13, Pliny HN 33.35–6), indicating its importance in Roman status construction. Cooks often appear in morally loaded contexts as indicators of extravagance and a decline in standards, and are depicted as inveterate thieves in comedy (e.g. Pseud. 790–1, 850–2 and 876, see Lowe, 1985: 411, 414, Gowers, 1993: 101–3). Pliny makes the same point as Cato about cooks and horses (HN 9.67), and, almost exactly halfway between Cato and Gellius in time, Livy comments on the importation of goods and slaves from Asia after 187 BCE: tum coquus, vilissimum antiquis mancipium et aestimatione et usu, in pretio esse, et quod ministerium fuerat, ars haberi coepta. vix tamen illa quae tum conspiciebantur, semina erant futurae luxuriae. Then the cook, in olden times the slave who was the cheapest in both monetary value and usefulness, became valuable, and what had been a service began to be regarded as an art. However, it was hardly perceived then that these were the seeds of future decadence. 39.6.9 Like many other elite Romans looking to immorality as a cause for the perceived downfall of the state, Livy focuses on a particular historical moment when extravagance and self-indulgence invaded Roman society. He shows how decline could be specifically related to a shift in status relationships, for his contention that the changed attitude towards cooks signals ‘future decadence’ is predicated upon the assumption that cooks should be both perceived and treated as low-status workers. Indeed, Cicero’s late Republican summary of the value of trades locates cooks firmly in the lowest rank, labelled sordida and probanda (‘dirty’ and ’to be disapproved of’, Off. 1.150– 51), where they are accompanied by other low workers, such as fishmongers and dancers, who are also involved in feeding the senses. In Sandra Joshel’s analysis of this passage, cooks and the ‘negatively valued’ workers in their category are aligned with the lowest status position in Roman society – that of slaves (1992a: 66).4 If cooks have reached the level of artists, these texts imply, the whole structure of social relations has been thrown out of balance, for they are being treated as creative beings, rather than nefarious workers associated with appetite. At the same time, the elevation of these lowly workers puts Rome’s moral welfare at risk, as social inversion is accompanied by corruption: not only is 133
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it wrong that the despicable servants who provide pleasure should be wellregarded, but also that the pleasure itself is allowed to flourish; for this entails the destruction of discipline, a breakdown in integrity on the part of the indulgent. Emily Gowers comments that greed and overeating are attributed to those who are naturally undisciplined: ‘The sorts of people depicted relishing food in Roman literature are children, slaves, parasites, cooks, gluttons, and gourmets; in other words, uncontrolled people who cannot be identified with the author or his accomplice the reader’ (1993: 24). Both over-consumption and the consumption of overly elaborate and rich foods are condemned, as both are indicative of an utter lack of restraint (as embodied by Lucullus, discussed in Chapter 3). Much of the discussion of moral decline is expressed in terms of social status, especially that of the worker who creates luxurious goods. Seneca had commented that extravagant building techniques were devised by ‘the cheapest of slaves’ (Epis. 90.25, see pages 127–8), the same term which Livy had used of the value of cooks. But Livy and Seneca’s arguments are not the same: Seneca maintains that it is a lack of sapientia (wisdom or philosophy) which connects the artisan to his tasteless building plans – architects’ lowbred vulgarity has, by implication, seduced and corrupted the rich, who should know better; while Livy’s complaint is the much more common one: that cooks have evaded their natural position as slaves, and have been elevated beyond the status which such work can legitimately occupy. However in both cases it is the influence of servile groups that is at the heart of Rome’s corruption. It is clear, then, that there is a strong association made by elite sources, from Republic to early Empire, between historical change (usually the importation of goods from a defeated enemy), the mobility of the lower orders (which is seen as social decay), and the indecent consumption of the Roman citizen. From the macro level of empire, down to the micro level of an individual’s behaviour, Roman society is shot through with moral corruption. In Gellius’ report of Cato’s wise sayings, each of the statements about the past functions as an implicit comparison with the present: then people dressed appropriately and simply, poetry was not held in any esteem, cooks were not valued, and adherents of poetry and party-going were regarded as delinquents5 – while (the reader infers) now the precise opposite must be true. Although Cato’s message is not transparent, Gellius’ compilation suggests a consistent devolution from the far distant past to the second century BCE, and then, as Cato’s era itself is an object of nostalgia by the time of Gellius’ generation,6 from his time to the second century CE. However, Gellius’ text formulates the dangers surrounding the overwork or neglect of human skills as an eternal verity, with the timelessness of a universal axiom: the dangers of wearing oneself out or slipping into lassitude were pernicious before Cato’s time, and they are still current for Gellius. In spite of this temporal disjunction, the fact that these two maxims are juxtaposed means 134
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that Gellius’ readers are encouraged to read a causative connection between them – namely that an overstimulation of the senses and appetites is likely to give rise to a lack of energy, while the undervaluation of the horse (associated with activity and productivity, and more easily assimilated to overuse) and the overvaluation of the sensory and the aesthetic lead to a corresponding inertia, and, in Cato’s metaphor, a rusting over of tools that could be used actively and productively. Thus, Gellius’ manipulation of Cato suggests that the great prognosticator of Rome’s decline identified a link between self-indulgence and a loss of strength. Gellius reinterprets and reorganizes Cato to claim that elite Romans’ sense of inferiority, when compared with their ancestors, springs from their inertia – they have stopped moving, and gone rusty.
Metal fatigue, tooth decay and degeneration Indeed, for Romans of the imperial period, the lustre had worn thin – as demonstrated by the widespread metaphorical use of robigo (‘rust’). Cato’s iron and rust analogy is taken up in a series of imperial texts, and often involves a moral dimension. For the Younger Seneca, rust is a symbol for the practices which prevent us from remaining virtuous: ‘quid ergo? non quidam sine institutione subtili evaserunt probi magnosque profectus adsecuti sunt dum nudis tantum praeceptis obsequuntur?’ fateor, sed felix illis ingenium fuit et salutaria in transitu rapuit. nam ut dii immortales nullam didicere virtutem cum omni editi et pars naturae eorum est bonos esse, ita quidam ex hominibus egregiam sortiti indolem in ea quae tradi solent perveniunt sine longo magisterio et honesta conplexi sunt cum primum audiere; unde ista tam rapacia virtutis ingenia vel ex se fertilia. at illis aut hebetibus et obtusis aut mala consuetudine obsessis diu robigo animorum effricanda est. ‘What then? Haven’t some people achieved greatness without particular training? Haven’t they progressed while they just obey the bare principles?’ I accept that, but their temperaments were well-suited, and snatched deliverance as they went past. For as the immortal gods did not learn goodness, and it is part of their nature to be virtuous, so some men are fitted with unusual qualities and, without much teaching, reach where men usually have to be led, embracing honourable things as soon as they hear them; from this come the minds which seize quickly on goodness, or else produce it from within themselves. But the dull and sluggish, and those held back by bad habits, have to have the rust in their minds rubbed off at length. Epis. 95.36 135
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As is the case with its literal uses,7 robigo has a deleterious effect on its victim, and is an accretion which needs to be removed by activity; for Seneca, it is specifically a soiling which attacks the pure soul, and which needs to be periodically eliminated. The destructive potential of such a substance impels the individual to remain watchful and active, in order to avoid corruption; by implication, the ultimate outcome of inactivity would be the irreversible decay of the body. The Greek equivalents of robigo – ijo;~, eujrw;~, eu[qhro~ – connote some of its range of meanings, often being used in relation to gold’s resistance to the taint of rust as a symbol of uncontaminated trust or friendship.8 However, Latin robigo (or rubigo) has a much broader metaphorical usage, encompassing senescence, the loss of creative powers, the power of acrid criticism, and also a force which can weaken it.9 All instances define robigo as a force which diminishes the capacity of the entity it attacks; in turn, the victim is left unable to attack, and becomes irrelevant, undesirable. Rust as a metaphor for destruction is found frequently in satire and epigram, the two most tendentious genres of Roman literature. Paradoxically, robigo is both a danger to the poet and a powerful weapon to possess, representing the satirist’s power to criticize and wear away an enemy. Statius, listing the genres which might be written at his friend’s Tiburtine villa, describes rust as part of satire’s armoury: liventem satiram nigra rubigine turbes (‘you could stir up malicious satire with black rust’ Silv. 1.3.103). But more often, rust makes blunt the very power which it confers, by biting into the strong and aggressive poet – it is both the driving force and enemy of invective. Martial, writing of his limited ability to write poetry in the backwaters of Spain as municipalium robigo dentium (‘municipal tooth decay’ 12 pr. 4), leaves interpretation open – is he claiming that his work is now less hardhitting, or that it is less accomplished? For the poet who has built his reputation on mastering wit (sal, 8.3.19, 10.9.2, 10.48.12, 12.95.3, 13.89.2) the two are inextricably linked. The preface to Book Twelve meditates at length on the link between Martial’s trademark verse and the lively cultural life of the city – illud materiarum ingenium, bibliothecas, theatra, convictus (‘the natural resource of material: libraries, theatres, parties’, 12 pr. 7). It implies that it is the stimuli of his old subject matter which he now lacks: the fact that the poet labels his malaise as tooth decay suggests that the change of location has also affected his ability to bite – in other words, to create trenchant wit or invective (see also 4.66, and Sullivan, 1991: 99 on the connection between urbanitas and sal). Martial also plays on the destruction of talent, claimed by Ovid in his exile poetry (Tr. 5.12.21: ingentium . . . rubigine laesum ‘talent wounded by rust’; see also Catullus 68c. 151). Exile brings stagnation to Ovid, as expressed in images of the barren, frozen landscape and death (Tr. 1.2.65–6, 3.2.23, 3.30.37, 5.5.48, 4.16.1, 3–4, 47–8, 51, see Claassen, 1999: 238–9). But after Martial highlights his 136
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diminished abilities, confesses to his lack of bite, and figures himself as a weakened voice, dragged down by his environment, he provides a contrast with his inertia. Priscus, the addressee of the first poem of Book Twelve, is an active hunter, and someone who, Martial writes, will read the book during a brief period of rest, in the summer heat while his hounds are not out chasing boar (12.1.1–4). Yet this pose is clearly undermined when, after a couple of apologetic openers, some recognition of his patron, and of the emperor, Martial is soon back to sharp-shooting in his two-liner on an almost bald woman (12.7; but cf. Sullivan, 1991: 52–5). However, rhetorical self-deprecation or not, the preface to Book Twelve does construct a strong association between creativity and the fast pace of cosmopolitan Rome, by implication the very opposite of parochial Spain’s degenerative effects: urbanitas and ingenium are closely related for Martial. Not only does this mirror Ovid’s equation of exile and decline, but it also inverts Horace’s praise of the rest and inspiration offered by retreat to the country and rural idealization (e.g. Serm. 2.6, Odes 1.17, 2.6.5–8, 2.18.9–14, 3.18), and ultimately suggests that the hard edges found in the city give the poet’s teeth something to bite against, a way of preventing corrosion. For Martial this is a location of lassitude, a place which denies productivity (although he has produced a book of poetry there). Living in the countryside near Bilbilis, a small town in Spain, is of course a far cry from Horace’s place of removal from (yet close to) the metropolis, in the Sabine Hills. Even so, the Spanish provinces do offer a parallel with utopian scenarios, since neither provides stimulus or change, resulting in possible stagnation for its inhabitants. By contrast, the city gives Martial a ready audience and subject matter galore, both of which kept his teeth healthy and sharp. For the poet of invective, leaving Rome can only mean automatic decline – paradisal landscapes and lifestyles are antithetical to his verse, while the dystopian city provides plenty of material. This supposed loss of power, rhetorical strategy though it may be, is connected to a related anxiety – the poet’s concerns about self-identity, particularly in the case of invective poetry, any questioning of his masculinity (Cat. 16, Hor. Epod. 12, Mart, 11.97) and frequent assertions of his sexual potency, which, as a Priapic figure, he uses to intimidate and assault deviants (Richlin, 1992a: 118–22, 136). Often this is expressed as an angry rebuttal of any doubt over the speaker’s physical prowess or moral integrity – such a stance is typical of the narrator in satire and epigram, whose aggression against others often deflects suggestions of weakness away from the narrator, and serves to bolster his own identity (Edwards, 1993: 9–10, Richlin, 1992a: 58). Lacking bite is analogous to impotence in invective poetry, as both will prevent the poet from attacking his enemies. dens (‘tooth’) is used figuratively as ‘a destructive or injurious power, especially envy, ill will’ (TLL s.v. 542: 35–58), and teeth or biting are standard images for the actions of the Roman satirist. Horace assumes that his attacks may make him 137
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look like a ‘biter’ (lividus et mordax videor tibi ‘do I seem malicious and biting to you?’ Serm. 1.4.93), and asserts his ability to counter-attack by figuring himself as a hunting dog: me remorsurum (‘me about to bite back’, Epod. 6.4). This metaphor of biting, used to embody the narrator’s razorsharp voice, can be traced back to Greek iambic verse (Freudenburg, 1993: 77–9); it is therefore a traditional motif of invective, a way of expressing the poet’s powers of criticism, which is taken up by Roman satire. It is most frequently ascribed to Lucilius, the second century BCE founder of the genre. Persius highlights Lucilius’ mordant attack in his opening satire, as he claims that the Republican satirist lacerated not only individuals, but the whole of Rome: secuit Lucilius urbem,/ te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis (‘Lucilius cut up the city, and you Lupus, and you Mucius, and ground down his jaw-teeth on them’ Persius 1.114–5, with Freudenburg, 2001: 178–9). And Horace depicts his predecessor undermining hypocrites in particularly visceral language: ‘quid? cum est Lucilius ausus primus in hunc operis conponere carmina morem detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora cederet, introrsum turpis . . . primores populi arripuit populumque tributim ‘What? When Lucilius, who was the first to compose verse in this genre, dared to strip even the skin which made someone appear radiant, though disgusting underneath . . . he seized upon the foremost of the people, tribe by tribe Serm. 2.1.62–5, 69 Lucilius, Horace’s putative model, is akin to a ravening, wild animal, tearing into its prey; the Latin verb arripio (here translated as ‘seize’) can indicate the biting action of an animal (TLL s.v. 639: 39–55). Satire is here designated as the harsh astringent which will deconstruct society’s shining façade (nitidus . . . per ora, 164) and reveal the true horror beneath. Although they lack context, images of aggressive animals and violence do appear in Lucilius’ fragments (rhinoceros’ horn 117–8, the dog’s growl 2, shattering an enemy’s teeth 336–7, laying ambush to the enemy 856 Marx), and later satirists emphasize these aspects of his work to contrast their own feeble, even grovelling, position. Satire’s bite is always located firmly in the past, and does not belong to today’s poet, whether today is the uneasy aftermath of Actium – Book Two of Horace’s Sermones was published in the year following the battle – or the apparent security of the early second century, when Juvenal was writing. Horace’s best claim in the Sermones is that he might look like someone with bite – and even that is phrased as a 138
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tentative question (Serm. 1.4.93, quoted above). After claiming that Lucilius used his genuinus (‘jaw-tooth’) to excoriate malefactors (1.114–15, above), Persius goes on to stress the pale imitations of the master provided by Horace and himself (1.116–17), who can communicate with progressively fewer listeners, until Persius famously claims he cannot even murmur into a hole (1.119, with Freudenburg, 2001: 178). Similarly the hapless guest at Juvenal’s hideous dinner of Virro has to listen to a slave moaning that he is being forced to serve unimportant people (i.e. the narrator and ‘you’, his addressee: ecce alius quanto porrexit murmure panem, ‘look here’s another one, offering bread with such a grumble’ Juv. 5.67), while the guest himself literally cannot bite, non admittentia morsum (‘not allowing a bite’ 5.69). The victim’s mouth has less power than a slave’s, and, like the narrator at the close of Satire 1, the guest (‘you’ in fact) ends up stifling his words, only able to gnash his teeth in anguish (5.160; Freudenburg, 2001: 271, 275), but forced to remain silent (tacetis) with no weapon but the crusty bread to use for attack (stricto pane ‘with bread drawn’ 5.169). The teeth which can attempt to bite only hard bread, combined with the ridiculous unarmed status and pathetic silence of Juvenal’s imagined guest, make him a paradigm of powerlessness in satire, the position held by the post-Lucilian satirist. This lack of bite, and the self-consciousness with which its exponents treat it, tells its own tale of decline – what Kirk Freudenburg has described as a performance of ‘the ever-tightening turn of Rome’s totalitarian pipe-wrench’ (2001: 4 and 178). The obsession with Lucilius’ freedom to criticize becomes one of the conventions of satire, but the gap between the genre’s founder and later satirists is portrayed as one which increases dramatically over time. Freudenburg (2001), who argues for a contextualized reading of Horace, Persius and Juvenal’s responses to their own socio-political situation, highlights the increasing levels of frustration at the limitations placed on their expression, as demonstrated by their texts. As the political situation evolves and authoritarianism becomes the norm through the imperial period, powerlessness becomes one of the conventions of satire. This is not to say that it is an empty or merely rhetorical position: indeed it functions as a barometer of satire’s engagement with authority, and in particular of the way that Lucilius comes to be read (and romanticized) by Roman satirists. The gulf between them and Lucilius seems to gape ever wider, until Juvenal and the hapless guest have no bite left at all, and can do nothing but bluster. As well as the power differential with Lucilius, the ability to attack, like the action of rust, is often attributed to the enemies of the narrator by later satirists. Horace often uses biting to describe the activities of evil or envious opponents rather than his own: absentem qui rodit (‘he who gnaws someone when he’s not there’ – of a man who has accused him of taking pleasure from causing pain to others Serm. 1.4.81), and quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum (‘everyone gnaws at a man born of a freedman father’ Serm. 139
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1.6.46). In one instance Horace positions himself as protected from the biter: tamen me/ cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque/ invidia et fragili quaerens inlidere dentem/offendet solido (‘however Envy will acknowledge that I have lived alongside great men and, seeking to strike her teeth against something weak, she will hit against something solid’ Serm. 2.1.75–8). This is a rare moment when, Horace contends, biting will be ineffectual and in fact will harm Envy’s teeth, as his powerful friends provide a barrier against the hostility of the jealous. Even here, however, the satirist has become an inactive recipient of attack, requiring the armour of a patron, and, Freudenburg argues, unlike Lucilius’ intimacy with Scipio, this is no equal relationship, but one which Horace must constantly renegotiate (2001: 103–4). Horace’s position as satirist should put him into the aggressive position, but instead he is figured as the one with the toothmarks left on his body, seeking the safety of great men – a precarious position in the 30s BCE. This motif even enters the calmer world of the Odes as Horace offers a reflective look back at his earlier life in the bear pit of satire: iam dente minus mordeor invido10 (‘now I am bitten less often by hostile teeth’, Odes. 4.3.16). Only in the Epodes is Horace the biter (Epod. 6.4, quoted above). It is as though the satirist, no longer able to utilize his verse to attack, instead opens himself up for violence, a complete reversal of generic expectations. Juvenal takes up this theme, but complicates it with a series of narrators and layers in Satire 2. In a poem which overtly criticizes sexual perversion, he removes the agency of critique from the narrator, the satirist’s main voice, to the cinaedi (perverts) themselves, claiming that overt cinaedi are right to dig their teeth into hypocrites who pretend to be morally upright: nonne igitur iure ac merito vitia ultima fictos/ contemnunt Scauros et castigata remordent (‘so isn’t it right and just that the most extremely viceladen despise the fake Scauri [men who claim to be morally upright] and when criticized they bite back’ 2.34–5). In the lines immediately following, Laronia, who has broken the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (2.37, probably by committing adultery), takes up the tirade, and produces a lengthy and sustained attack on the fake moralists (2.38–63). Notably Laronia’s invective is entirely successful, as the closet-cinaedi have no answer, and are sent running away in fear: fugerunt trepidi vera ac manifesta canentem/ Stoicidae (‘trembling, the pretend-Stoics fled from the woman singing the plain truth’ 2.64–5). Indeed, singing truths, Laronia is credited with the powers of prophecy (Braund, 1996: 139), and the verb cano (‘I sing’) aligns her with the poet; certainly she voices the kind of anger and aggression normally associated with the narrator in satire. Juvenal’s world is so inverted that the very beings despised by the narrator are capable of using the satirist’s best weapon. The best the narrator can hope for is that the deviants are at least using teeth against an even worse malefactor. Juvenal closes his first satire with the dramatic image of a ferocious soldier: ense velut stricto quotiens Lucilius ardens/ infremuit (‘how often 140
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Lucilius roared as though with his sword drawn’, 1.165–6). Lucilius here is animalesque – roaring like a lion (Ferguson, 1979: 124) – just as he appears as a biter elsewhere; although here his possession of a sword aligns him with civilization and removes him from the primitive level of using the body as a weapon (cf. Juv. 15.52–3). As at the beginning of the Satire, where he appears on horseback (1.19–20), this swashbuckling picture of Lucilius elevates him to the status of rampaging epic warrior and, like Laronia, Lucilius was entirely successful, deadly accurate and in no danger of retaliation, but as the interlocutor warns, the resulting uproar might not be so welcome for Juvenal: ‘rubet auditor cui frigida mens est criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa. inde ira et lacrimae. tecum prius ergo voluta haec animo ante tubas: galeatum sero duelli paenitet.’ experiar quid concedatur in illos quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina. ‘the listener, whose mind is chilled by reproaches blushes, their bodies sweat in silent guilt. From this come anger and tears. Therefore turn these things over in your mind before the trumpet sounds: it is too late to regret when the war helmet is on.’ I shall try what is allowed against those whose ashes are covered by the Flaminian and Latin Roads. Sat. 1.166–71 As Juvenal abrogates responsibility for critiquing contemporaries, he throws those who do (or did) into relief. The attack is carried out by someone other than the narrator – from Lucilius to Laronia, all are apparently more effective satirists than the frustrated Juvenal. Of course, Laronia is a creation of Juvenal, and as a ventriloquised voice within the satire, her victory can be equated with that of the poet, but as the whole scenario is his invention, the triumph over the routed enemy is also a fiction. Lucilius, as a verifiable figure from the past, might be viewed as a more reliable chastiser of iniquity. However, in some senses, at least for us, he too is a construction of the satirists whose work remains intact. Although it seems from the remaining fragments of his satires that Lucilius did write some pointed critiques of contemporaries in his verses,11 the interpretations of such attacks are made on the basis of comments by the later satirists: he is a biter according to both Horace (Serm. 2.1.68–9, quoted above) and Persius (1.114–5); see Gruen, 1968: 22 n. 29, 54, Coffey, 1989: 46–51). His elevation to standard-bearer of libertas is one which is made after he has been filtered through texts from 141
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the late Republic to Trajanic era. Rather than a crystallized image of Lucilius, we have a representation in negative, which makes him a symbol of what has been lost in the genre.12 Rust seems to infect the later satirists, as the destructive force of robigo (either as rust or tooth decay) is dangerous, and is capable of blunting the speaker’s weapon or bite. Both the sword and sharp teeth are typically identified as means by which the satirist can attack, although satirists themselves again attribute effective use of them only to Lucilius, forming a model of deterioration between the genre’s founder and its later exponents. Yet, as Bramble argues, the representation of Lucilius in Horace and Persius differs markedly from that of Juvenal, while all three bear little relation to Lucilius’ output (1974: 169–73).13 Horace’s relationship with Lucilius is particularly ambiguous, as he rejects his predecessor’s style (Serm. 1.4.8–13, 1.10.1–3), yet embraces him as his superior and role-model. Even as he claims that he can surpass Varro Atacinus, the most recent ‘name’ in satire (Serm. 1.10.46–7), Horace acknowledges that he will be inventore minor (‘less than the originator [of satire]’ Serm. 1.10.48). Lucilius’ sword represents satire’s powers of invective, and is easily connected with masculine identity, for as well as other weapons it occurs frequently as a phallic image in Roman texts (Adams, 1982: 19–22).14 Post-Lucilian satirists pose as emasculated: while their teeth have lost their bite and their acrid ability to destroy, their swords have been lost or become rusty. Horace’s programmatic satire, which opens the second book of the Sermones, even contains a prayer that his telum (‘weapon’) should remain sheathed and rust over from lack of use: sed hic stilus haud petet ultro quemquam animantem et me veluti custodiet ensis vagina tectus: quem cur destringere coner tutus ab infestis latronibus? o pater et rex Iuppiter, ut pereat positum robigine telum nec quisquam noceat cupido mihi pacis! but this pen shall not attack any living soul without reason and, like a sword, hidden in its sheath, will protect me: why should I try to draw it when I’m safe from hostile thieves? Oh father and king, Jupiter, let my weapon, laid in its place, perish with rust and let no one harm me when I desire peace! Serm. 2.1.39–44 A plea for peace from a poet who composes iambic and satiric verse places Horace in an incongruous position, which speaks of the contentiousness of satire in this period of political factionalism, civil war and Octavian’s rise to 142
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power (see Freudenburg, 2001: 71–117). In addition, the equation of invective with armed violence aligns this mode of poetry with the later metallic ages (Bronze and Iron). Laments about Iron Age warfare are usually accompanied by (negative) fantasies, retrojected to the origins of weapon development, which either express the wish that mining had never been invented or curse the man who discovered how to extract metal ores or first made weapons.15 Golden Age nostalgia for a past in which metallurgy had not been invented contrasts with Horace’s hoped-for utopian future in which his complicity with metaphorical violence is forced to fade away from a lack of resources. But the significant shift is that the narrator’s desire for peace is a purely personal one (cupido mihi pacis ‘for me desirous of peace’ Serm. 2.1.44). No universalized plea for brotherhood nor an end to warfare (even civil war) here (cf. Virg. Ecl. 4.17, Hor. Odes 1.35.34), but an entirely egocentric request for self-preservation. And the reference to rust cannot resist elements of the dystopian. Rust is anathema to both a soldier’s weapons and the teeth, and it is therefore the natural enemy of cutting, biting satire (but cf. Statius Silv. 1.3.103 above). Horace, however, denies this form of satire any space, clearly stating that his sword is kept only for defensive reasons, and his hope is that it will rust away because it is not required. In other words, Horace hopes that he will not be under attack and will never need to draw sword, the sword here representing his unutilized pen. Logically the absurd situation prevails that Horace cannot write unless he is attacked, and that if he is left unmolested, his satire – or at least the belligerent aspects of it – will also decay. In Horace’s Sermones, rust and its destruction of the sword represent a discomfort with the themes of satire within satire. There is a fitting place for everything – and every weapon – according to Horace’s animal analogy: ut quo quisque valet suspectos terreat, utque imperet hoc natura potens, sic collige mecum: dente lupus, cornu taurus petit: unde nisi intus monstratum? Scaevae vivacem crede nepoti matrem: nil faciet sceleris pia dextera: mirum ut neque calce lupus quemquam neque dente petit bos? sed mala tollet anum vitiato melle cicuta. ne longum faciam: seu me tranquilla senectus exspectat seu Mors atris circumvolat alis, dives, inops, Romae, seu fors ita iusserit, exsul, quisquis erit vitae scribam color. That each is strong in the way he scares those he mistrusts and that powerful nature regulates this, agree to this with me: the wolf attacks by tooth, the bull by horn. Where were they taught 143
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this unless by instinct? Entrust his aged mother to the prodigal Lefty: his dutiful right hand will do no evil (is it amazing that the wolf does not attack anyone with its hoof nor does the bull with its teeth?) but dangerous hemlock in tainted honey takes the old woman off. To cut a long story short: whether a peaceful old age waits for me or death is flying around with black wings, rich, needy, at Rome or, if chance orders it, as an exile, whatever shade my life has, I shall write. Serm. 2.1.50–60 Just as the wolf and bull have their inbuilt arms, so Horace has his invective, a parallel made even more direct in the Epodes, where horns and teeth are precisely the weapons possessed by the poet (6.11–12, 15–16). Here in Sermones 2.1 petit (‘attacks’, ‘goes for’ 2.1.52, 55) makes the animals active and aggressive, the opposite of the defensive stance Horace has claimed for himself; and intus (‘internally’, ‘by instinct’) suggests inevitability – that these weapons are an intrinsic part of the animal, and by implication, that satire is fundamental to the poet who must write (scribam, ‘I shall write’ 2.1.60). Yet here the poet is entirely uneasy with his powers to lacerate, as the invocation of rust shows; thus the ability to attack through satire is both fitting and out of place. This incongruity might ‘explain’ why the programmatic satire appears in the second book of the Sermones, rather than standing at the very beginning of his output, as in the cases of Persius and Juvenal: for Horace there is no third book, and Sermo 2.1 represents the beginning of the end, before the poet shifts genres to take on lyric (which, at least on the face of it, deals with less dangerous subject matter). The generic shift plays out the implied promise in Horace’s desire for decay, because he needs no sword for the Odes, and as if to remind us of this, the non-military subject matter is asserted directly in the recusationes of epic and history (Odes 1.6, 2.12.9– 20, 4.15.1–4), and references to swords which will not be made (Odes 4.15.19).16 Satire mirrors the Roman decline narrative closely, as its exponents project themselves as progressively debilitated, a stance which becomes the narrative position of the genre (particularly for us, lacking much of Lucilius’ work). But additionally, satire’s construction of itself as toothless now creates the impression of a Lucilian Golden Age of satire, while rust represents the genre’s decline, as the city of Rome becomes more and more difficult to inhabit, yet the culprits become more difficult to attack. Like the satirists, Martial contrasts past glories with present indignity, when he compares his current capacity to the abilities he once possessed in the preface to his twelfth book. His is a personal decline, rather than a generational one, 144
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and the city has fuelled his invective, rather than constraining it. While his epigram flourished under Domitian’s paranoid eye, satire went underground (Freudenburg, 2001: 212–7), and even when it re-emerged under Trajan, it was with diminished power and self-confessed self-censorship. Rome’s imperial dynasties are often represented in elite sources as containing their own ‘Golden Age’ followed by sharp decline: so Vespasian and Titus versus Domitian so the Antonines, particularly Marcus Aurelius, versus Commodus; and Julio-Claudians, Nero, in particular, attract this narrative within their own reign, starting well, but descending into tyranny. But in Juvenal’s world, all that can really be said for the emperors following Domitian is that criticism of Domitian is now allowed.17
Rust and the Ages In a similar image of deteriorating powers, Martial’s contemporary, Quintilian describes the orator’s strength as his arma (‘weapons’), which must not be allowed to waste away: neque ego arma squalere situ ac robigine velim, sed fulgorem in iis esse qui terreat, qualis est ferri, quo mens simul visusque praestringitur, non qualis auri argentique, inbellis et potius habenti periculosus. Nor would I want the weapons to be filthy with mould and rust, but there should be a brightness in them which terrifies, such as there is in iron, by which the mind and vision are simultaneously dazzled, not like that of gold and silver, which is unwarlike and instead dangerous to the possessor. 10.1.30 At the forefront of Quintilian’s scenario is the image of the orator as soldier, whose tools must be effective and protective. Not only does this place the orator in a combative position, as is suitable for one who will often be appearing in a court of law, but it also makes him (like Juvenal’s Lucilius) analogous to the epic hero. Quintilian is here weighing up the value of poetry to the orator, who ‘stands in the battle-line’ (stare in acie 10.1.29), distinguishing it from purely pleasure-giving poetry, which is characterized as less regulated than oratory (10.1.28).18 Decay, as an ever-present threat, represents one of the problems of poetry as an influence: just as rust weakens iron, so poetry can diminish the orator’s powers by undermining his ability to be direct and disciplined. And if the analogy continues with gold and silver, poetry corresponds to the other extreme, to the superficially glamorous, yet essentially powerless, qualities of precious metals. Like so many aspects of Roman life, the middle way is being asserted here – a balance between 145
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tarnish and excessive polish. Quintilian’s language here suggests the spectrum of Roman ethnographic categories, which attributes squalor to (mostly northern) barbarians and extravagance to eastern peoples (as discussed in relation to primitivism and luxury in Chapter 2). Although this is easily problematized, at the simplest level Romans inhabit the acceptable, middle ground between these unacceptable extremes. The orator, then, mirrors (indeed is) the ideal Roman male. At the same time both extremes are easily assimilated to ‘old’ societies: decay is a feature of age, and for Romans, older civilizations were primarily eastern (Egypt, Persia, Greece), while gold and silver point to luxury goods, readily seen as symbols of eastern cultures (see Chapter 2). Rome stands apart from cultural weakness – or at least it should be safe and strong. Quintilian is here arguing against ostentatious language. Iron, as long as it is well-maintained, represents oratory with substance, combining strength with some concern for appearance – but only the kind which intimidates the opponent. The equivalence of words and weapons creates multiple resonances here: brightness, contrasted with mould and rust, suggests that content should be shiny and new, rather than predictable and musty; but the relative merits of metals are important in tracing a middle ground between purely aesthetic criteria, represented by gold and silver at one end of the spectrum, and rusty metal at the other. Gold would be useless in a battle situation (as Ennius Ann. 194–6 Vahlen), and here gold and silver are analogous to language which is all show and of no practical use, while rusty metal would not only be weak, but would also fail to impress the enemy. Although they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum, in a sense precious metals are assimilated to rusty iron: from a purely utilitarian point of view both fail and should be rejected. Gold and silver carry the additional burden of moral complexity. Here they occupy the paradoxical position of being both weak and dangerous, unwarlike and hazardous, inbellis and periculosus, with the important modifier habendi ‘to the possessor’ – it is a weapon which cannot do damage to an opponent, but turns inwards and harms the one who seems replete with riches. However, Quintilian plays with the myth of decline expressed in terms of metallic ages here. By most accounts, the heroes inhabited a time before the Iron Age, most specifically in Hesiod’s account, where they are inserted between the Race of Bronze and our own Iron Race (WD 143–55), and there they seem far superior to either of their neighbouring races. They exist both before the discovery of iron, and before the grim, morally inferior age in which we live. But Quintilian explicitly rejects gold and silver in favour of iron, in a deliberate recollection, yet reversal, of the traditional decline narrative. Instead, the more precious metals are useless, for the current situation specifically demands the conflict which was not present among the Races of Gold and Silver (Hesiod locates the introduction of warfare in the Race of Bronze WD 146–7). Just as the combative spirit of the Race of Iron 146
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is required, so, more literally, is iron itself required to make effective weapons. And moral qualities are associated with Quintilian’s metals, just as the successive Hesiodic races are bound up with varying degrees of violence and injustice – hubris (u{bri~), an overwhelmingly negative word, first appears among the Silver Race (WD 134), and grows in strength in the Bronze and Iron Races (WD 146, 191). However, whereas Hesiod’s Iron Race sinks to the depths of depravity, for Quintilian the traditional moral order is subverted, so that the link is made between the more valuable metals and immorality.19 In this version, the Iron Race implicitly becomes the pinnacle of human achievement, and the model is one of ascent rather than decline. Metals are doubly implicated in epic poetry: literally in terms of the material used for the heroes’ armour, and metaphorically, as the events may be situated in relation to the myth of ages. Although the Iliad was composed at a time when iron weapons were in use, the pre-iron tradition of the Trojan War is generally maintained in the bronze armour of the warriors (Gray, 1954: 12–13, Willcock, 1976: 11). Homer’s fighters are superior to his own generation (Il. 1.270–1, 5.304, 12.381–3, 12.448–9), and this also fits Hesiod’s placement of the Trojan warriors among the Race of Heroes, who immediately precede the Race of Iron. The Homeric and Hesiodic picture is complicated by Roman poets as they refuse to maintain the bronze/iron divide in the heroic world. Iron is used for weapons throughout both the Aeneid and the Thebaid (see for example, Aen. 1.313, Theb. 2.475).20 Vulcan and his Cyclopes use iron (Aen. 8.402, 424), and notably Mars is actually composed of this metal on Aeneas’ divine shield: saevit medio in certamine Mavors / caelatus ferro (‘in the middle of the struggle Mars raged,/ engraved in iron’ Aen. 8.700–1). Just as iron is the norm for Roman epic’s ‘heroic’ stage, these poems offer no obvious markers of differentiation between the heroic past and the audience’s present, apparently subscribing to the two-stage model of decline – the Golden Age and the Iron Age. In this respect, the world of heroes is no better than that of the present, and the references to the Golden Age emphasize that the poem describes an inferior age (Vir. Aen. 6.792–3, 8.325–6, Stat. Theb. 3.559–63).
Iron and the barbarians The potential for wealth, its tendency to do harm, and its agency in initiating decline are common features of Roman moralizing texts, often found (especially in inverse) in ethnographic texts. And it is this set of connections which Tacitus (a contemporary of both Quintilian and Martial) applies to his analysis of the Germans. argentum et aurum propitiine an irati di negaverint dubito. nec tamen adfirmaverim nullam Germaniae venam argentum aurumve 147
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gignere: quis enim scrutatus est? possessione et usu haud perinde adficiuntur. est videre apud illos argentea vasa, legatis et principibus eorum muneri data, non in alia vilitate quam quae humo finguntur; quamquam proximi ob usum commerciorum aurum et argentum in pretio habent formasque quasdam nostrae pecuniae adgnoscunt atque eligunt. interiores simplicius et antiquius permutatione mercium utuntur. pecuniam probant veterem et diu notam, serratos bigatosque. argentum quoque magis quam aurum sequuntur, nulla adfectione animi, sed quia numerus argenteorum facilior usui est promiscua ac vilia mercantibus. I am unsure whether the gods have been favourable or angry in denying them silver and gold. However, I would not assert that Germany bears no vein of silver or gold: for who has gone looking for it? They are not very much interested in possessing and using it. Silver vessels are to be seen amongst them, given to their ambassadors and princes as gifts, regarded as cheaply as those made of earth; although those nearest [to us], because of the practice of trade, regard gold and silver as valuable for commerce, and they recognize and pick out certain types of our money. Those further inland use a plainer and older exchange of goods. They approve the old and long familiar money, notched and stamped with a pair of horses. They pursue silver even more than gold, through no partiality, but because the number of silver coins is easier to use for those buying common and cheap articles. Ger. 5.2–3 The situation was probably not as extreme as Tacitus here claims, and by the writing of the Annals he was aware that the Germans had silver mines (Ann. 11.20). Indeed later, gold was known to be plentiful, although it may not have been discovered at this point (Gudeman, 1950: 171). However, the statement is consistent with an allegorical reading of the text’s references to base materials: the Germans, whose bellicosity is continually stressed (Ger. 6, 11.4, 13, 14, 15.1, 18, 22, 23, 35, 38), are unimpressed with gold and silver, metals which cannot be turned into weapons of war (Ger. 5.3). 21 This contrasts with the Gauls, who were known for their love of gold and wearing gold jewellery (Strabo 4.4.5, Diod. Sic. 5.27.3).22 Tacitus’ customary equivocacy cuts many ways and raises more questions than answers: would it be better to have no precious metals at all, than run the risk of misusing, and being corrupted, by them? Or would the Germans be more civilized, more able to participate in the Roman economy, if they possessed the raw materials of wealth? Is it only their apparent lack of gold and silver which makes them immune to the charms of precious metals? Are the Germans who live closer to the Roman world being seduced by the possibility of 148
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a cquiring these metals? Would they be even tougher to beat if they had more iron weapons? Or is it their reliance on brute strength rather than technology which has made them unconquerable? Similarly, there is no straightforward correlation with the metallic races; instead Tacitus’ Germans paradoxically embody characteristic elements of all of the races: they are moral, simple and non-agricultural, like the Golden Race, with a strong sense of honour (Ger. 6.4, 17.1, 18.1, 19.1–2, 26.1–3), akin to the Race of Heroes in Hesiod; yet they cannot survive without war (Ger. 14.2 cf. 36), a feature of Hesiod’s Bronze Race, and many versions of the Iron Race. In fact some of these factors are contingent: the Germans are violent because they have no agriculture, and they specifically avoid farming because of warfare: in Caesar this is because agriculture might draw their energies away from war and concentrate them in one location (BG 6.22), while Tacitus’ theory is simply that agriculture is considered lazy, when food and material goods can be obtained through raids (Ger. 14.3).23 But it is in their affinity with the Golden Race that the Germans most reflect ongoing anxieties over progress and luxury goods. Their deficiencies in mineral technology, and gold in particular, do point to a central motif of the Golden Age, which lacked gold, as pointed out in Ovid’s paradoxical claim that the Golden Age is actually now, rather than in the dim past, because now gold counts for everything: carmina laudantur, sed munera magna petuntur: dummodo sit dives, barbarus ipse placet. aurea sunt vere nunc saecula: plurimus auro venit honos: auro conciliatur amor. Poems are praised, but big presents are sought after: provided that he is rich, even a barbarian is loved. These are truly the Golden Ages: the greatest respect goes to gold: love is procured with gold. AA 2.275–8 Ovid’s clever tag, in which he manages to fit aurum or its derivative aureus three times into two lines, packs in the beginning and end of time: it shifts from Golden Age primitivism, through decline to modern materialism. Any Augustan aspirations that the new era is a reinstigation of the Golden Age (see Chapter 1) are the most obvious target for this piece of biting wit – this is an age in which love can be bought, an idea in stark opposition to both the moneyless simplicity of the Golden Age and the conservative moral code built into Augustan iconography and legislation.24 The Germans live out the inverse of this statement, for they exist now, an ever-present menace on the borders of the empire, seemingly immune to the forces which threaten Rome from within. 149
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But in addition, Ovid also sets up an explicit comparison between his persona – the poor poet – and the figure of the rich barbarian. In the moral code of this poem, ethnic affiliations are being unfairly overridden by the possession of wealth, despite the fact that the classic barbari in Roman texts, the northern Europeans, are usually depicted as living in disgustingly poor conditions (Caes. BG 6.22–3, Strabo 7.303, Ov. Tr. 3.8, 3.10, 3.11, 5.7, Mela 3.36, Sen. de prov. 4.14–5) and such peoples would have little to offer the mercenary lover.25 Tacitus certainly states that the Germans are barbarians (Ger. 18.1, 39.2, 45.5), and their living conditions are very primitive (5.1, 16.1–17.1, 23, 46). But there is a further twist to the symbolism of metals in Tacitus’ work. Given the overdetermined belligerence of the Germans, and Tacitus’ insistence that they lack the most precious metals, we might expect that this text, which sets up so many contrasts between sophistication and simplicity, would ascribe to the Germans an abundance of iron. ferrum is not only ‘iron’, the tough and utilitarian metal, used for weapons, but is a standard Latin word for ‘sword’, and by further metonymy, a signifier of warfare and aggression (TLL s.v. 580.1–3). Yet the Germans have hardly any iron either, as Tacitus infers from the small amount of iron on their weapons (Ger. 6.1; like Tacitus’ statements on German gold and silver, discussed above, this too appears to be incorrect).26 Thus the Germans have to be shrewd in how they use it: rari gladiis aut maioribus lanceis utuntur: hastas vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt angusto et brevi ferro, sed ita acri et ad usum habili, ut eodem telo, prout ratio poscit, vel comminus vel eminus pugnent. Few use swords or large spears: they carry pikes or in their language ‘frameas’ with a short, narrow point, but so sharp and easy to use that they can fight either close in or at a distance, just as the situation demands, with the same weapon. Ger. 6.1 Everything in Germania is pared down, so that, although the Germans do not have much iron, they are resourceful and know how to use it effectively. Much of Tacitus’ ethnography accentuates what is in proportion in the Germans’ world: there is no excess of mourning the dead (27.1), of one family’s power (7.1), of women’s influence (7.2–8.1), or of freedmen’s (25.2). Similarly luxury goods are unknown to them, not only do they lack gold and silver, but they are ignorant of the ornamental potential of amber (45.5– 8); their women dress simply (17.1) and their food is plain (23.1, 26.3). However for all their moral fibre and simplicity, the Germans are too bellicose and poverty-stricken to be models of Golden Age peoples, as the extreme case, the Fenni, demonstrates. One of the three most remote and 150
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savage tribes of Germany, the Fenni have no iron at all, and their entry in the Germania is a list of what they lack: Fennis mira feritas, foeda paupertas: non arma, non equi, non penates; victui herba, vestitui pelles, cubile humus: solae in sagittis spes, quas inopia ferri ossibus asperant. The Fenni are amazing in their ferocity, disgusting in their poverty: they have no weapons, no horses, no household gods; their food is grass, their clothes are skins, their bed is the earth: their only protection is their arrows, which they make with sharpened bones, because of the lack of iron. Ger. 46.3 Despite their extraordinary primitivism and lack of resources, the Fenni are entirely self-sufficient, the logical extension of German practicality, and additionally their few possessions are crude and unprocessed. Unlike iron, bone does not have to be extracted from ore and forged into a weapon, skins do not need to be spun or woven, and wild plants do not need to be planted and nurtured, although this last factor does not especially distinguish the Fenni, as none of the Germans seems to practise agriculture (Ger. 14.4, but cf. 15.1). Freedom from material goods and desires puts the Fenni into a category much admired and simultaneously despised by Roman writers, as they have nothing to wish for or to protect.27 For them, nothing can get more squalid, nothing can decay; they have no iron, so they can have no rust. The Fenni are a good warning against ethnocentric presumption, a lesson for anthropologists everywhere (cf. Pratt, 1986): sed beatius arbitrantur quam ingemere agris, inlaborare domibus, suas alienasque fortunas spe metuque versare, securi adversus homines securi adversus deos rem difficilliamam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset. But they think [this life] happier than to groan over fields, to work at building houses, to think with hope and fear, about one’s own and other people’s money; safe from men and safe from gods, they have achieved that most difficult thing, that they have no need even of prayer. Ger. 46.5 Although the Fenni have almost nothing, they also lack nothing, as their culture is entirely without aspiration. While the meagre protection of bushes and their sparse diet, clothing and (non-)homes are meant to strike the reader as horrifically inadequate,28 the Fenni feel no deprivation because 151
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they are (fairly implausibly) positioned as outsiders who are aware of the rigours of farming and building a settlement. In fact the tribe is a kind of mirror-ethnographer, for they are not merely objects of Tacitus’ authorial gaze, but have observed and evaluated the lifestyles of agricultural peoples (presumably not Germans, cf. Ger 5.1, 14.4) and made a conscious decision to avoid this form of existence. Paradoxically the most primitive of all the humans depicted in the Germania have in fact manufactured their squalid state, which flies against the expectation that primitivism is closer to nature, while developed societies are more easily associated with artificiality. The Fenni are the ultimate utopians, rejecting the unacceptable in order to create an anti-society which is realizable because it demands less (in fact nothing) rather than more. They also appear to have taken a sophisticated philosophical stance, which liberates them from fear, religion and the perception of hardship, and in order to arrive at this point they have absorbed the Roman debate over hard primitivism, weighing it up against farming, and concluded that agriculture is overly laborious.29 In fact they answer Seneca’s objection that primitives may well live more innocent and modest lives, but that is only because they have not yet discovered vice or luxury, as more developed socities have (Epis. 90.46). Real virtue, says Seneca, is to be exposed to these temptations and avoid them, and this is how Tacitus constructs the Fenni, as conscious of the practices belonging to more advanced civilizations, while refusing to take up those practices themselves. As framed from the perspective of the self-interrogating Roman ethnographer, barbarians are often good for displaying moral worth, although this is usually qualified by their cultural inadequacies and the dangers of living close to the elements. Yet the Fenni also transcend the usual debate on the virtues or otherwise of a more ‘natural’ state. But at the edges of the human world, where utopias are often situated, the Fenni have divested themselves of ambiguity, living in carefree, perfect squalor, doing nothing, and embodying the entropy inherent to utopians. As supreme savages – a group which exceeds even the barbarism of its neighbouring nomads – the Fenni occupy the margins (of Germany, of the text) in every sense (O’Gorman, 1993: 150–1). This tribe is positioned precariously at the ethnographic edge of what can be called German – or possibly beyond this mark (Fennorum nationes Germanis an Sarmatis adscribam dubito, ‘I am not sure whether to enrol the peoples of the Fenni into the Germans or the Sarmatians’, 46.1); an indication of the Germania’s final failure to fix meaning and give shape to Germany, something which this text strives to do (O’Gorman, 1993: 136–7). In fact, they occupy the outer edge of humanity, as the possibly mythical Hellusii and Oxiones beyond them are said to have human faces, but the bodies of beasts (46.6), and thus the Fenni are also the last fully human tribe to occur in the text, placed in the final sentences of Tacitus’ work. And in some ways, the Fenni also occupy the lowest evolutionary point 152
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on the scale, inhabiting a version of both hard and soft primitivism, and incorporating aspects of various Golden Age cultures – which always lack warfare and sometimes specifically lack iron weapons (Tib. 1.3.47–8, Ovid Met. 1.141). Like the Fenni, the Golden Race too relies on what is spontaneously produced by the land, without interfering with nature (Hes. WD 116–8, Vir. Ecl. 4.39, Tib. 1.3.41–2, Ovid Am. 3.8.42–3, Met. 1.102– 12): it does not work the land (Lucr. 5.933–47, Vir. Georg. 1.125–8, Ecl. 4.40–1, Ovid Met. 1.101–2), or build (Tib. 1.3.43), or trade (Hes. WD 113, Arat. Phain. 110–1, Tib. 1.3.39–40), all activities which tend to come in later ages (Vir. Georg. 1.126–49, Tib. 2.3.43–6, 71–2, Ovid Met. 1.121–4), and best of all, the first race, like the Fenni, knows nothing about cares and worries (Hes. WD 113, 119, Fab. Aesop. Preamb. 13, Lucr. 5.937–8, Ovid Met. 1.100). Such carefree status is sometimes applied to other northern barbarians, notably the Scythians, who are liberated from agriculture and most other work by Virgil (Georg. 3.376–80) and, although they live in a harsh, frozen environment, are given over to otia secura (‘carefree leisure’ Georg. 3.377), a condition of the Golden Age (securus is also used of the Fenni, Ger. 46.5 above).30 But while Golden Age peoples tend to be at one with the gods (Hes. WD 120) or even live like gods (Hes. WD 112), the Fenni live without recourse to the divine. Whether they have gone beyond the need to believe in immortal beings, or they have not yet progressed to that stage, is hard to determine. And they do possess weapons – crude, though they may be – in the bonetipped arrows, which prove that they have not technically entered the Iron Age, but are excluded from the peaceful Golden Age. The text of the Germania specifies that these arrows are what they use to defend themselves, showing that the Fenni certainly do not live harmoniously within their wider community. Given the expectations which the Germania has built up, they could hardly be (even doubtful) Germans if they did not engage in violence: all Germans live to fight, and it is this compulsion for war which defines their relationship with Rome, as is shown by the roll-call of wars in which they have engaged over the centuries (Ger. 37.2–5). In addition, their bone arrows are derived from animals (presumably not humans, as Tacitus does not comment on it), which they have probably killed, contradicting many Golden Age descriptions in which animals are unharmed by humans. The Golden Race is never depicted as meat-eating, and the earliest humans’ vegetarianism is often singled out for specific comment (Empedocles fr. 130, Plato Laws 782c, Arat. Phain. 132, Ovid Met. 15.96–110). Furthermore, the Fenni may survive without organized agriculture, but they do not experience the plenty contained in many Golden Age narratives. Rather than a scene of ease and simplicity, Tacitus depicts the Fenni’s life as squalid and brutal. And while some models of the Golden Age do not exclude labour (Plato Laws 679–80a, Arat. Phain. 112–3), the work involved in these cases is agriculture. The Fenni represent hard primitivism (as defined by Lovejoy 153
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and Boas, 1997: 9–11) in its most extreme form, and in the end, they are enviable only for their total lack of civilization, as they tacitly deconstruct the myth of the simple life. Just as Tacitus’ text ends in doubt and questions, so the work as a whole can be read as one which undermines its picture of a people shaped by moral purity and simplicity, in the very act of creating it. The Germania asks what would be the result of taking primitivism to its logical conclusion: remove all the layers of civilization, and underneath, we are all grubby Fenni. It is the same reversal of Golden Age expectations which Juvenal creates when he begins Satire 6 with the comic image of his primitives’ morality and crudeness in the Age of Saturn, and compares the wives who lived while Chastity (Pudicitia) remained on earth, with the literary mistresses of Catullus and Propertius (6.1–10, see pages 81–3). The two sets of women in Juvenal’s Satire parallel the Germania’s implicit comparison between the chaste, honourable Germans and the Romans who have fallen from grace, but Juvenal provides the more familiar contrast between past and present. There is no pretence of subtlety, no ‘here and now’ for the audience to supply, as Juvenal’s sledgehammer technique tells us exactly who the modern-day culprits are. But the objects of attack are literary constructs (in fact constructed well over a century before Juvenal), and their ancient counterparts are a confusing mix of purity in an admirably hardy environment and revolting habits. Like the Germans, the Saturnian women are uncompromisingly chaste (Ger. 19.1–4, Juv. 6.1, 7–8) and emphatically maternal (Ger. 19.5, Juv. 6.9). Unlike the Germans, the Saturnians are pastoral and revere their household gods (Juv. 6.3–4), but even more than the Germans, they live in stark conditions (Juv. 6.2–3, the cold cave, cf. Ger. 16) and lack refined habits and moderation (Juv. 6.9–10, the belching husband, the hairy wife, cf. Ger. 23.2). Such unattractive primitives complicate and compromise the picture of decline, suggesting that to remain morally pure and uncorrupted by wealth might have unpalatable results. The Golden Age attributes of primitives are contaminated by their coarseness, and rather than moving into a technologically advanced but morally bankrupt age, they maintain some form of innocence, along with the harsh truths of pre-urban existence.
The perils of pax Technical texts like the Elder Pliny’s deal with rust and its prevention, removal or even its uses,31 but the rust which taints the orator’s metaphorical weapons in Quintilian rarely appears in Roman literature as a real danger to a warrior’s arms, and when it does, it tends to generate yet more allegorical readings. For example in epic poetry the presence of rust on armour points to a long hiatus in warfare, throwing into relief the oncoming storm of battle. So Lucan has the men of Ariminum rushing to retrieve arms which 154
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are decaying through lack of use, leaving the town unprepared for the appearance of an army (Julius Caesar’s): rupta quies populi, stratisque excita iuventus deripuit sacris adfixa penatibus arma quae pax longa dabat: nuda iam crate fluentis invadunt clipeos curvataque cuspide pila et scabros nigrae morsu robiginis enses. The sleep of the people was broken, and the youths jumping from their beds tore down weapons which had been fastened beside household gods such as long peace gave them: they seize disintegrating shields with bare frames and spears bent at the point and swords scabrous with the bite of black rust. BC 1.239–43 Lucan’s language is highly dramatic, particularly the ponderous and alliterative depiction of the rust in 1.243 (Gagliardi, 1989: 79), and the exaggeration makes the Ariminians appear ridiculous with their dysfunctional weaponry, which is not even ornamental, let alone practical. Peace is about to be replaced by slaughter on an enormous scale, in a war which is depicted as a ‘crime’ (scelus 1.2, nefas 1.6). But the irony of long-term peace (pax longa 1.241) is that it has provided the Ariminians with no protection – instead it has actually given (dabat 1.241) them useless weapons and made them vulnerable, suggesting that this situation is parallel to the one warned of by Quintilian, in which gold is as worthless as rusty metal. The argument could be extended to incorporate that of the metus hostilis (‘fear of the enemy’), a theory first put forward by Sallust not long after the events depicted by Lucan, which claimed that peace led to laziness and torpor (Sall. Iug. 41.2 metus hostilis in bonis artibus civitatem retinebat ‘fear of the enemy kept the state in good habits’, cf. Tac. Ger. 14–5). In the case of Lucan’s Ariminum this might seem a delusional sense of security, since the inhabitants immediately bemoan their position as first victims to northern invasions through many centuries (1.248–57), but this reaction does of course place Caesar’s crossing into Italy alongside those of Hannibal and the northern barbarians. Perhaps because of their history, the Ariminians are jealous of their peace and, with more exaggeration, claim that ‘a profound peace and quiet rest’ (pax alta . . . /et tranquilla quies 1.249–50) exists everywhere but with them. Rust is not here associated so much with torpor as with the final, poignant moments before peace is shattered; again it has the ability to bite; however this time its teeth sink into, not the fitting victim of satire, or even the satirist himself, but the defence of the Roman state, which 155
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is laid open to Caesar’s onslaught. Silius picks up this motif and uses it twice in the Punica, in the first case referring to the precise incident remembered by Lucan’s Ariminians (Martem Libyae, ‘the Mars of Libya’ BC 1.255) as Hannibal descends on Italy from the north (Pun. 4.12–3). Here again in Silius the Italians need to prepare themselves suddenly for war, but, in contrast, the iron is easily cleansed of its rust and soon shining in readiness for the attack, and the same is true when Hannibal later orders his troops to set up for battle after a lull in the fighting (Pun. 7.535). That peace can lead to lethargy and decay is commonly claimed of peoples conquered by Rome in ethnographies. Tacitus locates the Britons and Gauls along a spectrum of deterioration caused by pax: plus tamen ferociae Britanni praeferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit. nam Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse accepimus; mox segnitia cum otio intravit, amissa virtute pariter ac libertate. quod Britannorum olim victis evenit: ceteri manent quales Galli fuerunt. However the Britons are ahead in fierceness, as long-term peace has not yet softened them. For we acknowledge that the Gauls were once great in war; but soon, when stagnation along with leisure came on the scene, manliness and freedom were equally lost. This happened to some of the Britons once they were defeated: the others remain as powerful as the Gauls once were. Agric. 11.4 Strabo had implied a similar logic when he claimed that looking at the Germans would reveal the real character of the Celts (Gauls), as the latter had been conquered by Rome and deprived of liberty (Strabo 4.4.2). There is a sense of inevitability in this depiction of the northerners as locked into a devolutionary motion, and in fact Tacitus shows exactly how this connection between peace and decline can take place: after a winter of Roman comforts the Britons quickly become effete and addicted to their conquerors’ luxury: sequens hiems saluberrimus consiliis absumpta. namque ut homines dispersi ac rudes eoque in bella faciles quieti et otio per voluptates adsuescerent, hortari privatim, adiuvare publice, ut templa fora domos extruerent, laudando promptos, castiganda segnes: ita honoris aemulatio pro necessitate erat. iam vero principum filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent. inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens toga; paulatimque discessum ad delenimenta vitiorum porticus et balineas et conviviorum elegantiam. 156
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The following winter was taken up in the soundest plans. For in order that a people, which was scattered and rough, and proportionately ready for war, should be habituated to tranquillity and peace through pleasures, [Agricola] encouraged individuals, and aided communities to construct temples, fora and homes, by praising the eager and rebuking the lazy: so there was a rivalry for his compliments instead of coercion. Further he educated the sons of the chiefs in the liberal arts, and preferred the natural talents of the Britons to the training of the Gauls, so that those who had recently rejected the language of the Romans now wished for rhetorical skill. Even our form of dress became an honour and the toga became common. And gradually there was a deviation towards the allurements of vices: the porticoes, the baths and the refinement of banquets. Agric. 21.1–2 In a sense the inevitability is rhetorical, even generic, for Caesar had already compared Gauls with Germans, utilizing a similar continuum of resilience: the Germans stand at the aggressive end of the scale, where the Gauls were once equal to them (BG 6.24.1–5), but contact with Rome’s provinces and trade have allowed the Gauls to ‘become accustomed to defeat’ (adsuefacti superari multis, BG 6.24.6). Just as Caesar’s Gauls became ineffectual, so Tacitus’ Britons were bound to fall victim to Roman enticements.32 Gallic weakness is even focalized through the Gauls themselves, who are painfully aware of their own inferiority and having been ‘defeated in many battles, do not even compare themselves with [the Germans] in manliness’ (multisque victi proeliis ne se quidem ipsi cum illis virtute comparant, BG 6.24.6).33 Caesar also suggests that the same division exists within Britannia, as the inhabitants of Cantium (Kent) are described as humanissimi (‘the most civilized’) of the Britons, leading a similar life to that of the Gauls (BG 5.14.1). However, according to Tacitus, the Germans generally know they must not fall prey to the insidious dangers of peace: si civitas in qua orti sunt longa pace et otio torpeat, plerique nobilium adulescentium petunt ultro eas nationes quae tum bellum aliquod gerunt If the state in which they were born is inactive because of long-lasting peace and leisure, many of the young noblemen of their own accord seek out tribes which are then waging war Ger. 14.2 As is often the case in this work, the generalizations made about ‘the Germans’ in the first half of the work are contradicted by the actions of in157
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dividual tribes in the second (O’Gorman, 1993: 136). The Germans function as both an ideal and a warning to Romans, and while they are overall an exemplum (if a rather extreme one) for Tacitus’ audience, particular cases draw attention to errors the Romans have already made or might make. So the Cherusci suffer from nimiam ac marcentem diu pacem (‘too much enervating peace for a long time’ Ger. 36.1), which they have actually ‘nourished’ (nutrierunt) themselves.34 But in general, as history proves, at least to Tacitus (Ger. 37.2–6), most of the Germans are too bellicose to fall prey to either the lethargic peace embraced by the Cherusci or the comforts offered to the Britons by Roman conquest (itself pax, discussed below). In fact, in the Histories, the Germans are also given the knowledge that they must smash the master’s tools and dismantle his house (to paraphrase Audre Lourde, 1984: 110) in order to rid themselves of slavery, as the Tencteri demand that the Ubii in Colonia Agrippinensis tear down the colony’s Roman walls, a sign of their oppression, if they want to come back to the German fold (Hist. 4.64). At around the same time as Tacitus, Florus uses the inverse of the ‘peace equals rust’ equation for rhetorical effect when he claims that the third century BCE Ligurian War quickly followed the First Punic War, with the briefest of closures of the Gates of Janus, because ‘some god’ (deo quodam) intervened so that no rust or mould (rubiginem ac situm) would have time to affect Roman arms (Epit. 1.19.2; cf. 2.30.32). Here the unidentified god is an agent with Rome’s best interests at heart, who works towards the prevention of torpor in the state. But the phrasing is so bizarre that the claim could easily be read as ironic, especially as Florus’ preface gives the impression that there is never a time, before the accession of Augustus, without war – the Epitome is a breathless sprint through Roman conflicts, and literally depicts the city’s development as one of war-to-war history, for this text is organized by military engagement, as the manuscript title announces that it is an ‘Epitome of All the Wars of 1,200 Years’.35 In the myth of Rome’s great past and subsequent decline, the mid-Republic is always a high point of morality and military success – a safe location for the denial of rust, with the definite implication that deterioration will follow when peace does afflict Rome. Of the various dates which were often cited as the ‘turning point’ for Rome’s moral health, Florus picks 133 BCE, after the destruction of Numantia (1.34).36 Florus implies that the profits of conquest lead to greed, which necessarily leads to conflict, and is a moral failing which can be used against Rome by the enemy: for example Jugurtha buys off ambassadors, the senate and Scaurus (1.36.5); Crassus goes to Parthia because of greed, and tellingly ends up dead with a mouth full of molten gold (1.46.11). Florus’ is a strange work, full of anomalies and mixed models: its twobook format clearly divides foreign campaigns from civil struggles, but it also self-consciously breaks the overarching chronological structure of work 158
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in order to do this, as Book One ends with the failed Parthian War of 53 BCE (1.47), while Book Two begins with the laws and seditiones (‘revolutions’) of the Gracchi in the 130s and 120s BCE (2.1–3). The text attempts to exert some control over itself, by summing up the glory that has gone before, and the ruinous internal conflict to come, at the end of Book One (1.47). Rather than chronology, the structure is conditioned by the narrative of rise and fall imposed on Rome’s history, so that the rise and expansion of the state are covered by Book One, while its decline and civil dissent are found in Book Two; this is followed by an appendix starring Augustus as the saviour of Rome from itself (2.33–4). Furthermore, Florus’ programmatic statement (1. praef. 4–8), most likely modelled on Senecan ideas (Lactantius Inst. Div. 7.15.4), lays out the history of Rome as an organic structure parallel to the four ages of man: childhood, youth, maturity and old age. The well-trodden theme of an emerging power which reaches the apex of military conquest and moral integrity and then falls into self-indulgent disunity is here too (especially 1.47.3–13); but this does not fit neatly into the four-age pattern, and Florus places the beginning of the rot in the middle of his stated ‘third age’, which has to be divided into half-gold and half-iron to account for the moral collapse occurring at its centre: si quis hanc tertiam eius aetatem transmarinam, quam ducentorum annorum fecimus, dividat, centum hos priores, quibus Africam, Macedoniam, Siciliam, Hispaniam domuit, aureos, sicut poetae canunt, iure meritoque fateatur, centum sequentes ferreos plane et cruentos et si quid inmanius If someone were to subdivide this third age of conquests beyond the seas, which we have allotted two hundred years, it would be justly and correctly claimed that the first hundred, in which Rome subdued Africa, Macedonia, Sicily and Hispania, were golden, as the poets say, and the following hundred were iron and bloody and whatever is more terrible 1.34 Florus combines two models of world history – the human lifespan, and the myth of metallic ages – with a suggestion of the Stoic cyclical scheme37 as Rome renews itself under Augustus and Trajan (see below); and thus the Golden Age (basically the third to second century BCE) is strangely located – neither a messianic future nor a remote past, it is found in the historically verifiable, relatively recent past of three hundred years ago.38 There is no Silver or Bronze Age here, and as in many Roman accounts the transformation from paradise to misery is dramatic, with no transition. Yet, despite Florus’ gloss of the metallic ages as a poetic device, his description of the second century is as florid and idyllic as any mythological account: 159
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haec est illa tertia aetas populi Romani transmarina, qua Italia progredi ausus orbe toto arma circumtulit. cuius aetatis superiores centum anni sancti, pii et, ut diximus aurei, sine flagitio, sine scelere, dum sincera adhuc et innoxia pastoriae illius sectae integritas, dumque Poenorum hostium inminens metus disciplinam veterem continebat. This is the third age of the Roman people, the age of conquests beyond the seas, in which, having dared to advance outside of Italy, it took its weapons around the whole world. Of this age the first hundred years were pure, dutiful and, as we have said, golden, without disgrace, without crime, while the untainted and innocent honesty of the old-fashioned shepherd’s life still existed, and while the fear of the Carthaginian enemy hanging over them maintained their ancient restraint. 1.47 Along with a touch of Sallustian metus hostilis, Florus whitewashes the midRepublic as a pastoral paradise – again blending several elements of the Greek ages. It features absolute piety and a lack of criminality (are there laws? of course we know there were); the shepherd’s existence is somewhere between spontaneous production and agriculture (although we also know that arable farming had long been practised in Italy); there is domestic peace, but conquest throughout the Mediterranean is widespread and the age is punctuated by conflict with Carthage: Rome’s maturity begins with the First Punic War (1.18), while the third war against Carthage (1.31) is almost the last before the great divide of 133 BCE. This is such a composite, mangled Golden Age that no reader could expect consistency, so it is not surprising that conquest and war appear at both ends of the description, despite the universal absence of conflict in Golden Ages. What is notable is that Florus adheres to the conceptual division between harmony at home and military activity elsewhere (emphasized by tagging the age as one of transmarina ‘[conquest] overseas’). Greg Woolf claims that this opposition (which he calls domi and militiae) is more significant that that of war versus peace in Roman thought (1993: 173), and it conditions the proper spheres for peace and war, appropriately making conquest desirable, while demonizing civil war. Thus the mid-Republican ‘Golden Age’ is one of expansion and empire-building, and the two emperors singled out for positive comment (Augustus and Trajan) did carry out significant expansion of the empire, while the late Republic’s civil conflict occurs in the iron half of the third age, and the succession wars of 68 CE form part of the first century CE inertia Caesarum (‘laziness of the Caesars’ 1. praef. 8), in other words, everything between Augustus and Trajan. The four-age model further conflicts with his agenda, as Florus’ desire to 160
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praise the current regime, the Antonines, has to be placed outside of this schema, because it portrays Rome since Augustus in a state of old age and decay. Therefore, the four ages schema has to be qualified by the assertion that Trajan has made the aging state young again: sub Traiano principe movit lacertos . . . quasi reddita iuventute revirescit (‘under the princeps Trajan [the Roman people] has stirred its limbs . . . and is restoring its strength as though its youth has returned’, 1. praef. 8). Florus, probably writing under Hadrian, emphasizes that the current emperor’s adopted father spurred the state into action again, reversing the trend of military inaction after Augustus. Trajan’s conquest of Dacia, although outside of the scope of this history, is prefigured by the account of Augustus’ failure to capture it (2.28), and proves that the second century is a rejuvenated, enhanced version of the Augustan age. But the main concern of Florus’ text is the strength and energy of the Roman people, and, with this in mind, the four-age model works well, even in conjunction with the myth of ages, as the transitions to second and third ages (the best ones) show. At the end of the second age, Florus sums up its character: haec est secunda aetas populi Romani et quasi adulescentia, qua maxime viruit et quodam flore virtutis exarsit ac ferbuit. itaque inerat quaedam adhuc ex pastoribus feritas, quiddam adhuc spirabat indomitum. That is the second age of the Roman people, its youth, as it were, in which it was most vigorous, and burned and glowed in the flower of its courage. Therefore there was still a certain fierceness from their shepherd ancestors, and an untamed spirit still breathed in them. 1.17.1 As mentioned above, Florus later claims that in the first half of the third age, the Golden Age, Romans were still leading a shepherd lifestyle, so to find only remnants of it in the previous age undermines internal consistency still further. But the point is that this outdoor way of life would demand endurance and bodily strength: it is there in the energetic second age, and still flourishing at the start of the third, stressed by the polyptoton of robur . . . robustus (‘strength . . . strong’) and the statement that Rome is par orbi terrarum (‘equal to the whole of the earth’ 1.18.1). Although this is a history of wars, the Epitome’s opening sentence apparently gives equal weight to peace: populus Romanus . . . tantum operum pace belloque gessit (‘The Roman people . . . has amassed such great achievements through peace and war’ Epit. praef. 1). But, here as elsewhere, the word pax has a complex set of associations: it both implies victory on one side and loss on the other (TLL s.v. 864.44–7), and is related to pacisci 161
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(‘to make an agreement or bargain’) and pacare (‘to make peaceful’), as well as pangere (‘to fix’) whose perfect forms pepigi and pactus involve ideas of settlement and agreement. Essentially pax has legalistic roots which suggest the making of a pact to end war, rather than a state before war (OLD s.v. 1a).39 This is the sense emphasized by Juno in Aeneid 4, when she asks Venus to make a pact for peace (pax) between Carthage and Troy, and a contracted (pactus) marriage between Dido and Aeneas: quin potius pacem aeternam pactosque hymenaeos/exercemus? (‘Why don’t we instead engineer everlasting peace and a marriage contract?’ Aen. 4.99–100). Indeed, it could be argued that ‘peace’ in any language has meaning only when its binary opposites ‘war’ or ‘violence’ exist as possibilities, but the etymology of the Latin word emphasizes its position as a post-war state, a condition which presupposes that warfare has taken place, and which, consequently, denies the credibility of the Golden Age scenario of original peace. A central paradox of peace is that it is imagined as existing before war in the Greek mythological tradition, but the word itself is predicated upon conflict, while the Golden Age in particular grows out of a knowledge of and desire to flee conflict. For Romans, the escape is provisional and conditional, found within the bounds of empire, and in Latin, pax has long been understood as a claim for Roman security – an end to civil war or, more often, the pacification of any peoples who might threaten Rome’s empire (Weinstock, 1960: 45, 49).40 This is particularly clear in the last section of Florus’ work, which deals with the geographical extent of pacatae gentes (‘pacified peoples’ 2.34.61), gives a ‘triumphal’ list of all the peoples who send ambassadors to Rome (2.34.62–3), and concludes with Augustus’ various titles (2.34.65–6), including imperator perpetuus (‘eternal commander’ 2.34.66). Augustus’ closure of Janus’ temple doors, indicating that wars have ceased, also features (2.34.64), but even this is an indication of domination (there is no need for war as the empire is under control), just as it is in the Res Gestae of Augustus: Ianum Quirinum, claussum esse maiores nostri voluerunt cum per totum imperium populi Romani terra marique esset parta victoriis pax (‘[the temple of] Janus Quirinus, which our ancestors wished to be closed when throughout the whole empire of the Roman people, on land and sea, peace had been created by victories’, RGDA 13.1). Equally, ending the text with Augustus raises the unstated, but clearly implied, pax Augusta, and the princeps’ claim to have ended civil conflict (RGDA 3.1, 34.1). So, the overtly political use of pax is strongly connected to the maintenance of empire, rather than the end of all warfare, for pax is all about imperium – as Weinstock put it, pax is not necessarily a reference to the pristine Golden Age, and in Augustan literature, it is much more likely to refer to the cult of Pax,41 which itself represents the security Augustus claimed to have brought. Horace’s Carmen Saeculare for example celebrates the return of Pax, along with Fides (Duty), Honos (Glory), Pudor (Modesty) and Virtus (Courage) – civic and military virtues juxtaposed – and they are all accompanied by wars 162
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to the north and east (Carm. Saec. 52–8). Conquest is integral to the new age. It is not surprising, then, that Florus’ mixed models serve to place Trajan at the apex of history (Epit. 1. praef. 8), for he excels in all measures of achievement, maintaining peace at home, along with domestic renewal (particularly with regard to the infrastructure of Italy, see Bennett, 1997: 138–43), while carrying out ambitious and successful military activity at the edges of empire.42 Both are combined in the building programme in the centre of Rome, Trajan’s Forum, which celebrates conquest, no longer symbolically, as the female slave figures of caryatids lining the Forum of Augustus had done, but overtly, with the repeated forms of Dacian captives and the relief sculpture of the column, displaying the labours of the Roman army. In combination with these representations of war and victory are the trappings of domestic peace and prosperity: lavish porticos and libraries, symbols of Rome’s cultivation of the liberal arts – exactly the forms of building and education with which Agricola had enslaved the Britons, according to Tacitus (Agric. 21.1–2, quoted above), proving that peace and conquest are very much intertwined for Romans. Trajan outdoes Augustus, building a forum which is larger, grander and more ornate than that of the first princeps,43 and in Florus’ text he implicitly exceeds Augustus, fulfilling his ambition to conquer Dacia. Thus, even though the work concludes with fulsome praise of Augustus, it is Trajan who completes the preface and returns Rome to successful combat, which stems a century of shameful inactivity.
pax and primitivism Persistent narratives of primitivism also contradict the existence of Golden Age peace, replacing it with evolutionary ascent, sometimes towards a Golden Age, sometimes towards the civilization of cities and institutions, and often towards an eventual decline. The primitives Lucretius describes as the earliest humans have not yet discovered metals (5.1281–6), but they are aggressive and do not live in harmony with other creatures. It is the need to find protection from both wild animals and other humans which drives these people to build homes and gather together to form early communities (the same reasoning which Juvenal would later use in Satire 15.147–58). Lucretius imagines the tentative beginnings of cooperation in a naturally violent world: tunc et amicitiem coeperunt iungere aventes finitimi inter se nec laedere nec violari, et pueros commendarunt muliebreque saeclum, vocibus et gestu cum balbe significarent imbecillorum esse aequum misererier omnis. 163
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nec tamen omnimodis poterat concordia gigni, sed bona magnaque pars servabat foedera caste; aut genus humanum iam tum foret omne peremptum nec potuisset adhuc perducere saecla propago. Then neighbours also began to join together in friendship wanting to avoid harming or being injured by one another, and they entrusted their children and womanfolk, as they made hesitant signs with voices and gesture that it was right to take pity on all of the weak. However harmony was not able to be brought entirely into being, but a good and great number kept their agreements properly; otherwise the whole human race would then have been annihilated and the line would not have been able to carry on to this time. 5.1019–27 Lucretius’ is the earliest clear developmental model we have in Roman literature, and it does not embrace the idea of the metallic ages at all. It is a ruthless interpretation of humanity, in which concordia (harmony) is merely a necessity for survival rather than an ethical option. In this brutally realistic world there is no point at which perfect harmony exists, and the Golden Age is entirely missing – which is fitting in a work dedicated to the teachings of Epicurus, as the Golden Age usually requires that humans be close to the gods. But it is also typical of Roman myths of origin to posit original violence in a race which must be moulded by civilization. Thus Romulus the warmonger is followed by the law-giver and creator of religious institutions, Numa. And even versions which explicitly include a Golden Age often see it as the second stage of development, so that Roman retellings of the Golden Age myth introduce various permutations of the primitive pre-Golden Age (see also Cic. Sest. 91–2). When Juvenal incorporates primitivism into the Golden Age and destabilizes it in Satire 6, he modifies a Roman habit for linking the Golden Age with development, and preceding it with savagery (by putting the Golden Age and savagery together). Roman narratives are therefore far more ambiguous than extant Greek versions, which, in general, posit a consistent decline from the first race to the decay of the Iron Age,44 a pattern which is predicated upon perfection being the natural or original state. Aeneid 8’s Golden Age, as told by Evander, is no innocent, primordial state, and it is preceded by a race of primitives, who have to be reformed by Saturn:45 primus ab aetherio venit Saturnus Olympo arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exsul ademptis. is genus indocile ac dispersum montibus altis composuit legesque dedit, Latiumque vocari maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris. 164
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aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere saecula: sic placida populos in pace regebat, deterior donec paulatim ac decolor aetas et belli rabies et amor successit habendi. Saturn was the first to come from heavenly Olympus, fleeing the arms of Jupiter, an exile whose kingdom had been taken away. He settled the race, untaught and scattered over the high mountains, and he gave it laws, and chose that the place be called Latium, since he had lain hidden safe on these shores. Under this king, they say, was the Golden Age: so he ruled the people in gentle peace, until gradually an inferior and faded era followed, and the plague of war and the love of possession. Aen. 8.319–27 Yet, ironically, Virgil’s narrative is related by the Arcadian Evander (8.313), and the tale is thus given the authority of Greek mythopoesis. According to Evander, the Golden Age has to be created by a god driven from his own soil (exsul ‘exile’ was derived from ex-solum ‘out of the land’ in antiquity, OLD s.v. 1a): familial conflict, suggestive of civil war, precedes the imposition of pax. Saturn’s position as king of the Golden Age only comes about because he is taking refuge in Italy from his son’s violence, expressed quite explicitly in military terms (arma 8.320). And Saturn’s imposition of laws46 implies the existence of criminality, whereas both legal frameworks and law-breaking should occur in later ages – usually the Iron Age. When Roman sources explicitly begin to equate Saturn with the Golden Age, in the Augustan period, it in fact becomes more difficult to construct any single-stranded, linear, Hesiodic narrative, which has Kronos, Saturn’s equivalent, reign over the Golden Race, as this race is the very first (prwvtista Hesiod WD 109) to exist. The Roman myth of Saturn’s exile in Italy complicates this easy equation, as he can no longer be associated with a world in which violence has never existed among men.47 But this is not entirely a Roman myth, as it is filtered through the Greek exile Evander, who seems to have forgotten, or is subverting, Hesiod’s narrative of the races – a Greek who does not know Greek myth. The only other explicit reference to the Golden Age in the Aeneid also mentions Saturn and Latium, along with Anchises’ prediction that Augustus will bring about the return of the aurea saecula (6.792–3) and extend the empire (proferet imperium, 6.795) to the remotest regions of the world (6.791–800). Again the Golden Age is positioned after conflict – the civil wars of the first century BCE – and encompasses the imposition of peace – the pax Romana, which would itself involve the requirement for the conquered to adopt laws. 165
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But the steady, sequential decline is the tradition followed by Ovid’s authorial voice in Metamorphoses 1: postquam Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso sub Iove mundus erat, subiit argentea proles, auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere. Afterwards, when Saturn had been sent to shady Tartarus the world was under Jupiter, the Silver generation succeeded, worse than the Gold, more precious than the yellow Bronze. Met. 1.113–5 Temporal markers (postquam ‘after’, subiit ‘succeeded’) show that this version is chronologically simple, while the comparatives in balanced position (deterior ‘worse’, pretiosior ‘more precious’) show the relative positions of the first three ages within one line. As Ovid draws on the universalizing narrative of decline of Hesiod and Aratus, he ignores the exile myth of Saturn, therefore avoiding the incompatibility of the Greek and Roman traditions. In contrast, with that Hesiodic paradigm, Virgil’s description of the Golden Age in the Aeneid embraces the cyclical model of history (Gransden, 1976: 38–9), as barbaric primitives without law are periodically subject to the civilizing work of a saviour. Gransden lists Saturn, Hercules, Vulcan (the controller of fire and metallurgy), and Augustus as those who return law or balance to Italy (1976: 39–40), and compares the harmony brought about by Saturn with Latinus’ Latium as a renewal of the cycle of peace (see Aen. 7.45–6: rex arva Latinus et urbes/ . . . placidas in pace regebat ‘king Latinus ruled the fields and peaceful cities in peace’). However, he does not comment on the fact that Latinus’ peace is disturbed by the Trojans’ arrival. If history is cyclical here, and Latinus’ era parallels Saturn’s pacified Golden Race, there is a strong corollary between what follows in each case – Aeneas’ arrival, warfare, enforced peace in the final duel, and the ‘faded era’ (decolor aetas), with its ‘plague of war’ (belli rabies 8.326–7) which represents the Iron Age in Evander’s description.48 Here there is not even a gradual, Hesiodic decline, but an abrupt fall into violence and frequent changes of power within Italy, implied by the list of invaders and place name changes enumerated by Evander (Aen. 8.328–32). The beings who already inhabit this area before Saturn’s arrival are primitive and wild: haec nemora indigenae Fauni Nymphaeque tenebant gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata, quis neque mos neque cultus erat, nec iungere tauros aut componere opes norant aut parcere parto, sed rami atque asper victu venatus alebat. 166
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The natives these woods held were Fauns and Nymphs and a people born from tree-trunks and hard oak, who had neither custom nor civilization, nor did they know how to yoke bulls or pile up wealth or ration what they produced, but branches and fierce hunting gave them nourishment. Aen. 8.314–8 Saturn creates a needless (in Hesiodic terms) set of laws for a primitive Golden Race, yet in some ways, these beings act out the stereotypes of hard primitivism: a life of no security for the future, only immediate sustenance, without agriculture or domesticated animals, and no notion of possession. The verbs of lines 316–7 are often used in political senses (Gransden, 1976: 125), and, as they are all negatives here, additionally suggest that the primitives have no political acumen along with their lack of agricultural and economic skills (see also Aen. 6.853, 8.56, 322). And it is the desire for property (amor . . . habendi 8.327), along with war, that will bring them down after Saturn’s ‘reforms’; the two eras are telescoped into one another, which leaves us wondering if culture inevitably leads to decline. The beginnings of agriculture are mentioned here only by negative implication – nec iungere tauros (8.316), although Saturn is often associated with the introduction of agriculture, and his name is etymologically connected to the verb ‘to sow’ (sero, satus; see Varro LL 5.64, Dion. Hal. 1.36.2, Wissowa, 1912: 204). And while the natives seem harmless, Saturn’s immediate construction of leges (‘laws’) implies that they are capable of actions perceived as criminal or immoral. As always, the question persists: which came first, the criminality or the laws? And as with Golden Age peace, nostalgia and a back-formed utopia create an irresolvable dilemma of precedence. Paradoxically, communal settlement and a legal system – two vital markers of civilization and post-Golden Age eras – are brought into existence by the king of the Golden Age, are even figured as dual prerequisites for the Golden Age. The ‘folk-etymology’ (Latium, latere ‘to lie hidden’, 8.322–3, see Eden, 1975 ad loc.) which situates the refugee Saturn in Italy serves only to add to the distortion of the Greek tradition, for his overthrow and escape to Latium places Zeus/Jupiter on the divine throne everywhere else, indicating the Silver or, worse, the Iron Age, and emphasizing that Saturn’s Golden Age can occur only in Latium.49 Nothing about Aeneid 8’s Golden Age conforms to expectation, and Virgil deconstructs the solidity of the myth.50 Evander’s Golden Age is strikingly all too brief, and within three lines it has been announced and has disappeared, to be replaced by an age of war: the structure of lines 325–7 emphasize the demarcations dramatically, 325 begins with aurea (‘Golden’), 326 with saecula (‘Age’), and 327 ends with decolor aetas (‘faded era’). Even more telling are the texts which figure pax as achievable only in a future Golden Age, such as that found in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue (pacatumque reget . . . orbem, ‘he will rule a pacified earth’, 4.17). This is the earliest Latin text to prophesy the return of the Golden Age (Gatz, 167
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1967: 25), or at least the gens aurea (‘Golden Race’, 4.9) and is then the model for the early imperial poet Calpurnius Siculus’ first Eclogue: non tamen insidias praedator ovilibus ullas afferet aut laxis abiget iumenta capistris. aurea secura cum pace renascitur aetas et redit ad terras tandem squalore situque alma Themis posito iuvenemque beata sequuntur saecula, maternis causam qui vicit Iulis. However the predator will not lay any ambushes for the sheepfolds nor will he drive the herd away from their loosened halters. The Golden Age is reborn with its carefree peace and at last gentle Themis returns to the earth, with neglect and decay cast aside, and prosperous generations follow the young man, who has won the cause for his mother’s Julii. Calpurnius Siculus Ecl. 1.40–5 Clearly, Virgil’s vision of pax as a future state, rather than a lost past, becomes critical at this point, and lends both texts a millenarian outlook.51 At a basic level, both function as panegyrics of the regime and the expected bounty it will provide. Unlike Virgil, who was influenced by a series of prophetic discourses, such as the Sibylline oracles and the astrological coincidence of the ‘great year’ (see page 18), and who seemingly foretells an end to Rome’s political upheaval, Calpurnius, who sets his first Eclogue on the threshold of Nero’s reign,52 is in a position of security and knowledge – that the ‘young man’ (iuvenis 1.44) is about to ascend to the principate, and that Virgil’s fourth Eclogue could now be interpreted as prophesying the prosperity of the Augustan era.53 Although given in the form of a prophecy written by Faunus (1.33–88), Calpurnius’ vision is much more hard-edged and specific than that of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue.54 It is true that Nero is not named, but equally clear that he is the new princeps being lauded as the new Augustus, wiping out the memory of the other Julio-Claudians (specifically Claudius) and their crimes,55 such as sending senators to their deaths (1.59–62) – a much more specifically politicized pastoral than Virgil’s (Davis, 1987: 40–3). The other side of this is that, at a temporal distance, Calpurnius can also imply that all of the supreme bounty promised by Virgil did not arrive – no multi-coloured sheep (vs. Vir. Ecl. 4.43–5); the bulls were not set free (1.41 vs. Vir. Ecl. 4.37–41), and warfare continued (1.46–59). For Calpurnius, these activities still occur in his Golden Age: the best he can say is that the (apparently still ordinary) sheep will no longer need to be penned in and the oxen safely remain at their plough 168
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now that the world is crime-free (1.37–41). While Virgil foretells the return of Virgo, often understood as Astraea, representing justice (cf. Iustitia’s disappearance at Georg. 2.474), Calpurnius has Themis, also a goddess of justice and order, return tandem (‘at last’ 1.43–4), suggesting that she is still needed. The word securus (‘safe’) recurs (1.38, 42) reminding us that this is a vision in which the absence of fear and violence constitute the Golden Age: the end to senatorial anxiety, not to agriculture or ownership, is the point here. Yet the pastoral vision in Calpurnius’ first Eclogue does not come to pass; instead its characters are seduced by the grand Neronian city in Eclogue 7: ‘pastoral simplicity has nothing to offer to the great world. The dream of a rural golden age fades away’. (Leach, 1975: 205; see also 222–3). Both Virgil and Calpurnius are invested in a discourse of post-lapsarian reversal. This is the paradise not of ignorance, the cultural equivalent of childhood (cf. Falkner, 1989 on Hesiod), where peace exists before violence, but of the pacati – those who have had peace imposed and constructed for them. Although the past Golden Race of Hesiod (and Aratus and Ovid) is also a construct which serves to critique contemporary malaise, as much as utopian texts which foresee a better time to come, Virgil actively incorporates warfare into the (future) Golden Age as history repeats itself before it can return to mature peace (4.31–6), and Calpurnius ruminates on wars as far back as Philippi (1.50–1). Both speak of the future in terms of the conventional myth of the long past, but that this condition exists after the fact allows for slippage: the inhabitants of this future utopia are already contaminated by the memory of a violent past. Calpurnius’ poem has the return of Numa who ‘taught the work of peace’ (pacis opus docuit, 1.67) to Romulus’ soldiers (1.65–8), a repetition of history, just as Virgil has the Argo and Trojan War repeat themselves (4.31–6). nullos iam Roma Philippos/ deflebit, nullos ducet captiva triumphos (‘Rome shall weep for no more Philippi, and, held captive, will lead no more triumphs’ 1.50–1) – a startling image which depicts Roma herself as a prisoner. Although these lines are regularly read as a reference to Rome’s future without civil war,56 an interpretation which fits well with the reminiscence of Philippi; it could also indicate an end to Roman imperialism – a future in which there are no more triumphs, and Rome itself is kept in check, which a strict enforcement of Golden Age values would demand. pax might mean more than the cessation of civil violence here, but, like all accounts of a returned Golden Age, it cannot escape the memory of blood.
Militarism, rust and farming like the Ancient Romans, you At once are soldiers, and are farmers too. Philip Freneau American liberty, a poem (1775) The values of peace, then, are debatable and contradictory. In its overt 169
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olitical uses during the imperial period pax becomes an index of Roman p security and the empire’s ability to sustain itself, often through conquest; yet it is both associated with Golden Age non-violence, and with the morally corroding power of inaction, in fact of decline. The symbolic potential of rust is particularly potent when applied to weapons of war too long at peace, and, in a parallel image, metal rust is equally dangerous for farm implements, which should also be in constant use. At its most absurd, rust can strike with lightning speed. Catullus exaggerates the effects of rural populations leaving the fields to attend the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, claiming that their tools begin to disintegrate the moment they are left unused: rura colit nemo, mollescunt colla iuvencis, non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris, non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus, non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram, squalida desertis rubigo infertur aratris. No one cultivates the land, the neck of the beast grows soft, the low-growing vine is not cleared by the curved rake, nor does the bull churn the clod with the deep-driven share, the scythe does not cut back the shade of the tree’s leaves, filthy rust advances over the abandoned ploughs. Cat. 64.38–42 The temporal hyperreality,57 whereby decay is concertinaed and occurs instantaneously, is open to varying interpretations. Lines 38–41 bear the promise of a return to Golden Age values (Konstan, 1977: 32) – the earth is left untouched, animals are not pressed into service – perhaps we expect the next step to be the spontaneous production of foods; certainly the abandonment of ploughs is echoed in the Golden Age of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue (4.40–1). If so, the ‘filthy rust’ of the following line is a shock, and transforms the previous description – this is not a movement back to the Golden Age, but forward to a time of decay. The picture is stark and uncompromising in its insistence that this stoppage is not temporary, that in fact the old way of life will no longer be possible. Because this marriage signals the end of an era and, with the birth of Achilles, an era of total war, the poem implies that warfare and agriculture are inimical to one another, as farm work goes into decline in prophetic anticipation of the disruption which militarism will cause. infertur (42) underlines the transition from one stage to another, being used in both agricultural and military contexts (semina arvis inferre: to sow the fields, OLD s.v. infero 1a; arma/ bellum inferre: to make war, OLD s.v. infero 9c; signa inferre: to advance in attack, OLD s.v. infero 2a) – in this case, the aggressive implications are uppermost, as rubigo invades the peaceful, agrarian world. Paradoxically, the danger posed to agri170
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culture takes humankind forward into a militaristic future from which there is no return, while at the same time it implies a regression or a move towards barbarism, as agriculture is so strongly associated with civilization in GrecoRoman thought.58 This assault wrecks the apparatus of peacetime pursuits, and threatens prosperity and the bounty of Ceres – the last link with the Golden Age: in effect, it is as destructive as conquest itself. Ahead lies the siege and devastation of Troy, an event which will leave the farmer’s tools, and ultimately the land, deserted.59 Despite being situated in opposition here, it is striking that agriculture and militarism are the two victims of rust’s destructive power. These are activities which define the proper spheres for a freeborn Roman male, and by extension roles which mark out the free from the slave. In the second century BCE, the Elder Cato connects the two activities directly: at the very outset of his treatise on agriculture (de Agricultura) he comments that farming is the most praiseworthy profession, and lists the reasons, including the fact that the practice of farming turns men into good soldiers: at ex agricolis et viri fortissimi et milites strenuissimi gignuntur, maximeque pius quaestus stabilissimusque consequitur minimeque invidiosus, minimeque male cogitantes sunt qui in eo studio occupati sunt. But out of farmers the bravest men and the most vigorous soldiers grow, and the income that comes from it is the most honourable and the most secure and not at all despicable, and those who have applied themselves to this vocation are least likely to intend harm. de Agric., praef. 460 Working the land and waging war should be the twin tasks which occupy the Roman male, and they are styled as complementary activities, the one functioning as training for the other. Romans move between these two roles as required: they are two sides of the same coin, rather than distinct and separable careers – the only two occupations which existed under Romulus.61 Similarly the parallel alternation between the military and the civic realm allowed the seemingly disparate functions of soldier and civilian to be combined, as is emphasized by the verbal formulae which express the dress code distinction between the individual at war or at peace. togam inire ‘to go into the toga’ (OLD s.v. toga 1b) and saga sumere ‘to put on military cloaks’ (OLD s.v. sagum 1b), convey the Roman male’s entry into civic and military life respectively, and they imply movement and exchange – between manner of dress, and between citizen roles: saga ponere ‘to lay aside the sagum’ was to move from conflict to peace (e.g. Livy Per. 73). These roles can be taken up or taken off simply by the removal of clothing. The figurative use of these phrases suggests the exteriority of these functions: neither soldier nor civilian 171
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status is intrinsic to Roman men, because at any one time they may inhabit one role or the other (but not both together).62 Male role models were often figures who divided their time between the activities of conquest and agriculture, and this was represented as a virtue stemming from the distant past. In Aeneid 9 Numanus bases Italian identity on the interchange of these functions, which are maintained throughout the lifespan: at patiens operum parvoque adsueta iuventus aut rastris terram domat aut quatit oppida bello. omne aevum ferro teritur, versaque iuvencum terga fatigamus hasta, nec tarda senectus debilitat viris animi mutatque vigorem: canitiem galea premimus, semperque recentis comportare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto. But our youth endures hard work, is accustomed to poverty, and either tames the land with hoes or shakes towns in war. Every generation lives its life with iron, and we goad the backs of oxen with a reversed spear, nor does slow old age weaken our mental powers or alter our strength: we press down our grey hair with the helmet, and we always love to carry away fresh spoils and live on the plunder. Aen. 9.607–13 The use of the spear in connection with oxen marks the ideological association of agriculture and war; but whereas the two modes are normally kept apart, here the same tool is used for both functions, emphasizing the Italians’ readiness for war even as they farm. Even more unusual, as Horsfall reminds us (1990: 310), is the presence of a weapon in a farming context, as it is commoner to find farmers resorting to agricultural tools as primitive weapons in the absence of arms (e.g. Aen. 7.505–10), and sometimes agricultural implements converted into weapons (Fasti 1.699–700). The reversal implies that militarism is more pronounced in the Italians than the role of farmer – like Tacitus’ über-bellicose Germans, they are never without weapons (Ger. 11.4, 13.1, page 148–9). Numanus is killed by Ascanius immediately after this speech, which goes on to compare the hardy Italians to the Trojans he depicts as effete. Because he is so hastily despatched, Numanus’ words could be dismissed as those of a braggart who deserves his death, or perhaps as an outmoded and doomed voice of the past;63 alternatively he might encompass admirable aspects of ‘Italianness’ which need to be assimilated into the Roman ideal when Italians and Trojans merge, as laid out by Juno in Book Twelve (821–8). There are significant implications here for the future of Rome and the effects of integrating Trojans into the Roman race, 172
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which might be read as the remote seeds of decadence and decline.64 Numanus is not represented as a sympathetic character, and the primitivism he depicts verges on barbarism, as his Italians rely on plunder – not to the same extent as the Germans, who would rather rob than farm (Tac. Ger. 14.4), but nevertheless a parallel to northern savagery. However, Numanus’ account of early Italians fits well with the Roman tradition that, in earlier times, venerated military leaders spent peace time in the pursuit of farming and moved easily between the two roles, as Valerius Maximus illustrates: Atilium autem, qui ad eum arcessendum a senatu missi erant ad imperium populi Romani suscipiendum, semen spargentem viderunt. sed illae rustico opere adtritae manus salutem publicam stabilierunt, ingentes hostium copias pessum dederunt, quaeque modo arantium boum iugum rexerant, triumphalis currus habenas retinuerunt, nec fuit his rubori eburneo scipione deposito agrestem stiuam aratri repetere. potest pauperes consolari Atilius, sed multo magis docere locupletes quam non sit necessaria solidae laudis cupidini anxia divitiarum conparatio. However, those who were sent to summon Atilius from the senate to take up the command of the Roman people, also saw him scattering seeds. But those hands, worn down by farm work, kept public safety steady, destroyed the huge forces of the enemy, and as they had just now directed the oxen in ploughing, so they held the reins of the triumphal chariot, and he was not ashamed to lay down the ivory staff and again take up the shaft of the country plough. Atilius can be a consolation to poor men, but how much more can he teach the wealthy that anxiously compiling riches is not necessary to those desiring glory. Val. Max. 4.4.5 Atilius is probably the third-century dictator, Aulus Atilius Caiatinus who triumphed after a Sicilian campaign during the First Punic War (Broughton, 1951–2: 1.208 n.1); he is one of a series of great men who serve to prove the point that poverty drove heroes of the past to be ploughmen, and that riches did not (and should not) determine honour (4.4.4). Valerius Maximus has considerably more to say about the virtues of poverty, and a large section of it deals with famous generals who owned small farms and were actively engaged in agriculture (4.4.4–7). Such figures stretch right back to the beginnings of the Republic in Roman mythologizing, for example Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the fifth-century BCE dictator against the Aequi (Livy 3.26, Pliny HN 18.20), and they are scattered throughout celebratory sections of Roman texts, like Titus Quinctius ille dictator ab aratro (‘that dictator from the plough’) who led armies against the Aequi and Volsci 173
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(Florus 1.5.12); or Serranus in the Aeneid’s parade of future heroes, whom Anchises addresses as te sulco, Serrane, serentem (‘you, Serranus, sowing the furrow’, Aen. 6.844). Pliny makes the connection even closer, with the obvious (but erroneous) comment that Serranus derived his name from the fact that he was sowing (serentem) seed when ordered to take on his command.65 Both of these are probably the Atilius Serranus also celebrated by Cicero, who was consul in 257 BCE, a time cum ab aratro arcessebantur qui consules fierent (‘when men were sent for from the plough to become consuls’ Cic. Rosc. Am. 50). Cicero asserts that Roman ancestors’ hard work in farming actually created the empire, increasing imperium by the seeming paradox of not desiring others’ lands, by which he must mean that these men subjugated themselves to the state and avoided internal conflict, instead dedicating their fighting power to Roman conquest of others. But by the Augustan period, the loss of these twin roles is ingrained in Rome’s decline narrative, and in Odes 3.6 Horace equates this with bad parenting, leading to a generation of inferior Roman soldiers: non his iuventus orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine Punico Pyrrhumque et ingentem cecidit Antiochum Hannibalemque dirum; sed rusticorum mascula militum proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus versare glaebas et severae matris ad arbitrium recisos portare fustis, sol ubi montium mutaret umbras et iuga demeret bobus fatigatis, amicum tempus agens abeunte curru It was not youth born from these parents that stained the sea with Punic blood and cut down Pyrrhus and huge Antiochus and terrible Hannibal; but the manly descendants of farmer soldiers, taught to turn over earth with Sabine mattocks and, at the order of a strict mother to carry sticks that he had chopped, when the sun had lengthened the mountain shadows, and lifted the yokes from the tired oxen, 174
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bringing a welcome time of rest, with the departure of his chariot. Odes 3.6.33–44 The first thirty lines of this poem describe the adulterous behaviour of contemporary women and the compliance of their husbands: these are the parents responsible for raising a generation incapable of their ancestors’ feats. Like the Elder Cato, Horace claims that the best soldiers come from farmers, but unlike Cato, Horace sets his paragons in the past. Only an impossible return to the values and tough lifestyle endured by earlier Romans could resurrect such men. Virgil plays with the joint roles of farmer and soldier in the Georgics when he uses imperial and military language to describe agricultural work, often to emphasize the brutally hard work involved in farming. The morally upright, farming Sabines are juxtaposed with the growth of Roman empire (Georg. 2.532–4), while at Georgics 1.150–4, the labor required to defeat diseases (including wheat-rust, 1.151, about which see below) and weeds is described with the imagery of warfare, as the farmer battles undesirable plants: infelix lolium et steriles dominantur avenae (‘unproductive darnel and barren wild oats act as tyrants’ 1.154). The only way to stop them is to turn agricultural implements into weapons: herbam insectabere rastris (‘you will hunt down the weeds with your hoes’ 1.155). Shortly afterwards, the reference to agrimilitarism becomes even more explicit, as we learn of the duris agrestibus arma (‘weapons for the tough countrymen’ 1.160). Indeed the farmer has already been depicted as a general who ‘commands’ (imperat) his fields (1.99),66 while the lines are blurred between the agricultural and military functions of animals, in particular horses. The chosen farm horse should in fact be capable of being a warhorse, an animal which reacts enthusiastically to the clash of armour (3.83–5), and the triumph is inserted into the laudes Italiae section via the list of animals which march in the military parade (2.144–8), anticipating the celebration of tough Italian peoples and the Roman war leaders they have generated (2.167–73). Indeed, the climax of this passage seems to unite empire, war and agriculture through its address to the land itself: salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus,/ magna virum (‘Hail Saturnia, great mother of crops, great [mother] of men’ 2.173–4).67 Instead of the ideal Roman being a farmer and a warrior, Virgil constructs a farmer who is a warrior, combatting the assaults of natural enemies and marshalling crops and livestock. By styling the farmer as a metaphorical soldier, Virgil plays upon the traditional division of roles between different spheres, and implies the confusion of categories brought about by civil war, as militarism merges with the domestic.
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Real soldier-farmers? Although highly romanticized, the farmer-soldier is not purely a projection of late Republican imagination. Initially, almost all Roman men carried out military service (Rich, 1993a: 1) and were not paid, but could expect to spend a portion of the year tending their land. During the Republic, discharged soldiers were often given land – the missio agraria (Rich, 1993b: 49, Patterson, 1993: 108). But by the Augustan period the reward for service could be monetary (Southern, 2006: 166), and the settlement of veterans’ farms was no longer occurring by the second century CE (Carrié, 1993: 109), thus the ‘career progression’ of soldier becoming farmer was no longer an expectation. And already in the early Republic, according to Livy, the stress of combining agriculture and military duty leads to tension (5.2–7). The introduction of wages for soldiers is followed by increasing demands made upon their time, and leads to the first year-long campaign, in 403 BCE. This in turn gives rise to a power struggle between the Senate and the tribunes. Interestingly, the tribunes see this move as a way of cutting active men out of political life, while the senatorial response, made by Appius Claudius, conveniently ignores the complaint that the soldiers are being effectively disenfranchised and concentrates instead on the financial recompense which the soldiers receive, as though it were a return for being absent from their land. moleste antea ferebat miles se suo sumptu operam rei publicae praebere; gaudebat idem partem anni se agrum suum colere, quaerere unde domi militiaeque se ac suos tueri posset: gaudet nunc fructui sibi rem publicam esse, et laetus stipendium accipit; aequo igitur animo patiatur se [ab domo] ab re familiari, cui gravis impensa non est, paulo diutius abesse. an si ad calculos eum res publica vocet, non merito dicat: ‘annua aera habes, annuam operam ede: an tu aequum censes militia semestri solidum te stipendium accipere?’ Previously the soldier resented carrying out service for the state at his own expense; at the same time he was glad that he was able to spend part of the year cultivating his own land, and getting something to keep himself and his family while he was at home and on military service: now he is glad that the state is providing an income, and he happily accepts his pay; so let him put up with being away from his home and property, which no longer has to bear heavy expenses. Or if the state requires it to be added up, would it not be right to say: ‘you have a year’s pay, so give a year’s work: or do you think it right to take the whole pay for six months’ military service?’ Livy 5.4.5–7 176
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From his perspective in the late Republic, Livy explores the disjunction between the spheres of agriculture and warfare, and locates its origins way back in the late fifth century – Cato’s proposition that the two practices should be linked is already unravelling, over two centuries before he writes his de Agricultura. This separation of roles seems to do most harm to the soldier, a shamed figure by the end of the Republic (Carrié, 1993: 126).68 During the principate, the reputation of the soldier is also complicated by significant changes in the composition of the army, and they are often portrayed as an unruly mob or as brutal individuals (Tac. Hist. 1.80–22.26, 2.27, 2.29, 2.44, 2.93, 3.31, Juv. 16.7–34; see Ash, 1999 and Cloud, 1993). Tacitus suggests that civil war allows soldiers more licentia than at other times (Hist. 2.29), making the armies of the Histories much less disciplined than elsewhere, although there are mutinies outside of civil conflict (e.g. 14 CE, Tac. Ann. 1.16, 1.31). However the ideal of military victory over nonRomans remains intact: hence, for example, the need for Domitian’s socalled fake triumph over the Germans (Tac. Agr. 39.1, Ger. 37.5, Dio 67.4.1, Pliny Pan. 16.3, cf. Front. Strat. 2.11.7), but these honours were no longer available to most outside the imperial family, and the army as a whole had long been losing prestige due to the enrolment of non-propertied classes and the increasing use of troops from frontier districts from the early imperial period (Carrié, 1993: 106). Italy had supplied sixty-five per cent of the army recruits in the first half of the first century CE, but by the second century it was less than one per cent (Webster, 1998: 103, 108, 284). Alston comments that even before Marius enrolled the mob, the army was composed of the poorer classes of Roman society (1998: 211), but the change is symbolically important: this move solidified the gulf between the majority of soldiers and the elite writers of most surviving texts. More importantly, it broke down the identification of soldiers with farmers, as there was no longer a requirement that Roman soldiers own land. By the late Republic, there is much to suggest that military service no longer holds the high degree of prestige, which it formally attracted – or at least, while elite texts continue to represent soldiers of the past as morally worthy, service in the army is no longer an automatic choice for elite men. Sallust and Livy construct the past as a time when Roman soldiers fought for the benefit of the community, whereas, in the present, they follow the interests of the individual. Sallust in particular associates soldiers, especially Sulla’s army, with greed, luxury, sadistic behaviour and impiety (Cat. 11.4– 7).69 Alston argues that late Republican texts ‘painted an ideal of military manhood which had, according to them, long departed’ (1998: 211); in other words, that nostalgia for the earlier days of the Republic helped to construct a sanitized version of the soldier, a back-formation, by which current soldiers could be unflatteringly measured. In contrast, Webster (1998: 284) sees actual service in the army of the empire as the dispersal of civilizing influence, a means by which frontier barbarians could acquire 177
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citizenship, discipline, loyalty and hygiene. Even if this could be shown as the overall effect of the army’s presence in remote areas, Alston is surely correct that elite sources no longer idolize the individual soldier, as he becomes instead an undifferentiated, disenfranchised figure, lacking integrity and fighting for a warlord rather than the good of the state. This situation is reinforced in the imperial period by a crisis in masculinity, caused by the emperor’s removal of political power from all men to himself, so that military service even by the elite no longer implies status or autonomy,70 unless a general happens to be on the winning side of a civil war, in which case he in turn occupies the position of the expropriator. As fewer and fewer Italians are involved in the army at all, moving through the second century CE, military service becomes associated with those recently conquered, the near-barbarians on the edges of empire. Juvenal’s incomplete sixteenth Satire depicts the soldier as a corrupt, thuggish and brutal character, who is actually a physical danger to the average Roman citizen (togatus 16.8), yet immune to its laws (16.13–50). As a group, the army is the enemy of Rome (inimica 16.20), the exact antithesis of the republican ideal of the man who fights for the good of the state, by defending citizens, adding to Rome’s glory and increasing its economic prosperity – instead the soldier is obsessed with his own riches (praemia ‘prizes’ 16.1, 35). This man is gratuitously aggressive, a bully without a cause, who seeks only to terrorize and intimidate;71 and in fact, if one were to psychoanalyse Juvenal’s brute, he might well be diagnosed as someone who seeks power over those physically weaker than himself precisely because he is denied the status he would once have received in literary texts: he is a despised and frustrated nobody on a power trip. Rather than the soldier, it is the (rare) man who will bear witness against the military attacker who is actually brave, and, pointedly, worthy of legendary generals like Camillus (16.14–16).72 However, Cato’s premise, that agriculture and militarism form a symbiotic pair in the maintenance of Roman values and Roman masculinity, continues to be currency as late as the fifth century CE (Vegetius Epitoma rei militaris 3), and is cited with approval by the Elder Pliny (HN 18.26), who also appeals to Atilius Regulus, the military leader and consul, as an authority on the appropriate type of land to buy for farming (HN 18.27). Pliny’s reference to Cato shows that, despite the downgrading in status of the ordinary miles, the ideal of the farmer-soldier, connected through physical strength and moral fortitude, remained pertinent. Whatever the social reality for soldiers, the idea of the military ethos as a core Roman value survived, and it was still possible to see military service as a correlative of agricultural practice. The idea of working the land generally retains its romantic appeal, held up as an ideal of simplicity and moral integrity.73 From the perspective of the Roman elite, farming is the only type of work which is not contaminated by some degree of moral staining. Cicero describes workers of all other kinds in terms which suggest that they are despicable and unclean: improbantur 178
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‘they are disapproved of’, inliberales ‘ignoble’, sordidi ‘dirty’, turpius ‘more disgusting’, minime . . . probandi ‘not at all to be approved of’, vituperanda ‘to be blamed’ (Off. 1.150–1). However, the role of a landowner and farmer is morally acceptable: omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agri cultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine, nihil libero dignius. However, of all the business, by which something is earned, nothing is better than the cultivation of land, nothing more productive, nothing sweeter, nothing more worthy of a human being, nothing more worthy of a freeborn man. Off. 151 The association of farming and free birth is emphatic, and seals this occupation as the one means by which elite Romans can obtain wealth respectably. Although landowning is probably what Cicero is referring to here, the term agri cultura (‘the cultivation of land’) could equally refer to actual engagement in farming duties, forming a parallel with the reputed activities of great heroes from the early and mid-Republic.
Rust, peace and agriculture It is this premise that Tibullus smashes to pieces with the suggestion that these two modes of life – warfare and agriculture – cannot coexist, using images of rusting arms or tools to set up a strident opposition between the two: interea Pax arva colat. Pax candida primum duxit araturos sub iuga curva boves, Pax aluit vites et sucos condidit uvae, funderet ut nato testa paterna merum, Pace bidens vomerque nitent – at tristia duri militis in tenebris occupat arma situs – rusticus e lucoque vehit, male sobrius ipse, uxorem plaustro progeniemque domum. Meanwhile let Peace cultivate the fields. Shining Peace first led the oxen under the curved yoke to plough, Peace nourished the vines and stored up the juice of the grape so that the father’s jar of pure wine was laid down for the son, in Peacetime the hoe and the plough shine – but decay attacks the grim arms of the hard soldier in darkness –
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and the countryman, hardly sober himself, carries out of the grove his wife and offspring on his wagon. Tib. 1.10.45–52 This is the crux of a poem which begins with a condemnation of the inventor of weapons (as well as a pun on ferreus (‘iron’) and ferus (‘savage’) 1.10.2), and ends with a prayer to a personified fertility goddess, Pax alma (‘soothing Peace’), that she come, holding corn and pouring forth apples (66–7). It veers between the poles of rusticity, simplicity and the past, to violence, greed and the present, and these sharp contrasts are marked out by temporal and adversative adverbs, such as nunc, ‘now’ (13), tum, ‘then’ (19), at (25 and 49) and sed, ‘but’ (53). Pax might put right the wrongs instigated in Catullus’ poem: Pax arva colat (‘let Peace cultivate the fields’, Tib. 1.10.45) reverses rura colit nemo (‘no one cultivates the countryside’, Cat. 64.38) – but the mood of the verb leaves the situation in some doubt. Again, decay (situs) attacks (occupat – this is military vocabulary) to bring about transformation, but this time it is the destruction of weaponry that indicates a positive change. Tibullus’ text assumes the traditional chronology of ancient decline narratives, particularly by associating degeneration and warfare, but the exact juxtaposition of arma and situs (‘arms’ and ‘decay’, 50) suggests not only that the past was superior, but that the literal destruction of war’s instruments would restore the paradisal conditions of that past. The underlying logic is simple – weapons of warfare accompanied the earliest decline, therefore a return of the Golden Age will reverse the process and necessitate the obliteration of weapons. 74 Ten years earlier, during the breakdown of civil and political order in the 30s BCE, the possibility of returning to a pre-militaristic state, via the reinstatement of agriculture, was unfeasibly romantic. Virgil’s Georgics refuses to indulge any simplistic desire for pastoral bliss.75 Overall, the vision is grim, but the complexities of the relationship between warfare and agriculture is particularly visible towards the end of Georgics 1: the working of the land will return, but no amount of effort will be able to erase the memories which persistently contaminate peacetime. While lamenting the civil wars, Virgil foresees a grotesque future in which Italian farmers will discover disused armour in their fields: scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis agricola incurvo terram molitus aratro exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila, aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris. Indeed a time will even come, when, in these lands a farmer, while working his land with the curved plough, 180
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will find javelins eaten out with scabrous rust, or will knock empty helmets with heavy rakes and will wonder at the huge bones in dug-up tombs. Georg. 1.493–776 Virgil’s prediction takes the traditional myth of decline and turns it insideout. Like the Homeric narrator (Il. 5.304, 12.381–3) and Pliny (HN 7.73), this version involves the shrinkage of humans, as the future-farmer is amazed at the size of his ancestors’ bodies; in size-terms, degeneration is predicted as ongoing here, but the Georgics also implies that the civil warriors of his era will be the gigantic heroes of his descendants’ epics (and the older generation did take this role, in Lucan’s Bellum Civile) – a claim which has the capacity to elevate his contemporaries: elevated in status, they become mythic heroes, and, elevated in genre, they move out of agricultural didactic towards epic. In Hesiod’s terms, these dead warriors will occupy the position of the fourth Race of Heroes (WD 156–73) in relation to the future’s Iron Race – that much closer to the Golden Race, and just to emphasize the fact, the section ends with a Golden Line (497) – although we were already among the Iron Race by Hesiod’s time (WD 174–201), here descent into the final, doomed race is perpetually deferred. Virgil’s prediction could be read as a deconstruction of the myth of the races, an unpacking of flawed nostalgia, which insists on the past as superior, the present as irredeemably fallen. This ‘present’ is here represented as the absolute chaos of world war77 – yet even this nightmare will produce figures who will be a source of marvel for future generations – much as heroes’ ‘bodies’ were in antiquity. Herodotus, for example, had told that Perseus’ oversized sandals were found in Egypt, and were three feet long (2.91), and the footprint of Herakles in Skythia is the same size (4.82). 78 But Virgil’s collapsing of time implies that the veneration of mythic predecessors, although ubiquitous, is unfounded. All representations of the past as closer to a Golden Age are thrown into doubt, and, equally, the return to an agricultural lifestyle is no guarantee that the sins of the past can be evaded. One implication of this reading is that the prayer which immediately follows to the gods of Rome, that they should not prevent Caesar from ensuring victory for Rome, is left empty: di patrii Indigetes et Romule Vestaque mater, quae Tuscum Tiberim et Romana Palatia servas, hunc saltem everso iuvenem succurrere saeclo ne prohibete. satis iam pridem sanguine nostro Laomedonteae luimus periuria Troiae; iam pridem nobis caeli te regia, Caesar, invidet atque hominum queritur curare triumphos Gods of my fathers, native deities and Romulus and mother Vesta, 181
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you who preserve Tuscan Tiber and Roman Palatine, do not forbid this young man from at the very least repairing our overturned age. We have now long since paid the price sufficiently for the perjuries of Laomedontean Troy with our blood; now long since the kingdoms of heaven are envious that we have you, Caesar, and complain that you care about the triumphs of men. Georg. 1.498–504 All that can be hoped for the ‘overturned age’ is that it be repaired – the word saeculum (1.500) suggests the myth of successive ages, and a plea for a return to the Golden Age, saeculum aureum, might be expected (such as that at Ecl. 4.8–9). But there is no hint here that any better age can succeed – a patched-up Iron Age is the most we can expect. Virgil’s temporal relocation of the poet subverts our expectations: his stance is that of prophet of decline, while Homer bemoaned the contraction which had already occurred. Simultaneously, the incongruity of everyday farming activity uncovering these tokens of war also reduces the warrior of the past/present, incorporating him into farming didactic, a misplaced warrior in a sub-epic context. He is casually bashed by the farmer’s plough and hoe, a fate to which he has been irreverently left. Therefore, the generic play confounds the poem’s content, which touts the soldier as larger than life – or at least, life as it will be in the future. But it is no coincidence that it is a farmer who finds the bones: this scenario brings together two fundamental roles of the Roman male, and sets them in antagonistic juxtaposition to one another. Farming and soldiering, traditionally complementary functions, now seem to be entirely inimical to one another. The farmer here has no understanding of what he discovers in his land, and the soldier appears in entirely the wrong context – the categories are confused: Romans should be farmers at home and soldiers abroad – the two modes of being should be two personae of the same man, yet distinct from one another. Here they have met in the same field, and it is the soldier who is out of place, for this is the paradox which civil war offers Romans – they will be soldiers in places where they should be farmers. But the most striking element of this picture is that the heroic body is demonstrably susceptible to decay, as is evidenced by the ease with which the earth has set about destroying these soldiers’ remains – there are indeed the huge bones, but this warrior is nameless and unmarked by any tomb, presumably lying where he was killed. The emptiness of the helmet serves only to emphasize that decomposition has annihilated his identity, erasing fame, the most potent force of heroic culture in epic (Nagy, 1979: 175–7). While the flesh has disappeared, the armour and weapons of war are disintegrating, but still partially remain, a reminder of the corpse’s grim 182
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career. According to the heroic code, armour can be despoiled, but the body should be returned for funerary ritual; however these are spoils which remain unclaimed, and bodies which remain unburied, giving neither glory to the victor, nor respect to the defeated. This warrior’s corpse has been left vulnerable to just the kind of mutilation threatened by Hektor (and many others) in the Iliad.79 While the premise of mutilation or consumption of the body by animals is often used to intimidate, it (apparently) never occurs,80 and armour is never left unclaimed – for example, Hektor says that he will feed Patroklos’ corpse to dogs (an act which he is unable to carry out), and then strips his armour (Il. 17.125–7). Such unsubstantiated threats and the idea that mutilation is taboo, along with the removal of armour as spoils, would persist in Roman epic (e.g. Vir. Aen. 10.557–60, cf. 10.491–4; 10.495–6). The Georgics shows us how far warfare has deviated from the Homeric ideal: neither friend nor foe has even bothered to take up this soldier’s armour, and both armour and body have been left to decay.81 Change and decay define the end of Georgics 1 – the rotting away of the body and the rusting of the armour represent change from one state to another; but more widely, the final lines of this book deal with transitions between warfare and peace. For the future, a transformation towards peace seems to be indicated by the fact that the weapons are found by a farmer, although even in the, presumably, pacific future, the scars of civil war will not be entirely healed – the evidence will still be available for an unsuspecting farmer to retrieve, preserving the memory of a devastated past. But here in the present, the change is ruinous: the age has been ‘overturned’ (500: everso . . . saeclo), warfare prevails, and militarism is suspect in a world where categories are no longer discrete, and where people and objects are prone to metamorphosis: quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas: tot bella per orbem, tam multae scelerum facies, non ullus aratro dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis, et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem. Here where what is right and what is a crime are reversed: so many wars through the world, so many faces of wickedness, no proper respect at all for the plough, the fields lie unkempt, as the settlers have been led away, and the curved scythes are melted down into an inflexible sword. Georg. 1.505–8 Confusion between violent and peaceful activities is expressed through morally charged vocabulary here (fas, nefas, dignus honos) – one can be exchanged (versum, a recollection of eversum [500]) for the other, just as 183
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easily as the settlers and scythes become soldiers and swords. Crime’s multitudinous faces (tam multae facies) suggest that it too is capable of changing its aspect to deceive, so that evil may appear attractive. At the same time, the strong contrasts between these two worlds are kept prominently in view by the use of antonyms (fas and nefas) and by the juxtaposition of curuae with rigidum, the adjectives describing the scythe and sword respectively, while rigidum also represents the transition to the harsh demands of military service. The neglect of farming as a precursor to warfare recalls Catullus 64.38–42, but there the great transformation occurred long ago in the mythical past. The Georgics’ change for the worse manages to appear both long-standing and immediate: it is temporally here and now (squalent, conflantur) and in the next line (509) war on the Euphrates and in Germany are mentioned – and it involves us, the narrator and reader, sanguine nostro ‘with our blood’; yet at the same time, remote mythology is invoked, as the poem refers to a Roman people worn out by years of warfare: satis iam pridem . . . / Laomedonteae luimus periuria Troiae ‘we have already long ago paid the price sufficiently for the perjuries of Laomedontean Troy’ (501–2). Thus the end of Georgics 1 collapses time to suggest an equivalence between past and present, which sits well with the concept of civil war as fitting punishment for past crimes – the idea is stressed here, by being pushed even further back than the common parallel made with Romulus’ fratricide (e.g. Hor. Epod. 7.17–20, Luc. 1.93–5) to the iniquities of Laomedon. Like Romulus, Laomedon is the founder of a great city, and it is his wrongdoing which eventually leads to the devastation of that city. Virgil implies that Romans are still, unfairly, doing penance for Laomedon’s actions, but the further implication is that Rome might share Troy’s fate. The exchange of agriculture for warfare is a trope in Virgil’s poetry, but, while Cato had articulated the compatibility of the two roles, by treating one (agriculture) as suitable preparation for the other (warfare), Virgil treats this exchange as one of loss and the evaporation of core values. In the Aeneid, language similar to that of Georgics 1.505–8 is used as the Italians arm for war: vomeris huc et falcis honos, huc omnis aratri/ cessit amor; recoquunt patrios fornacibus ensis, ‘for this all respect for the share and the sickle, for this all love for the plough came to an end; they reforged their fathers’ swords in the furnaces’ (Aen. 7.635–6). War in Italy involves a loss of respect (honos) for farming (7.635) – honos can be used of respect for the gods (OLD s.v. 2b), which is an oblique reminder of the etymological and conceptual connection between agriculture and religion (as contained in the word colere ‘to cultivate’ or ‘worship’, OLD s.v. 6a). Again, farmers swap their tools for arms, and the fact that they are forced to recycle weapons which are heirlooms suggests that a former period of warfare had been put aside for agriculture, only to be taken up again by the present generation. Here, armed conflict is a regressive step, rather than a perpetual state which exists at the end of a decline from a primordial paradise. 184
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Although it represents an undesirable step into the modern world, these complex narratives also connect the new way of life to the remote and barbaric past. In the Georgics passage, the effect of a withdrawal from the fields is to allow a return to nature: squalent. . . . arva (‘the fields lie unkempt’, 1.507) describes an abandoned and uncared-for state, a reminder of the conditions which existed before the advent of agriculture. Lucretius had used the adjective squalidus ‘unkempt, filthy’ to refer to the bodies of humans in the pre-agrarian stage of development, when they were nomadic, tough and cave-dwelling: necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum, sed nemora atque cavos montis silvasque colebant et frutices inter condebant squalida membra verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti. They did not yet know how to work with fire nor how to use skins and clothe their bodies with the spoils of wild beasts, but they lived in groves, and caves in the mountains, and woods and hid their filthy limbs among the bushes when driven to avoid the lashings of the wind and the rainstorms. 5.953–7 For, in fact, it is a lack of care, a negligence towards the stewardship of the earth, which unites harsh primitivist versions of human beginnings with the harsh realities of the present, bristling with warfare. As Lucretius makes clear, early humans lived in a state of unconsciousness and lacked the knowledge to keep their bodies clean or, indeed, to grow food (5.931–6, quoted on pages 78–9). Instead, they fed on acorns and berries, and drank from rivers like wild animals (5.939–47). But Lucretius’ primitives have some remnant of the ease offered to the Golden Race, as theirs was a more fertile earth, being in its first flush of youth; because of this, the earth produced larger berries and brought forth more resilient crops (5.942–4) – again the epic motif of the supersized past reminds the reader that the present is inadequate, a perpetual second-best. Decline into warfare in the Georgics is therefore multiply referenced and implies a variety of possible pasts and futures: was the past a pristine and simple world, where there was appropriate honos (‘respect’) for humble, farming activities – in fact all the elements now lacking in this period of degeneracy? Or was it a primitive and barbaric life, uncivilized and squalidus? Will the future be a return to peace, or will it be plagued by memories of past crimes?
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Wheat rust Farming in the Georgics comes about because of the decree of Jupiter (1.125), who puts an end to the spontaneous production which had allowed humans to avoid working the land (1.127–8, see pages 89–90). Jupiter actually brings this about by removing the fairly humble sustenance which had been openly bestowed upon them (1.131–2). As an alternative, Ceres gives instructions on agricultural method, yet immediately diseases and weeds arrive to impede the farmer: prima Ceres ferro mortalis vertere terram instituit, cum iam glandes atque arbuta sacrae deficerent silvae et victum Dodona negaret. mox et frumentis labor additus, ut mala culmos esset robigo segnisque horreret in arvis carduus; intereunt segetes Ceres first taught mortals to turn the earth with iron, since the sacred woods now lacked acorns and arbutus berries and Dodona now refused them food. Soon toil was also added to their corn-growing: evil mildew ate away the stalks and the sluggish thistle made the crops bristle in the fields; the crops die Georg. 1.147–52 Agriculture may be a sign of a new and worse age (hence the stress on iron tools), but it is the obstructions to success which make it particularly burdensome. robigo (‘mildew’ or ‘wheat rust’) is deliberately added to the farmer’s workload, implicitly by Jupiter, whose part in the denial of spontaneous food is reinforced by the mention of Dodona, the location of his sanctuary and oak trees. Here it has a moral dimension being mala (‘evil’), and, as Servius comments on this passage, genus est vitii (‘it is a type of fault’, Georg. 1.151). Its primacy is reflected in the Romans’ perception that the festival designed to avert wheat-rust, the Robigalia, was one of the earliest, brought in by Numa in 705 BCE (Pliny HN 18.285, Tertullian de Spectaculis 5.8). Pliny comments that even primitives and illiterates understood the dangers to crops, hence the antiquity of this festival, as well as the Floralia and Vinaria (HN 18.284). As noted above, the weeds in this passage have to be fought like a military enemy (herbam insectabere rastris ‘you will hunt down the weeds with your hoes’ Georg. 1.155). Varro also formulates robigo as an enemy force, whose attack can be countered by the ritual of the Robigalia: Robigalia dicta ab Robigo; secundum segetes huic deo sacrificatur, ne robigo occupet segetes (‘Robigalia, named from Robigo; sacrifice is made to this god for the sake of the crops, so that rust does not seize hold of the crops’ LL 6.16) – occupo 186
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can mean ‘to seize by armed occupation’ (OLD s.v. 2b). Ovid emphasizes the profound damage which can be inflicted on the farmer by robigo (Fast. 4.915–19), and also makes clear the parallel between the crop disease and rust on metallic weapons, basically treating them as transferable, although normally the Robigalia refers only to wheat rust:82 parce, precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer, neve noce cultis; posse nocere sat est. nec teneras segetes, sed durum amplectere ferrum, quodque potest alios perdere perde prior. utilius gladios et tela nocentia carpes: nil opus est illis: otia mundus agit. sarcula nunc durusque bidens et vomer aduncus, ruris opes, niteant; inquinet arma situs, conatusque aliquis vagina ducere ferrum adstrictum longa sentiat esse mora. Be sparing, I beg you, and keep your scabrous hands from the harvest. and do not harm the crops; it is enough to be able to harm. Rather than the gentle corn, embrace hard iron, destroy first the thing which can destroy others. You would more usefully consume swords and harmful spears: there is no need for them: the world enjoys peace. Let the hoe and the hard mattock and the curved plough, the riches of the countryside, now shine; let decay pollute weapons, and let the man trying to draw his iron sword from its sheath feel that it is stuck fast after a long gap in use. Fasti 4.921–30 The utopian wish that rust should devour Rome’s war machine rather than the corn is a confident statement that weapons are redundant – the very opposite of the panic caused by the discovery of rusty arms in Lucan’s civil war situation (BC 1. 239–43, discussed above). Rather than pax, Ovid attributes otium (‘peace’, ‘leisure’) to the age, perhaps because there is still a threat from nature itself. Fantham (1998: 268) points to Horace Odes 1.21.13, the prayer that plague be diverted to Rome’s enemies, as a parallel to this passage; and equally the desire that war be directed outwards, rather than internally, works in the same way, hoping for harm to affect what is against Rome’s self-interest (Hor. Odes 1.21–4, 3.6.9–16). And it may be that the Robigalia was an enactment of a perceived ‘war’. The ritual involved the sacrifice of a sheep and a dog (Ovid Fasti 4.908); it is likely that the dog represented wheat rust (RE 949.57–50.23), as probably did the animals at 187
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two other sacrifices carried out to protect the harvest: the red dog victim in the Augurium Canarium (Festus 39.13, 358.27 Lindsay) and the blazing fox at the festival of the Cerialia, a few days before the Robigalia (Ovid Fasti 4.679–712). The dog and fox are the same red-brown colour as the growth inside rust-infected corn, and are identified with it, so the ritual works to negate the power of wheat-rust, rather than propitiating the god Robigus.83 This equation, if valid, suggests a symbolic destruction of the disease, and a battle waged against rust by farmers, further aligning warfare and agriculture.84 Thus, although Ovid seems to oppose the soldier and the farmer here, implicitly requesting the end of the soldier’s role by urging the disintegration of his tools and the protection of the farmer by eliminating the threat to his produce, the two worlds cannot be kept apart. For the language of military activity is rampant in agricultural contexts – the Georgics in particular casts farming as a constant struggle with the land and adversity. While the farmer is no longer a part-time soldier, fighting for and feeding his country by turn, he has instead incorporated the military role into the agricultural realm, deflecting any possibility that farming (or at least farming as it is now) might be associated with Golden Age values. And most of all, the two worlds are brought together by rust, the terrible scourge which threatens both of them.
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INTrOducTION 1 Plato’s Republic and Laws, and Aristotle’s Politics are usually cited, e.g. Logan, 1983: 174–7, 193–201, 212–7; Mumford (1966: 7) writes ‘[though] it is Plato’s influence that first comes to mind when we think of later utopias, it is Aristotle who considers the actual structure of an ideal city . . . the concept of utopia pervades every page of the Politics.’ Although the connection is not generally made, Aristophanic comedy (especially Birds) also features utopian fantasies (but c.f. Konstan: 1997). More’s work was originally published in Latin, and not translated into English until the 1550s, but this was due to the low status of English as a literary language during most of the sixteenth century (McCrum et al., 1992: 92; Baugh and Cable, 1993: 198–9). 2 E.g. Goodwin and Taylor (1982: 23–4); Jameson (1977: 6) argues that Utopia is not an ideal or model society, but a reassessment of our own, and later claims that it can be defined as a ‘set of mental operations to be performed on a determinate type of raw material given in advance, which is contemporary society itself’ (1991: xvi); Fox (1982: 56–7) argues that ‘Utopia and England share a shadowy identity’, seemingly opposites, but parallel in many aspects, including their island geography. In the wider field of utopias, Marin writes that ‘[it] is an ideological critique of the dominant ideology’ (Marin, 1984: xiv; similarly 195). 3 Primitivism is a state of living without developed technologies such as agriculture, urbanism and other cultural elements of complex societies. ‘Easy’ (or ‘soft’) primitivism frees humans from the need to work, as nature provides everything required for an effortless life, such as an abundance of food and a temperate climate; whereas ‘hard’ primitivism merely frees humans from the desire for luxury and civilization, leaving them to live simple, but uncomfortable, lives in harsh conditions. For more discussion of easy primitivism and the Golden Age, see Chapter 1; on primitives and their utopian aspects, see Chapters 2 and 4; and on primitivism in antiquity, see Lovejoy and Boas (1997). 4 Finley points out that the primary question in Works and Days is: ‘Why is the world so full of evil?’ (1967: 7). The Golden Race and subsequent decline to the Iron Race in Hesiod and elsewhere are discussed in detail in Chapter 2. 5 Ferguson concentrates on the Greek philosophical tradition, although he does discuss other areas such as primitivism (1975: 16–22), Roman political figures (138–45, 154–80) and Christianity (181–8). According to Kumar, only Plato comes close to describing a utopia in the Republic (1991: 39). See also Marin (1984: 198–200) for the view that utopian writing is produced by particular
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conditions of capitalism, and not found outside of the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. 6 Cf. Kumar (1991: 90–107) for a different defence of utopia’s future, which centres on its ability to critique and satirize. 7 The Golden Age myth is often seen as a cross-cultural absolute (Heinberg, 1989) and intrinsically conservative in ideology (see Goodwin and Taylor, 1982: 23). 8 On the Roman city, see Goodman (2007), Stambaugh (1988) and Ward-Perkins (1974: 27–32). Although based on the form of their military camps, the regularity of Roman towns was influenced by Greek town planning, which had some degree of orthogonal layout as far back as Smyrna in the seventh century BCE (Ward-Perkins, 1974: 11). 9 Modern attempts to build ideal communities give similar indications of what is prioritized, and what is found lacking elsewhere, for example, in the UK, the nineteenth-century English model villages set up by benevolent but puritanical factory owners, such as Bournville and Saltaire (quality housing, chapels, no pubs); the early twentieth century Garden City movement (green spaces, proximity to work and leisure places, e.g. Welwyn Garden City), which was actually inspired by Edward Bellamy’s 1888 Socialist utopian novel Looking Backward; and, post–1946, new towns like Stevenage and Milton Keynes, designed to replace housing lost in World War Two and relieve population pressures on London; and this trend continues in designer commuter communities, which boast easy access to the essentials for family life, built around many major cities in the West. Capital cities in relatively young nations are often planned as a symbol of independence and new directions (so Washington D.C., 1791 and Canberra, 1927; see Hebbert, 2002). 10 Metropolis (1926) dir. Fritz Lang, Germany; Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott, USA; Falling Down (1992) dir. Joel Schumacher, USA. Other examples are Alphaville (1965) dir. Jean-Luc Godard, France/Italy; Chinatown (1974) dir. Roman Polanski, USA (unusually about the past); Logan’s Run (1976) dir. Michael Anderson, USA; Strange Days (1995) dir. Kathryn Bigelow, USA; Dark City (1998) dir. Alex Proyas, USA. On the city in Blade Runner see Doel and Clarke (1997), in Alphaville, Easthope (1997: 134–6), and in film generally, McArthur (1997). Los Angeles is the city of Chinatown, Blade Runner, Falling Down and Strange Days, and its manifestations in film and novels are discussed by Davis (1990: 37–46 and 1999: 273–356). See also Barber (2002). 11 On Augustus’ and Nero’s building projects see particularly Ball (2003), Ungaro (2002), Champlin (1998), Zanker (1988); both are discussed in more detail here in Chapters 1 and 3. Other projects, particularly those associated with Agrippa, Claudius and Trajan, might be seen as practical attempts to utopianize the city by improving its infrastructure. 12 Most utopian and anti-utopian novels fit this pattern – and often their action is sparked by the entry of an outsider, or the disillusionment of an insider. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is a good example, dealing with a world kept in perfect balance by scientific means, and thrown off balance by the questioning of one whose genetic engineering may have been failed. 13 This is one of Karl Popper’s complaints about utopia: that utopian revolution initially demands change and therefore a period of disruption and uncertainty, but it cannot encompass further change within its ideology, and therefore cannot deal with the fallout of its own upheaval (1947–8: 113–14). 14 Romm, 1992: 60–7, 82–120, 156–7. These exoticized and unknown or partially known regions are discussed in Chapter 1. 15 (2004) dir. Roland Emmerich, USA.
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1 uTOPIA: lANdscAPe ANd symbOl 1 Fragrances: Herodotus 3.113, Vitruvius. 8.3.13, Mela Chorographia 3.79, Columella 3.8.4, Pliny HN 6.161, 12.51–104. Also see Detienne, 1977: 6–36. Pliny sees Arabia as a location of extravagant and luxurious consumption: Roman luxuria contributes to the riches which Arabia Felix amasses. In fact, Pliny plays on the ‘blessed’ tag, claiming that the epithet felix is undeserved, falsi et ingrati cognominis; rather, Arabia has become beata ‘blessed’, ‘wealthy’ on the scents purchased for the dead and the Arabian Sea pearls bought for women by decadent Romans (12.82–4). 2 On Plautus’ Orientalism, see Richlin, 2005: especially 1 and 113–14. 3 The date of this journey is not stated by Pliny, but it was probably 1 CE (CIL 11.1421, Bowersock, 1971: 227–8, Romer, 1979: 204–6). Elsewhere Bowersock argues that Gaius resisted invasion to avoid Gallus’ earlier mistake (1983: 58). 4 Diodoros Siculus (5.42–46, 6.1.4–10) is the main source for Euhemerus’ ‘Iera; ajnagrafhv or ‘Sacred History’, which was translated by Ennius (fragments at Lactantius Divin. Inst. 11.65, 14.2; see Cic. de Nat. Deorum 1.119, Varro Res Rusticae 1.48.2). Slavery does not exist in any source, and, although there is a ‘caste’ system, the social structure elevates only the priest class, who get twice as much food. Ferguson calls Panchaia ‘the first Utopia’ (1975: 104); for a discussion of Euhemerus’ influence see Brown, 1946. Mela’s only comment on Panchaia is that the inhabitants are snake-eaters (3.81), which seems to be a wilful suppression of the tradition; see Silbermann, 1988 ad loc. 5 Brown (1946: 262) discusses the sources for Euhemerus’ narrative, including Homer’s Phaiakians and Plato’s Atlantis. 6 Strabo’s source is Hekataeus; he also mentions the lands of the Gorgons and Hesperides, Alcman’s web-footed men and Aeschylus’ dog-headed men, and that all information from geographers who believe in Panchaia is suspect. This is a theme to which Strabo often returns: also 1.3.1, 2.3.5 and 2.4.2 (citing Polybius 34.5–10). Plutarch (Mor. 360A–B) concurs. For Odysseus as a liar see Lykophr. fr. 764, Lucian TH 1.3, Ovid Met. 13.32 and Bömer (1969, ad loc.). 7 Smelting metals was one of the ‘crimes’ associated with the later ages; gold was particularly evil, because of its association with Iron Age greed: Tib. 1.10.7 divitis hoc vitium est auri, ‘this is the evil of rich gold’ Ovid Met. 1.141–2 iamque nocens ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum/ prodierat ‘and now harmful iron, and gold, more harmful than iron appeared’, and Diod. Sic. 5.46.4. See the discussion of the ages (Chapter 2) and of iron rust (Chapter 4). 8 Nevertheless, attempts have been made, by modern scholars, to locate the island of Panchaia, including ‘sites from North America to Russia’ (Ferguson, 1975: 206). 9 47 CE accords with Aur. Vict. Caes. 4. Other accounts tell of the phoenix appearing in 36 CE in Egypt, which was later read as a foreshadowing of Tiberius’ death (Dio 58.27.1) although Tacitus has 34 CE (Ann. 6.28). 10 The existence of only one phoenix is possibly fabulous (haud scio an fabulose, unum in toto orbe 10.3), but Pliny gives the senator Manilius (known for his learning) as a source for the bird and its life cycle. 11 The most common duration of the phoenix’s life in antiquity is 500 years, so Herod. 2.73, Ovid Met. 15.395, Mela 3.83, Sen. Epis. 42.1, Aelian 6.58, Philostr. vit. Apoll. 3.49.28, Clem. Rom. ad Cor. 1.25. However, poetic sources, e.g. Martial 5.7.1–2, Auson. Epis. 24.9–10, often suggest that the bird regenerates every thousand years. Many of the details in Pliny’s version differ from those of other sources; in particular the exact method of rebirth varies: the new bird can be born from an egg of myrrh (Herod. 2.73) or directly from its father’s body (corpore de patrio Ovid Met. 15.402).
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12 Longevity associates the phoenix with knowledge – only it knows the real length of its life (Aelian 6.58), but a visit to Egypt might impart this knowledge to a Roman tourist (Stat. Silv. 3.2.114). 13 The phoenix tradition is analogous to that of the Egyptian benu, a bird which seems to have been an embodiment of Ra and Osiris. It, too, was strongly associated with the Sun and the East, functioning ‘as the repository of information on earthly events of great cosmic importance’ (Lloyd, 1976: 318, van den Broek, 1972: 14–26). For the Egyptians, the bird was also capable of shape-changing and could be identified with the inauguration of a new era (Lloyd, 1976: 319– 20). However, the tales of self-immolation and rebirth seem to be of Greek origin: the earliest reference is Hekateus (FGrH 324.1–14). 14 The effect of the paradox is increased by the juxtaposition of ‘live’ and ‘death’ in Latin. On the mysterious gender of the phoenix, see van den Broek (1972: 357–92). 15 The conservative tendency of utopia has often been recognized in Utopian Studies, e.g. Bloch-Lainé, 1966: 201–2. 16 The standard reservations about the tonal range of Latin colours apply: purpureus can also be translated as ‘blood red’, ‘rosy’ and ‘shining’. (OLD s.v. purpureus 1a). See Gage (1993: 11), Grossmann (1988: 86). 17 It appears throughout the second century CE on coins of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Faustina Maior and Minor, and less often in the third century (Julia Domna, Trebonius Gallus and Aemilianus); it reappears under Constantine and became a symbol of resurrection and asexuality for Christianity (van den Broek, 1972: 421–2). 18 Ovid calls the phoenix one of the volucres . . . piae (‘dutiful birds’) whom Corinna’s parrot will join in Elysium (Am. 2.6.51). 19 Tacitus connects the Egyptian ‘Sothic period’ – the coincidence of the Heliacal rising of Sirius with the Nile flood, every 1,461 years – with the reappearance of the phoenix; but see van den Broek (1972: 26–32) for the view that this was a Hellenistic development. The bird was often connected with the idea of the annus magnus (see below). 20 The globe is held by a personificatory figure whose identity has been interpreted as the genius of the Golden Age (RIC II.356), Hadrian, as the ruler of the Golden Age, and Aion, the personification of eternity (van den Broek, 1972: 428). 21 Benario comments ‘to Hadrian, grandeur embraced the concept of enormous size’ (1980, ad loc.). On the villa and its spectacular construction and decoration see Adembri (2000), MacDonald and Pinto (1995) and Coarelli (1982: 44–72). 22 This concept was not entirely new, and the parallels often cited include Cicero’s Academy and Lyceum on his Tusculan property (Cic. Div. 2.3), and Augustus’ private retreat on the Palatine, called ‘Syracuse’ after a similar space in the palace of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse (Suet. Aug. 72.2). 23 As is announced by its dedicatory inscription: M.AGRIPPA .L.F.COS.TERTIUM. FECIT. The Pantheon was only one of a number of Augustan buildings restored or rebuilt by Hadrian (SHA 19.10). See Boatwright (1989) and MacDonald (1965: 118–9, and 1976). 24 Aidos, the Greek equivalent of Pudicitia, leaves the earth during the time of the Iron Race (Hes. WD 197–200); see Chapter 2. 25 Although van den Broek (1972: 186–7) claims that the worm is a common element in the story, it is found only here, Pliny HN 10.4, quoting Manilius, and in later (mostly) Christian texts: van den Broek cites Clement of Rome I Clement, 25.3, Cyril of Jerusalem Catech. XVIII.8, Const. Apost. V.7.15, Physiologus 7, Epiphanius Ancoratus 84.6, Greek Apocalypse of Baruch 6.12 (and add Artemidorus Oneirocritica 4.47). van den Broek (1972: 408) argues that the
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worm originates in interpretations of maggots as creatures spontaneously generated from decaying meat. 26 The legend AETERNITAS is present as early as Vespasian, often in combination with heads representing the sun and moon (RIC II: Vespasian 121, Domitian 289). 27 Also see RIC III Antoninus Pius: 347, 833, 1,051, 1,156–7 for similar combinations. Aeternitas also appears frequently alone with a globe or in combination with other goddesses (RIC III Antoninus Pius: 61A, 114, 125, 345– 55, 1,099–1,115, 1,154–1,168, 1,182–3). The goddess alone may have celebrated Sabina’s apotheosis between 136 and 138 CE (RIC II Hadrian: 744). Marcus Aurelius also commemorated Faustina Minor’s deification with the figures of the phoenix, Aeternitas and elephants (symbols of longevity) in issues of 176–80 (RIC III Marcus Aurelius: 667, 738–40, 1691–99). Faustina’s death coincided with the commencement of a new ‘Sothic period’ (see note 19 above) and was linked with this alignment of cosmic forces. 28 Although there is no direct reference to the phoenix, gold and solar imagery recur in relation to Augustus’ funeral and divinity: Dio describes his bier of gold and ivory, with a gold and purple covering, and a gold image of Augustus accompanying it (51.34), while Suetonius lists the dreams and prophecies, such as his father’s dream that the sun shone out of his mother’s womb, which predicted his elevation to the sky by associating him with the sun and Apollo (Aug. 94.4). Furthermore, an eagle, the bird which Detienne claims is also associated with the sun, and is closest to the phoenix among verifiable species (1977: 31–6), was released from Augustus’ pyre as it was lit, in order to carry his soul to the sky (Dio 51.42.3). Kellum also points out that the phoenix was referenced by Livia when she dedicated a plant associated with the bird, a giant cinnamon root, to the deified Augustus in the Palatine Temple of Apollo (1994b: 218, Pliny HN 12.94, and cf. 13.42). 29 In addition, the geography of the island is internally inconsistent, making it even less achievable: ‘More presents us with a Utopia, a “Nowhere”, that cannot be mapped.’ (Goodey, 1970: 21). 30 Most concentrate on the connection with Apollo and Delos, see Hesiod Cat. fr. 150.21 MW, Alcaeus fr. 307 LP, Herodotus 4.32–7, Soph. fr. 956 Pearson, Pindar Ol 3.16, Pyth. 10.29–45, Bacchyl. 3.57, Callim. Hymn 4.281–99. On the origins of the Hyperboreans, see Seltman (1928) and Page (1955: 251–2). 31 The Hyperboreans become a byword for remoteness: Cat. 115.6, Virg. Georg. 4.517, Hor. Odes 2.20.16, Luc. 5.23, Mart. 4.3.5, 7.6.1, 8.78.3, 9.45.1, 9.101.20. 32 True Histories 2.5: Lucian typically takes no responsibility for the information. 33 Cleopatra similarly thought about escape to unspecified realms after Actium (Plut. Ant. 69.3–7), but, as Konrad comments, this is a flight after defeat, as opposed to Sertorius’ ‘admirable’ weariness with civil war. Konrad also refers to Lucullus’ retirement as a parallel (1994: 109; on Lucullus see Chapter 3). 34 Plutarch’s account is probably based on the version in Sallust’s Histories, as seems clear from the fragments preserved by Nonius, Servius and Aulus Gellius (Hist. fr. 1.90–4 McGushin). Here the islands also provide spontaneous nutrition (1.90). See also Florus 2.10. 35 But see Konrad, 1994: 108–9 for attempts to locate the islands and discussion of Celtic beliefs that the souls of the dead lie there. 36 For similarly spontaneous production nearby, see also Mela 3.104–5: alongside the deformed and degenerate inhabitants of West Africa are extremely fertile lands and areas rich in natural resources such as ivory and murex. 37 Arcadia’s landscape, too, has moments of rupture: as Martindale comments
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(1997: 119–21) the Eclogues presents a composite, but selective, picture, which mixes idealized landscapes with bare rock and bog (1.48–9). 38 Pherekrates: in Athenaeus Deipnos. 6.268–69; Teleclides: in Athenaeus Deipnos 6.268. See Lovejoy and Boas, 1997: 38–41. For a Roman equivalent see the variously dated [Virgil] Aetna 9–16 which can be paraphrased as ‘who does not know the Golden Age as well as one’s own?’ 39 But Thomas has a far less optimistic reading of the passage ‘the realities of agricultural activity in the Georgics are totally antithetical to the idealized status of the golden or Saturnian age’ (1988a: 190); see also Thomas (1982: 38–45), and Chapter Four. 40 Similar rhetoric is applied to the Chersonese, which is ‘everywhere level and fertile, and extremely well-blessed in the production of grain, yielding thirty times as much if furrowed by a plough-share. The people who live here are called the “Georgi” as opposed to the Nomads who live beyond them’ (Geography 7.4.6). The Albanians also need to sow once, but harvest two or three times a year (Geography 11.4.3). India is another site of multiple harvest, enjoying two summers and harvests per year according to Pliny (HN 6.58), and also abounding in land, cities and population (HN 6.59), while functioning as a location of honey-dripping easy primitivism for Mela (3.62). 41 The date of the extant Oracula Sibyllina is debated, but they are probably of the Common Era; see Parke (1988: 137). Or. Sib. 3.168 points to the arrival of a sun king. 42 See Taylor (1975: 176) for Julius Caesar’s evocation of the annus magnus to suggest that a new era was beginning with his rise to power. 43 See Cic. de Rep. 6.24, also De Nat. Deorum 2.51 and Plato Timaeus 39. 44 Epode 16 has been seen as a response to the ‘optimism’ of Eclogue 4, although the date of composition cannot with certainty be fixed as later than Virgil’s poem (Mankin, 1995: 244). 45 For anxieties in Eclogue 4, see Boyle, 1986: 23–4. 46 Utopia is, in general, a concept which lends itself to equivocacy, hence the subtitle of Ursula Le Guin’s 1975 novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. See Fox (1982: 56–7) on the negative aspects of More’s Utopian society. 47 Kronos and the Golden Race: Aristotle Ath. Pol. 16.7, Cratinus ap. Atheneus 6.267e, Aristoph. Clouds 398, 1070, Plutus 581, Plato Pol. 268c–74d, Laws 712e–14b, Lucian Saturnalia 20; see Baldry (1952). Kronos’ position as cannibalistic devourer of his children (Hes. Theog. 459–65, and see WD 276–8) does not directly interfere with this tradition, as the Golden Race is regularly depicted as vegetarian, but it does makes the god’s role ambiguous; and see Vidal-Naquet for the argument that the Cyclops is a remnant whose story draws together both the spontaneous production and primitive savagery associated with Kronos (1978: 133–4). 48 Also, as Martindale (1997: 111) points out, the flood (seen as a punishment for vice) precedes the Golden Age in Virgil Ecl. 6.41–2, reversing the traditional order (cf. Ovid Met. 1.90). 49 Cat. 64.397; Wiseman (1995), Cornell (1995: 60–1); late first-century writers acknowledge that vice, including primal guilt, is linked to civil war: Livy praef. 9, Vir. Ecl. 4.13, 4.3; Horace Epod. 7 (especially 18–21), Odes 1.35.33–4; 3.6.1–4; 3.24.25–9; Virgil also hints at this in the so-called laudes Italiae by emphatically rejecting any claim to birth from the soil for Italians, preferring instead to stress the less fabulous crops which emerge from the land (Georg. 2.150–54). 50 This is implied by Horace Odes 4.2.37–40 (nothing will be better and greater
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than Augustus’ triumphant return, not even a new Golden Age) and the Consolatio ad Liviam 343–4 (Livia is worthy of her husband and sons, who are Golden Age men). See Wallace-Hadrill (1982) on the social function of Golden Age discourses under Augustus, and the ways in which it was useful for the regime to be cast as saviour of a morally corrupt Rome. 51 Zanker (1988: 172–83) discusses this and other reliefs showing images of bounty, pointing to the strong parallels with Horace’s Carmen Saeculare (17 BCE). Leach labels the panel ‘an assemblage of symbols’, and emphasizes its stylized, rather than natural, quality, while warning against any absolute identification with either Eclogue 4 or Georgics 2 (1988: 224). 52 The Golden Age motif could be redeployed at other levels of discourse, for example, Tibullus (1.3.35–48) manipulates and reconstructs both Elysium and the evils which followed the Age of Saturn in terms which are relevant to the elegiac lover (Lee-Stecum, 1998: 114–20). 53 On the theme of abundance in the lower panels and the Tellus relief, see L’Orange (1962). 54 A serpent attacking a bird’s nest appears on the north frieze, and another serpent on both the east panel below Roma, and the west panel below Aeneas, while two snakes and a scorpion congregate on the panel beneath the Tellus relief (Simon 1967: 12, Castriota, 1995: 41–2). Recently the emphasis has been on the divine and ideological meanings of these and the other creatures depicted: Castriota links these and the other creatures on the panels with Dionysiac imagery, as well as that of Aphrodite, Mother Earth and Demeter (1995: 52–5). Pollini (1993: 214) associates the animals with Apollo. Kellum, too, comments on the link with Apollo, and Augustus’ conception, while adding that most of the creatures are associated with metamorphosis (1994a: 36), although she adds that ‘the appearance of the snake and the birds held in stasis would have inspired reflection on the nature of Pax’ (1994a: 38) suggesting that the serpent’s attack invites a number of readings. 55 On the walled garden as a Hellenistic and, originally, a Persian concept (hence the word paradeisos, Persian for ‘an enclosed garden’) see Farrar (1998: 9). Purcell (1996) shows how the elite-owned Persian paradeisos and archaic Greek orchard garden differed from the (theoretically) egalitarian Roman hortus, while the development of the pleasure gardens was viewed as an element in Rome’s decline (see Chapter 3). This transformation was itself influenced by Hellenistic models, which were in turn based on the Persian paradeisos (La Rocca, 1986). 56 Segal reads Roman pastoral landscapes as artificial and unreal analogues to wall painting’s ‘enclosed, controlled architectural framework which shuts out the real landscape and replaces it with one that is man-made’ (1963: 50–1). 57 For example panels were inserted between columns to reduce bright sunlight in the Villa at Oplontis. See Farrar (1998: 29). 58 Farrar (1998: 28) discusses the peristyle as a border or frame, and comments that often pseudo-peristyles (painted on to walls, or engaged columns) are found where space was lacking, in order to give the illusion of space. I would add that the pseudo-peristyle also gives the illusion of coherent enclosure. 59 As Wallace-Hadrill comments, garden painting begins in the Augustan period (1998: 9). They are catalogued by Jashemski (1993: 313–404). 60 Although this is not the place to discuss the phenomenon, it should be noted that landscape panel painting performs a similar, though less illusionistic, function, by confining and defining the limits of the natural environment. See Pavlovskis (1973: 7 n.22) on the subjugation of nature in Campanian landscape painting, and note that the genre was invented in the Augustan age (Pliny HN 35.116).
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61 See Reeder (2001) for the argument that this space is associated with a grotto setting. 62 Including the laurel, an ideologically encoded image, see La Regina (1998: 72), and Kellum (1994b: 211–15) for its associations with rebirth. 63 For illustrations and a detailed description, see Gabriel (1955), Kellum (1994b) and Settis (2002). As Kellum comments, ‘order and disorder complement one another here’ (1994b: 215); she also makes the comparison with the lower order of the Ara Pacis (1994b: 217). 64 Newlands discusses Augustus’ regulation of time as ‘an instrument of power’ (1995: 22), and the monuments of the Campus Martius as emblems of that control which also incorporated military authority (1995: 22–5). See also Wallace-Hadrill (1987). 65 In particular see Thomas Griffith Taylor’s 1927 work, Environment and Race: A Study of the Evolution, Migration, Settlement and Status of the Races of Man, and Semple’s Influences of the geographic environment of 1911. Frenkel (1992) discusses the ways in which this theory could make sense of racial segregation and preferential treatment for white Americans in central America as late as the 1940s. 66 Clarke discusses manifestations of, and debates about, environmental determinism in Polybius (1999: 87–90) and Posidonius (1999: 150, 167–8), but as she makes clear, at least for Polybius, political factors engage with landscape and climate in a complementary fashion, rather than being ultimately determined by them. 67 Compare Tacitus’ Agricola, which also posits moderation as an important Roman virtue, especially for those controlling the empire, but embraces a less optimistic view of colonialism’s effects. 68 These two traits – agriculture and civilization – have a long tradition of being related, normally expressed by a lack of farming practices in the uncivilized, and going back to Homer the Cyclopes ‘neither plough with their hands nor plant anything’ (Od. 9. 107–12). In Roman ethnographic texts, Caesar represents the Germans as lacking plots of land, and suggests that they regard the cultivation of land to be effeminizing (BG 6.22), and claims that the Britons who live inland do not sow corn (BG 5.14). Sallust marks the original inhabitants of Numidia out as barbaric (asperi incultique) by commenting that they lived on the flesh of wild animals and pasture, like cattle (Jug. 18.1). 69 Sallust Jug. 17.6: Numidia contains many dangerous beasts: ad hoc malifici generis pluruma animalia. Caesar BG 6.25–28 on Germany’s Hercynian Forest. Also Diod. Sic. 1.33–35 on the Nile, including dog-faced monkeys, crocodiles and hippopotami; and Mela on Africa: a creature with the evil eye (the catoblepas) (3.98) and deadly snakes (3.100); for Mela, some African peoples are even more confusingly bestial (e.g. the ‘Gorillas’, 3.99, see Evans, 1999). 2 myT hs Of T he Ages ANd declINe 1 See West (1978: 174–6) for parallel narratives which demonstrate decline from Zoroastrian, Judaic and Indian literatures. 2 See Kael (1980) for the argument that commercialism and marketing have severely reduced the quality of Hollywood film (prefigured in Kael, 1964). Sragow, in Stossel (1994) argues that the concentration on special effects has homogenized cinema, and furthermore that there is a ‘fascist strain’ in many filmic narratives. 3 Nor is the idea of decline entirely pervasive, and in fact the exact opposite vision of the future can be (and is) maintained – that genetic modification will feed the
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world, or that contemporary media provides choice and breaks the shackles of high-brow paternalism. 4 See, for example, Rubinstein (1993) on both the traditional attitude that Britain has declined economically and socially since 1870, and his counter-argument that the decline is a flawed theory invented in the 1960s (cf. Sampson (1962)). Also see Bailey (1988). 5 Cf. Seneca Phaedra 525–57, where Hippolytus expresses the conventional Greek primitivist view that the Golden Age involved innocent existence, with humans living close to nature in a world before money, trade, luxury, war and agriculture. But lust for gain and power began the process of decline, through the successive degrees of primitive violence, armed warfare and murder of one’s own kin. 6 But note that the oldest extant narrative of human technological development, found in Lucretius 5.933–57, interprets hard primitivism as a miserable state for humans, and agriculture, the creation of fire and the construction of clothes and housing as an upward evolutionary move. See analysis in this chapter, below, and Chapter 4. 7 Films such as Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2006, UK, USA, based on James, 1992), 28 Days Later (dir. Danny Boyle: 2002, UK), Alien Resurrection (dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet: 1997, USA) and Species (dir. Roger Donaldson: 1995, USA) deal with genetic instability which leads to apocalypse or extreme danger for humans. This is not to say that external agents are absent from our anxiety radar: climate change in particular is a universal peril rather than one which attacks individual anatomy, and natural disasters are still the focus of much apocalyptic discourse. For an analysis of how this plays out in Los Angeles, a modern site of real and imagined social and ecological disaster, see Davis (1999). 8 For example: Saces . . . sagitta/ saucius ora (‘Saces wounded in the face by an arrow’ Aen. 12.651–2). 9 On Ovid’s cosmogony see Myers (1994) and Wheeler (1995). 10 Verbs which indicate the marking of boundaries and creation of divisions are found throughout Met. 1.32–75, as Ovid describes the construction of the earth and seas. 11 Stoicism embraced the idea of cyclical destruction and the renewal of the earth, as humans become degenerate and are recreated pure in an endless cycle of death and rebirth (Seneca Quaestiones naturales 3.29.5–30.8, Consolatio ad Marciam 36.6; see also [Sen.] Octavia 388–448). 12 Sailing may be implied earlier in the poem, as Cadmus (presumably) sails from Tyre to Euboea (Met. 3.6–8), unless he travels a long and circuitous land route around the Black Sea. 13 Barchiesi comments that ‘artistic rivalry and repressive power seem to be inseparable here’ (1997a: 42), although he generally and persuasively argues against a simplistic division between artist and authority (1997a: 44). Oliensis strongly contends that Arachne’s tapestry can as easily be interpreted as a demonstration of Olympian power as that of Pallas, and furthermore, that Arachne is no innocent, displaying arrogance and hubris (2004: 286–96). Ultimately, though, Pallas’ devastating anger aligns her with the other destructive power-brokers in the poem, most notably Jupiter. 14 Parry (1964: 275–6) distinguishes between the parody of overtly pastoral landscapes (e.g. 2.404–7, the setting for Callisto’s tale) and what he calls ‘the conventional landscape’ of the Metamorphoses, that is, the untouched, shady woodland grove, often with a pool or spring (275–80). 15 Also Syrinx, a follower of Diana, and victim of attempted rape by Pan (1.689–712).
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16 Among those who retain their minds in animal or plant form are: Daphne (1.556, 567), Io (1. 635–50), Callisto (2.485–8), Phaethon’s sisters (2. 359–65), Actaeon (3.203), Clytie (4.270), Niobe (6.310–12), Myrrha (10.499–502). 17 The connection between wild woodland and virginity is found in Greek sources, most obviously in the character of Hippolytus (Eur. Hipp. 58–83). 18 Newman defines Saturn as a potentially malevolent character (1998: 236–7), mostly on the basis of Horace Odes 2.17.22–5 which discusses the planet Saturn as a bringer of fevers; but most sources concentrate on the god’s association with freedom and celebration, while the truly sinister elements of Kronos’ cannibalism are rarely attached to Saturn in Latin texts. 19 On the definition and history of the locus amoenus, see Curtius (1953: 183– 202), Currie (1960) and Hinds (2002: 122–49). 20 Thetis’ cave is similarly a creation which might have been made by art or nature, although art is said to be more probable (11.234–7). 21 Wilkinson (1955: 180–2) discusses the connection between Ovidian landscapes and idyllic scenes in Roman wall painting. The Villa of P. Fannius Sinistor at Boscoreale features a fresco which shows a grotto incorporated into a garden (Farrar, 1998: Plate 3). See also Martindale (1997: 118) on pastoral landscape as a construct in Virgil’s Eclogues. Grottoes were artificially constructed in elaborate gardens, such as the Serapeum of Hadrian’s Tivoli villa (Purcell, 1996: 148). 22 Similarly Hesiod WD 124–5, if not an interpolation – see West (1978 ad loc.). 23 Kumar claims that utopia is the ‘parent’ of dystopia or ‘anti-utopian’ (1991: 27; see also 47), and elsewhere its ‘shadow’ or ‘doppelgänger’: ‘the very announcement of utopia has almost immediately provoked the mocking contrary, echo of antiutopia.’ (1987: 99–100). 24 Note also Jupiter’s sententia (‘decision’) at Virg. Aen. 1.260, and Val. Flac. Argo. 1.548, paralleled by Met. 1.242. The prophecies of Jupiter in Roman epics are based on those of Zeus at Iliad 1.518–27 and Odyssey 1.64–79, also in the ‘new beginning’ after the Telemachia at 5.22–4. 25 Feeney (1991: 199, 221–2) with references (222 n.128); Bömer (1986, 489) disagrees with this identification. See Barchiesi (1997b) on the end of the Metamorphoses; Williams (1994: 160–1) and Hinds (1988: 24–6) for readings of the ending of the Metamorphoses as a combination of eulogy and criticism; and cf. Kennedy (1992) on the multivalency of Augustan texts. 26 Late in the poem, the Alban king, Remulus, is killed by lightning, but Jupiter’s agency is not mentioned (14.609–22). 27 Fire and water are placed together by Ovid elsewhere, in connection with their use at the Parilia (Fasti 4.793–4). 28 Tarrant (2002: 354) suggests that the chaos of the Iron Age is aligned with Ovid’s representation of his own times; Katz writes that ‘even before his exile, Ovid appears to have also seen the age he lived in as an age of iron, for the description of the iron age in Book One is curiously reminiscent of the first century B.C. Rome.’ (1992: 127). Williams (1994: 14–6) and Katz (1992: 128) make the parallel between the Metamorphoses’ Iron Age with Ovid’s description of Tomis in the exile poems, and Williams also sees Tomis as the inverse of the Golden Age. 29 Cramer (1945: 168–78) discusses the emendation to the law and its victims in the Augustan era, concluding that the evidence points to its introduction by 8 CE (also the year of Ovid’s exile to Tomis, and the time at which he finished writing the Metamorphoses). 30 Tacitus makes the works of Cassius Severus the first to receive this dubious honour in 8 CE (Ann. 1.72) and Cassius Dio claims the first book-burnings were
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in 12 CE (56.27.1). Cramer, however, finds Seneca’s version more persuasive, as discontent against Augustus had been fomented by the famine of 6–8 CE, and there was thus a heightened sensitivity to criticism in the regime at this time (1945: 173, n.70). See Raaflaub and Samons (1990: 439–47). 31 The parallel between Achilles and the poet is made by Hardie, who compares Ovid’s claim to immortality with the ‘body/name contrast’ of the Greek hero, but concludes that the poet too is dependent upon readership, implying that his fate too might be empty (1997: 194–5). 32 This speech itself is a kind of ‘return’ to the beginning, balancing out Ovid’s cosmogony in Met. 1 (as noted by Knox, 1986: 74; see also Myers, 1994: 136– 59 and Hardie, 1995b: 210–11), further reinforcing the idea that change results in sameness. 33 Hardie (1997) discusses succession as the dominating theme of Met. 15, and points out that, within the poem, succession and the conferral of immortality, are a verbal construct (1997: 190, 193). 34 This mirrors the Homeric designation of Aphrodite as golden – crush' ÆAfrodivth (Il. 3.64, 5.427, 9.389, 19.282, 22.470, 24.699, Od. 4.14, 8.337, 17.37, 19.54). 35 See Chapter 4 for further discussion. 36 This passage is discussed with regard to peace and militarism and cyclical history in Chapter 4. 37 As Wallace-Hadrill (1982: 22–3) and Gatz (1967: 229) show, legal systems, along with private ownership, are absent only in the Roman accounts of the Golden Age, as shown by contrasting Germanicus Aratea 112–9 with Aratus 108–13. 38 This is one of the bases for Karl Popper’s rejection of utopianism, which, he claims, can only lead to suppression and violence: ‘the Utopianist must win over, or else crush, his Utopianist competitors who do not share his own Utopian aims and who do not profess his own Utopianist religion’ (1947–8: 113). 39 The occurrence of words describing criminality in the Metamorphoses is as follows: during the Iron Race, facinus once, inpietas zero, nefas once, crimen zero, scelus and sceleratus twice; post-Iron Race: facinus sixteen times; inpietas twice; nefas twenty-one times; crimen fifty-three times, scelus and sceleratus fifty-four times. This is not entirely surprising, as most of the poem (well over fourteen of fifteen books) is set in the post-Iron Age, but the continuity in behaviour is clear. 40 Vidal-Naquet (1978: 133) reinforces this idea, again stressing the tension between dike and hubris throughout rather than simple decline from one to the other, and that the Iron Race is in fact a mixture of the good and evil (WD 179, although it is prophesied that it will get worse). 41 See Falkner (1989) for a reading which sees the Golden and Heroic Races as representions of the prime adult stage of human life, while the others represent lesser stages of youth or old age. 42 This is a widely contested term: the earliest usage of the phrase ‘noble savage’ is commonly thought to have occurred in Dryden’s 1670 play The Conquest of Granada (I.I. 7), although Ellingson (2001: 21–34) argues that the concept was invented by the French ethnographer Marc Lescarbot in 1609 in his work on Acadia, Histoire de la Nouvelle France. It is subsequently associated with the first peoples of North America, and with Rousseau’s concept of the simple, healthy primitive, which is apparently influenced by Lucretius’ depiction of the first race (Lovejoy and Boas, 1997: 240–2), although Rousseau uses no analogous phrase, and McGregor (1988: 19–20) and Ellingson (2001) claim that this is a misunderstanding of his work. LeBlanc (2003) discusses the idea of Native
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Americans living without warfare and in harmony with nature as an unsubstantiated myth. 43 Hunting is of course practised by Romans, especially as one of the arena spectacles, and it becomes one of the set piece images for the emperor (see Tuck, 2005). But the hunting attributed to barbarians is much less artificial in terms of its setting and origin. 44 Thomas describes the elements of ethnographic description in detail (1982: 1–5). 45 See also Diod. Sic. 1.8 for another account of poor and miserable first peoples. 46 Romulus’ relationship to hierarchy is mixed: Livy (who does not mention the division of land) has Romulus grant asylum to both slaves and free men (1.8.6, versus Dionyius of Halicarnassus 1.15 where Romulus stipulates that they be free), yet immediately establishes the exclusive institution of the senate (1.8.7). See Purcell (1996: 121–43) for the importance of Romulus’ equal land distribution to moral outrage at Romans’ enormous pleasure gardens from the late Republic onwards. 47 Caes. BG 6.22, Hor. Odes 3.24.12, Pompeius Trogus in Justin Hist. Phil. epit. 2.2, [Scymnus] Orbis descriptio 856, Solinus Coll. App. 27.12–15; Tacitus states that German communities rotate their land, so that there is no ownership as such, but it is divided according to rank: Ger. 26.2; women as common ‘property’: Strabo 7.303. 48 Note that Leach reads this poem as open-ended: the reader might be seduced by the charms of the luxury villa or feel that austerity was morally preferable, but she implies that the former is more likely, as Cato’s views are anachronistic (1997: 117), and his point of view is ‘singularly unengaging’ (1997: 116). 49 Conversely Georgics 2 ends with a mixture of easy primitivism and agricultural simplicity, in which the Golden Age is a country paradise that includes farming. See Davis, 1979: 26. 3 L ucullA N M Arble A N d The MOr A lITy Of Bu IldIN g 1 On generals and triumphal display see Beacham (1999: 20, 32, 50), Versnel (1970: 95 and 304); on the precise rights over enemy spoils, see Churchill (1999). 2 Other cases of this type of naming include figs and wine: the ficus Pompeiana (‘Pompeian fig’, Fronto Ad M.Caes. 2.5), a name which could suggest that the fig is an adherent of Pompey, since the adjectival form Pompeiani (‘Pompeians’) was often used to refer to the general’s followers or soldiers (Caes. Civ. 3.44.4, Cic. Phil. 13.29, Tac. Ann. 4.34); Pliny also mentions among early-producing figs those auctorum nomina iis, Liviae, Pompei (‘to which the names of the one who introduced them [is given], that of Livia and of Pompey’, HN 15.70) – this sentence is surrounded by a list of eight figs introduced from other regions and named after their place of origin, as is the case with most marbles. The wine is the vina Maecenatiana, (‘Maecenan wine’ Pliny HN 14.67), also listed with a series of vines and wines named after place of origin; unfortunately Pliny makes no comment on the reason why a wine was named ‘Maecenan’, but it should be noted that, as an Etruscan (Prop. 3.9.1, Hor. Odes 3.29.1, Tac. Ann. 6.11), Maecenas was inevitably associated with self-indulgence and luxurious living. On Etruscans and luxury see Strabo 5.2.2, Athenaeus 12.517d–518b, Diod. Sic. 5.40; on Maecenas and effeminacy, see Sen. Epis. 114.4–6, Macrob. 2.4.12. Suetonius gives an example of dangerous naming – also ‘Lucullan’: Domitian executes the senator Sallustius Lucullus for naming a spear after himself (Suet. Dom. 8.10.3).
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3 Pliny’s text is problematic – the manuscript readings include Melo and Chio (Mayhoff, 1967: ad loc.) – but this marble is identified with africano which originates from Teos in the eastern Mediterranean (Ballance, 1966: 79–81, Gnoli, 1971: 147, Borghini, 1989: 133, Coarelli, 1997: 368). 4 On the idea of Rome the metropolis, to which all the world now brings its peoples and goods, see Aelius Aristides Oration on Rome 11–13. 5 Richardson (1992: 56). According to Claridge (1998: 67) the Lucullan colonnades on both levels of the basilica date from the Augustan reconstruction. 6 The precise date of the reliefs is not known. Zanker tentatively dates them at 34 BCE (1988: 206), which would make them pre-Augustan. Kampen (1991) dates it two decades later, arguing that the subject matter of the sculpture fits neatly with practices encouraged by Augustus; but, whatever the date, it seems likely that the reliefs would have been identified with Augustan policies. 7 Livy 1.11.5–9 and Plut. Rom. 17.2–4: Tarpeia is bribed with Sabine gold. In Prop. 4.4 she acts out of infatuation for the enemy commander. 8 Although eras marked by names of historical figures are less common in Roman than in modern usage, they do occur, e.g. Cic. de domo sua 43 (acerbitas Sullani temporis, ‘the cruelty of the Sullan era’), Pliny HN 6.181, Tac. Dial. 38.2, Ann. 1.1. 9 Similarly adoptions into another gens involved the creation of an adjectival agnomen indicating the family of origin, such as Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus – the ‘Aemilian Scipio’, or Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus – the ‘Octavian Caesar’; and some cognomina were even indicators of ‘topographical origin’, such as the ‘Hadriani’ from Hadria (Shackleton Bailey, 1976: 82–3). Naming practices were strongly bound up in identifying origin, but also, in the case of honorary names like ‘Asiaticus’ they stress imperial gains. On the origins of cognomina see Corbeille (1996: 60–78). 10 Also Hispallus, Cretensis, Macedonicus, Numantianus; see Kajanto, 1965: 112. These names are also known as cognomina ex virtute. The earliest non-Italian titles are ‘Asiaticus’ (189 BCE) and ‘Macedonicus’ (146 BCE); as Kajanto argues, older titles based on Italian towns, like Regillensis (496 BCE) and Coriolanus (493 BCE), may be inventions of a later age, and it is possible that the practice originated with names given by Greeks to Roman generals (1965: 52). 11 Lucullus himself has been sometimes credited with the triumphal agnomen, ‘Ponticus’, but this is almost certainly a nineteenth-century fiction (Thomas, 1977: 172). 12 On the discourses of Pliny’s geography and parallels with triumphal lists, see Evans (1999b and 2005), Murphy (2004: 129–64). 13 Examples of the erotic usage of amator are Prop. 2.3.16, 2.20.35, Tib. 1.8.29 and Ovid Am. 1.4.39. Love for inanimate objects, particularly marble, is more typical when the material has been converted into statue form, as in the tale of the man who makes love to the Aphrodite of Knidos, a statue by Praxiteles (Val. Max. 8.11.4, Pliny HN 7.127, Lucian Eikones 4 and [Lucian] Erôtes 13–16 and see Sutton, 1992: 21–2). 14 The Republican representation of Lucullus is similarly schizophrenic. Among his contemporaries, he was a byword for luxurious building (Gabinius at Cic. Pro Sestio 93, de Leg. 3.30–1), yet he was a close friend of Cicero, who praises his political and military career at length (Lucull. 2.1–4). 15 Lucullus’ character and life are of course being made to stand parallel to that of Kimon, and Plutarch apparently chooses him to show two lives similar in many ways, which diverge in terms of the use each makes of his success (Kim./Luc. 1.5–7). Duff comments that paralleling Lucullus with Kimon determines certain aspects of Plutarch’s presentation, and that Lucullus receives more favourable
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treatment here than other sources, in part because of his benefactions to Plutarch’s home town, Chaeronea (1999: 59–60, and see 260–1). See also Pelling (1979). 16 Lucullus and artworks: Varro RR 1.2.10, Strabo 12.3.11, Pliny HN 34.93, 35.125, 35.155; his gardens: Tac. Ann. 11.1, Front. Aq. 1.22; his luxurious lifestyle: Vell. Pat. 2.33.4, Pliny HN 8.211. Lucullus’ name, and indeed ‘Lucullan’, are still indicators of a lavish lifestyle, particularly regarding dining habits (see below for Lucullus’ own extravagant feasts), as indicated by the use of the name in the ‘Lucullan’s [sic] Italian Grill’ (Ames, Iowa), and the cookery book Food for the Gods by ‘Lucullus’ (1931, Grant Richards). 17 Nicolas Purcell suggests that much of the moral outrage against wine-drinking in elite writers of the imperial period grows out of its increasing availability to the masses (1985: 5). Purcell argues that senators were not involved in viticulture during the Republic, and as he notes, it is telling that the earliest known eques to give his name to a vine is Maecenas (Pliny HN 14.67), see note 2 above. 18 A similar point privileging Roman citizens over spoils is made by Plutarch in relation to Sulla’s triumph of 81 BCE: after describing the extraordinary riches displayed in his parade, Plutarch comments that the returned exiles in the procession are a meivzona kovsmon (‘greater ornament’) than treasure (Plut. Sulla 34.1). 19 As discussed below the date of Lucullus’ retirement is debated, and does not seem to have occurred immediately after his triumph, as Plutarch suggests. Lucullus died in late 57 or early 56 BCE (Keaveney, 1992: 164), and he had probably retired around 59 BCE. But Plutarch’s implied date of 63 BCE for his retirement gives Lucullus more time and scope for self-indulgence. 20 Sulla’s retirement: Plut. Sulla 2.3–5, 36.1–2, App. BC 1.104; Keaveney (1982: 204) stresses that Sulla also spent time writing his Memoirs during this period. 21 Sulla’s crudelitas: Cic. de domo sua 43, de fin. 3.75, Vell. Pat. 2.28.2, Val. Max. 9.2.1, Sen. Clem. 1.12.1–2, de Ira 1.20.4, 2.34.3, 3.18.1; Tac. Hist. 3.83. Also Seneca includes Sulla in a list of famous men’s vitia (‘failings’), where his defect is his lack of clementia (‘mercy’) (Controversia 2.4.4). 22 The Gurges mentioned here is unknown; it is unlikely that he is the general Q. Fabius Gurges whose moral standing as a strict guardian of behaviour and pious son was well regarded (Livy 10.31, Val. Max. 2.2.4a) and who actually offered up gifts given to him as an ambassador to the senate (Val. Max 4.3.9). But the name ‘Gurges’ can translate as ‘a squanderer’. It is possible that luxuriam here is interpolated from the Lucullus reference below, for the text is strangely repetitive. 23 Athenaeus, quoting Clearchus on the decline of the Scythians into a state of luxury, also relates their cruelty to their extravagance (12.524c–d). 24 On the cultural effects of Greek material culture’s entry into Rome, see Pollitt (1978). 25 Pompey as the voice of moral invective might seem strange, given that he is elsewhere represented as disgustingly ostentatious, and is one of the few characters directly addressed in the work (HN 37.15, discussed below). However the name-caller seems to be a movable persona: also Pompey in Velleius (2.33.1, 2.33.4), but the Stoic philosopher Tubero in Plutarch (Luc. 39.3). It is likely that the joke is attributed to Pompey because of his well-known rivalry with Lucullus (see Keaveney, 1992: 151–2). 26 Greek examples of anti-Persian rhetoric: Herodotus 1.33, Xenophon Agesilaus 9.3, Kyropaedeia 8.8.1–2, 8.8.15, Athen. 4.144–6, Thomas, 2000: 122–34. The Asian/European binarism is also apparent at Aeschylus Persae 181–214. See Said, 1979: 56–7, duBois, 1988: 79–80, 83–91, Hall, 1989: 69–100. Roman
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texts include: Nepos Paus. 3.2–3, Alc. 11.5, Valerius Maximus 9.1. ext. 3, Curtius Alex. 4.6.3, 5.7.3, 9.7.15, Pliny HN 6.111, Plut. Mor. 342a, Tac. Ann. 2.57.5. 27 Also Herod. 7.128, cf. 1.174; and see Lateiner (1985: 88–93) on the importance of maintaining boundaries in the Histories. 28 From the Greek rhetorical schools, e.g. Isokrates Panegyricus 89. See also Sen. Suas. 2.3, 2.18, 5.7, and the voluminous references compiled by Mayor (1878: 127–8). 29 The uselessness of these luxury projects particularly annoys Pliny, who stresses twice that the Lucullan columns in Scaurus’ theatre were part of an ephemeral structure – its temporary nature outrages him (36.5 quoted below, 36.113–14). 30 Tac. Ann. 6.50, 11.1–3, van Ooteghem (1959: 191–2), D’Arms (1970: 113–5), Dix, (2000: 459). The genealogy and eventual fate of Lucullus’ villa at Misenum, and particularly the associations of luxury it confers on Tiberius, are discussed by Gowing (2005: 65). Lucullus’ gardens provide the location for some of the Julio-Claudian melodrama, such as the death of Messalina (Tac. Ann. 11.37, see Beard, 1998: 26–7). 31 There is a tension here between the moralist’s view of non-productive uses of land as iniquitous, and the status which came from using potentially productive land as a pleasure garden as a conspicuous display of wealth (see Purcell, 1996: 127, 135). 32 Varro also discusses Lucullus at RR 1.13.7, 3.2.17, 3.3.3, 3.3.10, 3.4.3, 3.17.9 (also the channel through the mountain). 33 As Purcell comments, Nero’s flamboyant domestic building is the logical outcome of the republican suburban villa (1996: 128; and see 1987: 198–201). 34 As Frank Sear has commented to me, any marble used in Rome at this period would have necessarily been of non-Italian origin. 35 Beacham (1999: 173) calculates that the distance spanned by the bridge was ‘between 2¼ and 3¼ miles’ – the precise location of the bridge is unclear. 36 Again the joke involves play with Greek names – Automedon was Achilles’ charioteer in the Iliad – being combined with Roman characters: this ‘boy’ races on the Flaminian Way, the same road out of Rome to the north along which Juvenal finds some of the dead victims for his satires (1.170–1, a correspondence which incidentally places the satirist in the possible position of counterfeit critic). 37 Pliny in particular displays anxiety about the mixing of categories. See Evans (2005a) on the separation of land and Mediterranean Sea and Ocean in the Historia Naturalis. 38 Keaveney (1992: 152) assumes that Cicero’s criticism of those dedicated to their fish ponds (piscinarii) and removed from politics, in his letter of January 60 BCE (ad Att. 1.18.6), refers to Lucullus, but in fact there is no mention of Lucullus in this passage, nor is he explicitly called a piscinarius in any extant text, although probably regarded as one by later generations, if not his own: see Varro RR 3.17.9 (an apparent reference to him constructing seawater fish ponds) and Pliny HN 9.170 (on the sale of his fish, quoted above). 39 This is the interpretation, and restoration of the text, adopted by James Packer (1997: 117 and 447). Packer also cites Stucchi’s alternative restoration: TANTIBUS, which gives the reading ‘removed by such great labours’ (or ‘force’), a reading which would stress the exertion and power involved in the undertaking, rather than the monumentality of Trajan’s Forum and Markets themselves (Pensabene et al., 1989: 246; cited at Packer, 1997: 447–8). On the building of Trajan’s Column and Forum, see also Dio Cassius 68.16.3, and for a survey of the possible meanings of the inscription, see Raoss, 1968.
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40 Dudley, 1967: 137. Yet carrying heavy loads through the streets was in fact banned in measures introduced by Trajan (Pliny Pan. 51.1) and Hadrian (S.H.A. Hadr. 22.6). 41 Most famously at Cat. 64.1–15; Ov. Met. 8.774–6 tree-felling is the impious act for which Erysichthion is punished; for a complaint about wood carried by ship, see Juv. 14.275–6. cf. Virg. Aen. 2.626–31, 6.179–82, 11.135–8. 42 The opposition recalls that of iron’s usage in weapons versus agricultural tools, as in Virg Georg. 1.493–7, 1.507–8, Tib. 1.10.45–50, Ovid Fast. 1.697–704 (discussed in Chapter 4). See also Pliny HN 2.157–8. 43 Umbricius has often been seen as satire’s rewriting of epic characters, in particular Aeneas, who descends into the Underworld at Cumae in Aeneid 6 (Estevez, 1996; see also Staley, 2000 and Baines, 2003). In addition to these Underworld connections, his name suggests that Umbricius may be merely an umbra, a ‘shade’ or ‘ghost’ (Braund, 1996: 234–5), which places him in the past and positions him as irrelevant in the world of the present. 44 The words honor (‘respect’ or ‘dignity’) and honestus (‘respectable’) recur throughout Satires Book One, often with reference to the speaker’s perception that he does not receive the esteem he deserves (Sat. 1.110, 1.117, 4.85, 5.10, 5.136). At Sat. 3.171–83 Umbricius complains of a kind of inversion of honor, as he observes that this is a city where everything is performed incorrectly, and extravagant clothes, but not the toga, are worn. 45 This seems to be through patronage, rather than work: although Umbricius speaks of ‘skills’, he never suggests that the reason he cannot afford to live in Rome is that he cannot find a well-paying job. For attitudes to work in Juvenal and other Roman authors, see Joshel (1992a: 63–9). 46 For Gabii’s decline as opposed to its reputation see Brunt, who also points out that the town’s reputation for desertion is due to elite sources’ unwillingness to include slaves in their assessment (1971: 348). 47 For this phenomenon in both Greek and Latin texts on Roman Greece see Alcock (1993). 48 This is a view which is difficult to maintain in the face, for example, of Satire 3’s anti-Hellenism and Satire 15’s nostras . . . Athenas (‘our Athens’, Juv. Sat. 15.110). 49 Pliny adds that the cherry had spread to Britain by his time, a development typical of empire, which takes up practices of the conquered, and then exports them to other colonies. Britain is frequently the rhetorically charged destination for such cultural adoptions: as the most remote part of the Roman empire, it represents the widest spread of artefacts through colonization. See also Juvenal 15.110–12, for the claimed extension of Greek oratory to Britain via Gaul. 50 Mamurra also appears in negative contexts at Cat. 43.7, 57.2, and as ‘Mentula’ at 94.1, 105.1, 114.1 and 115.1. For the theory that Mamurra is in fact Vitruvius, the author of de Architectura, see Wiseman (1985: 198) and Purcell (1983). On Pliny’s moralizing see Marchetti (1991). 51 Rawson discusses the growing influence of Hellenic culture at Rome, particularly in the second half of the first century BCE (1985, especially: 1–14, 54–65). Also see Wallace-Hadrill (1997: 12–16, 20–2). 52 Vell. Pat. 1.11.3–5. Platner (1929: 304) claims that this refers to the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina, both in the Porticus Metelli; however, Richardson makes no such connection under the entries for these structures (1992: 216–17, 225–6). Marble is known from other second-century temples, such as the Temple of Hercules Victor in Rome’s Forum Boarium, which made use of Pentelic marble for all its exterior finish (Claridge, 1998: 255). 53 The precise point of the joke is obscure. If it is that Cicero downgrades Triarius’
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complaint to an absurd and much reduced version, it seems rather weak. Possibly there is a suggestion that columna is being used as a double-entendre for penis (as Mart. 6.49.3, 11.51.1, Priapea 10.8). 54 On the general injunction to eat simple meals in private, see Suet. Aug. 70; Sen. Epis. 19.10; Plut. Mor. 697c and Mor. 726e; Servius ad Aen. 1.726. In contrast Lucian Epis. Sat. 34 depicts overindulgence when alone as bestial – both lions and wolves gorge without a friend. 55 Complaints about villa size are common, see Sen. Controv. 5.5.1, Pliny HN 19.50–1. 56 Note that there is also a rotunda among the few remains of the Domus Transitoria (beneath the Temple of Venus and Rome); for both houses, see MacDonald (1965: 21–40); on the Domus Aurea, see Ball (2003). Miriam Griffin dates Seneca’s Letters to 63–4 CE (their apparent date of composition), but adds that 64–5 CE is also possible, and that some letters were probably written ‘after Seneca’s contribution to Rome’s rebuilding’ (1992: 305). 57 Livy 35.1.2. MacDonald, 1965: 5–6. Other enormous Republican buildings include the Shrine of Fortuna at Praeneste, and the Tabularium in the Roman Forum, whose façade measures 73.6 metres. 4 R usT: E Nemy O f The STAT e 1 Gellius disingenuously claims that the quotations have been thrown together indiscriminately: praeterea ex eodem libro Catonis haec etiam sparsim et intercise commeminimus (‘besides we have haphazardly and cursorily recalled, from the same book of Cato, these statements’, 11.2.5). On Gellius’ deliberate arrangement of extracts see Holford-Strevens (2003: 35–6, 45), and his selectivity ibid. 36–44 (vs. Baldwin’s claim of ‘amorphous compilation’, 1975: 71); however Holford-Strevens denies that there is any moral purpose in Gellius’ text. For methods of excerpting, see Stevenson (2004: 135–8). A further layer is the arrangement of Cato’s text, on which Goldberg makes the point that it was ‘probably not an original work at all but a collection of dicta drawn from other sources, a carmen in the sense of a “prescription” or “refrain”.’ (2006: 432). 2 Edwards (1993: 178–80) stresses the connection between gluttony and (morally frowned upon) debt (e.g. Juv. 11.19–20), and she shows that the expense of extravagant food is seen as analogous to sexual overindulgence (1993: 186–90). See Joshel (1992a: 67) on the senses, food and work. 3 Varro (RR 2.7.15) states that the horse is used for war, transport, breeding and racing (ad rem militarem, . . . ad vecturam, . . . . admissuram, . . . ad cursuram). Pliny mentions that they can be used for threshing corn (HN 18.298); see Vir. Georg. 383–5, Vegetius Ars Mul. 3.6.2. and Toynbee, 1973: 184–5. Pliny also gives a history of their use in war (HN 8.154–5, 159). 4 Joshel’s book analyses the epitaphs of workers themselves and sets out to show that the reading of work as ‘dirty’ (Joshel: 1992a: 64) is attributable to elite texts only, as opposed to workers’ own self-identification with their work. She also shows that servants like cooks are essential to the maintenance of the elite: ‘[service] workers enabled a wealthy man or woman to live nobly.’ (1992a: 73), and that, while an entourage of servants helps in providing status for the elite, an upwardly-mobile ‘parvenu’ can be derided for doing so (1992a: 73–4). 5 Crassator (only here, more usually grassator) also contains suggestions of criminality, associated with loitering; grassor means ‘to loiter about idly or for sinister purposes’ (see TLL s.v. 2200: 55–2201: 58), as well as ‘to flatter’ (Paulus Festus 86, with Goldberg, 2006: 432 and n.9). It is tempting, in this context, to see more than coincidence in the similarity between the words crassator
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(‘vagabond’) and crassus (‘fat’, ‘dense’). See Sciarrino (2004: 333–4) and Habinek (1998: 38) on the implications for the status of poets in this period. 6 Gowers (1993: 66), citing Plutarch Cato Maior 4.2, reads Cato’s high moral standards as ‘already something of an anomaly in cosmopolitan Rome’, but as Plutarch stands almost as far from Cato in time as Gellius, his representation of Cato and his context is only further evidence of his iconic stature. Thus the era of moral integrity is thrust even further into the past, while Cato himself is shown to be such a paragon that he rises above Rome’s corruption, even as it begins to dominate others. 7 Rust on metals: Pliny HN 7.13.2, 33.19.4, 34.1.1, 41,4; tooth-decay: Ovid AA 1.545, Pliny HN 36.30.4, Mart. 5.28.7. 8 Theogn. 451, Plato Rep. 609a, Theoc. 16.17; also see Sapph. 141, Theoph. de lapid. 57. 9 Old age: Juv. 13.148, Val. Max. 2.9.5 (archaic style), Tac. Dial. 22.5; satire’s bite: Stat. Silv. 1.3.103 (satire’s destructive potential), Hor. Sat. 2.1.43 (the rusting of satire’s weapon); loss of creative powers: Cat 68c.151, Ovid Tr. 5.12.21, Quint. 10.1.30, Mart. 12 pr. 4. The destructive power of Invidia (Envy) also involves tainting her victim with a touch of her ‘rust-steeped hand’ (manu ferrugine tincta Ovid Met. 2.798). Envy is also equated with ferrugo (‘iron-rust’) at laus Pisonis 107, and with aerugo (‘bronze-rust’) at Hor. Serm. 1.4.101, Mart. 2.61.5, 10.33.5). Envy is often associated with biting, another connection with rust, cf. Hor. Serm. 2.1.75–8, discussed in this chapter. 10 Quinn reads this more widely as the ‘tooth of envy’, and a reference to past jealousies over Maecenas’ patronage (1980: 304). Nevertheless, this would reflect the kind of attack which Horace claims would force him to unsheathe his sword and defend himself in Serm. 2.1. 11 Lucilius frr. 422–4, 467–8, 676, 784–90 Marx: the last is an attack of Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, who was consul in 156 BCE and later princeps senatus (Broughton, 1951–2: 2.553), and also the subject of ridicule apparently throughout Book One of the Satires (Serv. ad Aen. 10.104), although this seems to have been written after Lupus’ death. For a summary of those attacked by Lucilius, see Warmington (1967: xvii–xviii). 12 Other sources tend to concentrate on Lucilius’ style, often seen as rough and archaic, rather than explicitly on his relationship with republican freedom: Cic. de orat 1.72, 3.171; Quint. 10.1.93, Tac. Dial. 23.2. 13 Bramble concentrates in particular on the epic vocabulary associated with Lucilius in the later satirists. Also on the relationship between Lucilius and other satirists see in particular Anderson, 1982: 33–8, 301–3, Christes, 1971: 154 n.57, DuQuesnay, 1984: 27–32, Freudenburg, 2001: 18–26, 49–52, 59–63, 149–55, 164–5, 242–7. Svarlien (1994: 261–5) argues that Lucilius’ poetry is not characterized solely by libertas and invective, but acknowledges that these are significant elements. 14 ferrum as ‘sword’ can also carry connotations of ‘penis’, particularly in situations involving sexual violence, e.g. the rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquin: ‘tace, Lucretia’ inquit; ‘Sex. Tarquinius sum; ferrum in manu est; moriere, si emiseris vocem.’ ‘“Shut up, Lucretia,” he said, “I am Sextus Tarquin; there is a sword (ferrum) in my hand; you will die, if you utter a sound.’’’(Livy 1.58.2). See Joshel 1992b: 127. 15 Cat. 66.48 (a possible model, see Muecke, 1993: 108), Tib. 1.10.1–4, Hor. Odes 1.3.12, Prop. 1.17.13, 2.33.27, Sen. Epis. 90.10, 94.57, NQ 5.15.4, Pliny HN 2.158. 16 Horace’s recusatio of political themes is not, however, unique to the Odes, and is already occurring at Serm. 2.1.12.
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17 On the evidence for Juvenal’s treatment under Trajan, see Waters (1970); on the criticism of past figures, Ramage (1989). 18 Yet Quintilian does discuss at length which Greek and Roman poets are worth reading (10.1.46–72, 85–100) and see 1.4.4–5, 1.8.14, 5.11.39. 19 This paradox is prefigured by Ovid AA 2.277–8, discussed in Chapter 2 in relation to luxury and the Golden Age, and in this chapter in relation to the Germans’ lack of gold. 20 In the Aeneid iron is used even in the chronologically earliest section of the action at Troy: Aen. 2.55, 2.333, 2.463, 2.510, 2.581, 2.614, 2.627, 2.671. Gold is found only rarely on breastplates: Aen. 3.467, 5.259–60, 7.639–40. In reality, in Roman antiquity, silver foil was occasionally used on armour, and silver is used for dagger sheaths, but gold appears only as inlay on sheaths (Bishop and Coulston, 1993: 76, 191–2). 21 Similarly O’Gorman (1993: 141, 149) reads the function of unrefined amber in the same text as a marker of the Germans’ unadulterated nature. 22 The Gallic love of gold is not found in Caesar, although silver is thrown over walls at siege of Gergovia (BG 7.47) and the Britons have gold coins (BG 5.12). 23 However, both Tacitus (Ger. 5.1) and Pliny (HN 17.27) claim that German soil is very poor. 24 Barker shows that this is a theme echoed in Greek epigram, and that the resonances of ‘gold’ (immoral luxury versus Golden Age simplicity) are present for Horace and Virgil too (1996: 442–6). And it is revived by Seneca, to undermine the new Golden Age associations of the Domus Aurea (Epis. 115.12– 3, see Champlin, 1998: 338). 25 barbarus however could also refer to an Eastern barbarian, such as a Persian or Syrian (e.g. Cic. Ver. 3.76). 26 German possession of iron, proven by archaeology, shows this is wrong (Benario, 1999: ad loc.), and cf. Ger. 31.2, 43.1. 27 Similar sentiments on primitives with no possessions or institutions are expressed in Seneca’s de Providentia 4.14–5, dealing with Germans and Danube tribes. The idea is also mirrored in Schopenhauer’s assertion that the lower animals have a better existence because they do not know hope, while luxury simply forces humans into a situation where their needs are more difficult to satisfy (1891: 15–20). 28 Non-agricultural peoples could also be described more neutrally, e.g. Strabo 7.3.2, 11.8.1 (Scythians), Virg. Georg. 3.339–45 (African nomad herdsmen) and 3.349–83 (peoples of the frozen north). 29 Sherwin-White’s view is that Tacitus is being ironic here, rather than crediting the Fenni with the ability to philosophize (1970: 37–8). He is generally doubtful that Tacitus idealizes the Germans at all (1970: 35–40), cf. Syme (1958: 126–8) and see Borca (2004). 30 The extreme barbarians as akin to the Golden Race, and to idealized depictions of rustics, are discussed by Thomas (1982: 51–6), who points to a similar picture of the Scythians at Hor. Odes 3.24.9–24, and even to an implied affinity with the utopian Hyperboreans (1988b: 112–13). For a detailed discussion of otium and its relationship to the pastoral in the Georgics, see Davis (1979, particularly 26– 31) on the slim possibilities for the utopian. 31 Metal rust has various functions, including curative powers, in its capacity to ‘eat away’ disease. robigo: Pliny. HN 1.34, 7.64, 22.94, 33.121, 34.99, 34.140, 34.150, 34.152–4; ferrugo Pliny. HN 23.151, 28.141. 32 On the discourse of conquering Britain, see Evans (2003).
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33 Similarly Boudicca mocks Roman bathing as effeminate – the conqueror’s rhetoric placed in the mouth of the barbarian (Dio 62.6.4). 34 Even a short term of peace and luxury can damage a tough fighting force: compare the swift corruption of Hannibal’s army in Capua over just one winter, in 216 BCE (Livy 23.18.12). 35 The title of Florus’ work varies, but always includes these words; see Jal (1967: xxi–xxiii) for the various manuscript formulations. 36 For the idea that there was a historical turning point for Rome’s moral welfare and military power see Chapter 3; on the connection between imperialism and decadence, see Lintott (1972). 37 The idea of a repetitious cycle of birth, ascent, decline and rebirth is associated most strongly with Stoic thought, e.g. Sen. Nat. 3.29–30, Consolatio ad Marciam 26.6, [Sen.] Octavia 388–448; but it also appears in Plato’s Timaeus and Kritias, as well as Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione 337a–338b. See Lovejoy and Boas (1997: 4–7, 170–4) and Nisbet (1978: 60). 38 It is not only the third age which alludes to the Golden Age: references to the ages and to metals pervade Florus’ text – the words ‘gold’ or ‘golden’ appear thirty-three times, a high proportion for a short work, often referring to luxury and greed. 39 In the Aeneid, for example, pax and its cognates occur far more frequently in Books 7–12, the so-called ‘Iliadic’ or military half of the poem: thirty-three times in Books 7–12, as opposed to fourteen times in Books 1–6. 40 As Woolf (1993) argues, pax was also a heavily loaded word, whose meaning and value changed, yet continued to be contested over time, and in many ways the pax Romana existed more as a concept than a reality in the ancient world. Provinces were probably far more volatile than was widely reported, and it was not universally accepted even at the heights of Roman territorial rule that further conquest was unnecessary (Woolf, 1993: 183–8). 41 Weinstock (1960: 47); Tib. 1.10 is the exception. 42 Many denarii of Trajan feature the goddess Pax on the obverse, e.g. RIC II Trajan: 246, 247, 251, 252, 259, 262. Pax Augusta appears on Trajan’s ‘restored’ coinage (Bennett, 1997: 131). 43 On the form and decoration of the Forum of Trajan see Zanker (1970) and Packer (2001 and 1997); on the Forum of Augustus, Kellum (1997), Zanker (1988: 192–215 and 1968); Gowing discusses the symbolic value of both fora, and particularly the way that the Forum Augustum commemorates the Republic, while the Forum Traiani represents a combination of continuity (drawing on features of Augustus’s Forum), and a celebration of the Empire and the emperor himself (2005: 138–51). 44 As discussed in Chapter 2, Hesiod’s Silver, Bronze and Heroic Races might be seen as equally inferior to the Golden Race, demonstrating a different way in which humankind has deviated from the first race (Vernant, 1983a: 6–8). 45 Poseidonios is often regarded as the source of this episode of evolution, as Seneca summarizes his theory that wise men (sapientes) civilized early peoples (Epis. 90.5–6), but, as Thomas points out, there is no primitivist stage in Poseidonios’ version (1982: 95, and 104 n.7 in the bibliography), just as there is no ‘before’ the Golden Age in Greek myth. 46 Saturn is also associated with justice, as well as the absence of slavery and private property, in Pompeius Trogus’ account of him as king of the Italian Aborigines (in Justin 43.1.3). 47 In fact this linear narrative is much more akin to Lucretius’ godless version of original innocence, which gradually slips away into violence and deceit. See 1.31–40, 3.59–73, 4.580–1, 5.837–1019.
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48 See Thomas, 1982: 97. There is an argument to be made that each of the invasions brings further decline to Italy (O’Hara, 1995). 49 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, reporting a native myth, gives the more straightforward version, that Saturn was king in Italy before the reign of Jupiter (1.36.1), but he does not include Saturn’s escape from Jupiter (i.e. he does not syncretize it with the Kronos/Zeus narrative) and therefore avoids this discrepancy. Ennius has both traditions: Saturn in Latium (Varro LL 5.42), and a rationalized version of the Hesiodic version (Ennius Euhemerus 64–82 Vahlen). 50 Even the Aeneid itself contains contradictory voices: in the previous book Latinus stated that there is no need of laws for the ‘people of Saturn’: haud vinclo nec legibus aequam,/ sponte sua veterisque dei se more tenentem (‘righteous not because of chains and laws, but keeping to the way of the ancient god of our own free will’ Aen. 7.202–4). The discrepancy might point to Latinus’ failure to see contemporary realities. 51 Virgil in particular may be alluding to messianic elements in Sibylline oracular texts produced by Hellenized Jews of Egypt; see Nisbet (1978). 52 For the issues of the dramatic and actual dates of Calpurnius’ poems see Wiseman (1982: 57), Davis (1987: 50 n.3, 51 n.11). The argument that he wrote later, possibly after Nero’s death, does fit with the evidence that Nero himself chose to inaugurate a Golden Age in 64 CE, a decade after his succession (Champlin, 1998: 336), but this does not preclude independent claims or hopes of a new age in 54 CE. 53 This is how Servius reads Eclogue 4 (e.g. Serv. Ecl. 4.7, 17, 43). 54 In addition to the specific political content of, in particular, Eclogue 1, Calpurnius’ poems give a strangely materialistic view of the pastoral world, in which ownership and property are the norm (4.154–6, 5.83–5, with Davis, 1987: 37, 47, Leach, 1975: 216). The absence of such mercenary values is common to pastoral and the Golden Age, and this seems to be another aspect of leakage from the sordid realities of contemporary life into the bucolic world. 55 In Wiseman’s view, the poem specifically makes the distinction between Claudius (the non-Julian) threatened by civil war in 42 CE, and Nero’s bloodless ascent to the principate (1982: 59–67). 56 As Davis, 1987: 41, Wiseman, 1982: 67, Leach, 1973: 59–60, Keene, 1969: 58; but note that Leach does connect the image of Bellona (1.55–9), via Aeneid 1.293–6, to a more generalized expression of ‘man’s deepest impulse towards violence’ (1973: 60). 57 Although Quinn (1973, ad loc.) claims that iron can rust quickly if highlypolished, this seems unlikely in the case of farm implements. 58 This is clear as early as the Odyssey, which depicts the Cyclopes, shepherds, but not planters, as subhuman eaters of human flesh (Od. 9.107–12). In Roman ethnography, non-agricultural peoples lack all the trappings of civilization, e.g. Germans (Caes. BG 6.22, Pliny HN 16.3, Tac. Ger. 5–6, 16), Britons (Strabo 4.5.2), Scythians (Pliny HN 6.53), but they are often accomplished warriors (especially Caes. BG 6.22) so this paradigm puts warrior culture before, and distinctive from, agricultural society. 59 As is made clear by Virgil: ceciditque superbum/ Ilium et omnis humo fumat Neptunia Troia,/ diversa exsilia et desertas quaerere terras (‘proud Ilium has fallen and all of Neptunian Troy smoulders on the earth’ Aen. 3.2–3). 60 See Gabba (1976: 272–3). The idea is possibly modelled on Xen. Oik. 5.5, 5.13. 61 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.28. See Ash, 1999: 31–2 for discussion of hardy
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farmers as good soldiers at Tac. Hist. 2.12, and see Caes. BC 1.57: the Albici; Sall. Jug. 93–4: Ligurians. 62 Caesar kept two dining-rooms in the provinces, one for sagati, the other for togati (Suet. Jul. 48.1), and presumably he moved from one role to the other according to the company he kept. Heskel (2001: 142–3) discusses the exchange between toga and sagum in Cicero’s works, and comments that the move to the sagum could be compelled by the senate in a time of national emergency (143, n.6). This had last occurred during the Social War according to Velleius Paterculus (12.16.4). 63 Horsfall details the parallels between the Italian of Numanus, the Roman soldierfarmer and idealized barbarians, but concludes that the Italian position is undermined by the less attractive aspects of Numanus’ description and divine endorsement for his death (1990: 314). Hardie sees Numanus as a remnant, a man who holds an over-romanticized and discredited view of primitivism and the rural ideal, which is unworkable in the urban society of the first century BCE (1995a: 18, 190–4); cf. O’Hara’s review (1995). Horsfall comments that, although linked to Turnus and the Rutuli by marriage, Numanus’ own ethnicity remains unclear (1987: 778); as his allegiance is non-specific, he is the perfect representative of Italian (or perhaps Latin) values. See also Schweizer (1967), Taylor (1955) and Rehm (1932). 64 This is how Thomas reads the episode, comparing Numanus’ account of the Italians with Roman ethnographies of other (apparently admirable) primitive peoples (1982: 98–9). 65 Pliny HN 18.20. In fact he is more likely to have been named after the Umbrian town Saranus (Stock, 1931: 37). 66 And at Georg. 2.369–70 the farmer issues imperia (‘orders’). The use of military vocabulary pervades Books One and Two in particular: see Georg. 1.125, 1.160, 1.175, 1.255, 1.314, 1.318, 1.322, 2.23, 2.279–83, 2.415–16 with Thomas, 1988a: ad loc. 67 Saturnia incorporates a reference to the Golden Age of Italy, but the Saturnian Age fits uncomfortably with both militarism and the labour involved in the Georgics’ version of agriculture (as Thomas, 1988a: 189–90), and when it appears in the poem it is always as a time past, and one to which there is no return (1.125–8, 2.536–40). 68 Carrié writes of the soldier as a figure of mockery from the last century of the Republic, but dates a more extreme and negative change in the perception of the soldier to the increasing professionalization of the army in the Augustan period, as the army was now in imperial control and effectively a mercenary force, which however had to be maintained even when not fighting (1993: 102–3). 69 Cicero reflects this attitude at times: he portrays Antony’s soldiers as a gang of thieves, and calls them homines agrestes, si homines illi ac non pecudes potius ‘uncivilized men – if indeed they are men, and not rather beasts’ (Phil. 8.9). See also Ad fam. 11.7. 70 Alston (1998: 215); yet as Alston also comments, this does not seem to have been the perception of the lower-ranked soldiers themselves, who were proud of the status they perceived themselves as possessing through military service (1998: 218). 71 The soldier-thug parallels the night-time urban attacker of Juvenal’s third Satire, whose violence is similarly random and unprovoked (Sat. 3.288–301). 72 Negative sentiments on militarism are also expressed in Juvenal’s tenth Satire (133–88), but this is more concerned with the pointlessness of militarism, such as the failure of many expeditions and the ultimate reduction of great generals to
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a single tomb (found elsewhere, e.g. Anth. Vet. Lat. Epig. 2.15 on Alexander) rather than a critique of the individual soldier. 73 Boyle comments on the unpracticality of the Georgics and the nostalgia value attached to ‘its anachronistic focus on the yeoman-farmer, the colonus’ (1979: 4). The romanticism is tempered by descriptions of hardship, see Thomas (1988a and 1988b: passim, especially 1988a: 16–24, 87), but the moral worth of the farmer remains intact. 74 War and peace are frequent motifs of elegy: Tib. 1.1.73–6, 1.7.9, 1.10, 2.5.105, Prop. 1.6.27–30, 2.1.43–6, 2.7.13–18, 3.4.11–22, 3.5, Ovid Am 1.9. For the association of love and peacetime, see also Aristophanes Pax 439–40, 1130–8. Elegy’s engagement with warfare is complicated by the so-called militia amoris trope, see Murgatroyd (1975) for discussion. 75 See Davis (1979) for an analysis of pastoral elements in the Georgics, most of which are undermined by more powerful and contemporary forces. 76 Compare Pliny HN 2.159 who claims that we leave blood and bones on the earth, after killing (caedes) and wars (bella), which are caused by greed (opulentiae); the earth then covers them up and hides our crimes (scelera). 77 Lyne (1974), cf. Morgan (1999: 197–200). In addition, the lines which conclude Georgics 2 (505–14), are particularly damning as warfare covers north and south, and Mars impius (‘ungodly Mars’) rages. 78 Pliny lists a number of oversized bodies found, which are all attributed to mythical figures from the past: in Creta terrae motu rupto monte inventum est corpus stans XLVI cubitorum, quod alii Orionis, alii Oti esse tradunt. Orestis corpus oraculi iussu refossum VII cubitorum fuisse monumentis creditur. iam vero ante annos prope mille vates ille Homerus non cessavit minora corpora mortalium quam prisca conqueri. Naevii Pollionis amplitudinem annales non tradunt, sed quia populi concursu paene sit interemptus, vice prodigii habitum. procerissimum hominum aetas nostra Divo Claudio principe Gabbaram nomine ex Arabia advectum novem pedum et totidem unciarum vidit. During an earthquake on Crete a mountain was torn open and a body standing at forty-six cubits was found, which some say was the body of Orion, others of Otus. The body of Orestes, which was reburied by order of an oracle, is believed to have been seven cubits long. Indeed, already almost a thousand years ago, Homer constantly complained that the bodies of mortals were smaller than ancient ones. In the case of Naevius Pollio, the annals say it was not really his size, but because he was almost destroyed in the struggle of the people, he had the place of a prodigy. The tallest man our age has seen was a man called Gabbara, who came from Arabia while the Divine Claudius was princeps, and stood nine feet and as many inches high.
(HN 7.73–4, see also Col. 3.8.2) The last figure, an exceptionally tall man from modern history, is presumably included to show that the largest that can be produced cannot outdo the warrior men of prehistory. Plutarch claims that Sertorius, while in Tingis, dug up the body of Antaeus, which was sixty cubits long (Sert. 9.3). 79 Segal (1971, especially, 19–21). As Segal points out (28–9) Akhilleus is afraid that maggots will enter Patroklos’ wounds and defile his corpse (Il. 19.23–7).
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Even the natural processes of decay become a violation of the body which has not received due ritual (see also Il. 22.509–11, 24.18–20, both in relation to Hektor’s corpse). 80 Even Hektor’s body, subject to Akhilleus’ violent maltreatment, is protected by Apollo (Il. 24.18–21, cf. 24.416–23). 81 Toynbee points out the necessity for burial and associated rituals in Roman culture (1971, especially 43 and 55). 82 Robigalia: Varro Res Rusticae 1.1.6, Fasti Praenesti CIL 12.316 (p.236), Columella RR 10.342–3, Lactantius 1.20.17, Servius Georgics 1.151. As Beard, North and Price suggest, it is possible that the Robigalia had other meanings, particularly as early Rome bound agricultural and military activity closely together, but our sources concentrate solely on its agricultural roles (1998: 47–8). 83 However compare Gellius NA 5.12.4. 84 The connection between war and farming is also visible in the presence of Mars in some agricultural rituals, e.g. Cato recommends an offering to Mars and Silvanus for the health of oxen, at which no woman should be present (de Agric. 83.1 cf. Plut. Cato 20.8 which suggests that it was not a practice by the first century CE). And the triple offering of the Suovetaurilia was made to Janus, Jupiter and Mars, in order to ward off sickness and barrenness from the land (Cato de Agric. 141). Beard, North and Price also point out that the October horse ritual reflects shared military and agricultural concerns (1998: 48). However at Fasti 1.667–700 Ovid’s narrator prays to Ceres to avert rust, as well as opposing past war with both agriculture and present peace, showing that the identification is easily disrupted.
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Abbreviations CIL = (1853–) Mommsen, T. et al. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, (Berlin, de Gruyter). FGrH = Jacoby, F. (ed.) (1954–) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Leiden, Brill). LIMC = Ackermann, H.C. and J.-R. Gisler (eds) (1981–1999) Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (Zürich, Artemis). OLD = Glare, P.G.W. (ed.) (1982) Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, Clarendon Press). RE = von Pauly, A.F., G. Wissowa et al. (eds) (1894–1963) Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, Metzler). RIC = Sutherland C.H.V. and R.A.G. Carson (eds) (1984) The Roman Imperial Coinage (London, Spink and Son). TLL = Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1900–) (Leipzig, Teubner).
Primary texts Jordan = Jordan, H. (1860) Catonis praeter Librum De Re Rustica qvae extant (Leipzig, Teubner). Lindsay = Lindsay, W.M. (1913) Sexti Pompei Festi. De uerborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli Epitome. Thewrewkianis copiis usus edidit (Leipzig, Teubner). LP = Lobel, E. and Page, D. (1955) Poetarum Lesbiorum fragmenta (Oxford, Clarendon Press). Marx = Marx, F. (1904) C. Lucilii Carminum Reliquiae (Leipzig, Teubner). McGushin = McGushin, P. (1992) Sallust, The Histories (Oxford, Oxford University Press). MW = Merkelbach, R. and West, M.L. (1967) Fragmenta Hesiodea (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Pearson = Pearson, A.C. (1924) Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Vahlen = Vahlen, J. (1928) Ennianae Poesis Reliquiae (Leipzig, Teubner).
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INdex
Achilles 59–60 agriculture 33, 79, 80, 149, 152, 167 and abuse of nature 109–10 association with free birth 179 civilization association 27, 171 and decline narratives 33, 35–6, 38, 44, 96 farming implements, misappropriation of 109, 172, 175, 184 and the Golden Age 83–7, 89–92 in Judeo-Christian tradition 33 landholding 84, 85–6, 90 and militarism 38, 171–4, 175, 176–8, 179–84, 182 Alexander of Macedon 130 Amazons 14 animals 27, 29, 132, 133, 135, 138, 175 analogies 141, 143–4 annus magnus 18–19 Anthropophagi 14 Antiphanes of Berga 10 apocalypse 7, 57 Apollo 61, 74 Ara Pacis Augustae 21–2, 67 Arabia 8–9, 10 Aratus 34, 35, 36, 41, 45, 76, 78 Archias 101 Artemidorus 11 Asconius 123 Atlantis 14 Augustus 4, 5, 9, 13, 20, 23, 57, 63, 66, 94–5, 96, 124, 142–3, 159, 160, 162 Avienus, Festus 36 Baiae 113 Balearic Islands 26, 28 biting, metaphor of 137, 138, 139–40, 141, 142 Blake, William 32 blood motif 51, 52, 66 booty and triumphal display 93, 98–9, 101, 107, 108–9 Britons 156, 157 Bronze Race 34, 35, 36, 44, 45, 76, 77, 146, 147
Brutus, Marcus Iunius 121–2 building morality of 86, 93–6, 101, 101–2, 104–8, 118–21, 122–5, 127, 134 Roman projects 4–5, 12, 13, 94–5, 108, 122–4, 129, 163 Caelius Rufus, Marcus 121 Caesar, Julius 27, 48, 63, 64, 80, 94, 96, 157 Calpurnius Siculus 168–9 Canaria 17 cannibalism 20, 47 Capraria 17 Cassius, Dio 105 Cato the Elder 5, 129, 171 Cato the Younger 87, 104, 117, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 177, 178, 184 Catullus 119, 170 chastity 50, 83, 89 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 36, 103, 117, 121, 123–4, 174, 178–9 city anti-urbs rhetoric 109, 113–14 dystopian projections 4, 84 town planning 3–4 as utopia 3–6 see also Rome civil war 48 civilization 20, 24, 27, 29, 171 coinage 11–12, 13 communism 1, 2 cooks 104, 132, 133, 134 Corsica 26, 27 Crassus Lucius Licinius 121, 122, 125 Marcus Licinius 98, 158 criminality 2, 21, 55, 73–4, 111 cultural taboos 47 Cumae 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 Curtius, Quintus 130 Daphne 50, 52, 62, 74, 75 decay 130, 131, 142, 143, 144, 145
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uTOPIA ANTIQuA decline narratives 31–92, 130, 134 agriculture and 33, 35–6, 38, 44, 90 cultural specificity 32 double-edged rhetoric 82 Greco-Roman tradition 33 Hesiodic 39, 76, 77 human–divine separation 34, 40, 41–2 metaphors of decline 58–63, 120, 130–88 Ovidian 39–40, 41–3, 45–8, 49, 50–6, 59–60, 71, 77, 90 perceived origins of decline 86, 98, 120, 127–8, 129 psychoanalytic theory 32 satire and 144–5 self-reproach, narrative of 41 and social inversion 133–4 desire, locations of 14 Deucalion and flood 39 Diana 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 58, 73, 75 Domus Aurea, Rome 4, 12, 13, 127
Germanicus 36, 107 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 6 gods conceptions of divinity 33 criminality 73–4, 91 divine–human integration 9–10, 20, 41 immunity from punishment 74–5 separation from the 34, 40, 41–2, 47–8, 49 treachery 45–6 see also Diana; Jupiter gold and silver imagery 46–7, 146, 148 Golden Age/Race 1, 2–3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 33, 34, 49, 50, 130 and agriculture 83–7, 89–92 Augustan revisionism 20, 21, 22, 66–8, 69, 87 Hesiodic account 3, 32, 36, 38, 43, 169 Ovidian account 38, 50, 53, 54, 55, 61, 69, 79 Roman 12–14, 38 Saturnian 20, 50, 55, 68, 69, 83, 87, 92, 165, 166 soft primitivism 20, 78, 87 Virgilian account 166, 167, 168 see also decline narratives; fecundity; landscapes Greeks 29, 111
East and effeminacy 122 and luxuria 8–9, 89, 97, 101, 120–1, 122 utopian location 8–9 xenophobic attitudes towards 20, 102, 120, 128, 129 Ebusus 28 Eden, expulsion from 31, 33 Elysium 15, 59 Ennius 20 environmental determinism 24–30 epic poetry 154 Epicurus 164 epigram 136 Eratosthenes 10 Etruscans 28, 111, 112 Euhemerus 9, 10 Evander 69, 91, 92, 165, 167
Hadrian 11, 12, 13, 14 Hannibal 115, 156 Herodotus 11, 14, 15, 103, 109, 181 Heroes, Race of 34, 40, 43, 76, 147, 149 Hesiod 2, 7, 16, 32, 33, 34–5, 38, 39, 43, 60, 76, 77, 147, 149, 181 Homer 147, 182 Iliad 59, 147, 183 Odyssey 9–10 Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 40–1 Horace Carmen Saeculare 21, 162, Epistles 23, 101, 110, 114 Odes 20, 86–7, 88–9, 102, 137, 140 Sermones 137–40, 141–2, 143–4 horse 132, 133, 135, 175 hunting 44–5, 49–50, 53, 79–80 Huxley, Aldous 14 Hyperboreans 7, 14–15
fecundity 9, 17–18, 20, 21, 50 contained profusion model 22 hyperfertility 18, 23 spontaneous abundance 17–18, 24, 50 female treachery 20, 81–2, 175 Fenni 150–4 fire 57, 61–2 flood narrative 39, 43, 55, 72, 76 Florus 158–63 food and gluttony 116, 126, 132, 133, 134 Fortunate Isles 15, 18, 20 Freud, Sigmund 32 Furor 68 Gaia 43 Gallus, Aelius 9 Gauls (Celts) 156, 157 Gellius, Aulus 131, 132, 134, 135 German races 80, 148–9, 150–4, 156, 157–8
impiety 47–8, 55, 58, 65, 73, 75 incest 47, 73, 75 India 18 industrialization 32–3 iron 62–3, 146, 150 and fire 62 and Roman narratives 63–71 rust metaphor 145, 146 Iron Race 10, 33, 34, 35, 41, 42, 43, 58, 77, 78, 85, 146–7 annihilation 44, 53, 65
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I N dex blood motif 66 impiety 47–8, 58, 65, 73 Islands of the Blessed 7, 15, 16 Juba 17 Jupiter 41–2, 47–8, 50, 51, 55–6, 59, 61, 63–5, 68, 69, 70, 71–2, 73, 90, 91 Iovis ira 56–8 justice/injustice 35, 54–5, 55, 73 Juvenal 4, 81–2, 83, 84, 89, 103, 107, 109– 13, 114, 115, 116, 126, 139, 140–1, 154, 163–4, 178 Kronos 20, 43, 83 landscapes dystopian 26–7 environmental determinism 24–30 garden landscapes 22–4 interference with 101–2, 106, 107, 108, 109, 113, 115 interiorization 23 Ovidian 53–4 paradisal 3, 8, 18, 20, 21, 49, 52, 53 pollution 51–2 sexualized 50, 51, 54 subversion of the pastoral 51–3, 54 Lawrence, D. H. 32 literature, utopian 6–7, 14 Livy 17, 133, 134, 176–7 love, illicit 62 Lucian 15, 18, 31 Lucilius 138, 139, 141, 142 Lucretius 79, 80, 81, 163–4, 185 Lucullus, Lucius Licinius 93, 94, 96–108, 116, 121 Lucullan marble 94, 95, 96, 105, 108, 118, 121, 123 luxuria 85, 116–18, 130 condemnation of 120–1, 124, 126 Eastern associations 8–9, 89, 97, 101, 120–1, 122 Lucullus and 100, 116–18 ontology of 125 Lycaon 47, 53, 55, 56, 73, 90 Manilius 18 marble 93–4, 95, 96, 105, 108, 114, 115, 118, 119, 119–20, 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128 Martial 12, 116, 136–7, 144–5 masculinity, crisis in 89, 178 Matius, Gaius 23 Maximus, Valerius 173 Mela, Pomponius 17, 18 Menander 118–19 messianic narratives 6 metallic races see Bronze, Gold, Iron, Silver metamorphosis 49, 50, 52, 53, 57, 58, 72–3
see also Ovid Metellus, Lucius 124 Mithridatic War 97, 98, 117 moderation 26, 101 myth of the ages/races 3, 34–6, 39, 60, 70, 76, 130, 159 Hesiodic account 3, 7, 32, 33, 34–5, 36, 38, 40, 43, 45, 60, 76, 146, 147, 149, 169 Ovidian account 3, 32, 36, 38, 39–40, 43, 44, 45–8, 55, 70, 76, 77, 169 see also decline narratives; metallic races naming, politics of 93, 94, 95–6, 103, 121, 125 Nero 4, 12, 85, 105, 108, 127, 145, 168 noble savage 78 nomadism 79, 80, 88, 89 nostalgia, Golden Age 1, 83, 109, 143 Numa Pompilius 13, 63, 169 Octavia 33 ostentation 93, 99, 104–8, 117, 118, 121, 130, 132, 146 Ovid Ars Amatoria 66, 149–50 Fasti 136 Metamorphoses 33, 35–7, 38, 39, 40, 41–2, 43, 44, 45–8, 49, 50–6, 57, 57–8, 59–60, 61, 62, 63, 64–5, 66, 69, 70–1, 72, 73, 76, 77, 90, 91, 122, 166 Tristia 136 Panchaia 7, 9, 10, 14, 18 peace 66, 69, 155, 161–2, 180 legalistic roots 162 and lethargy/decay 156, 158 paradox of 162, 169–70 pax Augusta 21–2, 66, 162 pax romana 29, 165, 170 and primitivism 163–9 Persius 138, 139, 142 Petronius 128 Philostratus 11 phoenix myth 10–12, 13–14, 18 Plato 14, 130 Plautius, Quintus 10 Plautus 9 Pliny the Elder 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 84–5, 85, 86, 93–4, 96, 97, 102, 104, 105, 108, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120–1, 122, 123, 124–6, 127, 133, 154, 174, 178, 186 Plutarch 15, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 116, 117, 118 Pompey 9, 48, 96, 117, 118, 122 post-flood narratives 47, 49, 80 pre-agricultural society 38, 87–9 see also primitivism
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uTOPIA ANTIQuA primitivism 1, 26–8, 55, 78, 80, 81, 89, 151, 154, 185 hard 35, 79, 80, 81, 151–2, 153, 153–4, 167 peace and 163–9 soft 20, 32, 35, 36, 78, 83, 87, 153 Punic Wars 158, 160, 173 Quinctius, Titus 173–4 Quintilian 123, 145–6, 147, 154, 155 Rome architectural projects 4–5, 12, 13, 94–5, 108, 122–5, 129, 163 civil war 48 decline of 5–6, 41, 48, 111–12, 130 dystopian account 4, 29–30, 111–12, 113 Romulus 41, 46, 84, 86, 87, 114 rural idealization 32, 35–6, 87, 137 rust, as metaphor of decline 130, 131–2, 135–6, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 154, 155–6, 170, 171, 179, 186–7 Sabines 175 Sallust 5–6, 27, 177 Sardinia 26 satire 114, 136–45 see also Juvenal Saturnian Age 20, 50, 55, 68, 69, 83, 87, 92, 165, 166 Scaurus 9, 105, 119, 121, 122–3, 124, 125, 126, 158 Scrofa 104 Scythians 153 Seneca the Elder 58, 100 Seneca the Younger 55, 105, 107, 120, 126–8, 129, 134, 135, 152 senescence 58–60 Serranus, Atilius 174 Sertorius 15–16 Servius 126, 186 sexual depravity 87, 111, 121, 130 sexuality female, representations of 32 social control of 22 Sibylline prophecies 18, 168 Siculus, Diodorus 9 Silius 56, 156 Silver Race 6, 34, 36, 64, 76, 77–8, 89, 90, 146 slavery 27, 88, 163 Statius 71–5, 136 status constructions 133 social inversion 117, 133–4 Stoic cyclical scheme 159 Strabo 10, 18, 20, 24, 26–9, 30, 156–7 Suetonius 5, 105–6 Sulla 15, 99–101
Tacitus Agricola 156, 157, 163 Annals 94 Germania 80, 81, 147–9, 150, 152, 153, 154, 158 Histories 177 Tatius, Achilles 11 Thrasyllus 107 Tibullus 87–8, 179–80 totalitarianism 1 Trajan 12, 13, 145, 160, 161, 163 Trajan’s Column 109, 115 Trajan’s Forum 5, 108, 163 Trojan Wars 62, 147 utopia ambivalence 17–19 city as 3–6 definitions 1, 2 displacement/otherness 10 divine–human integration 9–10, 20, 164 double perspective of the utopian writer 37–8, 48 future projections 6–7 islands as 14, 15–17, 18 locating 7, 8–14, 18–20 marginality 8, 152 paradisal 3, 8, 18, 20, 21, 37, 53 remoteness 14–17 static entity 6–7, 80 utopia–dystopia relation 2, 3, 32, 55, 76, 114 Utopia (Thomas More) 1, 6, 7, 14 Varro 83–4, 97, 104, 186 Varro Atacinus 142 vegetarianism 153 Velleius 101, 105 veneer 104, 119–20, 129 Virgil 56, 65, 66 Aeneid 63, 66, 67–8, 69, 70, 91, 113–14, 162, 164–5, 166, 172, 174, 184 Eclogues 18, 19, 22, 53, 167–8, 170 Georgics 9, 18, 89–90, 153, 175, 180–2, 183–4, 185, 188 virginity 50 Vitruvius 24–6 wall painting 22, 24 warfare 89, 93, 146 and decline narratives 45, 46–7 Iron Age 143 militarism and agriculture 38, 171–4, 175, 176–8, 179–84 wheat rust 186–8 Xerxes 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 116, 121
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