Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367371449, 9781032251349, 9780429352843, 0367371448

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of figures
Notes on contributors
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction: making and unmaking ancient Mediterranean memory
Political legacies
2 The generalship of Dionysius I and Dionysius II of Syracuse: memory unmade
3 The making and the unmaking of the memory of Gelon of Syracuse
4 Alexander in Jerusalem: constructing a ‘Jewish Life’ for Alexander the Great, Josephus AJ xi 302–343
5 The Forum of Augustus: reshaping collective memory about war and the state
6 An age of post-truth politics? Making and unmaking memory in Pliny’s Panegyricus
7 Monster or martyr? Contesting Nero’s memory in Rome
Religious identities
8 Misremembering Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus
9 Remembering dystopia: re-reading Chrysostom’s homily On the Holy Martyr Babylas through the lens of disgust
10 Martyrdom and the memorialisation of John Chrysostom: in Ps.-Martyrius’ Funerary Speech in Praise of John Chrysostom
11 The emperor’s floor and the naked wife: Chrysostom’s retelling of imperial history in In Philippenses hom. 16 and the fate of Fausta
Literary traditions
12 ‘Lest we forget’: inventions and their memory on the Greek tragic scene
13 Treacherous transmission: the case of Augustine’s Sermons 151–156
14 Cultural memory and classical education in late antique Gaul
15 ‘Some power unseen’: Gothic agency, god, and creation in John Mason Good’s Lucretius
16 ‘Fiery color and splendid concentration of passion’: the Classical recollections of Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides
Index

Citation preview

Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory

Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory explores the way in which ancient Greeks and Romans represented their past, and in turn how modern literature and scholarship has approached the reception and transmission of some aspects of ancient culture. The contributions, organised into three sections – Political Legacies, Religious Identities, and Literary Traditions – explore case studies in memory and reception of the past. Through studying the techniques and strategies of ancient historiography, biography, hagiography, and art, as well as their effectiveness, this volume demonstrates how humanity has inevitably conveyed memory and history with (sub)conscious biases and preconceived ideas. In the current age of alternative facts, fake news, and post-truth discourses, these chapters highlight that such phenomena are by no means a recent development. This book offers valuable scholarly perspectives to academics and scholars interested in memory, historiography, and representations of the past in the ancient world, as well as those working on literary traditions and reception studies more broadly. Martine De Marre is an associate professor of ancient history at the University of South Africa. Her research to date has focused on the social history of Roman North Africa, particularly on issues of power and empowerment during the Roman period up to the wars of Justinian. Rajiv K. Bhola was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University. He currently teaches in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. He specialises in the life and reign of the Emperor Constantine and the literature of Eusebius of Caesarea.

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Recent titles include: Ancient History from Below Subaltern Experiences and Actions in Context Edited by Cyril Courrier and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira Ideal Themes in the Greek and Roman Novel Jean Alvares Thornton Wilder, Classical Reception, and American Literature Stephen J. Rojcewicz, Jr. Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity Edited by Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet Future Thinking in Roman Culture New Approaches to History, Memory, and Cognition Edited by Maggie L. Popkin and Diana Y. Ng Aristotle and the Animals The Logos of Life Itself Claudia Zatta The Aeneid and the Modern World Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vergil’s Epic in the 20th and 21st Centuries Edited by J.R. O’Neill and Adam Rigoni The Province of Achaea in the 2nd Century CE The Past Present Edited by Anna Kouremenos Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory Edited by Martine De Marre and Rajiv K. Bhola For more information on this series, visit: www.routledge.com/RoutledgeMonographs-in-Classical-Studies/book-series/RMCS

Making and Unmaking Ancient Memory

Edited by Martine De Marre and Rajiv K. Bhola

First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Martine De Marre and Rajiv K. Bhola; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Martine De Marre and Rajiv K. Bhola to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised 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. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. 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 Names: De Marre, Martine Elizabeth Agnáes, editor. | Bhola, Rajiv, editor. Title: Making and unmaking ancient memory / edited by Martine De Marre and Rajiv Bhola. Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2022. | Series: Routledge monographs in classical studies | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Identifiers: LCCN 2021052554 (print) | LCCN 2021052555 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367371449 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032251349 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429352843 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Collective memory—Greece. | Collective memory—Rome. | Greece—Historiography. | Rome—Historiography. | Greece—In literature. | Rome—In literature. Classification: LCC DE8 (ebook) | LCC DE8 .M34 2022 (print) | DDC 938.007202 23/eng/20220—dc03 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052554 ISBN: 978-0-367-37144-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-25134-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-35284-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figures Notes on contributors Preface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction: making and unmaking ancient Mediterranean memory

viii ix xii xiv xv

1

GILLIAN CLARK

Political legacies 2 The generalship of Dionysius I and Dionysius II of Syracuse: memory unmade

9 11

R I C H A R D E VA N S

3 The making and the unmaking of the memory of Gelon of Syracuse

35

FRANCES POWNALL

4 Alexander in Jerusalem: constructing a ‘Jewish Life’ for Alexander the Great, Josephus AJ xi 302–343

48

ADRIAN TRONSON

5 The Forum of Augustus: reshaping collective memory about war and the state

73

TOM STEVENSON

6 An age of post-truth politics? Making and unmaking memory in Pliny’s Panegyricus M A RT I N S Z Ö K E

95

vi

Contents

7 Monster or martyr? Contesting Nero’s memory in Rome

114

E R I C VA R N E R

Religious identities 8 Misremembering Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus

147 149

H A RT M U T Z I C H E

9 Remembering dystopia: re-reading Chrysostom’s homily On the Holy Martyr Babylas through the lens of disgust

169

W E N D Y M AY E R

10 Martyrdom and the memorialisation of John Chrysostom: in Ps.-Martyrius’ Funerary Speech in Praise of John Chrysostom

182

CHRIS L. DE WET

11 The emperor’s floor and the naked wife: Chrysostom’s retelling of imperial history in In Philippenses hom. 16 and the fate of Fausta

196

K AT H E R I N PA PA D O P O U L O S

Literary traditions

221

12 ‘Lest we forget’: inventions and their memory on the Greek tragic scene

223

FRANCESCO LUPI

13 Treacherous transmission: the case of Augustine’s Sermons 151–156

241

H U B E RT U S R . D R O B N E R

14 Cultural memory and classical education in late antique Gaul

256

ALISON JOHN

15 ‘Some power unseen’: Gothic agency, god, and creation in John Mason Good’s Lucretius SEAN MORELAND

273

Contents 16 ‘Fiery color and splendid concentration of passion’: the Classical recollections of Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides

vii 297

SUZANNE SHARLAND

Index

317

Figures

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

The Forum Augustum in Rome Ruins of the Forum Augustum, Rome Plan of the Forum Augustum Plan of the Imperial Fora Artist’s impression of the Forum Augustum A Roman coin showing military standards in the Temple of Mars Ultor 5.7 The Augustus from Prima Porta, with breastplate showing the return of military standards to Rome 7.1 Countermarked dupondius of Nero, from Lyon, c. 64–68, American Numismatic Society, 1953.171.1293 7.2 Nero/Vespasian, original c. 54–59, recut c. 69–79, Naples, Museo Archeolgico Nazionale, without inventory number 7.3 Nero/Titus, original c. 59–64, recut c. 69–81, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914 7.4 Nero/Titus, original c. 64–68, recut c. 69–81, Florence, Museo Archeologico, inv. 14546 7.5 Nero/Domitian, original c. 59–64, recut c. 81–96, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 6061 7.6 Nero, contorniate, American Numismatic Society, 1944.100.62207 7.7 Nero, Martyrdom of St. Paul, Antonio Filarete, c. 1440–1445, Rome, S. Pietro 7.8 Nero, Martyrdom of St. Peter, Antonio Filarete, c. 1440–1445, Rome 7.9 Nero, late sixteenth century, Giovanni Battista della Porta, Rome, Villa Borghese, inv. 149 7.10 Nero (Nero/Domitian), original c. 59–81, restored early seventeenth century, Rome, Museo Capitolino, inv. 427 7.11 Nero, seventeenth century, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 123 13.1 Codex Paris. Bibl. Nat. 13376 (9th cent.), fol. 58r, line 7: end of Sermon 151:3 [beginning of Sermon 349:4]

75 76 77 78 79 85 88 115 116 117 118 118 123 129 129 132 133 134 249

Contributors

Gillian Clark is Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol and editor of the monograph series Oxford Early Christian Texts. Her research has focused particularly on late antiquity, and her monographs include Monica: An Ordinary Saint (2015); Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity (2011); and Christianity and Roman Society (2004). She is currently engaged in writing a commentary on Augustine’s City of God. Chris L. de Wet is professor of New Testament and early Christian studies in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa. His research to date has focused on John Chrysostom, and he has co-edited two volumes with Wendy Mayer, in addition to his own monographs, The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought (2018) and Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity (2015). Hubertus R. Drobner is a German priest and professor at the Theologische Fakultät of the University of Paderborn, working in the field of patristics. He is the author of numerous monographs, most recently The Fathers of the Church: A Comprehensive Introduction (2016). Richard Evans has taught at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, and at Cardiff University. Most recently he has been a visiting researcher and research fellow in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa. He is the author of a number of monographs, of which the most recent are Fields of Death: Retracing Ancient Battlefields (2013); Fields of Battle: Retracing Ancient Battlefields (2015); and Ancient Syracuse: From Foundation to Fourth Century Collapse (2016). He is currently an academic associate at the University of South Africa. Alison John completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2018 and is presently a postdoctoral researcher at All Souls College (Oxford). She is currently researching Greek in the late antique West, which is also the theme of her most recent articles.

x

Contributors

Francesco Lupi has a temporary professorship at the University of Verona/Università degli Studi di Verona, where he researches Classical and early modern literary intersections such as Sophocles and Shakespeare and has published numerous articles and book chapters particularly on the fragments of the tragedians. He has also been the managing editor of Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies. Wendy Mayer is Associate Dean for Research at the Australian Lutheran College and works on early Christian preaching and on John Chrysostom. She serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals and series. In addition to her own numerous articles and book chapters, she has recently (2019) co-edited two monographs, one with Éric Fournier, Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and Para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity, and the other with Chris L. de Wet, Revisioning John Chrysostom: New Approaches, New Perspectives, Critical Approaches to Early Christianity 1. Sean Moreland is a part-time professor in the University of Ottawa’s Department of English. His research interrogates how Anglo-American literature from the late eighteenth century through to the present is shaped by and responds to a variety of affective and aesthetic theories, on which he has published a variety of articles and book chapters. He is on the editorial board of the journal The Edgar Allan Poe Review and is the associate reviews editor for the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. Katherin Papadopoulos is currently a doctoral candidate at the Australian Lutheran College (University of Divinity) working on the memory of Antioch. She has also presented work on earthquakes and their liturgical commemoration in the late ancient Near East. Frances Pownall is Professor of Classics at the University of Alberta. She has published widely on the historiography of the fourth-century Greece, the Hellenistic period, and of Sicily and the Greek west. Most recently she co-edited Ancient Macedonians in the Greek and Roman Sources: From History to Historiography with Tim Howe (2018) and a Festschrift Affective Relations and Personal Bonds in Hellenistic Antiquity: Studies in Honor of Elizabeth D. Carney with Monica D’Agostini and Edward M. Anson (2020). Suzanne Sharland was until the end of 2020 a senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her main research interest is in the works of Horace, but she has published articles and book chapters on a variety of other aspects of Classical literature and reception. Tom Stevenson is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland. His primary research interests are Roman politics and political ideology of the late Republic and early Empire, the careers of Cicero and Caesar, the first two centuries of emperor worship at Rome, on which he has published numerous articles. He is currently engaged in writing a book on the history and significance of the idea of the Roman emperor as

Contributors

xi

Pater Patriae. In November 2018, he was ‘Visiting Scholar’ to the University of South Africa on the occasion of the Making and Unmaking Memory Unisa Classics Colloquium. Martin Szöke was a doctoral candidate at St John’s College, Cambridge, at the time of submission, but has recently successfully defended his doctoral thesis. His PhD looks at the (mis)representation and politicisation of the past, particularly in Nervan and Trajanic sources. He has published articles and book reviews on the utilisation of the past to serve the present within the context of Roman imperial history. Adrian Tronson is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of New Brunswick. His research interests are primarily in ancient Greek history, but he has also published numerous articles and book chapters on aspects of Roman history. His current research interests revolve around public discourse in literary and epigraphic sources, and how words and concepts are used to influence public thinking. Eric Varner is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Emory University. His area of specialisation is Roman imperial portraiture and damnatio memoriae, particularly during the Julio-Claudian period, and he has published numerous articles as well as two monographs in this area: Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture (2004) and From Caligula to Constantine: Tyranny and Transformation in Roman Portraiture (2000). He is currently working on Grotesque Aesthetics. Transgression and Transcendence in the Age of Nero. In November 2018, he was sponsored by the University of South Africa as a visiting scholar for the Nineteenth Unisa Classics Colloquium hosted by the University. Hartmut Ziche is an assistant lecturer in ancient and medieval history at the University of French Guiana/Université de Guyane. His work centres on the socioeconomic history of late antiquity, and he has published numerous articles and book chapters applying models and ideal-types to the history of this period.

Preface

Most of us are aware that our past – even the very recent past – is not simply made up of fixed, objective occurrences. You may for example have attended an event yesterday and remember it quite differently from someone who stood beside you at the time. When it comes to the ancient past, we know that it is transmitted to us via subjective representations of perceived realities. Memory and history are inevitably conveyed to us by human beings with subconscious biases and preconceived ideas. Transmissions of the past can also consciously have been reconfigured in the light of utopian (or even dystopian) ideals, and such strategic manipulations of the past can be deliberately aimed at visions of the present and future. Studying the techniques and strategies (and their effectiveness) in ancient historiography, biography, hagiography, and art is very relevant to today’s world in the current age of alternative facts, fake news, and post-truth discourses, although these phenomena are by no means a recent development. The unmaking and reconstitution of memory can be discreet, but more often occurs through destructive means, whether discursive or physical violence. A discussion of the manipulation of texts and the written word occupy most of the chapters in this volume, but attempts to unmake and remake memory were also applied to physical objects and surroundings which could be defaced or changed by people who wanted to erase, or not have to face, aspects of their history. The chapters offered here explore a wide variety of aspects relating to the building, dismantling, and reconstructing of remembrance and reputation across the various cultures bordering on the ancient Mediterranean. The topics span a millennium of human history; not only from 500 BCE to 500 CE, but also included are three contributions on later transmissions and receptions of aspects of the ancient world, seeking to show how the distant past continues to inform and qualify intellectual production in the modern age, and the purpose of evoking memory though the reception of an ancient text or material culture. Such a chronologically wide timeframe, exploring ancient texts and/or ancient material culture related to the stated theme, highlights the commonalities and differences between the disciplines of Classics, early Christian studies, late antiquity, and Byzantine studies. Consequently, it also shows the opportunities for fruitful collaboration amongst these areas of study, which often operate independently of one another.

Preface xiii This collaborative aspect was amply demonstrated at a conference held in Pretoria on 7–10 November 2018, namely the 19th Classics Colloquium in collaboration with the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future’, at which the majority of the chapters in this volume originated as papers delivered there. Martine De Marre Pretoria, April 2021

Acknowledgments

We would firstly like to thank all the contributors to this volume, who patiently overcame all the restrictions and difficulties of the Covid-19 pandemic in the last year and a half of compiling this volume. Secondly, our thanks to the numerous reviewers of the papers which in due course became the chapters of this volume. This is often a demanding but unacknowledged task, and it is essential to the process of ensuring a high standard of scholarship. We take this opportunity to thank all of you for the hard work that went into this process. We also would like to express our thanks to the University of South Africa and its College of Human Sciences for providing funding to invite the keynote speakers to the 19th Unisa Classics Colloquium held in Pretoria in November 2018. The Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future’ collaborated with us in this conference, and we are particularly grateful to Chris L. de Wet for his help with the organisation. Finally, our thanks to Elizabeth Risch, Amy Davis-Poynter, and colleagues at Routledge (Taylor & Francis) for their assistance and advice during the preparation of this volume.

Abbreviations

ANRW BMCRE CCL CHSB CIL CSEL EGEF FGrH GCS IIt ILS LCL MGH AA OCT PG PL PLRE PTS RIC SC

Haase, W., & Temporini, H. (eds.). 1972–. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Berlin: De Gruyter. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, 6 vols., edited by H. Mattingly and R.A.G. Carson (London, 1923–1963). Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout, 1954–). Series: Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, consilio et auctoritate Academiae litterarum regiae Borussicae editum. 16 + vols. (Berlin, 1863–). Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866–). Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic, edited and translated by C. Tsagalis (Berlin/Boston, 2017). Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, edited by F. Jacoby (Leiden: Brill, 1923–). Series: Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Inscriptiones Italiae, edited by A. Degrassi (Rome, 1937). Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols., edited by H. Dessau (Berlin, 1892–1916). Series: Loeb Classical Library. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi, 15 vols. (1877–1919; repr. 1961). Series: Oxford Classical Texts. Patrologia Graeca, edited by J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1857–1866). Patrologia Latina, edited by J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1845). Jones, A.H.M., Martindale, J.R., & Morris, J. 1971–1992. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Series: Patristische Texte und Studien. The Roman Imperial Coinage (1923–1967), edited by H. Mattingly, E.A. Sydenham, et al.; rev. edn. of vol. 1 only, C.H.V. Sutherland and R.A.G. Carson (1984). Series: Sources Chrétiennes.

xvi Abbreviations TrGF TTH

Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 6 vols., edited by B. Snell, R. Kannicht, S. Radt (1971–2004). Series: Translated Texts for Historians.

Ancient authors and works abbreviated according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary and Lampe’s Patristic Lexicon, and journal abbreviations follow L’Année philologique.

1

Introduction Making and unmaking ancient Mediterranean memory Gillian Clark

Commemorative statues make headlines when they fall. Before that happens, they may stand for years without attracting notice: they were there as part of history, but became part of the scenery as memories were gradually unmade. Many people knew little or nothing about the events these statues commemorate; others forgot, or were only vaguely aware, because it all happened a long time ago. But memories can be remade. One set of people, in one time and place, wanted a statue in order to honour and preserve a memory which was important to them. The memorial might be a conventional acknowledgement of someone who held office, but it might convey much more about world views and values. Perhaps the statue honours someone who was seen as a hero or a liberator or a benefactor; perhaps it commemorates an event which was seen as a glorious victory or a brave advance into unknown territory. In a different time and place, another set of people wanted those memories replaced by a new history, so that the statue became a symbol of the world view which was now rejected. Sometimes the impulse comes from the top: a new regime sets out to displace the old, and demonstrates its victory by overthrowing a statue which represents the former rulers. Sometimes the impulse comes from a wider change of perspective, in which the hero or liberator comes to be seen as an oppressor; the benefactor made money from exploitation; the glorious victory or brave advance was aggression fuelled by greed. Cicero, in his dialogue de re publica (3.24), made a speaker observe that when a Roman monument bears the inscription ‘he extended the frontiers of empire’, that could not happen unless something was taken from someone else. Historians contribute to changes of perspective, and their work is also influenced by such changes. Take, for example, the historical claim that the Roman empire fell because it was overwhelmed by barbarians; the sack of Rome in AD 410 was a symbolic moment, in which a war-band of Goths looted the age-old capital of the empire, and an ineffective emperor let it happen. The fall of the Roman empire has often been used as a warning against large-scale immigration and cultural change. But in the later twentieth century, immigration and cultural change were themselves factors in the questions raised by historians and archaeologists. They saw that a statistically small number of new arrivals can be experienced as overwhelming, especially when there is competition for resources and when traditions seem to be under threat. Did the Roman empire actually fall? DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-1

2

Gillian Clark

The eastern empire continued for centuries, and in the west Roman language and culture, law and administrative practice, adapted to new ruling groups. Greek and Roman authors presented barbarians – people who do not speak ‘our’ language – as savage and uncontrolled, so that Goths and Vandals and Huns became bywords for ignorant destruction. It is difficult to counter this, because Greek and Roman writings survive but Gothic and Vandalic and Hunnic writings do not, and material culture cannot easily be identified as belonging to one or another ethnic group. But there is evidence that barbarians served in the Roman army, and some achieved high political and military status. Alongside the evidence for conflict there is evidence for intermarriage and for peaceful coexistence, and some Greek and Roman authors depict Goths and Vandals and even Huns as effective rulers. As for the ‘sack of Rome’ in 410, it was a brief – though terrifying – episode in decades of negotiation and threat. There is no evidence of major destruction. When Jerome, in Bethlehem, heard the terrible news, he quoted Virgil and the Bible, comparing the sack of Rome to the fall of Troy to the Greeks and the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and declared that the world perished in a single city. But there has also been change in the status of Jerome as an authority. When statues fall, and memories are unmade, historians look for explanations. Why was the commemoration made? Was it motivated by fear, or by hope for favour, or by shared belief that this person or this event deserved to be remembered? If there was shared belief, what was its source, and what changed so that the belief was rejected? The task of historians is to research and assess the evidence, to understand why people thought and acted as they did, and how those thoughts and actions have been remembered or misremembered. Research takes place in a particular context, which influences what historians see or fail to see, what they count as evidence, and what they find interesting and important. Others who encounter their work, especially their professional colleagues, will challenge their conclusions and help them to be aware of what they have taken for granted. But it is not only historians who make and unmake memory. Architects and sculptors, poets and philosophers and preachers also shape recollection and understanding. This volume on making and unmaking ancient Mediterranean memory offers a wide range of examples. There are chapters chiefly concerned with historical writing, some of it near in time to the subject matter and some much later, some of it closer to invention than to investigation (compare presentday ‘docudrama’ and ‘fact-based fiction’). Other chapters discuss the survival or adaptation or destruction of material culture: sculpture, architecture, coins, even gemstones, which were intended to commemorate. Still others reflect on reinterpretation of legends and literature. The time range begins in the fifth century BCE, with the making and unmaking of reputations. ‘Tyrant’ has come to mean an oppressive ruler who has seized or monopolised power, but in archaic Greece a turannos could be a monarch, legitimated by descent, who was effective rather than oppressive. Richard Evans observes that Thucydides, in his rapid survey of early Greek history, was not impressed: he said (1.17–18) that the turannoi of the Greek mainland were preoccupied with the security and advantage of themselves and their families, so they

Introduction 3 achieved nothing great and were eventually put down by Sparta. He excepted Sicily, whose tyrants achieved great power. Evans asks why Dionysius I and Dionysius II, tyrants of Syracuse in the late fifth and early fourth centuries, were not remembered among notable military leaders, even though the later narrative of Diodorus Siculus provides evidence of their success. He argues that this unmaking of memory depends on the assumptions and interests of the authors who are our sources. Some historians were themselves enmeshed in politics, or perhaps were unduly influenced by Thucydides’ dismissal of tyrants; Cicero and Plutarch were interested in the moral condition of tyrants and in the stories which linked Plato to the tyrants of Sicily. Frances Pownall, in contrast, sees conscious manipulation at work in memories of Gelon and Hieron, who were tyrants of Syracuse earlier in the fifth century. She argues that their naval victories against the Carthaginians and Etruscans were exalted or diminished as later rulers saw fit. Gelon, who made Syracuse the centre of a wealthy empire, duly commemorated his defeat of the Carthaginians in the naval battle of Himera. His brother and successor Hieron presented this victory as part of the panhellenic struggle against barbarians, in the year when the Persians were defeated at Salamis and Plataea. Hieron linked Himera with his own naval defeat of the Etruscans, allies of the Carthaginians, and commemorated these victories with dedications at Delphi and an ode commissioned from Pindar. Diodorus Siculus once again transmits memories of heroism, but, Pownall suggests, they were undermined by the historian Philistus, who supported the claim of Dionysius I to have achieved far greater victories. From the tyrants of Sicily to two of the most famous Mediterranean rulers: Alexander and Augustus. Adrian Tronson observes that the great Alexander has often been co-opted as a link with a marginal society which he encountered on his wide-ranging (and sometimes imaginary) travels. Is that what happened when Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, described a visit of Alexander to Jerusalem in 332 BCE? After the destruction of the Temple, Josephus, writing in Greek and living in Rome, wanted to communicate Jewish history and tradition, drawing especially on Greek translations of Hebrew scripture and on scholarly debate about interpretation. Alexander’s campaign of 332/1 BCE, from Tyre through Syria to Egypt, was a plausible context for a meeting in Jerusalem with Jewish leaders. Greek and Roman histories do not mention it: that silence may demonstrate that for them, Jews were indeed marginal, or it may show that Josephus invented or at best improved a memory which was irresistible to Jewish and Christian tradition. There are problems in his account, notably the connection he makes with a dispute between Jews and Samaritans which happened some 80 years earlier. But Tronson argues that Alexander did indeed visit Jerusalem, and Josephus and others developed their narratives of Alexander in accordance with their own purposes. Augustus tried to present his exceptional power as a continuation of the history of Rome. To his subjects in the eastern Mediterranean it was immediately obvious that he was a king, but his Res Gestae, a Roman monument carved in stone, claimed that he had rescued Rome from the domination of a faction and thereafter held office in accordance with Republican tradition. Tom Stevenson considers the Forum Augustum, an immense architectural project which connected the

4

Gillian Clark

Julian family and its divine ancestors with the history of the republic and which presented Augustus as father of the family and of Rome. Stevenson’s analysis of design and imagery shows how differently the Forum might be experienced by people who visited it. Court hearings took place there, and the temple of Mars the Avenger was the location for many ceremonies, especially those connected with war. People could watch events and meet friends, perhaps without taking much notice of honorific statues in the splendid colonnades which provided shade or shelter. The Forum reinforced the Augustan message of fatherhood and family, victory and peace: but how far did it influence the collective memory of a people who had lived through civil war? Next come two official acts of unmaking memory. Nero, fifth and last of the Julio-Claudian emperors, and Domitian, third and last of the Flavians, were both subject to official condemnation. Damnatio memoriae may overthrow statues and erase names from inscriptions, but it does not erase memory. Martin Szöke discusses how the younger Pliny sought to rewrite his personal history. Four years after Domitian was assassinated, Pliny gave a public speech of thanks to the emperor Trajan, in which he acknowledged that his own career was advanced by Domitian, but claimed to have distanced himself before Domitian’s reign descended into tyranny. But Pliny’s letters, and an inscription at his home town, show that he continued to hold office. Perhaps he kept a low profile, but how could he misrepresent the facts in front of people who were likely to know them? Szöke suggests that Pliny’s remaking of his career could not easily be challenged by others who were also implicated in Domitian’s reign and who also wished to remake memory. There is also the question of what needs to be said in a public speech. Three centuries later, Augustine, bishop of Hippo, remembered (Confessions 6.6.9) his time as public orator for the imperial court: ‘I was preparing to declaim praises to the emperor. In them I would tell many lies, and those who knew would approve of me as I told them.’ Eric Varner demonstrates the long-lasting complexity of Nero’s reputation. Some damage to coins and images, including a gemstone portrait, suggests powerful hatred; but more often Nero’s image – especially his hair – was reworked for his successors. Written texts represent Nero as a monster of self-indulgence and cruelty, and Christians, in particular, remembered him as the first imperial persecutor or even as the Antichrist who would some day return. (Varner notes a more positive Syrian tradition, perhaps owed to Nero’s dealings with Armenia and Parthia.) But visual memory was different. The brilliant architecture of the Baths of Nero, and the gilded Colossus of Nero, continued to bear his name; even in the late fourth century, commemorative medallions linked his image to the Circus Maximus where they were distributed. Varner shows how medieval legend continued both to present Nero the bad emperor and to link his name with sites in the city of Rome; how representation changed with antiquarian research in the early renaissance; and how Nero the tyrant and persecutor continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the first century, we fast-forward to the early fourth century to examine another complex figure: Constantine I. Inasmuch as this emperor took charge of

Introduction 5 his own portrayal during his reign, his true legacy laid in the hands of those who sought to use the memory of him to serve their own ideological agendas. Here, Hartmut Ziche takes us through the conflicting depictions of Constantine by the contemporary apologist Eusebius of Caesarea, to whom we owe much of what we know about the emperor’s life, rule, and motivations; and the historiographer Zosimus, writing in the early sixth century well after the collective memory of the first Christian emperor had been established. As Ziche prudently reminds us, history and memory are not synonymous. Where these authors differ is in the significance of historical facts and in the rhetorical images they construct from them. For Eusebius, Constantine was an innovator but nevertheless a traditional Roman ruler, fusing ‘Christian’ and ‘Roman’ identities into an ideal ruler-type. On the other hand, Zosimus advances an interpretation that challenges the compatibility of ‘Christian’ and ‘Roman’ identities in the assessment of an emperor’s suitability to rule. John Chrysostom, the focus of the next three chapters, takes us to a major transformation of memory. In the times of Nero and Domitian, Christians were a small and suspect group. By the late fourth century, when John Chrysostom was bishop of Antioch and then of Constantinople, Christians had experienced decades of imperial support from Constantine and his successors, except when the emperor Julian, in what proved to be a brief reign, made explicit his return to traditional religion. Christian writings dominate the textual record of late antiquity, because Christians had the motivation and the resources to copy and transmit treatises and letters and sermons and records of church councils. Judaeo-Christian scripture offered a new history, the history of God’s dealings with humanity; Christians who had died rather than renounce their faith offered new models of heroism. Wendy Mayer shows how martyrs exemplify conflicts of memory and interpretation. Christians built memorial shrines for martyrs, celebrated the days of their deaths, and narrated the details of their sufferings. Some non-Christians, like Julian, reacted with disgust. Julian believed, with many others, that the immortal and incorporeal divine power which governs the universe has no connection with mortality and decay. Dead bodies are pollution, especially when they died by violence, so the corpse of the martyr Babylas contaminated the oracle at Daphne through which the god spoke to mortals. John Chrysostom counter-argued that corpses do not pollute: it was Julian who polluted, because the fumes of his blood sacrifices attracted demons, and because he violated the law against grave robbing when he relocated the martyr. The new shrine of Babylas was a remedy for the famine and desolation caused by Julian. Chris L. de Wet discusses the commemoration of John himself as a martyr, in a speech which was made before it was certain that the stress of his exile from Constantinople had caused his death. In it John becomes a hero: his care for the poor and sick, and his non-violent stand against barbarians and heretics, counter memories of violence and discord. John and the places with which he is associated now form part of the heritage of Constantinople. Katherin Papadopoulos shows how John, in one of his many homilies, exploited memories of disasters which had afflicted the imperial household. There is no consensus about his accuracy, or about his source or sources, which

6

Gillian Clark

could even be Latin; cultured Greeks were not expected to know Latin in the same way that cultured Latin speakers were expected to know Greek, but as Papadopoulos notes, a passage of the memorial speech for John shows him dealing in fluent Latin with a barbarian who speaks it badly. For this volume, the important question is John’s framing of history and his techniques for engaging his audience with memories which come close to myth. The theme of myth continues in Francesco Lupi’s chapter on ‘first inventors’ as they are presented in Athenian tragedy of the late fifth century BCE. That was almost a millennium before John Chrysostom, but in John’s time these tragedies were not forgotten: they were classic works and core texts of Greek education. Lupi asks whether ‘first inventors’ are examples of shared collective memory; how distant are such memories, in relation to the time in which the action of the drama takes place and to the time in which it is watched or read; and how memories are recorded and ordered to become history. The inventions ascribed to Palamedes include letters as a ‘remedy for forgetfulness’; inventions are listed as catalogues, so that they are easier to remember. Hubertus R. Drobner offers the important reminder that writing and catalogues are not secure against chance: memory is made or unmade by the survival of records. His example is Augustine, who as bishop of Hippo was expected to preach every Sunday, and sometimes more often. He was a bishop for more than 30 years: of all those sermons, some 400, survive. Augustine rarely had time to prepare sermons in advance, so their survival depended on someone wanting a shorthand record which could be transcribed in a fair copy. He made a catalogue of his writings, but did not have time for an authoritative list of his letters and sermons. Over the centuries further copies of available sermons were made, for different people and in different contexts. Drobner uses Sermons 151–156, which appear to be a group, to show the uncertainties of reconstruction from internal references and from the transmission of sermons in different manuscripts. This small case study has wide implications for chronology and for the narratives that depend on it. Alison John, in contrast, considers the conscious preservation of memory through education. In late Roman Gaul, as Roman imperial power gave way to the Visigoths, boys who were expected to hold local or imperial office continued to be trained in the correct use of language (grammar) and the techniques of public speaking (rhetoric), through a curriculum based on the Latin classics. John argues that in the fourth century, this formation was important for career prospects. In the fifth, its practical value was less, but cultural memory of Rome and its history was important for the sense of identity and the friendship links of elite Gallo-Romans. The last two chapters are essays on reception, showing how literature and myth, though not forgotten, are reinterpreted in new historical and social contexts. Sean Moreland explores translations of Lucretius in relation to English political and religious debates. Lucy Hutchinson, in the mid-seventeenth century, rejected Lucretius’ atomism as atheistic, but had sympathy for his critique of pagan religion and of court politics; she translated his use of religio as ‘superstition’. Thomas Creech, some decades later, translated it as ‘religion’, wishing to show how enthusiasm for Lucretius was a threat to (Christian) religion and

Introduction 7 to monarchy. John Mason Good, at the start of the nineteenth century, returned to ‘superstition’, which he depicted as a gothic spectre; he also, exceptionally, interpreted Lucretius’ ‘hidden force’ as an intimation of God the Creator. Suzanne Sharland shows how Oscar Wilde (a very well-trained classicist) reacted against the nineteenth-century reconstruction of classical culture as serenely rational. Charmides, which Wilde apparently regarded as his best poem, is one of several in which classical memories demonstrate passion and irrationality; among many sources, Catullus 63, the poem on Attis, is especially influential. At one extreme, in this range of material, there is the activity of political leaders who want to establish their preferred version of events. At the other extreme is the unplanned disappearance or survival of documents and objects. Reinterpretation and rediscovery, changing perspectives and priorities, all contribute to making and unmaking memory. Historians have the task of assessment and reporting. Herodotus engaged in historiê, investigation, and set out his results so that human actions, some of them great and remarkable, should not fade from memory. Later historians followed him in saying why their subject matter was important, in its scale or because of its implications. But there are many views on what is worth remembering: war and politics and the expansion of empire, the actions and characters of great men, the experience of ordinary people, slow shifts of thought about wealth and status and gender changed understanding of the gods or of the human mind. Some historians ask instead what has been remembered and why; they are interested in social or collective memory, in ‘mnemohistory’. Collective memory can be very powerful, but it can sometimes be shown to be wrong, and it is limited by what matters to a particular group of people. It has been all too evident, while this volume was in preparation, that there are governments which seek to ensure that only their version of history is remembered, and there are people whose contributions to social media demonstrate how memories may be distorted and confused. This volume helps to show why historians will always need to reassess evidence and interpretation, and why memories will always need to be remade.

Political legacies

2

The generalship of Dionysius I and Dionysius II of Syracuse Memory unmade Richard Evans

Introduction Why is the generalship of the two tyrants of Syracuse who ruled between 406/5 and 344 BC not better celebrated in Antiquity, or in modern scholarship, when so much information about their time as rulers was written and of which a decent representation has survived?1 Neither Dionysius I nor Dionysius II would automatically find a place in a list of ‘successful generals’ of the Ancient World. On the other hand, the Athenian Themistocles; the Theban Epaminondas; the Macedonians Philip II and Alexander the Great; and the Romans Scipio Africanus, Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar, Trajan, and Belisarius would undoubtedly be present.2 Like other sole rulers, tyrants might have their strengths and weaknesses; some, such as Peisistratus of Athens, Polycrates of Samos, and Gelon of Syracuse, are remembered as highly successful generals, while others, such as Hippias of Athens and Thrasybulus of Syracuse, were not. It cannot be simply a case of once the tyranny of Dionysius, father and son, was over these rulers were forgotten. Both appear regularly in the literature of the Classical period (Philistus, Ephorus), the Hellenistic period (Timaeus), the Late Roman Republic (Diodorus and Cicero) down to the Second Sophistic (Plutarch). A record of the successes and failures in the military sphere of both Dionysius I and II emerge easily from a reading of Diodorus’ extensive coverage in his history, Books 13–16, but it is rather the views of the tyrants found in remarks of Plato, Cicero, and Plutarch which have dominated opinion. Thus Cicero, who had ample opportunity in his discussion of Dionysius I (Tusc. Disp. 5.57–64) to mention the generalship of his subject, has nothing to say on this subject. While Cicero takes note of the wealth of Syracuse, the number of troops at the tyrant’s disposal, and Dionysius’ many resources and luxurious possessions, he rather focuses on the way in which the constant fear of death governed the tyrant’s every action. That he might have faced the continual prospect of death on the battlefield escapes Cicero’s attention entirely. Cicero begins his extended portrayal and assessment with the following:3 Duo de quadraginta annos tyrannus Syracusanorum fuit Dionysius, cum quinque et viginiti natus annos dominatum occupavisset. Qua pulcritudine urbem, quibus autem opibus praeditam servitute oppressam tenuit civitatem! DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-3

12

Richard Evans Atqui de hoc homine a bonis auctoribus sic scriptum accepimus, summam fuisse eius in victu temperantiam, in rebusque gerundis virum acrem et industrium, eundem tamen maleficum natura et iniustem; ex quo omnibus bene veritatem intuentibus videri neccesse est miserrimum. After he had gained supreme control at the age of twenty-five, Dionysius was the tyrant of the Syracusans for thirty-eight years. How he held in oppressive subjection that city, endowed with such great beauty, moreover a community so well provided for with resources. Still, regarding this man, we have it on the evidence of reliable writers that he was very modest in the way he lived, in pursuing public business robust and conscientious, nonetheless, the same man had a darker side to his character in that he was oppressive, and so to all those who contemplate on the full truth he seems to be a very wretched individual.

Dionysius I obtained sole power at a relatively young age. This achievement places him alongside other youthful and successful rulers, notably Philip II, Alexander the Great, and Augustus. Cicero’s accuracy in assigning 25 years of age to Dionysius in 406/5 is doubtful since the latter obtained the elective position of strategos in a Hellenic democracy. If the Syracusans followed the practice of communities such as Athens, then 30 years of age would have been the earliest that a citizen might hold this senior public office.4 In 408, Dionysius is identified as a supporter of Hermocrates, whom he joined in an attempted coup in Syracuse (Diod. 13.75.6–9).5 Dionysius is also said to have been a secretary by profession and hence from a humble background. The claim of an obscure background (Diod. 13.96.4; cf. Polyaen. 5.2.2) is often used in a narrative designed to create a negative image of a subject.6 It may well have been present in Timaeus’ history, which was Diodorus’ main source for this period. It may perhaps have been in the history of Theopompus. Both of these historians were hostile to tyrants such as Dionysius.7 On the other hand, the history of Philistus would have been much more positive, but probably rather more accurate in its detail because unlike the later Timaeus and Theopompus he was witness to many of the events he described.8 Dionysius’ marriage to a daughter of Hermocrates and an enduring friendship with Philistus suggest that the would-be tyrant had close ties with aristocratic Syracusans. Moreover, if Dionysius had been a low status scribe how would he have obtained a training in warfare and command? His first appearance and success in a citizen assembly (Diod. 13.91.3) shows that Dionysius had abundant rhetorical skills to manipulate the audience, and must even by then have been active in military affairs.9 He would not have been elected to the board of generals (strategoi) had his credentials for this position been spurious. It is also evident that Dionysius had a particular capacity for winning and maintaining popular support through strong personal interaction with fellow citizens (Diod. 13.94.1–4, 14.18.2–8). From his initial intervention in political life, in acquiring sole power, control of the demos, and loyalty of much of the army, the evidence of Cicero (Tusc. Disp. 5.57) for a confident and positive ruler appears substantiated even if other elements he presents are not.10

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

13

In Plutarch’s encomiastic study of Dion nothing is allowed to detract from his subject’s ‘goodness’ and so the younger Dionysius is portrayed as having spent his childhood and youth in impossibly degrading circumstances. Dion believed that this situation (see Dion, 8.1–5) had been caused by the tyrant’s (Dionysius II) lack of education, and so he tried to interest Dionysius in the liberal arts and to give him a taste of literature and science hoping to form his character, and deliver him from fear of virtue, and make him used to taking pleasure in high ideals. Dionysius did not belong by nature to the worst class of tyrants. He had suffered from his father’s fear that, if he acquired a judgement of his own and kept the company of men of good sense, he would plot against him and deprive him of his power. Consequently, he made sure to have him closely shut up at home. There deprived of company and in ignorance of public affairs, he had spent his time making little waggons and lamp-stands, wooden chairs and tables. (Dion. 9.1–2) as I have already mentioned, Dion recognised that the son’s character had been warped and stunted by a lack of education. (Dion. 10.1)11 This portrayal is a fiction because Dionysius was not a child nor even just a young man when he became ruler on the death of his father. He was born about 395,12 and hence close to 30 years of age when he became the tyrant of Syracuse.13 Dion was the younger brother of Aristomache, wife of Dionysius I, born about 408, and must surely have been brought up in the home of his brother-in-law. Dionysius II, meanwhile, had a brother, Hermocritus, and two half-brothers, Hipparinus and Nisaeus, Aristomache’s sons. The family was therefore considerable, and there is no hint in the sources that all led deprived childhoods. Besides these close relatives there were also the families of Dionysius I’s brothers, Leptines and Thearides. It is therefore simply not believable that the younger Dionysius could have been singled out for a different and isolated upbringing. He was heir to the tyranny but not automatically and only after he became an adult. Before that time Dion was probably regarded as much the successor to Dionysius I as any other member of this extensive family. Altogether, the numbers and composition of the family points more to stability and not the macabre found in Plutarch’s description.14 Once the notion that the younger Dionysius was subjected to an abnormal upbringing then the usual education and training of a member of an elite family also falls into its rightful place. Plato’s Seventh Letter appears to be the origin of the views expressed by Cicero and Plutarch. Thus, about Dionysius I (Ep. 7.332) the letter has: Although Dionysius united the whole of Sicily into a single state, he hardly managed to survive because he was too sly to trust anybody. He failed to have loyal and true friends, and a man’s possession or lack of these is the clearest indication of a good or bad temperament.15

14

Richard Evans

While on Dionysius II (Ep. 7.332–333): This is the advice Dion and I gave Dionysius since his father’s neglect had left him without education and suitable company. If he took the way we pointed out to him and made himself into an intelligent and disciplined person he might resettle the deserted cities of Sicily and bind them together with the political institutions that would ensure that they came to his aid and one another against the barbarian attacks. Thus he would possess an empire not merely double that of his father’s but actually many times greater. For if this happened he would be able to impose on Carthage a much heavier burden than they endured in the time of Gelon instead of continuing to pay tribute in the treaty made by his father. Dion’s attempt to make himself a partner in the whole of Dionysius’ life was made in the belief that he could educate him and mould him into a monarch worthy of his throne, but Dionysius preferred to side with Dion’s enemies. Although Dion is said to have been an astute diplomat he was outwitted by the heir apparent Dionysius when he tried to usurp the succession in 367 (Plut. Dion, 6.2–3). Even during his rebellion Dion’s limited bargaining powers are easily exposed when in his conflict with Dionysius II, following the death of his own son Hipparinus, he chose as his successor the tyrant’s elder son Apollocrates. The stasis of this time can, therefore, be exposed as a personal quarrel and not one based on ideological differences. However, as a result of the nature of the sources’ predilections, Dionysius’ character and education remains elusive for the time he was heir to the tyranny while the anecdotes recorded about his last exile may safely be dismissed as inventions except perhaps for an apparently perceptive comment by Plutarch in the Life of Timoleon (14.4) where he ponders whether or not the ex-ruler’s behaviour in Corinth masked truer feelings that he might regain his rule. This perhaps indicates that the writer or his source was fully aware of some real ability and agility in the character of the subject. It is also worth emphasising here that none of the sources mentioned so far are historical accounts, but have different messages and intentions. The Seventh Letter of Plato in particular is problematic and remains a subject of an ongoing debate about its authenticity, with opinion seemingly evenly divided. In the context of this discussion, its veracity seems doubtful because its portrayals of Dionysius I and Dionysius II contain factual errors that Plato is unlikely to have committed.16 Hence the material in the earliest extant chronological evidence probably owes a great deal to the later accounts of the Syracusan tyranny especially that of Timaeus rather than have been based on contemporary observation. Thus, although the evidence from this array of writers-philosophers appears formidable compared to anything that can be offered from other sources, in fact it is hardly carved in stone. Cicero’s choice of subjects in the passage in the Tusculan Disputations devoted to Dionysius and the placement of derogatory elements prominent at the end emphasises the negative traits of the tyrant, even if worthwhile characteristics

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

15

had also been ascribed to him. Military factors are ignored except for the ability to wage war because of Syracuse’s wealth and resources. Cicero’s assessment may not be mendacious but it, nonetheless, follows the well-trodden path of typical tyrant character assassination.17 For Dionysius II a pursuit for a realistic picture of this ruler is more frustrating since we must rely on the indifferent narrative of Diodorus in Book 16 which focuses rather on the rule of Philip II or on Plutarch’s biography of Dion, his competitor for power.18 The younger Dionysius II is, therefore, presented as either the antithesis of action and boldness (Plutarch) or of little consequence in comparison to the momentous reign of Philip II (Diodorus).

The generalship of Dionysius I From the very first mention of Dionysius as a supporter of Hermocrates in 408, and for nearly the next two decades after his rise to sole power, his rule is presented as one of almost endless warfare.19 An incompetent general or one devoted solely to leisure would not have survived in power for so long. The campaign at Gela against Carthaginian invaders illustrates Dionysius’ dynamic leadership not incompetence and the narrative in Diodorus clearly supports this view.20 Dionysius was elected strategos after a display of arrogance and inflammatory rhetoric that delighted the audience at the citizen assemblies, but he also came to public office with a reputation for bravery in the recent fighting against the Carthaginians (Diod. 13.92.1). Dionysius’ election came in reaction to the failure of the Syracusan general Daphnaeus to relieve Acragas when it was besieged by the Carthaginians. Daphnaeus (Diod. 13.87.1–2) had initially defeated a section of the enemy army that had been ordered to intercept the Syracusan relief column before it arrived at Acragas. The local generals offered no support and neither did the Spartan Dexippus who commanded the mercenaries in the city. As a result, all were suspected of sympathies with Carthage (Diod. 13.87.5–88.6). Moreover, Daphnaeus was executed for incompetence or collusion with the enemy following the fall of Acragas.21 At roughly the same time as the Greek withdrawal from Acragas, Hannibal, the more senior of the Carthaginian generals, died. This loss, in mid-December 406, did not deter the co-commander Himilcon from occupying the city, and in the next spring moving his army along the coastal plain towards Gela.22 His plan was evidently to occupy each of the Greek cities in this south-east region, thus isolating Syracuse before it was subjected to a major assault. The Geloans appealed to Syracuse for aid and Dionysius was chosen to command a small force to go immediately (Diod. 13.93.1).23 When the Syracusans arrived at Gela they found considerable conflict among the citizen body caused by the imminent threat of attack. The Spartan mercenary Dexippus in charge of the city had remained neutral in the strife, but Dionysius took the side of the demos and the city’s elite were killed.24 Himilcon’s army had yet to move from Acragas, therefore Dionysius promised further reinforcements, which he would obtain from his fellow citizens. Using the situation in Gela to his advantage and because the Carthaginians had suddenly become a real threat, Dionysius persuaded the citizen assembly to elect him sole general as strategos autocrator. He argued that a single

16

Richard Evans

commander would have better control of the campaign than the usually elected board of three or fifteen generals.25 He very quickly transformed this elective position into sole rule acquiring a personal bodyguard, recalling exiles sympathetic to his cause, and paying for additional mercenary troops. Dionysius accomplished these objectives very quickly in the spring of 405, and then set out a second time to Gela. Himilcon had already invaded Geloan territory, and Diodorus’ narrative suggests that the enemy plundered the countryside from Gela south to Camarina before they began a siege of the city from a camp to the north.26 Dionysius was able to levy troops and gather together an army of Syracusans and other allies or mercenaries of between 30,000 and 50,000.27 Diodorus again indicates rapid movement before Dionysius’ forces arrived at Gela from the south-east, and the construction of a camp near the sea (Diod. 13.109.2). The city was, therefore, between the opposing sides and with the exception of some skirmishing there was a lack of activity for three weeks (Diod. 13.109.3–4). At that point, Dionysius decided to take the initiative. He ordered that the left wing of his army, comprising Italian Greek and other allied infantry, to move north along the beach with the city to their right. At the same time, Sicilian Greek infantry, which formed the right wing, was ordered to advance on the landward side of the city. The cavalry was meant to shadow the right wing and if it was seen to be gaining an upper hand to join in the battle, but if wavering then to cover a retreat. Presumably by beaching and providing additional manpower the fleet was to join the left wing in their attack on the enemy. Dionysius, meanwhile, would lead the centre consisting of the mercenaries through the city and charge at roughly the same moment in order to cause confusion and panic amongst the Carthaginians, who would not be expecting an assault from this direction. For a battle in antiquity, this strategy is complex, considering that the usual tactic of hoplite warfare was a simple frontal attack by one side on another. The time of the day is not stipulated, but most battles in antiquity began before dawn and as the events at Gela become chaotic it suggests that much of the fighting occurred before daylight without the benefits of modern methods of communication. The fleet, instead of supporting the left wing, was actually first to attack the Carthaginian camp, which remarkably had no defences along the beach given that the enemy was encamped just a short distance to the south, also along the beach. The Italian Greek infantry following closely behind the fleet also launched an assault and gained some ground inside the enemy’s fortifications. However, as the Carthaginians repelled the troops from the fleet, they turned to deal with the Greeks inside their camp and they quickly gained an advantage. The Geloans sent out some troops to help, but these were largely ineffective in what became a disorderly retreat in which about 1,000 Greeks were killed (Diod. 13.110.5). The Sicilian Greeks on the right wing were late arriving and although initially successful suffered in a Carthaginian counter-attack with 600 casualties before retreating into the city. The main force of mercenaries also made much slower headway since the narrow streets of Gela could not accommodate the rapid deployment of large numbers moving from south to north, and these troops failed to engage at all.28 The cavalry appears to have been mostly inactive and as the fighting subsided

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

17

followed the infantry inside the walls of Gela. And so the plan of a coordinated attack from three directions collapsed. Although there was no rout and the Greeks’ losses were not serious and likely to have been comparable to the fatalities they inflicted on the opposing side, this was a serious reversal, not so much militarily but to Dionysius’ recently won authority. Probably realising that he needed to be in Syracuse, Dionysius ordered a retreat the same night, and a mass exodus of the Geloan population, including the people of nearby Camarina, was covered by the retreating Greek army.29 Dionysius’ rule was immediately challenged, and although it is claimed that he was unnerved by events, he survived to emerge stronger than before.30 The Carthaginians, ravaged by various diseases endemic in ancient military camp conditions, were happy to conclude a peace soon afterwards. The account of the battle at Gela provided by Diodorus (13.109.1–110.6) is by ancient historiographical standards extraordinary in its depth of detail, and points to a particularly informed source which must be Philistus. He may well have been serving in the cavalry at the time, and Diodorus states (14.8.5) that Philistus composed a close account of Dionysius’ early years in power. Diodorus gives no hint of the source and what he relates may have come through Timaeus rather than first-hand, but the line of transmission is less important than the evidence it possesses for the calibre of Dionysius’ generalship. The truce negotiated between Syracuse and Carthage lasted for roughly eight years and was broken by Dionysius. Why did he risk his position by provoking a war with Carthage, whose power was regarded as formidable? It seems he may have been taking advantage of a serious epidemic affecting his overseas neighbour (Diod. 14.47.2). Dionysius’ access to intelligence may by modern standards have been primitive, relying on the information provided by merchants or through intermittent formal meetings between states, but his appraisal of the weakness of the Carthaginians at precisely this moment presented an opportunity for attacking western Sicily and especially the harbour at Motya. The details of the account of Motya’s capture are mainly fiction consisting of topical elements designed to suit any siege situation.31 However, it is in the weeks leading up to the start of the military campaign that reveal real innovation in the narrative, because no other historian – Herodotus (preparations of Xerxes before crossing into Europe), Thucydides (the Athenian preparations prior to the Sicilian expedition), Xenophon (details regarding the campaign of Cyrus) – goes to such lengths to describe the minutiae necessary for any army and navy to assemble before it is in military readiness.32 Diodorus begins this section with Dionysius ensuring new fortifications for the city at Epipolai and Acradina (Diod. 14.18.1–8), the construction of 200 new warships, some quadriremes and quinqueremes, the largest warships constructed to that date, and boat sheds constructed in both of Syracuse’s harbours that could accommodate 200 vessels under repair (14.41.3).33 The overall war fleet constructed for Dionysius numbered about 400, which was an unprecedented total for any single Greek city-state in the Classical period. It is difficult to contemplate the problems inherent in manning such a large number of ships nor where they might have been stationed at any one time. Still, it is evident from Dionysius’ activities in southern Italy that, not only was his war fleet active in

18

Richard Evans

the region but elements of this fleet were assigned to various harbours. Dionysius married Doris of Locri, in 398 according to Diodorus (14.44.6), and so cemented the special relationship between the two cities, and the timing was also important, just months before the campaign against Motya began.34 Warships in squadrons around the coast kept the seas free of piracy and bolstered security, but also ensured that merchant shipping would, for example, pay tithes sailing through the Straits between Sicily and Italy. Diodorus states (14.43.4) that the officers and crews on half the warships were citizens (perhaps of Syracuse and Locri) while on the remainder mercenaries were employed. For such a huge fleet the cost of employing so many would have been high, and so there was probably also some servile element involved in the rowing of particularly the larger vessels. Diodorus (14.41.4–6) also devotes a great deal of the text to the production of armour and weapons, giving totals of each which points to an interested and informed source, probably Philistus rather than Timaeus. The number each of shields, swords, and helmets amounted to 140,000 and were of various types to suit the origins and preferences of the troops, whether they were Greek or mercenaries employed from outside the Hellenic communities. Furthermore, there is mention of the production of 14,000 decorative breastplates intended for the officer corps in both army and navy and for the cavalry who were almost exclusively drawn from the wealthiest social status. Although elsewhere Diodorus’ text descends into the use of bland topical elements to suit, for example, any siege or any battle, in the context of Dionysius pre-war activities in the years between 404 and 398, he provides material that is unique to that occasion. This is vitally important in attempting to reach some conclusion about the tyrant’s ability as a general. Just prior to launching his invasion of western Sicily, Dionysius ordered attacks on resident aliens (Diod. 14.46.1). The phenomenon can hardly have been new since metics were vulnerable to political upheavals, but this section in Diodorus’ narrative gives specific evidence of incitement to violence against the innocent by a ruler. According to modern socio-political thought, such an action might be expected to reflect poorly on its instigator. However, like the double marriages celebrated at the same time in Syracuse, the violence inflicted on foreign residents and the seizing of their property served the purpose of not only short-term financial gain but also bound the community together in collective guilt. As with the murder of ambassadors or heralds, the state affected by the outrage was more likely than not to view the action as a declaration of war.35 Thus xenophobia could be turned into a positive factor in the planning for a military campaign and again points to a well-considered policy deliberately pursued by Dionysius. The campaign against Motya may have ended with uncertainty and quite contrary to expectations with a serious siege of Syracuse. That Carthaginian attack on the city in 396 ended in a catastrophe for the besiegers (Diod. 14.75.1–76.4) and had the effect of considerably strengthening Dionysius’ hold over the state. The narrative may be read at a superficial level as indicative of excessive preparedness for an outcome that was largely the status quo and, therefore, could be presented as enhancing the negative picture of Dionysius as a ruler with a lack of military ability. However, dwelling too much on that perspective ignores the more

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

19

nuanced message: that is, of Dionysius’ growth from demagogue in 406 to mature statesman and general a decade later.36 Unlike many rulers or leading figures in antiquity Dionysius was not only an active participant in his campaigns but also wished to be seen in this capacity by his troops, whether they were infantry, cavalry, or rowers. The tyrant therefore combined his evident enthusiasm and skill in management with actual leadership on all aspects of the battlefield.37 During the Carthaginian siege in 396, Dionysius commanded the cavalry in an attack on the enemy’s forts at Dascon and Polichne beside the Great Harbour.38 In 394/3 at Tauromenium, then a fortress held by a Sicel community, in the depths of winter and in a snowstorm, Dionysius led his infantry in an uphill charge against the enemy’s solid fortifications.39 The defenders were prepared, and pitching missiles from their advantageous position, easily repelled the attackers, who were forced into an ignominious downhill tumble. The Syracusan troops suffered numerous casualties, but Dionysius avoided being wounded because he was wearing a breastplate (Diod. 14.88.3–4). Dionysius overcame a Carthaginian invasion in 392 without loss of life and in the process gained control of Tauromenium (Diod. 14.96.4). He was present directing the siege of Rhegium five years later after a strenuous campaign against an alliance of Greek cities in southern Italy, led by Croton (Diod. 14.104–105, 111–112), and having sustained a serious wound (Diod. 14.108.6).40 Following these widespread victories, the tyrant personally commanded an expedition in 384 to attack the wealthy temple of Eileithyia at Pyrgi in Etruria (Diod. 15.14.2–3).41 His ultimate goal was a raid on the island of Corsica, but no details of this episode remain (Strabo, 5.2.8). Success and older age did not deter Dionysius from military action and so in the late 380s he led Greek Sicilian forces to victory over Carthage at Cabala before suffering a serious defeat just months later at Cronium (Diod. 15.15.3), an event which reversed his recent territorial gains. And finally, Diodorus, active to the end, died not as a result of inertia or an excess of luxurious living, but very soon after leading a further military campaign in western Sicily (Diod. 15.73.3–4). In the uncertain days before his assumption of sole power at Syracuse, Diodorus exposes and emphasises Dionysius’ single-minded and ruthless determination coupled with an extraordinary ability to manipulate the people through his rhetorical skills and his populist appeal (Diod. 13.91.3–4, 13.92.1–2, 14.18.4–7, 14.41.6). His leadership ability might appear dented by Syracusan setbacks at Gela or immediately following Motya and Cronium, although these were as much the result of Dionysius’ overambitious planning and a certain degree of impetuosity rather than poor generalship. The campaign at Motya eventually yielded unexpectedly lavish dividends that were certainly on a par with Gelon’s victory at Himera in 480. Thereafter, Dionysius’ record was one of peaks and troughs, but his rule was never seriously challenged and his family was secure in the rule over Syracuse.42 Overall, Dionysius’ preparation for military ventures was impeccable and expertly managed, his strategies and tactics bold and highly innovative, but sometimes also overambitious. Nevertheless, he achieved spectacular successes and made Syracuse a power to equal Carthage. It is hardly surprising that Lysias, not a disinterested or neutral source, in his Olympic Oration (Lys. 33), should

20

Richard Evans

consider in Syracuse’ power the potential to destabilise Greece even if he overdramatises the threat from Dionysius that never materialised nor was probably ever conceived.43

The generalship of Dionysius II Dionysius quidem tyrannus Syracusis expulsus Corinthi pueros docebat: usque eo imperio carere non poterat. And indeed when the tyrant Dionysius had been expelled from Syracuse so completely could he not be without his rule that he taught children at Corinth. (Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3.27)

Reduced to working as a teacher is in itself something of a paradox for one who was supposedly not well educated. Cicero’s comment is probably intended to be taken as negative and derogatory and that the audience is meant to reflect on the extent to which Dionysius’ status had changed for the worse, and that this profession, often of slaves or ex-slaves, was a humiliation for an ex-tyrant. It may also have been intended to portray someone who had been accustomed to command but who was now reduced to the supremacy of the schoolroom. However, if so, this is not a characteristic of one said to have been indolent and timid, the reputed reasons for the loss of his rule in Syracuse and Locri (Diod. 16.5.1). Moreover, since the description cannot have come from Philistus it perhaps figured in the history of Timaeus, and because it may emanate from a hostile source and is precisely a paradox its veracity is questionable. Unlike the extended narrative of the rule of Dionysius I, details of his eldest son’s tyranny are much less in evidence giving the impression that there was little to be related. Diodorus (15.74.5) has the younger Dionysius succeeding without any opposition, presiding over his father’s funeral and addressing the citizens with words suitable for the occasion, after which he took charge of the affairs of state.44 The next mention of Syracusan affairs comes a whole five years later in 362/1 when Diodorus notes (15.89.3) that this year was the terminus of Philistus’ two books on the rule of the younger Dionysius (367–362). Since Philistus had recounted the 38 years rule of Dionysius I in four books,45 there must have been a great deal of detail in the latest books of this history. Seeing that Philistus had a reputation as a serious historian, these two books must have contained more than simply court gossip and intrigue. Since there is no reason to believe that it would have followed a different course than that devoted to Dionysius I, it would have included military affairs. Indeed this assumption may be made with some confidence from the few comments made by Diodorus at the start of Book 16 just before he deals with the revolt of Dion.46 Diodorus (16.5.1–4) gives a very brief summary of the two books of Philistus’ history of Dionysius II,47 but there is sufficient here to expand on what is contained in the narrative. Thus the truce which the elder Dionysius had made with Carthage in 368/7 (Diod. 15.73.4) was extended into a formal peace (Diod. 16.5.2), which endured for some years.48 A victory against the Lucanians was achieved (Diod.

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

21

16.5.2) which would have eradicated any threats to, and eased tensions among, the southern Greek cities, such as Locri and Rhegium along the coast.49 Dionysius was plainly looking to maintain his obligations towards his allies in Magna Graecia and, at the same time, to ensure the safety of Syracusan settlements such as Hipponium and Adria. However, Diodorus dismisses this episode as a ‘lazy’ or ‘unfinished’ war,50 but the Lucanians comprised a formidable confederacy in the mountains of southern Italy and were fiercely independent. They were only subdued by the Romans in the first century BC. Dionysius (Diod. 16.5.3) is also said to have founded two settlements in Apulia in order to police the coast in an attempt to combat the incessant pirate attacks on merchant shipping in the Ionian Sea area. Gallipoli in the southern Salentine Peninsula, Egnatia or Otranto on the Adriatic coast are possible sites suitable for what were essentially military garrisons where squadrons of warships manned by mercenary troops might easily be brought ashore. Actions such as these, especially if they were personally supervised, were not the actions of a disinterested ruler. Rhegium, which had been captured, depopulated, and largely destroyed by Dionysius I in 387 (Diod. 14.111.1–112.5; Strabo, 6.1.6), was, according to Strabo (6.1.6), partially re-established by Dionysius II and re-named Phoebia. It is likely that some military presence had already been maintained by the elder Dionysius, because Rhegium occupied such an important strategic place along the Straits of Messina. Dionysius II perhaps installed a larger garrison here and a fleet. It remained loyal until 351/0, when it was seized by Calippus and Leptines (Diod.16.45.9), when any survivors of old Rhegium were invited to return.51 In 357/6, Dion returned to Syracuse while Dionysius was absent from the city in command of a fleet of 80 warships (Plut. Dion, 26.1). Nepos (Dion, 5.4–5) has Dionysius in the south of Italy guarding the coast here for what was assumed would be the route taken by Dion in any military activity against Syracuse.52 Plutarch (Dion, 26.4) states that the tyrant was at Caulonia when he heard about the rebellion and returned to Syracuse seven days after Dion had gained entry to the city. Diodorus’ narrative evidently has two versions: the first, that Dionysius was in the Adriatic visiting the towns he had founded (Diod. 16.10.2), and then that he was at Caulonia (16.11.3).53 It is quite conceivable that having been responsible for two new settlements, either in the Salentine Peninsula or the Adriatic, and having re-founded Rhegium, to some extent, he was also intent on re-founding Caulonia.54 These sites were all chosen with a military purpose in mind since they guarded seaways or possessed harbours for the immense Syracusan fleet. However, although garrisoned with mercenaries, it was inevitable that once these troops possessed families these forts took on a civic life and so altered the demographics and populations of the region.55 By and large, Dionysius could count on the adherence of his mercenary troops more than troops raised from volatile civilian populations. Thus, if this evidence is taken altogether, it suggests that Dionysius II was energetic in developing ways of maintaining the predominance of Syracuse in the whole region. These were not actions of either a disinterested ruler or one who was unused to directing military operations. Moreover, to maintain his territorial possessions, even in peaceful circumstances, the younger Dionysius

22

Richard Evans

would have been kept fully employed, and seems to have been successful since no rebellion against his rule is reported before that of Dion. Diodorus (16.5.4) tries to portray ‘a peaceful life’ under Dionysius II as being a negative event since the state became militarily inactive, but his statement is difficult to reconcile with the employment of mercenary troops who would always have been prepared for work. Diodorus (16.5.4) claims that it was peace in Syracuse that caused Dionysius to lose his position as ruler because the ‘unbreakable chains’ binding the state to the tyrant were loosened on account of inactivity or timidity. Yet the rule of the elder Dionysius had not been one of constant warfare and had also enjoyed lengthy spells of peace in the 380s and 370s. Earlier still, in 480, Gelon had also presided over peaceful conditions after his victory against the Carthaginians at Himera. Dionysius II gradually lost power during his second decade as tyrant although, until he was exiled to Corinth by Timoleon in 344, this was not an obvious outcome of the stasis in Syracuse. The initial cause for the change in Dionysius’ fortunes was Dion’s reappearance in Sicily after a decade in exile. The latter’s failed attempt to win power before the elder Dionysius died in 367 had resulted in his rapid removal from Syracuse, but the penalty was lenient,56 and it did not prevent him from conspiring to return.57 Yet, the speed with which Dionysius also arrived in the city suggests action rather than laxity, a mere seven days after it is said to have been occupied by the returning exiles led by Dion together with his force of mercenaries. Plutarch’s account of the tyrant’s arrival (Dion, 29.7; Diod. 16.11.3) is inaccurate, however, because it bears no relation to the local topography and geography. Dionysius’ fleet is said to have moved in good order and without opposition into the city’s harbours and the tyrant arrived at the acropolis on the Island. It is quite plain that Dionysius’ actions were not erratic or lackadaisical nor were they driven by fear or panic since the armed forces he had left in Syracuse prior to his departure to southern Italy must have controlled substantial sectors of the city and not just the acropolis in order for a fleet of 80 warships to beach and for their crews to disembark without heavy fighting taking place.58 Dion’s fellow exile Heraclides is later credited with a fleet (Diod. 16.6.5), but this naval force was small and clearly lacking the numbers to prevent the tyrant’s entry into the harbour. But the absence of warships need not have been an impediment in causing difficulties for Dionysius. Entry into the main harbour lay through a narrow passage, the northern headland of which was the southern tip of Ortygia, and the southern headland the promontory of Plemmyrion. The distance between the heads two was not more than 1,500 metres. If an enemy was to control both of these points then no fleet could gain access to the harbour. Indeed, the Syracusans were well aware of this when they blockaded the Athenian fleet in 413 and then prevented their enemy from escaping. Plainly, therefore, Dion’ supporters did not have a foothold on the Island, but there is also no mention of any military activity on the southern headland. In 414, Nicias had ordered the construction of a fort here so that the Athenians might impede Syracusan shipping in and out of the harbour. The notion of a garrison on Plemmyrion was thus not a novel one and

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

23

from it missiles or small boats could easily be launched to deter shipping from entering or leaving. Moreover, a fleet loyal to Dion that was beached at Dascon could easily have been brought into play against any incoming warships. Nothing in the sources suggest that any of these tactics were undertaken by those hostile to Dionysius. On the landward side of the city a similar ambiguity occurs. If Dion’s followers were holding Acradina why did they not disrupt activity in the Small Harbour? The received ancient topography of Syracuse indicates a harbour walled in on all sides except for a canal linking this ‘lacus’ to the main harbour directly to the south. These fortifications were extensive and covered an area from just south of the agora to the sea north of the Island.59 It would appear that since Dionysius encountered no opposition in entering the harbour and arriving at the acropolis, which lay on the mole linking the Island to the agora rather than on Ortygia – then troops loyal to him held all the fortifications which extended around the smaller harbour and hence the southern end of Acradina as well. Such a situation indicates that the forces supporting Dion were much less powerful than the sources wish to portray. Therefore, in 356/5, Dionysius held all vital sectors of Syracuse, which illustrates why he and his supporters were able to sustain two lengthy sieges with comparative ease. This situation compares well with the stasis in 466 when the Deinomenid Thrasybulus is reportedly besieged on the Island and in Acradina while his opponents controlled Tyche. Yet at this time the city consisted only of the Island and Acradina while Tyche was a smaller area beyond the northern defences of the city.60 There cannot have been much change to the city’s topographical features in the interim, which would indicate that Dion initially controlled very little of Syracuse, and even by the time of his murder his hold over the city was very tenuous.61 Finally, can the younger Dionysius’ failure to retain power be attributed to indolence and inaction (Diod. 16.5.6)? Modern opinion seems to support Diodorus’ assessment. For example, Westlake grants Dionysius II some diplomatic skill, but also that his hold over Syracuse ended because he lost the support of the citizen body.62 However, when Dionysius retreated to Locri in 355 he appointed Apollocrates (Plut. Dion, 37.4), his elder son, as commander of the garrison on the acropolis, surely a sign that he fully intended to return after he had assembled further troops.63 Another indication that Dionysius’ absence was meant to be temporary is the appointment of the mercenary Nypsius to support Apollocrates at Syracuse (Diod. 16.18.1; Plut. Dion 41.1). Even after the defeat of Nypsius by Dion (and possibly the mercenary’s death) and the withdrawal from Syracuse of Apollocrates (Plut. Dion, 50.2–3) soon after in 354, nonetheless, the tyranny was reinstalled within a year or two through the presence of first, Hipparinus, and then, Nisaeus, the two half-brothers of Dionysius.64 By 347/6, Dionysius had reoccupied much of the city (Diod. 16.57.2), and might well have appeared victorious after the lengthy period of chaos. However, there must have been sufficient opposition from those who remained of the socio-political elite of the city for an appeal for help to Corinth to receive a positive response. The Corinthians appointed Timoleon (Diod. 16.65.1) to bring order to Sicily and Syracuse in particular. Unlike

24

Richard Evans

Dion, Timoleon had no connection with the ruling dynasty, even if his political views were much the same, and so his presence appeared to offer a new alternative to the long-standing chaos. Probably more important was the Corinthian withdrawal of support for Dionysius, whose regime had been regarded as an ally for 60 years. Without the approval of Syracuse’s metropolis, Dionysius’ time as ruler was numbered. Within the year he went into exile at Corinth (Diod. 16.70.1). That does not mean, however, that the 23-year tyranny of Dionysius II was one of unmitigated failure, especially when the military achievements of the first half of the rule is taken fully into account.65

Conclusion The memory of the military expertise of the Dionysii was unmade quite soon after this family lost power at Syracuse in the 340s. Jackman has pointed out that by the Classical period of Greece, tyranny came to be regarded as a system or rule which had no legitimate basis, but that the practical characteristics of this rule were vague and conflicting.66 But can legitimacy be the sole answer to this episode of ‘forgetting’ in Sicily? Obviously some citizens, such as the Athenians, elected their generals, the Spartans and the Macedonians possessed a hereditary kingship, whereas tyrants usually obtained power through, if not always illegal means, then by unorthodox measures or violence. Thucydides (1.13.1–17) does not comment on the reasons for the rise of tyranny or the methods by which this sole rule was achieved except that it coincided with a period of greater wealth among the Greek city-states. He also states that the tyrants of Syracuse made extensive use of the trireme in their naval armament, which provided them with superior power in the western Mediterranean.67 To possess such a military power necessarily went hand-in-hand with prosperity. In general, however, the tyrants of the Greek mainland, in Thucydides’ view (1.17), cared less for their communities than for their own and their families’ security. In his opinion, this overriding concern resulted in them achieving nothing exceptional beyond local conflicts, and they were, for the most part, removed by the Spartans (1.18). Yet the Spartans did not interfere in the affairs of Syracuse or of any other Siciliote city.68 On account of these few comments, it seems as if Thucydides’ view was adopted as a blanket assessment of tyranny notwithstanding the point the historian clearly makes for the Deinomenids being exceptional to this rule (Thuc. 1.17). Thus, the tyranny of the elder and younger Dionysius was categorised along with the failed tyrants of mainland Greece. Even if the history of Philistus was read by Alexander the Great,69 or if the historian was considered ‘well educated in the art of writing’ (Plut. Dion, 11.2), his message was simply not as influential as Thucydides’ more general remarks about tyranny. Thucydides’ view evidently made an impression on Aristotle (Pol. 3.1279b), who defined tyranny as a monarchy that enriched itself at the expense of the community. Polybius (7.7–8.1) reiterates Aristotle’s thesis in greater detail, assigning tyranny to the time when kingship became hereditary and when kings considered themselves to be above the law. Moreover, there was little of interest in Sicilian affairs for most writers after Thucydides.

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

25

Neither Xenophon nor Ephorus devoted time or space to Sicily,70 while Timaeus was hostile towards tyranny as a form of government and specifically towards the Dionysii.71 The first Deinomenid Gelon was treated uniquely among tyrants, however, and any contrary evidence was ignored.72 His power was admired (Hdt. 7.157; Thuc. 1.17.1) and was probably celebrated in praise poetry.73 Somehow he escaped the usual censure dealt out to tyrants. Timaeus’ otherwise acrimonious views on the Dionysii found a more positive reception than those views more sympathetic. Plato’s Seventh Letter, whether authentic or not, also contributed to the notion of worthlessness in the elder and younger Dionysius. Added altogether it is easy to see how these views were perpetuated through the remarks of Cicero and Plutarch. For all that, a reading of Diodorus’ Books 13–16, and disregarding Timaeus’ polemic,74 brings to the forefront the real military abilities of the two Dionysii of Syracuse.

Notes 1 For general coverage of the period and the sources, see Sordi 1961; Talbert 1974; Sordi 1980; Sanders 1980: 393–411; Sordi 1983; Sanders 1987; Westlake 1994: 693–722; Braccesi 1998; Sanders 2008. 2 It is worth noting Julian’s admittedly satirical discussion of Alexander and the Roman rulers from Julius Caesar down to his own day in the fourth century AD. In The Caesars military virtues are clearly the defining criterion by which the Olympian gods conferred divine status on their human subjects. 3 For the text and translation of this section of the Tusculan Disputations, see King 1927: 482–491. 4 Cicero’s confusion here can be explained easily. In the pre-Sullan Roman senate the age qualification for magistrates was 25, that is, for the office of the quaestorship. After 80 BC eligibility for the senate rose to 30 years of age. Cicero might have assumed that Dionysius held his first elective office at 25 in the fifth century BC. A date of birth in the mid-430s seems more realistic, however. For an analysis of the ages at which magistracies were held during the later Roman Republic, see Evans 1994: 175–194 and for all earlier discussions. 5 Hermocrates had been placed in command of a fleet in 412 that brought naval assistance to Sparta as a gesture of gratitude for its aid in 414/13. Hermocrates later commanded this squadron in the battle at Cyzicus two years later where the Athenians were the victors and, as a result of being associated in this defeat, he was debarred from returning to Syracuse (Thuc. 8.85). Hermocrates probably spent some time in the Peloponnese until he was able to organise a return to Sicily, funded by Pharnabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia (Diod. 13.63.1). Once there he occupied the recently sacked site at Selinus before collecting sufficient troops to march against his home city. He gained entry to Syracuse after sunset, but was killed in subsequent fighting in the streets, as were many of his supporters (Diod. 13.75.8); Evans 2016: 151–152. Dionysius was probably a little older than Philistus, who was born about 430, Pearson 1987: 19–20; Evans 2016: 154 and n. 16. It should be noted that in naming Dionysius as a sympathiser of Hermocrates, Diodorus (13.75.9) prepares his reader for this subject’s reappearance (13.91.3). 6 Compare Plutarch’s comment about Lucius Sulla (Sull. 1.1–4). Polyaenus’ comments about Dionysius (5.2.2) are mostly negative and derogatory. In the turmoil that characterised the wars between the would-be successors of Alexander the Great, Eumenes of Cardia, who had been the king’s secretary and to his father Philip II became, for a brief time, a major player in events. Plutarch, Eum. 1.1–2, provides two contrasting

26

7

8 9

10 11

Richard Evans traditions about the background of his subject. He prefers to believe that Eumenes’ father was a guest-friend of Philip II which opened the way for opportunities to rise to become a high official at the Macedonian court, and evidently considers the story that his subject came from a low or poor background false. Eumenes and Dionysius I therefore may well have been from similar high social status. Both were the subject of ancient invective. Notably Cornelius Nepos, the earliest biography of Eumenes (1.3) states that his subject was from the aristocracy of Cardia. It is possible that denigration of Eumenes’ background took as its model the negative views perpetrated against Dionysius I. Timaeus had a particular dislike of Dionysius I since the historian’s family appear to been former Naxians who lost their lands and city in 403 (Diod. 16.7.1). For Timaeus as a source for Diodorus, see Pearson 1987: 157–208; Green 2010: 247 n. 105; Prag 2010: 61–62. For discussions of Theopompus, see Green 1899: 50; Shrimpton 1991; Occhipinti 2013: 85–179. It is interesting to speculate on whether or not Dionysius might have joined Hermocrates when the latter returned to Sicily in 408 and had been among his followers who marched from Selinus to Syracuse. Philistus will certainly have recorded Hermocrates’ march from Selinus, but it has not survived. See Evans 2009: 111–123; 2016: 158 for further discussion. Translation Scott-Kilvert 1973: 110–111. Note the similarity in its reflection on solitude, lack of education, and slyness in the text of Homer’s description of the Cyclops in Odyssey Book 9.181–192: When we reached the stretch of land . . . there on the shore beside the sea we saw a high cave overarched with bay-trees; in this flocks of sheep and goats were housed at night, and around its mouth had been made a courtyard with high walls of quarried stone and with tall pines and towering oaks. Here was the sleeping place of a giant who used to pasture his flocks far afield, alone; it was not his way to visit the others of his tribe; he kept aloof, and his mind was set on unrighteousness. A monstrous ogre, unlike any man who had ever tasted bread, he resembled rather some shaggy peak in a mountain-range, standing out clear, away from the rest. Translation Shewring 1980: 103

12 The mother of Dionysius II was Doris of Locri (Diod. 14.44.6) and is said to have been executed by her husband (Plut. Dion, 3.6). The empire of the Dionysii was not solely Syracusan, but a partnership between Syracuse and Locri. There is hardly any mention of Locri until it became the main residence of Dionysius II in 356, although its role in controlling southern Italy must have brought substantial benefits. The Locrians obtained the lands of Caulonia in 389 (Diod. 14.106.3). Syracuse was the senior partner in this alliance, but the close and long-standing ties between the two cities should not be underestimated. For example, when the Deinomenid Thrasybulus was ousted from power in Syracuse in 466 he retired to Locri. 13 Apollocrates, the elder son of Dionysius, must have been born by the mid-370s since he was given command of the garrison on the Island when the tyrant moved to Locri in 355. Therefore, the elder Dionysius presided over a large household that included grandchildren. Another grandson of the tyrant was Dion’s son Hipparinus, who killed himself in about 354, who must have been roughly the same age as Apollocrates, and also brought up in the same home, especially during Dion’s exile. 14 See Evans 2016: 170 for the stemma. Dionysius II married his half-sister Sophrosyne. Arete, another daughter of Aristomache, married her uncle Dion. The whole family was closely knit and no rivalries are attested among them until Dionysius II foiled Dion’s attempt to gain power in 357. Nisaeus and Hipparinus ruled in a divided Syracuse between 344 and 338. For this later period, see Talbert 1974; Westlake 1994; Braccesi 1998.

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

27

15 For the full text with notes, see Hamilton 1973. It should be noted that Plato ought to have known two important points here: firstly, that Sicily was never a unitary state in the fourth century BC since Carthage always possessed the western regions of the island, as noted in the treaty between Carthage and Syracuse in 405 (Diod. 13.114.1); secondly, that Dionysius constantly employed his brothers Leptines (Diod. 14.53.5) and Thearides (Diod. 14.102.3) in important commands while for much of his rule his closest supporter was Philistus (Diod. 14.8.5) who was also assigned military duties (Plut. Dion, 11.4). Polyxenus, Dionysius’ brother-in-law (Diod. 14.62.1) is recorded on a diplomatic mission in the 390s, and Dion became an indispensable member of the ruling dynasty’s inner circle (Plut. Dion, 8.5) in the later years of the tyrant’s rule. Note again this attribution of ‘slyness’ in the description of Dionysius I by Plato. The invective made his background humble, and significantly he was also ridiculed in Antiquity for aspirations to writing tragedy for which he is said to have lacked any talent (Diod. 14.109.2, 15.74.4). 16 Further to note 15, two notable errors are plain in the Seventh Letter. The first is a reference to ‘deserted’ cities. The major cities of Sicily seem to have been thriving, besides Syracuse also Messene and Catane. Acragas was sacked in 406 but soon repopulated as were Gela, Camarina, Selinus, and Himera (Diod. 13.114.1), the last two sacked in 409. Dionysius had destroyed Naxos in 403 (Diod. 14.15.3) granting the Naxian land to the Sicels who lived on Mount Taurus, Catane was also sacked and the city granted to Campanian mercenaries (Diod. 14.15.3). Both Naxos and Catane had been granted to mercenaries by Hieron I, Evans 2016: 52–53. As had happened earlier in the fifth century, Leontini was again depopulated and its citizens transferred to Syracuse, but it retained a garrison of Dionysius’ troops, almost certainly mercenaries. The tribute mentioned refers to a war in 368/67 which ended in stalemate shortly before the death of the elder Dionysius. Diodorus (15.73.4) has no mention of an annual indemnity payable to Carthage, but rather to a truce (ἀνοχή) soon after which the tyrant died. His successor not his father ratified this pause in warfare with a treaty (Diod. 16.5.2). After the victory at Himera in 480 Gelon had demanded 2,000 talents in silver from the Carthaginians just enough to cover Syracusan expenses in the war. Diodorus (11.25.2–3) indicates that this payment caused no hardship for Carthage. On the finances of Syracuse in this period, see Evans 2020: 38–59; on the treaty, see Evans 2016: 209–212. The writer of the Seventh Letter has obscured some important details. 17 Note the negative comments about the dictator Lucius Sulla in Plutarch’s Life, also Thein’s discussion 2006: 238–249. Cicero’s own invective against Catiline, Clodius and Antonius each of whom was potentially a dictator, especially since Catiline and Clodius emulated Greek tyrants by having armed bodyguards, Evans 2008: 73–74. Roman politicians, particularly tribunes of the plebs, who were responsible for civic disturbances had also been accompanied by armed followers, Plut. Sull. 8.1–2; Mar. 35.1–2. For discussions of ancient invective directed against those perceived as tyrants, see Dunkle 1967: 151–171; Africa 1982: 1–17; Bauman 1990; Evans 1991: 276–278. 18 For the negative images of Dionysius II portrayed in Plutarch’s Dion, see Sanders 2008; Evans 2019: 102–115. For Diodorus on Dionysius I, see Sanders 1980: 394–411. 19 The 380s and 370s seem less dominated by Dionysius’ wars but the events in mainland Greece eclipsed events in Sicily in Diodorus’ sources: the ‘Peace of Antalcidas’, the battle of Leuctra, the career and death of Agesilaus. 20 The Carthaginian commander Hannibal had captured and sacked Selinus (Diod. 13.56.5–59.3) and Himera in 409 (Diod. 13.62.3–4) and returned in a second expedition in 406 intent on the conquest of the other Greek cities in Sicily. The ease by which the first campaign was won possibly made the Carthaginians underestimate the opposition, although they were also bedeviled with disease to such an extent that their initial progress ground to a halt and ended with another truce. 21 The reason given by Diodorus (13.96.3) was that Dionysius, who instigated the proceedings against Daphnaeus, regarded him as a formidable opponent. Diodorus describes in some detail (13.90–91) the harrowing effects of the chaotic flight from

28 22 23

24

25

26

27 28 29

30 31

32

Richard Evans Acragas of many of its citizens who initially fled to Gela and from there were resettled in Syracuse, Leontini, or even in southern Italy (Diod. 13. 91.1). For Himilcon not Himilcar (cf. Diod, 13.91.1), see Evans 2013: 98. Diodorus (13.108.2) relates that Himilcon had Acragas destroyed in the early summer of 405. It is difficult to know how to interpret the numbers provided by Diodorus here and earlier in his account of military operations at Selinus, Himera, and Acragas. Dionysius was given command of 2,000 infantry and 400 cavalry which was hardly enough to engage the formidable numbers available to Himilcon. Obviously a small mobile force might move quickly, but it could offer no more than moral support to the Geloans, as events showed. With similarly modest numbers Hermocrates is said to have attacked Motya and Panormus with considerable success in 408, Evans 2016: 151. Yet in 409 Syracuse sent just 3,000 to help the Selinuntines and these after much preparation (Diod. 13.56.2, 13.59.1). Diocles later in the same summer came to the aid of Himera with 4,000 troops raised from Syracuse and other communities (Diod. 13.59.9). On the other hand, Daphnaeus was sent to relieve Acragas with 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry (Diod. 13.86.4) and failed. Diodorus does not give two discrete sets of figures, and then refer to Timaeus and Ephorus as his sources, as he does elsewhere. The situation in Gela is barely mentioned by Diodorus (13.93.1–5) but there had plainly been some interesting developments in recent years in this community. Formerly the senior partner during the period of Deinomenid rule the fortunes of Gela had evidently declined. No single individual is named in the narrative and significantly the city was effectively governed by a mercenary who seems to have been paid by Syracuse. This would indicate that Gela had become a satellite town of the Syracusans and was no longer an independent entity. For the Syracusan system of electing boards of generals, see Robinson 2011: 85; Evans 2016: 154–157 and 155 n. 17. Diodorus (13.94.4–95.3) makes it plain that Dionysius was elected strategos autocrator without a colleague or board of fellow generals and that from this position he was able to assume a tyranny. See Hamel 1998: 201–203 on the Athenian strategos autocrator, an office that came with many more constraints on its power. According to Diodorus (13.108.5–9), the Carthaginians had already launched a number of attacks on Gela, but had had little success because of the heroic defence by the citizens now united in a common cause. The narrative, however, lacks specific information and has all the topical elements applicable to any siege. Diodorus (13.109.2) gives 50,000 as the figure provided by some unnamed sources, and Timaeus as probably the historian’s preferred authority with 30,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 30 warships. Perhaps Diodorus wanted to draw a comparison here between the broader avenues at Syracuse joining Acradina to the Hexapylon on Epipolae and illustrate that Dionysius had not taken such differences into account. This episode allowed Diodorus (13.111.3–6) to reiterate, after a similar recorded escape of the Acragantines (Diod. 13.88.8–89.4), a description designed to elicit pathos in his reader. The citizenship body of both Gela and Camarina cannot have been substantial since both communities are said to have been evacuated within hours. See Evans 2016: 159–162. Note Freeman’s perceptive comment 1894: 69 that the ‘siege began, a siege which it would be hopeless to try and understand by a glance at the existing map only’. See also Evans 2013: 108–124 for a detailed analysis of the campaign and how it compares with Alexander’s siege of Miletus and Tyre. For the siege topos, see Evans 2014: 225–232. Note also Pearson 1987: 175–176 for Diodorus’ use of Timaeus as a source. Herodotus describes in detail (7.33–36) the construction of the pontoon bridges over the Hellespont and (7.22–25) the excavation of the canal around Mt. Athos; Thucydides (6.31–32) relates how the triremes were put through their paces in the waters between the Piraeus and Aegina; Xenophon notes the employment of mercenary troops and the

The generalship of Dionysius I and II 33

34

35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42

43

44 45

29

requisitioning of supplies by Cyrus while marching through Asia Minor in the initial sections of the Anabasis. The timber required for this massive building programme came from the Calabrian Alps probably through the harbour at Locri and from Etna (Diod. 14. 42.4) from where transportation was overland. Diodorus specifies 160 new boat sheds with repairs to 150 existing sheds. He also stipulates that 200 new warships were built and 110 were refitted (Diod. 14.42.5). The timing of Dionysius’ double marriage also reveals some acumen since not only was Locri bound by marriage ties, but the marriage to Aristomache of Syracuse also brought that city’s community together in celebration and no doubt in patriotic fervour for a forthcoming war in which everyone had joined in the preparations. Thus the murder of Persian heralds sent to Athens and Sparta by Darius (Hdt. 7.133). For an account of the expedition, see Evans 2013: 90–124. Although the warrior-ruler dates back to Homeric epic Dionysius was an obvious model for later rulers such as Alexander the Great and the Seleucid king Antiochus III. For details, see Evans 2009: 95–97. Tauromenium was situated on a mountainous spur extending to the Ionian Sea with almost vertical cliffs on either side of the settlement. The polis of Naxos was situated in the bay to the south although by 394 had been destroyed by Dionysius and the lands of this Greek community granted to the Sicels who inhabited the hills above. Diodorus claims that Dionysius was wounded by a lance in the groin which suggests that the tyrant was engaged in combat on horseback at the time and sustained an upward thrust from a pike or lance. This raid yielded a profit of 1,000 talents of plunder from the shrine and another 500 talents from the sale of prisoners. See also Evans 2009: 122; Evans 2020: 44–46, for further discussion. Dionysius’ rule was one of the longest of any autocrat in antiquity, bettered only by Augustus and later the Byzantine emperors Constantine VII and Basil II. To rule for so long a time indicates success not failure and this is overlooked in modern opinion about the tyrant of Syracuse. Lysias was born in Syracuse, but lived mostly in Athens and Thurium, and delivered this oration at Olympia in 388/7, according to Diodorus (14.109.3–4), against the ‘contemptuous tyranny’; cf. Dion. Hal. de Lys. 29–30. No mention if the logographer gave the speech on his own behalf or on that of another and what the aim might have been since a Panhellenic response to the supposed territorial ambitions of Dionysius could not have become a reality unless Sparta and Corinth, which both had close ties with Syracuse, could be detached from their alliances. Cf. Plutarch (Them. 25.1) for an identical anecdote with the subject of the biography speaking out against the Deinomenid Hieron. Thus, on Plutarch’s use, without criticism, of a dubious source, in this case Theophrastus, see Oldfather 1954: 294–295 n. 2. For Lysias as the instigator of the hostile sentiment towards Syracuse, see Lamb 1930: 682. See Evans 2016: 167–172 for further discussion of the succession of Dionysius II. Athanis of Syracuse completed the history of Dionysius’ rule, but in a summary from 362–355, then in the next 12 books the years down to Timoleon’s death in 338 (Diod. 15.94.4). For Philistus, see Pearson 1987: 19–30; for Athanis, Pearson 1987: 31–32. Didorus notes (13.103.3) that Philistus initially wrote a history of Sicily from the earliest times down to the fall of Acragas in 406 in seven books, and then continued with a history of Dionysius I in another four books before covering the first part of the rule of Dionysius II in two further books. Since Antiochus of Syracuse had already written about the early history of the island and Syracuse and, by the time Philistius wrote it had become more common to continue a history rather than retrace entirely a scheme already tackled, in what way the later work was different or innovative? It is possible that Philistus dealt with the two decades from 424/3 when Antiochus’ work ended (Diod. 12.71.2) to 406/5 in much greater detail. This seems likely since Philistus dealt

30

46 47

48

49

50

51 52

53

Richard Evans with the Geloan tyrant Hippocrates in his Book 3, Pearson 1987: 24 n. 23, his death fighting against the Sicels in perhaps Book 4, Pearson 1987: 25 n. 32, Syracusan naval activity in the Tyrrhenian Sea in about 453 in Book 5, Pearson 1987: 26, the siege of Syracuse in Book 6, and the subsequent events in Book 7, Pearson 1987: 28. Still the degree of overlap between Philistus and Antiochus, 4–5 books of the former, is remarkable. It suggests that the later historian was dissatisfied with the earlier writer’s coverage and content. For the characterisation of Dion and Dionysius as oppositional figures in the narrative, see Evans 2019: 102–115. For this period of the younger Dionysius’ rule, see Sordi 1983. Diodorus does not claim to have read these books, and only mentions Philistus earlier in the narrative (15.89.3, 15.94.4). This suggests that Diodorus’ source was Timaeus who had also summarised Philistus. This seems evident enough considering the date is exactly at the terminus of Philistus’ history. The treaty may have been negotiated by Dion who is said to have been regularly employed on diplomatic missions including Carthage under Dionysius I, Nepos, Dion, 1.4–5. The information provided by Nepos may refer to the earlier truce of 368/7. There are no details of the treaty, but the Seventh Letter of Plato claims that an annual tribute was paid by Syracuse (see n. 7). This seems unlikely since neither Carthage nor Syracuse had been an obvious victor in the recent hostilities. The treaty lasted for about 20 years before the Carthaginians once again took advantage of internal strife among the Greek cities for territorial gain (Diod. 16.67.1) to the extent that for the first time in 50 years they sent a fleet into the harbour at Syracuse (Diod. 16.69.3). Timoleon’s major military achievement was his defeat of the Carthaginian land forces in 340/39 (Diod. 16.81.1–2). This easing of tensions in this region (roughly modern Basilicata) would also have been beneficial to Taras, a city about which little is related at this time. The philosopher Archytas is mentioned in Plato’s Seventh Letter (338–339, 350; cf. Plut. Dion, 20.1–4) as being on good terms with Syracuse while Dion was in exile (367–357 BC). Plato is said to have been a guest-friend of Archytas and perhaps promoted good relations between the two states. It is equally possible that Taras and Syracuse were for the most part allies in a region where they faced the same threats. The two states are not recorded as being in conflict in this period and Syracusan settlements in the Salentine peninsula designed to counter piracy in the Ionian Sea benefited both states. A war between Taras and the Lucanians is attested in 346/5 (Diod. 16.61.4–63.1) in which the Tarentines were forced to seek military aid from Sparta. The narrative has ‘ἀργῶς’ or ‘carried on a war against the Lucanians in a desultory fashion’. This derogatory remark is probably taken from Timaeus’ account. Diodorus as a Romanised Siciliote ought to have been aware of the lack of accuracy here given Rome’s long-term difficulties with the same tribal group. Leptines was Dionysius’ cousin, Evans 2016: 170, and a further indication that there was factional strife within the ruling dynasty, by the late 350s. He was eventually exiled to the Peloponnese by Timoleon in 342/1 (Diod. 16.72.5). Nepos’ evidence makes sense since the route across the Ionian Sea was shortest at the heel of Italy and was the usual route for ships crossing from Greece. Consequently, Dion is said to have crossed directly from Zacynthus via North Africa to Sicily to avoid being caught by superior forces. Nepos (Dion, 5.3) simply has Dion arrive in Sicily, while the longer and more circuitous route and various details are supplied by Plutarch (Dion, 23–25). This could be an instance where Diodorus accessed two sources without reconciling the information each provided, hence the repetition. Thus, Diodorus uses the verb ‘διατρίβω’ twice, for either Dionysius was ‘busy’ or that he was ‘idling away’ the time. With a fleet of 80 warships under his command (Plut. Dion, 26.1) this expedition seems, however, to have had a serious objective. A fleet of 80 triremes involved at least

The generalship of Dionysius I and II 54 55 56

57

58

59

60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67

68

69 70

31

16,000 rowers, hence this must have been a major enterprise. Philistus is also said to have been in command of a fleet at the same time (Diod. 16.11.3). Caulonia had been seized and destroyed by the elder Dionysius in 389 (Diod. 14.106.3), its citizens transferred to Syracuse and its territory granted to Locri. This practice closely resembles the re-founding of Catane by Hieron I (Diod. 11.49.1). These mercenaries and their families were expelled shortly after 460, but they then occupied Inessa (Diod.11.76.3). Dion was able to live in comfort and relative freedom, either in Corinth (Nepos, Dion, 4.1) or Athens (Plut. Dion, 17.1). As a member of the ruling dynasty his treatment was similar to that of Leptines and Philistus, exiled by the elder Dionysius in about 386 (Diod. 15.7.3–4). Dionysius soon recalled Leptines. For the exile of Philistus and its duration, see Evans 2016: 164 and n. 5, and for earlier discussions. Plutarch claims that Dion arrived at Heraclea Minoa before proceeding to Syracuse. However, this episode is contrived and almost certainly a fiction. Dion had a very brief window of opportunity to gain an entry to Syracuse while Dionysius was occupied in southern Italy and so more likely landed near Elorus just to the south of Syracuse. For discussion, see Evans 2016: 174–175; 2019: 102–115. The flight of Timocrates when Dion occupied Epipolae is meant to enhance the situation of uncertainty and the defeat of Dionysius. There can be no certainty that Timocrates fled or went to some other secure position since his whereabouts plainly had no effect on Dionysius’ subsequent control of the city. The maps of Fabricius 1932 and Drögemüller 1969, which have proved to be highly influential in topographical studies of ancient Syracuse, see for example Domínguez 2006: 273, should be re-interpreted and redrawn to show a more nuanced situation in Acradina where the tyrants from Gelon through to Dionysius II clearly had much more control of the coastal zone than either Diodorus or Plutarch believed. See Evans 2016: 58–64 for further discussion. It would go far to explain his lack of success in gathering support from his fellow citizens, his reliance on mercenaries and his long absence in Leontini before his successful if temporary breakthrough in 354. Westlake 1994: 710–711. Note also for this unsettled period Sordi 1961; de Vido 2011: 9–20. Didorus (16.17.2) does not mention Apollocrates, but that the troops on Ortygia were his best mercenaries. Evans 2016: 170. These were Dion’s nephews, the sons of Aristomache. Their rule must have been financed ultimately by Dionysius from Locri. Timoleon’s quasi-tyranny was brief as was the subsequent democracy which was overturned by the ambitious Agathocles who 25 years after the exiling of Dionysius II again brought Syracuse under sole rule. For the rule of Timoleon, see Sordi 1961; Talbert 1974; Westlake 1994: 693–722; de Vido 2011: 9–20. Jackman 2006: 36–37. It is worth bearing in mind that Thucydides (1.14.2) is referring to the period before the Dionysii hence the Deinomenid tyranny, notable for its great naval victory over the Etruscans in 474 and for the period of democratic rule after 460 which also saw naval activity in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Thucydides does not divulge why the Spartans were disinterested in the affairs of Sicily. The Sicilian Greeks were perhaps not regarded as a threat to Sparta at this time or because Corinth the chief ally of Sparta had strong ties with Syracuse, and the Messenians equally longstanding ethnic relations with Messene (Zancle). The tyranny of the Dionysii notably came to an end when Corinth withdrew support in 345/4. Plutarch, Alex. 8.2–3, states that Alexander possessed a copy of Philistus’ history sent to him by Harpalus. On Ephorus as a source for Greek affairs in Diodorus, see the conclusions of Sanders 1987: 111–113; Hau 2016. For Timaeus, see most recently, Hau 2016: 73–123. Although he may still have been alive when Dionysius achieved sole power, Thucydides’ history

32

Richard Evans

breaks off in 411 and no reference to Sicilian affairs after that date is evident in the extant narrative. 71 Pearson 1987: 119: ‘Timaeus regards most tyrants as impious and sacrilegious men whose acts cry out for divine punishment.’ Pearson 1987: 157: When Timaeus recorded that Euripides was born on the day of Salamis and died on the day that Dionysius became tyrant, he must have meant that the poet’s lifespan corresponded not only to the greatest period of Athens, but also with one of the best periods of Sicilian and Syracusan history. . . . Thus the tragedy of Sicily begins with the death of Euripides. 72 Gelon’s ruthless side was concealed and forgotten although it easily emerges from the accounts in both Herodotus and Diodorus, Evans 2020: 38–59. 73 Gelon’s Olympic victory in 488 was almost certainly celebrated by a poet of that time, but not it seems, Pindar or Bacchylides. For further discussion, see Cummins 2010: 1–20. For Simonides as a possible author of praise poetry dedicated to Gelon, see Morgan 2015: 72 n. 156. 74 Thus Pearson 1987: 208: ‘Timaeus’ account of the elder Dionysius established him in tradition as the typical tyrant. . . . His son . . . seems to have been given no positive qualities at all.’

Bibliography Primary Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. Edited by J.E. King. 1927. Harvard. Diodorus Siculus. The Persian Wars to the Fall of Athens. Books 11–14.34 (480–401 BCE). Edited by P. Green. 2010. Austin, TX. Diodorus Siculus. Volume 6 Books XIV-XV.19. Edited by C.H. Oldfather. 1954. Harvard. Homer. The Odyssey. Edited by W. Shewring and G.S. Kirk. 1980. Oxford. Lysias. Edited by W.R.M. Lamb. 1930. Harvard. Plato. Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII. Edited by W. Hamilton. 1973. Harmondsworth. Plutarch. The Age of Alexander. Edited by I. Scott-Kilvert. 1973. Harmondsworth. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. 1. Edited by C.F. Smith. 1919. Harvard.

Secondary Africa, T. 1982. ‘Worms and the Death of Kings: A Cautionary Note on Disease and History.’ CAnt 1: 1–17. Bauman, R.A. 1990. Political Trials in Ancient Greece. London. Braccesi, L. 1998. I tiranni di Sicilia. Rome. Cummins, M.F. 2010. ‘Sicilian Tyrants and their Victorious Brothers II: The Deinomenids.’ CJ 106: 1–20. De Vido, S. 2011. ‘Timoleonte Liberatore. Appunti per una biografia.’ In Timoleonte e la Sicilia della seconda metà del IV sec. a.C., eds. M. Congiu, C. Micciché, and S. Modeo, 9–20. Caltanissetta. Domínguez, A.J. 2006. ‘Greeks in Sicily.’ In Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, ed. G.R. Tsetskhladze, 253–358. Leiden. Drögemüller, H.-P. 1969. Syrakus: Zur Topographie und Geschichte einer griechischen Stadt. Heidelberg.

The generalship of Dionysius I and II

33

Dunkle, J.R. 1967. ‘The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late Republic.’ TAPA 98: 151–171. Evans, R. 1991. ‘Review of R.A. Bauman, Political Trials in Ancient Greece.’ South African Historical Journal 24: 276–278. Evans, R. 1994. Gaius Marius: A Political Biography. Pretoria. Evans, R. 2008. ‘Phantoms in the Philippics: Catiline, Clodius and Antonian Parallels.’ In Cicero’s Philippics: History, Rhetoric and Ideology, eds. T. Stevenson and M. Wilson, 62–81. Auckland. Evans, R. 2009. Syracuse in Antiquity: History and Topography. Pretoria. Evans, R. 2013. Fields of Battle: Retracing Ancient Battlefields. Barnsley. Evans, R. 2014. ‘The Capture of Sybaris (510 BC) and the Siege of Mantinea: History Repeated?’ Acta Classica 57: 225–232. Evans, R. 2016. Ancient Syracuse: From Foundation to Fourth Century Collapse. London. Evans, R. 2019. ‘The Misleading Representation of Dion as Philosopher-General in Plutarch’s Life.’ In Intellectual and Empire in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. P.R. Bosman, 102–115. London. Evans, R. 2020. ‘Piracy and Pseudo-Piracy in Classical Syracuse: Financial Replenishment through Outsourcing, Sacking Temples and Forced Migrations.’ In Piracy, Pillage and Plunder in Antiquity: Appropriation and the Ancient World, eds. R. Evans and M. de Marre, 38–59. London. Fabricius, F.K. 1932. Das antike Syrakus, eine historische-archäologische Untersuchung. Leipzig. Freeman, E.A. 1891–2006. The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times, 4 Vols. Oxford. Green, E.L. 1899. Diodorus and the Peloponnesian War. Baltimore. Hamel, D. 1998. Athenian Generals: Military Authority in the Classical Period. Leiden. Hau, L.I. 2016. Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus. Edinburgh. Jackman, T. 2006. ‘Ducetius and Fifth-century Sicilian Tyranny.’ In Ancient Tyranny, ed. S. Lewis, 33–48. Edinburgh. Luraghi, N. 1994. Tirannidi arcaiche in Sicilia e Magna Graecia: da Panezio di Leontini alla caduta dei Dinomenidi. Florence. Morgan, K.A. 2015. Pindar and the Construction of Syracusan Monarchy in the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford. Occhipinti, E. 2013. ‘Teopompo e la Sicilia.’ Klio 95: 85–179. Pearson, L. 1987. The Greek Historians of the West: Timaeus and His Predecessors. Atlanta. Prag, J. 2010. ‘Tyrannizing Sicily: Tyrants Who Cried “Carthage.”’ In Private and Public Lies: The Discourse of Despotism and Deceit in the Graeco-Roman World, eds. A.J. Turner, K.O. Chong-Gossard, and F.J. Vervaet, 51–71. Leiden. Robinson, E.W. 2011. Democracy beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age. Cambridge. Sanders, L.J. 1980. ‘Diodorus Siculus and Dionysius I of Syracuse.’ Historia 30: 393–411. Sanders, L.J. 1987. Dionysius I of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny. London. Sanders, L.J. 2008. The Legend of Dion. Toronto. Shrimpton, G.S. 1991. Theopompus the Historian. Montreal. Sordi, M. 1961. Timoleonte. Palermo. Sordi, M. 1980. ‘Il IV secolo da Dionigi I a Timoleonte (336 a.C.).’ In La Sicilia Antica, Vol. 2, eds. E. Gabba and G. Vallet, 207–288. Naples.

34

Richard Evans

Sordi, M. 1983. La Sicilia dal 368/7 al 337/6. Rome. Syme, R. 1939. The Roman Revolution. Oxford. Talbert, R.J.A. 1974. Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily. Cambridge. Thein, A. 2006. ‘Sulla the Weak Tyrant.’ In Ancient Tyranny, ed. S. Lewis, 238–249. Edinburgh. Westlake, H.D. 1954. ‘The Sicilian Books of Theopompus’ Philippica.’ Historia 2: 288–307. Westlake, H.D. 1994. ‘Dion and Timoleon.’ In The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 6, eds. D.M. Lewis, J. Boardman, S. Hornblower, and M. Ostwald, 693–722. Cambridge.

3

The making and the unmaking of the memory of Gelon of Syracuse Frances Pownall

The turbulent history of ancient Sicily offers a valuable illustration of the ways in which successive autocratic dynasties fashioned their own images through the reconstruction or deconstruction of the memory of the rule of their predecessors.1 One common method of legitimising the usurpation of power was to label the previous dynasty as a ‘tyranny’, along with all the negative attributes stereotypically associated with this loaded term.2 In other words, the autocratic rulers in Sicily did not refer to themselves as ‘tyrants’ (although they may well have applied the term to their predecessors to justify their own rule), but instead tended to portray themselves as legitimate kings.3 The aim of my contribution is to identify how the Sicilian rulers justified the basis to their power through the strategic manipulation of the past, not only vis-à-vis their dynastic rivals at home but also their fellow Hellenes on the mainland, with whom they engaged in a competitive rivalry of resistance to foreign invaders. I shall do this through a case study of how the claim that Gelon, the first member of the Deinomenid dynasty to rule over Syracuse, was the saviour of Greece during the Persian invasions was first constructed by his immediate successor Hieron, but later deconstructed when a new dynasty rose to power in Syracuse under Dionysius I.

The making of memory: Gelon and Hieron Gelon rose to prominence in Gela early in the fifth century as a supporter of Hippocrates, a member of a prominent aristocratic family. Hippocrates’ brother Cleander gained the support of a faction of the ruling aristocracy to gain sole power at Gela, but was assassinated after only seven years of rule (Hdt. 7.154.1; Arist. Pol. 7.1316a38–39).4 Hippocrates seems to have taken advantage of the chaos following Cleander’s death to seize power himself, perhaps using popular opposition to aristocratic rule, and quickly gained control of much of eastern Sicily.5 After seven years, however, Hippocrates himself was killed fighting the Sicels, and Gelon took advantage of his military position as commander of the cavalry to usurp power from the sons of Hippocrates (Hdt. 7.154.1–155.1), at least in part, apparently, by exploiting or (more likely) manufacturing opposition to the previous regime.6 Once in control of Gela, Gelon annexed the strategically located city of Syracuse by taking advantage of factional strife between the aristocracy and DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-4

36

Frances Pownall

the general populace (Hdt. 7.155.2; cf. Arist. Pol. 1302b33). Sending his brother Hieron to rule over Gela, Gelon proceeded to use Syracuse as a base to build up the wealthiest and most powerful empire in the Greek world at that time.7 Nevertheless, what was later remembered as Gelon’s greatest achievement, perhaps not surprisingly given the paramount importance of the memory of the Persian Wars in fifth- and fourth-century Greece,8 was the decisive defeat that he and his fatherin-law Theron of Acragas inflicted upon Hamilcar and the Carthaginian navy at the Battle of Himera in 480. Interestingly, the grandiose claim that through his great victory over the Carthaginians Gelon was the saviour not just of Sicily but of all of Greece does not seem to have originated with Gelon himself. A limestone tripod base that he dedicated along with a golden victory at the panhellenic shrine at Delphi following his victory at Himera simply states ‘Gelon, of Syracuse, the son of Deinomenes, dedicated this tripod and Victory to Apollo’.9 Notably, Gelon does not mention his own role in the battle or identify it as a Greek victory over barbarians. Perhaps rightly so, for it seems that the Carthaginians entered a pre-existing conflict between Gelon’s ally and father-in-law Theron against his dynastic rivals in a struggle for the control of Himera (Hdt. 7.165), rather than as a broader attempt to invade Sicily, much less as a coordinated effort to aid the Persians in their simultaneous invasion of Greece.10 Similarly, Pausanias (6.19.17) informs us that Gelon and the Syracusans dedicated a huge statue of Zeus and three linen breastplates at the panhellenic shrine of Olympia as a thank offering for ‘overcoming the Phoenicians (i.e., the Carthaginians) in either a naval or a land battle’. Thus, it appears that these offerings were not so much panhellenic monuments commemorating Gelon’s victory over a foreign invader, but instead were intended to reflect traditional claims to legitimation through military victory in general.11 The development of a panhellenic narrative that Gelon’s victory at Himera represented the salvation of the Greeks from a foreign foe arose only in the next generation, under his brother and successor Hieron. Hieron’s resounding naval defeat of the Etruscans (allies of the Carthaginians) at Cumae in 474/3 (Diod. Sic. 11.51; cf. Pind. Pyth. 1.70–75) offered him a golden opportunity not only to equal Gelon but to legitimise himself as his successor.12 Hieron deliberately promoted his own military achievement as a feat comparable with Gelon’s triumph over the Carthaginians at Himera by dedicating a bronze tripod at Delphi commemorating his victory at Cumae, which he placed beside Gelon’s monument,13 as well as dedicating three bronze helmets as spoils from the Etruscans at Olympia.14 By 470, however, Hieron had begun to exploit the memory of Gelon’s victory in order to position himself as the defender of the Greeks against the barbarians, as is illustrated by the epinician ode that he commissioned from Pindar (Pyth 1.72–80). Pindar’s ode not only portrays Hieron as the saviour of the Greeks through his defeat of the Phoenicians (that is, the Carthaginians) and Etruscans at Cumae, but also associates him explicitly with Gelon’s earlier victory at Himera.15 Furthermore, references to Salamis and Plataea serve to equate the Deinomenid victories over the Carthaginians in 480 and the Etruscans in 474 with the great victories of

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

37

the mainland Greeks in the Persian invasion of 480/79, the Athenian defeat of the Persians at Salamis, and the Spartan defeat of the Persians at Plataea. Thus, Hieron’s self-fashioning as a liberator of the Greeks against a menacing barbarian enemy offered him the ability not just to legitimise his rule within Sicily but also (and perhaps more importantly) to compete with the mainland Greeks in the ongoing reworking of the narrative of Hellenic resistance to foreign invaders.16 In Pindar’s First Pythian (75), Hieron claimed that his defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae not only freed the Sicilian Greeks but also ‘released Hellas from oppressive slavery’ (Ἑλλάδ᾿ ἐξέλκων βαρείας δουλίας). In other words, Hieron’s triumph over the Etruscans at Cumae is portrayed as equal to the victories of the mainland Greeks over the Persians at Salamis and Plataea. But this narrative can be more effective if Hieron refashions the memory of Gelon’s triumph over the Carthaginians at Himera into a panhellenic victory over the Persians in order to attach his own victory over the Etruscans more firmly to the tradition of the Persian Wars. Such a motive is implied in Pindar’s First Pythian, but becomes explicit in the statement of a scholiast to this passage, citing the fourth-century historian Ephorus, that Gelon ‘fought for the freedom not just of the Sicilian Greeks, but also for all of Greece’ (διαμαχησάμενον μὴ μόνον τοὺς Σικελιώτας ἐλευθερῶσαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ σύμπασαν τὴν ῾Ελλάδα).17 This statement, which presumably emanates out of Hieron’s propaganda, retrojects (and thereby appropriates) an element of panhellenic salvation into Gelon’s victory at Himera. Hieron’s appropriation of Gelon’s victory over the Carthaginians at Himera as part of a Persian Wars narrative that made the Deinomenids equal partners with the mainland Greeks in the liberation of Greece should also be read behind Hieron’s reproduction of Aeschylus’ Persae at Aetna.18 Hieron’s manipulation of the memory of Gelon in service to his own legitimising agenda also likely lurks behind the famous synchronism of the battles of Himera and Salamis (Hdt. 7.166, citing Sicilian sources), reinforcing the Deinomenids’ role as equals to their mainland counterparts in the defense of Greece from barbarian invaders.19 Diodorus (11.24.1) takes the synchronism one step further by claiming that Gelon’s victory took place on the same day as Leonidas’ final battle against Xerxes at Thermopylae.20 This further reworking of the synchronism enables the Deinomenids not only to rival the role of the mainland Greeks in fighting off the barbarian invaders but to surpass it, as the backdating of Himera to the day of Thermopylae (a loss) rather than Salamis (a victory) results in the superiority of Gelon’s achievement. Whether this grandiose claim originated from Hieron himself, or was embroidered by Diodorus, is impossible to tell,21 but in any case it is the natural extension of Hieron’s campaign to magnify Gelon’s victory over the Carthaginians as a feat not merely equal in magnitude to the storied victories of the leaders of the fifth-century mainland Greek poleis against the Persians, but actually greater. The success of Hieron’s reconstruction of the memory of Gelon as the hero of the Persian Wars par excellence is very much reflected in the Bibliotheke of Diodorus, who as a Sicilian historian naturally endorsed the glorification of the role of his compatriot in the defense of Greece from barbarian invaders.22 Gelon

38

Frances Pownall

serves as ‘one of his most illustrious role models’, particularly in comparison with the much more negative portrayal offered by Herodotus (7.153–55),23 but it is also worth noting that the subtext of Diodorus’ narrative of Gelon’s astounding success against the Carthaginians is that his achievement surpassed the victories of the mainland Greeks in the Persian Wars (11.20–26). Diodorus (11.22.5–6) characterises Gelon’s defeat of the Carthaginians at Himera as ‘a most remarkable battle’ (ἐπιφανεστάτῃ μάχῃ), and comments that his success gained for him a reputation not only among the Sicilian Greeks but the other Greeks as well, for no one could remember any commander who had achieved such a feat in the past. Furthermore, not only does Diodorus highlight Gelon’s triumph versus Leonidas’ defeat through the synchronism of Himera and Thermopylae, but he also explicitly contrasts Gelon’s victory at Himera with the famous Greek triumphs over the Persians, Themistocles’ victory at Salamis and Pausanias’ at Plataea. What is more, Diodorus strongly suggests that Gelon’s victory was even more glorious, for his defeat of the barbarians at Himera (i.e. the same day as Thermopylae) instilled courage into the mainland Greeks who were terrified at the magnitude of the Persian forces, and he massacred the Carthaginian commander and all of the enemy forces to a man, unlike the mainlanders, who allowed the Persian king and a large portion of his forces to escape (Diod. Sic. 11.23.1–2). Diodorus concludes his magnification of Gelon’s achievements with the comment that the two greatest mainland Greek commanders, Pausanias and Themistocles, suffered ignominious fates in their later careers, while Gelon on the other hand remained king into old age and continued to enjoy the goodwill of his fellow citizens (11.23.3). It is surely no accident that Diodorus comments in a later context on the role of memory in the immortalisation of Gelon’s deeds (11.38.5–6), and he also observes that Hieron appeals to the memory of Gelon when it was politically expedient for him to do (11.66.1).24 Thus, it is arguably Hieron’s ongoing remaking of the memory of Gelon’s victory over the Carthaginians (the culmination of which is reflected in the narrative of Diodorus) that ultimately allowed him to compete with the Greeks of the mainland in the ongoing elaboration of the tradition of the Persian Wars.

The unmaking of memory: Gelon and Dionysius I Whereas Hieron sought to make Gelon’s reputation as the saviour of Greece, Dionysius I sought to unmake it. At the end of the fifth century, Dionysius seized power in Syracuse, using it as a base to consolidate his control of Sicily and ultimately to extend his reach overseas, thus becoming the first ruler in the Greek world of a truly international multi-ethnic empire.25 Like Hieron, Dionysus’ ongoing construction of his image as a legitimate ruler was predicated on panhellenic rhetoric and the fear of barbarian invasion.26 Much of our evidence for Dionysius’ use of extensive use of liberation rhetoric to justify his seizure of power and his massive territorial acquisitions both in Sicily and abroad derives ultimately from Philistus, a historian and member of the Syracusan elite who, as a member of Dionysius’ inner circle, firmly controlled the narrative of his rule in service to his patron’s agenda.27

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

39

As the most important predecessor of Dionysius I, particularly in terms of his victory over the Carthaginians in the Battle of Himera of 480, Gelon might be expected to play a large role in Philistus’ history.28 Surprisingly, however, a perusal of the extant fragments turns up only one fragment that definitively refers to Gelon, and it does not concern the Battle of Himera at all. Instead, Philistus simply states that Gelon razed the city of Camarina to the ground, in a narrative context of the expansionist activities of Gelon and his predecessor Hippocrates (FGrH 556 F 15). In other words, the only surviving reference to Gelon’s rule in Philistus’ history emphasises his imperialism,29 and there are no fragments extant that even mention his famous victory over the Carthaginians in the Battle of Himera, much less trumpet his liberation of the Greeks from barbarian invaders, a theme that is so prominent in Deinomenid propaganda, as we have seen. This silence makes it very difficult to suggest (as some scholars have) that Philistus was instrumental in perpetuating the memory of Gelon as the heroic saviour of the Greeks in the Sicilian historiographical tradition.30 Instead, there is an alternative explanation to the paucity of fragments on Gelon extant from Philistus’ history, as well as his seemingly negative portrayal of Gelon that emphasises instead his imperialism. In light of Philistus’ role as the mouthpiece of Dionysian propaganda, it seems prima facie more likely that the lack of references surviving from his history on the Battle of Himera can be explained by his desire to minimise Gelon’s victory in comparison with Dionysius’ own efforts against the Carthaginians, which were a crucial theme of his legitimising propaganda. While this suggestion must remain an argument from silence, Dionysius’ self-fashioning as a superior version of Gelon explains some strange episodes in the anecdotal tradition. One of these is the prophetic dream of a woman of Himera, who had a vision of Dionysius I as a ‘scourge (ἀλάστωρ) of Sicily and Italy’chained beneath the throne of Zeus (schol. to Aeschin. 2.10 [Dilts 27] = Timaeus FGrH 566 F 29). This omen was interpreted negatively by the later tradition in service to the agenda of those who, like Timoleon, claimed to be saving Sicily from tyrants, and it is in this hostile context that it was narrated by the third-century Sicilian historian Timaeus, who was critical both of Dionysius and his court historian Philistus. But an alternative version of the dream, containing a few crucial differences, can be found in Valerius Maximus (1.7 ext.6). Notably, in this version, the dream takes place before Dionysius’ accession, and the moment of recognition of Dionysius as the ‘fate’ of Sicily and Italy occurs at the very moment of his triumphal entry into Himera. Although the only surviving renditions of this anecdote preserve a negative portrayal of Dionysius, reflecting the dismantling of his liberation rhetoric in the later hostile tradition, in the original version propagated during his reign he probably represented himself positively as the avenging spirit (ἀλάστωρ) of Sicily and Italy against the Carthaginians.31 This interpretation is supported by a cluster of portents surrounding Dionysius’ birth and rise to power circulated by Philistus (FGrH 556 57a and 58), which not only foretell his future greatness but also suggest that his rule is backed by divine support. The dream of the woman of Himera, occurring like the prophetic omens before his accession, serves to legitimise Dionysius’ rule and to reinforce his liberation rhetoric, disseminated by Philistus, that

40

Frances Pownall

he gained sole power in Syracuse by divine assent precisely in order to save Sicily and Italy from the Carthaginians. The fact that the prophetic dream occurred in Himera is crucial, for thanks to Gelon’s victory the city naturally occupied a particularly significant place in the historical memory of the Sicilian Greeks.32 The Carthaginians razed Himera to the ground in 409, just a few years before Dionysius’ accession, in revenge for their defeat by Gelon (Diod. Sic. 13.62.4–5). By the early 390s, however, a contingent of Himerans joined Dionysius’ campaigns against the Carthaginians (Diod. Sic. 14.47.6), offering him the opportunity to claim that he was the one who liberated the city from barbarian control. Dionysius’ startling success in expelling the Carthaginians from Sicily (ephemeral as it ultimately was) over the course of the 390s may have been the impetus for his unmaking of the reputation of his Deinomenid predecessor with the assertion that it was he, and not Gelon, who was the true defender of Greek freedom against the barbarians. Setting the scene at Himera, the site of Gelon’s victory, as the place where the woman recognised Dionysius as the figure identified in her dream as the avenger of Sicily and Italy would truly hammer home his superiority to Gelon. Dionysius’ desire to contrast himself favourably to his famous predecessor is also consistent with the anecdote in Plutarch (Dion 5.9–10) that Dionysius denigrated Gelon’s rule and mocked his achievements, even going so far to pun on his name with the jeer that he had become the ‘laughing stock’ (γέλως) of Sicily. Plutarch proceeds to narrate that the other sycophants pretended to admire this witticism, but Dion allegedly responded that Dionysius was able to rule as tyrant (τυραννεῖς) only because people trusted him for Gelon’s sake. Plutarch then concludes the anecdote with the additional comment in his own voice: ‘For, as a matter of fact, Gelon seems to have made a city under absolute rule a very fair thing to look upon, but Dionysius a very shameful thing.’33 Although Plutarch (as a Platonist) is generally hostile to Dionysius,34 the presence of an explicit contrast between Dionysius and Gelon in his narrative suggests very strongly that this was indeed an important element of Dionysius’ self-presentation. Dionysius’ desire to represent himself as superior to Gelon may also lie behind a mysterious fable that appears in Philistus’ history of Sicily with no name attached. The first-century rhetorician Theon of Alexandria (Prog. 66.8–12 = FGrH 556 F 6) praises Philistus for the stylistic quality of his narrative, citing his rendition of the fable of the horse and the stag as a good example for imitation,35 analogous to the fables of flute-player in Herodotus (1.141), war and hybris in Theopompus’ Hellenica (FGrH 115 F 127), and the dog and the sheep in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (2.7.13–14). The other fables cited are all political and minatory, and illustrate the negative consequences of failure to submit willingly to autocratic rule.36 The narrative context and the allusion to the horse and the stag suggest that Philistus’ fable is identical to one that Aristotle (Rhet. 1239b10–22) attributes to the sixth-century poet Stesichorus, who unsuccessfully warns his fellow citizens of Himera against appointing the military commander Phalaris strategos autokrator and providing him with a bodyguard. In the fable, a horse attempts to revenge himself upon a stag that was spoiling his pasturage by enlisting the help of a man, who immediately mounted him and enslaved him. This fable contains some of the stereotypical

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

41

topoi of tyranny, including the tyrant’s request for a bodyguard enabling him to seize power (cf. the Herodotean Peisistratus, Hdt. 1.59.4–6) and the wise man’s ineffective intervention against an autocrat.37 The presence of these topoi suggests that that the fable derives from the traditional repertoire of anecdotes on tyranny circulating in Archaic Greece,38 and its protagonists are fluid, depending upon the political agenda of the source. Therefore, Aristotle’s (or, more likely, his source’s) attribution of this fable to Phalaris, the earliest of the Sicilian autocrats who created the first true hegemonial power at Acragas on the south coast of Sicily in the first half of the sixth century,39 probably emanates from the pervasive hostile tradition propagated by the subsequent dynasty at Acragas. The Emmenids attempted to legitimise their own autocratic rule by transforming Phalaris into the epitome of the cruel tyrant, alleged inter alia to have roasted his political enemies alive in a bronze bull (Pind. Pyth. 1.95–96).40 As part of their blackening of Phalaris’ reputation, they inserted him into this fable, appropriated from mainland discourse on tyranny and slavery, with his sixth-century contemporary Stesichorus playing the role of stereotypical sage and wise political advisor. But there are a couple of details in Aristotle’s rendition of the fable that appear anachronistic. First of all, it is our only source for the incorporation of Himera into the Acragantine sphere of influence, which probably did not occur until its conquest by Theron in 483.41 Furthermore, the office of strategos autokrator is not attested prior to 415, when the Athenian commanders to Sicily were given this extraordinary appointment.42 Thus, the setting of Himera and the appointment of strategos autokrator both fit rather uneasily with the identification of the protagonist as Phalaris (although his reputation as the proverbial cruel Sicilian tyrant ensured that this version became canonical). There is another Sicilian candidate, however, who better fits both criteria. The first-century mythographer Conon (FGrH 26 F 1.42) identifies the tyrant in this fable as Gelon. This identification is particularly interesting in light of the tradition that Gelon was elected strategos autokrator against the Carthaginians, found only in Diodorus’ narrative of Dionysius’ own appointment to this extraordinary command (13.94.5). There is no evidence elsewhere for Gelon’s appointment to this office (tellingly, it does not appear in the proper chronological place in Diodorus’ earlier narrative of the Battle of Himera), and as we have seen, it is anachronistic in an early fifth-century context. But tapping into the memory of Gelon’s victory would have been a very effective way for Philistus (who is likely Diodorus’ source here) to legitimise Dionysius’ appointment as strategos autokrator through which he seized power at Syracuse, and also to suggest that he was a more effective liberator of Sicily from the barbarians than his illustrious predecessor. This interpretation is reinforced by the long invective in direct speech that Diodorus attributes to Theodorus, a member of the Syracusan elite, in an attempted coup against Dionysius (Diod. Sic. 14.65–69).43 One of Theodorus’ arguments is an unfavourable comparison of Dionysius with Gelon (Diod. Sic. 14.66.1): Of course no one could possibly think it appropriate to compare Dionysius with Gelon of old. For Gelon, through his own virtue, together with the

42

Frances Pownall Syracusans and the rest of the Greeks of Sicily, set free all of Sicily, whereas Dionysius, who took over the cities which were free, has put all of them under the control of the enemy and has himself enslaved the fatherland.44

As Jonathan Prag has correctly observed, ‘the negative surely implies the existence of the positive’;45 that is, Dionysius did compare himself favourably to Gelon, inventing his appointment to the office of strategos autokrator (which did not exist yet) prior to the Battle of Himera in order to provide an antecedent legitimising his own extraordinary military command against the Carthaginians that facilitated his seizure of sole power. The setting of Himera and the reference to the office of strategos autokrator, therefore, suggest that the unnamed tyrant in Philistus’ fable is Gelon, rather than Phalaris, as has previously been argued.46 This identification is consistent with Philistus’ apparent tendency of downplaying Gelon’s victory at Himera in order to reserve for Dionysius the honour of being the true saviour of the Sicilian Greeks from the Carthaginian menace. It seems that Dionysius also engaged in competitive rivalry with the Deinomenids in terms of his reputation in the wider Greek world. Like Hieron, he sent four-horse chariots to compete at the Olympic Games of 388, along with a lavish delegation intended to showcase his piety. In fact, Dionysius went beyond the Deinomenids in sending professional rhapsodes to recite poetry of his own composition (Diod. Sic. 14.109.1), as part of his self-presentation as an enlightened symbol of panhellenism.47 According to the later hostile tradition, his efforts were unsuccessful; his horses ran off the course, his verses were ridiculed,48 and the Athenian orator Lysias delivered a scathing denunciation of Dionysius, coupling him with the Persian king as a potential threat to Greek liberty (Diod. Sic. 14.109.2–6; Lys. 33.5; cf. Diod. Sic. 15.7.2). Nevertheless, Dionysius is attested to have won first prize for his tragedy The Ransoming of Hector at the Lenaean festival in Athens (Diod. Sic. 15.74.1–4 = TGrF 76 T 1); it is probably not coincidental that he chose a theme of the Trojan War, the archetypal Greek victory over barbarians. As it seems, although his royal self-fashioning was inspired by the Deinomenids, Dionysius’ ultimate agenda was to outdo them in every possible way, including toppling them from their pedestal as the champions of Greek liberty against barbarian invaders. To conclude, both Hieron and Dionysius deliberately reworked the memory of Gelon’s victory at Himera in order to advance their own specific agendas. Hieron, on the one hand, was particularly concerned to elaborate Gelon’s achievements against barbarian invaders and to insert the Deinomenids into the grand Persian Wars narrative in order to enhance his own reputation not just in Sicily but in the wider Greek world. Dionysius, on the other hand, worked actively to deconstruct the memory of Gelon’s triumph against the Carthaginians, as can be seen from the silence of his court historian Philistus in conjunction with the presence of explicit contrasts between Gelon and Dionysius in both Diodorus and Plutarch. Minimising Gelon’s victory at Himera allows Dionysius to portray himself instead as the true defender of Greek freedom, a claim that justified his seizure of power in Syracuse and his often-ruthless imperialism both in Sicily and overseas. Furthermore,

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

43

Dionysius was motivated to unmake the memory of Gelon not only to legitimise his own self-proclaimed role as the liberator of Sicily from the Carthaginians, but also to replace his Deinomenid predecessors in the larger Greek narrative of ongoing resistance to the barbarians. Dionysius’ appropriation of liberation propaganda from Hieron’s reconstruction of the memory of Gelon and his self-fashioning as a superior version (a Gelon 2.0) suggest that his message was intended to spread his reputation beyond Sicily to a larger panhellenic audience. In this aim, Dionysius seems to have been highly successful. It is surely not accidental that Philip and Alexander of Macedon, as well as the Hellenistic Successors and (eventually) the Romans, later employed the notion of ‘the freedom of the Greeks’ to great effect.

Notes 1 Many thanks to Martine De Marre and Chris L. de Wet for the organisation of such a stimulating conference and for the invitation to contribute to this volume. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of the anonymous referees, which have improved this chapter substantially. Any errors or omissions that remain are of course my own. 2 On the development of the ‘discourse of tyranny’ in Greek literature, particularly in the wake of the Persian Wars, see esp. Anderson 2005; Lewis 2009; Mitchell 2013; Luraghi 2018. Anderson’s appeal (2005: 173–174) for the elimination of the term ‘tyrant’ in reference to the rulers of Archaic Greece should perhaps be extended to Sicily. 3 See for example Diodorus’ references to Gelon and Hieron as ‘kings’ of Syracuse and their regime as a ‘kingdom’, whereas he designates as a ‘tyranny’ that of their brother Thrasybulus, who ruled for only a year before he was overthrown and the city was ‘liberated’ (e.g. 11.23.3, 26.6, 38.2–3, 66–67, and 72). Similarly, the Athenian representative to Gelon in Herodotus addresses him as ‘king’ (7.161.1; cf. Hieron as king in Pindar, Ol. 1.23 and Pyth. 3.70), whereas both Herodotus (7.156.3) and Thucydides (6.4.2 and 6.94.1) refer in propria persona to Gelon as a ‘tyrant’ (likely adopting the hostile terminology originating in the legitimising propaganda that circulated in the aftermath of the expulsion of the Deinomenids). Cf. Oost 1976 and Sulimani 2018: 207. 4 On Cleander, see Asheri 1988: 758–759 and Luraghi 1994: 126–127. 5 On Hippocrates, see Asheri 1988: 759–766 and Luraghi 1994: 119–186. 6 As is suggested by Herodotus’ comment (7.155.1), presumably emanating out of Gelon’s own propaganda legitimising his usurpation of power at Gela, that ‘the fellowcitizens [of Hippocrates’ sons] refused to continue to be their subjects’ (οὐ βουλομένων τῶν πολιητέων κατηκόων ἔτι εἶναι). 7 On Gelon, see Asheri 1988: 766–767; Luraghi 1994: 273–334; Evans 2016: 19–46. 8 On the importance of the memory of the Persian Wars throughout the classical period, with particular emphasis on the competing claims of individual poleis, see Yates 2019. 9 Γέλον ὀ Δεινομέν[εος]/ ἀνέθεκε τὀπολλονι/ Συραϙόσιος (ML no. 28). The occasion of the dedication is attested by Diodorus (11.26.7) and Athenaeus 6.231f (on the authority of Phaenias of Eresus F 16 Engels and Theopompus FGrH 115 F 193). 10 Cf. Asheri 1988: 748–753; Prag 2010: 53–55; Hornblower 2011: 52–53. 11 So Prag 2010: 56; cf. Harrell 2002: 454. 12 Cf. Asheri 1992: 152 and Prag 2010: 56–57. 13 Syll3 35 with Bacchyl. 3.17–19; Ath. 6.231f (on the authority of Phaenias of Eresus F 16 Engels and Theopompus FGrH 115 F 193). 14 Osborne and Rhodes2017 no. 101 (cf. Fornara no. 64 B and ML no. 29). 15 On Pindar’s First Pythian as a vehicle for Hieron’s propaganda, see esp. Pfeijffer 2005 and Morgan 2015: 300–358.

44

Frances Pownall

16 On Hieron’s elaboration of the Deinomenid role in the Persian Wars for both a local and a panhellenic audience, see Feeney 2007: 44–47 and Morgan 2015: 133–162; cf. Cummins 2010; Meister 2019; Yates 2019: 105–109. 17 Schol. to Pind. Pyth. 1.146b = Ephorus FGrH 70 F 186. 18 On the Sicilian performance of the Persae, see Poli Palladini 2013 and Morgan 2015: 96–98. For scepticism on Aeschylus’ connection with Sicily in general and Hieron in particular, see Smith 2018. 19 On the panhellenic focus of this synchronism in Deinomenid self-representation, see Harrell 2006. 20 Aristotle (Poet. 1459a24–26) mentions this synchronism, although he rejects the Sicilian version of events. 21 Cf. Feeney 2007: 50–51 and Baron 2013: 110–111, who suggest that Timaeus is the source of this further synchronism. 22 Diodorus’ Bibliotheke reflects not only the world view of a late Hellenistic Sicilian intellectual, but also his contemporary first-century Roman context; see Sacks 1990; Sulimani 2011; Hau 2016: 73–123; Muntz 2017; Sacks 2018. Unfortunately, the Sicilian historiographical tradition prior to Diodorus Siculus exists only in fragments, collected in Jacoby, FGrH 554‒577; translations and commentaries can now be found in Brill’s New Jacoby. 23 Sulimani 2018: 205–208 (quotation on 208); cf. Sulimani 2011: 68. 24 Ironically, however, the memory of Hieron in Diodorus’ narrative suffers by comparison with Gelon (11.67.2–4). 25 On Dionysius, see esp. Stroheker 1958; Caven 1990; Evans 2016: 152–171; Roisman 2017: 227–273. 26 On Dionysius’ extensive use of liberation rhetoric, see Pownall 2020; cf. Prag 2010. 27 On Philistus as a mouthpiece of Dionysian propaganda, see Sanders 1987; Sordi 1990; Vanotti 1994; Bearzot 2002: esp. 114–119; Pownall 2017b. 28 The extant fragments of Philistus can be found at FGrH 556, now available with a new translation and commentary in Brill’s New Jacoby (= Pownall 2013). 29 See also Pownall 2013: Commentary to F 15 and F 20 and Pownall 2017b: 73. There is also a reference to Gelon’s dog, but there is no reason to believe that it offers a positive appraisal of Gelon himself either; see Pownall 2013: Commentary to F 48. 30 For example Zahrnt 1993: 380–390 and Schepens 1994: 266. 31 The meaning of the word ἀλάστωρ is ambiguous and can be positive and negative. On the reflection of a positive interpretation of the dream in the version preserved by Valerius Maximus, see Sordi 1984 and Pownall 2019: 22–25. 32 Cf. Pownall 2019: 25–26. 33 Trans. B. Perrin. τῷ γὰρ ὄντι φαίνεται κάλλιστον μὲν Γέλων ἐπιδειξάμενος θέαμα μοναρχουμένην πόλιν, αἴσχιστον δὲ Διονύσιος. 34 Cf. Mossé 2006. 35 Note, however, that the reference to the stag has been added in from the Armenian manuscript; see Patillon & Bolognesi 1997, ad loc. 36 Pownall 2017b: 70 (with earlier bibliography). 37 On this topos, see Kurke 2011: 125–158. 38 The fable is no. 269 in the Perry index. On the ‘association of beast fable with public debate on issues of slavery, freedom, and threatened tyranny’, see Kurke 2011: 150–151, who cites in this connection the famous wolf metaphor in Solon (fr. 36 W 26–27). On the willingness of the Sicilian autocrats to tap into this traditional repertoire of anecdotes on tyranny, see Lewis 2000. 39 On Phalaris, see Luraghi 1994: 21–49 and Adornato 2012. 40 On the memory sanctions levied against Phalaris by the Emmenids, see Luraghi 1994: 36–49. On Phalaris’ notorious bronze bull, see Schepens 1978 and Dudziński 2013. 41 Fischer-Hansen et al. 2004: 186; cf. 199. On the numismatic evidence for Theron’s annexation of Himera, see Fischer-Bossert 2018: 134.

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

45

42 Thuc. 6.8.2 with Hornblower 2008: 316–317; cf. Berger 1992: 94–95. 43 On the narrative function of this speech in Diodorus, see Baron 2018. On Diodorus’ own motives for underlining the virtue of Gelon in this speech, see Sulimani 2018: 207–208. 44 Οὐ γὰρ δήπουθεν ἀξιώσαι τις ἂν παραβάλλειν Διονύσιον τῷ παλαιῷ Γέλωνι. ἐκεῖνος μὲν γὰρ μετὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἀρετῆς, μετὰ τῶν Συρακοσίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Σικελιωτῶν ἠλευθέρωσε τὴν Σικελίαν ἅπασαν, ὁ δ᾿ ἐν ἐλευθερίᾳ παραλαβὼν τὰς πόλεις τῶν μὲν ἄλλων ἁπασῶν κυρίους πεποίηκε τοὺς πολεμίους, αὐτὸς δὲ τὴν πατρίδα καταδεδούλωται. 45 Prag 2010: 60. 46 By for example Pownall 2013: Commentary to F 6 and 2017b: 69–71. 47 Duncan 2012; Pownall 2017a. 48 On the anecdotal tradition on the poor quality of Dionysius’ literary compositions, see Duncan 2012: 138–141.

Bibliography Secondary Adornato, G. 2012. ‘Phalaris: Literary Myth or Historical Reality? Reassessing Archaic Akragas.’ AJA 116: 483–506. Anderson, G. 2005. ‘Before Turannoi Were Tyrants: Rethinking a Chapter of Ancient Greek History.’ ClAnt 24: 173‒222. Asheri, D. 1988. ‘Carthaginians and Greeks.’ CAH 42: 739–780. Asheri, D. 1992. ‘Sicily, 478–431 BC.’ CAH 52: 147–170. Baron, C.A. 2013. Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography. Cambridge. Baron, C.A. 2018. ‘The Road Not Taken: Diodoros’ Reasons for Including the Speech of Theodoros.’ In Diodorus of Sicily: Historiographical Theory and Practice in the Bibliotheke, eds. L.I. Hau, A. Meeus, and B. Sheridan, 491–504. Leuven. Bearzot, C. 2002. ‘Filisto di Siracusa.’ In Storici greci di Occidente, ed. R. Vattuone, 91–136. Bologna. Berger, S. 1992. Revolution and Society in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy. Stuttgart. Caven, B. 1990. Dionysius I: War-Lord of Sicily. New Haven and London. Cummins, M.F. 2010. ‘Sicilian Tyrants and their Victorious Brothers II: The Deinomenids.’ CJ 106: 1–20. Dudziński, A. 2013. ‘The Bull of Phalaris and the Historical Method of Diodorus Siculus.’ Histos 7: 70–87. Duncan, A. 2012. ‘A Theseus Outside Athens: Dionysius I of Syracuse and Tragic SelfPresentation.’ In Theater Outside Athens: Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy, ed. K. Bosher, 137–155. Cambridge. Evans, R. 2016. Ancient Syracuse: From Foundation to Fourth-Century Collapse. London. Feeney, D.C. 2007. Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History. Berkeley. Fischer-Bossert, W. 2018. ‘Imitations and Remodelings of Sicilian Coin Types: Fashion or Politics?’ In Greek and Roman Coins Seen Through Their Images: Noble Issuers, Humble Users?, eds. P.P. Iossif, F. de Callataÿ, and R. Veymiers, 133–141. Liège.

46

Frances Pownall

Fischer-Hansen, T., T.H. Nielsen, and C. Ampolo. 2004. ‘Sikelia.’ In An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, eds. M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen, 172–248. Oxford and New York. Harrell, S.E. 2002. ‘King or Private Citizen: Fifth-Century Sicilian Tyrants at Olympia and Delphi.’ Mnemosyne 55: 439–464. Harrell, S.E. 2006. ‘Synchronicity: The Local and the Panhellenic within Sicilian Tyranny.’ In Ancient Tyranny, ed. S. Lewis, 119–134. Edinburgh. Hau, L.I. 2016. Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus. Edinburgh. Hornblower, S. 2008. A Commentary on Thucydides, Vol. 3. Oxford and New York. Hornblower, S. 2011. The Greek World 479–323 BC, 4th ed. London and New York. Kurke, L. 2011. Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose. Princeton. Lewis, S. 2000. ‘The Tyrant’s Myth.’ In Sicily From Aeneas to Augustus: New Approaches in Archaeology and History, eds. C. Smith and J. Serrati, 97–106. Edinburgh. Lewis, S. 2009. Greek Tyranny. Exeter. Luraghi, N. 1994. Tirannide arcaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia. Florence. Luraghi, N. 2018. ‘The Discourse of Tyranny and the Greek Roots of the Bad King.’ In Evil Lords: Theories and Representations of Tyranny from Antiquity to the Renaissance, eds. N. Panou and H. Schadee, 11–26. New York. Meister, F.J. 2019. ‘Hieron and Zeus in Pindar.’ CP 114: 366–382. Mitchell, L. 2013. The Heroic Rulers of Archaic and Classical Greece. London and New York. Morgan, K.A. 2015. Pindar & the Construction of Syracusan Monarchy in the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford. Mossé, C. 2006. ‘Plutarch and the Sicilian Tyrants.’ In Ancient Tyranny, ed. S. Lewis, 188–196. Edinburgh. Muntz, C.E. 2017. Diodorus Siculus and the World of the Late Roman Republic. New York. Oost, S.I. 1976. ‘The Tyrant Kings of Syracuse.’ CP 71: 224–236. Osborne, R. and P.J. Rhodes. 2017. Greek Historical Inscriptions 478–404 BC. Oxford. Patillon, M. and G. Bolognesi (eds). 1997. Aelius Théon: Progymnasmata. Paris. Pfeijffer, I.L. 2005. ‘Propaganda in Pindar’s First Pythian Ode.’ In The Manipulative Mode: Political Propaganda in Antiquity. A Collection of Case Studies, eds. K.A.E. Enenkel and I.L. Pfeijffer, 13–42. Leiden. Poli Palladini, L. 2013. Aeschylus at Gela: An Integrated Approach. Alessandria. Pownall, F. 2013. ‘Philistos (556).’ In Brill’s New Jacoby, ed. I. Worthington and Leiden. Pownall, F. 2017a. ‘Dionysius I and the Creation of a New-Style Macedonian Monarchy.’ AHB 31: 21–38. Pownall, F. 2017b. ‘The Horse and the Stag: Philistus’ View of Tyrants.’ In Ancient Historiography on War and Empire, eds. T. Howe, S. Müller, and R. Stoneman, 62–78. Oxford and Philadelphia. Pownall, F. 2019. ‘Dionysius I and the Woman of Himera: A Case Study in the Perils of Political Religion.’ In Political Religions in the Greco-Roman World: Discourses, Practices, and Images, eds. E. Koulakiotis and C. Dunn, 16‒33. Newcastle upon Tyne. Pownall, F. 2020. ‘Liberation Propaganda as a Legitimizing Principle in Warfare: Dionysius I as an Antecedent to Philip and Alexander of Macedon.’ In Societies at War, eds. K. K. Ruffing, K. Droß-Krüpe, S. Fink, and R. Rollinger, 199–217. Vienna. Prag, J. 2010. ‘Tyrannizing Sicily: The Despots Who Cried “Carthage!”’ In Private and Public Lies: The Discourse of Despotism and Deceit in the Greco-Roman World, eds. A.J. Turner et al., 51–71. Leiden.

The memory of Gelon of Syracuse

47

Roisman, J. 2017. The Classical Art of Command: Eight Greek Generals Who Shaped the History of Warfare. Oxford and New York. Sacks, K.S. 1990. Diodorus Siculus and the First Century. Princeton. Sacks, K.S. 2018. ‘Diodorus of Sicily and the Hellenistic Mind.’ In Diodorus of Sicily: Historiographical Theory and Practice in the Bibliotheke, eds. L.I. Hau, A. Meeus, and B. Sheridan, 43–63. Leuven. Sanders, L.J. 1987. Dionysius I of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny. London, New York and Sydney. Schepens, G. 1978. ‘Polybius on Timaeus’ Account of Phalaris’ Bull: A Case of ΔΕΙΣΙΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ.’ Ancient Society 9: 117–148. Schepens, G.1994. ‘Politics and Belief in Timaeus of Tauromenium.’ Ancient Society 25: 249–278. Smith, D.G. 2018. ‘The Reception of Aeschylus in Sicily.’ In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus, ed. R.F. Kennedy, 9–53. Leiden and Boston. Sordi, M. 1984. ‘Il fr. 29 Jacoby di Timeo e la lettura augustea di un passo di Filisto.’ Latomus 43: 534–539. Sordi, M. 1990. ‘Filisto e la propaganda dionysiana.’ In Purposes of Histor, eds. H. Verdin, G. Schepens, and E. De Keyser, 159–171. Leuven. Stroheker, K. 1958. Dionysios I. Gestalt und Geschichte des Tyrannen von Syrakus. Wiesbaden. Sulimani, I. 2011. Diodorus’ Mythistory and the Pagan Mission: Historiography and Culture-Heroes in the First Pentad of the Bibliotheke. Leiden and Boston. Sulimani, I. 2018. ‘Mimēsis in Diodorus Siculus: The Role of History and Sicilian Role Models.’ In The Many Faces of Mimēsis, eds. H.L. Reid and J. De Long, 201–214. Sioux City, IA. Vanotti, G. 1994. ‘Filisto teorico della tiranide.’In Hesperià: studi sulla grecità d’Occidente, Vol. 4, ed. L. Braccesi, 75–82. Rome. Yates, D. 2019. States of Memory: The Polis, Panhellenism, and the Persian Wars. Oxford. Zahrnt, M. 1993. ‘Die Schlacht bei Himera und die sizilische Historiographie.’ Chiron 23: 353–390.

4

Alexander in Jerusalem Constructing a ‘Jewish Life’ for Alexander the Great, Josephus AJ xi 302–343 Adrian Tronson

Introduction: the credibility of the accounts of Alexander and the Jews There are many instances, ancient and modern, where developing or marginal societies appropriate Alexander the Great as an ideological meme to adapt and integrate their own histories with those of the major political powers of the time.1 Among these is Josephus’ controversial account of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem during his campaign in Syria and Palestine in 332 and his warm reception by the Jews. Although dismissed by most scholars as fictional,2 a small minority argues that the events Josephus presents are essentially true and actually followed in the order in which they appear in the text.3 The following investigation suggests that although the true story is irretrievable, the extant versions may have a factual basis, and that we have to take into account Josephus’ ideology and historiographical viewpoint. Using the Septuagint as his main source (Contr. Ap. 51 and 55), Josephus created a coherent, chronological narrative from the Scriptures, a diffuse collection of ancient texts of various genres (cf. n. 15), rewriting and universalising the Jewish past for the Hellenized audience of the diaspora and perhaps beyond it (e.g. AJ, Praefatio 1.15, 17–19; cf. AJ 20.262: . . . εἰς Ἓλληνας ἐξενεγκεῖν). Let it be known, therefore, that [Moses] thought it absolutely necessary for anyone (τῷ) setting out to husband (οἰκονομήσειν) his life well so as to rule others, first, as an intellectual observer, to know thoroughly the nature of God (θεοῦ . . . φῦσιν κατανοῆσσαι) and his works, and thus to take as a pattern for imitation the best of all things and, as far as possible, to try to follow them through (πειρᾶσθαι κατακολουθεῖν). (AJ 1.19) The ‘canonic’ Greco-Roman history of the life, achievements, and death of Alexander the Great is based on a consensus of events and anecdotes common to the six extant literary sources, all written three or more centuries after his death.4 Josephus’ story in AJ 11, 302–343, is but one version of Alexander’s encounter with the Jews among at least a half-dozen ‘non-canonical’ accounts, some earlier, DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-5

Alexander in Jerusalem 49 some later than his, which differ significantly from each other: in the Septuagint, for example prophetic allusions, such as Daniel 8.20–22, and in the gamma (γ, or C) recension of the Alexander Romance, and various Jewish and Christian sources, such as rabbinical texts, church history, and Jewish folklore. The following argument centres around this ‘Jewish Life’ of Alexander the Great. Although these texts provide intriguing details about Alexander’s activities in Palestine, most modern scholars exclude them from the discipline of ‘Alexander Studies’ because of chronological inconsistencies and the silence of the canonic sources. Alexander’s ‘Jewish life’, as summarised in 1 Maccabees chapters 1–10, to some extent follows the established canon.5 His visit to Jerusalem in 332 appears only in the sources mentioned earlier.6 Josephus alone presents a coherent narrative that provides an actual historical context: Alexander’s campaign in 333/2 from Tyre through Coele Syria and Palestine to Gaza and Egypt.7 Uniquely, his account overlaps a second narrative about the long-standing conflict some 80 years earlier between Jews and Samaritans, attested in Nehemiah 6.1–9, Ezra, 4. 1–5; 9–10; 2 Kings 17.24; cf. Josephus AJ 11.19–20; 84–88. Details relating to the conflict also feature in two of the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, dated to the last third of the fifth century, during the reigns of Artaxerxes I and Darius II.8 Josephus, however (AJ 11, 302 and 306–343) sets the conflict during the reign of Darius III, a significant discrepancy that questions the validity of the whole narrative. Nevertheless, a Jerusalem visit is plausible, given Alexander’s strategic and logistic motives at the time and his well-known religious inclinations.9 He would have visited Jerusalem just as he visited Gordium, Sardis, the oracle of the Branchidae in Cilicia, Tyre, Sidon, and Siwah, for practical reasons, that is to establish a Macedonian presence, to favour cooperative communities, and for his interest in oracles and religious sites.10 Quintus Curtius, the only canonic historian, possibly a contemporary, who overlaps Josephus’ account, mentions the murder of Andromachus, Alexander’s governor of Syria during a revolt by the Samaritans early in 331, while Alexander was in Egypt.11 The fact that Samaria was then under the control of a Macedonian ‘satrap’ confirms Josephus’ story that Darius III’s Samaritan satrap, Sanaballetes, who plays a major role in AJ 11, had died while Alexander was besieging Gaza in 332 (AJ 11. 325; cf. below, 55). Curtius suggests that Alexander intended to return to Tyre after his Egyptian campaign and on his way to Damascus and then on to Gaugamela. The unrest in Samaria forced him to curtail his ‘holiday’ and depart immediately from Egypt (Curtius, 4.4, 9–10). Most scholars accept Curtius’ account of the Samaritan revolt as historical because of supporting archeological evidence (cf. below, 57) but reject the notion of Alexander’s presence among the Jews, or the relevance of Jerusalem to his campaign. Plausible elements of Josephus’ story, however, should be identified and tested against the aforementioned criteria: chronology, historical context, Alexander’s character, and his objectives as revealed by other sources. If the episode is compatible with these criteria, the essential elements of the story should be taken seriously. Josephus’ historiographical aims, biasses, methodology, and ideological objectives as well as genuine events, such as Alexander’s attested

50 Adrian Tronson dealings with the local populations, also require closer examination. Josephus’ juxtapostion of the Jewish-Samaritan conflict, as attested in the Scriptures and the Elephanine papyri, with Alexander’s Levantine campaign is regarded as a major stumbling block to his credibility. Yet the Jewish-Samaritan dispute is a major theme in Book 11 and Josephus’ reason for (uniquely) presenting it where he does, and why, requires scrutiny. Aryeh Kashers’ argument for Josephus’ veracity is plausible.12 However, although he discusses Alexander’s logistics and strategy, he neglects his typology, supposed objectives and divine aspirations; he glosses over the mythical elements in the narrative and the pervasiveness among the Jews throughout the ages of the Alexander-myth.13 One reviewer maintains that he expresses ‘feasible conclusions as hypotheses, without citing the obvious facts that could support them’.14 Kasher does not interpret Josephus’ narrative in relation to the Alexandertradition as revealed in 1 Maccabees, the Romance and Talmudic and Christian literature. To him Josephus’ account is historically accurate as it stands and the chronological discrepancy between his and other sources of the Samaritan conflict are due to oversight.15 He does not account for the different versions of Alexander’s encounter with Jews and Samaritans (AJ 11, 340–347) in the rabbinical texts, or in Eusebius, Jerome, and Syncellus (cf. n. 53), or Josephus’ silence on Alexander’s action against the Samaritans after the death of Andromachus. He simply accepts the whole logos, barring authorial errors, as fact, rather than treating it as historiographical rhetoric containing factual material – essentially, the immediate surrender of Jerusalem to a foreign conqueror, combined with certain ‘meta-facts’ that enhance and justify the history and political mythology of the Jews.16 Given Alexander’s known movements, motives, goals, and interests, and his well-attested status among the Jews, it is unlikely that he would have been unaware of their existence and of their potential importance to his mission.

The Maccabaean narrative, Alexander, and the Jewish tradition The earliest extant assessment of Alexander the Great comes from the terse but not openly hostile introduction to 1 Maccabees.17 This narrative follows the Greco-Roman canon of Alexander’s life, death, and aftermath but with some significant variants. When Alexander realises his death is imminent (ἔγνω ὃτι ἀποθνήσκει), he summons his most trusted courtiers (τοὺς παῖδας αὐτοῦ) and divides up his kingdom while still alive (ἔτι ζῶντος αὐτοῦ) among the ‘honourable’ (τοὺς ἐνδόξους). According to the canon, Alexander neither ‘comes to know’ that he is dying nor summons his generals. When his generals file past his deathbed, he barely, if at all, recognises them and is unable to speak, let alone name his successsors. A dispute over the succession precipitates a bitter civil war among rival contenders.18 Moreover, there is no indication of the strife among the commanders after his death. Alexander split the kingdom among the diadochi by consensus. According to the canonic source-tradition, this was not the case.19 There is no hint of Philip Arrhidaeus, the role of Alexander IV, and the strife between

Alexander in Jerusalem 51 Cassander and Olympias. The Maccabaean author, in contrast, emphasises Alexander’s efforts and success in ensuring a smooth transition of the empire on his death (ἐπέθοντο πάντες διαδήμετα ‘they crowned themselves’) and makes clear that the real mischief began with the epigoni, οἱ ὀπίσω αὐτῶν . . . ἔτη πολλὰ καὶ ἐπλήθυνον κακὰ ἐν τῇ γῇ (‘and the successors many years after them, also multiplied many evils upon the earth’). In short, there is no overt hostility shown against Alexander or, apparently, his immediate successors. The author ignores the court intrigues, assassinations, and murders, real or alleged, throughout the course of Alexander’s reign, also his violent reactions which the extant Alexander-sources relate in detail. He hints at Alexander’s pride, implying tyrannical behaviour, as Momigliano suggests, by the loaded formula καὶ ὑψώθη, καὶ ἐπῄρθη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ (‘He was haughty and his heart was exalted’). To the Greek reader this remark would refer to the king’s increasing arrogance attested in the ‘vulgate’ version which derives from Cleitarchus’ history; the Hellenized Jewish reader might have recalled the story of King Uzziah in II Chronicles 26.16: But when he [Uzziah] grew powerful his pride led to his own undoing: he offended against the Lord his God by entering into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. [the Aaronite priests said]: ‘it is not for you Uzziah (Ozias) to burn incense to the Lord for that will . . . bring you no honour from the Lord your God.’ And the king, who ready to burn incense was indignant (έθυώθη) and because of his indignation at the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead. [Tr. The New English Bible, adapted] In 1 Maccabees, Alexander’s only ‘sin’ was pride in his achievements and the appropriation of a status that did not belong to him;20 there is no suggestion of tyrannical behaviour. However, the Greek-speaking Jewish audience acquainted with the Septuagint would have been more sensitive to the moral and religious connotations of such expressions, and any Jew who knew of the history of Alexander would spot the allusions in 1 Maccabees to the life of Uzziah (cf. II Chron. 26. 1–23. 3 and II Chron. 26. 16: καὶ ὡς κατίσχυσεν, ὑψώθη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ τοῦ καταφθεῖραι: ‘and when he became powerful, his heart was lifted high to destroy him and he sinned against the Lord’). Both gained possession of the throne while very young, benefited their subjects, conquered their enemies, built great works, strengthened the army, built strategic machines, but became powerful and in their ‘pride of greatness’ Uzziah usurped the role of the Aaronite priests. His reaction to criticism caused his affliction with leprosy and he died in disgrace, having had to yield up his power to his son. Alexander assumed honours that the Greeks considered only suitable for the gods and died young, though not in disgrace. The sketch of Alexander in 1 Maccabees, though not overtly unfavourable, does not reflect the adulatory legends and fairy tales that for centuries Jews told about him.21 Alexander’s positive reputation in Jewish culture continues to the present, as demonstrated by family names derived from him, such as Sandor,

52 Adrian Tronson Sandro, Sender, and Sanders, as well as names of streets and hotels in Jerusalem and on the West Bank; even the flagship cabernet from the Alexander Vinyards near Tel Aviv, named ‘Alexander the Great’, uses a trademark that suggests his coin portraits.22 Three episodes from the Jewish life of Alexander derived from the rabbinical texts appear in the volume Jewish Fairy Tales collected and written for children by Gertrude Landa (‘Aunt Naomi’), published in 1919. These include his welcome into Jerusalem. According to Josippon, the tenth-century author of a popular history of the Jews, the High Priest, in honour of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem in 332, ordered that first born sons of priests that year be called Alexander.23 This reception in no way supports the usual interpretation of 1 Maccabees, 1–10 – that it describes a ruthless conquerer who met his just deserts. The text explicitly condemns neither Alexander personally, nor his immediate successors as villainous tyrants but only subsequent generations, the epigonoi.24

The Judeo-Alexandrian Romance tradition In the gamma recension of the Greek Alexander Romance (II 22–24) and in the Talmud, Midrashim and Mishnah, Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem is not connected to a particular historical context.25 That it does not appear in the standard extant Alexander-histories, however, does not prove that it should be rejected by argumentum e silentio any more than Curtius’ incidental reference to the death of Andromachus should be.26 Rather should we ask how the story originated. Cleitarchus’ Histories Concerning Alexander, extensively used by Diodorus, Quintus Curtius, Pompeius Trogus, and the Metz Epitome, is the most likely source. Disparaged by early twentieth-century scholars as the source of the sensational and unreliable vulgate tradition, it gained respectability after the 1960s, so that events unmentioned in the ‘reliable’ sources (essentially Arrian and Plutarch) are no longer dismissed as pure fiction.27

The so-called Greek Alexander Romance, or pseudo-Callisthenes Dating from between the second century BCE to the fourth century CE, the text of the γ – recension refers to the Jews in some detail and probably reflects the tensions between the resident Jews and Samaritans in Alexandria, as Momigliano suggested.28 This interpolated narrative, however, appears to be critical of the Jerusalem Jews.29 The following synopsis is based on R. Marcus’ translation of C. Müller’s edition (Paris) of 1877 and that of Stoneman, based on H. Engelmann’s edition of Bk. 2 of the gamma (C) recension of 1962.30 This shows obvious discrepancies from Josephus’ version, as discussed below. According to the Romance account, Alexander conquered the country of the Jews. Wishing to resist him, the Jews sent out spies disguised as envoys. Alexander was not deceived and ‘commanded’ some of the ‘very bravest young men of the Macedonian phalanx to hurl themselves into a nearby ravine’.31 The Macedonian troops were prompted to obey Alexander’s orders, thus proving that they regarded ‘death . . . as a trifle to Macedonians’.32

Alexander in Jerusalem 53 Stoneman’s translation,33 based on Engelmann’s text, offers a variant version in which Alexander ordered some of ‘the most warlike young men of the Macedonian phalanx to ambush them in a nearby ravine’. Then he says to them: ‘See, . . . death is as nothing to a Macedonian soldier.’ This rendering of the first sentence does not reflect the Greek. The reflexive ἑαυτοὺς ἀκοντίσαι surely means something like ‘to attack themselves (i.e. “each other”) with javelins’. That is, they hurled javelins at each other presumably dodging the weapons or deliberately missing their targets, as a dare-devil display of skill and bravery. The account continues: The Jews, worried about the bravery of the Macedonians, persuaded their people to surrender. [They said to the Jews] it was not so much their daring in the face of death that astonished us as the fact that they did not hope for any profit therefrom. The rulers then decide to surrender, ‘and so their priests put on their priestly robes and went out to meet ’.34 When Alexander saw them, ‘he was awed by their appearance and told them not to come any nearer to him but to remain in the city’. Having summoned one of the priests, he utters his amazement at his ‘divine appearance (θεοειδές)’. He asks which god they worship, having ‘never seen so seemly an array (εὐταξίαν) of priests of the Greek gods’. The priest then says, ‘We serve one God who created Heaven and Earth and all things in them. But no man is able to tell his name.’ Alexander replies, ‘As servants of the true (ἀληθινοῦ) God go in peace. For your God shall be my God.’ He then makes peace and promises not to invade their land as he did those of others ‘because you serve a living god (θεῷ ζῶντι)’. The Jews bring large gifts of gold and silver but he refuses them and adds them to his own offerings to the Lord God (φόρος κυριῷ τῷ θεῷ), promising to take nothing from them. The Romance account shows the Jerusalem Jews as opportunistic, cowardly, preoccupied with with money, and concerned mainly with self-preservation.35 There is no specific reference to the Samaritans, who play a prominent role in Josephus’ account and are also mentioned in Christian and rabbinical sources (see below). The story in the Romance appears to suggest an anti-Jewish source (possibly Samaritan, thus Momigliano) dealing with Alexander’s religious attitudes, and a military operation that resulted in the Jews’ surrender. This account is quite different from Josephus’, which favours the Jerusalem Jews and draws on Hellenic historiographical conventions, such as signs and omens frequent in the Alexander historians; he attributes Alexander’s change of heart to divine providence.

Josephus’ version, AJ 11, 302–347, and the question of chronology Josephus integrates the Alexander-logos (chapters 302 to 347) with its historical context and his own ideology. The ‘prologue’ (AJ 302–312; 48 above), a construct that harks back three or more generations and is inserted into the Alexander-narrative, describes the divisive political situation in Judah into which the Hellenic world suddenly intruded. Iaddous/Iaddua and his brother, Manasses, of

54 Adrian Tronson the priestly line of Eliashib, share the high-priesthood at the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Alexander’s succession (AJ 11, 304–306). Some time before, ‘as a pledge of good will of the whole Jewish People (ὅμηρον πρὸς τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνους παντὸς εὔοιαν. 303)’, Manasses marries Nikaso, the daughter of Sanaballetes, Darius’ Satrap in Samaria, ‘to settle τὰ πράγματα (“problems”) that Jewish kings persistently caused in the region’.36 However, Jaddous and the elders of Jerusalem are horrified (δεινοπαθοῦντες) that the marriage will set an example for Jews to transgress Moses’ injunction against marrying foreign women.37 They demand that Manesses either divorce his wife or surrender his office (306–308). Sanaballetes then promises to appoint Manasses both as high priest of a temple on Mount Gerizim that Darius III had agreed to fund (AJ, 311–312) and as governor of the places under his control. The historian documents events that are similar, though not identical to those that took place in the mid-to-late fifth century, during the reign of Artaxerxes I Macrocheir, soon after Nehemiah’s restoration of the temple. This poses an insoluble chronological problem. ‘Xerxes’ (according to Josephus) but ‘Artaxerxes I’ (according to the Scriptures) had appointed Nehemiah as governor of Judah in the 25th year of his reign (465–424/3).38 The scriptural sources all refer to a dispute over widespread intermarriage between Judaeans with gentile women even after the restoration. Furthermore, Nehemiah (12.10) refers to four generations of Levite priests: ‘Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan (Johanan) and Jaddua, recorded down to the age of Darius the Persian’, presumably this would be Darius II, whom Josephus (accidentally or deliberately) identifies with Darius III.39 The biblical passages refer also to the long-term enmity between Jews and Samaritans, specifically involving ‘Sanballat the Horonite’ (Neh. 12. 28.), who may be the same ‘Sanaballetes’ in Josephus’ account. According to the Elephantine papyrus 29, a Sanballat is identified as a Samarian (sic) official of Artaxerxes I, c. 408. Josephus’ apparent time shift thus appears to connect the late fifth-century Judeo-Samaritan rift with Alexander’s dealings with the Levantine nations after the Battle of Issus (AJ 11, 326–336), his alleged visit to Jerusalem, and his deferment of the Samaritans’ request for the same privileges that he granted to the Jews (340–345). This is understandable, given the long-term hostility between the Jews and their neighbours. Josephus reveals his own antiSamaritanism by repeated descriptions of their hostility and deviousness (AJ 11: 19, 316, 323, 330), quoting verbatim in 341 his earlier verbal attack on them (AJ 9, 291) at the time of the Assyrian invasion of Samaria in 721. The biblical passages, therefore, refer not only to an ongoing problem concerning intermarriage between Jews and local populations but also to the long-term enmity between Jews and Samaritans. This forms a major theme in the Alexander logos. Despite Josephus’ anti-Samaritan bias, Alexander’s response to them (as recorded at AJ 344) is unexpectedly reasonable: when they ask for the same treatment as the Jews, he asks them whether they are Jews. When they reply they are not, he says that he will return when they have given him more information. This exchange does not concur either with what Ariel Kasher considers ‘an innate hostility towards the Samaritans’ or with Josephus’ hostile comments noted earlier but simply that Alexander did not know much about them, having dealt only briefly with their ruler and his militia some months previously (cf. below, 59).40

Alexander in Jerusalem 55 In Josephus’ account, long-term enmity between Jews and Samaritans, specifically, one ‘Sanballat the Horonite’ (Neh. 2.10 ‘Aronite:’ Sept.), may or may not be the same ‘Sanaballetes’ in Josephus’ account. As mentioned earlier, the Elephantine papyrus 29, identifies Sanballat as a ‘Samarian’ official of Artaxerxes I, 465–424. These may or may not be the Sanballat who appears in Nehemiah 13.28, the ‘Ouranite’: Sept.) and whose (anonymous) daughter married the unnamed brother of the high priest of Jerusalem (Ioida/Jadua) mentioned in the Alexander epsode and whom Nehemiah banished (ἐξέβασα αὐτὸν ἀπ᾽ἐμοῦ). As mentioned above (n. 38), Josephus had problems with names, dates, and chronology and for most scholars this crux defies solution. Perhaps strict chronological sequence was not the author’s primary concern, as we shall discuss later. The main narrative (313–316), Alexander’s Levantine campaign, produces the following sequence of events: while besieging Tyre, Alexander had to rely on the loyalty of the local populations for provisions for his army.41 Josephus (317), however, gives the impression that Alexander approached Judah, as though having heard only about the Jews; that he had written exclusively to Jaddous the high-priest, making him an offer he could not afford to refuse: to give Alexander the provisions and the tribute designated for Darius III, since Judah was his vassal, in exchange for friendship and alliance. According to Arrian and other canonic sources, Alexander had sent messengers to all the Levantine states (without specific reference to Judah) to requisition support, which was unanimously given. Was Judah so important then, as Josephus implies, that Alexander wrote exclusively to the High Priest and ‘requested’ (ἠξίου) support?42 Did Judah alone abstain, or would Jaddous have been so faithful to his defeated master as to reject a generous offer by his invincible conqueror? Alexander receives his response nearly six months later, when on the point of taking Tyre (319: ὁσον οὐδέπω μέλλουσαν αἱρεῖσθαι). His reaction to the response recalls what happened to the Tyrians who refused him access to the temple of Bel Melqart.43 He was provoked (παρωξύνθη) and threatened dire consequences if the Jews failed to comply by the time he had captured Tyre (1, 319). Josephus, however, says that instead of attacking Jerusalem as he had threatened, he besieged Gaza, which at the time had been his main objective (11, 320).44 This happened immediately after he had taken Tyre. Arrian states (2.25.4) that [all] Palestine (surely including Judaea and Samaria) had joined Alexander, except Gaza. Josephus’ account of Jaddous, therefore, has all the trappings of a myth, possibly manufactured to justify the Jews’ open and expeditious desertion from the Persian king, by giving what amounts to divine sanction to their treachery, at the same time creating a dramatic situation. In a flashback, Josephus returns to the beginning of the siege of Tyre (AJ, 321), when Sanaballetes deserted Darius and went over to Alexander with a force of 8,000 Samaritans (321–324).45 He offered his services in exchange for the favours he had expected from Darius (AJ 11, 321; cf. 315–317). He also enlists Alexander’s aid against the Jews, arguing that the nation would then not be ‘troublesome’ (χαλεπὸν ῇ), thus making it easier to ‘subdue’. Sanaballetes waited for Alexander to punish the Jews for their disobedience (11, 323f.) but died during the siege of Gaza, while building the temple for his son-in-law (325). At this point Alexander, presumably, commissioned Andromachus to take control of Samaria.46

56 Adrian Tronson Josephus implies that after he had taken Gaza, Alexander would immediately march against Jerusalem (AJ, 330f.).47 He then launches into the quasi-biblical narrative involving Jaddous and Alexander. Having heard of Alexander’s approach (325), Jaddous prays to Jaweh who prompts him in a dream to decorate the city and to go out in a formal hypántesis, a sacred ritual of reception (or surrender) common in the east, to greet Alexander.48 When he and the priests and the people march out in all their finery as to meet their conqueror as liberator or divinely appointed ruler, Alexander, amazed at the spectacle, greets the high-priest and prostrates himself before the name of Jaweh inscribed on his turban. He then triumphantly enters Jerusalem and visits the temple, sacrifices to the god of the Jews, and is shown the prophecy of his victory over Persia in the Book of Daniel. The result, according to Josephus, is that having already prematurely usurped Darius’ kingship, although he was still king,49 Alexander grants fiscal privileges to the Jews of Palestine and to the diaspora in Babylon and Media, permitting them also to live according to their traditional laws. Before departing for Egypt, Alexander settles affairs in Jerusalem, taking into his service both Jewish volunteers and the contingent of Sanaballetes’ forces, continues his campaign against the local populations, and deals with the Samaritans’ request for similar privileges (AJ, 340–345).50 According to the canonic sources, which do not mention mention the presence of local volunteers, Alexander went directly to Egypt after ‘settling Syria and Palestine’ (cf. n. 44). The chronology of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem Does Josephus (AJ 11, 325–6) say that Alexander visited Jerusalem, immediately after Gaza, as he threatened he would, before he set off to Egypt (319)?51 Given the short time it took him to reach Pelusium from Gaza (seven days to cover about 400 kilometres, thus Arrian 3.1.1, cf. Plut. VA 26, Diod. 17. 49 and Curtius 4.7), Alexander’s forces surely could not have made the detour inland north from Gaza to Jerusalem and back to the coast (an additional 130 kilometres) and still have reached Pelusium in seven days, least of all managed to ‘arrange the affairs of its neighbours’ who included the Samaritans (cf. above, 55). Josephus’ account then, as it is usually read, cannot be correct. Kasher plausibly argues that according to the sources Alexander could not have left Gaza for Jerusalem immediately after its capture.52 He had been seriously wounded and must have spent considerable time recuperating (Arr. 2.24.5; Diod 17. 487, 24.5; Q.C. 4. 6. 25–26), and some months settling affairs and garrisoning the place, before he marched to Egypt (Pl. VA 25.5).53 This argument is plausible but there is more to it than Kasher will allow. Josephus does not say explicitly that Alexander went directly from Gaza to Jerusalem as the text is usually interpreted, nor that his primary intention was to punish the Jews for their recalcitrance; this is only implied (so Josephus makes it appear), even if we believe the story of his letter to Jaddua. In Section 325 he says that ‘having captured Gaza . . . Alexander had been keen (“. . . had given serious attention”) to go up to the city of the Jerusalemites’.54

Alexander in Jerusalem 57 μηνῶν δ᾽ἑπτὰ τῇ Τύρου πολιορκίᾳ διεληλυθότον καὶ δύο τῇ Γάζης ὁ μὲν Σαναβαλλέτης ἀπέθανεν, Ἀλεξάνρος δὲ ἐξελὼν τὴν Γάζαν ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν Ἱεροσολομιτῶν πόλιν ἀναβαίνειν ἐσπουδάκει. When seven months had passed with the siege at Tyre and two at that of Gaza, Sanaballetes died and Alexander having captured Gaza was still eager to go up to the city of the Jerusalemites. The pluperfect (ἐσπουδάκει) with the present infinitive (ἀναβαίνειν) is not the same as ‘he went’ (ἦλθε), describing immediate action after conquering Gaza, for example ‘He was in haste to go against Jerusalem’ (R. Marcus), that is presumably to punish the Jews, as the context suggests.55 He did not ‘rush off’ immediately after the Gaza campaign. Rather, this construction suggests that the incentive (σπούδη) to do so had been going on for a long time and was not necessarily hostile: ἐπί plus accusative means ‘against’ in an aggressive sense but also ‘motion toward/up to’.56 After Gaza, therefore, Alexander still had to secure Egypt and would not have gone immediately to Jerusalem, but only had been eager to do so. His immediate and actual ‘going’ to Jerusalem is left unexpressed but is implied from the positioning of paragraph 319. Josephus does not say precisely what Alexander did immediately after taking Gaza, only what he had wanted to do for some time, perhaps to make permanent arrangements with the local peoples. However, in the light of Josephus’ scenario, the reader would assume it was to punish the Jews for refusing his earlier request. This action is predicated on the premise of Alexander’s (alleged) reaction to Jaddua’s negative response stated at 320. If he went to Jerusalem, given the situation and constraints of time, he would more likely have done so on his way back from Egypt to Tyre. Curtius says explicitly that the revolt in Samaria curtailed his stay in Egypt.57 The previous year (QC, 4.5.9) Parmenio had handed over Coele Syria to Andromachus, (cf. above, 49 and below, 58). Later (4.8.9), with Alexander still in Egypt, an insurrection broke out among the Samaritans who burnt Andromachus alive. Curtius continues: Alexander, to avenge his murder, rushed there with the greatest speed he was able (. . . quanta maxima celeritate potuit contendit.) and on his arrival . . . the guilty were delivered to him. He replaced Andromachus with Menon and executed those who had murdered his general. There is little cause to doubt the historicity of this event, even though it is attested only by Curtius. In 1963, hundreds of skeletons dating from the fourth century, discovered in a cave in the Wadi Daliyeh, were identified as (probaby) those of the Samaritan rebels of 331. Moreover, later Christian sources, Syncellus, Jerome, and the Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronicon (2.223 = 2.114 in Schoene’s edition) cited in Marcus (see n. 60), say that after Alexander besieged Tyre and conquered Judaea and . . . received with honour, sacrificed to God and honoured the high priest, and as governor of the district

58 Adrian Tronson he appointed Andromachus, whom the inhabitants of the of the city of the Samaritans killed.58 The same source59 also says that on his return from Egypt Alexander punished them and that the Macedonians then colonised Samaria.60 Josephus says nothing about Alexander’s ‘having conquered’ Judea before being being ‘received wth honour’ but that Jerusalem went out to meet him by divine instruction. Yet in the context of an insurrection in Samaria (omitted by Josephus), Alexander had every reason to visit not only Samaria but also Jerusalem to ensure the loyalty of the locals. It was fairly well populated at the time and, according to archeological evidence, probably fortified.61 Its strategic and commercially attractive position between the main ancient western and eastern thoroughfares, the via Maris and the via Regia, in the hands of Persian partisans, or in a state of unrest, could pose a potential threat to Alexander’s rear. Josephus says that Alexander and his forces were observed from Mt. Scopus (329–330), approaching Jerusalem from the north (Shechem), and not from the west, as would have been the case had he approached from Gaza. If he had come from the north, Alexander would have already visited Samaria before going to Jerusalem by the shortest route (cf. Jos.Vita 2. 269). The notion that the Jews were in immediate danger following their decision to support Darius instead of Alexander occasions the story of Jaddous’ dream, the divine intervention, and the hypantesis as an expected formality. Josephus presents this as an epiphany of divine salvation62 and his hostile presentation of the Samaritans as opportunistic, disloyal, and avaricious obviously contrasts with the pious Jaddous, who agonises over having to betray his master and to save his people he obeys Jaweh’s instructions.63 For his betrayal of Darius he is exonerated and rewarded. God indeed has worked his purpose, favoured his own people and ordained their rule by Alexander, just as he ordained their rule by Cyrus (Isaiah 45.1; Ezra, 1.1–4) as ‘his Annointed’.64 Therefore, Alexander replies to the aghast Parmenio’s question why he bowed before a barbarian priest when ‘all his (sc. oriental) subjects bowed before him, (AJ. 11.333), that he: did not bow down before him but (before) the god, with whose highpriesthood (Jaddua) has been honoured. This man, dressed in this way, I once saw in a dream when I was in Dium in Macedonia, when carefully considering how I might rule over Asia, he urged me not to delay but courageously to cross over. For indeed he would lead my forces and hand over the rule of Asia. (own version and emphasis) This prophecy echoes the intent, pattern, and purpose of the Siwah narrative (recorded in all the canonic sources), where Zeus reveals Alexander as his son and his future victory (Strabo 17, 1, 43, citing Callisthenes, the original source also Plut. AV 33). This is one of Alexander’s many ‘mystical’ encounters that feed into his notion of his own ‘divinity’. At least a dozen anecdotes featuring Parmenio as

Alexander in Jerusalem 59 Alexander’s verbal sparring partner occur as a topos, especially in the ‘vulgate’ sources, probably indicating the influence of Cleitarchus.

The rabbinical texts (cf. AJ 11, 340–347) Among the versions of Alexander’s encounter with the Jews in Talmudic and Midrashic accounts (see n. 21) there is a reference to his harsh treatment of the Samaritans, probably relating to the punitive measures he took after the Andromachus affair.65 Alexander takes no action but allows the Jews to punish their enemies by piercing their heels and dragging them to death behind their horses, a treatment probably reflecting his own punishment of Batis, the commander of Gaza (Curtius 4.6.29, probably from Cleitarchus). There also are anachronisms: the Jews meet Alexander at Antipatris, a city founded by Herod the Great in the mid-first century, and the High Priest is not Jaddua but Simon the Just, who held office more than 20 years after Alexander’s death. Josephus’ account differs considerably in showing Alexander as merely curious about the identity of the Samaritans, neither openly hostile nor utterly rejecting their request for the same privileges he granted the Jews but apparently being prepared ‘to consider them after obtaining more information’.66 While all the rabbinical sources mention Alexander’s sacrificing to Yaweh in the temple, the story of his consulting the Book of Daniel is unique to Josephus. The salient common feature in all four (apparently independent) sources discussed previously is that the Jews welcomed Alexander into Jerusalem and that this good impression endured.

Inferences and conclusions Of Josephus’ two interwoven themes (1) Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem and his favourable treatment of the Jews and (2) the conflict between Jews and Samaritans, the former secures for the Jews a special status in the Hellenistic world by tracing their ancestral privileges directly to its founder.67 Josephus’ second narrative relates the long dispute, going back to the fifth century, between the Jews and their neighbouring ‘relatives’, the Samaritans, into which Alexander happened to intrude. Josephus possibly took over much of the anti-Samaritan bias from an unidentified Judeo-Hellenistic source and adapted it for his own purposes.68 Josephus presents the ‘religious’ Alexander essentially as he appears in the Greek historians.69 Historically, it is feasable that he visited Jerusalem, an ancient and famous city, despite its (relatively) small population and modest fortifications at the time.70 All the non-canonic sources discussed earlier agree that he won the loyalty and respect of the Jews. His pious attitude towards their god, probably exaggerated in Jewish sources, concurs with his reputed religiosity and passionate inclination (pothos) to visit out-of-the-way sites and monuments with divine or epic associations, and his tendency to acknowledge foreign gods as manifestations of Zeus, Heracles, or Dionysus.71 His policy towards native populations who cooperated with him was as renowned as it was destructive for the likes of Tyre and Gaza who did not. Josephus’ presentation of Alexander’s attitude and

60 Adrian Tronson behaviour towards the Jews and their god is consistent with that shown in the canonic sources towards the deities of Egypt and Babylon, and of the reaction of the friendly states in western Asia (e.g. Ilium, Gordium, and Sardis).72 The essence of the story is unlikely to have been invented e nihilo or to be pure fiction. Curtius alone of the Alexander historians allows us a unique glimpse of a violent episode in the Levant, otherwise unattested in the Alexander canon. That its significance escaped the attention or interest of other extant historians of Alexander does not negate its credibility, neither that Alexander’s entrance into Jerusalem resembles what would be repeated in Egypt and Babylon a year later, following Cyrus’ precedent.73 R. Gnuse (1993) and S. Cohen (1982/83) discuss in greater detail the ‘arrival’ (adventus) and revelation (epiphany) narratives regarding divine figures in classical, Jewish, and Christian writings. Josephus’ credibility Objections to Josephus’ account either singly or as a group are not convincing, since they are predicated on the a priori assumption that Alexander did not go to Jerusalem. For instance: 1 2

3

4

The ‘deniers’ cite the silence of the canonic Alexander sources. This is an argumentum e silentio and without other verification cannot be taken seriously. Josephus’ ‘chronological error’ in shifting the time of Sanaballetes from the fifth century to Alexander’s lifetime compromises the value of his history. Although this is feasable conclusion, there are other ways of looking at and explaining this historiographical anomaly. For instance, the chronology of the biblical narrative is not, as is classical historiography, strictly linear but thematic, based on the fulfilment of prophecies and signs (cf. par. 4). The Jews were of no interest to Alexander.74 We cannot accept this statement on the basis of of our sparsely and late-written evidence. The Levant and Coele Syria (Palestine) were and remain the most strategic, disputed, and war-ridden areas of the Mediterraenean and Alexander was careful in gathering prior intelligence about the inhabitants. The book of Daniel written over a century after Alexander’s death could not have been consulted. It was written considerably later than the sixth century BC.75 The apocalyptic events under Antiochus IV (Dan. 11.21) are cast as a vision of the future. Josephus, writing two centuries after its composition, would be unaware of this fact. AJ 11. 337 is the only source to mention the prophecy (Dan. 8.5) that the Greeks would defeat the Persians being shown to Alexander: ‘Then the male goat grew exceeding great.’ It is unlikely that this passage could have been written and interpreted in this way before 164, the Maccabaean liberation, or that Josephus would have known or even suspected that it had been written later than Daniel’s lifetime. Omens and prophesies are a common literary device in the canonic histories:

Alexander in Jerusalem 61

5

6

7

such as the Gordian Knot and the Oracle of Ammon. Momigliano suggests that Josephus ‘invented’ the story.76 At least two independent sources mention Alexander in Jerusalem: the Romance and accounts in rabbinical and Christian sources, each with distinct variants, not to mention oral traditions which account for references in Josippon, for example the naming of boys born in the year of Alexander’s visit. The account of Alexander and the Daniel prophecy, could be Josephus’ own response to the prophecy at Siwah.77 If this is the case, Josephus is recasting a Greek historical myth into a Jewish intellectual, religious, and cultural mould. 1 Maccabees mentions nothing about Alexander’s presence in Judah, or suggests he was not welcomed by the Jews. The context does not warrant such an interpretation. In fact, the import of the passage makes it clear that the opprobrium is directed against the epigoni, not Alexander, who is favourably referred to as a bestower of peace and justice (see 51, above). Büchler proposed that Josephus modelled his account of the privileges Alexander granted the Jews on those granted by Julius Caesar in 46. Caesar’s concessions were more elaborate than Alexander’s; Josephus says each in his own time granted privileges to the Jews and it was as politically expedient for Alexander as it was for Caesar to do so.78 Alexander, whom Caesar admired and imitated, followed an informal, laissez faire policy in the east and made a habit of favourably treating all communities who did not resist him.

Even without Josephus’ account as evidence of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem, there are other independent witnesses who attest it, and Alexander could not have avoided contact with both Jews and Samaritans during his operations in Coele Syria and Palestine. However, without more positive proof it is impossible to accept the historicity of the background story that Manasses’ marriage to Nikaso, the Satrap of Samaria’s daughter, his elevation as high-priest, and the building of the temple at Gerizim all took place in the 330s, especially if one tries to reconcile Josephus’ Sanaballetes narrative with the account in Nehemiah 13.28 or with the fifth-century Elephantine document, and to identfy Darius’ satrap of Samaria with the biblical Sanballat the Horonite. Nehemiah was Artaxerxes I’s governor of Judah. Iaoida’s son appears to the one Josephus names Manasses. These events are generally believed to have taken place around the late fifth century. However, since Josephus neither knows nor can specify the Artaxerxes to whom he refers at 11, 184 and 11, 297 as τοῦ ἄλλου Ἀρταξέρξου (‘the other Artaxerxes’), the first or the second, or for that matter, the third or fourth, or whether Bigwai in the papyrus is the Bagoses of the time of Artaxerxes IV Arses,79 who desecrated the temple by entering it (cf. 11. 297 and 300), we are, as was Josephus, on unstable chronological ground.80 Unless we can prove that the name of the High Priest in 333 was the same Jaddua, and that Sanballat the Horonite mentioned in Nehemiah (and in the Elephantine papyrus) whose unnamed son married the satrap’s unnamed daughter, were the same persons as Nikaso and Manasses, and the Sanballet was

62 Adrian Tronson the Sanaballetes in AJ. 11 306–312, or posit another satrap, or a dynasty of the same name81 whose daughter married the brother of the high priest of Jerusalem – a coincidence that seems highly unlikely, although not altogether incredible (but ‘a solution too desperate to be entertained’, thus Cowley,82 we have to agree with Tcherikover and Kasher,83 that Josephus either misinterpreted his source or, in biblical fashion, deliberately fused the two stories for dramatic or ideological reasons, regardless of chronology, to show the working out of God’s will through the actions of Alexander).84 Inference The context of the Alexander sequence in Book 11 forms a suitably dramatic and ‘mystical’ conclusion for the second part of Josephus’ most ambitious historical work. That a quasi-messianic figure (theios aner) like Alexander should intervene in a political impasse and set things right85 forms a decisive moment in the narrative pattern of AJ 11, which begins with the advent of God’s chosen agent, Cyrus, and ends with the defeat of his distant successor (Darius III) and with the arrival of Alexander as a second ‘messianic’ figure to usher in a new age for the Jews. In this narrative landscape Alexander appears at as a symbolic ‘marker’ in their history, just as he does at the end of Book 2, retelling the story in Exodus 14.21–22, where the Red Sea miraculously opens a path to the Promised Land for Moses and the Israelites. Here (AJ 2. 347–349), Josephus draws a direct comparison with Alexander’s passage along the Pamphylian Gulf where the sea also ‘miraculously’ retreated ὑπεχώρησε τὸ Παμφίλιον πέλαγος καὶ ὁδὸν ἄλλην οὐκ ἔχουσι παρέσχε τὴν δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καταλῶσαι τὴν Περσῶν ἡγεμονίαν τοῦ θεοῦ θελήσαντος, καὶ τοῦτο πάντες ὁμολογῶσιν οἱ τὰς Ἀλεξάνδρου πράξεις συγγραψάμενοι. the Pamphylian Sea retired and afforded them a passage through itself, when they had no other way to go; when it was the will of God to destroy the monarchy of the Persians; and this is confessed to be true by all that have written about the actions of Alexander [Tr. W. Whiston].86 As in the historical books of the Old Testament, historical fact, theology, and eschatology are combined in the Antiquitates. In his proemium, Josephus separates himself from his Greek models and sets out the principles of Jewish historiography as follows (AJ 1.18): Since well-nigh everything herein related is dependent on the wisdom of our lawgiver Moses, I must speak briefly of him, lest any of my readers should ask how it is . . . that so much of my work, which professes to treat of laws and historical facts (πράξεων), is devoted to natural philosophy (ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον φυσιολογίας κεκοιώηκεν), or ‘study of origins’. (φύσις: see LSJ, sv. I [Tr. H. St. J. Thackeray, Loeb Classical Library, vol 1, adapted])

Alexander in Jerusalem 63 Alexander’s progress along the Levant forms a background for Josephus’ unique story of the liberation and subsequent history of Judah under Persia, Egypt, and Syria and finally, Rome. He had cogent political and personal reasons for visiting Jerusalem because of his well-documented interest in religious cults and his own destiny, as well as logistic and strategic objectives. Josephus’ account in this sense is compatible with the canonic Alexander-narrative. The Samaritan question appears briefly in Curtius and probably would have had wider treatment in Cleitarchus. Arguments offered by the majority of scholars for proving the contrary individually are not decisive, as seen earlier. Alexander surely had some dealings with the Jews (no matter how brief) as he certainly did with the Samaritans, and more than likely would have visited Jerusalem, as he did other cities to establish his authority and to satisfy his pothos.87

Notes 1 For instance, in antiquity: the Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Hasmoneans in the 160s BCE, cf. Gruen 1998: 191, and the Romans, cf. Spencer 2002 passim; also, in modern times, Mali in the 1960s, cf. Tronson 2014: 141 and 158; the Republic of Macedonia in the 1980s and 1990s, cf. Danforth 2003: 345–364 and Green 1989: 151–189. 2 Tcherikover 1961: 45–49; Momigliano 1971; Cohen 1982/83: 68, Stoneman 2008: 49; Grabbe 2011: 27–29) and others discussed later. The grounds for supporting rejection, although individually far from convincing, listed together appear more persuasive. 3 Cf. Kasher 2011: 131–157; and in an earlier version of his argument 1993: 13–35; Abrahams 1923, cf. Marcus 1951: 525–528, also (mostly) accepts Josephus’ narrative as it stands. 4 That is Arrian, Anabasis, Plutarch, Vita Alexandri, Quintus Curtius Historia Alexandri, Diodorus Bibliotheka 17 and Justin’s Epitome of Pompieus Trogus’ Philippica, Bks. 11–12. All dates that follow are BCE except where otherwise indicated. 5 It does not mention the Jerusalem visit and differs from the canon regarding his death. 6 For the Talmud and Midrash, see Nadich 1983 as well as Eusebius, Syncellus, and Jerome (see n. 11). They all differ considerably from Josephus. 7 AJ 11, 302–343 is the fullest, ‘historical’ account compared with the rabbinical texts collected in Nadich. 37–39 and in Pseudo-Callisthenes, Historia Alexandri Magni (The Greek ‘Alexander Romance’), Engelmann 1962: 216–219. 8 There is no doubt that Josephus consistently refers to Darius III: cf. AJ 11, 302: ‘Sanaballetes was sent to Samaria by the last Darius’ (ὐπὸ Δαρείου τοῦ τελευταίου βασιλέως, i.e. not Darius II), cf. A. Cowley 1923 no. 30, 1.29; 31, 1.28. The exact dates and the identities of these kings are debatable. Josephus’ chronology of the Samaritan problem (109–110) shows that he transfers an earlier conflict to Alexander’s time; see Knoppers 2013: 169–170. Q. Curtius’ independent testimony suggests a JudeoSamaritan conflict in the 330s. 9 On Alexander’s ‘mystical’ side, see for example L. Edmunds 1971: 363–391, esp. 369–375, E. Badian 2012: 244–281, at 269 and 365–385, especially 375–380; also B. Dreyer 2009: 218–234, at 221–223. 10 See Edmunds 1971: 369–375 and Engels 1978: 56; cf. Arr. 2.25.4; 2.20.4; QC 4.3.1. In the case of Tyre, the rulers’ refusal to allow him access to the temple of the local divinity, Bel Melqart, whom he identified with his Argead ancestor Heracles, gave him the pretext for attacking the city (Arr. 2. 15.7; QC 4.2.2–3; D. 17. 40–49; Pl. VA 24.4–25.7; J. 11.10.10; cf. also Bosworth 1981: vol. 1, 235, note ad loc.).

64 Adrian Tronson 11 Curtius (4.8, 9–11); the Armenian text of Eusebius, Chronicon, quoted by Marcus, in Thackeray 1926–1935: vol. 6, at 523, gives a detailed account: Alexander besieged Tyre and conquered Judaea, and being received with honour, he sacrificed to God and honoured the high priest . . . and as governor . . . of the district he appointed Andromachus, whom the inhabitants of the city of the Samaritans killed; and on his return from Egypt, Alexander punished them, and having taken their city, settled Macedonians therein.

12 13

14

15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22 23

Jerome, and Syncellus also mention this episode with the last sentence almost verbatim from Eusebius’ account. Their source differs from Josephus’, although they concur with the rabbinical Megillath Ta’anith, in that the event occurs after his visiting Jerusalem. See Section 4 and Mor 2011: 189, n. 43. See n. 3. Some modern authors accept the veracity of Alexander’s invovement with the Jews without question: for example R. Lane Fox 1973: 213 cites a rabbinical source (the Megillath Ta’anith) for the aetiological myth celebrating ‘the Day of Gerizim’, on the 21st day of Kislev (cf. n. 11 and The Rabbinical texts), referring to a victory of the Jews, supported by Alexander, against the Samaritans (an event not mentioned in Josephus); similarly, Green 1981: 262–265. Engels’ logistical analysis of Alexander’s activities in the region (see n. 10) makes his visit to Jerusalem plausible. Mandell 2013: 602–604; Williamson 2013: 235–238 at 236, groups Kasher with those authors who apparently ‘will defend Josephus no matter the evidence or lack thereof’. He refers to L. Grabbe’s scepticism in the latter’s introduction to Grabbe & Lipschits 2011: 27–29. 1, 1–9. Cf. Kasher 2011: 157. Pummer 2016: 47f. suggests that most of the evidence for this conflict appears in AJ. See also n. 36. Scriptural accounts are also scant on detail and politcal details. On their nature and purpose, cf. Barton 2019: 56–59. Cf. Cohen 1982/83: 44–45 and 56. Ch. 1, 1–10; Pace Stoneman 2008: 49–52 and Momigliano 1979: 442–448. Stoneman regards the passage, as hostile and of a sort with later works of the Roman period, such as I Enoch, 90 and Bk. 3 of the Sibylline Oracles. Momigliano, citing parallels from the Psalms and Prophets, argues that the language of the text is usually applied to tyrants, and therefore hostile. See Kasher: 150, n. 67 on the allusive and literary nature of the AJ. Cf. Arrian 7.25–26; Plut. VA 76–77; QC 10.4.5. 1–6; Diod. 17.117 Justin 12. 15. 1–5; ‘Metz Epitome’, de Libro Mortis Alexandri Magni, 99–112. The Graeco-Roman sources of Alexander’s last words differ in details but all add up to the same conclusion: no one knew what he said, if anything, or whom he appointed as his successor, or whether he made any arrangements at all. The ‘vulgate’ tradition, based on the lost history by Cleitarchus of Alexandria, a contemporary of Alexander (see notes 25, 26, and 48), probably informs 1 Maccabees, 1 and Josephus, cf. Burstein 1999: 105–112. For details of the political turmoil following Alexander’s death in 323, see for example Bosworth 1988a: 174–182, and Hammond & Walbank vol. 3 1988: 95–180. That is Uzziah usurped the function of the priests by offering incense in the temple, while Alexander by demanding proskynesis in 327, usurped divine status. The author’s verbal echo may allude to Alexander’s hubris. Cf. Nadich 1983: 37–41 for references to Alexander in the Talmud and rabbinical literature. See Section 4. See www.alexander-winery.com/en/, accessed on 1 December 2020. The business has recently been taken over by an international consortium. The brand and the allusion continue. That is Joseph ben Gorion (Goronides), 9th or 10th cent. s.v. Jewish Encyclopedia.com (1906 ed), accessed 10 April 2018.

Alexander in Jerusalem 65 24 Cf. n. 13. Momigliano 1979: 444, argues that 1 Maccabees identifies Alexander with the archetypal tyrant in Daniel 8.16, as the last conqueror of the world (cf. 20). It is more likely that the prophetic diction suggests Alexander as the instrument of the Divine Will in Jewish history; cf. n. 85. 25 The Romance (γ) narrative of the episode (Ch. 24) occurs as an interpolation after ch. 23, which describes Darius’ death and the crucifixion of Bessus (327 BCE). Chapter 25 describes the Egyptian campaign, regardless of historical chronology; see 29–30. 26 Pliny I, NH 3. 57–58 (FGrH 137 F31) refers to Cleitarchus’ reference (in the late fourth century) to the presence of a Roman embassy at the court of Alexander which no Alexander historian mentions. Bosworth 1988 b: 88–90 and Badian 2012: 146–147. 27 For Cleitarchus’ ‘veracity’, see for example Chugg 2015: Introduction, 3–5; Baynham 1998: 69 (n. 43); 78–80; Hammond 1983: 85; Pearson 1960: 214–218. Arrian and Plutarch, are equally guilty of relating outlandish tales, such as talking snakes (Anab. 3.3.5) and the bizarre death of Bessus (VA 43.6), which imitates Theseus’ execution of the mythological brigand Sinis (cf. VTh. 8.2). 28 Momigliano 1979: 445 dates the unrest to in the first century CE. 29 Momigliano 1979: 443 does not believe that Josephus invented the story but regards the Romance interpolation as ‘a variant’ of his source; likewise the Talmudic versions, some of which contain what seem like a Samaritan narrative different from Josephus’ version. See following and Nadich: 37–39. 30 Engelmann’s text is cited later. 31 This is Marcus’ version of the text’s καὶ προστάσσει τινὰς τῆς Μακεδονικῆς φάλαγγος νεανίσκους λίαν μαχιμωτάτους, [5] ἐν τῇ παρακειμένῃ φάραγγι ἑαυτοὺς ἀκοντίσαι (literally, ‘hurl a javelin’, in the passive would mean, ‘be wounded by a javelin’). Müller’s text as translated by Marcus, does not make sense. It implies that Alexander ordered his men to prove their bravery by a (suicidal?) leap into a ravine. 32 Thus Marcus’ translation 1951 (abridged). 33 Stoneman translation 1991: 169. 34 Adapted: emphasis added. Thematically this account superficially resembles that of Josephus but is clearly not not related. (At AJ 11. 327 the High Priest and Levites are accompanied by the people; in the Romance neither Levites nor the High Priest are mentioned. Here Alexander undergoes something like a conversion, while in Josephus he bows in respect before the name of God, having experienced a vision years before. These accounts may be variants of a verbal tradition that originated in Alexander’s gesture acknowledging a local divinity as his own. 35 Stoneman 1991: 169, translates: The Jewish spies tell their leaders: ‘It would be best to save our skins . . . otherwise there is no hope. . . . While we are afraid of death the Macedonians. . . simply despise it.’ 36 Pummer 2016: 55 suggests that Josephus constructs this conflict: ‘Josephus makes use of sources since he writes about times and events that lie before his own times. But he does not simply string these sources together; rather, he selects what he needs to convey his own message.’ The details about Sanaballetes‘ pledge of good will is not scriptural, neither are the names of the bridal couple. 37 Josephus (11.70) mentions that certain priests of the over 40,000 members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin whom Zerubbabel led back to Jerusalem (cf. Nehemiah, 13.23– 31), were expelled for having married non-Jewish women, a practice that had begun during the Exile. 38 That is in 440, AJ 11,135, cf. Ezra, 9.12, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I (458); 1 Esdras, 7. 5–19; or in the sixth year of Darius II, 417; or in the thirty-second of Artaxerxes (332), see Nehemiah, 13.6 and 23, 332 (Septuagint). Josephus misdates the years of Xerxes’ rule, that is 485–456 instead of 485–465; Kuhrt 1995: vol. 2, 605, has the following chronology: Artaxerxes I Macrocheir, 465–424/3, Darius II 423–405, Artaxerxes Mnemon 405–359. Artaxerxes III Ochus, 359–338, Artaxerxes IV Arses, 338–336. On the problems concerning the dates of the books of Nehemiah and Ezra,

66 Adrian Tronson

39

40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47

48

49 50 51 52 53 54 55

and of the composition of the the latter, cf. Fensham 1993: 555, col. 1, ‘Nehemiah’ and Barton 2019: 55–56. The Scriptures do not mention the rival (Samaritan) temple at Gerizim. In 2000, remains of a late fifth-century temple were thus identified; see Knoppers 2013: 123, n. 40, who suggests that Josephus, confusing the inscribed name with the biblical, ‘Darius the Persian’ Knoppers 2013: 37, that is ‘Darius the Second’, attributes it to the time of Darius III, who succeeded Artaxerxes IV in 336. Josephus is equally unspecific elsewhere in the AJ, misidentifying other kings (therefore their dates, too) with the same name (cf. Marcus 1951: 395, n. e ad 11, 168); cf. Goodman 2007: 187f. Nem. 12.22 (Septuagint): οἱ Λεῦιται ἐν ἡμέραιςἘλιασὶβ, Ἰωαδὰ, καὶ Ἰωὰ, καὶ Ἰωανὰν, καὶ Ἰδούα (Iaddua, that is Josephus’ Jaddοus /Ἰαδδοῦς) γεγραμμένοι ἄρχοντες τῶν πατριῶν καὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς ἐν βασιλείᾳ Δαρείου τοῦ Πέρσου. ‘The Levites (priestly families) in the days of Eliashib, that is Joada, Joa, and Johanan and Idua [Jaddua/Jaddous], having been recorded as members of the patriarchs and also the priests . . . into the reign of Darius the Persian’. (For ἐν with dative meaning ‘into’ or ‘down to’, i.e. following a ‘completed action’, see Smythe 1920: 1559.) Kasher 2011: 148 goes too far in interpreting Alexander’s matter-of-fact question not as a query to ascertain their ‘identity’ [but a] ‘rhetorical question’ . . . a ‘sarcastic . . . statement of disdain’. See n. 66. Engels, 54–60; Arrian 2.20.4–5, cf. 2. 25.4; QC 4.2.1; 4.3.1; Cf. Diod. 17 40.2; Just. 11.10.5. Cf. Polybius 16.22.5 who confirms the total surrender of ‘Palestine’. How important was Judah? Its size and significance and population under the Persian Empire in the second half of the fourth century are disputed; cf. Lipschits 2009: 17–19 and 2011: 163–175; contra Grabbe, in Knoppers et al. 2009: 135–136; Knoppers 2013: 108f. See n. 61. Alexander’s ancestor, Heracles: Arr. 2.15.7–16.7; QC 4.1.7–14; Diod. 17.39.1–2. Arrian, 2.25.4, cf. Bosworth 1981, vol. I, n. 2.25.4, 257. See also n. 15. Cf. n. 4; Kasher 2011: 153. On the chronology of Alexander’s visit, see 56–59. Josephus also mentions the presence of enemies of the Jews (‘Phoenicians and Chaldeans’, the latter more likely were ‘Cuthaeans’, i.e. Samaritans; cf. Marcus’ note, p. 474 ad loc.) and the ‘kings of Syria’, who were expecting to plunder Jerusalem and kill the High Priest, only to be disappointed by Alexander’s unexpected behaviour – another dig by the author at the vain and hostile expectations of the Jews’ enemies. LSJ, s.v. ὑπαντάω II.4. Cf. Arrian (3. 16, 3–4) and QC 5.1.18–19 on Alexander’s entrance into Babylon; cf. the ‘Cyrus Cylinder’, Kuhrt 1995: 601; also the Gospel of John 1.19 and 12.13 (referring respectively to the hypantêseis for John the Baptist and the ‘royal’ entry of Jesus into Jerusalem). The ritual is commemorated in the Matin Responsory for Advent in the eleventh-century Sarum Rite: ‘Go ye out to meet him and say: “Art thou he that hath come to reign over thy people Israel?”’ See also Cohen 1982/83: 45–49 for a detailed description of the ceremony (also termed adventus), the circumstances and its ritual significance in Judaism and elsewhere. Cf. Kasher 2011: 148. AJ 329–339. cf. 53 and 59. I. Spak 1911 is the only scholar to place Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem after his Egyptian Campaign, where it makes more sense, given the chronology of his movements and the unrest in Samaria. Cf. Kasher 2011: 153–154 and notes 3 and 11. Kasher 2011: 140–141. Cf. Kasher 2011: 141–142, cf. n. 42 and text. That is ‘at some stage’: the present aspect of the infinitive does not denote sudden or immediate action. Cf. W. Whiston, Jewish Antiquities, 1794, translates: ‘Alexander, when he had taken Gaza made haste to go up to Jerusalem.’

Alexander in Jerusalem 67 56 See LSJ s.v. ἐπί, C I, 1 ‘up to’ and 3 ‘towards’. Cf. 4 ‘in a hostile sense’. The ambiguity in the text lends urgency. The verb ἀναβαίνω means ‘go inland from the coast’ or, in the biblical sense, ‘approach a temple’ or ‘an important city’. Cf. LSJ, s.v. II. 3 a and b. 57 See p. 49 and n. 27. Cleitarchus is Curtius’ most likely source; Chugg 2015: 117 prints this passage in boldface, his method of marking ‘overwhelming evidence’ for the author’s use of Cleitarchus (cf. Chugg 2015: 7). On Cleitarchus’ ‘Jewish audience’, see S. Burstein 1999: 105–112. 58 Atkinson 1980: ad loc., Kasher 2011: 152–155. On the political background to the revolt see Mor 2011: 176–198, 188, cf. Grabbe’s scepticism about the chronology, Mor 2011: 13–14 and 28. The massacre of the individuals in the cave could, however, have taken place any time during the second half of the fourth century, possibly later. 59 Cf. Marcus 1951: 523–524. 60 See Marcus, Appendix C, 523–425. Both Jerome and Syncellus (496) agree that Alexander colonised Samaria (cf n. 11), combining the accounts of Josephus and Curtius and pointing to a common, detailed Greek source, possibly Cleitarchus. The rabbincal texts concur with the preceding in most respects (cf. Nadich: 37–39 and Section 4). The Macedonian diodochi and epigoni probably colonised Samaria after Alexander’s lifetime, cf. Kasher 2011: 156. 61 On the administrative and commercial significance of the First Temple period, cf. Barton 2019: 28. On Jerusalem’s significance in the Second Temple period, Lipschits argues 2009: 3–5, 19–20, that the archeological evidence recovered in Jerusalem suggests it was significantly larger and more built-up than had been proposed by the ‘minimalists’ of the 1970s and 1980s, although not of Herodian proportions (cf. Knoppers 2013: 109; Goodman 61–62, on its thrice-yearly innundation by pilgrims, 589; Polyb. apud Jos. AJ 12, 136). This is substantiated by recent archaeogical evidence, see www.timesofisrael.com/huge-kingdom-of-judah-government-complex-found-stonesthrow-from-us-embassy/ [downloaded 23 July 2020]. On its strategic position, citing a letter of the Levantines to Cambyses cf. AJ 11, 25: . . . καὶ τὸν κύκλον τῶν τειχῶν ἀπολαβούσης (τῆς πόλεως) ἀποκλεέταί σοι ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἐπὶ κοίλην Συρίαν καὶ Φοινίκην: ‘once the city gets its walls back, your route to Coele Syria and Phoencia is cut off’. 62 Thus Cohen 1982/1983: 54. 63 See 53f. and n. 36. Cf. R. Pummer 2016: 55–56; 61–62; also Knoppers 2013: 165–168; cf. 219. Knoppers (2013: 162, 167) mentions the periodic friction in Jewish–Samaritan relations in the late fifth century (Nehem. 6–13; Ezra 3–6); their increasing antipathy in the Roman period is evident from Josephus AJ 20.118–136 and contr. Ap. 2.43, a disputed passage; cf. H. Thackeray and others 1926–1965: vol. 6, 309, note d, ad loc. 64 οὕτως λέγει Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τῷ χριστῷ μου Κύρῳ οὗ ἐκράτησα τῆς δεξιᾶς ἐπακούσαι ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ ἔθνη. . . . Is. 45.1 (‘Thus speaks The Lord to Cyrus my annointed whose right hand I have strengthened so that nations will be obedient before him.’) Alexander (according to the canonic sources) believed in his favoured status with ᾽ὁ θεός, cf. especially, Pl. VA 27 and 33. In the OT context the χριστός can be a temporal figure, a ruler, not necessarily a prophet, or the Son of the Living God in the Christian sense (as in Matt.17.1). On the epiphaneia, the god’s visible manifestation as the agent of salvation or a token of divine will, and on its theological implications for the Jews, see Cohen 1982/83: 49–53. For the parallel with the Siwah story, cf. Bosworth 1988 a: 278–283. 65 See 49 According to Curtius, the uprising appears to have been local, involving a few individuals, rather than widespread, as suggested by Christian and rabbinical sources. 66 AJ 11.344 ῾ . . . καὶ διδαχθεὶς ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν ἀκριβέστερον τἀ δὀξαντα:᾽ . . . [when I return] and have more accurate information from you, I shall do what I think is best.’ The Talmudic account in (b Yoma 69a; scholion to the Fasting Scroll, 9, Nadich, 38, Marcus, 519) suggests a more hostile anti-Samaritan attitude. On the manner of Alexander’s response to the Samaritans, see 16.

68 Adrian Tronson 67 In his response to Apion’s slanders against the Jews (Contra Apionem, 2.35) Josephus asserts their right to reside in Alexandria as ‘Macedonians’, as isoplitai of the Greek citizens, which he attributes to Alexander as much as to Ptolemy and his successors, and to ‘Caesar the Great’, referring to αἱ ἐπιστολαὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ τὰς Πτολεμαίου τοῦ Λάγου, καὶ τῶν μετ᾽ ἐκεῖνον βασιλέων . . . [καὶ τὰ γράμματα] καὶ [ἡ στήλη] . . . ἐν Ἀλεχανδρείᾳ καὶ τὰ δικαιώματα . . . ἃ Καῖσαρ ὁ μέγας τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ἒδωκεν. . . . (the letters of King Alexander, and those of Ptolemy Son of Lagos and the kings after him [and the inscriptions] and [the monuments] in Alexandria and the statutes . . . which Caesar the Great gave to the Jews). Caesar showed his gratitude to the Jews for their military support, by revoking the decrees and taxes imposed by Pompey, who also had desecrated the temple by entering it (AJ 14.72–79. cf. BJ 64–79; cf. Cic. pro Flacco 67–68; Dio 27.116.4; Dead Sea Scrolls 1QpHab. 6.1–6). 68 Josephus clearly is not referencing Nem. 12.28, since the two accounts differ significantly in detail. Knoppers 2013: 170–173, argues that the Samaritans benefited from the time of Antiochus III who enabled the enrichment of the Gerizim establishment by giving them privileges equal to those previously accorded to the Jews of Jerusalem (AJ 12.138–144). Until the rise of the Maccabaean state, Judah was overshadowed by that of the Samaritans). The rivalry and conflict increased over the third and second centuries. The report of such conditions probably influenced Josephus’ bias and his treatment of events in Alexander’s time. Cf. n. 34. 69 Cf. Edmunds 1971: 363. 70 See n. for n. 54 read n. 61. 71 These attibutes are suggested by the following ‘divine intimations’ to him throughout the historical canon: (1) omens of his birth (Pl. VA 2.3; 3); (2) Delphi: the Pythia addresses Alexander as anikêtos (Pl. VA 14.6; Diod.17.93.4; SIG 251H); (3) Troy (D. 17.17; Ar 1.11.7; Pl. VA 15.4); (4) Sardis: (Zeus’ lightning strikes the Persian shrine of Ahura Mazda (D. 17.21.7; Pl. VA 17; Ar. 1.17.3–8; (5); Lycia: Bronze tablets at Xanthus prophesy Greeks will destroy the Persians (Pl. VA 17.4); (6) The Branchidae of Didymus, where the sacred spring flows again at his presence: (Callisthenes F14 apud Str.17.1.43); (7) The Pamphylian Sea renders proskynesis (Callisthenes, F31, apud Eustathius, ad Hom. N29); (8) omens at Gordium (Ar. 2.3; Pl.VA 18.1.; QC 3.1.14; J. 11.7.5f.)); (9) Tyre: Alexander visits the Temple of Melkart (D. 17.40.2–47; Ar .2.16–20; Pl.VA. 24–25.3; QC. 4.2–4; J.11.10; (10) Egypt welcomes Alexander (D. 17.49.2; Plut. VA 26.4; Arr. 3.1–3., QC. 4.7. 4–5); (11) Siwah: Alexander hailed as Son of Zeus (Callisthenes Frg. 14 apud Strabo 17.1.43); (12) Arbela/Gaugamela: Alexander receives omen from his ‘father’ Zeus (Callisthenes F38 apud Strabo 11.14.18); (13) Babylon: Alexander received as liberator and ally of Bel (D. 17.64.3, Ar.,3.16.4–6; QC 5.1.17). 72 See n. 48. 73 See Kuhrt II 1995: 601–602, from the ‘Cyrus Cylinder’: ‘Marduk, the great lord, who cares for his people, looked with pleasure at [Cyrus’] good deeds and his righteous heart. His massive troops, whose number was immeasurable, like the water of a river, marched with their arms at their side. Without a battle and fighting [Marduk] let [Cyrus] enter his city of Babylon. He saved Babylon from its oppression. . . . All the inhabitants of Babylon knelt before him, kissed his feet, rejoiced at his kingship; their faces shone. ‘The lord, who through his help has brought the dead to life, who in [a time of] disaster and oppression has benefited all. – thus they joyfully celebrated him, honoured his name. . . . Daily I cared for his [Bel Marduk’s] worship. I allowed them to find rest from their exhaustion, their servitude I loosened.’ 74 Marcus 1951: 528. 75 That is the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. In its present canonical form Daniel is a product of the Maccabean period, c. 164 BC; cf. Towner in Metziger 1993: 150–153 and Barton (a) 25–28; 77–78 (on Daniel).

Alexander in Jerusalem 69 76 Momigliano 1979: 446. 77 As Pearson 1960: 38 comments: ‘The interval between Pamphylia and the journey to Ammon is a long one and we might expect some further hints of Alexander’s superhuman nature in the meantime.’ 78 See AJ 14. 188–216 Unlike the Romans, Alexander left very few documents of his agreements with small states. Josephus comments here on the poor survival rate of pre-Roman documents regarding the Jews. See Gelzer 1968: 244–245) on Caesar’s Alexandri imitatio and his increasing awareness and propagation of his divine descent. Marcus (502–503) cites Büchler’s argument verbatim. 79 Cowley 1923: 109. 80 Cf. 11.184, Josephus refers to ‘Asueros (i.e. Xerxes), whom the Greeks call Artaxerxes’ and in 11.297, to ‘the other (τοῦ ἄλλου) Artaxerxes’, without specifying the Artaxerxes to whom he is referring (cf. 16–17). 81 See Magen et al 2004: 10, cited and refuted by Mor 2011 in Grabbe & Lipschits 2011: 183–187. 82 Cowley 1923: 110. 83 Tcherikover 1961: 42–44; Kasher 2011: 133. 84 See Barton 2019: 45. 85 Significantly, the conclusion of AJ 11 (336–337) refers to Daniel’s ‘prophecy of Alexander’s victory’ (Dan. 8.16). In the light of Momigliano’s observation (7 n. 21) that the first chapter of 1 Maccabees uses the vocabulary of the prophets and the psalmist, as well as other passages of the Scriptures to describe the hubris of wicked kings, such as Uzziah (2 Chron. 26 Sect. 2), this formulation rather marks out Alexander as one of the figures of the ‘end times’. Gnuse 1993: 67–68, compares Josephus to the ‘biblical authors, who would not let his narrative violate his beliefs’ and who ‘[weaves together] the craft of historian, literary artist and theologian’, also Kim 2003: 440. 86 See also Kasher 2011: 150. There is a striking verbal echo in the phrase of the original source in the phrase ὑπεχώρησε τὸ Παμφίλιον πέλαγος (F31, T Eustathius, in Hom. N29: Callisthenes uses the more extravagant ἐξυπαναστῆναι). It is also significant that the phrase Ἀλεξάνδρου πράξεις is the title of Callisthenes’ history (the earliest account) of Alexander’s exploits. Callisthenes was notorious for his recondite vocabulary and for describing his subject in heroic, if not ‘divine’ terms (cf. Pearson 1960: 33). In this instance a not unusual natural phenomenon is cast as a miracle. The historian’s hero is given the aura of a theios aner by his apparent control over nature and the implicit comparison to Poseidon as portrayed in Iliad 12 29 ff. Cf. Gnuse 1993: 367. 87 The paper which is the basis of this chapter was originally presented in Pretoria at the 2016 UNISA Colloquium on Life-Writing. My thanks to Professor Tim Duff for a valuable comment on verbal aspect and tense and to my valued colleague Dr Lionel Sanders who over many years has shown interest in this subject and in the course of many discussions has given me much vital information and encouragement.

Bibliography Primary Arrian. Anabasis. Edited by E.I. Robson, translated by P.A. Brunt. 1929. Loeb Classical Library. London and Cambridge, MA. Curtius Rufus. Edited by E. Hedige, Leipzig. Teubner, 1908, translated by J.C. Rolfe. Loeb Classical Library). 1963. London and Cambridge, MA. Josephus. Jewish Antiquities, 9 vols. Edited by B. Niese and translated by R. Marcus. Loeb Classical Library. 1951. London and Cambridge, MA.

70 Adrian Tronson Josephus. The Life and Against Apion. Edited by B. Niese, Vol. 1, translated by H. St.J. Thackeray Loeb Classical Library. 1926. Cambridge, MA. Justinus. 1971. Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus. Edited by O. Seel and translated by J.C. Yardley with notes by R. Develin, American Philological Association: Classical Resources, no. 3, 1994. Atlanta, GA. Liber de Morte (‘Metz Epitome’) Alexandri Magni Macedonis Epitoma Rerum Gestarum. DigilibT. Bibliotheca digitale di testi latini tardoantichi. Retrieved September 2, 2019, from digilibit.lett.uniprm.it. Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives. Edited and translated by B. Perrin. 1919. Loeb Classical Library. London. Cambridge, MA.

Secondary Abrahams, I. 1923. Campaigns in Palestine from Alexander the Great. London. Atkinson, J.E. 1980. Commentary on Quintus Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni, Books 3 and 4, Vol. 1. Amsterdam. Badian, E, 2012. Collected Papers on Alexander the Great. London. Barton, J. 1997. How the Bible Came to Be. Westminster and Kentucky. Barton, J. 2019. The History of the Bible. London and New York. Baynham, E. 1998. Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius. Ann Arbor. Ben Shahar, M. 2018. ‘Jews, Samaritans and Alexander: Facts and Fictions in Jewish Stories on the Meeting of Alexander and the High Priest.’ In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great, ed. K.R. Moore, 403–426. Boston, MA and Leiden. Bosman, P.R. 2014. Alexander in Africa. Acta Classica Supplementum V. Pretoria. Bosworth, A.B. 1981. A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander. Vol. I: Commentary on Books I–III. Oxford. Bosworth, A.B. 1988a. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. Cambridge. Bosworth, A.B. 1988b. From Arrian to Alexander: Studies in Historical Interpretation. Oxford. Burstein, S. 1999. ‘Cleitarchus in Jerusalem.’ In The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity, eds. F.B. Titchener and R.F. Jr. Moorton, 115–112. Berkeley. Chugg, A.M. 2014. Alexander the Great and the Conquest of the Persians: A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus. Austin. Chugg, A.M. 2015. Concerning Alexander the Great: A Reconstruction of Cleitarchus. San Bernadino. Cohen, S.J.D. 1982/1983. ‘Alexander the Great and Jaddus the High Priest.’ AJS Review 7/8: 41–68. Cowley, A. 1923. Aramaic Papyri of the 5th Century B.C. Oxford. Cowley, A. (ed). 1929. Aramaic Papyri. Oxford. Danforth, L.M. 2003. ‘Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Conflict.’ In Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great, ed. J. Roisman, 347–364. Leiden. Diodorus Siculus. 1963. Bibliotheca, Vol. 8, Books 16, 66–95–17. Edited and translated by C.B. Welles. London and Cambridge, MA. Dreyer, B. 2009. ‘Heroes, Cults and Divinity.’ In Alexander the Great: A New History, eds. W. Heckel and L.A. Tritle, 218–234. Malden and Oxford. Edmunds, L. 1971. ‘The Religiosity of Alexander the Great.’ GRBS 12 (3): 363–391. Engelmann, H. (ed). 1962. Der grieschische Alexanderroman, Rezension γ, Vol. 2. Meisenheim am Glan.

Alexander in Jerusalem 71 Engels, D.W. 1978. Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. Berkeley, CA. Fensham, F.C. 1993. ‘Nehemiah.’ In Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. B. Metziger, 219–221. Oxford. Gelzer, M. 1968. Caesar: Politician and Statesman. Cambridge, MA. Gnuse, R. 1993. ‘The Temple Experience of Jaddus in the Antiquities of Josephus. A Report of Jewish Dream Incubation.’ JQR 83: 349–368. Grabbe, L. 2009. ‘Was Jerusalem a Persian Fortress?’ In Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, Vol. 1, eds. G.N. Knoppers, L. Grabbe, and D.N. Fulton, 128–137. London. Grabbe, L. 2011. Enquire of the Former Age: Ancient Historiography and Writing the History of Israel. New York. Green, P. 1981. Alexander the Great: A Life. London. Green, P. 1989. ‘The Macedonian Connection.’ In Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture, 151–164. London. Gruen, E. 1998. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. Berkeley. Gruen, E. 2007. ‘Persia through the Looking Glass.’ In Jewish Perspectives on the Hellenistic Rulers, ed. T. Rajak, 53–75. Oxford. Hammond, N.G.L. 1983. Three Historians of Alexander the Great. Cambridge. Hammond, N.G.L and Walbank, F.W. 1988. A History of Macedonia, Vol. III. Oxford. Heckel, W and Tritle, L.A. 2009. Alexander the Great: A New History. Malden and Oxford. Kasher, A. 1993. ‘The Campaigns of Alexander the Great in Eretz-Israel.’ In The Hasmonean State, eds. U. Rappaport and I. Ronen, 13–35. Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. Kasher, A. 2011. ‘Further Revised Thoughts on Josephus’ Report of Alexander’s Campaign to Palestine.’ In Judah Between East and West: The Transition from Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 BCE), eds. L. Grabbe and O. Lipschits, 131–157. London. Kim, Tae Hun. 2003. ‘The Dream of Alexander in Joseph Ant. 11.325–39.’ Journal for the Study of Judaism XXXIV: 4. Klęczar, A. 2018. ‘Alexander in the Jewish Tradition: From Second Temple Writings to Hebrew Alexander Romances.’ In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great, ed. K.R Moore, 379–402. Boston, MA and Leiden. Knoppers, G.N. 2013. Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of their Early Relations. Oxford. Knoppers, G.N., L.L. Grabbe, and D.N. Fulton. 2009. Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd, Vol. 1. London. Kuhrt, A. 1995. The Ancient Near East, Vol. II. London. Lane Fox, R. 1973. Alexander the Great. London. Lipschits, O. 2009. ‘Persian Period Finds from Jerusalem; Facts and Interpretation.’ Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9 (20): 3–20. Lipschits, O. and L. Grabbe. 2011. Judah Between East and West, The transition of Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 BCE), Library of Second Temple Studies 75. London. Magen, Y., H. Misgav, and L. Tsfania. 2004. Mount Gerazim Excavations, Vol. 1. The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscriptions (Israel Antiquities Authority). Jerusalem. Mandell, S. 2013. ‘Review of Lipschits O. and Grabbe L.’ Classical Biblical Quarterly 75: 602–604. Metziger, B (ed). 1993. Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford. Momigliano, A. 1971. The Development of Greek Biography. Cambridge, MA. Momigliano, A. 1979. ‘Flavius Josephus and Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem.’ Athenaeum 7: 442–448.

72 Adrian Tronson Moore, K.R. (ed). 2018. Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great. Boston, MA and Leiden. Mor, M. 2011. ‘The Samaritans in Transition from the Persian to the Greek Period.’ In Judah Between East and West, The transition of Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 BCE), eds. L. Grabbe and O. Lipschits, 176–198. London. Nadich, J. 1983. Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth. Philadelphia. Pearson, L. 1960. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. New York. Pummer, R. 2016. The Samaritans: A Profile. Grand Rapids. Rajak, T. (ed). 2007. Jewish Perspectives on the Hellenistic Rulers. Oxford. Rappaport, U. and I. Ronen (eds). 1993. The Hasmonean State. Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and London. Schäfer, P. 2003. The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World. London. Smythe, H.W. 1920. Greek Grammar. Cambridge, MA. Spak, I. 1911. Der Bericht der Josephus über Alexander den Grossen (Diss). Königsberg. Spencer, D. 2002. The Roman Alexander: Reading a Cultural Myth. Exeter. Stoneman, R. 1991. The Greek Alexander Romance. London. Stoneman, R. 2008. Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend. New Haven. Tcherikover, V. 1961. Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews. Philadelphia. Titchener, F.B. and R.F. Jr. Moorton (eds). 1999. The Eye Expanded: Life and the Arts in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Berkeley. Towner, W.S. 1993. ‘The Book of Daniel.’ In Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. B. Metziger, 149–152. Oxford. Tronson, A. 2014. ‘From Jerusalem to Timbuktu.’ In Alexander in Africa, ed. P.R. Bosman, 143–169. Pretoria. Williamson, H.G.M. 2013. ‘Review of Lipschits O. and L. Grabbe.’ STRATA: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 31: 235–238.

5

The Forum of Augustus Reshaping collective memory about war and the state Tom Stevenson

The Forum Augustum was a monument for the Roman state and the imperial family, above all Augustus. Legal business was conducted there, as were rituals of civic, religious, military, economic, and social significance. It was a place for recreation for the citizens of Rome.1 On one level, the gallery of heroes seems to legitimise Augustus’ position in the state by associating him with outstanding models from the Republican past.2 In this chapter the aim is to focus more on the imperial/Julian family than the statues of Republican heroes, and to discuss ways in which collective memory about war and the state might have been influenced by the depiction of Julian achievements.3 Readings which privilege Augustan traditionalism and connections to the Republic via the gallery of heroes probably require some adjustment. Accordingly, this chapter proceeds through four parts. First, there is a short introduction to the Forum Augustum as an ambivalent monument. Second, I examine general physical features of the Forum Augustum in a way that emphasises its Julian character. Third, I discuss the association between the Forum Augustum and Roman war. Finally, in the fourth part of the chapter, I analyse the Forum Augustum as a Julian monument in its historical context, emphasising its construction and opening in a period of increasing emphasis on the imperial family, with Augustus as the father of his family and of the state. The new Forum makes the Julian family seem more prominent in the growth of Roman power than it was for long periods of Roman history. It revises and promotes the Julian family’s contribution to Rome’s achievement, especially in the realm of war.

The Forum Augustum as an ambivalent monument There are good reasons why the Forum Augustum is normally interpreted as an ambivalent monument, a mixture of Greek and Roman inspiration and elements. It evokes, for instance, both a Hellenistic temple precinct, through its imposing temple, and the large, open-air entrance space of a Roman house (atrium), through its ancestral statues and portraits.4 Scholarly views generally reflect this complexity. John Rich, for instance, associates the Forum Augustum with the original Roman Forum, decorated with statues of triumphant generals (triumphatores), arches, and trophies of various kinds. Yet he recognises that the great men (summi viri) are an extraordinary collection.5 Paul Zanker believes on one hand that Augustan art evolved through a period of DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-6

74

Tom Stevenson

Hellenistic excess to a time of Classical calm or, in political terms, through a period of autocratic aspiration to a time of Republican traditionalism.6 When writing about the summi viri, however, he emphasises the juxtaposition of (often obscure) members of the Julian family against the gallery of Republican worthies: [This juxtaposition] justified the position of the princeps’ family in the new Rome by proclaiming its unique historical importance. The reality of competition between Rome’s leading families stretching back for centuries, all the ups and downs, and the relative insignificance of the Julii from the fourth to second centuries BC were all thereby utterly obscured. In this version, the Julii had always been Rome’s most important family, for this family would produce her saviour.7 The impression is more autocratic or dynastic than Republican from this perspective. Indeed, the Forum Augustum makes various claims about the emperor’s family and Rome’s success in war which tend to reinforce this impression. These claims might even extend further than is normally argued in light of memory conventions. Yet if this is so, the resilience of the state as a public entity (res publica) remains fundamental. Augustan Rome is a product of both the imperial family and the state. There is much familial imagery and ritual, but impressions of autocracy or dynasty did not overwhelm the idea of the res publica. Scholars have long regarded ambivalence surrounding the relationship between the ruler and the state as fundamental to the interpretation of Augustan culture.8 First, such ambivalence both reflects and promotes ongoing discourse about the nature of the principate of Augustus and permits constant expression and therapeutic defusion of sharp tensions, which derive largely from traditional attitudes to aristocratic privilege, popular participation, and autocratic power at Rome. This discourse was actively promoted and supported by both the princeps and the citizens of Rome, from various points of view and with various motives (it was not a matter of top-down, inculcatory, twentieth-century propaganda directed by the princeps as a Goebbelstype figure who controls all media within Rome). Second, the regular deployment of paternal and familial ideas is one of the most remarkable features of the Augustan principate. While older scholarship treats such ideas in terms of flattery, charisma, or honour, much like older approaches to imperial cult, perspectives adopted from sociology and literary criticism indicate that paradigms of familial type should be seen as tools for the maintenance and negotiation of imperial power.9 They were hardly as fundamental to Augustus’ power as his control of overwhelming military force, his domination of political office, his vast economic and financial resources, and his capacity to ensure civil stability and external peace, but the rhetorical power of paternal and familial analogies for maintaining and negotiating traditional sensitivities over autocratic power is key to understanding the heavy emphasis on the emperor and his family in Augustan literature and art. This type of discourse, which deals with overwhelming or autocratic power by manoeuvring between binary opposites or linked polarities (e.g. between ‘family’ and ‘state’, ‘master’ and ‘slave’, or ‘father’ and ‘tyrant’), had been conventional for a long time.10

The Forum of Augustus

75

Yet if ambivalence is both ubiquitous and valuable, and if the ruler and the state are closely linked, special attention can nevertheless be given to a more specifically Julian or ‘family’ interpretation of the Forum Augustum. Levels of familial discourse wax and wane, gather and lose intensity. This was a time of notable dynamism. When set into context as a monument of 2 BC, the Forum Augustum seems to build on prominent recent developments in the deployment of paternal and familial ideas, which promoted symbiosis between the imperial family and the state.11 Moreover, scholarship on collective memory probably indicates the special memorableness of Julian associations in the Forum Augustum, given people’s readiness to note the remote past, the recent past, and the present-leading-to-thefuture, rather than the historical past (Jan Vansina’s ‘floating gap’).12 It seems legitimate, therefore, to focus on the imperial family as an especially powerful theme, and to consider its responsibility for the growth of Roman power. Perhaps the summi viri themselves might be seen as contributors to a Julian state, which was set up by famous ancestors of the Julian family (e.g. Mars, Venus, Aeneas, Iulus, Romulus), of which Augustus is the contemporary father (explicitly Pater Patriae or Father of the Fatherland on the base of his statue in the centre of the complex).

Julian elements in the Forum Augustum The Forum Augustum was a monumental square, around 125 metres long by 90 metres wide, flanked on its east and west by marble colonnades (Figures 5.1, 5.2). It was dominated by the huge Temple of Mars Ultor (‘Mars the Avenger’),

Figure 5.1 The Forum Augustum in Rome

76

Tom Stevenson

Figure 5.2 Ruins of the Forum Augustum, Rome

vowed in the lead-up to the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC and opened in 2 BC. The young Octavian, who was 20 years old, swore that, if Mars Ultor would help him to avenge the murder of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, he would build a great temple in the god’s honour and adorn it with spoils taken from defeated enemies. In the hard-fought battle that ensued, the Caesarian forces led by Antony and Octavian defeated the ‘Republican’ forces led by Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius.13 Augustus used proceeds from his successful campaigns to purchase the site for his forum (Aug. RG 21), but he made sure that no one suffered, and that everyone benefited, from his plans. Among other things, this meant that no citizens were compelled to sell land to him for his project. Indeed, some citizens evidently refused his overtures, and so the plan was modified (Suet. Aug. 56.2). The forum is far from symmetrical at its northern edge. Macrobius (Sat. 2.4.9) says that construction was delayed by the architect, but there is no firm indication of a start date. John Rich seems right to focus on 20 BC, and the years immediately following, when the Senate and the princeps negotiated a complex series of honours.14 The forum was opened prematurely in 2 BC, before the Temple of Mars Ultor was completely finished (Suet. Aug. 29). The date of the temple’s dedication has been disputed but seems to have been 12 May 2 BC.15

The Forum of Augustus

77

It thus took 40 years before the temple vowed at Philippi was finally opened to the public in 2 BC, but it seems likely that the idea for a breathtaking monument had been around for some time before 2 BC (Figure 5.3). For a start, the Temple of Mars Ultor was meant to match the nearby Temple of Venus Genetrix (‘Venus the Ancestress’), which dominated the adjacent Forum Iulium that had been built by Caesar (Figure 5.4). This Venus was the ancestress of Rome itself, for she was the mother of Aeneas, the prince who escaped the destruction of Troy and journeyed to Italy, where his son Iulus founded the city of Alba Longa, from whose ruling family Romulus and Remus were eventually born. Romulus went on to found Rome and become its first king. Venus was also the ancestress of the ‘Julian’ family, since the family of Julius Caesar, and hence Augustus, claimed descent from Iulus, Aeneas’ son. In other words, the family was ‘Iulian/Julian’ because it was

Figure 5.3 Plan of the Forum Augustum

78

Tom Stevenson

Figure 5.4 Plan of the Imperial Fora

descended from Iulus. Caesar’s temple, which was opened in 46 BC, commemorated his many victories and linked his achievements with those of Rome itself, since Venus Genetrix supported both the Julian family and the Roman state.16 But Augustus went further in this regard than his adoptive father. His forum and temple were bigger, more impressive, and bolder in their claims. Above all, the dependence of the Roman state on the Julian family was made more explicit. The new forum joined the Forum Iulium in perpendicular fashion, thus reinforcing the family connection with an architectural one.17 It was flanked by large, wide colonnades, which provided shade for patrons and a magnificent setting for a long line of statues. These life-size statues honoured the summi viri of Rome, and each was accompanied by a career inscription (elogium), which listed the subject’s offices and greatest achievements, particularly those of a military nature.18 A sizeable number of these elogia have survived.19 Fragmentary marble remains indicate that some of the statues were depicted in armour while others wore a toga. The Temple of Mars Ultor, which backed onto the north wall of the forum, was octastyle (eight columns along the front) and built on a high podium (Figure 5.5). The white Corinthian columns, of solid Luna marble, were some of the finest in Rome at the time. The elder Pliny (HN 36.102) considered the Forum Augustum, the Basilica Paulli (or Basilica Aemilia), and the Templum Pacis (‘Temple of Peace’) the three most beautiful buildings in Rome. Statues from the triangular pediment of the temple are reproduced in a couple of reliefs originally from an arch of the emperor Claudius but now housed in the Villa Medici. Commonly but erroneously known as the ‘Ara Pietatis (Altar of Piety) Reliefs’, these scenes show Mars flanked by Venus and Fortuna, seated figures of Romulus and Roma, and recumbent figures of Palatinus Mons (the Palatine Hill) and Tiberinus Pater

The Forum of Augustus

79

Figure 5.5 Artist’s impression of the Forum Augustum

(Father Tiber).20 Cult statues stood in the interior of the temple: Mars Ultor in full armour, Venus with Cupid to his right, and Divus Julius (‘the God Julius’) to his left. Caesar’s status should not be questioned: David Wardle has argued that divus referred to an ancient and highly revered type of god in the first century BC, and only later took on the sense of a ‘deified’ or ‘divine’ emperor through the practice of posthumous deification.21 Julian elements in the Forum Augustum are cumulatively striking. We have seen that the Forum Augustum is north of the Forum Iulium, with which it is contiguous, and that the Forum Iulium is itself north of the Republican space of the traditional Forum Romanum. The impression that the two new fora constitute a ‘Julian’ precinct was surely aided not just by their contiguity but also by their temples: the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum Augustum and the Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum Iulium. Mars and Venus were thereby united, as they were in many stories, whether as consorts, or as Julian ancestors, or as sponsors of the Roman state at war.22 A visitor entering the Forum Augustum through the main (southern) entrance might initially have adopted the north–south line of sight through the statue of Augustus in the centre of the complex. This statue of the emperor in a four-horse chariot (quadriga) stood atop an inscription to which Pater Patriae was ostentatiously added (Aug. RG 35.1). Alternatively, the visitor might first have looked beyond the statue to the imposing steps of the Temple of Mars Ultor and to the façade of the building. The pedimental sculpture, showing an arrangement of Mars flanked by figures including Venus and Romulus, should probably be appreciated in conjunction with the internal cult statues of Mars, Venus Genetrix, and

80

Tom Stevenson

Julius Caesar. As visitors moved around the forum, new lines of sight opened, especially along east–west axes. The discovery of a second set of hemicycles (exedrae) beneath the Via dei Fori Imperiali in recent decades indicates that there were probably two major east–west axes.23 The more northern of these, long known and better documented, passes along the front of the Temple of Mars Ultor to the centre of the adjacent hemicycles, which flank the great temple on either side, viz. to the west and the east. These exedrae were adorned respectively by statue groups centred upon Aeneas and Romulus, both of whom were founders of Rome but also founders of the Julii, as indicated earlier. At the centre of the western hemicycle, a group showed Aeneas and his family fleeing the destruction of Troy: Aeneas was carrying his father Anchises on his shoulder and leading his son Iulus by the hand. Directly opposite this group, at the centre of the eastern hemicycle, Romulus was shown carrying the spolia opima (‘rich spoils’), which comprised the armour of King Acron of the Caeninenses (people of Caenina), won by Romulus in heroic single combat.24 The hemicycles beneath the main road seem to have been slightly smaller, probably lacking the elaborate central niches, implying no further parallels for the Aeneas-group and for Romulus.25 Geiger speculates that they might have been adorned with the statues of outstanding women of the Julii and the Republic.26 The room containing a colossal statue of the emperor’s procreative spirit (genius) recalls the altars of each neighbourhood of the city, where worship of the procreative spirit of Augustus (genius Augusti) had been regularised in recent years.27 This worship, of course, was modelled on household worship of the genius of the father of the household (paterfamilias). The summi viri, then, were not clearly the dominant features. Moreover, there is a question about how distinct or individually identifiable would have been the statues of the summi viri within the colonnades, thought by Atilio Degrassi (Inscr. Ital. 13.3) to have numbered c. 108 but now, with discovery of the new hemicycles, indeterminate. On one hand, we know that people made appointments to meet at such-and-such a statue, as though the statues were identified individually.28 Rituals like the morning greeting (salutatio) in the house of a Roman patron, at which clients took up positions by certain statues or columns, probably reinforce the impression that the statues could be recognised individually.29 On the other hand, by convention the statues are normally swept into a bundle through designations such as ‘the summi viri’, and the emperor himself seems to have described them in general terms as a group of ideal models (exempla) (Suet. Aug. 31.5): Next to the immortal gods he honoured the memory of the leaders who had raised the estate of the Roman people from obscurity to greatness. Accordingly he restored the works of such men with their original inscriptions, and in the two colonnades of his forum dedicated statues of all of them in triumphal garb, declaring besides in a proclamation: ‘I have contrived this to lead the citizens to require me, while I live, and the rulers of later times as well, to attain the standard set by those worthies of old.’

The Forum of Augustus

81

The caryatids and shield portraits (imagines clipeatae), which line the architrave of the colonnades, simultaneously evoke Classical Athens (the caryatids) and the ancestral portraits of many an aristocratic home. While impressive, they also tend to form a group which leads the eye on to the ‘Julian’ elements of the Temple of Mars Ultor. The statues of the summi viri were undeniably important, perhaps even primary in the minds of some visitors. The point here is to ask whether they were dominant in the way that is sometimes implied. It seems right, for instance, to consider more determinedly than before the range of people who visited the Forum Augustum and the range of cultural knowledge they could apply in interacting with the monument. Greg Woolf’s thought-provoking reconceptualisation of the new forum as a sanctuary takes attention away from the elogia beneath the statues, with their identifications and embedded messages, and shifts it to rituals performed in the vicinity, and different individuals performing them, so that how we learn social memory is as important as what we learn.30 Josephine Shaya emphasises dynamism: interpretations changed over time.31 It seems that there was never a uniform experience of the Forum Augustum.

The Forum Augustum and Roman war Many people must have visited the Forum Augustum to attend legal proceedings: both Claudius and Trajan are recorded as having sat in judgement there.32 Suetonius (Aug. 29.1–2) asserts that the new forum was built to provide additional space for the operation of law courts, since existing space in the original Roman Forum and Forum Iulium was insufficient, given the growth of Rome’s population: [1.] A great number of public buildings were erected by him, the most considerable of which were a forum, containing the Temple of Mars the Avenger, the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine hill, and the Temple of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol. The reason for his building a new forum was the vast increase in the population, and the number of cases to be tried in the courts, for which, with the two already existing fora not affording sufficient space, it was thought necessary to have a third. It was therefore opened for public use before the Temple of Mars was completely finished; and a law was passed, that cases should be tried, and judges chosen by lot, in that place. [2.] The Temple of Mars was built in fulfilment of a vow made during the war of Philippi, undertaken by him to avenge his father’s murder. He ordained that the Senate should always assemble there when they met to deliberate respecting wars and triumphs; that from there should be despatched all those who were sent into the provinces in command of armies; and that in it those who returned victorious from the wars should lodge the trophies of their triumphs. Cassius Dio (55.10.2–5) gives a reasonably detailed list of activities connected with the Temple of Mars Ultor. He reinforces Suetonius’ emphasis on war: [2.] [it was decreed that a temple should be built] to Mars, and that [Augustus] and his grandsons should go there as often as they wished, while those

82

Tom Stevenson who were passing from the class of boys and were being enrolled among the youths of military age [viz. those donning the toga virilis] should invariably do so; that those who were sent out to commands abroad should make that their starting-point; [3.] that the Senate should take its votes there in regard to the granting of triumphs, and that the victors after celebrating them should dedicate to this Mars their sceptre and their crown; that such victors and all others who receive triumphal honours should have their statues in bronze erected in the Forum; [4.] that in case military standards captured by the enemy were ever recovered they should be placed in the temple; that a festival should be celebrated beside the steps of the temple by the cavalry commanders of each year; that a nail should be driven into it by the censors at the close of their terms; [5.] and that even senators should have the right of contracting to supply the horses that were to compete in the Circensian games, and also to take general charge of the temple, just as had been provided by law in the case of the temples of Apollo and of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Dio’s list emphasises that the Forum Augustum was the place from which Roman generals (who were simultaneously governors) departed for their provinces, the place where the Senate debated matters concerning the provinces (notably war), and the place to which generals returned with their spoils. Generals judged worthy of a triumph would dedicate their crowns and sceptres to Mars in his temple, along with Roman standards recovered from an enemy.33 It was in particular the place from which Gaius Caesar, Augustus’ son, would depart on his first military campaign in 1 BC.34 Boys assumed the toga of an adult man (toga virilis) in ceremonies conducted in the Forum Augustum and thus became eligible for military training. The new forum was more than ‘Rome’s foreign office’,35 which tends to imply a broad range of business concerning the provinces or Rome’s external relations. It was a prime site for rituals connected with war. The point in particular is that warfare at Rome under the Republic had been focused on the Campus Martius, where men of military age trained and assembled, especially before expeditions and triumphs; on the Forum Romanum, the site of many triumphal statues and military monuments;36 on the Sacred Way (Sacra Via), which marked the route of many a triumphal procession; and on the Capitol, especially at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where generals laid down their power of command (imperium) and dedicated spoils to Jupiter. Deliberations of the Senate, votes of the Roman people, and some of the rituals of the fetial priests (fetiales), such as the casting of a spear into ‘enemy territory’ in front of the Temple of Bellona, took place at these traditional sites.37 Construction of the Forum Augustum changed not only the location of some of these rituals, it also changed their fundamental significance. Augustus was privileging a new centre of military power (the Forum Augustum) and a new god (Mars Ultor). Jupiter was challenged in several respects by Mars Ultor, a god of special significance for the princeps and his family. Similarly, the Forum Romanum was challenged by both the Forum Iulium and the Forum Augustum in ways which underlined the contributions of Caesar and Augustus.

The Forum of Augustus

83

The Forum Augustum now became a site for deliberating on war, leaving for war, depositing triumphal trophies, receiving standards defiled by enemy capture, honouring triumphant generals (triumphatores), and even becoming eligible for war (in the case of those who received their toga virilis there). Certainly, the triumph still culminated on the Capitol and the same offerings were still returned to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but now additional offerings could be made to Mars Ultor, so that the evidence indicates a major intervention into customary practices, with the Julian associations being prominent.38 Matters of war would be debated in the Temple of Mars Ultor, a temple with an explicit Julian connotation, following the assassination of Caesar and the vow made at Philippi. War would be declared in the Temple of Mars Ultor. Generals (notably Gaius Caesar for the first time in 1 BC) would set out from the Temple of Mars and return there. Spoils would be offered to Mars Ultor. Generals, of course, were to be members of the imperial family or close relatives in the future. Boys (notably Lucius Caesar in 2 BC) assumed the toga virilis here, and then began to train as soldiers.39 Even the non-Julian triumphatores in the Forum Augustum – men like Appius Claudius Caecus, the famous censor of 312 BC, or Fabius Maximus the Cunctator, nemesis of Hannibal – were presented in a thoroughly Julian space and arrangement. Regardless of their actual family name, they were presented as descendants of either Aeneas on the west or Romulus on the east – both of whom were depicted not just as founders and ancestors of the Romans but as founders and ancestors of the Julii too. All Romans were Julian in this symbolic or charismatic sense, with their ‘father’ Augustus at centre stage. The achievements of Augustus were the logical outcome of this notion of heroic ancestry. The main north–south and east–west axes, as noted earlier, linked Augustus with Mars (via the pediment and the cult statue), Aeneas with Romulus, and (speculatively) groups of women, in a way which could be seen to stress the fundamental importance of one family to the entire history of Roman warfare. We should ask how visitors to the Forum Augustum might have been induced to remember Roman achievements at war, or how the monument might indicate that this was normally done. Scholarship on collective memory stresses that viewers seem to retain the remote past (in this case, for instance, Aeneas and Romulus), the recent past (Caesar, perhaps too Octavian, especially given the revenge theme of the Parthian ‘triumph’ and of Philippi), the present (Augustus), and the presentlooking-to the future (Gaius and Lucius Caesar).40 In this schema, the major figures are Julian and prominent on main axes or sight lines. It is the summi viri and lesser Julians in the colonnades who miss out. They might seem to constitute the ‘floating gap’ of the historical past, which is often elided, though they could still serve as exempla to inspire future leaders, whose statues might then stand on the pedestals which were deliberately left vacant for future additions (Tac. Ann. 4.15, 13.8). Perhaps the collective memory was altered along these lines, even if the situation was complex, fluid, and variable between individual visitors, as indicated earlier.41 The matter of Julian prominence, however, should not be permitted to rest with the architectural and sculptural elements of the forum alone. The case becomes stronger when the monument is set into its historical context.

84

Tom Stevenson

The Forum Augustum as a Julian monument in its historical context We should, therefore, range beyond 2 BC to set the Forum Augustum into context as a monument trading on close symbiosis between the state and the imperial family. When this is done, the monument tends to emerge as more than simply an elaboration of traditional aristocratic patronage, whereby the Julian family would be seen merely as prominent among peers in the state. It is true that temple construction was an aristocratic practice, that impressive monuments in public places or for public use had long been constructed from military plunder (manubiae), and that the statues of the summi viri in the Forum Augustum represent the greatest military leaders of Republican Rome, so that the contribution of other aristocratic families is open to view. The context for interpretation, however, is better set by a series of recent developments, which seem to indicate a different, changed atmosphere, beyond the aristocratic. It might be objected that Republican families had long been making extravagant claims about the importance of their ancestors to the success of the Roman state. The following passage is well known in this connection (Suet. Iul. 6): [1.] When quaestor, he [Caesar] pronounced the customary orations from the Rostra in praise of his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, who had both died. And in the eulogy of his aunt he spoke in the following terms of her paternal and maternal ancestry and that of his own father: ‘The family of my aunt Julia is descended by her mother from the kings, and on her father’s side is akin to the immortal gods; for the Marcii Reges (her mother’s family name) go back to [King] Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, to Venus. Our stock therefore has at once the sanctity of kings, whose power is supreme among mortal men, and the claim to reverence which attaches to the gods, who hold sway over kings themselves.’ Yet aristocratic competitiveness of the kind which gave rise to such funeral orations hardly explains the depiction of the Julian family’s contribution to Rome’s military achievement in the Forum Augustum, where the family of Augustus is more than simply foremost among them, and emphasis on Augustus as Pater Patriae (cf. RG 35.1), a congenial but autocratic rather than aristocratic figure, is intimately associated with the complex after the events of 2 BC. It is not difficult to conceive of an interpretation in which the state is subsumed into the Julian family. Julius Caesar had been cultivating paternal ideas before his murder. As pontifex maximus, for instance, Caesar used holy objects (sacra) that were ‘Julian’ in character, for example the Palladium (a wooden statuette of Pallas Athena),42 the Trojan household gods (penates),43 and the erect phallus (fascinum) used in various rites of the Vestal Virgins, all of which are supposed to have come from the Trojan royal house via Aeneas.44 Caesar opposed Cicero as Parens Patriae from 63 BC on. After opening the Forum Iulium, dominated by Venus Genetrix, in 46 BC,

The Forum of Augustus

85

he became both Parens Patriae in 44 BC and Divus Iulius (the God Julius) in 42 BC. Finally, the plebs took up the cult of Caesar as Parens Patriae in the Forum so enthusiastically after the Ides of March in 44 BC that the senate reacted, through the consul Dolabella, with violent suppression, not just for the popular disobedience but for the autocratic implications too.45 Augustus presided over a series of developments which hinged on the view that his role in the state was like that of a father. His autocratic position was being negotiated, it seems, as though the state was his family. In 20 BC, for instance, the return of the standards captured by the Parthians from Crassus in 53 BC and Antony in 36 BC was in part a family obligation, since at the time of his assassination Caesar had wanted to avenge Crassus’ defeat in 53 BC at Carrhae. This family obligation easily blended with another, in the form of Octavian’s vow to avenge Caesar’s murder and his promise to build a temple to Mars Ultor (‘the Avenger’) at Philippi in 42 BC. Hence the façade of a temple depicted on coins issued soon after 20 BC is normally interpreted as a reference to this temple (Figure 5.6).46 Julian and state obligations became joined over the Parthians, and then again over Mars’ general support for Roman war.

Figure 5.6 A Roman coin showing military standards in the Temple of Mars Ultor

86

Tom Stevenson

In 18 BC, a comprehensive programme of family legislation was initiated. Augustus’ concern with topics like adultery and childbirth is normally explained with reference to the perceived moral decline that was held responsible for the civil wars.47 It might also seem a natural concern of the state’s father. The Ara Pacis, 13–9 BC, has been interpreted as a monument that gives relatively equal attention to the senate and the imperial family, but it can alternatively be seen as a Julian family monument, with the power and history of Rome depending on Julian leadership. John Pollini stresses that the ‘senators’ on the north frieze are priests, who are accompanying Augustus on the south as he conducts what is possibly ‘the particularly important augural ceremony known as a maximum augurium salutis rei publicae (‘supreme augury for the safety of the Roman state’).’ For this ritual he holds an augural wand (lituus) in his right hand, an important observation. The major point, however, is that the pose of Augustus is very similar to that of Aeneas on the west, so that the visual link implies foundation and re-foundation of Rome as a ‘Julian’ city.48 From 12–7 BC, Augustus reformed the neighbourhoods (vici) of Rome and the nature of worship at the crossroad altars (compita) of these neighbourhoods (Dio 55.8.6–7).49 From 7–2 BC, worship of the procreative spirit of Augustus (the genius Augusti) and of the guardian spirits of Augustus (the lares Augusti) was regularised at these altars, as though Augustus is quite explicitly father of the city (pater urbis).50 These developments formed a powerful lead-up to 2 BC in creating a symbiosis between the Julian family and the state. Rather than being seen as essentially meaningless, disconnected flattery, they should be looked upon as consistent moves to negotiate and maintain civil harmony at Rome. Each of these ‘familial’ or ‘Julian’ developments might be explained individually with reference to aristocratic/Republican precedents, for example temple dedications and moral legislation. There were even precedents for honouring Roman leaders as Parens/Pater Patriae.51 Yet the cumulative effect of such developments seems considerable. We need to contemplate developments in the collective memory, the nature of that memory, the rhetorically persuasive influence of resources marshalled by overwhelming power, the role played by the emperor’s subjects in promoting reciprocal exchange of a ‘paternal’ or ‘familial’ type in the wake of the civil wars, and their enthusiasm for such charismatic messages. Aristocratic norms, attitudes, and ideas were being overborne. The length of Augustus’ tenure of power was progressively coming to mean that many citizens were unaware of, or forgetting, earlier conditions. The events of 2 BC, notably the opening of the Forum Augustum and Augustus’ receipt of the title Pater Patriae, represent further developments in this regular use of paternal and familial ideas and practices.52 The Res Gestae (35.1) tends to describe Augustus’ receipt of Pater Patriae as the culmination of his career, like a laudatory assessment or apex honour, but when seen in association with the developments just described, it becomes part of a process of negotiation of Augustus’ power. When Suetonius (Aug. 58) describes the activities of the Roman people, equestrian order, and Senate in conferring Pater Patriae in 2 BC, the impression is one of civil harmony or concord: all the classes have been brought together, metaphorically entering the ‘family’ of the state’s ‘father’.

The Forum of Augustus

87

Hence, given all these related developments, the Forum Augustum was an appropriate monument for thinking about or remembering Augustus as Pater Patriae. The ‘familial’ nature of the monument seems clearer when read in context like this, and when considered from the point of view of its likely effect on collective memory in the future. This use of familial and paternal ideas was not due to practical realities (viz. they were not used because the emperor was operating largely through the resources of his own family)53 but to the conditions which governed political discourse in the Augustan period. Surely the Julian claims made in the Forum Augustum were widely recognised. They were undoubtedly powerful to enthusiastic followers, but also to those who wanted to constrain and guide the princeps in a mutually congenial way. The new forum saw much public business (especially legal matters) besides war, but it is hard to escape these basic points: • • •

•

•

•

•

All Roman wars henceforth were to start and finish in the Forum Augustum, at the Temple of Mars Ultor. The high military profiles of Jupiter, the Capitol, and the Forum Romanum were challenged. The Temple of Mars Ultor received spoils and served as a storehouse for sacred military objects, such as standards which had been defiled by an enemy. Hence, the standards taken from Crassus and Antony were entrusted to Mars Ultor after their recovery in 20 BC (Figures 5.6. 5.7).54 All Roman war-making was conducted, as it had been for some time, under the auspices of Augustus, who was the imperator, viz. the holder of imperium, and whose family would dominate military commands into the future.55 The last non-imperial triumph was awarded to Agrippa, but he refused it in 19 BC, probably around the time when the Forum Augustum was planned or begun. From this point, only members of the imperial family were permitted to celebrate triumphs. The Forum Augustum was heavily Julian: aside from the Temple of Mars Ultor, which was vowed in vengeance of Julius Caesar, the forum was named after Augustus, it celebrated the achievements of Roman triumphatores in the wake of Aeneas and Romulus (both of whom were his ancestors), and future generals would be either members of the imperial family or close relatives and associates. Architecturally, the lines of sight (north–south and east–west) focus on vital members of the Julian family: Aeneas in one exedra, Romulus in another, (speculatively) Julian women in a third, Mars in the pediment, and Augustus’ quadriga in the centre of the complex.

It seems plain that the achievement of the entire Roman state in the realm of war was significantly appropriated for the imperial family as a Julian achievement, culminating in the rule of Augustus and the military exploits of his legates and

88

Tom Stevenson

Figure 5.7 The Augustus from Prima Porta, with breastplate showing the return of military standards to Rome

heirs operating under his auspices. Rome was not only dependent on the military leadership and prowess of the Julii in the present, as she would be in the future, but, according to the awesome Forum Augustum, Rome had already been dependent on the imperial family’s military leadership and prowess from the very beginning.

Conclusions Ambivalence in interpretation of the Forum Augustum had to be retained, for it facilitated ongoing negotiation of paternal autocracy to everyone’s benefit. The mixture of Roman state and imperial family, however, does not seem to have been

The Forum of Augustus

89

equal or alternating or simply a matter for individual determination. The weight of significance seems to go to the Julian side, as might seem understandable when considering other monuments and developments of the period. The achievement of the Roman state at war does not become unequivocally Julian, but it becomes very largely so, especially if memory scholarship is applied as above and if the summi viri could be grouped and elided in the minds of visitors. The Augustan res publica was less reticent about acknowledging the pivotal importance of the emperor and his family. This probably indicates the strength of the dynasty and the state’s dependence on it, but also the resilience of the res publica and mutual interdependence.56

Notes 1 For the importance of legal proceedings, see Suet. Aug. 29; Claud. 33.1; Dio 68.10.2. Cf. Suet. Aug. 58 (for the displays and rituals of 2 BC) and Cassius Dio (55.10.2–5, 60.5.3), who gives a list of activities associated with the Temple of Mars Ultor. 2 Gowing 2005: 132–159 provides a fine study of the Fora of Augustus and Trajan as sites for manipulating memory, in which the present shapes the past and emotional attachments to the past are nurtured. His focus is primarily on the Republic. In this chapter, the aim is to look at the imperial/Julian family culminating in Augustus, not really as the other side of the coin but as a separate focus with its own power to influence the present by manipulating collective memory of the past. 3 The family focus has already been adopted by Flower 1996: 224–236, who describes the new forum as a public atrium in shape and function and argues that, in line with the traditionalist stance of the new regime, the statues of Roman heroes in the Forum Augustum were inspired by ancestral masks (imagines). Flower 1996: 157 argues that imagines ‘epitomized, and hence helped to hand on, aristocratic values and claims, which justified and explained the function of Rome’s political elite in readily accessible terms . . . [and] were central in shaping the citizens’ sense of a common past’. Her focus is primarily on the inspirational role of the masks and on their Republican, aristocratic settings. The present chapter attempts to foster a more Julian focus. 4 Good introductions to the Forum Augustum include Zanker 1968; Anderson 1984: 65–100; Zanker 1988: 209–215; Richardson 1992: 160–162; Kockel 1995; Galinsky 1996: 197– 213; Spannagel 1999; Severy 2003: 165–180; Geiger 2008; Claridge 2010: 177–180. 5 Rich 1998: 126, at the end of a fine study of Augustus’ Parthian honours, says that: [The Temple of Mars Ultor and the Forum Augustum] commemorated much more than just the Parthian settlement: they served to celebrate all Augustus’ achievements in war and diplomacy and to present him as the culmination of the long line of great men of the Roman past depicted in the Forum’s colonnades. 6 Zanker 1988: 5–31, esp. 5–11. For a critique of this view, see Stevenson 1998; Stevenson 2010. 7 Zanker 1988: 211; cf. Geiger 2008: 95 (‘one gens to equal all the glory of the Republican aristocracy’). 8 Wallace-Hadrill 1982; Galinsky 1996: 12, 231, 258 (ambiguity); Galinsky 2012: 154– 158 (polyvalence). Barbara Levick 2010: 218 accepts that there is dynastic intent in the design of the new forum but argues cogently that it was not meant ‘to bring the Principate to the state of an absolute monarchy comparable with the Hellenistic kingdoms: such a conception could not be allowed to rise over the Roman mental horizon’. 9 My ideas about this society-wide discourse owe much to Zanker 1988 and Galinsky 1996, who describe initiative from Augustus as auctor that is subsequently disseminated

90

10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Tom Stevenson by myriad agents to all corners, and to Roller 2001, who stresses reciprocity and writes persuasively about the negotiation and construction of social power, for example 3–13, 233–247 (paternal and servile models for imperial power), 247–264 (competing paradigms). Rich 1998: 126–127 is good on the role of the emperor and his agents in important cases, and on the role of others in cases of more minor importance; cf. Geiger 2008: 91. Luce 1990 shows that Livy’s history did not much influence Augustus’ choice of summi viri in his Forum, as though ongoing discourse rather than definitive prescription was the relevant process. Dunkle 1967; Dunkle 1971; Stevenson 1992; Roller 2001: 213–287; Stevenson 2008. Stevenson 2013. Vansina 1985: 23. For the vow to Mars Ultor, see Suet. Aug. 29.2; Ov. Fasti 5.569–578. On the Battle of Philippi, see Gowing 1992: 108–113, 173–176, 210–221, 311–318; Shepard 2008: 50–78; Goldsworthy 2010: chap. xix. Rich 1998: 79–97; cf. Geiger 2008: 56–57. In contrast, Richardson 1992: 160 thinks that campaigns in Spain and Germany in the early 20s BC provided the funding and believes that work on the complex, which was always meant to rival the Forum Iulium, might have begun c. 25 or 24 BC. Vell. Pat. 2.100.2; Dio 55.10.1–8, 60.5.3; Inscr. Ital. 13.2, 490; Simpson 1977; Hannah 1997; Hannah 1998. On the Temple of Venus Genetrix, the Forum Iulium, and ancestral claims made by the Julii, see Richardson 1992: 166–167. The best general survey of Venus remains that of Schilling 1982. On the Trojan origins of Rome and development of the Aeneas legend, see Verg. Aen., esp. 1.286–288 (Aeneas as ancestor of Augustus); Ov. Met. 13.623–14.608; Galinsky 1969; Gruen 1992: 6–51. Casali 2010: 37–51 is good on the pre-Virgilian evidence. For the claim that Aeneas’ son Ascanius, with the alternative name of ‘Iulus’, was the eponymous founder of the gens Iulia, see Verg. Aen. 1.267–268; Shannon 1997: 20. On the foundation of Alba Longa by Iulus, see Verg. Aen. 3.390–391; Liv. 1.3.1–5; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.65–9; Ogilvie 1965: s.v. 1.3.2. Kellum 1996: 170–183 describes the connection in terms of domination, partly because of her view that the Forum Augustum was phallic in shape. This seems less convincing after the discovery of additional hemicycles beneath the Via dei Fori Imperiali: Favro 1996: 239 fig. 37; Geiger 2008: 107–108, 109 fig. 5. Plin. HN 22.13; Suet. Aug. 31.5; Gell. 9.11.10; Dio 55.10.3; Hist. Aug. Alex. Sev. 28.6; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.15, 13.8 for statues added in later periods. Inscr. Ital. 13.3, 1–36; ILS 50–60; Johnson 2001. For the elogia (career inscriptions of the summi viri), see IIt, 13.3, 1–36; ILS, 50–60; Johnson 2001. Zanker 1968: figs. 45, 46. Wardle 2002. On Venus as a goddess of war, see Smallcombe 2017. For the second set of hemicycles, see Favro 1996: 239 fig. 37; Geiger 2008: 107–108, 109 fig. 5. The story of Romulus’ spolia opima, won when a Roman commander defeated an enemy commander in single combat, is told by Livy 1.10; cf. Harrison 1989; Rich 1996; Rich 1999. Geiger 2008: 108. Geiger 2008: 111–115. For the compital shrines under Augustus, see Flower 2017: section IV, 255–347. The genius Augusti is discussed on pages 299–311; cf. Spannagel 1999: 303–306; Geiger 2008: 86, 88 (‘most probably a statue of the Divine Julius’). Shaya 2013: 90 n. 52 (evidence for legal documents preserved on wax tablets that require litigants to meet at particular architectural features and statues in the Forum Augustum).

The Forum of Augustus

91

29 Cf. Flower 1996: 224–236, who describes the new forum as a public atrium in shape and function. 30 Woolf 2016. 31 Shaya 2013: 83. 32 Suet. Claud. 33.1 (Claudius); Dio 68.10.2 (Trajan). 33 Anderson 1984: 88–97. 34 Stevenson 2009: 97–108. 35 Richardson 1992: 162. 36 On statues, see Hölkeskamp 2015: 169–213. On monuments (Augustus’ Parthian Arch), see Popkin 2018. 37 On such activities, notably the rituals conducted by the fetiales and their significance, see Polyb. 3.25.6–9; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.72.6–8; Livy 1.24, 1.32; Plut. Mor. 4.62; Wiedemann 1986: esp. 480; Rich 2011. 38 For the shift of rituals connected with war away from the Capitol to the Forum Augustum, see Bonnefond 1987: 251–278. On the enduring importance of the Capitol as a site for memories about war and empire, see Gallia 2012: 47–85. 39 For the masculine nature of the design, and of rituals performed in the Forum Augustum, see Kellum 1996, though note the qualification of Geiger 2008: 115. 40 There is a vast body of scholarship on collective memory, which refers to a social group’s shared pool of memories, knowledge, and information that is significantly associated with the group’s identity. Some important works include Assmann 2005; Barash 2016; Olick et al. 2011. Rusu 2013: 60 writes of collective memory crystallising ‘at the area of confluence between history and mythistory, taking historical facts from the former, and organizing them according to the mythical logic of the latter’. Cf. Popkin 2018 for memory manipulation. 41 Eric Orlin 2015: 115 shows how the constructions of Augustus in the area of the Circus Flaminius worked to reshape Roman memory, ‘creating a focus on the figure of the emperor as the central pillar of Roman identity’. On the relationships between memory and history, and collective memory and national identity, see Hutton 2000: esp. 537– 539; Galinsky 2015: 1–40; Barash 2016. 42 Ov. Fast. 4.419–460; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.68–69; Serv. ad Aen. 2.162–179; Sil. Pun. 13.36–70; Hdn. 1.14.4; Galinsky 1969: 5; DeRose Evans 1992: 41. The Palladium was saved by the pontifex maximus, L. Caecilius Metellus, from burning in the Temple of Vesta in 241 BC: Cic. Scaur. 48; Phil. 11.24; Livy 26.27.14; Ov. Fast. 6.436–438; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.66; Val. Max. 1.4.4; Sen. Controv. 4.2; Plin. HN 7.141; Luc. 1.598; RIC I2.206 (coins of Galba); Faraone 1992. 43 Cic. Nat. D. 2.67; Serv. ad Aen. 1.378, 2.296, 3.12; Livy 1.14.2; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.67; Tac. Ann. 15.41.1 (worship in the Temple of Vesta); RRC 307.1a, 312.1; Dubourdieu 1989. 44 Varro in Aug. Civ. Dei 7.21; Plin. HN 28.39; Wiseman 1995: 61; Littlewood 2006: 73; Stevenson 2009: 100–101. 45 Stevenson 2008: 102–110. 46 On the Parthian honours and Mars Ultor, see Rich 1998: 79–97, who argues for a temporary structure on the Capitol before the dedication of Mars Ultor in 2 BC. 47 Aug. RG 8.5; Suet. Aug. 34.1; Dio 54.16; Rich 1990: ad loc.; Galinsky 1996: 96–97, 128–138. Levick 2010: 94: ‘[Through this legislation, Augustus] was disciplining, if not punishing, the Senate.’ 48 Pollini 2012: 219–228. 49 Swan 2004: 78–82; Flower 2017: section IV, 255–347, 299–311. 50 Severy 2003: 118–131; Stevenson 2013: 131. For Augustus as pater urbis for his building activity, Favro 1992; Favro 1996. 51 Stevenson 2008: 102–110. 52 Stevenson 2009: 100–106; Stevenson 2013: 134–136. 53 Severy 2003.

92

Tom Stevenson

54 On the return of standards captured by the Parthians in 20 BC, see Aug. RG 29.2; Suet. Aug. 21. For the scandalous theft of the (detachable) bronze helmet of Mars Ultor, see Juv. Sat. 14.256–264. 55 Dalla Rosa 2011. 56 I must thank the two anonymous reviewers, who saved me from numerous errors and offered very thoughtful help. They are not, of course, responsible for remaining errors and interpretations.

Bibliography Anderson, J.C. 1984. The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora. Brussels. Assmann, J. 2005. Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies. Stanford. Barash, J.A. 2016. Collective Memory and the Historical Past. Chicago and London. Bonnefond, M. 1987. ‘Transferts de fonctions et mutation idéologique: le Capitole et le Forum d’Auguste.’ In Actes du colloque international de Rome (8–12 mai 1985): L’urbs: espace urbain et histoire (Ier siècle av. J.-C. – IIIe siècle ap. J.-C.), 251–278. Rome. Casali, S. 2010. ‘The Development of the Aeneas Legend.’ In A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its Tradition, ed. J. Farrell and M.C.J. Putnam, 37–51. London. Claridge, A. 2010. Rome: An Archaeological Guide, 2nd edn. Oxford. Dalla Rosa, A. 2011. ‘Dominating the Auspices: Augustus, Augury, and the Proconsuls.’ In Priests and State in the Roman World, eds. J.H. Richardson and F. Santangelo, 243–269. Stuttgart. DeRose Evans, J. 1992. The Art of Persuasion: Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus. Ann Arbor. Dubourdieu, A. 1989. Les origines et le dévelopment du culte des pénates. Paris. Dunkle, J.R. 1967. ‘The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late Republic.’ TAPhA 98: 151–171. Dunkle, J.R. 1971. ‘The Rhetorical Tyrant in Roman Historiography: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus.’ CW 65: 12–20. Faraone, C.A. 1992. Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual. Oxford. Favro, D. 1992. ‘Pater Urbis: Augustus as City Father of Rome.’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 51: 61–84. Favro, D. 1996. The Urban Image of Augustan Rome. Cambridge. Flower, H.I. 1996. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford. Flower, H.I. 2017. The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner. Princeton. Galinsky, G.K. 1969. Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome. Princeton. Galinsky, G.K. 1996. Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction. Princeton. Galinsky, G.K. 2012. Augustus: Introduction to the Life of an Emperor. Cambridge. Galinsky, G.K. 2015. ‘Introduction.’ In Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, ed. K. Galinsky, 1–40. Oxford. Gallia, A. 2012. Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics and History under the Principate. Cambridge. Geiger, J. 2008. The First Hall of Fame: A Study of the Statues in the Forum Augustum, Mnemosyne Supplements, History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity 295. Leiden. Goldsworthy, A. 2010. Antony and Cleopatra. London.

The Forum of Augustus

93

Gowing, A.M. 1992. The Triumviral Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio. Ann Arbor. Gowing, A.M. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge. Gruen, E.S. 1992. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY. Hannah, R. 1997. ‘The Temple of Mars Ultor and 12 May.’ MDAI(R) 104: 527–536. Hannah, R. 1998. ‘Games for Mars and the Temples of Mars Ultor.’ Klio 80: 422–433. Harrison, S.J. 1989. ‘Augustus, the Poets, and the Spolia Opima.’ CQ 39: 408–414. Hölkeskamp, K.-J. 2015. ‘In the Web of (Hi-)Stories.’ In Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, ed. K. Galinsky, 169–213. Oxford. Hutton, P. 2000. ‘Recent Scholarship on Memory and History.’ The History Teacher 33 (4): 533–548. Johnson, B. 2001. ‘The Elogia of the Augustan Forum.’ MA thesis, McMaster University. Kellum, B. 1996. ‘The Phallus as Signifier: The Forum of Augustus and Rituals of Masculinity.’ In Sexuality in Ancient Art, ed. N. Kampen, 170–183. Cambridge. Kockel, V. 1995. ‘Forum Augustum.’ In Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. M. Steinby 2: 289–290. Rome. Levick, B. 2010. Augustus: Image and Substance. London and New York. Littlewood, Joy R. 2006. Commentary on Ovid’s Fasti, Book 6. Oxford. Luce, T.J. 1990. ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum.’ In Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate, ed. K. Raaflaub and M. Toher, 123–138. Berkeley. Ogilvie, R.M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy, Books 1–5. Oxford. Olick, J.K., V. Vinitzky-Seroussi, and D. Levy (eds). 2011. The Collective Memory Reader. Oxford. Orlin, E. 2015. ‘Augustan Reconstruction and Roman Memory.’ In Memory on Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, ed. K. Galinsky, 115–144. Oxford. Platner, S.B. (rev. T. Ashby). 1929. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London. Pollini, J. 2012. From Republic to Empire: Rhetoric, Religion, and Power in the Visual Culture of Ancient Rome. Norman. Popkin, M.L. 2018. ‘The Parthian Arch of Augustus and its Legacy: Memory Manipulation in Imperial Rome and Modern Scholarship.’ In Afterlives of Augustus, AD 14–2014, ed. P.J. Goodman, 271–293. Cambridge. Rich, J.W. 1990. Cassius Dio, the Augustan Settlement (Roman History 53–55.9). Edited with translation and commentary. Warminster. Rich, J.W. 1996. ‘Augustus and the Spolia Opima.’ Chiron 26: 85–127. Rich, J.W. 1998. ‘Augustus’ Parthian Honours, the Temple of Mars Ultor, and the Arch in the Forum Romanum.’ PBSR 66: 71–128. Rich, J.W. 1999. ‘Drusus and the Spolia Opima.’ CQ 49: 544–555. Rich, J.W. 2011. ‘The Fetiales and Roman International Relations.’ In Priests and State in the Roman World, ed. J.H. Richardson and F. Santangelo, 187–242. Stuttgart. Richardson, L. 1992. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore and London. Roller, M.B. 2001. Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome. Princeton. Rusu, M.S. 2013. ‘History and Collective Memory: The Succeeding Incarnations of an Evolving Relationship.’ Philobiblon 18 (2): 260–282. Schilling, R. 1982. La religion romaine de Vénus depuis les origins jusqu’au temps d’Auguste. 2nd edn. Paris.

94

Tom Stevenson

Severy, B. 2003. Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire. London and New York. Shannon, M.V. 1997. ‘Caesar’s Divine Patroness: An Historical Background to G. Iulius Caesar’s Relationship with the Goddess Venus.’ MA diss., University of Auckland. Shaya, J. 2013. ‘The Public Life of Monuments: the Summi Viri of the Forum of Augustus.’ AJA 117 (1): 83–110. Shepard, S. 2008. Philippi 42 BC: The Death of the Roman Republic. Oxford. Simpson, C.J. 1977. ‘The Date of Dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor.’ JRS 67: 91–94. Smallcombe, C. 2017. ‘The Military Significance of Venus in Late Republican and Augustan Rome.’ MPhil thesis, University of Queensland. Spannagel, M. 1999. Exemplaria Principis: Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Ausstattung des Augustusforums. Heidelberg. Stevenson, T. 1992. ‘The Ideal Benefactor and the Father Analogy in Greek and Roman Thought.’ CQ 42: 421–436. Stevenson, T. 1998. ‘The “Problem” with Nude Honorific Statuary and Portraits in Late Republican and Augustan Rome.’ G&R 45 (1): 45–69. Stevenson, T. 2008. ‘Tyrants, Kings, and Fathers in the Philippics.’ In Cicero’s Philippics: History, Rhetoric, Ideology, eds. T. Stevenson and M. Wilson, 95–113. Auckland. Stevenson, T. 2009. ‘Acceptance of the Title Pater Patriae in 2 BC.’ Antichthon 43: 97–108. Stevenson, T. 2010. ‘On Interpreting the Eclectic Nature of Roman Sculpture.’ Scholia 19: 37–62. Stevenson, T. 2013. ‘The Succession Planning of Augustus.’ Antichthon 47: 118–139. Swan, P. 2004. The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 55–56 (9 BC–AD 14). Oxford. Vansina, J. 1985. Oral Tradition as History. London. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1982. ‘Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King.’ JRS 72: 32–48. Wardle, D. 2002. ‘Deus or Divus: The Genesis of Roman Terminology for Deified Emperors and a Philosopher’s Contribution.’ In Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin, eds. G. Clark and T. Rajak, 181–192. Oxford. Wiedemann, T. 1986. ‘The Fetiales: A Reconsideration.’ CQ 36: 478–490. Wiseman, T.P. 1995. Remus: A Roman Myth. Cambridge. Woolf, G. 2016. ‘Mars and Memory.’ In Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire, eds. K. Galinsky and K. Lapatin, 206–224. Los Angeles. Zanker, P. 1968. Forum Augustum: Das Bildprogramm. Tübingen. Zanker, P. 1988. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. A. Shapiro). Ann Arbor.

6

An age of post-truth politics? Making and unmaking memory in Pliny’s Panegyricus Martin Szöke

Introduction1 We are currently living, so journalists and political commentators often profess, in an age of post-truth politics, in which factual arguments are ever more frequently disregarded in favour of arguments that appeal to people’s emotions and personal beliefs.2 Yet the falsification of facts and distortion of truth is, of course, not a recent phenomenon. One of the arguably most famous cases of what we would nowadays probably call ‘fake news’ is found in the Panegyricus, a speech of thanks-giving that was delivered by the senator Pliny the Younger to the emperor Trajan in AD 100. In the speech, Pliny claims that, while his career had initially been advanced by Trajan’s predecessor, the notorious Domitian, he himself had halted it once that emperor revealed his true face: Domitian’s rule is said to have descended into tyranny in the last three years of his reign, AD 93–96. Yet Pliny is apparently misrepresenting the facts: for epigraphic evidence suggests that, in the last years of the Domitianic administration, the senator must have actually held the prestigious post of prefect of the military treasury. In scholarship, the case has sparked a vivid debate. For some historians, incredulous that Pliny could have made a patently false statement in a public speech, have proposed that, on account of his claim about his past, we should rethink the traditional dating of his prefecture, and indeed, of his career in general. Scholarly discussion has consequently veered between attempts to rehabilitate the senator by re-dating his career, and rebuttals of such attempts. This chapter offers a new approach to the problem. It will start by providing an overview of, and engaging with, the traditional debate. It will then argue that, contrary to his claim in the Panegyricus, and despite the recent scholarly efforts to prove otherwise, Pliny did in fact occupy the prefecture of the military treasury in the last years of Domitianic rule. This, however, will serve as the starting, rather than the end, point of discussion. For the question poses itself how it was possible for Pliny to claim that he had interrupted his career against the better knowledge of his contemporaries. In the second part of this chapter, I will propose that he was able to do so because he was living at a time when the memory of Domitian and his reign itself was being renegotiated and revised by Roman society. As part of this wider revision of DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-7

96

Martin Szöke

history, it was possible for Pliny also to reinvent his own past under that emperor. This realisation can not only provide the solution to the age-old problem of Pliny’s career, but also opens up new avenues of research. For, as we shall see in the final part of this chapter, Pliny’s was only one of many different accounts about the past that circulated in the aftermath of Domitian’s death. The ‘fake news’ in the Panegyricus, then, can not only tell us a lot about Pliny the Younger and the politics of his time but also about the making and unmaking of memory in imperial Rome.3

Fake news in ancient Rome? Pliny on his career under Domitian On 1 September 100, all eyes in the Roman senate were fixed on one man; at the occasion of his inauguration as suffect consul, the senator Pliny the Younger delivered, as was customary, a gratiarum actio, a speech of thanks-giving, to Trajan, the reigning emperor at the time.4 Trajan, who had assumed imperial power only about two years before, might himself have been among the audience. The text of the speech, which is nowadays known as the Panegyricus, survives to us in a longer, revised, form; for, after its delivery, Pliny decided to edit and then publish it.5 Throughout the Panegyricus, the senator sings the praise of Trajan as a just and benevolent princeps. At the same time, however, he sharply censures Trajan’s predecessor, Domitian, the last emperor of the gens Flavia, who had been assassinated four years previously, in September 96. In the Panegyricus, the former ruler is painted in the darkest colours, as a monster who enjoyed killing his enemies and did not spare even his own family members from death.6 At first sight, this portrayal is perhaps slightly surprising; for it was under Domitian that Pliny had embarked on his career and had risen through the ranks of the imperial administration. And indeed, right towards the end of the speech, the senator himself comes to speak about his service in the ancien régime. Appealing to his peers, he pleads: Vos modo favete huic proposito, et credite, si cursu quodam provectus ab illo insidiosissimo principe, antequam profiteretur odium bonorum, postquam professus est, substiti; cum viderem, quae ad honores compendia paterent, longius iter malui; si malis temporibus inter maestos et paventes, bonis inter securos gaudentesque numeror; si denique in tantum diligo optimum principem, in quantum invisus pessimo fui. Ego reverentiae vestrae sic semper inserviam, non ut me consulem, et mox consularem, sed ut candidatum consulatus putem. (Pan. 95.2–4) All I ask is your support in my present undertaking and your belief in what I say. If then it is true that I was advanced in my career by that most treacherous of emperors before he admitted his hatred for honest men, but halted it once he did so, preferring a longer route when I saw what the short cuts were which opened the way to office; that in bad times I was one of those who lived with

An age of post-truth politics? 97 grief and fear, and can be counted among the serene and happy now that better days have come; that, finally, I love the best of princes as much as I was hated by the worst: then I shall act not as if I consider myself consul to day and exconsul tomorrow, but as if I were still a candidate for the consulate, and in this way shall minister at all times to the reverence which is due to you all. The statement is usually interpreted to mean that Pliny interrupted his career in or shortly after 93. For it is in that year that Domitian’s rule apparently took its turn for the worse. In the last three years of his reign, during what modern scholars have frequently called the Domitianic ‘reign of terror’, numerous members of the senatorial aristocracy were put on trial for maiestas, high treason; several of them were executed, and the others were sent into exile.7 Among the victims were men to whom Pliny claims to have entertained close links: in his Letters, he writes that he had been good friends with Helvidius Priscus the Younger, Herennius Senecio and Arulenus Rusticus, a group of senators nowadays also known as the ‘Stoic opposition’ or ‘Stoic martyrs’.8 Yet, despite Pliny’s urgent appeal to his audience to believe him, his statement is apparently false. For epigraphic evidence and incidental information on his administrative posts provided by Pliny himself in his Letters, a collection of his correspondence that he edited and then published in several books, has enabled historians to quite accurately reconstruct his career.9 Two inscriptions that chronicle his cursus honorum – the sequence of the public offices he held – record that, after his praetorship, the senator had held the prefecture of the aerarium militare, the military treasury.10 They also record that after holding that office, he became prefect of the aerarium Saturni, the state treasury housed in the temple of Saturn. Since Pliny’s praetorship is traditionally dated to 93, and the prefecture of the aerarium Saturni can be dated with some certainty to 98, Pliny must have, so it is usually believed, held the prefecture of the aerarium militare, usually a three-year post, between 94–96 or 95–97.11 Now, several scholars have advocated that, given Pliny’s statement in the Panegyricus, we should revise the traditional dating of the prefecture of the military treasury, and indeed the dating of Pliny’s career in its entirety, in order to allow for a short break in his cursus in the latter years of Domitian’s reign. This has led to a lively discussion which, throughout the past 80 years or so, has oscillated between two extremes: scholars have either condemned Pliny as an unscrupulous liar, or rehabilitated him as an upright senator who spurned the tyrant Domitian in his later years. Since, for my argument, it is essential to determine whether or not Pliny was prefect of the military treasury under Domitian, on the following pages, I shall engage closely with this traditional debate. Dating Pliny’s prefecture of the military treasury The traditional dating of the prefecture of the military treasury, and of Pliny’s career in general, goes back to Mommsen.12 Mommsen observed that, in his writings, Pliny provides a number of chronological references that allow us to date his praetorship. In Ep. 3.11, the senator describes a visit he had made to one of his

98

Martin Szöke

friends, the philosopher Artemidorus, who had been exiled as a consequence of a decree that expelled all philosophers from Rome. Pliny writes that equidem, cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti, fui apud [Artemidorum] in suburbano, et quo notabilius (hoc est, periculosius) esset fui praetor. Pecuniam etiam, qua tunc illi ampliore opus erat, ut aes alienum exsolveret contractum ex pulcherrimis causis, mussantibus magnis quibusdam et locupletibus amicis mutuatus ipse gratuitam dedi. Atque haec feci, cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis, occisis Senecione Rustico Helvidio, relegatis Maurico Gratilla Arria Fannia, tot circa me iactis fulminibus quasi ambustus mihi quoque impendere idem exitium certis quibusdam notis augurarer. (Ep. 3.11.2–4) it is true that, when the philosophers were expelled from Rome, I went to see [Artemidorus] in his house outside the city, and as I was praetor at that time the visit involved some risk for the attention it attracted. He was also in need of a considerable sum at the time to pay off his debts contracted in honourable causes; I raised the money and lent it to him without interest, when certain of his rich and influential friends hesitated to do so. I did this at a time when seven of my friends had been put to death or banished – Senecio, Rusticus and Helvidius were dead, and Mauricus, Gratilla, Arria and Fannia were in exile – so that I stood amidst the flames of thunderbolts dropping all round me, and there were certain clear indications to make me suppose a like end was awaiting me. The letter provides three crucial pieces of information. Pliny visited Artemidorus 1 2 3

when he was praetor; ‘when the philosophers had been expelled from the city’ (cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti); ‘when seven of my friends had been put to death or banished, Senecio, Rusticus and Helvidius were dead [. . .]’ (cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis occisis – Senecione Rustico Helvidio [. . .]).

Mommsen, noting that Tacitus (Agr. 44–45) mentions that the treason trials against Helvidius and the others took place ‘not long after’ the death of his father-in-law Agricola on 23 August 93, therefore argued that this suggests that Pliny must have been appointed to the praetorship later the same year or the year after, in 94.13 He further deduced that Pliny could not have held the office in 94:14 in Ep. 7.16.1–2, in which the senator provides information on his previous offices, it is implied that he became praetor immediately after he had been tribune of the plebs; in Ep. 1.23.2, he writes that he gave up all his court work to devote his time to the tribunate; but in Ep. 7.33.4–9, he mentions that he participated in an extortion case against the former governor of Baetica, Baebius Massa, which is usually dated to 93 (Ep. 7.33.4–9).15 Mommsen therefore deduced that Pliny could not

An age of post-truth politics? 99 have been tribune in 93, and consequently could also not have been praetor in 94. This leaves 93 as the date of his praetorship.16 That dating is also supported by the fact that the Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronica records an expulsion of philosophers from Italy for that year.17 Since his prefecture of the aerarium Saturni can firmly be dated to 98 (see p. 97), Pliny would then have held the three-year prefecture of the military treasury between 94–96 or 95–97.18 R.H. Harte was the first to advocate a revision of these dates.19 He challenged Mommsen’s dating on the grounds of Pliny’s claim in the Panegyricus not to have held any office in the latter years of Domitian’s reign, and his statement in Ep. 7.16.2 that he became praetor a year before his time, that is before the minimum age prescribed by the lex annalis;20 the latter statement implies that Pliny assumed the praetorship in his 29th rather than in his 30th year, and so in either 90 or 91.21 Harte then observed that both the Armenian and Latin version of Eusebius also record an expulsion of philosophers for 89;22 to describe this first expulsion, Jerome uses the somewhat peculiar expression ‘philosophos Romana urbe pepulit’ (‘[Domitian] expelled the philosophers from the city of Rome’), which Harte interpreted to mean that, in 89, the philosophers had initially just been expelled from Rome, and were only expelled from Italy during the second ejection in 93. He then offered a close reading of Ep. 3.11 to argue that, in the letter, Pliny in fact refers to this earlier expulsion. For, in the passage which I have quoted earlier, the senator writes that he visited Artemidorus on the outskirts of Rome (in suburbano); he must thus have made the visit after the first, earlier expulsion, when the philosophers were only ejected from Rome; the second expulsion of 93 would have expelled them from all of Italy, and so Artemidorus, one of them, could not have lingered on in the capital’s outskirts. At first sight, this is contradicting Pliny’s later statement, that he visited Artemidorus when seven of his friends had been killed or sent into exile. For, as mentioned, the treason trials of Pliny’s friends could certainly have occurred only after August 93, when Agricola died. To solve this apparent contradiction, Harte made an ingenious argument, again based on a close reading of Ep. 3.11. At the letter’s start, Pliny writes that he had not only visited Artemidorus, but also lent him money. Now, when he refers to the execution of his friends, his exact words are: haec feci, cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis (‘I did this at a time when seven of my friends had been put to death or banished,’ Ep. 3.11.3). Harte suggested that the ‘haec’ in that sentence is actually used in the sense of ‘these latter things’.23 In this case, it would only be referring to Pliny lending Artemidorus money, not to his visit to Artemidorus on the outskirts of Rome. The senator, Harte argues, is talking about two separate occasions: he visited Artemidorus when he was praetor shortly after the philosophers’ expulsion in 89, and then lent him money after the treason trials that occurred soon after August 93. He would thus probably have been praetor in 90 or 91, and would then have held the prefecture of the aerarium militare from 90–93 or 91–94. Harte’s argument kicked off a scholarly debate that lasts until this day. After being variously refuted and reinstated, it was adopted and slightly modified by

100

Martin Szöke

A.R. Birley in his Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny, published in 2000.24 Birley argued that an even earlier date, of 89, was possible for Pliny’s praetorship; he also proposed the possibility that Pliny was prefect of the military treasury under Domitian’s immediate successor, Nerva, very briefly, from 96–97 – while the office usually lasted for three years, this was, Birley suggests, not always the case.25 In more recent scholarship, this argument has consequently found wider approval, and there has been a trend to rehabilitate Pliny and reject the accusations that he lies about his career in the Panegyricus.26 Yet the revisionist argument is itself not unproblematic. Most recently, Christopher Whitton has re-opened the case and made a – what I consider – very compelling case that Pliny did hold the prefecture of the military treasury in the latter years of Domitian’s reign.27 Most importantly, he refutes the conjecture central to Harte’s argument, that ‘haec’ in Ep. 3.11 can mean the ‘the latter things’ and is thus referring only to Pliny lending money, not to his visit to Artemidorus: there is, as Whitton observes, no ‘illa’, referring to the ‘former things’, nor does Pliny list more than one thing that could be called ‘latter’. Pliny thus cannot be referring in the letter to two separate occasions, as Harte contests. He must refer to a single occasion, a visit to Artemidorus, when he lent him money, shortly after the execution of his amici; consequently, Pliny cannot have been praetor before 93.28 Whitton also questions Birley’s conjecture that Pliny could have been prefect of the military treasury very briefly under Nerva, from 96 to 97.29 He argues that it would have been unusual for a senator to assume an administrative post in the last quarter of the year, even if it was after the assassination of an emperor.30 He also observes that it is remarkable that Pliny nowhere mentions the office in either his letters or the Panegyricus, although he does make a rather big deal about his nomination as prefect of the aerarium Saturni in Pan. 90.6–91.1; furthermore, if the senator had been prefect of the military treasury in 96–97, he would immediately have been promoted to the prefecture of the aerarium Saturni in 98. Surely Pliny, not especially known for his modesty, would have remarked on such a rapid promotion. Finally, Whitton argues that the careful wording in the famous passage of Pan. 95.3–4 itself suggests that Pliny had held the office under Domitian. The senator asserts that, after his rapid ascent under Domitian, he halted his career, and instead preferred a ‘longius iter’, a longer path, ‘when I saw what the short cuts were which opened the way to office’ (cum viderem, quae ad honores compendia paterent, longius iter malui, Pan. 95.3). Now, the prefecture of the military treasury was not a magistracy of the traditional cursus honorum, but an administrative post. According to Whitton, Pliny’s statement therefore simply implies that he did not immediately assume the consulship, but instead held the prefecture, a non-magisterial, administrative post, the ‘longius iter’. He is thus not quite honest about his career under Domitian, but cannot exactly be called a liar either. Now, whether or not one accepts this last argument, Whitton makes a strong case for reinstating the original Domitianic date for Pliny’s prefecture of the military treasury.31 As he shows, the revisionist dating relies on too many tendentious assumptions to be convincing. Until the revisionists can adduce further

An age of post-truth politics? 101 evidence, the traditional dating is thus preferable. As for Whitton’s observation about Pliny’s clever phrasing in Pan. 95.3, this too is highly intriguing. It should, however, serve as the starting point, rather than the end point, of discussion. For, in my opinion, Whitton is a little too benevolent towards the senator. Even if his statement in Pan. 95.3 is not exactly a lie, it is nevertheless bending the truth quite considerably.32 The question therefore poses itself yet again how and why it was possible for Pliny to make such a statement about his own past. In order to answer that question, it is necessary to go briefly back in time to the events surrounding the death of Domitian.

Making and unmaking memory in imperial Rome Domitian and the destruction of memory The emperor had been assassinated on 18 September 96.33 Almost immediately after his assassination, a veritable spree of destruction had ensued. In the Panegyricus (52.4–6), Pliny describes how the people of Rome had dashed Domitian’s statues to the ground, smashed them with swords and axes, and had then cast them into the fire to melt them down.34 According to Suetonius (Dom. 23.1), the senate had then also passed a decree that Domitian’s name should be erased from all inscriptions and any reminder of him was to be wiped out. Evidence for the widespread implementation of the senate’s decree can be found throughout the Roman empire.35 In recent years, our understanding of these posthumous measures taken against Domitian, which are nowadays known as memory sanctions, and are also often summarised under the modern term damnatio memoriae, has improved significantly, thanks in particular to the work of Charles Hedrick, Eric Varner, and Harriet Flower.36 Flower writes that memory sanctions were ‘deliberately designed strategies that aim[ed] to change the picture of the past, whether through erasure or redefinition, or by means of both’.37 In Roman society, in which oblivion was the more natural state of being, monuments such as honorific statues and inscriptions served to preserve and honour the memoria of their dedicatees. Their destruction was equivalent to erasing their honorand’s memory, while their mutilation turned them from monuments of glory into monuments of shame. Domitian also became subject to posthumous invective and vituperation. As already mentioned, in the Panegyricus, Pliny himself portrays the former emperor as a bloodthirsty despot who terrorised his subjects. He also charges him with, amongst other things, letting himself be worshipped as a living god (Pan. 2.3), and celebrating ‘fake triumphs’ that he did not deserve (Pan. 16.3), charges echoed by Pliny’s contemporaries, for example Tacitus and Martial, as well as by later authors such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Now, in modern scholarship, it is disputed to what extent these individual charges levelled against Domitian are accurate, and it lies beyond the scope of this chapter to determine whether they are true or false.38 However, it seems safe to say that Pliny and other postFlavian authors surely presented a distorted version of events: even if they did not

102

Martin Szöke

completely fabricate their accounts, they certainly tried to cast Domitian in the worst light possible; scholars have also shown that many of the charges they level against Domitian are topoi, common tropes that are also used to slander other dead emperors.39 Just like the attacks on Domitian’s physical monuments, these verbal assaults can be regarded as part of the wider effort to impose a new historical narrative on the past: celebrated during his lifetime, the former emperor was, in the aftermath of his death, declared an evil tyrant, who had oppressed the Romans and, through his mismanagement, had even brought the empire to the brink of destruction.40 This new narrative was partly promoted by the senators themselves, but partly also by the new rulers of Rome in order to legitimise their own reign: Domitian’s immediate successor Nerva, who assumed imperial power on the day of the assassination, professed to have liberated Rome from Domitian’s tyranny.41 His claim was then later echoed by his adoptive son Trajan, in whose honour Pliny delivered the Panegyricus. An intriguing perspective on the nature of this new narrative is cast by one of Pliny’s letters: in Ep. 10.58, written around 112, the senator, now legatus in Bithynia and Pontus, makes an enquiry to Trajan about the validity of legal precedents set by Domitian.42 Yet surprisingly, throughout the letter, he refers to the former emperor in a neutral, unemotional tone, that is in stark contrast to the highly charged tone of the Panegyricus. Even more surprisingly, Trajan’s response (Ep. 10.60) too does not contain a bad word about his predecessor and declared nemesis. Harriet Flower has suggested that Pliny’s correspondence therefore reveals the true nature of Domitian’s disgrace: this was ‘essentially a facade or stage set that has been superimposed on historical fact to obscure what [Domitian] did. The truth underneath is not forgotten but is hidden from public view.’43 Pliny would rehearse the official version of the past and attack the former emperor in a public setting, such as when delivering the Panegyricus. But at other times, such as when in search of useful legal precedents, he would disregard the fact that he had been the insidiosissimus princeps.44 Reinventing Pliny’s past It is in this light that we also need to read Pliny’s statement about his career in the Panegyricus: at a time when the general narrative of the past was being reinvented, the senator was, I would suggest, also trying to rewrite the story of his own past. Indeed, his statement can be regarded as part of a wider, concerted effort by Pliny to present himself and his own conduct under Domitian in a positive light. As we saw, in Ep. 3.11, he claims to have been close friends with those who had been killed or exiled during that emperor’s reign; he also suggests that he himself had been in danger of being struck by the same fulmina, lightning bolts, that had struck them. Pliny continues to rehearse this story throughout his oeuvre: in the Panegyricus (90.5), for example, he repeats the claim that the hot breath of Domitian’s fulmen that had struck down so many of his friends had only narrowly

An age of post-truth politics? 103 missed his own head. In one letter, Ep. 7.27, he even writes that he himself had been denounced by one of Domitian’s henchmen, and had only escaped death because the emperor had been assassinated before he could clasp his hands around Pliny’s throat.45 Scholars such as Jo-Ann Shelton, Matthias Ludolph, and Stanley Hoffer have already suggested that this account of Pliny’s own situation under Domitian is a careful literary construction.46 For example, Shelton has shown how, in Ep. 3.11, the senator exerts cautious rhetorical control over his narrative to fashion a positive image of himself, while omitting other, less flattering aspects:47 by associating himself with both Artemidorus and the Stoics, Pliny casts himself in the role of a stout opponent of Domitian; by alluding to the dangers of the emperor’s reign, he puts on display his own heroism during that time; all the while, however, he remains sufficiently vague about what exactly he had been up to, or what dangers he had actually exposed himself to. While he thus does not exactly lie about his past, he does not tell a story that corresponds strictly to the facts either. Like his claim about his career under Domitian, Pliny’s general account of his past under the emperor, as found in his Letters, is thus highly tendentious. All this brings us back to the question how it was possible for the senator in a public speech to make a claim about his previous career that was, even if it was not exactly a lie, not quite honest either. We might now phrase the question more broadly, and ask how was it possible for him to promote a narrative about his own past that was, even if it was not completely fabricated, nevertheless certainly omitting significant details. This question seems to have been so far largely disregarded by scholars, probably because they have generally assumed that the Letters were primarily intended to leave a positive memory of Pliny for future generations. Shelton, for example, writes that ‘the function of [Ep.] 3.11 is to make public and to leave for posterity a flattering account of Pliny’s activities during the final years of Domitian’s reign’.48 In this case, the question of how the senator was able to make tendentious claims about his own past does, of course, not pose itself; future readers could not easily have checked the veracity of his statements, and, in any case, could not have held Pliny accountable for making rather dubious claims. Yet this explanation is arguably somewhat unsatisfactory. For even if it is nowadays disputed whether they were ever sent as actual correspondence, we do know that Pliny circulated the edited books of the Letters among his friends, and so they must have been read in some form or another during his lifetime.49 In the case of the Panegyricus, such an explanation is even more unlikely. As we have seen, Pliny first delivered the speech in front of the senate and maybe even the emperor Trajan himself. Now, it is of course possible that the original speech did not contain the claim about his career that we find in our surviving text; as mentioned, this text is an edited and significantly extended version of the original speech. But we do know that this edited version was in turn publicly read and circulated among Pliny’s peers.50 The immediate audience of the Letters and – either the original or edited version of – the Panegyricus must thus have been aware that Pliny’s claims were

104

Martin Szöke

testing the limits of truth by quite a long way. We should therefore ask ourselves what would have made them accept, or at least tolerate, Pliny’s story about his career under Domitian. The answer is, I think, the following. First of all, they themselves were – at least to some extent – complicit in Pliny’s misrepresentation of the past. As we’ve seen, in the aftermath of Domitian’s death, the senate, and the new emperors of Rome, had imposed a new political narrative to be told about his reign; this narrative did not strictly correspond to the historical facts. Whenever they talked about the Domitianic past, the members of the élite were thus collectively engaging in a charade of sorts. As part of this charade, Pliny could also make claims about his own past that did not quite conform to the truth either. For anyone challenging his story would have also had to necessarily put into question the wider, official narrative that was being told about Domitian as a bad emperor. Secondly, and most importantly, most of Pliny’s peers would have been in the same situation. The majority of them would have started their career under the man who was now universally condemned as a tyrant.51 What is more, the new emperors themselves had held important, prestigious posts in the former regime: Nerva had been a close confidant of the Flavians, and Trajan had been one of Domitian’s generals, remaining loyal to him even during the Saturninus revolt of 89.52 Most of Pliny’s audience would thus have been sympathetic to his situation, and even complicit in his efforts to exculpate himself for his collaboration with the previous emperor. At the same time, somebody less willing to accept his story would have had a hard time proving him wrong. For he could not have called Pliny a liar without also implicating a great number of other senators, and even the emperor Trajan himself, in the wrong-doing that had taken place during Domitian’s reign. Pliny’s reinvention of his own past can maybe be read as a form of brinkmanship: in the Letters and the Panegyricus, he promotes a story that casts himself as a staunch opponent of Domitian. He dares others to call him a liar, and bring him to justice, because he knows that everybody else is in the same boat that he is in. At the same time, the benefits he receives in return for the risk he takes are considerable: he can establish a reputation as an upright senator. He can mould a memory of himself that is to his own liking, as that of the model aristocrat.53 Most importantly, by exculpating himself from any collaboration with the previous regime, he can also pave the way for his career in the current one. In the Panegyricus, Pliny follows up his claim of interrupting his cursus with the profession that he loves the optimus princeps, the best emperor, as much as he was hated by the pessimus, the worst (Pan. 95.4). His efforts to cast himself as a victim of Domitian should therefore also be read as an attempt to express loyalty to, and curry favour with, Trajan. His sufferings under the former qualify him for his service under the latter.

Competing memories In the last part of this chapter, I would like to cast my net a bit wider, and argue that Pliny’s is only one of a multiplicity of stories about Domitian’s reign that circulated in Rome at the time after his death. An interesting perspective is cast on the whole debate concerning Pliny’s career by an anecdote told in another

An age of post-truth politics? 105 of his letters. In Ep. 4.22, the senator recounts how, shortly after Domitian’s assassination, he had attended a dinner party hosted by Nerva, the emperor at the time. The party had also been attended by Junius Mauricus, the brother of the executed Arulenus Rusticus, who had himself been exiled under Domitian, as well as the alleged informer and former amicus of Domitian, Fabricius Veiento. In the course of the evening, the conversation had turned to another alleged Domitianic henchman, Catullus Messalinus.54 The guests had slandered Messalinus, who had died shortly before, and universally condemned him for his wickedness. But when Nerva had wondered what would have happened to Messalinus if he were still alive today, Mauricus, the former exile, had replied: ‘He would have been dining with us’ (‘Nobiscum cenaret’). This cheeky reply was a clear jibe aimed at Veiento, who had escaped scot-free after collaborating with Domitian. But it also put into question the version of events told by his senatorial peers, in which they themselves had been victims and others, like Messalinus, had been the guilty parties.55 The anecdote demonstrates that, in post-Domitianic Rome, there was a lot of contention about how to come to terms with the past. Turncoats and collaborators told one story, exiles another. Indeed, as Pliny writes in another letter (Ep. 9.13), in the early days of Nerva’s reign, senators had brought forward – often false – accusations of misconduct under Domitian to incriminate their personal enemies. Cassius Dio (68.1.3), reporting on the same phenomenon, even records that the situation had escalated to such an extent that Nerva had to intervene and shut down the debate about the past. It seems that the Romans could not only promote tendentious stories about their own past; they could also (falsely) implicate their foes in the wrong-doing of the former regime.56 Pliny’s, then, was only one of many accounts told in the aftermath of Domitian’s death. Mauricus’ version of the story might have been told in the pamphlets of so-called martyr literature, which celebrated those that had suffered and died under Domitian.57 Another account could be reflected in the writings of one of Pliny’s contemporaries and colleagues, Cornelius Tacitus, who, in the prooemium of his Histories (1.1), acknowledges that he himself had advanced his entire career under the Flavians. In his description of Domitian’s reign in the Agricola, he admits that the senators themselves had been involved in the treason trials against their peers. The famous historian, then, apparently provides a story about the past – and his own past – that is more honest, and more self-reflexive, than Pliny’s.58 Furthermore, even if the Roman elite universally condemned Domitian, among other constituents of the empire, a different memory of the emperor might have lived on. Suetonius (Dom. 23.1) mentions that the soldiery had been indignant at his death, and had even demanded his deification. Furthermore, when, in 97, the praetorian guard revolted against Nerva, they also demanded the execution of Domitian’s murderers. That a different, positive memory of the last Flavian – as an able commander and military man – was sustained among the army is also implied by a number of soldiers’ inscriptions set up long after his death. Although, as mentioned, the senate had decreed that Domitian’s name be erased from all

106

Martin Szöke

documents, on the inscriptions in question, the emperor is still explicitly mentioned, and his military campaigns proudly recalled.59 To finish, it would perhaps also be beneficial to take a second look at what is usually considered the damning evidence in the trial of Pliny’s career, the two inscriptions that record his prefecture of the military treasury. The first inscription (CIL 5.5667) was set up at Fecchio, near Pliny’s hometown Comum, by the citizens of Vercellae. The second inscription (CIL 5.5262 = ILS 2927) is from Comum itself.60 The latter is particularly interesting, because it seems to have been commissioned by Pliny himself, perhaps in his will; for it puts his name not in the usual dative, as a dedicatee, but in the nominative.61 If the inscription was commissioned by Pliny himself, then it would shed another interesting light on how he dealt with his service under Domitian. For, as we have seen, in his literary works, Pliny keeps – probably deliberately – quiet about his prefecture. On the inscription, however, he is not shy about mentioning it. It could thus be argued that, in a way, in his literary works and on the inscription from Comum, Pliny constructs two different versions of the past, that were intended for two different audiences: in the Letters and the Panegyricus, aimed more at his senatorial peers and other members of the elite, as well as to posterity, he would conveniently omit the prefecture to brush over the awkward fact that he had paid loyal service to Domitian until the very last years of his reign.62 In his Cisalpine hometown, however, he would proudly display the office on a public inscription; for, regardless of under which emperor he had held the post, it was still a great sign of prestige.63 For his audience at Comum, then, he fashioned a different memory of himself, that of a successful son of the city who had made a splendid career in the Roman capital.

Conclusion The case study presented here could encourage further study on the making and unmaking of memory in imperial Rome. As we saw, Pliny’s is only one of many, sometimes competing, memories about Domitian’s reign. His case might therefore provide a starting point for closer examination of the different individual memories of Domitian that we find articulated in our sources, and of the relationships between them. It might even provide a starting point for investigating how these individual memories were transformed into a collective construction – a ‘collective’ memory – of Domitian.64 Our case also allows us to develop further Harriet Flower’s intriguing observations on the nature of memory sanctions: for example, we have seen that Pliny tells one story about the past in his Panegyricus, another in his correspondence with Trajan, and (possibly) yet another on the Comum inscription. This seems to confirm Flower’s hypothesis that Domitian’s disgrace was, in some ways, a façade or stage set. Pliny’s representation of the Domitianic past is not consistent, but discursive, tailored to specific audiences and situations. Finally, we have also seen that Pliny promoted a version of his own past that was, even if not outright wrong, certainly highly tendentious; he was, I have argued, able to do so, because his version appealed to, or was at least

An age of post-truth politics? 107 tolerated by, his audience. I would therefore like to end by proposing that already the Romans were somewhat ‘post-factual’.

Notes 1 I would like to thank the organisers and participants of the 2018 UNISA Colloquium for providing such a stimulating and friendly environment to present my paper. I would also like to thank Rebecca Flemming, John Patterson, and Christopher Whitton for their generous support in writing this chapter, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. Latin texts and translations of Pliny’s Panegyricus and Letters are adapted – with some minor alterations – from Radice 1969. 2 The title of this chapter is an allusion to William Davies’ influential 2016 New York Times article ‘The Age of Posttruth Politics’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘post-truth’ as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. 3 For earlier studies on the ‘making and unmaking of memory at imperial Rome’, from which this article partly takes its cue, see esp. Gowing 2005, Gallia 2012 and the numerous publications that resulted from Karl Galinsky’s Memoria Romana project (all with further useful bibliography). 4 All subsequent dates are AD. The date of Pliny’s consulship, and thus the date of the speech’s delivery, is established by Pliny’s statement that he was consul in the year when Trajan himself had become ordinary consul for the third time, 100 (Pan. 60.4–5), and in the month of Trajan’s birthday, September (Pan. 92. 2–4). Pliny would have, as was usual, assumed the office on the first day of the month; consequently, he would have delivered the speech on 1 September 100. The custom of delivering speeches of thanksgiving to the emperor appears to have gone back to Augustus, as is implied by Ovid, Ep. ex Ponto 4.35; according to Pliny (Pan. 4.1), by the time of Trajan, it had even been made obligatory by a senatorial decree; on the gratiarum actio, see further Ronning 2007: 32–35 and Roche 2011: 1–4. 5 The traditional scholarly consensus is that Pliny published this edited version shortly after the delivery of the speech, perhaps in 101; for, in Ep. 3.13.1, Pliny refers to the Panegyricus as ‘the book in which I recently expressed my thanks to our noble Emperor for my consulship’ (librum, quo nuper optimo principi consul gratias egi); lately, Woytek 2006 has suggested a much later publication date, in the second half of 107, on the grounds of possible intertexts with Tacitus’ Dialogus and Histories. Yet Woytek’s argument is not unproblematic and has so far failed to gain widespread acceptance in scholarship; for a convincing, detailed repudiation of Woytek’s argument, see now Geisthardt 2015: 90–91. I will therefore follow the traditional view that Pliny published the Panegyricus shortly after delivering it in the senate. On the question to what extent the text of this edited version corresponds to the speech Pliny delivered in the senate – and to what extent that question matters for my argument – see more on this later in the chapter. 6 See for example Pan. 48.3–4. 7 See Tac. Agr. 2–3; 45; Suet. Dom. 10.4. Suetonius also provides a list of Domitian’s victims. Brian Jones (1992: 196) points out that, if one believes Suetonius’ list, Domitian’s rule claimed far fewer victims than that of for example Claudius; he thus suggests that our sources exaggerate the extent of the persecutions, and puts into question whether there really had been a ‘reign of terror’. Jones’ view is often echoed in newer scholarship (see e.g. Gering 2012: 343–344; Galimberti 2016: 104). Nevertheless, it seems cynical to dismiss the executions that did take place as insignificant. Wiseman 1996: 21 rightly accuses Jones of a ‘lack of imaginative sympathy’ for the senators executed during that time.

108

Martin Szöke

8 See esp. Ep. 3.11, which will be discussed in greater detail further later; also Ep. 1.5; 4.24; 7.14; 7.27; 7.33; 9.13; Pan. 90.5; 95.3. Pliny also writes that he entertained close links to the wives of these men after their death; see Ep.1.14; 3.11; 3.16; 4.21; 5.1; 6.24; 7.19; 9.13, with detailed discussion in Carlon 2009: 18–67, and Shelton 2013: 43–91. 9 On the publication and editing of Pliny’s Letters, see Bodel 2015. 10 CIL 5.5667, lines 6–7, and CIL 5.5262 (=ILS 2927), line 6; see later in the chapter for a more detailed discussion of these inscriptions. 11 The fact that Pliny had held this office in particular might have been particularly delicate; Giovannini 1986: 236–239 argues that the prefect of the military treasury was also in charge of confiscating property; Pliny might thus have been directly involved in the expropriation of his senatorial colleagues; cf. Strobel 2003. It is also worth noting that both inscriptions also record that Pliny had been quaestor imperatoris; as such, he would have been nominated to the quaestorship by Domitian himself, thereby being virtually guaranteed election as a ‘candidate of Caesar’ (candidatus Caesaris); once in office, he would then have been personally attached to the emperor; this implies that Pliny enjoyed particular imperial favour. Moreover, CIL 5.5667 records that he was a flamen divi Titi Augusti, a priest of the cult of the divine Titus, Domitian’s deceased brother and predecessor, which again implies close proximity to the imperial family. 12 Mommsen 1869: 79–88, with discussion of the prefecture at p. 89. Mommsen’s dating of Pliny’s career itself drew on the seminal work of Masson 1703. 13 Mommsen 1869: 84. Yet see Whitton 2015: 13–14 on the problem of translating Tac. Agr. 45.1 ‘mox’ as ‘not long after’. 14 Mommsen 1869: 84–86. 15 Yet see Whitton 2015: 14–15 on the possibility that the actual trial of Baebius Massa took place only in 94. 16 Consequently, Mommsen 1869: 86 dated the tribunate to 91–92, and the quaestorship to 89–90. 17 It records expulsions in year 9 (89–90) and 13 (93–4) of Domitian’s reign; see Karst 1911: 217 for the text. Jerome, in the Latin version of Eusebius, records expulsions in year 8 (89–90) and 15 (95–6) of Domitian’s reign; see Helm 1956: 189–190. The expulsion of philosophers is also recorded by Suet. Dom. 10.4, and Cass. Dio 67.13; see later in the chapter for further discussion. 18 In Pan. 91.1, Pliny states that he was designated consul when he had not yet held the prefecture of the aerarium Saturni for two full years, so he must have assumed that office in 98. On the date of Pliny’s consulship, see n. 4. 19 Harte 1935. 20 [. . .] mihi Caesar annum remisisset: ‘the emperor gave me a year’s remission’. 21 The usual minimum age required for a man to become quaestor was 30; see Talbert 1984: 17–18. Pliny was born some time between 24th August 61 and 24th August 62; see Sherwin-White 1966: 379. 22 See n. 17. Cassius Dio (67.13.3) too might imply that there had been an earlier expulsion under Domitian, preceding that of 93, when he writes that the philosophers were expelled αὖθις, ‘again’, in the year of the treason trials (although this could also refer to earlier expulsions under Vespasian). 23 Harte 1935: 53–54. 24 Birley 2000: 14–16; Sherwin-White 1966: 769–770 sharply rejected Harte’s argument; Kuijper 1968 tried to reinstate it; Soverini 1989: 526–530 rejected it again. 25 Birley 2000: 15 argues that, while Cassius Dio (55.25.2) remarks that the prefecture of the aerarium militare was triennial at the time of its establishment in AD 6, there is no evidence that it still was in Pliny’s time. He also suggests that evidence from individual prefects’ careers is inconclusive about the office’s length, citing Corbier’s 1974 extensive study on the aerarium militare; but note that Corbier 1974: 665 herself states that the epigraphic evidence overwhelmingly confirms Dio’s statement that the prefecture lasted three years.

An age of post-truth politics? 109 26 See for example Strunk 2013: 101–103; Winsbury 2013: 104–105. 27 Whitton 2015. 28 Regarding Pliny’s reference to his visit ‘in suburbano’, Whitton 2015: 7–9 proposes that, in 93, the philosophers were initially banished from Rome, but were given a grace period before being expelled completely from Italy; in this case, Pliny would have visited Artemidorus before the expulsion from Italy was enforced. 29 Whitton 2015: 16–19. 30 There is no evidence that Domitian’s death led to any changes in personnel or interruption of tenures; indeed, as already Waters 1969: 388–392 showed, most senators simply continued their careers; see later in the chapter for further discussion. 31 In the remainder of his article, Whitton 2015: 9–15 then also convincingly reinstates the possibility that Pliny was praetor in 94, and suggests that the treason trials of Helvidius and the others might have fallen into the same year, thus challenging Mommsian doctrine. 32 Whitton 2015: 19 himself concedes that, even if it is not quite ‘dishonest’, it is certainly ‘tendentious’. 33 On the somewhat opaque circumstances of Domitian’s assassination, see Grainger 2003: 1–27; Morelli 2014: 137–165. 34 Cf. Cass. Dio 68.1.1. 35 See Varner 2004: 111–135 and Flower 2006: 234–275 for excellent discussions of the evidence. 36 See esp. Hedrick 2000, Varner 2004, and Flower 2006; see also the much older, seminal work by Vittinghoff 1936. In the following discussion, I will prefer to use the term ‘memory sanctions’; for, as Flower 2006: xix notes, the term damnatio memoriae is not only anachronistic, but also misleading, since it suggests that there existed a formal, standard set of punishments, when in fact memory sanctions were much more variable and diverse. 37 Flower 2006: 2. 38 For the scholarly debate on the veracity of the ancient sources, see exemplary the classic study by Jones 1992, which challenges the sombre portrait they paint of the last Flavian, and the sceptical responses to Jones by Wiseman 1996 and Saller 2000. 39 See esp. Charles 2002. 40 Cf. Varner 2004: 7: ‘The physical destruction and mutilation of an emperor’s images is the direct visual equivalent of the vilification of his character and actions which occurs in literary and historical sources.’ 41 Nerva’s claim is reflected for example by the slogan of libertas that is so prominent in Nervan coinage; see Elkins 2017: 119–136 for discussion. 42 At this point, a quick note on the nature of these letters is in order. It is nowadays disputed whether the epistles of Book 10 of Pliny’s Letters represent ‘authentic’ correspondence or were revised and edited for publication. See Gibson & Whitton 2016: 43–47 for an overview of the debate. However, scholars nevertheless agree that they were based on genuine letters sent by Pliny. I therefore still regard them as useful evidence on the Roman provincial administration. 43 Flower 2006: 266. 44 The fact that the letter was written 12 years after the Panegyricus’ delivery and 16 years after Domitian’s fall probably also played a role: once the situation had calmed down, there might have been less need for Pliny to ostentatiously distance himself from the former emperor through vituperation. 45 For further references to his friendship with Helvidius and the others, see n. 8. For further references to his own imperilment during Domitian’s reign, see Ep. 1.5; 4.24; 7.14; 7.33. 46 Shelton 1987; Ludolph 1997: 44–48; Hoffer 1999: 55–91. On this much-discussed topic, see also esp. Beutel 2000, Bartsch 1994: 167–170 and Baraz 2012. 47 Shelton 1987: 125–126.

110

Martin Szöke

48 Shelton 1987: 129. 49 For a full review of the debate about the authenticity of Pliny’s Letters as correspondence, see Gamberini 1983: 122–136; also Gibson & Whitton 2016: 28–29 for a summary of new scholarly angles on the question. 50 Pliny himself tells us about the multi-staged publication process of the Panegyricus in Ep. 3.13 and 3.18. For my analysis, it thus arguably does not matter whether we have the original or revised version of the Panegyricus – the version we have would have been read to one audience or another during Pliny’s lifetime. 51 As Waters (1969) showed long ago, there was almost complete continuity between the reign of Domitian and that of Nerva and Trajan in terms of personnel. Nearly all of the senators who gathered to hear Pliny speak in the senate in 100 or who attended one of the Panegyricus’ readings had therefore previously served in the Domitianic senate. All of them would have been at least 30 years old, the minimum age to enter the senate. Only the senate’s oldest members, those who had attained their consulship and other high offices before AD 81, could have credibly claimed not to owe their careers to the last Flavian. 52 On Nerva’s relationship to the Flavian emperors, see Murison 2003; on Trajan’s service under Domitian, see Bennett 1997: 42–46. 53 On Pliny’s efforts to cast himself as a model aristocrat, see esp. Hoffer 1999; Méthy 2007; Page 2015. 54 On Veiento, Messalinus and the question whether they really had been Domitianic informers or were falsely accused of being so, see Rutledge 2001: 229–232; 274–275. 55 Indeed, Syme 1958: 6 suspected that already Nerva’s naïve-sounding question might in fact have aimed at challenging the story that the senators were telling themselves about the past, in order to extinguish a conversation often heard before. 56 For a further discussion of this senatorial debate about the past, see Szöke 2019: 430–452. 57 On ‘martyr literature’, see Conte 1994: 542. 58 Agr. 45. The Agricola has traditionally been read as an attempt to provide a (self-) apology for senatorial collaboration with Domitian; yet see Woodman (2014: 76–77) for the possibility that Tacitus in fact excludes himself from the group of the guilty. I engage more fully with Tacitus’ own coming-to-terms with the Domitianic past in Szöke (2019). 59 See for example CIL 6.2725 (=ILS 2034); CIL 12.2602 (=ILS 2118); CIL 13.8071; AE 1969–70.583, with a detailed discussion by Flower (2006: 253–256). Compare also CIL 15.548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, and 554–558, roof tiles from factories owned by Domitian’s wife Domitia Longina, dated to between AD 123 and 126. On the tiles’ stamps, Domitia’s name is recorded as Domitia Domitiani, ‘Domitia, wife of Domitian’; see Flower 2006: 252–253 for further discussion. 60 Today, only a small fragment of the inscription survives, but its text is recorded in a fifteenth-century manuscript. 61 Cf. Eck 2001: 305. On the Comum inscription, see also the important discussion in Alföldy 1999: 221–44. 62 The idea that Pliny constructs two different selves in the Letters and the Comum inscription is inspired by Geisthardt’s 2015: 146–157 piercing observation that these two documents address different audiences. In my opinion, Strunk’s 2013: 100–101 argument that the inscription demonstrates that Pliny did not try to suppress his prefecture overlooks this difference in audience. 63 As in the case of Pliny’s letter to Trajan, time might yet again have been an additional factor: many years had passed since Domitian’s assassination, and towards the end of his life, Pliny could be more frank about his career than before. 64 On the transformation of the past from individual experiences to a collective construction in the wake of (traumatic) historical events, see esp. Assmann 2016.

An age of post-truth politics? 111

Bibliography Primary Eusebius. Chronica. Edited by J. Karst. 1911. Eusebius Werke fünfter Band. Die Chronik aus dem Armenischen übersetzt mit textkritischem Commentar. Leipzig. Jerome. Chronica. Edited by R. Helm. 1956. Die Chronik des Hieronymus = Hieronymi Chronicon. Berlin. Pliny the Younger. Epistulae and Panegyricus. Edited by B. Radice. 1969. Letters and Panegyricus. Cambridge, MA. Tacitus. Agricola. Edited by A.J. Woodman. 2014. Tacitus Agricola. With introduction, text and commentary. Cambridge.

Secondary Alföldy, G. 1999. Städte, Eliten und Gesellschaften in der Gallia Cisalpina: epigraphischhistorische Untersuchungen. Stuttgart. Assmann, A. 2016. Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity (trans. Sarah Clift). New York. Baraz, Y. 2012. ‘Pliny’s Epistolary Dreams and the Ghost of Domitian.’ TAPhA 142 (1): 105–132. Bartsch, S. 1994. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA. Bennett, J. 1997. Trajan: Optimus Princeps : A Life and Times. London and New York. Beutel, F. 2000. Vergangenheit als Politik: Neue Aspekte im Werk des Jüngeren Plinius. Frankfurt am Main and New York. Birley, A.R. 2000. Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny: Letters and Panegyric. München and Leipzig. Bodel, J. 2015. ‘The Publication of Pliny’s Letters.’ In Pliny the Book-Maker, by I. Marchesi, 13–108. Oxford. Carlon, J.M. 2009. Pliny’s Women: Constructing Virtue and Creating Identity in the Roman World. Cambridge. Charles, M. 2002. ‘“Calvus Nero”: Domitian and the Mechanics of Predecessor Denigration.’ Acta Classica 45: 19–49. Conte, G.B. 1994. Latin Literature: A History. Baltimore and London. Corbier, M. 1974. L’Aerarium Saturni et l’Aerarium Militare: administration et prosopographie sénatoriale. Rome. Davies, W. 2016. ‘The Age of Post-Truth Politics.’ The New York Times, August 24, 2016, sec. Opinion. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/opinion/campaign-stops/ the-age-of-post-truth-politics.html. Eck, W. 2001. ‘Die grosse Pliniusinschrift aus Comum. Funktion und Monument.’ In Varia Epigraphica. Atti del colloquio internazionale di epigrafia, Bertinoro 8–10 Giugno 2000, eds. G.A. Bertinelli and A. Donati, 225–235. Faenza (Ravenna). Elkins, N.T. 2017. The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD 96–98. New York. Flower, H.I. 2006. The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture. Chapel Hill, NC. Galimberti, A. 2016. ‘The Emperor Domitian.’ In A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome, ed. A. Zissos, 92–108. Chichester.

112

Martin Szöke

Gallia, A.B. 2012. Remembering the Roman Republic: Culture, Politics and History under the Principate. New York. Gamberini, F. 1983. Stylistic Theory and Practice in the Younger Pliny. Hildesheim. Geisthardt, J.M. 2015. Zwischen Princeps und Res Publica: Tacitus, Plinius und die senatorische Selbstdarstellung in der Hohen Kaiserzeit. Stuttgart. Gering, J. 2012. Domitian, dominus et deus? Herrschafts- und Machtstrukturen im Römischen Reich zur Zeit des letzten Flaviers. Rahden (Westfalen). Gibson, R. and C. Whitton. 2016. ‘Introduction: Readers and Readings of Pliny’s Epistles.’ In Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: The Epistles of Pliny, eds. R. Gibson and C. Whitton, 1–48. Oxford and New York. Giovannini, A. 1986. ‘Pline et les délateurs de Domitien.’ In Opposition et Résistances à l’Empire d’Auguste à Trajan, ed. A. Giovannini, 219–248. Vandœuvre-Genève. Gowing, A.M. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge. Grainger, J.D. 2003. Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96–99. London and New York. Harte, R.H. 1935. ‘The Praetorship of the Younger Pliny.’ JRS 25: 51–54. Hedrick, C.W. 2000. History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity. Austin, TX. Helm, R. 1956. Die Chronik des Hieronymus = Hieronymi Chronicon. Berlin. Hoffer, S.E. 1999. The Anxieties of Pliny, the Younger. New York. Jones, B. 1992. The Emperor Domitian. London. Kuijper, D. 1968. ‘De Honestate Plinii Minoris.’ Mnemosyne 21 (1): 40–70. Ludolph, M. 1997. Epistolographie und Selbstdarstellung: Untersuchungen zu den ‘Paradebriefen’ Plinius Des Jüngeren. Tübingen. Masson, J. 1703. ‘Plinii Secundi Junioris Vita Ordine Chronologico Breviter Digesta.’ In C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi Epistolae et Panegyricus, ed. T. Hearne, 1–34. Méthy, N. 2007. Les lettres de Pline le Jeune: Une représentation de l’homme. Paris. Mommsen, Th. 1869. ‘Zur Lebensgeschichte des Jüngeren Plinius.’ Hermes 3 (1): 31–139. Morelli, U. 2014. Domiziano: Fine di una Dinastia. Wiesbaden. Murison, C.L. 2003. ‘M. Cocceius Nerva and the Flavians.’ TAPhA 133 (1): 147–157. Page, S. 2015. Der ideale Aristokrat: Plinius der Jüngere und das Sozialprofil der Senatoren in der Kaiserzeit. Heidelberg. Roche, P.A. 2011. ‘Pliny’s Thanksgiving: An Introduction to the Panegyricus.’ In Pliny’s Praise: The Panegyricus in the Roman World, ed. P.A. Roche, 1–28. Cambridge. Ronning, C. 2007. Herrscherpanegyrik unter Trajan und Konstantin: Studien zur symbolischen Kommunikation in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Tübingen. Rutledge, S.H. 2001. Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian. London. Saller, R. 2000. ‘Domitian and His Successors: Methodological Traps in Assessing Emperors.’ AJAH 15: 4–18. Shelton, J.-A. 1987. ‘Pliny’s Letter 3.11: Rhetoric and Autobiography.’ Classica et Mediaevalia 38: 121–139. Shelton, J.-A. 2013. The Women of Pliny’s Letters. London. Sherwin-White, A.N. 1966. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford. Soverini, P. 1989. ‘Impero e Imperatori Nell’opera Di Plinio Il Giovane.’ In ANRW 2.33.1: 515–553.

An age of post-truth politics? 113 Strobel, K. 2003. ‘Plinius und Domitian: Der willige Helfer eines Unrechtssystems.’ In Plinius Der Jüngere Und Seine Zeit, eds. L. Castagna and E. Lefèvre, 303–314. München and Leipzig. Strunk, T.E. 2013. ‘Domitian’s Lightning Bolts and Close Shaves in Pliny.’ CJ 109 (1): 88–113. Syme, R. 1958. Tacitus. Oxford. Szöke, M. 2019. ‘Condemning Domitian or Un-Damning Themselves ? Tacitus and Pliny on the Domitianic “Reign of Terror.”’ Illinois Classical Studies 44: 430–452. Talbert, R.J.A. 1984. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton. Varner, E. 2004. Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture. Leiden. Vittinghoff, F. 1936. Der Staatsfeind in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Untersuchungen zur ‘damnatio memoriae.’ Berlin. Waters, K.H. 1969. ‘Traianus Domitiani Continuator.’ AJPh 90 (4): 385–405. Whitton, C. 2015. ‘Pliny’s Progress: On a Troublesome Domitianic Career.’ Chiron 45: 1–22. Winsbury, R. 2013. Pliny the Younger: A Life in Roman Letters. London and New York. Wiseman, T.P. 1996. ‘Domitian and the Dynamics of Terror in Classical Rome.’ History Today 46: 19–24. Woytek, E. 2006. ‘Der Panegyricus des Plinius: Sein Verhältnis zum Dialogus und den Historiae des Tacitus und seine absolute Datierung.’ Wiener Studien 119: 115–156.

7

Monster or martyr? Contesting Nero’s Memory in Rome Eric Varner

During his lifetime, Nero carefully constructed a larger-than-life imperial persona, so well-crafted that his memory has long transcended his ignominious end on 9 June AD 68. Indeed, Nero’s memory has been continuously negotiated, manipulated, and mediated in the nearly two millennia since his suicide and the sanctions enforced against him. In the popular imagination, Nero has become ensconced as the paradigmatic deranged autocrat, famously fiddling while Rome burned. Nero is, in fact, the first of Rome’s bad emperors whose memory was subjected to official sanctions when the Senate proclaimed him a hostis, an enemy of the Roman state (Suet. Nero 49.2). As a result, his name was erased in certain inscriptions, his coins defaced and countermarked, and his sculpted portraits deliberately mutilated and recycled. The memorial afterlife of the ‘bad’ emperors, however, was never a simple process of cancellation or defamation: Caligula’s memory was fraught enough that Claudius refused to permit official Senatorial sanctions (Suet. Claud. 11.3; Dio 49.29.7); after his murder, Domitian remained popular with the soldiers who called for his deification and the prosecution of his assassins (Suet. Dom. 23.1), and the Senate was forced by Septimius Severus to rescind the sanctions they had levelled against Commodus and deify him (HA Sev. 11.3–4, 12.8). The Roman negotiation of Nero’s memory and monumental legacy proved extremely complicated and provides the most complex case study for the making and unmaking of memory for any of the condemned ‘bad’ emperors. As mass produced means of official communication, coins provide a vivid snapshot of the negative treatment of Nero’s visual memory through countermarking. In a dupondius, minted at Lyon, ancient Lugdunum c. 64–68, SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) has been stamped across Nero’s neck in a kind of virtual decapitation by the Senate and People of Rome (Figure 7.1). The coin makes the defamation of Nero’s memory unambiguous through the disfigurement of his visual image. Bronze and marble portraits were also mutilated in violent attacks on Nero’s memory. A gilded bronze portrait in a private collection was decapitated from its original statue.1 Traces of the sharp object that was used to behead the statue still visible on the back of the neck, as well as corrosion in this area which could only have accrued over a very lengthy time confirm the violence perpetrated against the image in antiquity. Such acts of violence enacted against representations of ‘bad’ emperors like Nero mirrored the kinds of corpse abuse that could befall the remains of capital offenders, a phenomenon known as poena post mortem, or punishment after death. DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-8

Monster or martyr?

115

Figure 7.1 Countermarked dupondius of Nero, from Lyon, c. 64–68, American Numismatic Society, 1953.171.1293 Source: Photo courtesy of the American Numismatic Society (Mike Gasvoda)

Facing portraits of Nero and his second wife, Poppaea, have also been mutilated in an amethyst from Xanten in Germany.2 The profiles have been defaced. Violent attacks on gem portraits are rare and the mutilation of the Xanten amethyst underscores the violent reactions that could be provoked against Nero’s memory in the aftermath of his overthrow. The gem continued to be valued however, despite its compromised state, into the middle of the third century when it was interred in the grave of an adult male, whose other grave goods suggests that he may have been a merchant or collector of gems. Poppaea’s portrait has been similarly defaced in a sardonyx cameo from a private collection in Bonn.3 This cameo depicts Poppaea wearing the aegis of Jupiter and Minerva as a headdress, and it is likely intended as an evocation of Diva Poppaea after her death and official deification in 65. It is an excellent example of the kind of collateral condemnation that could ensnare the memories of wives and other family members of ‘bad’ emperors. Overall, however, violent destruction or mutilation of Nero’s images is relatively rare. Instead, Nero’s representations were recycled on a vast scale. There are almost

116

Eric Varner

as many recarved portraits of Nero, approximately 59, as those of the ‘bad’ emperors who bracket him historically, Caligula and Domitian combined, at approximately 61. The large number of reconfigured likenesses confirms both the careful calibration of Nero’s imagery during his lifetime, and the desire of subsequent emperors to both visually cannibalise that imagery as well as connect with its lingering positive associations among certain segments of Roman society. Already beginning with Galba, Nero’s images are reconfigured as subsequent emperors as witnessed by a sardonyx cameo in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris that originally depicted Nero wearing the aegis of Jupiter, but whose facial features have been subsequently recast as Galba.4 The rich, luxuriant hair, however, has been almost entirely retained from the Neronian image and contrasts with Galba’s stern veristic portrait, making abundantly clear the transformation that has transpired. In addition, Galba promoted his descent from Jupiter which aligns well with the cameo’s divine imagery (Suet. Galba 2). All three of the Flavian emperors continue to liberally expropriate Nero’s portrait legacy. A portrait of Vespasian in Naples, from the Farnese collection in Rome, depicts the emperor with his realistically aged facial features, but, as in the Galba cameo, the hair again betrays its origins as a depiction of Nero from his second portrait type (Figure 7.2).5 Viewers familiar with Vespasian’s unaltered

Figure 7.2 Nero/Vespasian, original c. 54–59, recut c. 69–79, Naples, Museo Archeolgico Nazionale, without inventory number Source: Photo, author

Monster or martyr?

117

likenesses that depict him as bald or balding displayed in Rome and throughout the empire would have clearly recognised the discordances in the Farnese portrait. The resulting image stands as a hybrid, both Nero and Vespasian at once.6 Several portraits of Vespasian’s eldest son and heir, Titus, create a similar hybrid portrait identity combining new elements for Titus with lingering aspects of the original Neronian images. Images in the Galleria Borghese and the Uffizi have all of the expected physiognomical elements seen in likenesses of Titus carved ex novo, but they also exhibit readily discernable and anomalous traces of the distinctive coiffure used in Nero’s third portrait type resulting in amalgamated likeness that maintain the memory of Nero (Figure 7.3).7 A very similar hybrid likeness can be seen on a sardonyx cameo in the Museo Archeologico in Florence which features a redacted portrait of Titus that retains most of Nero’s original type 4 coiffure (Figure 7.4).8 The cameo depicts the bipartite emperor wearing the aegis of Jupiter and a laurel crown and with an eagle topped scepter. Even more portraits of Titus’ younger brother and heir, Domitian, have been reconfigured from earlier representations of Nero. Like the Borghese and Uffizi depictions of Titus, a likeness of Domitian in Naples, also from the Farnese Collection in Rome, retains strong traces of Nero’s type 3 hairstyle (Figure 7.5).9

Figure 7.3 Nero/Titus, original c. 59–64, recut c. 69–81, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914 Source: Photo, author

118

Eric Varner

Figure 7.4 Nero/Titus, original c. 64–68, recut c. 69–81, Florence, Museo Archeologico, inv. 14546 Source: Photo, author

Figure 7.5 Nero/Domitian, original c. 59–64, recut c. 81–96, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 6061 Source: Photo, author

Monster or martyr?

119

The curled and waved arrangement adopted by Domitian for his portraits as emperor from 81–96 is distinctly Neronian and would still have been recognised by visually astute viewers in the immediate decades following Nero’s death. The reworked Flavian portraits also confirm that Nero’s memory continued to be very much alive, despite the memory sanctions that were in place. The re-elaboration of Nero’s images was part of an effective way of neutralising Nero’s memory and at the same time connecting with the charismatic imperial authority that he had projected during his lifetime.10 Nero’s memory was not by any means shunned or disparaged by all of Roman society, but actually celebrated and venerated by those who brought his images into the Roman Forum after his death, decorated his tomb, and believed periodic accounts well into the second century that he had actually escaped death and was still alive in the eastern part of the empire (Suet. Nero 49, 57; Tac. Hist. 2.81; Dio 64.9.3, 66.19.3).11 In the interim between Galba and Vespasian, both Otho and Vitellius had actively sought to capitalise on Nero’s lingering charisma. Throughout his principate Nero had carefully crafted his own public image with the Roman lower classes as an emperor who substantially embellished the urban fabric of capital, offered lavish spectacles and generous congiaria, and paid scrupulous attention to the grain supply.12 Otho allowed himself to be acclaimed ‘Nero’ by the plebs and even used Nero as a cognomen in some official dispatches (Suet. Otho 7.1).13 Otho also allowed the portraits of Nero and Poppaea to be re-erected in public (Suet. Otho 7.1; Tac. Hist. 1.78). In his own portraiture, Otho consistently evokes Nero’s later likenesses with their elaborate coiffures and fuller physiognomy. After his defeat of Otho and entry into Rome, Vitellius, attended by official state priests, made very public funerary offerings to Nero’s memory in the Campus Martius and at the ceremonial banquet that followed, he enthusiastically applauded when Nero’s songs were performed.14 In fact, Nero’s memory was never fully suppressed, especially in terms of his images. His coin portraits continued to decorate mirror covers long after his death and are found in graves dated to the middle of the second century.15 A papyrus fragment preserves parts of a poem honouring Poppaea’s apotheosis and it does not seem to have been composed until the third century.16 It was not only in portraits in Flavian Rome that the memory of Nero was negotiated but also in monuments and architecture. Two of Nero’s most ambitious artistic projects, the Colossus and Baths were always associated with him in texts and inscriptions. In a famous epigram written after Nero’s death, Martial, one of the great detractors of the emperor’s memory, quipped, ‘What worse than Nero, what better than the Neronian Baths? (Quid Nerone peius, quid thermis melius Neronianis?)’(7.34). Located in the Campus Martius, the baths were the work of Nero’s principal architect and engineer, Severus and Celer.17 Their innovative, vaulted concrete architecture and axially symmetrical plan establish the imperial bath type which would be followed for the next two and half centuries by all subsequent emperors building public baths in Rome including Titus, Trajan, Caracalla, Maximian and Diocletian, and Maxentius and Constantine.18 Even after their extensive renovation at the beginning of the third century by Severus

120

Eric Varner

Alexander and their renaming as the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Baths still continue to be most commonly known as the Baths of Nero. Like his Baths, Nero’s Colossus was never uncoupled from his memory. Nero intended the Colossus as a spectacular gilded bronze centrepiece, 120 Roman feet in height, for the vestibule of his Golden House at the top of the Via Sacra. Commissioned from the sculptor Zenodorus, famous for his colossal statuary, the Colossus is described by Pliny as one of the most impressive of the colossal statues in the Mediterranean (HN 34.45–6), initially intended as a standing representation of Sol-Helios with facial features derived from Nero’s last portrait type. The Colossus was not completed at the time of Nero’s suicide in AD 68, and Vespasian expropriated and redirected the monumental project.19 A Flavian gem in Berlin and coins minted under Severus Alexander and Gordian III give some idea of its appearance when finally completed.20 Sol Helios is shown with the rudder associated with the goddess Fortuna and a globe, symbolising Roman domination of the world. The Colossus was ultimately dedicated by Vespasian in 75, the same year as his Templum Pacis, and Dio notes that the statue was thought by some to have resembled Titus, rather than Nero (66.15.1). The dedicatory inscription would have claimed Vespasian as its patron, rather than Nero. Vespasian’s redeployment of the Colossus was part of his extended efforts to reclaim the area of the city that had been taken up by Nero’s Domus Aurea. Vespasian and his sons redeveloped the area as a Flavian Urbs Nova with new monuments including the Colosseum, Meta Sudans, Flavian inflected Colossus, Templum Pacis, Arch of Titus, and the rebuilt Curiae Veteres. Neverthless, the Colossus was never fully dissociated from the memory of Nero and continued to be known as the Colossus of Nero, despite its co-option by the Flavians. Its profound significance within the urban landscape of the city and its evocations of Rome’s aeternitas would continue. Hadrian employed the architect Decrianus to transport the Colossus from its location on the Velia to its final position near the Colosseum in order to clear land for his Temple of Venus and Roma and Commodus apparently remodelled the Colossus into an image of Hercules with facial features resembling himself (HA. Hadr. 19.12–13; HA Comm. 17.5; Dio 72(73)22.3; Herod. 1.15.9). In the third century, Gallienus is accused of commissioning a bronze colossus of himself depicted as the sun, allegedly twice the size of the Neronian Colossus, to be erected on the Esquiline, presumably for the Horti Licniani (HA Gall. Duo 18.2–5).21 In the early fourth century, Maxentius rededicated the Colossus to his deified son Romulus, and the statue was a crucial element of Constantine’s monumental engagement with the city and the design and placement of his arch.22 Domitian continued the Flavian engagement with Nero’s memory in the urban and sacred landscape of Flavian Rome. No earlier than AD 83, Domitian dedicated at least three unusually large altars, popularly known as the Ara Incendii Neroniani (or Neronis), which were used for annual sacrifices to Vulcan on the Vulcanalia (23 August) to prevent future disastrous fires on the scale of the great fire of AD 64 under Nero.23 Remains for one of the altars and its precinct are still

Monster or martyr?

121

preserved in situ on the Quirinal and similar altars are attested near the Vatican and on the north-east slope of the Aventine outside the Circus Maximus. Located along the Alta Semita, the Quirinal precinct and altar had an impressive 35 metres of street footage and the altar itself was quite large with a surviving travertine core measuring 6.25 metres in length, 3.25 in width, and 1.5 in height. The three altars had nearly identical inscriptions that make clear that they had been undertaken by Nero after the fire of 64, but never completed.24 In the inscriptions, names of Nero and Domitian are linked, although Nero’s has been rendered in adjectival form perhaps as a way of diminishing his importance (temporibus Neronianis).25 The prominent appearance of Nero’s name in any form on new Flavian monuments of such size, and religious and civic significance, however, would have been especially remarkable. The inscriptions from both the Vatican and Aventine altars are recorded to have had deep erasures in the lines where Domitian’s name and titles appeared.26 The stark erasure of Domitian’s name from the two altars was a direct result of the formal memory sanctions enacted against him after by the Senate after his assassination on 18 September 96.27 The vivid absence of Domitian resulting from the erased inscriptions only serves to make the continued presence of Nero’s memory that much more remarkable. While the memory of one emperor has been unmade that of the other has been maintained within the sacred landscape of the city. The Flavians in no way had the last word on Nero’s memory. His portraits continued to be recycled for centuries. Like the Nero/Titus cameo in Florence, a cameo of Trajan in Berlin has been recut from a representation of Nero.28 The physiognomy has been modified to more accurately reflect that of Trajan, but the coiffure is largely unaltered from Nero’s third portrait type. A cameo in Paris of Antinous has also been reworked from a Neronian original under Hadrian.29 On the gem, Antinous co-opts Nero’s imperial insignia of oak leaf crown, corona civica. Traces of Nero’s type 2 hairstyle are still clearly visible. In the next century, a portrait of Nero in Egypt was reworked as the emperor Gallienus, c. 253–260. In this portrait, carved to be inserted into a veiled, togate portrait statue (capite velato), clear traces of Nero’s physiognomy and coiffure are retained.30 Gallienus’ own revival of Julio-Claudian coiffures in his type 1 likenesses may have motivated this late recycling of a Neronian portrait that may have been warehoused during the intervening centuries. It may also, however, be an early example of the late antique repurposing of early imperial monuments, especially those of the Julio-Claudians, in order revive positive associations with the glorious imperial past. This phenomenon has its origins in the middle of the third century and other of Gallienus’ portraits are recarved from earlier ‘good’ emperors, including Hadrian. The reliefs from the Hadrianic Arco di Portogallo may also have been reworked during the principate of Gallienus. Nero’s portraits could also be reconfigured as Rome’s firs Christian emperor Constantine. In the early fourth century, an over-life-sized head of Constantine from Carthage was reconfigured from a replica of Nero’s fourth portrait type.31 Like the Missouri Nero/Gallienus, the head from Carthage suggests that Nero’s portraits could be warehoused for extended periods in the provinces.

122

Eric Varner

A cameo in Paris, initially depicting Nero was remodelled in the early second century as Trajan, and finally reworked into a particularly classicising version of Constantine’s second portrait type.32 The gem presents a very traditional portrait of the emperor wearing the laurel crown (corona triumphalis) and paludamentum. Its origins as a Julio Claudian cameo give it an impeccable imperial provenance. The first recycling as Trajan erased most of its specifically Neronian references leaving only the more generic Julio Claudian connotations. In its recarved state, the cameo closely resembles the surviving Julio-Claudian gems of similar format and forges a continuum with the past. Later, in the middle of the fourth century, another of Nero’s cameos was redone as a portrait of Julian. This cameo, at San Francesco in Castiglion Fiorentino is extremely large and of very high quality.33 It depicts the emperor wearing the toga and triumphal laurel crown. A stippled beard has been added in order to transform the likeness into Julian. It might be tempting to link the choice to reuse a gem portrait of Nero with his reputation as a persecutor of Christians, but, like the Missouri Nero/Gallienus, it may have more to do with general associations with the imperial past. At the very end of the fourth century Nero’s image was resurrected on the contorniate medallions distributed in the Circus Maximus in honour of the new year.34 The obverses of these medallions feature, in addition to Nero, numerous other Roman emperors, empresses, writers, poets, and historical figures, including Homer, Euripides, Demosthenes, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Terrence, Sallust, Vergil, Horace, Augustus, Galba, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Agrippina Maior, Faustina, Maior, and Antinous. In the series of emperors, Nero is the second most frequent emperor to appear on the contorniates after Trajan, the Optimus Princeps, with at least 106 separate types issued for Nero, and 149 for Trajan.35 During the 15-year period from 395–410, Nero is actually the most celebrated, even eclipsing Trajan and dramatically underscoring the continued potency of Nero’s memory at Rome.36 Nero’s likenesses on the contorniates accurately reflect versions of Nero’s fourth and final portrait type with fuller facial features and waved coiffure (although the direction of the locks can be reversed) and employ the emperor’s names and titles Nero Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator or Pontifex (Figure 7.6).37 The die engravers who created the contorniates acquired their knowledge of Nero’s portrait features through the emperors surviving coins and surviving dies. The reverses of the Neronian medallions celebrate Nero’s vaunted relationship to the Circus Maximus and his reputation as a charioteer. One reverse type depicts the circus itself, two additional types with numerous surviving examples feature a birds eye view of four chariots racing around the spina of the Circus with its monuments, while 19 separate types represent victorious charioteers in profile, frontally, or standing with a horse.38 Other reverses include a standing nude Apollo with lyre and tripod and allude to Nero’s close associations with Apollo as well as his performative exploits.39 The Neronian reverses also feature additional spectacle and circus imagery and include hunting scenes (venationes) presumably held in the circus, as well as amphitheater scenes, a musical pipe organ with one or

Monster or martyr?

123

Figure 7.6 Nero, contorniate, American Numismatic Society, 1944.100.62207 Source: Photo courtesy of the American Numismatic Society

two players, race horse with attendant, named race horse (ΔΙΑΠΡΕΠΩN), and an unidentified race horse standing alone.40 Nero’s appearance on the contorniates has been linked with the so-called pagan aristocracy of Rome and Nero’s own anti-Christian sentiments, but Nero’s strong performative reputation and his links to the Circus are more likely as principal motivating factors. A white onyx cameo in Paris, produced in the early fifth century and essentially contemporary with the contorniates also celebrates Nero as a victorious charioteer.41 The cameo is inscribed in a Latinised Greek, NEPUN AΓO/VCTE (Neron Agouste). Nero is depicted frontally in a quadriga and wearing a radiate crown, recalling his extensive lifetime linkages with Sol, Helios, and Apollo. Like the contorniates, this cameo takes no notice of the memory sanctions that had been enforced against Nero after his suicide. Nero’s close associations with the circus

124

Eric Varner

in late antiquity are also reflected in a letter written by the senator Cassiodorus for Theodoric where it is claimed that Nero invented the tradition of the cloth mappa being thrown down to start the chariot races in the Circus by throwing down his dinner napkin and demanding that the chariot races begin.42 In contradistinction to the visual evidence, where the interaction with Nero’s memory is complex and nuanced, ancient authors consistently savage his reputation. Pliny the Elder, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Cassius Dio all create unflattering historical portraits of Nero beginning shortly after his death and into the early third century CE.43 By the time Cassius Dio is writing his history in the early third century Nero had become a significant fixture of Roman communal and cultural memory deployed by the author to interpret and inform the canonical ‘bad emperors’ of his own time, namely Commodus, Caracalla, and especially Elagabalus.44 The anonymous author of the Octavia, likely written in AD 69 or at the very outset of Vespasian’s principate is the first to depict the last Julio-Claudian emperor as a ruthless and savage tyrant who murders his own family and violently destroys Rome itself. The author consistently describes Nero as ferus (cruel, ruthless, inhuman), saevus (savage, ferocious) or dirus (dreadful, awful, fightful).45 L. Ginzburg has persuasively outlined how the Octavia initiates a paradigmatic shift from Nero as an historical or biographical figure of communicative memory to the monstrous Nero as an inherently evil figure of cultural memory (Errinerungsfigur).46 In the his lost drama the Nero (or Domitius), nearly contemporary with the Octavia, Curiatus Maternus also seems to have created a vison of Nero as a negatively charged figure of cultural memory.47 Both Jan and Aleida Assmann have situated the memory figure (Errinerungsfigur) within the constructs of cultural, as opposed to communicative or biographical memory.48 Nero has never ceased being a fixture of the broader cultural and communal memory of Rome whose significance shifts and develops over time. The mnemonic portrait of Nero continued to be further embellished and burnished in the later first and early second century. In the 37 books of the Historia Naturalis, composed under Vespasian and dedicated to Titus, Pliny the Elder refers to Nero 65 times in consistently denigrative terms.49 Pliny’s excoriation of Neronian extravagance and luxury, as well as the emperor’s ferocious and cruel nature, has its roots in stoic morality as much as the political and historical repudiation of Nero that ensued after his death and condemnation. Pliny’s assessment squarely takes part in the Flavian cultural program re-negotiating Nero’s memory on multiple artistic fronts.50 Nero’s memory and posthumous reputation are favourite targets of other Flavian authors as well including Statius where Nero is the criminal ruler responsible for the fire of 64 and he is the matricide hounded in Tartarus by the avenging fury of his mother Agrippina.51 Martial’s engagement with Nero’s memory is universally negative and the emperor is savage (ferus), cruel (crudelis) and frightful (dirus).52 In the early second century, Juvenal continues the poetic disparagement of Nero and the emperor is especially savaged in the eighth Satire, which explicitly links the tragic roles that the emperor acted on the stage with his alleged murderous behaviour towards his relatives.53

Monster or martyr?

125

For the early Christians, Nero’s persecution of Christians as perpetrators of the great fire of AD 64 transforms him into an Antichrist. Pliny the Elder is the first author to ascribe the great fire of 64 directly to Nero, but Tacitus is the principal and earliest source alleging that Nero oversaw mass executions of Christians accused of causing the fire.54 Christian persecutions following the great fire do not occur in Suetonius, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger or Cassius Dio and B. Shaw has proposed that the Tacitean account may be the result of an emerging interest in Christianity in the early second century as seen in the well-known correspondence between Pliny the Younger and Trajan. The Book of Revelation, likely composed at end of the first century CE within a generation of Nero’s death, creates a prophetic and apocalyptic role for Nero as a multi-headed beast identified by the number 666 who has been healed from a deadly wound and will take over the world (Rev. 13.1–18, 17.9–11). When transliterated from Hebrew to Greek, the Jewish numerology of 666 reads Caesar Neron.55 For Tertullian, Nero is an evil persecutor of Christians Apol. 5.3; Nat. 1.7.8–9; Scorp. 15.3.56 In the middle of the third century, the early Christian author Commodian positions Nero as one of the two Antichrists and the emperor is described as the unconscionable king, a tyrant, and a pseudo prophet (rex iniquus, tyrannus, pseudopropheta).57 In his Commentary on the Apocolypse composed c. 258–260, Victorinus of Pettau also presents Nero as the beast who will usher in the apocalypse (13.2–3). The positive presentations of Nero’s memory and legacy discernable in the contorniates or the Paris charioteer cameo stand in stark contrast to the negative assessments prevalent in contemporary authors, both pagan and Christian, of the late fourth and early fifth centuries.58 In his De Mortibus Persecutorum composed at the outset of the fourth century, Lactantius positions Nero as the very first imperial persecutor of Christians, directly responsible for the executions of Ss. Peter and Paul (De mort. pers. 2).59 For Lactantius Nero also foreshadows the coming of the Antichrist. Nero appears in Julian’s satire, the Caesares, composed for the Saturnalia of 361, and he is ridiculed for his pathetic imitation of Apollo (Caes. 310 C). In his truncated imperial biographies, the de Caesaribus, Aurelius Victor constructs a damning vision of Nero who deliberately destroys the city of Rome in the fire of AD 64 (Aur.Vict.de Caes. 5).60 Nero’s presentation in Ausonius’ On the Twelve Caesars Whose Lives Were Written by Suetonius is also consistently negative.61 Claudian evokes the ‘crime’ of Nero’s stage appearances and dreadful corpses he was responsible for (dira Neronis funera).62 By the end of the fourth century, in their abbreviated histories, both Eutropius and Festus continue to offer unremittingly negative assessments of Nero. In Festus, Nero is the most loathsome emperor that the Roman state has ever endured: Nero, quem turpissimam imperatorem Romana est passa respublica (Brev. 20). In Eutropius, Nero is similar to his uncle Caligula in his perverse love of luxury characterised by golden fishing nets and extravagant hot and cold unguent baths, directly responsible for the deaths of Britannicus, Agrippina, and Octavia, and also the imperial instigator of the fire of 64 in order to recreate the destruction of Troy.63 Prudentius depicts Nero as a matricide who drinks the blood of the apostles Peter and Paul.64 Nero is mentioned 15 times in the orations of John

126

Eric Varner

Chrysostom, who creates a rhetorical caricature of the emperor as an Antichrist, the embodiment of all savagery and debauchery, completely divorced from the historical aspects of Nero’s actual biography.65 In the Historia Augusta, the trope of Nero as a paradigmatic ‘bad’ emperor is firmly established and he is mentioned by name 19 times, most often in highly negative terms in conjunction with other ‘bad’ emperors like Caligula, Vitellius, Domitian, Commodus, and Elagabalus.66 Early in the fifth century, the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus continues to firmly link Nero to apocalyptic notions of the Antichrist as a result of his role as first imperial Christian persecutor (Chron. 2.28–29).67 Sulpicius also suggests that Nero’s suicide is no longer a certain fact, his body was never found and he may yet return at the end of the world to ‘work the mystery of iniquity’ (sub saeculi fine mittendus, ut mysterium iniquitati exerceat). The ‘mysterium iniquitati’ is derived from the apocalyptic discourse in 2 Thessalonians surrounding the appearance of the Antichrist and has been linked to the Nero redivivvs occurrences of the first and early second centuries.68 In his dialogue on the virtues of Saint Martin of Tours, Sulpicius describes Martin’s prophesy that Nero would return and rule in the west after defeating ten kings and he would initiate persecutions but would be destroyed by an Antichrist ruling in the east.69 In the City of God, Augustine explicitly links the possibility Nero redivivvs who can defy death and return from the grave to the same Pauline discussion of the Antichrist; the emperor is again the first persecutor of Christians and embodies negative concepts of luxuria and crudeltas.70 In the Historiae Adversus Paganos, c. 416–417, Augustine’s friend and collaborator Orosius repeats Eutropius’ claims about Nero’s extravagant golden fishing nets and his hot and cold unguent baths, and the emperor is again accused of starting the fire of 64, and of being the first imperial persecutor of Christians, responsible for the deaths of Saints Peter and Paul (7.7). In Jerome, Nero is also the Anti-Christ (Comm. in Daniel 11.27).71 Nero plays a prominent role in the story of Simon Magus as preserved in the Acts of Saints Peter and Paul. Nero witnesses the sorcerer’s dramatic death in the Roman Forum when he plummets back to earth after levitating from a tall tower as a direct result of the prayers of Peter and Paul, which ultimately leads to their arrest and imprisonment.72 This anecdote may be related to an historical incident recorded by Suetonius, where Nero’s couch in the amphitheater is spattered by blood from the fatal fall of a condemned criminal enacting the myth of Icarus (Suet. Nero 12.2).73 It may also be linked to the allegation in Dio Chrysostom that Nero kept a man in the imperial household who claimed he could fly (21.9). John Malalas repeats the Simon Magus story in his Chronographia written in the sixth century and he assigns the deaths of Peter and Paul to Nero. He notably, however, eschews the vituperative and apocalyptic rhetoric of the other early Christian writers. Malalas rather presents a more balanced vision of Nero as a philosopher emperor and even refers to him as well disciplined (εὔταχτος/ moribus compositis, Chron. 10.29–40 [250–58]).74 Malalas also depicts Nero as physically beautiful, recounting that the emperor was tall, thin, well-formed/handsome, with an elegant nose, rosy complexion, and rather large eyes.75 Malalas’ admiring assessment of Nero seems to be part of a particularly Syrian treatment of

Monster or martyr?

127

the emperor’s legacy that also includes a very similar seventh-century account in John of Antioch (fr 90).76 Nero’s successful handling of the Armenian situation and his positive posthumous reputation with the Parthians may have helped to engender this philo-Neronian strain in Syrian historiography. In the tenth century, the Suda compiled in the tenth century includes a similarly favourable interpretation of Nero in the Simon Magus episode with clear ties to the Syrian philoNeronian tradition.77 Nero is represented visually throughout the medieval period principally in his roles as rex tyrannus, Antichrist, and first imperial persecutor of Christians.78 The Simon Magus episode remained popular and is featured in the Capella Palatina at the cathedral in Monreale with a Latin inscription identifying the emperor as Nero Rex.79 Nero’s memory continues to be embellished, transformed in a number of colorful medieval legends including his giving birth to a frog. In the Legenda Aurea, a compendium of legendary saints’ lives compiled by the blessed Jacobus da Varagine in the thirteenth century, Nero features in the life of Saint Peter. In an extended narrative of the saints’ multiple interactions with Simon Magus who is described as a close companion of the emperor, Nero is accused of the murders of Seneca and Agrippina, he sets fire to Rome, and watches the destruction from a high tower while singing. The Legenda Aurea also preserves the extraordinary story of Nero giving birth to a frog. Following the murder of Agrippina, the emperor wishes to be impregnated so that he can know the pain of childbirth that his mother endured. His doctors and advisors give him a frog embryo to drink, which grows in his stomach until he is given an emetic and vomits up the frog not fully gestated.80 In classical literature, Nero had already been linked to a frog in Plutarch’s account of Jupiter taking pity on Nero in Hades on account of his liberation of Greece and turning him into a frog, undoubtedly an ironic divine comment on Nero’s singing abilities (Moralia 567F). In Rome, Nero’s memory maintained topographical significances at important locations throughout the city in the medieval period. At the end of the eleventh century, Pope Paschal II cuts down an oak tree allegedly haunted by Nero and builds the church of S. Maria del Popolo directly over the site of the emperor’s tomb in order to exorcise the site from the demon of Nero.81 The emperor’s actual burial site on the Pincio hill at the ancestral tomb of the Domitii was probably very near the church. The medieval guidebooks, the Mirabilia originally composed sometime in the twelfth century with later manuscripts surviving from the thirteenth century in Italian, preserve Nero’s memory at other sites in the city.82 The various versions of the Mirabilia contain both accurate and fantastical explications of the Neronian toponyms including a Palatium Neronis, Vestiarium Neronis, Theatrum Neronis, and Prata Neronis, all near the Vatican and probably deriving from aspects of the Circus of Caligula and Nero and surrounding gardens.83 Also in the area of the Vatican was the Terbentium, Terebenthum, or Tiburtinum Neronis, which is described as a two-tiered circular structure near the pyramidal tomb, the Meta Romuli, at the Vatican and as tall as the neighboring Mausoleum of Hadrian.84 A terebinthus (turpentine tree) near the Meta Romuli also features in the Acts of Peter and Paul in the account of St. Peter’s martyrdom.

128

Eric Varner

The Miribilia accurately identify the Pons Neronianus or Neronis with the remains of the bridge linking the Circus of Nero with the Campus Martius,85 ‘Lo banio de Nerone Imperatore’ should be the emperor’s baths in the Campus Martius near the Pantheon.86 The Secretarium Neronis, which cannot be associated with any specific Neronian structure, is located at the Church of Sant Urso which was in the Campus Martius near the Ponte Sant Angelo.87 In one version of the guidebooks, the Graphia Aureae Urbis, the origins of the Lateran palace are ascribed to Nero and it is identified as the site where he gave birth to the frog.88 The concentration of the majority of these monuments near St. Peter’s, the Vatican, and in the Campus Martius, an especially densely inhabited part of the medieval city is striking and attests Nero’s continuing inscribed presence in the urban landscape. During the early Renaissance, Nero remains a major figure of popular fascination and historical interest, transitioning from an eschatological emblem of the apocalypse and the archetypal persecutor of Christians to a negative political and moral exemplum as the worst of tyrants for his vicious and cruel nature.89 Ambrogio Lorenzetti included an image of Nero in his frescoes for the Sala dei Novi of the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, painted c. 1338–1339. Nero appears in a medallion in the border directly below the central tyrant figure in the Allegory of Bad Government,90 Lorenzetti represents a version of Nero’s suicide where he impales himself on his sword. Nero’s alignment with the monstrous tyrant figure at the centre of the fresco highlights the emperor’s role as the ancient archetype of the evil ruler, as well as lingering associations with the anti-Christ. Petrarch also grapples with the memory and reputation of Nero. In his letter to Seneca of 1348, Petrarch criticises the philosopher for his hypocrisy in creating e diametrically opposed portraits of Nero from the de Clementia and the Octavia whose authorship Petrarch ascribed to Seneca. In the former Renaissance humanists saw a persuasive model for the wise and benevolent monarch, in the latter, the apotheosis of bloodthirsty and amoral tyranny.91 In the fifteenth century, there is a significant shift in how Nero’s memory is artistically evoked and revived. His representations transform from the imaginative and fantastic to one that is largely based on antiquarian study of his ancient imagery. Antonio Filarete is the first Renaissance artist to create a Nero whose likeness is based on meticulous research of the emperor’s coins and thus resurrects the ancient iconography fashioned during Nero’s lifetime. Filarete received the most important sculptural commission in early fourteenth century Rome to replace the central doors of St. Peter’s Basilica between 1433 and 1445. Nero plays a prominent role in the two lower panels representing the martyrdoms Saints Peter and Paul (Figures 7.7 and 7.8). Filarete depicts Nero with versions of his fourth portrait type derived from surviving Neronian coins. Filarete’s inclusion of Nero in the martyrdom scenes marks a significant departure from the emperor’s more usual appearance with the two saints in medieval representations of the Simon Magus episode. The elaborate architecture of the aediculae, armor, throne, curule chair, and attendants all underscore Nero’s imperial magnificence and he plays an outsized role in the overall compositions in both scenes.92 Eugenius IV seems to have commissioned the doors as a result of

Monster or martyr?

129

Figure 7.7 Nero, Martyrdom of St. Paul, Antonio Filarete, c. 1440–1445, Rome, S. Pietro Source: Photo, author

Figure 7.8 Nero, Martyrdom of St. Peter, Antonio Filarete, c. 1440–1445, Rome Source: Photo, author

130

Eric Varner

the coronation of Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1433.93 The central doors of the basilica played an important role in the imperial coronation ceremonies and the conscious decision to give Nero such a commanding visual role presents him as a compelling double-edged paradigm, both wicked and magnificent, for the Holy Roman emperors.94 Nero ably signifies the imperial magnificence and munificence that rulers can aspire to and at the same time provides a potent admonition of wickedness and depravity to be avoided. Filarete also created a series of medallions of Roman emperors in the 1430s while he was at work on the doors.95 The medallions include portraits of Julius Caesar, Trajan, Faustina, and Nero. The Nero medallion has very close stylistic and iconographic correspondences to the emperor’s depiction on the bronze doors, suggesting that the portrait was crafted around the same time as the two martyrdom panels, c. 1440–1445.96 On the obverse of the medal, Nero is also wearing the same scale armor and paludamentum featured on the doors. Again, Filarete has presented Nero with an accurate version of the emperor’s final portrait type. The accompanying legend reads: NERO CLAVD IMP CAES AVG COS VII PP. On the reverse, Nero is shown wearing armor and seated on a curule chair as in the St. Peter panel on the doors in a scene that seems to depict the suicide of Seneca, perhaps influenced in part by its recounting in the Legenda Aurea.97 Two fifteenth-century marble plaques now in the collections of the Capitoline Museums are very close to Filarete’s Nero and Faustina medals.98 The female plaque has a nearly identical coiffure and profile to Filarete’s Faustina obverse while the Nero plaque, also features a carefully rendered version of the emperor’s fourth portrait type based on Nero’s coins. The creation of these plaques was clearly inspired by ancient coins, contorniates, and Filarete’s portrait medals. Ultimately their pendant status led to the Faustina portrait led to the Faustina being interpreted as a representation of Poppaea.99 The memory of Nero was also a crucial aspect of one of the most renowned and admired ancient gems in Renaissance Italy. The ‘Sigillo di Nerone’ (signet or seal of Nero) is a deep red carnelian intaglio depicting the punishment of Marsyas with Apollo and Olympus.100 In 1428 Lorenzo Ghiberti was commissioned to craft a gold mount for the gem that was inscribed with Nero’s name and titles, NERO CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVGVSTUS GERMANICVS P MAX TR P IMP PP, derived from careful study of Nero’s coin inscriptions.101 Nero’s well known associations with Apollo likely engendered the humanist interpretation of the gem as Nero’s own personal seal. The gruesome and bloody nature of myth, highlighted by the intense red color of the stone, as well as the implacable cruelty of Apollo in demanding the punishment may also have encouraged the gems’ close association with Nero. The intaglio inspired important Renaissance artists like Botticelli and Michelangelo and was reproduced and circulated in the fifteenth century as threedimensional bronze plaques made from impressions of the intaglio itself and often with all or part of the inscription with Nero’s name and titles.102 Nero’s reputation is also spectacularly rehabilitated by Gerolamo Cardano who produced a thoroughly unapologetic historical re-assessment of Nero with his Neronis Encomium published in 1562. Cardano, a renowned polymath, was a

Monster or martyr?

131

doctor, mathematician, astrologer, philosopher, and inventor. His Neronis Encomium carefully dismantles the negative historical assessments of Nero presented by Tacitus and Suetonius and instead argues that far from being the worst of the Julio-Claudian emperors, Nero was the best, and a worthy model for contemporary Italian rulers. Cardano is able to read through and beyond Tacitus and Suetonius and reposition Nero as an enlightened and euergetistic emperor modelled on Hellenistic monarchs in direct opposition to the corrupt Senatorial elite; in fact, Nero manifests all the virtues of Hellenistic kings: homonoia (concord), philanthropia (benevolence), megalopsychia (magnanimity), eusebia (piety), phronesis (prudence), enkrateia (self-control), and dikaiosyne (justice).103 Nero is also the guarantor of the pax universalis.104 Remarkably, Cardano’s re-imagining of Nero through direct rebuttal of the ancient authors reveals a newly restored portrait of the emperor that is far closer to his own self-presentation during his lifetime. Cardano presents Nero as the true optimus princeps (best ruler) in direct opposition to normally admired emperors like Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. Cardano also subverts the prevailing narrative of Nero as Antichrist by transforming him into a righteous scourge of God, a flagellum dei.105 The author’s re-assessment of Nero’s historical position is clearly influenced by Machiavelli. Cardano reverses his own more traditional negative evaluation of Nero’s personality and politics as formulated in his horoscopes of Nero, first published in 1538, that revealed the emperor’s cruelty, perversity, lust, and his ignominious death.106 Cardano completely upends Nero’s long established historiographical trajectory and fashions a new Nero who is the direct antithesis of the bloodthirsty memory figure avid for the slaughter of the Roman people established by the Octavia and further embellished and elaborated for centuries in subsequent historical, literary, and religious texts. The ongoing fascination with Nero’s memory in the early modern period led to the widespread production of high-quality sculpted images. Following Filarete, these newly carved portraits of Nero would more or less accurately reflect his ancient iconography. The destruction and alteration of Nero’s images in antiquity because of the sanctions enacted against his memory produced a real dearth of authentic ancient images available for early modern collectors. As a result, Renaissance and Baroque artists created new images drawing inspiration from Nero’s ancient coin portraits. Pirro Ligorio avidly studied Nero’s numismatic legacy and included over 100 coin images, encompassing countermarked coins, contorniates, and provincial issues in his illustrated manuscript on the ancient coins of Julius Caesar through Commodus.107 All of the most important noble collections in Rome contained at least one representation of Nero. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Ciriaco Mattei, amassed an impressive collection of ancient sculpture for display in his palazzo and villa on the Caelian and it included an widely admired bronze head of Nero that is clearly derived from Nero’s type 4 numismatic representations.108 The elongated shape of the face and flattened modeling of the coiffure, beard and physiognomy of the bronze betray the influence of the ancient coin profiles. This portrait, now in the Vatican, was long thought to be ancient, but an analysis of the metal content of the bronze

132

Eric Varner

has revealed that it is actually early modern. The Mattei portrait inspired a number of imitations including an early seventeenth-century porphyry and alabaster bust in the Villa Borghese (Figure 7.9).109 The work was created for Pope Paul V Borghese (1605–1621) as part of a cycle of 12 caesars for the Palazzo Borghese in the Campus Martius. The Medici also acquired a number of representations of Nero including a bust in the Uffizi, notable for its sculptural quality. The portrait reflects Nero’s third portrait type and raises interesting art historical and archaeological problems.110 Initially in the Ludovisi collection in Rome, the likeness was sold to Ferdinando II Medici in 1669 together with twelve other including a Tiberius, a ‘Caligula’, a Claudius, a Domitian, a ‘Galba’, an Otho, a Nerva, and a celebrated ‘Cicero’.111 The bust has ‘NERO’ inscribed on its plinth and it exhibits a fairly accurate understanding of the coiffure of Nero’s third portrait type. The only known ancient replica of Nero’s third type was not discovered until 1860 on the Palatine in Rome, and the Uffizi head differs significantly from the Palatine head in several iconographic details of the coiffure.112 The exuberant style of the Uffizi head and its insistent modeling is more consonant with a date in the seventeenth century rather than the first century CE. The Uffizi portrait, and several other related early modern representations in Rome, Modena, and Munich may be based on a type 3

Figure 7.9 Nero, late sixteenth century, Giovanni Battista della Porta, Rome, Villa Borghese, inv. 149

Monster or martyr?

133

portrait of Nero known in the Renaissance but now lost as well as reflecting close study of Nero’s coins.113 A late sixteenth-century version of Nero’s type 3 in the Villa Borghese in Rome was sculpted by Giovanni Battista della Porta as part of a series of imperial portraits with white marble heads and colored bust forms eventually purchased by Cardinal Scipione Borghese shortly after the completion of the Villa. The Medici owned another portrait which was identified and inscribed as ‘NERO’ consisting of an ancient Julio-Claudian white marble head of a young boy inserted into an elaborate polychrome draped bust form with alabaster cloak, onyx tunic, black pietra di paragone belt, and bardiglio support.114 The bust was clearly valued as a likeness of the very young Nero and displayed from the late sixteenth century with the most highly prized works of the Medici collections in the Tribuna of the Uffizi.115 A well-known likeness of Nero from the Giustiniani Collection (and later the Albani Collection) in Rome and now in the Museo Capitolino is actually a clever pastiche created from an ancient fragment that originally came from a type 3 or 4 portrait of Nero recarved into Domitian’s first type (Figure 7.10).116 The ancient segment is quite small at only 18 centimetres in height and includes part of the upper lip, nose left right cheek eyes, forehead, and a section of hair over the forehead. The rest of the portrait is entirely the work of the early seventeenth-century

Figure 7.10 Nero (Nero/Domitian), original c. 59–81, restored early seventeenth century, Rome, Museo Capitolino, inv. 427 Source: Photo, author

134

Eric Varner

sculptor who restored it. The remaining aspects of Nero’s elaborate later coiffures present in the recut fragment caused it to be identified as a rare ancient portrait of the emperor that was intentionally salvaged and reconstructed as a type 3 likeness, again inspired by a close study of the emperor’s coins or other well-known images like the Mattei bronze or the Ludovisi/Medici bust. The restored bust is a lively and compelling character study of Nero enhanced by the dynamic turn of the head on the neck, and the ancient and modern sections so successfully that it came to be considered an authentic and authoritative ancient image of the emperor, entirely crafted in antiquity. A basalt portrait carved in the seventeenth century and now in the Uffizi is also derived from Nero’s coin portraits and its insistently florid style reflects contemporary developments in early baroque sculpture (Figure 7.11).117 The portrait is based on Nero’s final portrait type and the relief like handling of the radiate crown, which lies flat along the coiffure has been inspired by the emperor’s radiate likenesses on coins. The handling of the elaborate coiffure and full physiognomy with the prominent protruding lower lip, not a feature of Nero’s ancient portraits, highlight the emperor’s reputation as a voluptuary and also occur in closely related heads in the Louvre and the British Museum.118 The artist who crafted the British Museum Nero late in the eighteenth or early in the nineteenth centuries actually recarved the image from an ancient portrait of Hadrian, which

Figure 7.11 Nero, seventeenth century, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 123 Source: Photo, author

Monster or martyr?

135

underscores the powerful allure that the memory of Nero continued to exert and that his representations continued to be highly desirable commodities on the art market. In the Enlightenment, Nero mostly maintains his position as a useful memory figure of monstrous scope and archetypal tyrant. In his essay on the reigns of Claudius and Nero (Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron e sur les moueurs et les écrits de Sénèque pour sevir d’insctruction à la lecture de ce pilosophe) of 1782, Diderot presents a particularly dark and sinister portrait of the emperor intended to evoke contemporary autocrats and despots, including his former patron, Catherine the Great.119 Like the Octavia, Diderot also stresses Nero’s ferocious and savage nature. Voltaire, on the other hand, is closer to Cardano and is far more skeptical of the extraordinary and extravagant accounts of the emperor’s monstrosity in authors like Suetonius and Tacitus.120 Nevertheless, it is the monstrous Nero that carries over into the nineteenth century where Nero continues to be configured as the depraved and villainous emperor responsible for burning Rome and persecuting Christians in works of historical fiction like Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis. A Narrative of the Time of Nero (1896) or the historical dramas, Nero, an Historical Play by the American expatriate sculptor in Rome, William Wetmore Story (1875) and The Sign of the Cross (1895) by the English playwright Wilson Barrett. While the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have witnessed scholarly reassessment of Nero and his legacy, it is arguably the entrenched memory figure of the monster that still largely dominates the popular imagination. During his 14-year principate, Nero established a dazzling imperial persona through bold artistic statements, performative politics, and urban embellishments. Nero himself is directly responsible for his outsize presence in the memory landscape of Rome. His rich, multifaceted character proved enormously useful as an endlessly adaptable memory figure. His myriad appearances in art and literature beginning in his own lifetime confirm the continued cultural and artistic relevance and resonance of the emperor’s memory in Rome. Despite Nero’s ‘damnatio memoriae’ in antiquity, his reputation continued to be contested, manipulated, and realigned in the succeeding millennia. Nero’s memory has, in fact, never ceased to be made, unmade, and remade since his death and condemnation.

Notes 1 Varner 2005: 71, fig. 7.2. 2 Xanten, Grave 10, Viktorstrasse 21, no. 10.4; 21 x 24 x 6.8 mm.; Bridger & Kraus 2000: 45–55, figs. 11; Platz-Horster 2001: 53–68; Trillmich 2007, 55–56, fig. 11; Zwierlein-Diehl 2007: 324, fig. 980a-b; Bätz 2016: 393–394, fig. 3. 3 Megow 1987: 260–261, no. B28, pl. 34.14–6. 4 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Médalilles, 72 x 52 mm; Vollenweider & Avisseau Broustet 2003: 124–125, no. 139. 5 Naples, Museo Archelogico Nazionale, without inventory number, h.; Gasparri 2010: 195–196, no. 81. 6 Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.126, h. 0.35; Mansuelli 1961: 73, no. 70, fig. 71a-b.

136

Eric Varner

7 Galleria Borghese, Sala del Ermafrodito 171, inv. 748, h. 0.66; Moreno & Viacava 2003: 212–213, no. 193; Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.126; h. 0.30; Mansuelli 1961: 73–74, no. 71, fig. 70. 8 Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 14546; Megow 1993. 9 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 6061, h. 0.43; Gasparri, ed. 2009: 81–82, no. 55, pl. 54.1–4 (F. Coraggio). 10 Ando 2000: 34–35; Gunderson 2017: 339. 11 Klauck 2003: 685–686; De Jong & Hekster 2008: 85; Maier 2013: 386. 12 For Nero’s enthusiastic reception by the urban plebs, Tac. Ann. 14.4, 15.33, 15.36; Dio 63.20.21; Carré 1999: 178; Roche 2008:112–113; Overmeire 2012: 480. 13 Roche 2008. 14 Suet. Vit. 11.2 (medio Martio campo adhibita publicorum sacerdotum frequentia inferias Neroni dedit ac sollemni convivio citharoedum placentem palam admonuit, ut aliquid et de dominico diceret, incohantique Neroniana cantica primus exsultans etiam plausit; In the middle of the Campus Martius, with an assembled multitude of public priests, he gave offerings to the manes on behalf of Nero and during the solemn banquet, he advised a citharoedus who was unambiguously pleasing the publc, that he should recite something from the Liber Dominicus (Master’s Book/Roman Emperor’s Book), and when the Neronian songs were begun. jumping up he was the first to applaud; Dio 64.7.3 also records Vitellius’ sacrifices to Nero’s manes. 15 Dahmen 1998. 16 P. Oxy. 57.51.5; Schubert 2011; Gillespie 2014. 17 Ghini 1999; Albers 2013: 141–143; Beste & von Hesberg 2013: 319; Jacobs & Conlin 2014: 129. 18 Ball 2003: 238–258. 19 For the intended appearance of the Colossus under Nero, see Bergmann 1998: 189– 201; Smith 2000. 20 Amythest intaglio, Berlin, Staatliche Museen Antikensammlung, FG2665, d. 1.1 cm.; Bergmann 1994, 1998: 190, fig. 3; von Hesberg 2016: 186, fig. 6. Coins of Severus Alexander, BMCRE 6, 128, nos. 156–158, pl. 6; coins of Gordian III, F. Gnecchi 1912: 2: 89, nos. 22–23, pl. 104.5–6. The intaglio itself is a mirror image of its stamped equivalent which has the correct left/right orientation matching the coins. 21 Cima 1998: 427; Ensoli 2000: 82. 22 Marlowe 2006. 23 Rodriguez Almeida 1993; Cline 2009; Closs 2016. 24 Closs 2016: 111–112. 25 Cline 2009: 17; Closs 2016: 103, 110; the same adjectival form is also used to denominate Nero’s baths in later sources like Martial (thermae neronianae). 26 None of the inscriptions are extant and they are only known through early modern sources. The transcription of the Aventine version from 1618 seems to be based largely on Mazzocchi’s publication which has led to speculation that it is, in fact, an invention of its seventeenth-century author(s). The close connections, however, in the description of the Aventine altar and precinct to those on the Quirinal, not fully excavated until 1888 suggests that there was an inscription or fragments of one from the Aventine whose close connections to Mazzocchi’s version were recognised and used as a source for reconstructing the Aventine example. The Quirinal inscription was not transcribed until around 1642; see Hülsen 1894. 27 The survival of Domitian’s name and titles at the Quirinal altar may have been occasioned by its close proximity to the Templum Gentis Flaviae on the Alta Semita and the possible presence of Domitian’s partisans in the area; Closs 2016: 113, n. 38. 28 Stattliche Museen, inv. 1983.11, 3.1 x 3.5 cm.; Megow 1987: 112, 224–226, no. A17, pl. 41.5. 29 Bibliothèque Natioale, Cabinet des Médailles 238; 5.9 x 3.8 cm.; Vollenweider & Avisseau- Broustet 2003: 140–141, no. 165.

Monster or martyr?

137

30 Columbia, Missouri, University of Missouri, Museum of Art and Archeology, acc. No. 62.46; h. 0.42 m.; Varner 2004: 64, fig. 77a-d. 31 Tunis, Musée du Bardo, inv. C77; L’Orange 1984: 127, pl. 39 c-d; Prusac 2016: 147, no. 304, pl. 53a-b. 32 Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Médailles (Babelon 313); Vollenweider & Avisseau-Broustet 2003, no. 262, pl. 136; Megow 2011: 205–206, cat. 1.B 2 (fig. 27). 33 Megow 2011: 212–213, no 8, fig. 35. 34 Jakob-Sonnabend 1990: 159–167; Zecchini 1993: 117. 35 Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 36–79, nos. 128–233 (Nero), 82–134, nos. 244–392 (Trajan); Zecchini 1993: 117. 36 Champlin 2003: 31. 37 Alföldi & Alföldi 1990: 75–80 (C. Clay); Alföldi-Rosenbaum 1997: 83. 38 Circus: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 50, no. 170; chariots and the circus: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 49, no. 163: 69–70, no. 209; profile charioteers: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 39–41, nos. 139, 141, 142, 43–44, nos. 150, 154, 48, no. 162, 57–8, no. 181, 57–60, nos. 186, 188, 189, 192, 67–8, no. 207, 70, no. 210b, 72, no. 217; frontal charioteers: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 49, no. 164, 60, no. 194, 72–3, no. 218, 78, no. 232; standing charioteer with horse: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 58, no. 191. 39 Alföldi & Alföldi 1976, nos. 219–220; Cadario 2011: 189. 40 Venatio: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 50, no. 167; amphitheater scenes: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 74–75, nos. 222–223; organ with single player Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 67, nos. 204–205; organ with two players: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 65–66, nos. 203; horse with attendant Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 58 no. 190; named race horse (ΔΙΑΠΡΕΠΩN): Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 57, no. 187; horse alone: Alföldi & Alföldi 1976: 77, no. 226. 41 Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Médailles, 3.2 x 3.2 cm.; Vollenweider & Avisseau-Broustet 2003: 188, no. 133. 42 Champlin 2003) 32: Letter written for Theodoric by sentaor Cassiodorus about the napkin/mappa incident. Late interest in Nero and Circus/games (Variae 3.51.9) 43 Gowing 1997; Grau 2017. 44 Schulz 2019: 249–257. 45 Octavia 87 (fera quam saevi corda tyranni), 227 (nefandi principis dirum caput), 235 (diro spiritu saevi ducis); 238 (non tam ferum), 609–610 (ferus . . . tyrannus), 654–655 (saevi . . . coniugis), 661 (scelurum diri . . . viri), 689 (feri principis), 672 (diri . . . Neronis); 957 (saevi nati); 959 (ferus . . . tyrannus); see Ripoll 1999: 150: n. 74. 46 2017: 12, 21, 116, and 183. 47 On the date and scope of the lost drama, Kragelund 1987 and 2016: 120–126. 48 J. Assmann 1992: 37–42, 48–66, 75–78; A. Assmann 1995, 1999. 49 Grau 2017: 261–264. 50 Ripoll 1999. 51 Silvae 2.7.58 (ingratus Nero); 2.7.61 (domini nocentis); 2.7.116–9: (pallidumque visa matris lampade respicis Neronem). Elsewhere in Statius’ Silvae Nero is savage (ferus) and his building projects are compared unfavourably with those of Domitian; 5.2.33 (fero . . . Neroni); 5.3.8 (Nero inducit sordidas paludes). 52 Lib.Spect. 2.3, 2.8; 7.34.4–5; 7.21.3 (Nero crudelis, in Martial’s commemoration to Polla of Lucan’s birthday); Lib.Spect. 34 (30, 28) 11 (diri . . . stagna Neronis); 4.63.3 (haec monstra Neroni) see also Ripoll 1999: 147. 53 Sat. 8. 211–229. 54 HN 17.1.5 (ad Neronis principis incendia [quibus cremavit urbem annis postea] (until the fire of the emperor Nero that burned the city some years afterward); Tac. Ann. 15.44; M. Sordi 1999: 105–106. 55 Bauckham 1993: 384–407; Harrill 2017: 286. 56 Lefebvre 2017: 251–252. 57 Carmen apol. 823–832, 933, 935 (Antichrist); Instruct. 1.41 (rex iniquus, tyrannus, pseudopropheta) Pascal 1923: 283–284.

138 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Eric Varner

Rougé 1978; Zecchini 1993; Lefebvre 2017: 45–59. Zecchini 1993: 9–11. Cizek 1999: 21–34. Lefebvre 2017: 54–55. Eutrop. 2.58–63 (crimina . . . scaena Neronis); IV Cons. Hon. 311–315 (dira Neronis funera). Eutrop. Brev. 7.14–15. Perist. 2. 472; 12.11–12, 23–24 (martyrdoms of Peter and Paul); c. Symm. 669–670 (Nero matre perempta sanguinem apostolicum bibit). Rougé 1978 Lefebvre 2017: 57–58, 252–254. Marcus 28.19: Commodus being like Caligula, Nero, and Domitian; Lucius 4.6: Lucius’ vices like those of Caligula, Nero, and Vitellius; 10.9: Lucius’ extravagances making him a second Nero; Comm.: Commodus more impure than Nero, more savage than Domitian; Clod. Alb. 13.5: Vitellius, Nero and Domitian as previous ‘bad’ emperors; Elag. 1.1: Caligula, Nero, and Vitellius as evil precursors for Elagabalus; 33.1; Elagabalus surpassing the perversions of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero; 34.1: deaths of tyrants Nero, Vitellius and Caligula; Sev. Alex. 9.4: Elagabalus outdoing Nero, Vitellius and Commodus in turpitudo and luxuria; Aur. 42.6: long list of bad emperors including Vitellius, Caligula, Nero Maximinus and Phillipus; Tac.6.4: bad emperors Nero, Elagabalus and Commodus; Carus, Carinus, Num. 1.4: fearing a new Domitian, Vitellius or Nero; Lefebvre 2017: 50–51. Jakob-Sonnabend 1990: 114–120. 2 Thess. 7–8; Mitchell 2003: 61. 2.14; Chevallier 1999: 344. Civ, 5.19 (luxuria, crudeltas), 18. 339 (persecutor of Christians20.19.3 (mysterium iniquitatis, Antichrist). Pascal 1923: 278. Pascal 1923: 221–233; see also Sulpicius Severus, Chron 2.28. Suet. Nero 12.2; Pascal 1923: 221–222; Townend: 1980, 170; see also Coleman 1990: 68–69. John Malalas, Jeffreys et al. edition 1986: 133; Zecchini 1999: 218–220. Chron. 10.29 (μακρός, λεπτός, εὔμορφος, εὔρινος, ἀνθηροπρόσωπος, μεγαλόφθαλμος; procerus, gracilis, decorus, naso alegttani, vultu forido, oculis grandioribus. Zecchini 1999: 220–223. Lex. Suda III: 455–456 (Νέρων); Zecchini 1999. Pressouyre 1971. Demus 1950: 46, 294; Jakob-Sonnabend 1990: 183–184. Chevallier 1999: 345. Crawford 1899: 257–258. Pascal 1923: 261–262. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946; Chevallier 1999: 348–349. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 43 no. 19, 82 no.17, 82 no.18, 190 no. 13. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 45–46 no. 20, 86 no. 26, 117 no. 4; Richardson, jr. 1992: 379. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 121 no. 32. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 117 no. 2. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 49 no. 22, 88 no. 30. Valentini & Zucchetti 1946: 81 no. 17, 91 no. 35. Gwyn 1991. Stacey 2017: 298. Stacey 2017. Glass 2013: 363. Glass 2013. Glass 2013: 365, 368. Spencer 1979; Glass 2015. Glass 2015: 29.

Monster or martyr?

139

97 Cunnally 1986: 314. 98 Nero: inv. 398; Fittschen & Zanker 2014: 83, no. 76, pl. 105; Faustina: inv. 396; Fittschen & Zanker 2014: 94, no. 94, pl. 105. 99 H. Stuart Jones in his catalogue of sculptures in the Palazzo dei Conservatori considered it a copy of the ‘Poppaea’ Albani in the Palazzo dei Conservatori. 1912: 146, no. 17a, pl. 37. 100 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 26051. 101 Caglioti & Gasparotto 1997: 2–3, 11–12; Bullard & Rubenstein 1999: 283. 102 Dunkelman 2010: 368–369. Caglioti & Gasparotto 1997: 16–18. 103 Di Branco 2007: 37–40. 104 Cardano 1562: 27. 105 Di Branco, ed. 2008: 17–19. 106 Grafton 1999: 84–5. 107 Petrillo, ed., 2013: 161–173, nos. 1053–1168. 108 Musei Vaticani, Biblioteca, Museo Profano, h. 0.37 m.; Lahusen & Formigli 2001: 154, no. 91. 109 Villa Borghese, inv. 149, h. 0.74 m; Faldi 1954: 16–17, no. 11; Del Bufalo 2012: 116, no. H79. A second portrait from the Villa Borghese, and now in the Louvre also closely reflects the Mattei portriat, MA 1222, de Kersauson 1986: 239, no. 120. 110 Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914. 112, h. 0.68 m.; Mansuelli 1961: 137–138, no. 178, fig. 178; Croisille 1999: 401, fig. 31; Romualdi, ed., 2006: 86–93 (A. Romauldi, M. Masini, and P. Rosa). 111 A. Giulano, ed. Mus Naz. Rom. 1.6. 1986: 8–105 (B. Palma and L. de Lachenal); Tiberius: Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.102, Mansuelli 1961: 57, no. 43, fig. 43; ‘Caligula:’ Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.113, Mansuelli 1961: 64–65, no. 55, fig. 55; Claudius, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.97, Mansuelli 961, 65–66. no. 57, fig. 57; Domitian, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.130, Mansuelli 1961: 75, no. 74, fig. 75; ‘Galba:’ Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.105, Mansuelli 196, 71, no. 67, fig. 67; Otho: Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.111, Mansuelli 1961: 138, no. 179, fig. 179; Titus: Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.126, Mansuelli 1961: 73–74, no. 71, fig. 71; Domitian,: Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914. 130, Mansuelli 1961: 75, no. 74, fig. 75; Nerva: Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.132; Mansuelli 1961: 77, no. 79, fig. 75; ‘Cicero:’ Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.393, G.A. Mansuelli 1961: 46–48, no. 34, fig. 34. 112 Museo Palatino, inv. 618, h. o.31; Gasparri & Tomei, eds 2014: 237, no. 55 (L. Di Franco). 113 Rome: Museo Torlonia 310; Rome, Villa Albani, inv. 425, Modena, Galleria Estense; Munich, Residenz, inv. 243; for these portraits, see Fittschen and Zanker 204: 82, n. 6, c-g; see also a related portrait in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome. 114 Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.121, h.; Mansuelli 1961: 67, no. 60, fig. 67; Bocci Paccini & Cassinelli Lazzeri 1988: 28, 33. 115 Conticelli 2016: 71, 74, fig. 17. 116 Museo Capitolino, Stanza degli Imperatori, inv. 427, h. 0.18 (ancient fragment); Fittschen & Zanker 1985: 35, no. 31, pls. 32–3; Croisille 1999: 40e, fig. 20; Tomei & Rea, eds. 2011: 232, no. 4. 117 Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 1914.123, h. 0.37 m.; Mansuelli 1961: 68–69 no. 62, fig. 61a-b. 118 Paris, Louvre, MA 1225, de Kersauson 1986: 240, no. 121; London, British Museum, 1805,7–3.246, Köhne et al., eds. 2000: 22, no. 7. 119 Russo 2017: 308–313. 120 Russo 2017: 306–307.

Bibliography Albers, J. 2013. Campus Martius. Die urbane Entwicklung des Marsfeldes von der Republik bis zur mittleren Kaiserzeit (Studien zur antiken Stadt 11). Wiesbaden.

140

Eric Varner

Alföldi, A. and E. Alföldi. 1976. Die Kontorniat- Medallion. Katalog. Antiken Münzen und Geschnittene Steine 6.1. Berlin. Alföldi, A. and E. Alföldi. 1990. Die Kontorniat- Medallion. Text. Antiken Münzen und Geschnittene Steine 6.2. Berlin. Alföldi-Rosenbaum, E. 1997. ‘Imperial Portraits on the Contorniates. Remarks on their Models and the Motives for their Selection.’ In Roman Portraits, Artistic and Literary. Acts of the Third International Conference on the Roman Portraits held in Prague and in the Bechyně Castle from 25 to 29 September 1989, eds. J. Bouzekand and I. Ondfřejová, 83–87. Mainz. Ando, C. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Berkeley. Assmann, A. 1995. ‘Was sind Kulturelle Texte?’ In Literaturkanon. Medienereignis, Kultureller Text: Formen interkultureller Kommunikation und Übersetzung, ed. A. Poltermann, 232–244. Berlin. Assmann, A. 1999. Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. Munich. Assmann, J. 1991. Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich. Ball, L. 2003. The Domus Aurea and the Roman Architectural Revolution. Cambridge. Bätz, A. 2016. ‘Nero – eine Bilanz.’ In Nero. Kaiser, Kunstler, und Tyrann, ed. J. Merten, 390–399. Stuttgart. Bauckham, R. 1993. The Climax of Prophecy. Studies on the Book of Revelation. Edinburgh. Bergmann, M. 1994. Der Koloss Neros: Die Domus Aurea und der Mentalitätswandel im Rom der frühen Kaiserzeit (Trierer Winckelmannsprogram 13). Mainz. Bergmann, M. 1998. Die Strahlen der Herrscher. Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik in Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Mainz. Beste, H.J. and H. von Hesberg. 2013. ‘Buildings of an Emperor – How Nero Transformed Rome.’ In A Companion to the Neronian Age, eds. E. Buckley and M.T. Dinter, 314–331. Cichester, Malden and Oxford. Bocci Paccini, P. and P. Cassinelli Lazzeri. 1988. ‘La serie degli imperatori romani nella Galleria degli Uffizi e gli esordi di Carlo Lasinio.’ Bolletino D’Arte 83: 28–33. Bridger, C. and Kraus, K. 2000. ‘Römische Gräber in Xanten, Viktorstrasse 21.’ BJb 200: 25–81. Bullard, M.M. and Rubenstein, N. 1999. ‘Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Acquisition of the Sigillo di Nerone.’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 62: 283–286. Bussels, S. 2012. The Animated Image: Roman Theory on Naturalness, Vividness and Divine Power. Leiden. Cadario, M. 2011. ‘Nerone e il ‘potere delle immagini.’ In Nerone, eds. M.A. Tomei and R. Rea, 176–189. Milan. Caglioti, F. and D. Gasparotto. 1997. ‘Lorenzo Ghiberti, il ‘Sigillo di Nerone’e le origini della plachetta « antiquaria ».’ Prospettiva 85: 2–38. Cardano, G. 1562. Neronis Encomium. Basel. Carré, R. 1999. ‘Othon et Vitellius, deux nouveaux Néron?’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du V e Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et SaintÉtienne,2–6 novembre 1994) (Coll. Latomus 247), eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 152–191. Brussels. Champlin, E. 2003. Nero. Cambridge, MA. Chevallier, R. 1999. ‘La survie de Néron dans la toponymie et la légende en Italie et en France.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du V e Colloque international de

Monster or martyr?

141

la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994) Coll. Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 339–358. Brussels. Cima, M. 1998. ‘Gli Horti Liciniani: una residenza imperiale nella tarda antichità.’ In Horti Romani: Atti del convegno internazionale. Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica Communale di Roma, Supplementi 6, eds. M. Cima and E. La Rocca, 427–452. Rome. Cizek, E. 1999. ‘Néron chez certains auteurs d’abrégés du IVe siècle ap. J.-C. (Aurélius Victor et Festus).’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994). Collection Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 397–406. Brussels. Cline, L.K. 2009. ‘Rising from the Ashes: Domitian’s Arae Incendii Neroniani in New Flavian Rome.’ Athanor 27: 15–24. Closs, V. 2016. ‘Neronianis Temporibus: The So-Called Arae Incendii Neroniani and the Fire of A.D. 64 in Rome’s Monumental Landscape.’ Journal of Roman Studies 106: 102–123. Coleman, K.M., 1990. ‘Fatal Charades. Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments.’ Journal of Roman Studies 80: 44–73. Conticelli, V. 2016. ‘‘Per dare principio a rassettar mille cosette piccole che me trovo.’ La decorazione della Tribuna degli Uffizi e le piccole sculture preziose.’ In Spendida Minima. Piccole sculture preziose nelle collezioni medicee dalla Tribuna di Francesco I al tesoro granducale, eds. V. Conticelli, R. Gennaioli, and F. Paolucci, 55–91. Livorno. Crawford, F.M. 1899. Ave Roma Immortalis. New York. Croisille, J.M. 1999. ‘Néron dans la statuaire: le problème des identifications e des faux.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne,2–6 novembre 1994). Collection Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 397–406. Brussels. Cunnally, J. 1986. ‘Nero, Seneca, and the Medallist of the Roman Emperors.’ Art Bulletin 68: 314–317. Dahmen, K. 1998. ‘Ein Loblied auf schönen Kaiser: Zur möglichen Deutung der mit NeroMünzen verzierten römischen Dosenspiegel.’ Archäoligsiches Anzeiger: 319–345. De Jong, J. and O. Hekster. 2008. ‘Damnation, Deification, Commemoration.’ In Un discours en images. De la condemnation de mémoire, eds. S. Benoist and A. Daguet-Gagey, 79–96. Metz. De Kersauson, K. 1986. Musée du Louvre. Tome 1. Portraits de la République et d’époque Julio-Claudienne. Paris. Del Bufalo, D. 2012. Porphyry. Red Imperial Porphyry. Power and Religion. Turin. Demus, O. 1950. The Mosaics of Norman Sicily. London. Di Branco, M. 2002. ‘‘Eroizzazione’ di un imperatore: alle radici del mito di Neronea.’ In Neronia VI. Atti del Convegno Internazionale della SIEN, Roma, 25–28 Maggio, 479– 492. Brussels. Di Branco, M. 2007. ‘Nerone e la metamorfosi del tiranno: la costruzione di una nuova figura ideological nel pensiero politico del Rinascimento.’ In Neronia VII. Rome, L’Italie et la Grèce. Hellénisme et philhellénisme au premier siècle après J.-C. Actes du VII e Colloque international de la SIEN (Athènes, 21–23 octobre 2004). Collection Latomus 305, ed. Y. Perrin, 25–50. Brussels. Di Branco, M. (ed). 2008. Georlamo Cardano. Elogio di Nerone. Rome. Dunkelman, M. 2010. ‘From Microcosm to Macrocosm: Michelangelo and Ancient Gems.’ Antike Kunst 73: 363–376. Eberl, N. 1999. ‘Cardan’s Encomium Neronis.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne, 2–6

142

Eric Varner

novembre 1994). Coll. Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 227– 238. Brussels. Ensoli, S. 2000. ‘I colossi di bronzo a Roma in età tetrarchica.’ In Aurea Roma. Dalla città pagana all città cristiana, eds. S. Ensoli and E. La Rocca, 66–90. Rome. Faldi, I. 1954. Galleria Borghese. Le sculutre dal secolo XVI al XIX. Rome. Fittschen, K. and P. Zanker. 1985. Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom 1. Kaiser- und Prinzenbildnisse, Frauenporträts. Mainz. Fittschen, K. and P. Zanker. 2014. Katalog der römischen Porträts in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom 4. Kinderbildnisse; Nachträge zu den Bänden 1–3; neuzeitliche oder neuzeitlich verfälschte Bildnisse; Bildnisse auf Reliefdenkmäler. Berlin and New York. Flower, H.I. 2006. The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome). Chapel Hill. Gasparri, C. (ed). 2009. Le sculture Farnese II. I ritratti. Verona. Gasparri, C. (ed). 2010. Le sculture Farnese III. Le sculture delle Terme di Caracalla Rilievi e varia. Verona. Gasparri, C. and R. Paris (eds). 2013. Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. Le collezioni. Milan. Gasparri, C. and M.A. Tomei (eds). 2014. Museo Palatino. Le collezioni. Milan. Ghini, G. 1999. ‘Thermae Neronianae/Alexandrinae.’ In Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 5, ed. E.M. Steinby, 60–62. Rome. Gillespie, C.C. 2014. ‘Poppaea Venus and the Ptolemaic Queens: An Alternative Biography.’ Histos 8: 122–145. Ginsburg, L. 2017. Staging Memory, Staging Strife. Empire and Civil War in the Octavia. New York. Giuliano, A. (ed). 1989. I Cammei della Collezione Medicea del Museo Archeologico di Firenze. Rome. Glass, R. 2013. ‘Filarete’s Renovation of the Porta Argentea at Old St. Peter’s.’ In Old St. Peter’s, Rome eds. R. McKitterick, J. Osborne, C.M. Richardson, and J. Story, 248–270. Cambridge. Glass, R., 2015. ‘Filarete and the Invention of the Renaissance Medal.’ The Medal 66: 26–37. Gnecchi, F. 1912. I medaglioni romani. Milan. Gowing, A.M. 1997. ‘Cassius Dio on the Reign of Nero.’ In ANRW 2.34.3: 2558–2590. Berlin and New York. Grafton, A. 1999. Cardano’s Cosmos. The World’s and Work of a Renaissance Astrologer. Cambridge, MA and London. Grau, D. 2017. ‘Nero: The Making of the Historical Narrative.’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, eds. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 261–273. Cambridge. Gryzbek, E. 1999. ‘L’astrologie e son exploitation politique: Néron et les comètes.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque International de la SIEN (Clairmont-Ferrand et St. Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994, Collection Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croissille, R. Marti, and Y. Perrin, 112–124. Brussels. Gunderson, E. 2017. ‘The Neronian “Symptom.”’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, eds. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 335–353. Cambridge. Gwyn, W.B. 1991. ‘Cruel Nero: The Concept of the Tyrant and the Image of Nero in Western Political Thought.’ History of Political Thought 12: 421–455. Hano, M. 1999. ‘Images du règne de Néron chez les artistes depuis le XIIIe siècle. Thèmes et Sources.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque international

Monster or martyr?

143

de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne,2–6 novembre 1994). Collection Latomus 247: 397–406. Brussels. Harrill, J.A. 2017. ‘Saint Paul and the Christian Communities of Nero’s Rome.’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, eds. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 276–289. Cambridge. Hülsen, C. 1894. ‘Sitzungprotocolle.’ Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 9: 94–97. Jacobs, P.W. II and D.A. Conlin. 2014. Campus Martius. The Field of Mars in the Life of Ancient Rome. Cambridge. Jakob-Sonnabend, W. 1990. Untersuchungen zum Nero-Bild der Spätantike. Hildesheim, Zurich and New York. John Malalas. The Chronicle of John Malalas. Eds. E.M. Jeffreys and R. Scott. 1986. Melbourne. Klauck, H. 2003. ‘Do They Never Come Back? Nero redivivus and the Apocolypse of John.’ In Religion und Gesellschaft in frühen Christentum. Neutestamentliche Studien, ed. H. Klauck, 208–289. Tubingen. Köhne, E., C. Ewigleben, and R. Jackson (eds). 2000. Gladiators and Caesars. The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome. London. Kragelund, P. 1987. ‘Vatianus, Nero and Curiatius Maternus.’ Classical Quarterly 37: 197–202. Kragelund, P. 2016. Roman Historical Drama: The Octavia in Antiquity and Beyond. Oxford. Lahusen, G. and E. Formigli. 2001. Romische Bildnisse aus Bronze. Kunst und Technik. Munich. Lefebvre, L. 2017. Le mythe Néron. La fabrique de’un monstre dans la littérature antique (Ier-Ve s.). Villeneuve d’Ascq. L’Orange, H.P. 1984. Das spätantike Herrscherbild von Diokletian bis zu den KonstantinSöhnen, 284–361 n. Chr. (= Das römische Herrscherbild Part III. Volume 4). Berlin. Maier, H.O. 2013. ‘Nero in Jewish and Christian Tradition from the First Century to the Reformation.’ In A Companion to the Neronian Age, eds. E. Buckley and M. Dinter, 385–404. Chichester, Malden and Oxford. Mansuelli, G.A. 1961. Galleria degli Uffizi. Le Sculture. Parte II. Rome. Marlowe, E. 2006. ‘Framing the Sun: The Arch of Constantine and the Roman Cityscape.’ Art Bulletin 88: 223–242. Megow, W.R. 1987. Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus. Antiken Munzen und geschnittene Stein 11. Berlin. Megow, W.R. 1993. ‘Zum Florentiner Tituskameo.’ Archäologisches Anzeiger: 401–408. Megow, W.R. 2011. ‘Spätantike Herrscherkameen. Beobachtungen zum konstantinischen Klassizismus.’ Jahreshefte des Ôstereichischen Archäolgischen Institutes in Wien 80: 167–241. Mitchell, M.M. 2003. ‘1 and 2 Thessalonians.’ In The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul, ed. J.D.G. Dunn, 51–63. Cambridge. Moreno, P. and A. Viacava. 2003. Galleria Borghese. Le Sculture Antiche. Rome. Pascal, C. Nerone nella storia aneddotica e nella legenda. Milan. Perrin, Y. 1999. ‘En guise de conclusion: l’image de Néron de sa mort à nos jours. Histoire et mémoire collective.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du V e Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994. Collection Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 473–490. Brussels. Petrillo, P.S. (ed). 2013. Libri delle Medaglie da Cesare a Marco Aurelio Commodo. Libri delle Antichtà. Torino. Archivio di Stato di Torino, Codice ligoriani 19–30 bis. Vol. 21. Codice Ja.II.8/Libri XXVII-XXX. Rome.

144

Eric Varner

Platz-Horster, G. 2001. ‘Agrippina Minor, die obsolete Mutter.’ BJ b 201: 53–68. Poinsotte, J.M. 1999. ‘Un Nero redivivus chez un poète apocalyptique du IIIe siècle (Commodien).’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque International de la SIEN (Clairmont-Ferrand et St. Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994. Coll. Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croissille, R. Marti, and Y. Perrin, 201–213. Brussels. Pressouyre, L. 1971. ‘Nero’ in Lexicon der christlichen Iconographie, eds. E. Kirschbaum, G. Bandmann, W. Braunfels, J. Kollwitz, W. Mrazeu, A. Schmid, and H. Schnell, 322. Rome. Prusac, M. 2016. From Face to Face. Recarving of Roman Portraits and the Late-Antique Portrait Arts. Second, Revised Edition. Monumenta Graeca et Romana 18. Leiden. Richardson, jr., L. 1992. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore. Ripoll, F. 1999. ‘Aspects et fontion de Néron dans la propagande impérial flavienne.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende. Actes du Ve Colloque International de la SIEN (Clairmont-Ferrand et St. Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994, Collection Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croissille, R. Marti, and Y. Perrin, 137–151. Brussels. Roche, P. 2008. ‘The Public Imagery of the Emperor Otho.’ Historia 57: 108–123. Rodriguez Almeida, E. 1993. ‘Ara Incendii Neroniani.’ In Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 1, ed. E.M. Steinby, 76–7. Rome. Romualdi, A. (ed). 2006. Studi e restauri. I marmi antichi della Galleria degli Uffizi 1: 86–93. Florence. Rougé, J. 1978. ‘Néron à la fin du I’ve et au début du Ve Siècle.’ Latomus 37: 73–87. Russell, M. and H. Manley. 2013. ‘A Case of Mistaken Identity? Laser-scanning the Bronze ‘Claudius’ from near Saxmundham.’ Journal of Roman Archaeology 26: 393–408. Russo, E. 2017. ‘Resurgences of Nero in the Enlightenment.’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, eds. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 305–317. Cambridge. Schneider, R.M. 2003. ‘Gegenbilder im römischen Kaiserporträt. Die neuen Gesichter Neros und Vespasians.’ In Die Porträt vor der Erfindung des Porträts eds. M. Büchsel and P. Schmidt, 59–76. Mainz. Schubert, P. 2011. ‘P. Oxy. LVII.51.5: Apotheosis in Hexameters.’ Oxyrhynchus Papyri 77: 59–80. Schulz, V. 2019. Deconstructing Imperial Representation. Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius on Nero and Domitian. Leiden. Shaw, B.D. 2015. ‘The Myth of the Neronian Persecution.’ JRS 105: 73–100. Smith, R.R.R. 2000. ‘Nero and the Sun-god: Divine Accessories and Political Symbols in Roman Imperial Images.’ JRA 13: 532–542. Sordi, M. 1999. ‘L’incendio neroniano e la persecuzione dei Cristiani nella storiografia antica.’ In Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende, eds. J.-M. Croisille, R. Martin and Y. Perrin, 105–111, Brussels. Spencer, J.R. 1979. ‘Filarete, the Medallist of the Roman Emperors.’ Art Bulletin 61: 550–561. Spinola, G. 2004. Il Museo Pio Clementino 3. Guide Cataloghi Musei Vaticani 5. Rome. Squire, M. 2013. ‘“Fantasies so Varied and Bizarre”: The Domus Aurea, the Renaissance and the “Grotesque.”’ In A Companion to the Neronian Age, eds. E. Buckly and M.T. Dinter, 444–464. Chichester, Malden and Oxford. Stacey, P. 2017. ‘The Image of Nero in Renaissance Political Thought.’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero, eds. S. Bartsch, K. Freudenburg, and C. Littlewood, 290–304. Cambridge. Stuart Jones, H., 1912. A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome: The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Oxford.

Monster or martyr?

145

Tomei, M.A. and R. Rea (eds). 2011. Nerone. Milan. Townend, G.B. 1980. ‘Tacitus, Suetonius, and the Temple of Janus.’ Hermes 108: 233–242. Trillmich, W. 2007. ‘Typologie der Bildnisse der Iulia Agrippina.’ In Agrippina Minor. Life and Afterlife, eds. M. Moltesen and A.M. Nielsen, 45–66. Copenhagen. Tucci, P.L. 2017. The Temple of Peace in Rome. Cambridge and New York. Valentini, R. and G. Zucchetti. 1946. Codice topografico della città di Roma 3. Rome. Van Overmeire, S. 2012. ‘Nero, the Senate and People of Rome. Reactions to an Emperor’s Image.’ In Studies in Latin Literature, and Roman History 16 (Coll.Latomus 338), C. Deroux. Brussels. Varner, E.R. 2004. Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture. Monumenta Graeca et Romanai 10. Leiden. Varner, E.R. 2005. ‘Execution in Effigy: Severed Heads and Decapitated Statues in Imperial Rome.’ In Roman Bodies. Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century, eds. A. Hopkins and M. Wyke, 67–84. London. Villa, L. 2018. Il Tempietto di Bramante nel monastero di S. Pietro in Montorio. Rome. Vollenweider, M.L. and M. Avisseau-Broustet. 2003. Camées et Intailles. Tome II. Les portraits romains du Cabinet des Médailles. Catalogue raisonné. Paris. Von Hesberg, H. 2016. ‘Neros Bautätigkeit in Rom.’ In Nero Kaiser, Küunstler, und Tyrann, eds. K. Ackenheil and M. Neyses-Eiden, 180–188. Trier. Vout, C. 2008. ‘The Art of “Damnatio Memoriae.”’ In Un discours en images. De la condemnation de mémoire, eds. S. Benoist and A. Daguet-Gagey, 153–172. Metz. Warmington, B.H. 1969. Nero: Reality and Legend. London. Wood, S. 1986. Roman Portrait Sculpture 217–260 A.D. Leiden. Zecchini, G. 1993. Ricerche di storigrafia Latina tardoantica. Rome. Zecchini, G. 1999. ‘Limmagine di Nerone nel Lessico Suda (con una postilla sulla Lettera di Anna a Seneca) in Neronia V. Néron: histoire et légende.Actes du Ve Colloque international de la SIEN (Clermont-Ferrand et Saint-Étienne, 2–6 novembre 1994). Coll. Latomus 247, eds. J.M. Croisille, R. Martin, and Y. Perrin, 214–226. Brussels. Zwierlein-Diehl, E. 2007. Antike Gemmen und ihr Nachleben. Berlin and New York.

Religious identities

8

Misremembering Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus Hartmut Ziche

Introduction While it is self-evident to the modern, academic historian that history and memory represent two very different approaches to the past, the one attempting to reconstruct and to analyse a past which is presented as objectively – indeed scientifically – true, the other constructing a past which foremost is meant to be relevant to the present, this distinction has not always seemed meaningful to historians in the past, and indeed continues to be largely ignored in the general public’s perception of history today.1 Herodotus, for instance, in the short prooemium to his Histories explicitly sets out to preserve ‘the glory of the great and marvellous deeds of the Greeks and the barbarians’ for the present, something we would call memory, and only tags on as a secondary objective of his work an interrogation on the ‘cause of the war between them’, analytical history to us.2 And despite otherwise important differences in methodology, the second father of history, Thucydides, embraces the same deliberate confusion3 of history and memory, deciding to provide an account – a history – of the Peloponnesian war, ‘because it promised to be a great war, worthy of memory’.4 Greco-Roman historiography, following its founding fathers and all the way to late antiquity, thus is characterised by what to the modern reader is a double objective: the creation of both history and memory, or perhaps more exactly, the creation of memory which is made all the more relevant by its aspiration of being history at the same time. When reading ancient historians, Eusebius and Zosimus in our example, it is important to be aware of this conflation of the two categories. Eusebius and Zosimus were not writing for academic colleagues whom they were trying to convince of the objective validity and the explanatory value of their particular reconstruction of the history of the reign of Constantine. They were writing for a general public, albeit only the very small minority of literate general public, whose opinions on the present they were trying to shape. Both Eusebius and Zosimus were writing memories of Constantine with the intention of using an outstanding historical example to influence the contemporary discourse on the status and relevance of Christianity. Given that history and memory are inseparable in ancient historians, it is particularly important to look at the objectives and the methods of memory-construction DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-10

150

Hartmut Ziche

in a given historian, if we want to make any use of ancient ‘sources’ in modern historiography. It is not that there is no history of Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus. Both authors can and indeed have been used extensively in modern histories of Constantine,5 but it is our proposition here that any use of their work as source material for fourth-century history should only come after a detailed understanding of how their texts are constructed as memory for their respective presents. While this of course is merely common sense, and indeed an integral part of traditional source criticism, analysing memory-construction, in principle, seems to require an independent history with which we can compare memories of the past. How can we fully understand the ways and objectives of the memorialisation of Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus, if we have no safely historical Constantine with whom we can compare the composite, historical-memorial Constantines of the two historians? While the problem of separating history and memory – something ancient historians had no intention of doing – is indeed to some extent circular, we still have to start somewhere, and as the focus of this volume is on the making and unmaking of memory, we will start with a ‘minimalist’, historical Constantine, serving foremost as a neutral backdrop to the memorialised Constantine in Eusebius and Zosimus. Given the importance of the memory of Constantine for the subsequent political but also ecclesiastical history of the empire, and given the efforts made by ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ of Constantine to create sophisticated images of the emperor to serve their own agendas,6 it is indeed necessary before attempting any analysis of how and why Constantinian memories were created, to remind ourselves to what an extent Constantine, as a ruler, was neither particularly innovative nor revolutionary.7

Constantine: just another tetrarch If one were to look at the reign of Flavius Valerius Constantinus, without taking into account the memories of Constantine created by himself, his contemporaries, his imperial successors, and later historians,8 only two facts stand out as truly remarkable: the length of his reign, since Constantine was the first emperor since Augustus to celebrate his tricennalia;9 and his success in creating a dynasty that significantly outlived its founder, something which had not been achieved since Septimius Severus in the early third century. Without the memory of Constantine the Great, Saint Constantine and, less controversially, the new Augustus, Constantine, the emperor, could indeed most aptly be described as either a continuator of the tetrarchic reforms, themselves rooted in a process of adaptation of the empire to a new geo-strategic situation beginning in the mid-third century, or as the defining example of the military emperor of the fourth century. The short synopsis of the reign of Constantine which we are trying to construct here, and which serves as the backdrop for the discussion of Constantinian memories, quite deliberately focuses only on the immediate outcomes of Constantine’s imperial action. It purposefully avoids any speculation on what Constantine thought he was doing, on what contemporaries believed imperial policies implied

Misremembering Constantine 151 for the present or the future, and even on how policies implemented by Constantine became over time elements, sometimes indeed crucially enabling factors, of the slow and continuous transformation of the empire. The period covered by the reign of Constantine in this perspective is as much part of the ongoing historical process as the reigns of his predecessors and successors, and it could be argued, perhaps polemically, that even by identifying this particular chunk of imperial history as ‘Constantinian’, and thus giving it special significance, we are already following in the footsteps of Eusebius and Zosimus, shaping the history of the early fourth century through the memory of the reigning emperor.10 As far as military policy is concerned,11 Constantine continued the tetrarchic trend of strengthening defences in the frontier zones of the empire, on the Rhine, the Danube, and in the east, while at the same time further developing a comitatus army, personally commanded by the emperor and meant to deal with more largescale threats. The comitatenses units were indeed reorganised by Constantine, but contrary to accusations by for example Zosimus,12 at least some of those actually were new recruits and not simply re-designated limitanei. Tetrarchic type forts continued to be built in the frontier zones, and it is indeed Constantine who can be credited with building a first stone bridge across the Danube at Oescus in 328 CE. Constantine did heavily recruit barbarians, both as regular comitatus troops and as federati, but so did his contemporary rival Licinius and his tetrarchic predecessors – for the simple reason that there was no alternative source of military manpower for a rapidly expanding army. With regard to territorial and central administration,13 Constantine kept the reorganised tetrarchic provinces, as well as the newly created intermediate administrative level of the diocese. Reform here was limited to strengthening the prestige of the new vicarii by giving them clarissimus rank.14 Praetorian prefects under Constantine indeed lost their military functions – along with the Praetorian Guard itself – but this is merely a logical outcome of the tetrarchic reform of the territorial administration which by doubling the number of provincial governors and by creating the vicarius-style ‘super-governors’ greatly increased the supervisory responsibilities of the prefects. The creation thus of magistri militum by Constantine is less an innovation than the filling of a bureaucratic void, with the prefects now fully occupied with civilian affairs. Much the same can be said about other palatine positions.15 The nominal division of financial matters between taxes on the one hand and revenue from imperial domains on the other was not an invention of Constantine; the emperor merely enhanced the status of the respective bureau chiefs by styling them comes sacrarum largitionum and rationalis rei privatae. The multiplication of provincial bureaus and the formalisation of central departments logically demanded an increased capacity for the supervision of their personnel – with the first magister officiorum actually created by Licinius – and the increasing bureaucratisation of the imperial government could hardly function without a central coordinator in the person of the quaestor sacri palatii. While Constantine was celebrated for fiscal generosity by Eusebius and condemned as rapacious by Zosimus,16 actual fiscal policy continued the systematic rationalisation

152

Hartmut Ziche

of the tax system launched by the tetrarchs. Constantine combined various ad hoc created taxes to finance and equip the army into one combined military tax, the aurum comparaticium, transformed the already regular ‘reimbursed’ requisitions of precious metals into a tax – reimbursement stopped in 324 – and corrected the oddity of urban mobile property being de facto tax-exempted by introducing the chrysargyron.17 In the domain of monetary policy Constantine was if anything reactionary, returning the empire to a plurimetallic currency, based on the newly introduced gold solidus. Whether this was a deliberate radical break with tetrarchic practice however is debatable, given that third-century emperors were probably not aware of the fact that out of necessity they had invented a quasi-fiduciary silver coinage. With the confiscation of precious metal cult statues in 331 CE Constantine merely was the first emperor able to return the empire to what was considered ‘normal’ practice, that is a currency based on a pure precious metal coinage.18 It is in the field of imperial ideology that Constantine appears at first sight the most outstanding, abandoning the collegiality of the tetrarchy and its symbolic union in a divine family of Jovians and Herculians. However, Constantine’s new model again is mostly a return to the past: the symbolic divine family, being replaced by an actual divine family, the second gens Flavia,19 held together by links of descent and marriage. Constantinian imagery keeps the tetrarchic nimbus of imperial light, but otherwise swaps the grim, hardworking image of the tetrarchic emperor for an idealised, radiant, and eternally young Apollo-type. A radical break indeed, but one which recalls and is meant to recall the image and memory of Augustus. To underline his exclusive legitimacy to rule, Constantine abandoned the pluritheistic support of the tetrarchy which mirrored its own collegiality and returned to a quasi-monotheistic model first experimented by Aurelian in his association with Sol Invictus: one emperor, one god.20 While the question of the identity of the one god was of great importance in the construction of memories of Constantine, I would argue that with regard to imperial ideology, underpinning Constantine’s government, it was of only pragmatic relevance. Constantine was aiming for a model legitimising the unchallengeable rule of one emperor by the exclusive association of that emperor with one unchallengeably ruling divinity. And in comparison between Sol/Apollo and the Christian god, it was the Christian god which already possessed an empire-wide, albeit minority, following, a well-organised priesthood, and a sophisticated monotheistic theology. Thus, if even with regard to imperial ideology and its religious underpinning, Constantine was at best a timid revolutionary, we must ask indeed why memorialisation of his reign produced the image of a towering pivotal figure, standing between a new and an old empire, a pagan past and a Christian future.

The memory of Saint Constantine the great as a political tool As we have noted, the reign of Constantine was exceptionally long, and this not only in comparison with imperial reigns of the third century: Constantine became the defining emperor of a whole generation. This fact alone makes some contribution to explaining why the emperor was already heavily memorialised during

Misremembering Constantine 153 his lifetime (as indeed was Augustus), but it cannot serve as the only explanation for the creation of memories of Constantine which actually ended up occluding the historical emperor. As another member of the Constantinian dynasty shows, a short reign does not preclude memorialisation successfully competing with historisation: Julian, memorialised as the Apostate.21 Indeed, the main reason why memories of Constantine were so preeminently important for how later emperors and later historians came to position themselves with regard to fourth-century history lies rather in the fact that the 30 years of Constantine coincided with the definite emergence of the Christian Church and of an ecclesiastical elite of priests and bishops as major trends of imperial society and history. To what extent the emergence of an ecclesiastical elite as a new factor of political, social, and economic power was actually enabled and supported by Constantinian policies – which of course it was – is more or less immaterial in the context of this discussion, it is sufficient for the two events to coincide. The stability of Constantine’s reign in itself being proof of the emperor’s success, Christian writers would quite naturally establish a causal link between the triumph of their cult and the emperor defining his time. Likewise pagans, considering Christianity as the most relevant factor in what they perceived to be the beginning of the end of the empire, could not fail to causally link the religious revolution of the fourth century with the century’s most successful and emblematic emperor. The memorialisation of Constantine as ‘the Christian emperor’ was hence to some extent unavoidable, but in order to fully understand the intensity and speed of memory creation around Constantine we also have to look at the particular socio-political context of the empire in the mid-fourth century. By the end of the reign of Constantine, the Christian Church had become a prominent institution, in the sense for example that its internal, doctrinal disputes were a topic of imperial current affairs, and clerics had become a prominent class, as illustrated by the fact that the competition for episcopal sees could lead to major urban unrest – as evidenced already during the reign of Constantine with the attempts in 327 CE to make Eusebius of Caesarea bishop of Antioch. Yet at least up to the end of the century and the reign of Theodosius, it must have seemed to contemporaries that this development was potentially reversible. Julian’s reign in the early 360s shows that while the concept of imperial power supported by a universal, monotheistic, and hierarchically organised cult was by now irreversibly integrated into the political structure of the empire, the cult in question did not necessarily have to be Christianity. Julian’s projected pagan ‘Church’ could have provided the same kind of ideological support the Christian ecclesiastical establishment provided for Constantine. It is precisely the realisation by Christian writers that the ‘Christianisation’ of the empire was not a done deal which explains the heavy memorialisation of Julian’s short reign as that of a dangerous apostate. And even at the very end of the fourth century, close to the period where Zosimus’ main sources for the fourth century, Eunapius and Olympiodorus, were writing,22 the usurpation attempt by Arbogast and Eugenius in 392–394 ce took the

154

Hartmut Ziche

pagan cult statues onto the battlefield against Theodosius, demonstrating once again that divine support was integral to the legitimate exercise of imperial power, but that the form of divine support did not necessarily have to be Christian. This specific politico-religious context means that Christian writers, well past the reign of Constantine, were engaged in an exercise of political entrenchment. Despite the visibility of the ecclesiastical institution and the collective power of the ecclesiastical class by the end of the fourth century, they found it necessary to reiterate the position that Christianity was the only cult able to guarantee success to the empire. And how better to show this than by establishing a causal link with the favour shown to Christianity by the emperor who had been unarguably the most successful since Augustus? Constantine became a Christian in Christian memory-construction of his reign, because Christian writers had to show that Christianity demonstrably, historically, was the only successful option for the future of the empire. A similar argument can be made for the political motivations around pagan memory-construction for Constantine. Despite the increasing visibility of the ecclesiastical elite and the institution, pagans up to the fifth century were not necessarily convinced that the Christian empire was definite. This can be seen for example in the attempts by pagan senators to have Theodosius restore the Altar of Victory to the Roman curia in the 390s. And likewise in Zosimus, another century or so later: while there is the conceit in the Historia Nea that the empire’s doom is already sealed, there is of course also an implicit exhortation by the historian to reverse the decline through a reestablishment of the traditional state cults. Pagans saw the exclusive Christianisation of the empire as a mistake to be corrected, and logically they tied the enormity of the mistake committed by the Roman state to the fourth century’s most outstanding and longest ruling emperor: Constantine. They too constructed memories of a Christian Constantine, because only the most emblematic emperor of recent memory could be responsible for the catastrophic situation – as they saw it – into which Christianity had led the empire. One might draw comparisons here with Tacitus who sees the corruption of the Roman state as an inevitable – but perhaps correctable – consequence of monarchical government.23 Monarchical government, as Tacitus himself shows, developed gradually over time, but the invention of it is exclusively credited to and singularly blamed on the most defining ruler of the first century: Augustus. Constantinian memories became tools of political discourse in the ChristianPagan debate24 from the fourth to the sixth century on the present state and the future of the empire: things either were and would be well in a Christian empire, because the greatest of emperors had been Christian, or things were bad and would get worse in a Christian empire, because the most notorious of emperors had been Christian. In order to see how these two respective lines of argument are validated, we can look as examples at the memories of Constantine constructed by Eusebius, a contemporary of the emperor, in the Ecclesiastical History and in his Life of Constantine and by Zosimus, writing between the late fifth and the early sixth century, in the Historia Nea.

Misremembering Constantine 155

Eusebius’ two Constantines: Christian emperor and exemplary convert Eusebius, the self-declared friend and historian of Constantine, in his Ecclesiastical History and in the Life of Constantine, constructs two subtly different memories of the emperor. Whereas the History promotes an image of the always Christian emperor, leader of a Christian empire, the Life insists on Constantine as a convert, leader of a Christian conversion. While the Life is consensually dated to the second half of the 330s,25 there is a lot of debate around the dating of different editions of the different books of the History. The books we are concerned with for Constantine, books eight to ten, were at some stage considered to be a later addendum to the work, dating from the early 320s, with the earlier books already written during the tetrarchic period. Most recent scholarship however accepts that the whole history was written during the reign of Constantine, with a first edition perhaps around 313/4.26 In any case, the exact dating of different editions of different books has no major bearing on the present argument. It is quite possible that Eusebius continued to make corrections to the final text of the History until his death in 339 CE, and conversely it is possible that he made preparations for the Life even before 325 CE. Our arguments here are not predicated on Eusebius remembering, at different points in time, different Constantines at different stages of his career, but rather we are postulating one mature Eusebius, deliberately constructing two different memories. Eusebius in the History insists heavily on the legitimacy of Constantine, both as an emperor and as a Christian.27 He receives the empire both from the Christian god and from his father Constantius, who is made out by Eusebius as a sort of quasi-Christian himself. While Eusebius is careful to fudge the issue whether Constantius was a Christian or merely a Christian sympathiser, he insinuates nevertheless that he was distinguished among the tetrarchs because of his attitude towards Christianity. There is no conversion story in the History; Constantine and Licinius28 are the Christian emperors who save the empire from the evil of the pagan tyrants. Constantine’s victory over Maxentius is achieved with the help of God, a fact which Constantine acknowledges by setting up a cross in Rome. The inscription explicitly links the restoration of the ancient glory of the Roman state to the intervention of the Christian god through Constantine.29 The reorganisation of the empire by Constantine and Licinius is likewise characterised by their measures – Eusebius quotes several constitutions – in favour of Christianity and most particularly the orthodox Church.30 There is no suggestion that the empire is entirely Christian at this stage. Eusebius actually copies the constitution guaranteeing the freedom of all cult practice,31 but the only part which really matters to the (Christian) emperors is the Christian empire which is reformed through the other five constitutions which Eusebius quotes. War breaks out between Licinius and Constantine when the former, because of envy against Constantine, abandons Christianity and thus becomes the enemy of both God and the one legitimate emperor – Licinius, Eusebius suggests, without

156

Hartmut Ziche

divine legitimacy, is only weakly legitimate through marriage with Constantine’s sister. With the support of God and Christ, Constantine and his son Crispus easily defeat Licinius and reestablish the unity of one Christian empire.32 While it is of course possible that Eusebius had simply not yet heard the cross in the sky story at the time that he was writing the History, there are more fundamental arguments to be made explaining the motivations for this construction of the memory of a Christian emperor in a Christian empire. The Ecclesiastical History as a whole can indeed be read as an alternative history of Rome,33 a history which is entirely determined by a continuous divine plan, in which Christianity comes out into the open only under the reign of Constantine. There is no opposition between the early pagan empire and its ancient glory, and a new Christian empire; a distinction exists only in the degree to which the divine plan is explicitly carried out by the emperors. Constantine here is not a revolutionary, but only a continuator and a reformer, given the power to re-establish the ancient greatness of the Roman state, because he is not a blind tool of the divine plan, but an active and open collaborator. Eusebius in the History is writing against the Roman prejudice concerning innovation, the perhaps principal charge by pagans against Christianity being that it was a new cult.34 In that sense it is vitally important to him that Constantine should not be remembered as a new emperor, having won the empire by himself, and as a first generation convert to a new religion. Indeed, it is the ‘convert’ Licinius in the History who becomes a bad emperor when he abandons Christianity and threatens the unity and greatness of Roman continuity. What Eusebius tries to explain to his readers is how a Christian emperor and a Christian empire fit into an unbroken history of Rome and to that effect it is important to show that the history of Constantine itself is unbroken. This conclusion immediately invites the question why Eusebius did not leave things as they were convincingly established in the History, but instead went on to create a second Christian Constantine in the Life, a Constantine this time who converts to Christianity and who transforms the empire into a Christian state.35 The Life of Constantine is a lengthy and curious text which, sometimes uneasily, combines elements of biography, history, and panegyric.36 Its most straightforward (and perhaps earliest part) is book four, which follows relatively closely the conventions of imperial biography. Constantine is presented here following the traditional ‘good emperor’ model, showing fiscal moderation, decisive action against the barbarians, receiving recognition from the Persians, possessing personal virtue and piety and increasing the virtue of his subjects, taking care of the provinces and legislating to the benefit of the whole empire, preparing his succession, and receiving divine consecration. Certainly, the ‘consecration’ is Christian – Eusebius has a lengthy section on both the construction of the mausoleum and on the baptism of Constantine37 – and some of the topoi of good government are concerned with action on behalf of Christianity and of the Church – for example Constantine is a good public speaker, but his talents for rhetoric are specifically applied to speeches on doctrine38 – but still the whole tone of the book is reassuringly traditionally Roman even to a non-Christian reader.

Misremembering Constantine 157 This last book of the Vita in some sense relativises the ‘revolutionary’ Constantine of the first three books, making the same point already made in the History: Constantine is indeed a Christian emperor, but a Christian emperor who in fact differs in nothing from the ‘good’ emperors of imperial tradition. Eusebius makes this argument explicitly in his introduction to the first book which, much more hyperbolically than the History, celebrates the irresistible glory of the Christian emperor. What he wants to make sure of is the transmission of a memory of Constantine which stands in opposition to the well-developed historicised memories of ‘bad’ emperors like Nero.39 What Eusebius tries to insinuate is that there are not three possible imperial models, the ‘bad’, the ‘good’, and the ‘Christian’ emperor, but only just two: the Christian emperor is the ‘good’ emperor of Roman tradition. The narrative part of book one covers the youth and early career of Constantine up to his sharing of the empire with Licinius. While Eusebius here, as in the History, deploys the theme of Constantius as a quasi-Christian – the imperial household is said to be like a Church40 – he is also very clear on the young Constantine not being a Christian. Constantine is compared several times to Moses,41 thus making him a sort of pre-Christian. However, at the centre of the book is the conversion story, where Constantine not only actively searches for the right god, but also needs the teaching of Christian priests to explain the meaning of his vision to him.42 Constantine starts professing Christianity and acting in favour of the Church only after the Christian god has proven himself through the victory over Maxentius. Books two and three offer what at first sight seems like a simple chronological treatment of Constantine’s reign after the defeat of Maxentius, but embedded in this narrative are two separate stories of Christian conversion and triumph. While book two retains a relatively narrow focus on Constantine, taking him from Christian convert to Christian emperor, book three deals more broadly with the effects of Constantine’s reign on the empire, the conversion of a Roman pagan into a Roman Christian empire. The focus of the Life thus is resolutely on change. Constantine becomes a better man and emperor by starting to be and starting to act as a Christian. And the empire becomes a better empire when under the guidance of Constantine: it not only adopts Christianity but moves towards the marginalisation of paganism. There is no way a reader of Eusebius can escape the idea of novelty and revolution in the Life, personal and political, and fail to receive the heavily handed down lesson of novelty being a good thing.43 How, one might ask, is this compatible with the Constantinian memory of the History and more importantly how can Eusebius hope to avoid the pagan charge of Christianity being a subversive novelty? The answer, one might argue, lies in the perspective adopted. The Ecclesiastical History is above all an alternative history, a history which looks to the past and tries to insert the Church and the concept of a Christian emperor into an unbroken continuity of Romanitas. The past validates the present. The Life on the other hand looks to the future and envisages a renewed empire, a Christian empire which can only come about through the conversion of the traditional socio-economic elites; and Constantine here serves as a political endorsement for their conversion. If the

158

Hartmut Ziche

great emperor became a great man through the process of conversion, and if the great Constantinian empire became what it is through a trend towards conversion, what is there to hesitate for future generations? The memory of the past in this case validates the Christianising future Eusebius writes to bring about.

Back to the past with Zosimus: Constantine the impious usurper Whether Eusebius through the creation of Constantinian memories made the contribution to a Christian empire he had hoped for is doubtful – the political advantages of conversion probably were more persuasive than his exemplary lesson. But in any case, the empire was largely Christian by the time the final round of the Christian-Pagan debate, using Constantinian memories, was played out. Whether Zosimus wrote his Historia Nea – perhaps in the sense of ‘modern history’? – in the late fifth or in the early sixth century is not particularly important for the present purpose.44 The only relevant fact is that he wrote at a time when the empire was dominated by Christianity, but where – apparently! – it was still possible to consider Christianity as just one option for securing divine protection for the Roman state. While Zosimus, inverting Polybius’ history of the rapid rise of Roman power, purports to write about the equally rapid fall of the empire,45 it is clear not least to him that the empire was still around and that the question of how to ensure divine support was not one of merely academic interest, but one of current politics. Zosimus indeed belongs to the first generation of historians who were writing in a Roman empire of which Rome itself no longer was a part. In this sense, despite the rhetoric of inevitable decline, it was especially important to him and his contemporaries to reimagine an empire which despite being geographically reduced and having lost its historical centre, could still be unequivocally Roman and great.46 Writing about a fourth-century emperor was not a topic of antiquarian interest, but both a question of identity – Constantine is part of the history of Zosimus’ own, present-day empire – and a question of defining the new empire – what can Constantine’s successes or, as it turns out to be, failures teach the current generation of rulers about governing well?47 Zosimus’ position in the debate between pagans and Christians was of course that Christianity and imperial decline were causally linked, and the fact that he starts his ‘new’ history with Constantine – after the customary ‘the story so far’ recap of book one – clearly indicates that he held Constantine responsible for the beginning of the end.48 Book two, in fact, does not start immediately with the succession of Constantine,49 Zosimus devotes a long introduction to the history of the Secular Games which culminates in their non-celebration by Constantine and Licinius. While this is awkward from a narrative point of view – we get the birth and succession of Constantine only after having already seen the adult emperor in (in)action – it also manages to set out the memorial objective of Zosimus right from the start: Constantine is set up as the emperor of discontinuity in the story of Rome, which, in veneration of the gods and under their protection, has prospered from its foundation up to Diocletian.

Misremembering Constantine 159 We have seen already why it had to be Constantine who was responsible for the beginning of the decline: an event as momentous as the fall of the Roman empire could clearly not have been ushered in by some random ‘bad’ emperor or any succession of mediocre ones. Only the second Augustus would do as a culprit. However, this realisation in itself does not explain how the very specific memory of Constantine Zosimus wishes to convey was constructed, a memory where Constantine had to be both great and bad. The main theme of Zosimus’ historicised memory of Constantine is his equation with the ‘bad’ emperor stereotype. He starts his portrayal with disrespect for traditional piety – Constantine, as we have seen, fails to celebrate the Secular Games in 31350 – and subsequently goes through most of the traditional list: low birth,51 ambition, falsehood, association with barbarians, fiscal rapacity, and lack of clemency, for example. However, Zosimus also deploys the more modern stereotype of the military tyrant. While Constantine’s military ability is never in doubt – Zosimus shows him in personal and competent command of the army52 – he insists on the emperor winning only the civil wars, failing at the same time to adequately defend the empire against barbarian incursions and engaging in no foreign wars of glory or conquest (an actual historical fact which Eusebius had to gloss over with the claim that the mere preparation of a Persian war by Constantine led to the Persians submitting).53 The only instance in which Constantine is shown as campaigning against barbarians, the Sarmatians, and the Goths of Rausimodus, Zosimus only gives a brief account of events, with no particular glory for Constantine, who just finishes off barbarians already broken by their failed assault on the garrison.54 The episode, conflating in fact two different campaigns, is also sandwiched between two parts of the ongoing conflict between Constantine and Licinius, inviting the reader to rather treat it as part of the civil war, not an independent barbarian campaign. Most interesting however is Zosimus’ third memorial stereotype of Constantine, his take on Constantine’s Christianity. As the conversion story shows – Christian absolution for the murder of his son and wife – Zosimus’ Constantine is less of an actual Christian than a bad pagan emperor. He adopts Christianity not in search of divine support for the empire, but out of purely personal motives: guilt over the murders of his family which, the traditional cults affirm, cannot be purged. And even after his supposed conversion to Christianity, Constantine continues to participate in pagan rituals, although in an inappropriate manner, standing aloof for example during a ceremony on the Capitol.55 Zosimus is probably mindful here of the largely Christian environment in which he writes: Constantine does not explicitly lose divine support for the empire because he becomes a Christian; he loses it due to pagan impiety which at the same time fails to secure alternative divine protection. Indeed, given the peculiar circumstances of his conversion – a selfish quest for absolution from unforgivable crimes – he perhaps never becomes a ‘real’ Christian, in the sense that he fails to establish a correct relationship with the Christian god through piety and appropriate practice. This point is further developed in Zosimus’ topos on Constantinople

160

Hartmut Ziche

where he shows the emperor building pagan temples56 – of bad construction, he implies – and setting up the tripod of Apollo from Delphi – but inappropriately in the hippodrome.57 Two readings are possible then. Either the treatment of Constantine’s Christianity is merely a contemporary spin on the stereotype of the impiety of the ‘bad’ emperor; Constantine is impious both as a pagan and as a Christian, a reading which a Christian audience could potentially agree with, if it were to abandon the Eusebian memory of Constantine as the ideal Christian. Or, and perhaps more plausibly given the general anti-Christian slant of the Historia Nea, Constantine serves as a demonstration for the fact that there cannot be any good Christians; Christianity can only serve the gratification of selfish personal wishes. If we follow the second reading, Zosimus’ memory of Constantine is a direct response to Eusebius: indeed, Constantine is the great Christian emperor, but there cannot be any great Christian emperors, because Christianity cannot be a cult protecting the common interest of the Roman state. And conversely: indeed, the choice of Constantine validates Christianity, but through him it merely becomes a cult endorsed by bad emperors. Zosimus’ image of Constantine is thus ultimately destructive; Constantine is not a great, but rather a notorious emperor.58 The fall of Constantine from the traditional gods – who as Zosimus reminds his readers continue to send true signs – and towards Christianity marks the beginning of the end of the empire and Constantine’s adoption of Christianity at the same time destroys Christianity, revealing it as the cult for bad emperors and for impious men. Zosimus’ conclusion that Constantine was neither a ‘good’ pagan emperor, nor indeed a ‘good’ Christian one, can be read as again in response to Eusebius’ efforts of creating, through the historical example of Constantine, a new image of the ideal ruler in whom pagan tradition and Christian future are fused. Zosimus’ Constantine is clearly incompatible with the pagan past of the empire, but he should – as a fake or at best bad Christian – be also incompatible with the new model of a Christian emperor and empire promoted by Christians since Eusebius. Even though at least his Christian readers are unlikely to believe him, Zosimus suggests that Constantine was universally despised by his contemporaries.59 The memory of Constantine created by Zosimus concludes with a reaffirmation of what was postulated at the beginning of his historical and biographical sketch: Constantine is the beginning of the fall of the empire. Constantine is not a temporary aberration of bad government, he indeed defines a new imperial stereotype, the ‘bad Christian’ emperor who only cares for himself and neglects the welfare of the Roman state60 – as evidenced for Zosimus by Constantine’s succession by his three sons who also have no interest in good governance and ensuring divine protection for the imperial state.61

Conclusion Despite being separated by more than a century and a half, Zosimus and Eusebius are still engaged in the same debate about the place of Christianity in the Roman empire and the role of Christian emperors in the Roman state. Both in the

Misremembering Constantine 161 mid-fourth and at the beginning of the sixth century, the memory of Constantine is central to their argument. While for Eusebius Constantine validates the Christian empire and provides a new ideal type for the ‘good’ emperor, for Zosimus the same emperor represents the beginning of imperial decline and demonstrates that Christian emperors cannot but be ‘bad’ emperors. It has been the contention of the present discussion that both Eusebius and Zosimus set out to create historical memory; that is they do not aim primarily for a record or an analysis of the past but attempt to shape contemporary and future perceptions of the past with relevance to the present. It could be argued however that what we have shown in the analysis of their respective texts so far is only the creation of rhetorical images of Constantine. We have shown how the two historians imagined Constantine, and what their reasons for doing so were. Whether their images came to function as memories, strictly speaking requires some proof that Eusebius’ and Zosimus’ ideas about Constantine came to be shared by their readers, ideally over a long time. Anybody who has ever taught twenty-first-century undergraduates knows that Eusebius has succeeded beyond probably even his wildest imagination. The only thing generally known about late antiquity is that Constantine converted to Christianity after seeing a cross in the sky, founded a new Christian capital and made the empire Christian. Both Eusebian memories, Constantine the exemplary Christian convert and Constantine the ideal Christian emperor, have stood the test of time. But what about Zosimus’ Constantine – the impious, bad emperor who brought about the fall of the empire? Admittedly, memories of Crispus, Fausta, and the dodgy Egyptian priest have completely faded by now, but Zosimus could still console himself with the knowledge that in the future which mattered to him (i.e. that of the new Roman empire), his images of Constantine remained competing memories, not only among the dwindling number of pagans but also among Christian intellectuals.62 As evidence for this assertion we can look briefly at Evagrius’ Ecclesiastical History63 from the end of the sixth century. Evagrius sets himself up as a continuator of Eusebius, writing a history of the triumphant Christian Church and empire which starts at the death of Julian, the last pagan challenger to the new imperial model. Given the chronological boundaries of the Ecclesiastical History, Constantine should not be covered. However, tellingly he does make an appearance in a lengthy digression during the reign of Anastasius in book three. The fact that Evagrius finds it opportune to reference Constantine in his praise for Anastasius is in itself interesting, because it shows how memories of Constantine remained central to the new Christian-imperial ideal-type even in the sixth century. However, it is the form and rhetoric of the digression which is relevant to our argument about the success also of Zosimus’ memories of Constantine. The whole passage is rather awkward, Evagrius praises Anastasius for his fiscal moderation in abolishing the chrysargyron, a tax also paid by prostitutes, which he, like the emperor, considers to be most un-Christian,64 a perfect opportunity then to compare Anastasius to the ideal Christian emperor Constantine. And

162

Hartmut Ziche

indeed, the pious action of Anastasius reminds Evagrius of Constantine, but foremost leads him to recall the memory of Constantine as the bad, fiscally rapacious emperor, the creator of the chrysargyron, denounced by Zosimus. It is this wrong memory of Constantine, which apparently Evagrius expects his readers to share, which prompts the long digression on Constantine in which he engages in an imaginary dialogue with Zosimus, refuting the manifestly still present memories created in the Historia Nea by, amongst other techniques, quoting extensively from Eusebius, the custodian of the true memory of Constantine. Albeit only to refute them, Evagrius cites a long list of alleged misdeeds of Constantine, thus demonstrating that the competing Constantinian memories established by Zosimus were still current in the late sixth-century empire: fiscal rapacity, murder of his family, Christian conversion to assuage personal guilt, extravagant expenditure on Constantinople, and ushering in the fall of the Roman empire.65 And the vitriol in the very personal attack against Zosimus rather convincingly proves that the competing memories of Constantine, the stereotypically bad rather than the ideal Christian emperor, had not become generic more than two generations after the Historia Nea, but could still be traced to one original author.66 If Evagrius can be taken as representative for the educated elite of his time, then Zosimus, like Eusebius, was successful in creating lasting memories of Constantine. While of course there is much more to historical and philosophical discourse on the relationship between the empire and Christianity than memories of Constantine – one could cite Augustine’s solution of radically separating the history of the temporal Roman empire from the divine empire of Christianity – memory, it would seem, continued to play an influential role in how late Romans interpreted the transformation of the empire between the fourth and the sixth century. Memories of Constantine were perhaps especially important because of his long reign, but imperial memory in general remained an important element of debate, because it could serve to make abstract considerations more tangible. While a theoretical discussion of Christianity vs. Romanitas might not engage but the most philosophically minded members of the literate elites, a discussion of the Christian Constantine, the pagan Maxentius, and the Christian traitor Licinius made arguments about the state and the future of the empire in both Eusebius and Zosimus not only more tangible but also more popularly engaging.

Notes 1 Given that there are various trends in current memory studies, this categorical distinction may seem overly sharp at first sight. Cubitt 2007: 26, for example, considers the two concepts as inseparably intertwined: If social memory is the name we give to the processes by which knowledge and awareness of the social past are generated and maintained in human societies, then history, as an intellectual discipline geared to the production and extension of such a knowledge and such an awareness, is obviously part of social memory. While I certainly agree that – in actual practice at least – even academic history, or perhaps rather academic historians, are influenced by memory, I am more doubtful about

Misremembering Constantine 163

2

3

4

5 6 7

8

9 10

11 12 13

the other side of the equation: modern academic history seems to me to have little or no impact on the social memory of the past. This is perhaps most evident in ancient history, where, to take a simple example, no amount of scholarship and publications has had any impact on the secure memory that ‘Rome fell in 476’. History and memory as distinct and separate categories are at the very least useful ideal types which allow us to assess different images of the past and distinguish their historical and memorial aspects. Eusebius and Zosimus in the present discussion both create images of the past, and history and memory serve as important reference points to understand how these images are constructed, how they are meant to function and what sort of impact they hope to have on the reader. Hdt. 1.pr. (Godley, 3): ‘[. . .] ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι’ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.’ (‘[. . .] so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvellous deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other.’). This, of course, is not how Thucydides would have phrased it. To him (and to Herodotus) ‘history’ – his own term being συγγραφή – encompassed both our categories of history and memory, and a distinction of the two concepts would have made little sense to him. However, the fact that history and memory were never explicitly formulated as distinct categories by premodern historians, does not mean that the concepts are not implicitly present in their texts and cannot be analysed as such by the modern reader. Thuc. 1.1 (Crawley, 1): ‘Θουκυδίδης Ἀθηναῖος ξυνέγραψε τὸν πόλεμον τῶν Πελοποννησίων καὶ Ἀθηναίων . . . ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου καὶ ἐλπίσας μέγαν τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἀξιολογώτατον τῶν προγεγενημένων [. . .]’ (‘Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.’). The most obvious example is Barnes 1981, where Constantine and Eusebius in fact share the centre stage of the history of the Constantinian period. See Lenski 2016: 1–3, for a brief survey of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Constantines from Eusebius to the eighth century. A similar point is made by Kruse 2019: 6–7, who insists on the study of memory in Roman writing, including historical writing, not primarily being about distinguishing fact from fiction, but requiring historical facts to understand the intentions and methods of the authors of memory – especially when these authors were purporting to write history. Even modern biographies of Constantine have great difficulties in separating the emperor from his own memorialised myth. Potter 2013: 1, for example, starts his biography of Constantine with an unambiguous ‘The Roman emperor Constantine changed the world’. The length of Constantine’s reign was already recognised as remarkable by his contemporaries, in fact it supplies the opening point to Eusebius’ biography of the emperor (Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.1.1). Van Dam 2007: 3–11, for example, argues for a Roman Revolution of Constantine, invoking the pattern of the Roman revolution of Augustus, as written by both Tacitus and Syme. But, we would argue, in both cases the emperors become revolutionaries and their reigns revolutions only in memory, at the point when their reigns were singled out, with hindsight, as particularly salient points in the process of historical transformation. For a summary of military policy, strategy, and organisation, see Elton 2006: 325–346. Zos. 2.34.2. The principal reference for the history and organisation of the imperial administration under Constantine is still Delmaire 1995.

164

Hartmut Ziche

14 Exploiting African documentation on Donatist trials, Cases 2019 in a recent paper comes to the conclusion that ‘real’ vicarii were a creation of Constantine rather than of Diocletian. The existence of tetrarchic agentes vices praefectorum praetorio is not dismissed, but Cases rather considers them to be a form of proto-vicars. 15 See Lo Cascio 2005: 181–183, for a view of Constantine as a simple continuator of reforms of the palatine government launched by the tetrarchy. 16 Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.2 and Zos. 2.28.1, respectively. 17 For the fiscal system under Constantine, insisting on the continuity between Constantine and the tetrarchic reforms, see Carrié 1999: 584–607. 18 For the circumstances of the creation of the solidus by Constantine, see Callu 2003: 206–208. 19 See for example Rousselle 1999: 250–251, for the cult of the new gens Flavia, and 247–255 for (pagan) imperial ideology under Constantine in general. Or in more detail MacCormack 1981: 177–192. 20 For a return to fashion in the third century of radiate-crowned emperors associated with Sol, especially Aurelian, see Bardill 2012: 58–63. For the break with tetrarchic tradition and the development of Sol Invictus imagery by Constantine, also see Bardill 2012: 81–109. 21 For the immediate and ongoing – up to the modern period – memorialisation of Julian, see Teitler 2017: 139–143 and Rosen 2006: 394–462. 22 For the sources of Zosimus and a brief introduction to the historian as a sort of pagan respondent to the Christian historiography and historical concepts of the fourth and fifth century, see Ridley 1982: xii–vi. 23 For a reading of Tacitus condemning the creation of the principate by Augustus, but at the same time accepting the inevitability of monarchy, see Kapust 2012: especially 517–525. 24 Very early on Eusebius for instance was aware of the value of Constantinian memories for promoting the Christianisation of the empire, urging the emperor in his tricennial oration in 335 to relate himself his experiences of divine assistance (Euseb. LC 18). For a full discussion on how Eusebius received memories of Constantine which became the Constantinian memories which he went on to promote in his works, see Van Dam 2011: 57–61. 25 See for example Wilson 1998: 112–121, for a discussion of the Vita, as written by a Eusebius already conscientiously author of a prior version of a Constantine biography in the Hist. Eccl. 26 Burgess 1997: especially 482–486, through an analysis of the relationship between the Canones and the Hist. Eccl., arrives at the conclusion that the whole History was written in around 313/4. 27 Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 8.13. 28 It is actually never stated explicitly by Eusebius that Licinius is a Christian (and the same ambiguity can also be observed for Constantius). However, Licinius, like Constantine, is said to act under divine protection (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 9.9.12 [Deferrari, 227]), and Eusebius’ reader is thus certainly invited to remember Licinius as a Christian: ‘[. . .] αὐτός τε Κωνσταντῖνος καὶ σὺν αὐτῶι Λικίννιος, οὔπω τότε ἐφ’ ἣν ὕστερον ἐκπέπτωκεν μανίαν τὴν διάνοιαν ἐκτραπείς, θεὸν τὸν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἁπάντων αὐτοῖς αἴτιον εὐμενίσαντες, ἄμφω μιᾶι βουλῆι καὶ γνώμηι νόμον ὑπὲρ Χριστιανῶν τελεώτατον πληρέστατα διατυποῦνται, καὶ τῶν πεπραγμένων εἰς αὐτοὺς ἐκ θεοῦ τὰ παράδοξα τά τε τῆς κατὰ τοῦ τυράννου νίκης καὶ τὸν νόμον αὐτὸν Μαξιμίνωι, [. . .]’ (‘[. . .] Constantine himself and with him Licinius, whose mind at that time had not yet been directed to the madness into which he later fell, having propitiated God as the author of all their blessings, both with one wish and determination fashioned in the fullest detail a most perfect law in behalf of Christians, and they sent an account of the marvelous things that had been done for them by God and the details of the victory over the tyrant, and the law itself to Maximin, [. . .]’). Licinius however is a Christian who, unlike Constantine, does not remain true to the Christian god – as the clause about his madness, probably added by Eusebius later,

Misremembering Constantine 165 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55

explicitly states, and thus as a false Christian he enhances the memorialisation of Constantine as the ideal Christian emperor. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 9.9. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 10.2–7. Euseb. Hist. Eccl.10.5. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 10.9. See for example Ceva 1979: 50–56, for the concept of the Hist. Eccl. as an apologetic work, establishing the synchronicity (and identity?) of ecclesiastic and imperial history. An opinion promoted for example by Julian who represents Christians as a new sect which has broken away from Judaism and its traditional doctrines founded by Moses: C. Gal. 43A-B. It could be argued of course that the History and the Life are simply works of very different genres, and that moreover Constantine only plays a modest role in the overall narrative of the History. Eusebius may have felt that in order to firmly establish the memory of a Christian empire ruled by Christian emperors, more needed to be said about the ideal type of this Christian emperor, that is Constantine. However, the difference in genre and in focus – from Christian empire to Christian emperor – does not in itself explain why the two Constantines are not constructed in the same way. See for example the discussion ‘Temi e modelli’ in Franco 2009: 22–28. Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.60–64. Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.29. Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.10.2. Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.17.3. Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.12 and 20. Euseb. Vit. Const. 1.27–32. For example in Euseb. Vit. Const. 3.2.2 (Av. Cameron and Hall, 121): ‘καὶ τί νεώτερον [ἢ] τὸ θαῦμα τῆς βασιλέως ἀρετῆς ἐκ θεοῦ σοφίας τῷ θνητῷ γένει δεδωρημένον;’ (‘And what could be more novel than the marvel of the Emperor’s virtue, bestowed by God’s wisdom on mankind?’). Paschoud 2000: ix–xvi, reviewing the internal evidence for the date of the Historia Nea, places the work between 498 and 518 ‘or slightly later’. Zos. 1.57.1. For Zosimus as a historian of the decline and fall of Rome see Goffart (1971). See Bjornlie 2016, for the use of Constantine in politico-historical debate in both Constantinople and in the former imperial space in the west in the sixth century, not only but also by Zosimus. As Kruse 2019: 17 puts it: ‘For Zosimos, New Rome was the problem, Old Rome the solution’; and Constantine was the eponymous founder of New Rome. For a general discussion of Zosimus’ intentions and methods, not limited to his use of Constantine, but with a specific emphasis on his manipulation and creation of historical memory, see Kruse 2019: 23–43. Zos. 2.1–7. Zos. 2.7.2. See Leadbetter 1998: 74–85, for a recent discussion of the social rank of Helena and the nature of her relationship with Constantius, detailing also the considerable length to which Constantinian propaganda went to deflect any accusations of illegitimacy and low origin. Constantine’s technical abilities as a general are in evidence, both in the war against Maxentius (Zos. 2.15–16) and against Licinius (Zos. 22–28.1). Euseb. Vit. Const. 4.56–57. Eusebius does claim some barbarian victories for Constantine earlier in the Life (1.25), but even in Eusebius these actions are only presented as minor campaigns of pacification of barbarian rebels. Zos. 2.21. See Paschoud 2000: 226–227, for Zosimus combining two different barbarian campaigns and ‘streamlining’ the civil war between the two emperors. Zos. 2.29.2–5.

166

Hartmut Ziche

56 For a modern take on pagan temples and the only limited Christian character of Constantine’s Constantinople, see Stephenson 2009: 201–203. For a strongly opposing view, a Constantinople founded as an exclusively Christian capital, see Barnes 2011: 126–131. 57 Zos. 2.31–2. 58 Bjornlie 2016: 93 suggests that the sometimes palpable animosity of Zosimus towards Constantine, might have in part a very concrete and contemporary motivation in the fact that Justin, proclaimed as the ‘new Constantine’, was not the preferred candidate of the exceptores, his bureaucratic colleagues, some of whom may have shared his pagan preferences. 59 Zos. 2.30.1. 60 While it is our contention that the model of the bad Christian emperor is only fully developed by Zosimus – we can never know to what extent it was perhaps already formulated by Eunapius – some traits which came to define this new ideal-type were already circulating in the fourth century, not least in the satirical Caesares of Julian. Julian’s Constantine is lacking in barbarian victories (329), devoted to pleasure (329) and rapacious (335). 61 Zos. 2.39.1. 62 For a discussion of the wider reception and development of memories of Constantine, including those of Zosimus, in sixth-century authors, see Bjornlie 2016: 94–98. 63 The relevant passage is 3.40–41. 64 EvagrSch. Hist. Eccl. 3.39. 65 EvagrSch. Hist. Eccl. 3.40–41. 66 Zosimus is repeatedly accused by Evagrius (Hist. Eccl. 3.41) of both deceitfulness and incompetence in his history of Constantine: ‘Σὺ γὰρ οὐδὲ ἀκοὴν γράφεις, μήτι γε δὴ ἀλήθειαν, πολλοῖς ὕστερον χρόνοις ἐπί Ἀρκαδίου καὶ Ὀνωρίου [. . .]’ (‘For you are not even writing what you heard – quite apart from it not being the truth – but you were very much later in time under Arcadius and Honorius [. . .]’ [Whitby, 188]), or: ‘Φῂς δὲ, ὦ ἐξάγιστε καὶ παμμίαρε σὺ, ὡς καὶ τὰ Ῥωμαίων πράγματα, ἐξ οὗ τὰ Χριστιανῶν ἐδείχθη, διερρύη τε καὶ παντάπασιν ἀπώλετο, ἢ οὐδὲν τῶν παλαιοτέρων ἀνεγνωκὼς εἶ [ἀνεγνωκὼς], ἢ πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐθελοκακῶν.’ (‘And you say, you most polluted and utterly wicked man, that from the time that Christianity was revealed the affairs of the Romans have waned and been altogether lost, either because you have read nothing of earlier writers or because you deliberately distort the truth.’ [Whitby, 189]).

Bibliography Primary Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History. Edited by E. Schwartz, T. Mommsen, and F. Winkelmann. 1999. Die Kirchengeschichte, 2nd edn, 3 vols. GCS NF 6; Eusebius Werke 2. Berlin. Translated by R.J. Deferrari. 1955. Eusebius Pamphili: Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols. The Fathers of the Church, 19 and 29. Washington. Eusebius of Caesarea. The Life of Constantine. Edited by F. Winkelmann. 1975. Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantins. GCS 7.1; Eusebius Werke 1.1. Berlin. Translated by Av. Cameron and S.G. Hall. 1999. Eusebius: Life of Constantine. Oxford. Evagrius Scholasticus. Ecclesiastical History. Edited by J. Bidez and L. Parmentier. 1898. The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius with the Scholia. London. Translated by M. Whitby. 2000. The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus. TTH, 33. Liverpool.

Misremembering Constantine 167 Herodotus. The Histories. Edited by H. Stein, and translated by A.D. Godley. 1920. Herodotus: The Persian Wars. Vol. 1: Books I – II. LCL 117. Cambridge, MA. Thucydides. The Histories. Edited by H.S. Jones and J.E. Powell. 1942. Thucydidis historiae. Vol. 1: Lib. 1–4. Oxford. Translated by R. Crawley. 1874. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. London. Zosimus. The New History. Edited by F. Paschoud. 1979–2000. Zosime. Histoire nouvelle. 5 vols. Paris. Translated by R.T. Ridley. 1982. Zosimus, New History: A Translation with Commentary. Canberra.

Secondary Bardill, J. 2012. Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age. Cambridge. Barnes, T.D. 1981. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA and London. Barnes, T.D. 2011. Constantine. Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire. Chichester. Bjornlie, S. 2016. ‘Constantine in the Sixth Century.’ In The Life and Legacy of Constantine: Traditions through the Ages, ed. B. Bjornlie, 92–114. London. Burgess, R.W. 1997. ‘The Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica.’ JThS NS 48 (2): 471–504. Callu, J.P. 2003. ‘Succès et limites du solidus constantinien.’ In Moneta mercanti banchieri: i precedenti greci e romani dell’euro, ed. G. Urso, 205–218. Pisa. Carrié, J.-M. 1999. ‘L’empire-monde et les bases restaurées de la puissance.’ In L’empire romain en mutation, des Sévères à Constantin 192–337, eds. J.-M. Carrié and A. Rousselle, 563–649. Paris. Cases, L. 2019. ‘Language and Administrative Structures. The Vicarii under Diocletian and Constantine (297–315).’ Historia 68 (3): 353–367. Ceva, M. and F. Maspero. 1979. Eusebio di Cesarea. Storia ecclesiastica. Milano. Cubitt, G. 2007. History and Memory. Manchester and New York. Delmaire, R. 1995. Les institutions du bas-empire romain, de Constantin à Justinien. Paris. Elton, H. 2006. ‘Warfare and the Military.’ In The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, ed. N. Lenski, 325–346. Cambridge. Franco, L. 2009. Eusebio di Cesarea. Vita di Costantino. Milan. Goffart, W. 1971. ‘Zosimus, the First Historian of Rome’s Fall.’ The American Historical Review 76 (2): 412–441. Kapust, D. 2012. ‘Tacitus and Political Thought.’ In A Companion to Tacitus, ed. V.E. Pagán, 504–528. Chichester. Kruse, M. 2019. The Politics of Roman Memory. From the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Age of Justinian. Philadelphia. Leadbetter, B. 1998. ‘The Illegitimacy of Constantine and the Birth of the Tetrarchy.’ In Constantine. History, Historiography and Legend, eds. S.N.C. Lieu and D. Montserrat, 74–85. London and New York. Lenski, N. 2016. Constantine and the Cities. Imperial Authority and Civic Politics. Philadelphia. Lo Cascio, E. 2005. ‘The New State of Diocletian and Constantine: from the Tetrarchy to the Reunification of the Empire.’ In The Cambridge Ancient History, eds. A. Bowman, Av. Cameron, and P. Garnsey, Vol. 12: 170–183. Cambridge. MacCormack, S.G. 1981. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles.

168

Hartmut Ziche

Potter, D. 2013. Constantine the Emperor. Oxford. Rosen, K. 2006. Julian, Kaiser, Gott und Christenhasser. Stuttgart. Rousselle, A. 1999. ‘La rupture constantinienne.’ In L’empire romain en mutation, des Sévères à Constantin 192–337, eds. J.-M. Carrié and A. Rousselle, 217–267. Paris. Stephenson, P. 2009. Constantine. Roman Emperor, Christian Victor. New York. Teitler, H.C. 2017. The Last Pagan Emperor. Julian the Apostate and the War against Christianity. Oxford. Van Dam, R. 2007. The Roman Revolution of Constantine. Cambridge. Van Dam, R. 2011. Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge. Cambridge. Wilson, A. 1998. ‘Biographical Models: The Constantinian Period and Beyond.’ In Constantine. History, Historiography and Legend, eds. S.N.C. Lieu and D. Montserrat, 107–135. London and New York.

9

Remembering dystopia Re-reading Chrysostom’s homily On the Holy Martyr Babylas through the lens of disgust Wendy Mayer

Introduction In this article I set out to explore one facet of how the making and unmaking of memory manifests in late antiquity by using two relatively recent works of scholarship as a jumping off point. The first is Nathaniel Morehouse’s book Death’s Dominion: Power, Identity, and Memory and the Fourth-Century Martyr Shrine (2016). The second is Pascal Célérier’s 2013 publication of his doctoral dissertation. The French title translates as The Shadow of Emperor Julian: The fate of Julian’s writings among pagan and Christian writers from the fourth to sixth century.1 As evidenced by the title, this second work is in essence about how Julian’s writings, and thus the emperor Julian himself, were remembered. At the same time, this article is situated within a much larger project, with which a number of the contributors to this volume are involved.2 In that project our thesis is that communities that perceive themselves to be under threat develop ideological narratives in which an undergirding component is a rewriting of the past that supports the community’s self-identity in the present. That utopian (or sometimes dystopian) memory of the past, whether intentionally or unintentionally, plays an agential role in shaping future action.3 My own particular concern within this larger project is whether accounts of imagined – or re-imagined – past violence actively produce violent thinking or behaviour within the group that fosters and continually retells them. I have been unpacking the larger thesis and this more specific question in a series of book chapters and articles.4 The most recent article involves the bringing together of the emperor Julian’s disgust of human corpses in relation to the emerging Christian martyr cult, Julian’s plan to reconstruct the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and the Antiochene priest John Chrysostom’s construction some 20 years later of the memory of Julian.5 The memory John constructs of Julian is a morally encoded one that, I conclude, is likely to have activated anti-Semitic sentiments in the brain of his listeners, with real local anti-Jewish behavioural entailments.6 At the heart of this morally encoded framing of Julian and his intervention in Antioch’s past sits John Chrysostom’s homily on the martyr Babylas (de S. Bab.). In relation to the development of the cult of the saints a great deal has been written on the events that are reported in this homily, usually from the perspective of DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-11

170

Wendy Mayer

the construction of Christian identity, competing discourses of religious authority, and, most recently, contested places.7 With respect to the thesis explored by Morehouse, these approaches all suit the latter’s Foucauldian mode of analysis, and his concern with the push and pull between discourses and assertions of power on the part of church leaders and of the people who frequented martyr shrines, the latter bringing with them and taking away their own constructions of memory and of identity. As one reviewer notes, however, his approach has little to say about ‘the aesthetic, affective, and sensorial features of the martyr cult’ and how this conditioned ‘readers’/hearers’ experiences at martyrs’ shrines’.8 This aspect, explored by Susan Ashbrook Harvey in Scenting Salvation (2006), Patricia Cox Miller in The Corporeal Imagination (2009), and Giselle de Nie in Poetics of Wonder (2011), for instance, emerges as a key aspect when we begin to explore the role in the construction of memory of intuitive moral judgements and emotions. It is here that I pick up the insights offered by Célérier. As he points out, disgust over human corpses is a defining feature of Julian’s objection to Christianity.9 Julian in his Contra Galilaeos mocks Christian veneration of the cross, describes Christ as a corpse, and evokes the equation of corpses with impurity.10 In his homily on Babylas, as Célérier argues, John shows knowledge, both direct and indirect, of Julian’s writings in this regard and uses the homily as an occasion for polemic against them.11 It is that homily (de s. Bab.) – as distinct from the more thoroughly analysed treatise on Babylas (Pan. Bab.) – that is the focus of my analysis. Célérier’s observations about Julian’s own engagement with corpses, purity, and disgust – themes that dominate the homily – are highly suggestive. What I will do in this article is take up his ideas and explore them further through the lens of Moral Foundations Theory, bringing the latter into dialogue with cognitive research on pollution as a concept, and contamination appraisals. While similar conclusions about the message of the homily as a whole may have been reached by other scholars, there is, I would argue, something very singular about disgust that further nuances our understanding of the role of emotion and the subconscious in the construction of memory. I will argue that the homily testifies to an intuitive resistance to Julian’s policy of removing ‘polluting’ Christian bodies from pagan religious sites that can only have worked if, as Célérier demonstrates, Julian’s writings were themselves remembered at Antioch and remained in some kind of circulation. In responding to Julian’s own rhetoric of purity and disgust, in this homily John inverts Julian’s pollution theories.12 In the process, past events under Julian are recast as dystopian, with the dead Christian body of Babylas as the locus for that reframing. As the homily concludes, the living ascetic body is held up as a continuation of the utopianist martyr body.

Disgust and pollution To understand John’s counter-narrative, we need first to be clear about Julian’s own position. As Juana Torres points out, Julian’s response to the martyr cult and its veneration of dead bodies was shared at the time by many Christian leaders, particularly in the west. For many the old beliefs concerning the polluting effect of

Remembering dystopia 171 corpses persisted. Together with Julian, for these Christians the cult of the martyrs constituted necrolatry.13 The strict purification rituals required in order to properly worship the gods after just proximity to or the sight of a dead body, let alone contact with a corpse, lay at the heart of such anti-martyr attitudes.14 Language of pollution, contamination, and disgust attaches in his writings to the crucified Christian God and the tombs of the martyrs, in contradistinction to the purity of the disembodied pagan gods.15 Bringing the one into contact with the other is not just an act of pollution, but constitutes sacrilege.16 Why this matters is explained by the findings of recent experimental research on disgust, contamination, and purity in the field of moral psychology.17 Disgust, for these researchers, is more than an emotion. It is an emotion that is, in essence, morally encoded.18 To put it in very simple terms, while what triggers disgust (along with its associated behaviours) is culturally determined – a matter of nurture – the cognition of disgust is common across cultures – a matter of evolution or how the brain is wired.19 The emotion is associated with the activation of an intuitive moral judgement at the preconscious level in the brain. The priority in the decision-making process of gut instinct over reason in the case of what these researchers label moral intuitions or foundations is without exception.20 Disgust is the characteristic emotion associated with the purity/degradation intuition.21 The latter is one of five moral foundations so far identified as the universal cognitive modules upon which cultures construct moral matrices that facilitate group cohesion.22 The purity/degradation moral matrix is considered an evolved response to the particular challenge the individuals within a social group face in respect to keeping themselves and their ‘kin free from parasites and pathogens, which spread quickly when people live in close proximity’.23 A high death rate from poor hygiene together with the spread of infection, Haidt explains, can rapidly undermine a group’s viability and prosperity.24 Explaining how and why a direct link cognitively between physical hygiene and moral and religious purity occurs has been a recent concern of moral psychologists. This explanatory model has been applied with considerable success to ritual purification prescriptions and behaviours in ancient near-eastern and Hebrew religion. How in Mediterranean near-eastern cultures physical contagion as a result of contaminants like dirt, faeces, or corpses became intuitively and cognitively linked to concepts of pollution, sanctity/purity, and desecration – driving the development of religious systems of purificatory and avoidance responses, even when the perceived contagion was no longer literal – is explored at length by Yitzhaq Feder in a series of articles.25 What Feder contributes to the discussion is a useful explanation for how the moral matrix constructed by individual societies on the common purity/degradation foundation becomes culturally encoded. Each society develops what he calls a pollution theory, which informs culturally conditioned ways of viewing contamination and culturally specific ritualised actions and responses. That is, while contamination avoidance or disease avoidance is a commonly evolved human behaviour, the pollution beliefs linked to that response are culturally variable.26 Feder argues for a feedback loop between individual (gut-level) contamination appraisals and (rationalised) collective pollution

172

Wendy Mayer

beliefs or theories to the point that the latter themselves can become automatic within a particular culture or society. It is those pollution theories that will define whether contact with a contaminant (e.g. excrement, corpses) is inherently dangerous, or whether this threat is restricted to a particular (e.g. religious) context, and they will also suggest the means by which this contamination can be removed (purification).27 In both Graeco-Roman and ancient near-eastern societies bodily emissions and blood – that is, leaky bodies – were significant triggers.28 Sarah Bond’s recent study of taboo trades demonstrates how pervasively the pollution theories associated with these contaminants impacted law codes and social interaction in Roman culture.29 Their implications for ritual behaviour in Greek religion is brought out by the studies of Robert Parker, and in Roman religion Jack Lennon.30 In that context, as in many societies ancient and modern, corpses which decayed and leaked bodily fluids and odours were of particular concern as a source of pollution.31 That collective pollution beliefs or theories can become automatic or intuitive within a particular culture links to the concept of a ‘moral commonsense’ discussed by the moral psychologists.32 This can differ from group to group, often bringing groups into conflict.

Disgust as a Dystopic lens Where Julian was concerned to restore purity to the worship of the gods, John, in his homily on Babylas (de s. Bab.), is concerned with recasting that purity as polluting.33 In section 4 he points out that Julian himself is now a corpse and that, when he worshipped the gods, the smoke and blood of his sacrifices defiled (μολύνων) the air and soil. The gods Julian worshipped are evil spirits and demons, the priests charlatans (seers and sorcerers).34 Instead of rewarding Julian with an Edenic world of abundance, the demons he worshipped created a dystopian world of nightmare proportions. Cities were destroyed. The springs of Daphne dried up. Markets were emptied of goods. As people pushed and shoved to get their hands on what little was available, the good order of the city was disrupted.35 In section 5 of the homily, the action that Julian took in order to purify the sanctuary of Apollo of polluting Christian corpses – their removal and relocation – is reframed by John as sacrilegious. In response to Julian’s prayers the oracular Apollo is said to have commanded him: ‘Break open the coffins, dig up the bones, transfer the bodies! . . . The dead bodies are pollution (μίασμα).’36 It was not the Christian bodies that were polluting, John goes on to argue; rather, it was the emperor’s actions in disturbing a human burial that constituted defilement. The translocation of corpses is, as he points out, against all natural law and comes under the classification of a literal criminal act – that is, grave-robbing.37 Reversing the wisdom of the time, he continues with the argument that it is not corpses that are impure – they just lie there without motion or sensation. Rather it is the living who are impure as a result of their distorted will.38 By this, John evokes his characteristic anthropology39 and suggests that the impurity traditionally assigned to corpses should instead be ascribed to Julian.

Remembering dystopia 173 That John understands that Julian’s reaction to the polluting effect of corpses is associated with disgust is made explicit in section 7 of the homily where he says: That [the oracle’s] words were a pretext and excuse and that [Julian] was afraid of blessed Babylas is clear from what the emperor did. For he left all the other bodies and moved just that martyr. And yet, if the emperor did this not out of fear but out of a disgust (βδελυττόμενος) for him, he should have ordered the coffin smashed, drowned, taken off into a wilderness, [or] liquidated by some other method of destruction. For that is the mark of a person in a state of disgust (βδελυττομένου). That is what God did when he spoke to the Hebrews about the disgusting practices (τῶν βδελυγμάτων) of the nations. He ordered [the Hebrews] to smash their columns, to not bring the polluted objects from the suburbs into the cities.40 There is a double thrust here in that, as I argue in my most recent article in which I focus on Julian’s own pollution theories, Julian displays an intentional policy of not destroying martyr bodies across the empire. Within his particular pollution theory the destruction of a corpse would be anathema. His actions are also consistent with his policy of religious tolerance. Julian’s policy in regard to martyr bodies at other sites does not support deliberate destruction of buildings associated with Christian corpses either, although it is likely that his intentional disinterment and translocation of bodies was, as we see in this homily, viewed as desecration by the more enthusiastic adherents of the martyr cult in localised Christian communities. Julian’s actions in this respect were not intended to obliterate the memory of Christian martyrs from the landscape, but rather to displace them in memory so that the pure and true religion of the gods of the past was restored to priority.41 By charging Julian with an inconsistent disgust response (he removed only one corpse, not all of them), John filters the emperor’s actions through his own Christianised pollution theory. By invoking the Hebrews, whose ancient religion Julian respected,42 he aligns Julian with the Jews and suggests that Julian’s own worship practices are disgusting and come under divine judgement.43 As we learn in sections 8–9, this is precisely what happened. According to John, what Julian does not dare do to the martyr shrine – erase it from the landscape – is done by divine act to Julian’s polluted and polluting temple, although in the latter case the temple is left in desolate ruin as a perpetual reminder of the dystopian world created by Julian’s impure actions.44 In this sectarian recasting of the past, the destroyed temple is explicitly said in section 9 to be a witness to this particular memory of events not just for those in the present, but for those who will visit the site in the future.45 This brings us to the penultimate section of the homily (section 10) in which events surrounding Babylas’ purifying – not putrefying – body are narrated. Where the city had been emptied under Julian because of the famine, it is now emptied by the enthusiasm generated by the reception of the returning body.46 The body rejected by the demon Apollo is welcomed to the city cemetery by a whole chorus of fellow martyrs.47 By this John refers to the Koimeterion, which at this stage in

174

Wendy Mayer

the city’s life was already populated by a number of martyr shrines.48 But this is not enough for this exceptional body. A new shrine is built to house the body. This is situated across the Orontes so, as John claims, ‘many regions might be filled with the martyr’s sweet smell’.49 That is, so that the body might have a utopic effect on the wider landscape. Utopian in this regard is affective. It is as much about a perfected sensory state as about location. But place matters, too. In real terms, the shrine would have contrasted visually with the ruined temple in Daphne – not just in its newness and perfection, but in its size. If, as seems likely, the Church dedicated to Babylas is to be identified with the Church excavated at Qausīyeh,50 then its archaeological remains indicate that the church in which this homily was being preached was pro tem the largest religious building in Antioch.51 Together with the central location of the martyr’s tomb,52 the visual impact of the church would have lent veracity to John’s narrative. But that is not all. The bulk of this final section is devoted to the church’s builder, the recently deceased bishop of Antioch, Meletius.53 In a veiled way, Meletius is shown to be the polar opposite of Julian. He is a cultivator and enthusiast of the martyrs. Unlike Julian, he doesn’t seek to violate their bodies. Instead he literally offers Babylas ‘the service of his own body’.54 Unlike Julian, with his corrupt will, Meletius quenches ‘the flame of his desire’, effecting martyrdom in the flesh of his own living body.55 Unlike the by then dead and polluting Julian, Meletius’ living necrosis was an ikon or image of all martyr bodies, whom he sought to emulate as well as cultivate in the landscape here on earth.56 John explicitly aligns Meletius’ now dead body with Babylas’ own sweet utopianising smell,57 drawing the audience’s attention to the fact that the corpses of the two bishops (Babylas and Meletius) are buried near each other at the centre of the church in which he and his audience are currently standing.58

Conclusion In this homily John’s making and unmaking of past and present-future memory centres on bodies, disgust, purity, and pollution. In it, John takes the emperor Julian’s pollution theories and inverts them. Martyr bodies in general, and the body of the martyr Babylas in particular, are the focal point on which this narrative turns. With the martyr body is elided the ascetic body.59 Ironically, this homily can only have worked if Julian’s own writings and policies (directly or indirectly) were, some 25 years after Julian’s residency in Antioch, still strong in people’s memories. What Julian memorialised in his own writings as a purifying act – the removal and translocation of Babylas’ polluting body60 – becomes in Chrysostom’s narrative a disgusting and polluting act. That act produces a dystopian and withered landscape. The ruined temple of Apollo is a blight on that landscape that, now that the springs and the beauty of Daphne have long since been restored, is to be viewed as a jarring and permanent reminder. Babylas’ body, by contrast, with its pleasant odour sensorially permeates and transforms a wide swathe of the countryside around it. It is portrayed as a utopianising artefact. By contrasting the substantial newly constructed Church of St. Babylas with the ruined temple of Apollo in Daphne, and pointing to the twin centrally located tombs in the church in which

Remembering dystopia 175 two pure (and thus purifying) bodies are buried together, Chrysostom in this homily refashions and implants in the minds of his listeners a very particular memory of the emperor Julian and his role in Antioch’s past. In this sense, the homily is a case of a native son of Antioch, John, turning the outsider Julian’s own pollution sensibilities back on him and hammering, as it were, yet another nail in the coffin of Julian’s memory.

Notes 1 French: L’Ombre de l’empereur Julien. Le destin des écrits de Julien chez les auteurs païens et chrétiens du IVe au VIe siècle. 2 Memories of Utopia: Destroying the Past to Create the Future (300–650CE), Australian Research Council, DP170104595 (2017–2020). Lead researchers: Bronwen Neil (Macquarie University), Wendy Mayer (University of Divinity), Pauline Allen (Australian Catholic University), and Chris L. de Wet (University of South Africa), with Leonela Fundic and Rajiv K. Bhola (postdoctoral researchers). 3 See Neil 2020, and for a discussion of narrative patterns of this kind in relation to historical reasoning, Mayer (forthcoming). 4 Mayer 2017, 2018a, 2018b, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c, 2019d. 5 Mayer 2020. 6 The basis for that conclusion is explained in greater detail in Mayer 2019b. 7 See for example Rohmann 2018; Shepardson 2014: 58–91; Célérier 2013: 333–357; Gagnon 2013; Todt 2010; Mayer 2009: 357–361; Rist 2005; Hahn 2004: 161–173; Carruthers 1998: 46–55; Guinot 1995. Carruthers, through the lens of memory theory, views these events as a crafted story of ‘turf battles’ between a martyr and a pagan god. Shepardson, using theories derived from cultural geography, reaches similar conclusions. Edwards 2019, by contrast, discusses Julian and the burning of the Temple of Apollo from an economic perspective. The bulk of these studies focus greater attention on Chrysostom’s treatise on the same topic (Pan. Bab.) than on his homily (de s. Bab.). 8 Daniel-Hughes 2018. Sarah F. Porter, PhD candidate at Harvard University, by contrast, takes up this challenge in her doctoral research on affect and deathscapes in late ancient Christian memorialisation. Her study analyses the cult of Babylas at Antioch, in addition to the Church of Felix at Nola and the Damascene catacomb inscriptions in Rome (Porter 2019). 9 For further discussion, see also Finkelstein 2018: 120–127. 10 Célérier 2013: 333–357, sections titled ‘Une homélie polémique’ and ‘Un grand thème central du Discours et de l’Homélie: L’oracle et l’impureté des cadavres’, especially § 20. All citations are from the Open Access edition: https://books.openedition.org/ pupo/3038. 11 Célérier 2013: 333–357, §§ 20–22. 12 For his pollution theories see Mayer 2020: 76–81; and Belayche 2002. 13 Torres 2009: 211. 14 Alluded to by Julian, ep. 136b (Bidez 2004: 199.18–200.1): ‘[. . .] τοῖς δὲ εἰς ἱερὰ βαδίζουσιν οὐ θέμις προσελθεῖν ἐστι πρὶν ἀπολούσασθαι.’ On concerns with order and cleanliness as recurrent elements in ritualised behaviour, see Ullucci 2015: 392. 15 See for example Julian, ep. 114 (Bidez 2004: 195.21–23), CG 194D = fr. 43, 205E-206A= fr. 48 (Masaraccia 1990: 138.13–16, 142.2–7). 16 See Julian, ep. 136b (Bidez 2004: 199.20–24) and discussion in Mayer 2020: 79. 17 Much of the theory discussed in this section was first published in Mayer 2020. It is repeated here in modified form with updated literature. 18 Strohminger & Kumar 2018; Giner-Sorolla et al. 2018. Not all researchers in the field of moral psychology agree with this conclusion. See for example Landy & Goodwin

176

19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Wendy Mayer

2015, although note that their review of experimental evidence is concerned with incidental disgust and the capacity of disgust to amplify moral judgement. This particular area of disgust theory Giner-Sorolla et al. 2018: 7 (preprint) describe as ‘controversial’, that is, the most highly contested. Giner-Sorolla 2012 introduces integrative function theory (IFT) to explain the complexity of how morally encoded emotions function. For disgust and the role of culture, see Feder 2016a; for disgust and brain evolution, Rottman et al. 2018. For the finding that disgust develops relatively late in childhood in comparison to other ‘basic’ emotions, see Giner-Sorolla et al. 2018: 4 (preprint). This is thought to account for the ‘great variety among cultures in the things that they find disgusting’, due to a ‘prepared ability to learn’. Haidt 2012. Haidt 2012: 146. Graham et al. 2013. See the overview by Whitehouse & McKay 2018. Haidt 2012: 146. Haidt 2012: 146. Feder 2013, 2016a, 2016b. Feder 2016a. Feder 2016a: 1577. Feder 2013: 164–166. Bond 2016. Parker 1996; Lennon 2014. Feder 2013: 157: ‘[. . .] Western medicine was dominated by the metaphor of a stain (Greek miasma, Latin infectio), that could spread corrupting influence either by means of direct contact or through the bad air emitted by putrefaction (Greek sepsis).’ Greene 2013. Section numbers follow the paragraph divisions in the Sources Chrétiennes edition. Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 300.4–302.20; trans. Mayer 2003: 144): Where, then, is the emperor who made those threats? Dead and perished, [. . .]. Where are the emperor’s blasphemous utterances and unbridled tongue? They’ve become ashes and dust and the food of worms. [. . .] he would summon seers and assemble sorcerors and bring together all his father’s (sc. the Devil’s) machinations. Staining (μολύνων) the air with smoke, the earth with blood, he would summon all the demons from every quarter and invite them to take part with him in the fight against us. And everything was full of demons and evil spirits.

35 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 302.20–27; trans. Mayer 2003: 1445–1445): So what were the consequences of this cult? The destruction of cities and a famine more severe than any other. Of course, you know and remember how the marketplace was empty of goods, while the workshops were full of turmoil with each person jostling to be the first to snatch what appeared, and leave. And why do I mention famine when the springs themselves – springs which eclipse rivers in the abundance of their flow – ran dry of water? 36 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 304.6–7 and 21–22; trans. Mayer 2003: 145). On the content of the oracle as an invention by John, and on the significance of the plural ‘bodies’, see Célérier 2013: 333–357, §§ 28–30. 37 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 304.7–13; trans. Mayer 2003: 145: What could be more impious than these instructions? The demon was introducing alien laws of grave-robbing and conceiving of novel methods of expelling foreigners. Who ever heard of dead bodies being deported? Who saw lifeless bodies being ordered to change locations, just as [Apollo] commanded, overturning nature’s common laws from their foundations?

Remembering dystopia 177 38 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 304.22–31; trans. Mayer 2003: 145–146): It’s not the dead bodies that are pollution (μίασμα), utterly wicked demon, but the evil will (προαίρεσις πονηρά) that is a defilement. If one must say something astonishing, the bodies of the living are more full of wickedness than those of the dead are impure (μιαρά). My point is that the former serve the soul’s commands, while the latter lie motionless. What is motionless and bereft of all sensation would also be free of any charge. Except that I personally wouldn’t say that the bodies of the living are by nature impure (μιαρά), but rather that in every case the wicked and distorted will (τὴν πονηρὰν καὶ διαστραμμένην προαίρεσιν) is accountable for the charges brought by all. 39 The role of the γνώμη and προαίρεσις in the human person with reference to moral culpability are discussed by Salem 2010; Laird 2012; Miller 2020. 40 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 306.1–12; trans. Mayer 2003: 146). 41 Mayer 2020. 42 There is a complex set of ideas assumed by John at this point centred on Julian’s admiration of Judaeans, discussed in depth by Finkelstein 2018, especially 81–84. 43 On the prevalence of purity and justice language, with its potential activation of disgust and anger, in John’s homilies Adversus Judaeos, see Mayer 2019b. On the link between Julian’s plan to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, his admiration for the Hebrew religion, and his concerns with purification, which are in turn likely to have triggered the homilies Adversus Judaeos, see Mayer 2020. 44 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 308–310). 45 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 308.1–310.10; trans. Mayer 2003: 147): Indeed the walls now stand in place of a trophy, uttering a sound clearer than a trumpet, relating through the sight to those in Daphne, those in the city, those arriving from afar, those who live here, those people who will exist hereafter, everything – the contest, the struggle, the martyr’s victory. For it’s likely that the person arriving at the suburb from afar and seeing, on the one hand, the martyrium empty of the coffin, on the other, the temple with its roof missing, will seek out the cause of each of these events. Next, they’ll depart from there in possession of the whole story. 46 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 310.3–6; trans. Mayer 2003: 147): at the time that he came back from Daphne our whole city poured out onto the road and while the marketplaces were empty of men, the houses were empty of married women and their chambers were deserted by young single women. 47 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 310.9; trans. Mayer 2003: 147): ‘you gave him back to the band of like enthusiasts (τῷ τῶν ὁμοζήλων χορῷ).’ 48 Mayer & Allen 2012: 85–89. 49 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 310.11–12; trans. Mayer 2003: 147). 50 Mayer & Allen 2012: 32–49. 51 Mayer & Allen 2012: 176–177. In the book Antioch is defined as the walled city plus its suburbs and the port Seleucia Pieria. The Church at Qausīyeh is situated in the suburbs on the Orontes’ western bank. 52 Mayer 2010. 53 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 310.12–312.38). It is noteworthy that Meletius’ own history is entwined with Julian’s residency at Antioch: Karmann 2009. 54 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 312.20): ‘τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος λειτουργίαν.’ 55 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 312.33–36; trans. Mayer 2003: 148): They gave up their bodies to slaughter. He mortified (ἐνέκρωσεν) the components of his flesh that are on earth. They stood firm against fire’s flame, he quenched

178

Wendy Mayer the flame of his desire (τῆς ἐπιθυμίας τὴν φλόγα). They fought against the teeth of wild animals, but he calmed even the most savage of the passions in us (τὸ χαλεπώτατον ἐν ἡμῖν παθῶν) – rage. (Translation amended)

For the significance of balancing desires and passions within John’s anthropology, see Mayer 2015. 56 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 312.28–33; trans. Mayer 2003: 148): he spent time cultivating the martyrs, not just with magnificent buildings nor constant festivals, but in the way that’s better than those. What is this way? He copied their life, he was an enthusiast of their courage, through every action, in so far as he could, he preserved in himself the martyrs’ image (εἰκόνα). 57 The nexus of ideas here – body, corruptibility, incorruptibility, utopia, dystopia, askesis, and the scent of salvation – is complex. See Harvey 2006 and De Wet 2020. For Christians, the sweet odour of the holy was associated with the paradigmatic utopia, Paradise: Caseau 2014: 93. 58 Jn Chrys. de s. Bab. (SC 362, 310.9–312.18; trans. Mayer 2003: 147): God’s grace didn’t allow him to remain there forever. Instead he transferred him once more beyond the river so that many regions might be filled with the martyr’s sweet smell. And not even when [Babylas] came here was he destined to be alone. Rather, he quickly received as neighbour and co-inhabitant a man of like temperament. For [Meletius] shared the same office as Babylas and displayed the same boldness of speech for the sake of piety. For that reason (not by accident, as it might seem) this admirable enthusiast of the martyr received the same dwelling as him. 59 For the idea of the body as locus of utopia and dystopia and the place in this schema of the asceticised body, see De Wet 2020. 60 This is the sense conveyed when Julian Mis. 33 (Nesselrath 2015: 203) and CG 335B = fr. 81 (Masaraccia 1990: 175) are read together.

Bibliography Primary sources John Chrysostom. De s. Bab. = De s. hieromartyre Babyla. Edited by B. Grillet and J.N. Guinot. 1990. Jean Chrysostom. Homélie sur Babylas. SC, 362. Paris, 279–313. Translated by W. Mayer. 2003. In J. Leemans, W. Mayer, P. Allen and B. Dehandschutter, ‘Let Us Die that We May Live’: Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria (c. 350–c. 450 AD), 140–148. London. John Chrysostom. Pan. Bab. = De s. Babyla contra Iulianum et gentiles. Edited by M.A. Schatkin, with C. Blanc and B. Grillet. 1990. Jean Chrysostom. Discours sur Babylas. SC, 362. Paris, 88–275. Julian. Contra Galilaeos. Edited by E. Masaraccia. 1990. Giuliano Imperatore Contra Galilaeos. Testi e commenti, 9. Rome. Julian. Epistulae. Edited by J. Bidez. 1924. L’Empereur Julien, Oeuvres completes. Vol. 1.2: Lettres et fragments, 1st edn. Paris. [Repr. 2004]. Julian. Misopogon. Edited by H.-G. Nesselrath. 2015. Iulianus Augustinus opera. Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 2018, 174–213. Leipzig.

Remembering dystopia 179 Secondary sources Belayche, N. 2002. ‘Sacrifice and Theory of Sacrifice during the “Pagan Reaction”: Julian the Emperor.’ In Sacrifice in Religious Experience, ed. A.I. Baumgarten, 101–126. Leiden. Bond, S.E. 2016. Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean. Ann Arbor, MI. Carruthers, M. 1998. The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200. Cambridge. Caseau, B. 2014. ‘The Senses in Religion: Liturgy, Devotion, and Deprivation.’ In A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages, ed. R.G. Newhauser, 89–110. London. Célérier, P. 2013. L’Ombre de l’empereur Julien. Le destin des écrits de Julien chez les auteurs païens et chrétiens du IVe au VIe siècle. Paris. Cox Miller, P. 2009. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity. Philadelphia. Daniel-Hughes, C. 2018. ‘Review of Morehouse (2016).’ Review of Biblical Literature 08/2018. de Nie, G. 2011. Poetics of Wonder: Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World. Turnhout. de Wet, C. 2020. ‘Utopia, Body, and Pastness in John Chrysostom.’ In Memories of Utopia: The Revision of Histories and Landscapes in Late Antiquity, eds. B. Neil and K. Simic, 107–121. London. Edwards, D.R. 2019. ‘The Economic Spark of the Burning of the Temple of Apollo in Daphne.’ JNES 78 (2): 307–321. Feder, Y. 2013. ‘Contagion and Cognition: Bodily Experience and the Conceptualization of Pollution (tum’ah) in the Hebrew Bible.’ JNES 72 (2): 151–167. Feder, Y. 2016a. ‘Contamination Appraisals, Pollution Beliefs, and the Role of Cultural Inheritance in Shaping Disease Avoidance Behavior.’ Cognitive Science 40: 1561–1585. Feder, Y. 2016b. ‘Defilement, Disgust and Disease: The Experiential Basis of Hittite and Akkadian Terms for Impurity.’ JAOS 136 (1): 99–116. Finkelstein, A. 2018. The Specter of the Jews: Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch. Oakland. Gagnon, P.-O. 2013. ‘L’Affaire des reliques de saint Babylas et l’espace sacré d’Antioche aux IVe et Ve siècles.’ Master’s mémoire. Université du Québec à Rimouski. Giner-Sorolla, R. 2012. Judging Passions: Moral Emotions in Persons and Groups. London. Giner-Sorolla, R., Kupfer, T., & Sabo, J. 2018. ‘What Makes Moral Disgust Special? An Integrative Functional Review.’ Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 57: 223– 289. Preprint version, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf/io/usj8g. Retrieved September 20, 2019, from https://psyarxiv.com/usj8g/. Graham, J. et al. 2013. ‘Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism.’ Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 47: 55–130. Greene, J.D. 2013. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap between Us and Them. New York. Guinot, J.-N. 1995. ‘L’Homélie sur Babylas de Jean Chrysostome: la victoire du martyr sur l’hellénisme.’ In La narrativa cristiana antica. XXIII Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana, ed. S. Pricoco, 323–341. Rome. Hahn, J. 2004. Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt. Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden und Juden im Osten des Römischen Reiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II). Berlin.

180

Wendy Mayer

Haidt, J. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York. Harvey, S.A. 2006. Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. Berkeley. Kahlos, M. 2013. ‘Polluted by Sacrifices: Christian Repugnance at Participation in Sacrificial rituals in Late Antiquity.’ In Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies: Rituals, Interaction and Identity, eds. S. Katajala-Peltomaa and V. Vuollanto, 159–171. Rome. Karmann, T. 2009. Meletius von Antiochien. Studien zur Geschichte des trinitätstheologischen Streits in den Jahren 360–364 n. Chr. Frankfurt am Main. Laird, R.J. 2012. Mindset, Moral Choice and Sin in the Anthropology of John Chrysostom. Strathfield. Landy, J.F. and G.P. Goodwin. 2015. ‘Does Incidental Disgust Amplify Moral Judgment? A Meta-analytic Review of Experimental Evidence.’ Perspectives in Psychological Science 10 (4): 518–536. http://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615583128. Lennon, J. 2014. Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome. Cambridge. Mayer, W. 2009. ‘Antioch and the Intersection between Religious Factionalism, Place and Power.’ In The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, eds. A. Cain and N. Lenski, 357–367. Aldershot. Mayer, W. 2010. ‘The Late Antique Church at Qausîyeh Reconsidered: Memory and Martyr-burial in Syrian Antioch.’ In Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christanity: Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter, ed. J. Leemans, 161–177. Leuven. Mayer, W. 2015. ‘The Persistence in Late Antiquity of Medico-philosophical Psychic Therapy.’ JLA 8 (2): 337–351. Mayer, W. 2017. ‘A Life of Their Own: Preaching, Radicalisation, and the Early PsChrysostomica in Greek and Latin.’ In Philologie, herméneutique et histoire des textes entre orient et occident. Mélanges en hommage à Sever J. Voicu, eds. F.P. Barone, C. Macé, and P. Ubierna, 977–1004. Turnhout. Mayer, W. 2018a. ‘Loyalty and Betrayal: Villains, Imagination and Memory in the Reception of the Johannite Schism.’ In Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium, eds. B. Neil and E. Anagnostou-Laoutides, 249–264. Leiden. Mayer, W. 2018b. ‘Re-theorizing Religious Conflict: Early Christianity to Late Antiquity and Beyond.’ In Reconceiving Religious Conflict: New Views from the Formative Centuries of Christianity, eds. W. Mayer and C.L. de Wet, 3–29. London. Mayer, W. 2019a. ‘Severian and John on Authority: Exploring the Agency of Their Preaching in the Johannite Schism.’ In John Chrysostom and Severian of Gabala: Homilists, Exegetes and Theologians, eds. J. Leemans, G. Roskam, and J. Segers, 103–120. Leuven. Mayer, W. 2019b. ‘Preaching Hatred? John Chrysostom, Neuroscience, and the Jews.’ In Revisioning John Chrysostom: New Approaches, New Perspectives, eds. C.L. de Wet and W. Mayer, 58–136. Leiden. Mayer, W. 2019c. ‘Heirs of Roman Persecution: Common Threads in Discursive Strategies across Late Antiquity.’ In Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and ParaChristian Discourse in Late Antiquity, eds. É. Fournier and W. Mayer, 317–339. London. Mayer, W. 2019d. ‘Fundamentalism as a Pre-conscious Response to a Perceived Threat.’ In Fundamentalism or Tradition? Christianity after Secularism, eds. G.E. Demacopoulos and A. Papanikolaou, 241–260. New York. Mayer, W. 2020. ‘Purity and the Rewriting of Memory: Revisiting Julian’s Disgust for the Christian Worship of Corpses and Its Consequences.’ In Memories of Utopia: The

Remembering dystopia 181 Revision of Histories and Landscapes in Late Antiquity, eds. B. Neil and K. Simic, 75–91. London. Mayer, W. Forthcoming. ‘Religious Conflict and the Dark Side of Historical Reasonings.’ In Claiming History – The Role of Historical Reasoning in Religious Conflicts, eds. K. Heyden and A. Brändli. Basel-Berlin. Mayer, W. and P. Allen. 2012. The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300–638 CE). Leuven. Miller, S.L. 2020. Chrysostom’s Devil: Demons, the Will, and Virtue in Patristic Soteriology. Downers Grove, IL. Morehouse, N.J. 2016. Death’s Dominion: Power, Identity, and Memory at the FourthCentury Martyr Shrine. Sheffield, UK. Neil, B. 2020. ‘Curating the Past: The Retrieval of Historical Memories and Utopian Ideals.’ In Memories of Utopia: The Revision of Histories and Landscapes in Late Antiquity, eds. B. Neil and K. Simic, 3–19. London. Parker, R. 1996. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek religion, 2nd edn. Oxford. Porter, S.F. 2019. ‘Fear and Loathing of the nekros: Affective Economies around an Antiochene Corpse.’ Paper delivered at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Diego, 23 November, S23–237, Religious Competition in Late Antiquity. Rist, J. 2005. ‘Chrysostomus, Libanius, und Kaiser Julian: Überlegungen zu Inhalt und Umfeld der Schrift De sancto Babyla, contra Iulianum et gentiles (CPG 4348).’In Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo, XXXIII Incontro di Studiosi dell’Antichità Cristiana, Augustinianum 6–8 maggio 2004, Roma, 863–882. Roma. Rome. Rohmann, D. 2018. ‘Das Martyrion des Babylas und die polemischen Schriften des Johannes Chrysostomos.’ VChr 72: 206–224. Rottman, J. et al. 2018. ‘The Social Origins of Disgust.’ In Moral Psychology of Disgust, eds. N. Strohminger and V. Kumar, 27–52. London. Salem, C.E. 2010. ‘Sanity, Insanity, and Man’s Being as Understood by St. John Chrysostom.’ PhD dissertation, Durham University, UK. Retrieved from http://etheses.dur. ac.uk/3269. Shepardson, C. 2014. Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy. Berkeley. Todt, K.-P. 2010. ‘Phoibos Apollon oder Hl. Babylas? Zum Kampf zwischen griechischem und christlichem Kult im Antiocheia des 4. Jahrhunderts.’ In Krise und Kult: Vorderer Orient und Nordafrika von Aurelian bis Justinian, eds. D. Kreikenbom et al., 21–39. Berlin and New York. Torres, J. 2009. ‘Emperor Julian and the Veneration of Relics.’ AntTard 17: 205–214. Ullucci, D. 2015. ‘Sacrifice in the Ancient Mediterranean: Recent and Current Research.’ Currents in Biblical Research13 (3): 388–439. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476993X15583943. Whitehouse, H. and R. McKay. 2018. ‘Do Universal Moral Intuitions Shape and Constrain Culturally Prevalent Moral Norms?’ In Wilson et al., ‘This View of Morality’, 14–15. Wilson, D.S. et al. 2018. ‘This View of Morality: Can an Evolutionary Perspective Reveal a Universal Morality?’ 43 pp. Posted 23 May 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2019 from https://evolution-institute.org/new.evolution-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ tvol-morality-publication-web2018-7.pdf.

10 Martyrdom and the memorialisation of John Chrysostom In Ps.-Martyrius’ Funerary Speech in Praise of John Chrysostom Chris L. de Wet Introduction In September 407, somewhere near the village of Kokousos in Armenia, after living a few years in exile, John Chrysostom (born c. 349 CE) died.1 The particulars of his death are difficult to reconstruct, but it was probably related to his ill health while travelling in the harsh landscape of the area. When the rumour of his death arrived in the vicinity of Constantinople, some of John’s sympathisers, who were known as the Johannites, gathered together to celebrate the memory of their hero. They were not even sure whether he was truly dead, or whether it was false news. Despite their uncertainty and realising the likelihood of his death, some of his followers gathered together for a memorial, in which a funerary speech was orated as according to custom. This Funerary Speech in Praise of Saint John Chrysostom (Oratio funebris in laudem Sancti Johannis Chrysostomi) might be one of the earliest sources recounting the life and times of John after his death. Despite numerous attempts, the author of the Speech has not yet been conclusively identified.2 The speech is, without a doubt, an interesting cultural artefact, and quite important for understanding the nature and dynamics of the views and rhetoric of John’s followers. Most important is the fact that the author of the speech uses some of the famous conflict episodes of John’s life as the organising principle in his speech. The Oratio should be read with caution, however, since it has numerous limits for historically reconstructing John’s life. These historiographical challenges, however, do not fall within the scope of this study.3 I am rather interested in how the author of the speech memorialises John as a martyr, with a focus on John’s passive agency, his masculinity, eloquence, and Romanness, and, finally, his identity as a martyr in the fight against heresy. In conclusion, I will also take a step back and ask how the type of memorialisation we find in the Oratio utilises religious conflict and polemic in the construction of a figure, such as that of John.

Making a Martyr of John Chrysostom Studies on early Christian martyrdom in past decades have focused less on reconstructing historical realia, and rather tend to emphasise the discursive nature of DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-12

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

183

early Christian martyrdom, especially in the centuries of the late antique Roman period. Daniel Boyarin’s book, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (1999) especially prepared the ground for scholars to approach martyrdom as, according to Boyarin, ‘a “discourse”, as a practice of dying for God and of talking about it, a discourse that changes and develops over time and undergoes particularly interesting transformations’.4 Elizabeth Castelli masterfully develops the notion of martyrdom as discourse, especially in relation to collective memory, in her Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (2004). As with Boyarin, Castelli is concerned with how and for whom martyrs are discursively constructed. Martyr narratives become technologies that constructively assign symbolic meaning to what might be perceived as ‘senseless and capricious violence’.5 Castelli’s work is especially seminal for this study, since I too am interested in how John is reconstructed, commemorated, indeed, transformed, by means of martyr discourse in the Oratio. John, of course, did not find himself in the actual grand Colosseum of Rome; his arena was political, the spectacle was his prosecution and eventual exile, the spectators were the city of Constantinople, and many others who came to witness. In fact, it seems as if martyr discourse, especially in late antiquity, experience its transformation especially in relation to the figure of the bishop. Lucy Grig notes that the bishop/martyr relationship is undoubtedly one of the central cornerstones of martyrology. . . . The bishop and the martyr do not represent opposite poles, traditionally designated as charisma versus ecclesiastical authority; instead, their power should often be seen as contingent, rather than opposed.6 I will show in this chapter that the construction and commemoration of John in the Oratio unifies these two poles, between bishop and martyr, by assimilating the one into the other. This results exactly in John being the ideal embodiment of both spiritual charisma and power, and ecclesiastical authority. Jennifer Barry has already demonstrated that ‘[n]ot only does Christian flight take precedence over memories of martyrdom, but the cultural authority of those bygone martyrs is also slowly folded into new persecution narratives of episcopal exile’.7 For Barry, episcopal exile is the new martyrdom.8 In line with Barry’s observation, I aim to examine more closely the discursive strategies utilised by the Oratio in the construction of the memory of John as a martyr. The language of the contest (agôn) is very prevalent in the Oratio. John is depicted as wrestling against the devil and all his opponents (Orat. funeb. 29–30, 32 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 55–58]) and biblical exempla that invoke the image of martyrdom, like Joseph, Job, Christ, and Stephen, are used extensively in comparison with John. In several instances, the Oratio links John’s identity to that of a martyr.9 The Oratio also ends with a discourse about John’s martyrdom: But the time summons us to the martyrdom of our father, a martyrdom that crowns our father through the nature of the event and proclaims God’s complete wisdom, his fine planning and his ability to discover paths in pathless

184

Chris L. de Wet places. That the saint prayed to be found worthy of such a crown, although it was not the right time for this, because impiety had been repulsed and piety had been extended across the entire world, and that there was found some such manner of martyrdom which men clad in the skins of sheep accomplished involuntarily – how can this, my friends, not be believed to be the work of the wisdom and strength of God? (Orat. funeb. 133 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 112])

The author states that all the events surrounding John’s life, especially the difficult times in Constantinople, prepared the crown of martyrdom for him. There are four strategies that the author of the speech utilises to sketch the image of John the martyr and his persecutors, namely (1) John’s passive agency and his aversion to violence, (2) his Christ-likeness (i.e. imitatio Christi), (3) reference to his ethnicity and masculinity, and, (4) John’s status as an orthodox (i.e. Nicene) martyr and opponent of heresy.

John’s agency as a Martyr Firstly, there is the strategy of agency. John is depicted in very passive terms; he is seen as the silent suffering victim who simply relies on God and not human structures. Passivity is a very common descriptor in early Christian martyrdom accounts.10 In contrast, John’s opponents are described in the most violent terms – they are bloodthirsty with no ability to control their emotions (see, for instance, Orat. funeb. 38 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 60–61]). John’s passive agency stands out in the speech. His absence and silence during his first trial and exile demonstrates, for the author, that John always acted to avoid violence. His position is described as being between a rock and a hard place: [I]f crossed the strait, they intended not to allow him to say anything or to open his mouth, since the way would be blocked by young hooligans using physical violence and abuse (for they were surrounded by a large number of hired thugs); on the other hand, if he did not cross the water, they intended to depose him as if they were following the laws of the church. (Orat. funeb. 54 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 70]) John chooses the path of non-violence, according to the Oratio. John communicates by means of emissaries, who are constantly intimidated. John’s silence and reservation are used to indicate that his life and the events are within his own control, and like Christ,11 he does not seek his own will. However, as I will demonstrate shortly, there are also sections in the Oratio where John becomes more loquacious, which serves as a strategy to fashion John’s masculinity and Romanness. John’s archenemy Theophilus, on the other hand, is throughout the Oratio depicted as a murderer, like Cain (Orat. funeb. 53 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 70]). Theophilus is thus considered to be one guilty of fratricide, since he is

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

185

baying for the blood of his own Christian kinsfolk. He burns down monasteries, hunts down monks (referring to the Tall Brothers), plots murder, and uses hired thugs and even assassins to escalate matters into violence. Both in biblical and Roman historical tradition, fratricide is seen as one of the first crimes of humankind, and in biblical tradition, one that leads to divine rejection and punishment.12 Another antagonist, Optatus, is seen as a ‘pagan’ who cannot control his anger, and who can only resolve matters with torture and prosecution. Violence delights him (Orat. funeb. 123–25, 131 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 106–107, 111]). John does not fight, since it is God who fights for him. This concept is clearly spelled out in the empress Eudoxia’s miscarriage and her death. The Oratio is the first to extrapolate a hostile relationship between the empress Eudoxia and John. Not all of the sources for John’s life show the same disdain for Eudoxia.13 In the Oratio, God punishes Eudoxia for her treacherous and sacrilegious behaviour, and before her death, she cries out that John is attacking her. In this sense, God becomes the catalyst for the fateful violence that befalls John’s enemies – John does not dirty his hands with blood directly. This is, once again, rather strategic, since it would not be in the best interest of John’s posthumous reputation to be seen as someone who killed a royal mother and her unborn child. Eudoxia’s death is described in very graphic and violent terms, a common trope when describing the death of ancient villains.14 In this case, Eudoxia’s death resembles that of Judas Iscariot (as per Acts 1:18) as well as the archheretic Arius.15 According to the Oratio, Eudoxia’s unborn child was dead and rotting inside her. She was vomiting blood and bile, and teeming with worms. At the end, the stench that emanated from her ‘surpassed the plants of India and the flies of Persia’ (Orat. funeb. 121 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 105]). Her stillbirth and death are an analogy for the ‘war against the church, to which that woman had given birth’ (Orat. funeb. 122 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 106]). Just as her unborn infants were not born unto life, so too will her strife against the church only afford a stillbirth; hence her inability to successfully consume communion on her deathbed. John’s followers, too, are seen as victims and martyrs. This includes the depiction of the Easter massacre of 404 (Orat. funeb. 93–95 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 91–92]), where the killing of catechumens mirrors the killing of the infants in Egypt (Exod. 1:15–22), as well as the burning of the Hagia Sophia (Orat. funeb. 112 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 100–101]). The fire was not caused by John’s followers, according to the Oratio, but by followers of Theophilus. After John’s second exile, the Oratio further bemoans, his followers are drowned in the Bosporus. Those who survive to stand trial, like Olympias (Orat. funeb. 130 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 110]), are constantly admonished to denounce John, but none do. The cantor Eutropius is tortured by prefect Optatus, but also remains faithful to John (Orat. funeb. 125 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 107]). This strategy of John’s (and his followers’) passive agency and seeming aversion to violence relates to the second strategy prevalent in the text, namely the author’s intention to depict John as an imitation of Christ.

186

Chris L. de Wet

John’s imitatio Christi One of the features of early Christian martyrdom was its relation to imitatio Christi, the imitation of Christ. Candida Moss has convincingly demonstrated how complex the relationship between Christian martyrdom and Christ-likeness was in early Christianity. Moss writes: ‘In principle, the mimesis of the martyr should have been unproblematic. Imitatio Christi was a principle that extended into all aspects of early Christian life.’16 The problem for many, especially late antique, authors was the concern that martyrs could share in the divine status of Christ. But this problem is not found in the Oratio. There is no issue of a theosis of John; rather, the author portrays John as following in the character of Jesus. The focus is therefore not on theological aspects of imitatio Christi, but on social and ethical aspects. John’s passive agency is already one aspect of imitatio Christi that is prevalent in the text. Moreover, the descriptions of John’s second trial and deposition, for example, present him in highly Christomorphic terms.17 The trial is modelled on the trial of Christ. John is silent and when he speaks, he outwits his accusers: ‘The enemy were numerous, the judges were hostile and the of victory were expanded by the silence of the just man’ (Orat. funeb. 102 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 96]). Of course, even before this, returning from his first exile, John enters Constantinople on a foal, similar to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (Orat. funeb. 81 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 84]).18 As a further corollary to the imitatio Christi, we see the Oratio’s emphasis on John as one who did not submit to the lure of imperial patronage offered by the political space of the city but remained a fighter for the poor and became a man of the people. Later, the Oratio calls John someone who truly loved and devoted himself to the poor and diseased persons of society (Orat. funeb. 60–61 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 74–75]). John’s aversion to wealth and imperial influence becomes quite evident in the speech’s description of his ministry among the lepers of the city (Orat. funeb. 60–65 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 74–77]). According to the Oratio, while John cared for the sick, the wealthy became enraged at the construction of a hospice for the diseased. John’s concern for those with leprosy serves as a strategy of imitatio Christi in the speech. Like Christ, who did not mingle with the wealthy, but loved the sick and the outcasts (especially lepers), so too does John. The construction of the hospice and care for the lepers is described as a constant battle with the devil. The reorganisation of the spaces within Constantinople, specifically related to the care of the poor and those persons with leprosy, reconstructs John as an imitator of Christ and as one who forever changed the landscape of Constantinople. Theophilus is described in exact contrary terms. When he arrives near Constantinople (it seems that he did not stay in the city itself), he immediately seeks lodging in the houses of the rich and was also a guest of the empress for a time (Orat. funeb. 39 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 61]). The association between Theophilus and the empress is significant, since the empress Eudoxia, in the Oratio, is considered a vile and evil figure. For the author of the speech, Theophilus is therefore one

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

187

who cannot withstand the lures of wealth and imperial patronage as John (and Jesus)19 did. John came to serve and heal the city, not to benefit from its social injustice. As a brief aside, the conceptual linking between John and Constantinople in the Oratio should not be underplayed. Andrade, Barry, and now Falcasantos have shown how important the spatiality of Constantinople’s was in the power discourses and struggles surrounding John, both in his life and posthumously.20 Moreover, Ine Jacobs has argued that the last two decades of the fourth century and first two decades of the fifth century CE – also the period of the Oratio – were ‘the last renaissance of the Roman Empire’.21 During this so-called Theodosian renaissance, the imperial capital of Constantinople was greatly developed, expanded, renovated, and fortified, both architecturally but also administratively.22 In fact, as Jacobs argues, Constantinople functioned as an example for other cities, especially those in Asia Minor, to follow.23 It is also at the beginning of this period, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, that Constantinople is practically ‘canonised’, as Neil McLynn argues, for the first time as the New Rome.24 In this light, an aim of the Oratio becomes clear. Parallel and concurrent to the great Theodosian architectural and cultural developments of Constantinople during his lifetime, the author of the Oratio aims to fix the memory of John the martyr as a further adornment to the imperial capital. John’s building projects and social outreach endeavours are contextualised as being part of the renaissance to which Jacobs refers. Moreover, it is also not coincidental that the deposition(s) of John are narrated in conjunction with events in which the physical places within Constantinople are destroyed or desecrated.25 The Oratio understands the removal of John from Constantinople as an action that goes against the ideals and values of the Theodosian renaissance. Theodosius commissioned at least three new churches to be built in the city and supported the construction of monasteries and martyria.26 The actions against John, however, damage or destroy the physical holy spaces of the city. The memory of John the martyr is strategically constructed in parallel to the memory of Constantinople. What the author hopes to be the ‘canonisation’ of John in the Oratio runs parallel to the canonisation of Constantinople. For the author of the Oratio, John is one of Constantinople’s greatest adornments. Furthermore, following Christ’s example, John is praised as a harbinger of peace, whose presence in Constantinople brought peace not only to the city, but also to the church in the whole world. ‘After a long time the dispute of the fathers about their communion with each other was resolved’, the Oratio reads, ‘with those in the West and those throughout the East and those in between the two being in communion with one another’ (Orat. funeb. 19 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 49]). It is unclear to what historical discord the Oratio refers, and it may be that the speech gives John credit for something he did not do.27 It is probably part of the Oratio’s wider rhetorical programme of Romanising John. It will be illustrated in the following section that the Oratio considers John as a Roman emblem of masculinity par excellence. And although he occupies the see of the daughter of Rome, and united east and west, he did not neglect the frontiers of the Empire. Chrysostom’s exploits in barbarian territories are not neglected, for ‘the

188

Chris L. de Wet

flowing streams of this man’s tongue traversed the whole land of both Greeks and barbarians’ (Orat. funeb. 18 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 49]). John’s missionary work among the Persians and Goths are especially highlighted (Orat. funeb. 25 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 53–54]).28 This latter point is perhaps more of an imitatio Pauli, an imitation of Paul. Likewise, when John was sent away, the land suffered, and the city decayed. Whereas his presence brought peace, his departure left the city bereft thereof: ‘In contrast, when the just man was forcibly removed from the city, peace flew off once again from the earth . . . the affairs of the church lapsed into discord or rather into schism’ (Orat. funeb. 19 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 50]). For the author of the speech, John was a Christianising force in the city, so much ‘that all works became churches – the colonnades, the marketplace, the city, the baths, the hippodrome, all of which had been filled with prayers while the holy father was present’, the Oratio exclaims, ‘but reverted to their former status after he had departed, including the church itself, which has taken the name and function of a public square’ (Orat. funeb. 97 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 93]).

John’s ethnic and masculine character John’s passive suffering and endurance, his imitatio Christi, in the face of his contest against the devil and his opponents are also subsets of the third strategy utilised by the speech, namely that of ethnicity and masculinity. Early Christian martyr discourse often used the notion of masculinity to colour the identities of the martyrs,29 and the Oratio is no exception in this regard. John is described in highly Roman and quite masculine terms. He is quiet and in control of his emotions, he is humble, but most of all, he is Roman and eloquent. He acts and speaks like the ideal Roman man.30 The Oratio tries hard to balance John’s silence and reservation, on the one hand, and his manly eloquence and will to act, on the other. The tension between these two aspects of John’s character remains constant in the Oratio. In contrast, John’s opponents are both unmasculine and barbaric. While John presides over the daughter of Rome, Constantinople, persons like Theophilus and Severian come from the barbarian lands of Egypt, while others like Antiochus is an unmanly eunuch and Optatus an impassioned ‘pagan’. The Oratio does not hesitate to elaborate on Constantinople’s significance for John’s standing. There stands the throne of the emperor, with many magistrates, soldiers, and thriving trade; in short, ‘a great and populous city, greater than all those that lie under the sun, inferior to one city alone . . . the city of Constantinople, the daughter of Rome’ (Orat. funeb. 13 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 45]). This is a great measure of honour for John, unlike his opponents, such as Severian of Gabala, who hailed from ‘the least among the cities of Syria’ (Orat. funeb. 17 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 48]). Theophilus’ and his colleagues’ Egyptian heritage is exploited ad nauseam in the text. They are ‘bishops whose names were half-barbarian being formed out of the ancient abominations of Egypt’ (Orat. funeb. 38 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 60]).

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

189

While John’s presence is an amelioration to the city, Theophilus poisons cities as he travels, ‘scattering snares among the bishops of the many cities on his route through pestiferous men who . . . work with him in his inordinate madness’ (Orat. funeb. 39 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 61]). Theophilus is almost a spatial disease, a madness that spreads as he travels. Unlike John, he does not bring peace, but war and division. Theophilus is described as a type of ‘anti-pilgrim’ (perhaps even an anti-Christ, if the logic is followed?). Like Moses, John brings freedom and salvation, while Theophilus’ heart remains hardened like that of Pharaoh. Speech and eloquence function as key motifs in the panegyric and invective of the Oratio. John would, of course, later be hailed as the ‘golden mouthed’, and the speech itself compares his words to rivers that brought life to the Greek and barbarian lands. John’s perfect eloquence is often contrasted to the speech and ethnicity of his oppenents, like Theophilus and his allies, ‘whose voice and language were completely barbaric, and whose character imitated their voice’ (Orat. funeb. 38 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 60]). Theophilus’ words only sow schism and strife, while those of Severian are of uncertain parentage (i.e. lacking any patristic authority); the bishops of Bithynia, who were faithful to Theophilus, were ‘bleating like sheep’ (Orat. funeb. 38 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 60–61]). Exploiting the gender ambiguity of ancient eunuchs,31 the Oratio describes Antiochus as a sub-female, who counted as neither man nor woman, who rejoiced in lasciviousness, who had been bought with hides, who was the Devil’s equal in overweening arrogance, who resembled a scorpion in the smallness of his body and the sharpness of his sting, but surpassed in his love for money, avarice and insatiable fondness of childish thoughts. (Orat. funeb. 122 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 106]) In short, he is the opposite of John. But the most remarkable example of John’s eloquence and manliness contrasted with barbarian blathering is seen in his public confrontation with Gainas. Gainas’ barbarian (i.e. Gothic) heritage is exposed in length by the Oratio, and it continues to read: When the barbarian began to bluster against him in what he thought was the language of the Italians, which he had acquired as a foreign tongue and was not able to use articulately, the saint switched languages and thus deluged him with Italian words, calling him a tyrant and an enemy of the emperor and reminding him of his native land, his flight, his trembling, his pleas as a suppliant, and that unexpected safety and the oaths, which he sealed with a drink at that time, persuading the emperor who had written these things (showing him the law) to preserve goodwill towards himself, his children and his descendants, with the result that the barbarian obtained preferment, although his character deserved exile and death. (Orat. funeb. 50 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 68])

190

Chris L. de Wet

In this section, John answers Gainas in Latin, and reminds him of his ethnicity and his subjugation to the imperial throne, a throne that was threatening John himself. In a time of much instability and conflict between Romans and Goths, the speech’s Romanisation of John would sound pleasing on the ears of the audience. A similar strategy is seen in the inquisition of Olympias by Optatus, ‘the son of Astarte’, thereby implicating his Phoenician origin, a lineage that was historically at odds with Roman identity (Orat. funeb. 129 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 110]). Olympias’ virtue and, thus, manliness, is described by the speech thus: As soon as one heard her speak, however, one would marvel at the great floods of wisdom flowing quietly along, imitating the greatest of rivers, whose surface resembles ice and whose fury is hidden in their depths. If one probed and discovered her life, one would say not only that she possessed virtues, but that she herself was one of the virtues, such as moderation, mildness, continence or (what is a truer and closer approximation ) humility, which makes each of the others a genuine virtue. (Orat. funeb. 129 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 110]) Optatus, in contrast, is someone who cannot control his passions. As with Antiochus, Optatus is effeminised – the fact that he persecutes women makes him ‘inferior to the nature of the male sex’, not physically (as with Antiochus), but due to cowardice. When he is outwitted by the female Olympias, , as if really denouncing piety itself, seized her, leapt from the judge’s seat in anger, unfurled his garments, broke his writing-reeds and showered her with countless reproaches like someone who had gone mad and was calling the sun dark, rock unstable and calm weather a storm. (Orat. funeb. 131 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 111])

John as the opponent of heresy Finally, the strategy of heresy is also used to depict John as a forerunner and martyr for orthodoxy, while his opponents embody all sorts of heresy. The Oratio explains that John’s opponents ousted him in the same way the Arians condemned Athanasius. John’s accusers, according to the Oratio, ‘sought refuge in the illegal laws of the Arians and with them plotted evil concerning the saint, copying madness concerning the blessed Athanasius’ (Orat. funeb. 98 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 94]). The history that the speech retells is rather confusing, and the author seems to mix up the events of the Council of Milan in 355 and those of the Council of Caesarea in 334 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 94n212]. Interestingly enough, the Tall Brothers were accused of Origenism (Orat. funeb. 43 [Barnes & Bevan 2013: 63–64]), a charge later brought against Chrysostom as well.32 Disputes over orthodox and heretical teachings like Origenism, as Elizabeth Clark notes, ‘often merely provided a foil [for] political machinations’.33 The point, however, is that John serves as a type for Athanasius, thus being a forerunner of

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

191

orthodoxy persecuted by heretics, especially Arians. It also depicts John’s opponents, directly and indirectly, as Arians. Gainas, especially, is associated with Arianism due to the common stereotype that all Goths are Arians. Here we see an interesting overlapping between the discourses of ethnicity and orthodoxy. The discourse of Romanisation employed by the speech also encompasses orthodoxy – being Roman means being orthodox, and barbarian (both literally and figuratively) means being Arian, and vice versa, of course. Todd Berzon has demonstrated, quite convincingly, how late ancient Christian discourse about heresy might be understood as a type of ethnography.34 This strategy in the Oratio, again, feeds into current religious and ethnic tensions in Constantinople. The Oratio also absolves John from any ties with heretical dispositions and aims to expose the true heretics and servants of Satan, namely Theophilus and his cronies.

Conclusion It has been argued that the author of the Oratio memorialises John by transforming him into a martyr, using the following strategies: (1) highlighting John’s passive agency and aversion to violence; (2) sketching John in terms of imitatio Christi, not theologically, but socially and ethically; (3) promoting John’s masculinity and status as a true Roman citizen; and (4) emphasising John’s orthodox (i.e. Nicene) predisposition. John’s see of Constantinople plays an important role in the enterprise of memorialising John as a martyr. The Oratio does not want his authors to remember Constantinople without recalling the figure of John Chrysostom. Every city, after all, needs a martyr. Without a doubt, the Oratio is a perfect example of how early Christian writers and, indeed communities (in this case, the community sympathetic to John, or Johannites), transformed the discourse of martyrdom into shaping their own identity, values, principles, and politico-ecclesiastical loyalties. As Barry rightly argues, by understanding John as a martyr, the Oratio uses a potent discourse to rehabilitate John.35 Although John is not a martyr in the traditional sense of the word, much of the typical language and concepts found in early Christian martyrologies are found in the Oratio. It shows that the notion of martyrdom was so essential to early Christian self-expression and memorialisation that the church simply could not let it go – rather, late ancient Christian discourse transformed martyrdom into a political apparatus. This is very clear in the disputes over the posthumous status of John in the church. John is a martyr in the arena of imperial and ecclesiastical politics. The speech creates this image of John the martyr by a careful construction of space and character. He is to be memorialised as the great bishop of the daughter of Rome, a true man who never submitted to the tempting powers of wealth and patronage. His masculinity is exhibited in his self-control, his speech, and his endurance in the contest. His opponents are unmanly heretics, with a great bloodlust, diseased with heresy, having no self-control – they are puppets of the devil. Finally, by linking John’s memory to that of the city of Constantinople, John’s opponents are not only his enemies, but also enemies of the city. The political

192

Chris L. de Wet

dimensions of this strategy of linking John and the city also extend to the issue of ethnicity. Constantinople, during the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, suffered numerous threats and assaults from barbarians.36 Thus, when the Oratio calls John’s opponents ‘barbarians’, the assault against John is also depicted as yet another barbarian assault against a great Roman city and citizen. But what does this study of John’s memorialisation in the Oratio as Constantinople’s great martyr tell us about the relationship between memory and religious conflict and polemic? In the first instance, the type of religious polemic we find in the Oratio exhibits a potent tendency to present a layered narrative of universal conflict. What do I mean by this? We find that the Oratio depends fundamentally on past tales of religious conflict, which the author then fuses with the current narrative, to produce a continuous and flowing discursive tapestry depicting the great struggle between the forces of good and evil. The surplus of power generated by this narrative layering then duplicates itself onto both the space and characterisation of the narrative at hand. The great struggle between Christ and the devil duplicates itself in the struggle between John and Theophilus, and all similar struggles in between them. Both Christology and diabology are therefore the organising elements of the polemical memorialisation in the Oratio. It also has a predictive, even prophetic, function – just as God will always triumph over evil, and Christ over the devil, so too will John, in the end, triumph over Theophilus and his other opponents. John is therefore a type of Christ, just like Joseph, Job, Moses, the apostles, and Athanasius. Theophilus, along with others like Eudoxia, Severian, Optatus, Antiochus, and Atticus, are all in some way types of Satan, just like (or, even worse than) Pharaoh, Jezebel, and Nebuchadnezzar. The narrative dynamic between religious polemic and memory is therefore based on the interaction between polar opposites – the struggle between good and bad is also the struggle between Christ and the devil, orthodoxy and heresy, sanity and madness, health and disease, manliness and unmanliness, Roman and barbarian, pride and humility, John and Theophilus. This also leads to the second observation. Violence featured in a very particular way in the speech. The use of violence in the Oratio’s religious polemic and memorialisation is extremely pervasive and strategic. Violent events are, sadly, always memorable. By depicting John as the passive and suffering martyr, and his opponents as bloodthirsty persecutors, violence is then also dichotomised in the speech. It is not a dichotomy between violence and non-violence, but rather one of active and passive violence. John is the passive agent of violence – he does no violence himself; he simply suffers and remains silent (unless he needs to demonstrate his eloquence against barbarians). Yet God fights for John, killing his opponents and even their unborn children, just like the soldiers killed the presbyters and catechumens of John’s church. The active violence of John’s opponents acts as a shaming device, reflecting the shame of unbridled violence back onto the antagonists. But by making John a passive agent of violence, he bears no shame. Rather, because God fights for John, John is the bearer of justice. The violence of the opponents brings shame, but divine

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

193

violence brings justice. The scales are balanced once again, and John’s honour remains intact, and his memory untarnished.

Notes 1 Mayer & Allen 1999: 4–5. 2 The critical edition of the text is found in Wallraff 2007, with an Italian translation by Ricci. A recent critical study of the text, along with an English translation, is found in Barnes & Bevan 2013. All translations of the Oratio in this study are taken from the latter work. On the author, date, and other introductory issues of the Oratio, see Barnes & Bevan 2013: 1–33. The author is traditionally referred to as Pseudo-Martyrius. 3 Barnes & Bevan 2013: 37–117 provide numerous discussions of the historiographical issues and challenges in and related to the Oratio, especially in their helpful running commentary on the text. 4 Boyarin 1999: 94. 5 Castelli 2004: 193. 6 Grig 2004: 143. 7 Barry 2019: 13. 8 Barry 2019: 1. 9 See Orat. funeb. 3,51, 107, 136, 144 Barnes & Bevan 2013: 29, 69, 98, 114, 117). 10 Shaw 1996: 269–312. On passivity and suffering, more generally, in early Christian discourse, see Perkins 1995. 11 On the silence of Jesus during his interrogation by Pilate, see Matt. 27:12. 12 Bremmer 2003: 77–92. 13 Mayer 2006: 205–213. 14 Barry 2016: 399–400. See, for instance, the work of Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum (see Muehlberger 2019: 44–49), as well as earlier biblical depictions of the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the Maccabean literature, and Judas in the New Testament. 15 See Muehlberger 2015: 3–29. 16 Moss 2010: 165. 17 With Christomorphism, I mean that the traditional characteristics of Christ, as per the gospel accounts in the New Testament, are used to also colour John’s own character. 18 See Matt. 21:2–7; John 12:15 for Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. 19 For the case of Jesus, see for instance, the temptation of Christ in the desert (Matthew 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13). 20 See Andrade 2010: 161–189, Barry 2019: 76–131, and Falcasantos 2020: 74–109. 21 Jacobs 2012: 150. 22 See especially Bauer 1996: 143–268. 23 Jacobs 2012: 148. 24 McLynn 2012: 345–363. 25 On the destruction of Constantinopolitan spaces during John’s deposition, see Bassett 2007: 83–90. 26 Croke 2010: 259–262. 27 Barnes & Bevan 2013: 49–50. 28 On Chrysostom’s mission to the Goths, see De Wet 2014a: 543–565, and Stanfill 2015. 29 Cobb 2008. 30 On eloquence and emotional self-control as a hallmark of Roman masculinity, see Gleason 1995; on the Christian transformation of masculinity in late antiquity, see Kuefler 2001; on masculinity in John Chrysostom’s thought, see De Wet 2014b: 227–250. 31 See Kuefler 2001: 19–36; De Wet 2015: 256–267. 32 Kelly 1998: 203–210. 33 Clark 1992: 9.

194

Chris L. de Wet

34 Berzon 2016. 35 Barry 2019: 103–131. 36 Friell & Williams 1999: 5–14; Liebeschuetz 1990: 157–235.

Bibliography Primary Pseudo-Martyrius. 2013. The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom. Edited and translated by T.D. Barnes and G. Bevan. TTH 60. Liverpool. Pseudo-Martyrius. 2007. Oratio funebris in laudem sancti Johannis Chrysostomi. Epitaffio Attribuito a Martirio Di Antiochia (BHG 871, CPG 6517). Edited by M. Wallraff. Quaderni della Rivista di bizantinistica 12. Spoleto.

Secondary Andrade, N. 2010. ‘The Processions of John Chrysostom and the Contested Spaces of Constantinople.’ JECS 18 (2): 161–189. Barry, J. 2016. ‘Diagnosing Heresy: Ps.-Martyrius’s Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom.’ JECS 24 (3): 395–418. Barry, J. 2019. Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity. Oakland. Bassett, S. 2007. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople. Cambridge. Bauer, F.A. 1996. Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Spätantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums in den spätantiken Städten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos. Mainz am Rhein. Berzon, T.S. 2016. Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. Oakland. Boyarin, D. 1999. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford. Bremmer, J.N. 2003. ‘Brothers and Fratricide in the Ancient Mediterranean: Israel, Greece and Rome.’ In Eve’s Children: The Biblical Stories Retold and Interpreted in Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. G.P. Luttikhuizen, 77–92. Leiden. Castelli, E.A. 2004. Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making. Ithaca. Clark, E.A. 1992. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate. Princeton. Cobb, S. 2008. Dying to be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts. Ithaca. Croke, B. 2010. ‘Reinventing Constantinople: Theodosius I’s Imprint on the Imperial City.’ In From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE, eds. S. McGill, C. Sogno, and E. Watts, 241–264. Cambridge. De Wet, C.L. 2014a. ‘John Chrysostom and the Mission to the Goths: Rhetorical and Ethical Perspectives.’ In Sensitivity towards Outsiders: Exploring the Dynamic Relationship between Mission and Ethics in the New Testament and Early Christianity, eds. Jakobus Kok, Tobias Nicklas, Dieter T. Roth, and Christopher M. Hays, 543–565. Tübingen. De Wet, C.L. 2014b. ‘Virtue and the (Un)Making of Men in the Thought of John Chrysostom.’ In Men and Women in the Early Christian Centuries, eds. Wendy Mayer and Ian Elmer, 227–250. Strathfield. De Wet, C.L. 2015. Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity. Oakland.

Martyrdom of John Chrysostom

195

Falcasantos, R.S. 2020. Constantinople: Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital. Oakland. Friell, G. and W. Stephen. 1999. The Rome That Did Not Fall: The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century. London. Gleason, M.W. 1995. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton. Grig, L. 2004. Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity. London. Jacobs, I. 2012. ‘The Creation of the Late Antique City: Constantinople and Asia Minor during the “Theodosian Renaissance.”’ Byzantion 82: 113–164. Kelly, J.N.D. 1998. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom – Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Ithaca. Kuefler, M. 2001. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity. Chicago. Liebeschuetz, J.W.G.H. 1990. Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom. Oxford. Mayer, W. 2006. ‘Doing Violence to the Image of an Empress: The Destruction of Eudoxia’s Reputation.’ In Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices, ed. Harold A. Drake, 205–213. Aldershot. Mayer, W. and P. Allen. 1999. John Chrysostom. London. McLynn, N. 2012. ‘‘Two Romes, Beacons of the Whole World’: Canonizing Constantinople.’ In Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, eds. Lucy Grig and Gavin Kelly, 345–363. Oxford. Moss, C. 2010. The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom. Oxford. Muehlberger, E. 2015. ‘The Legend of Arius’ Death: Imagination, Space and Filth in Late Ancient Historiography.’ P&P 227: 3–29. Muehlberger, E. 2019. Moment of Reckoning: Imagined Death and Its Consequences in Late Ancient Christianity. Oxford. Perkins, J. 1995. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. London. Shaw, B.D. 1996. ‘Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs.’ JECS 4: 269–312. Stanfill, J.P. 2015. ‘Embracing the Barbarian: John Chrysostom’s Pastoral Care of the Goths.’ Ph.D diss. New York.

11 The emperor’s floor and the naked wife Chrysostom’s retelling of imperial history in In Philippenses hom. 16 and the fate of Fausta Katherin Papadopoulos Introduction1 Emperors were selectively held up as exemplars of power and virtue in late antiquity.2 At the end of his 16th homily on Paul’s letter to the Philippians, John Chrysostom presents a list of imperial misfortunes to illustrate that not even emperors are immune from troubles. Scholars have argued over this passage’s historical veracity and its usefulness in reconstructing events as they happened, particularly events around the death of Fausta, wife of Constantine I (‘the Great’). This study seeks to break the scholarly deadlock over its historical usefulness and filter out some of the interpretative possibilities regarding Fausta by analysing Chrysostom’s account of imperial woes as they are remembered.

Chrysostom’s imperial history in In Philippensis, homily 16 John Chrysostom (c. 349–407) – ‘golden mouth’ – was one of the most celebrated orators in the fourth century.3 A presbyter in Antioch (386–397), and later bishop of Constantinople (397–404), he was also an ascetic who used his rhetorical skills as a psychagogue to spur his audiences towards virtue.4 At the conclusion of his 16th homily on Paul’s letter to the Philippians, preached at the end of the fourth century,5 Chrysostom exhorts his audience to persevere in times of adversity, observing from the scriptures that ‘tribulation is everywhere lauded, everywhere assumed as necessary for us’ (πανταχοῦ τὴν θλῖψιν ἐπαινουμένην; πανταχοῦ παραλαμβανομένην, ὡς ἀναγκαίαν οὖσαν ἡμῖν) and that no one receives the crown of eternal life unless they contest these trials (In Phil. hom. 16.5).6 Anticipating that his audience may think that the emperor can escape discomfort in life, Chrysostom presents a catalogue of imperial misfortunes to illustrate that even emperors are not immune from troubles, even in times of peace (In Phil. hom. 16.5).7 Chrysostom’s list of kings and their woes does not identify emperors by name but starts with an emperor designated as ‘someone or other’ (ὁ δεῖνα) and ends with ‘the one currently in power’ (οὗτος ὁ νῦν κρατῶν). This list therefore invites speculation about each emperor’s identity, and indeed, Chrysostom’s earliest biographers and editors sought to DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-13

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 197 reconcile Chrysostom’s presentation with other historical data, as for example did Bernard de Montfaucon.8 The list has been raked over by historians ever since, but there has been little consensus about the interpretation or usefulness of its historical data. Allen and Mayer concluded that this list is useless for dating this homily, as the contemporary emperor – most commonly thought to be either Theodosius I or Arcadius – cannot be securely identified.9 Other scholars continue to use this list as a source for various emperors or empresses. It is a battleground for examining the fate of Fausta, wife of Constantine I. In a recent study, unfortunately based on Montfaucon’s inferior edition, Raschle launched a fresh attempt to identify the kings in Chrysostom’s catalogue and even proposed that its scathing critique of the imperial house contributed to Chrysostom’s downfall.10 Each of these scholars use Chrysostom’s account as a source and attempt to reconstruct events, as they happened. But to read this passage as a source for recovering the past is to overlook the multilayered perspective and function of this text as a web of collective memories overlaid by Chrysostom’s advancement of a counter-memory. In this study therefore, I analyse Chrysostom’s account of events, as they are remembered. I divide this chapter into two parts. In the first, I address the basic questions of who remembers, what, how, and why. I focus on key aspects of Chrysostom’s presentation rather than a line-by-line analysis. I demonstrate that far from retelling some history from which historians might extract a few facts, Chrysostom is telling a story in which he reframes the memory of the past and present emperors as anti-exemplars. In the second part I focus on the empress Fausta, one of the persons of contention in Chrysostom’s list. Here I briefly review the historical background and scholarly debate on the Empress Fausta’s death and draw on cultural memory11 to offer an alternative option for addressing the scholarly impasse.

The emperor’s floor Whose memory? The first question to be asked is whose list of imperial woes is Chrysostom narrating? His own or someone else’s? Chrysostom declares he will relate events occurring ‘in former times’ (παλαιά) and ‘in our own time’ (ἐπὶ τῶν χρόνων τῶν ἡμετέρων), which are nevertheless (both?) still ‘preserved in memory’ (τῇ μνήμῃ φυλαττόμενα). But he also announces that his audience will ‘immediately recognise them’ (τάχα ἐπιγνώσεσθε) (In Phil. hom. 16.5). While Chrysostom frequently uses the first-person plural pronouns for self-reference, especially in formal registers (e.g. Epp. 17–242), here the context suggests that he is including his audience and expects they will have the same knowledge of events. Even if his listeners were unable able to recognise every example, Chrysostom’s assurance that they would invites them to mark their own memories – such as they are – in relation to the matrix of shared memories and to re-evaluate their own position and judgements relative to the past.

198

Katherin Papadopoulos

If, as many assert, the first king in Chrysostom’s list is Constantine I (c. 272–337), then Chrysostom could be recalling events up to 60 or more years ago. In Jan Assmann’s taxonomy such recollections fall within the realm of communicative memory which encompasses events within a moving timeframe of about 80 to 100 years – three or four interacting generations – before the present.12 As such, most of the events Chrysostom will recount should be proximate to his audience’s everyday recall, and more open to reformulation and reinterpretation through recourse to pre-existing knowledge and cultural resources, compared with more distant events which may either be dimming in memory or be already undergoing some form of cultural formation, for example by being monumentalised, marked by rites, recorded in texts, or recalled in commemorations.13 Many scholars also place this list of imperial woes on the lips of Chrysostom and overlook that he may be recalling events recorded in a written source, even an epitome or anthology. Marasco is one of the few who notes Chrysostom’s statement that these matters are known ‘from the writings of those outside’ (ἀπὸ τῶν παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν συντεθέντων) (In Phil. hom. 16.6).14 The term is one of Chrysostom’s most common group designations and invites his audiences to recognise themselves as ‘insiders’ in relation to this group (cf. 1 Tim 3:7).15 In his homilies against the Jews, Chrysostom refers to Arians as ‘outsiders’ (Adu. Iud. or. 1.1), but otherwise he almost exclusively uses it to designate Hellenes (e.g. In Eph. hom. 23.1; In Col. hom. 12.4; In 1 Thess. hom. 6), that is those who adhere to a Graeco-Roman religion.16 In sum, ‘those outside’ (οἱ ἔξωθεν) are anyone who is not a Jew and does not share the beliefs or doctrinal stance of his church community.17 Just before he launches into his catalogue of imperial disasters in the 16th homily on Philippians, Chrysostom draws a parallel between the training regimes of those who receive a crown ‘in the outsiders’ contests’ (ἐν τοῖς ἔξωθεν ἀγῶσιν) – that is, in formal competitive athletic events – and those who strive for a heavenly crown (In Phil. hom. 16.5). These ‘outsiders’ are clearly Hellenes. Consequently, ‘the outsiders’ he mentions at the end of his rendition of imperial woes are almost certainly Hellenes as well. Still, it is not clear whether this statement concerning outsiders applies to his catalogue of kings or just to his reflection on the nature of history and myth at the end of it. Despite this, Chrysostom seems to have used written sources in parts, even if he perhaps relied on oral traditions or his own memory in others. One suspects, for example, that he is recalling a written source when he introduces the first emperor with the third person singular of the reporting verb φημί, without an accusative infinitive construction (In Phil. hom. 16.5). This is because he consistently uses this same syntax throughout his homilies to introduce a direct quote or a scripture citation. Chrysostom also adds his own commentary by explaining the reason for the emperor’s demise, not unlike the way he explains Scripture, interweaving quote and exegesis (In Phil. hom. 16.5). If he was reporting oral tradition, as Resano argues,18 he would have probably used a third person plural (λέγουσι, ‘they say’; φασί, ‘they say, assert’) or third person singular passive (λέγεται, ‘it is said’) to introduce indirect speech instead, or simply narrated the

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 199 story himself irrespective of whether the phrase ‘preserved in memory (τῇ μνήμῃ φυλαττόμενα)’ refers to oral tradition. In the case of another emperor, Chrysostom seems to be reporting hearsay: ‘It is said (λέγεται)’, says Chrysostom, ‘that this fellow got rid of his own brother too’ (In Phil. hom. 16.5). But hearsay can also be from a written source.19 In a third instance, he reports an emperor’s wife died after being administered pessaries by a woman who also perished with her (In Phil. hom. 16.5). This very intimate detail suggests a source near to the court, either a woman or a physician.20 That he infers that the woman who administered the pessaries also perished is not implausible as anyone responsible for the death of a royal may have faced retribution.21 Nonetheless, it is uncertain whether the description of the woman responsible as ‘wretched and miserable (ἀθλία καὶ ταλαίπωρος)’ is from Chrysostom or from his source. If from a source, one should consider whether such descriptions are more likely to be passed down orally or in writing. His consequent parenthetical remark about why she was ‘wretched and miserable’ could therefore be either his interpretation of the description of the woman given in his source, or simply his clarification of his own description (In Phil. hom. 16.5). A fourth instance – an emperor who commits suicide – also requires comment. Raschle identifies this emperor as Constans and is horrified that Chrysostom reports that he was pushed to suicide, implying some sort of noble exit, when the majority of other sources indicate he was killed at Helena (now Elne) in the Pyrenees when he was seeking refuge from the usurper Magnentius.22 In fact, it is Magnentius who later died by suicide, after he had ruled for three years in the west and Constantius II defeated his forces at Mons Seleucus in 353 CE.23 It is possible that Chrysostom or his source may have confused Constans and Magnentius.24 Finally, Chrysostom may be recalling some events from his own memory in this homily, just as he did in his letter-treatise to a young widow (Ad vid. jun. 5). None of these instances, however, would exclude a pagan source for Chrysostom’s catalogue of imperial horrors, so ‘the writings of those outside’ (ἀπὸ τῶν παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν συντεθέντων) could refer to at least some of them as well. However, it is not always abundantly clear when he is recalling his sources or offering his own interpretation. Moreover, as we shall see, Chrysostom is more interested in reinterpreting the past then recalling it verbatim from a source. Where did he get his sources? Marasco notes that Chrysostom’s list is rather hostile to the Constantine dynasty and suggests that he may have been exposed to this tradition while a student of Libanius.25 But this is to ignore that Chrysostom’s stated purpose for providing this list – to demonstrate that not even emperors are immune from tribulations – so naturally he would present them in the worst possible light. In addition, Chrysostom is elsewhere critical of all emperors to some degree, at one time reminding his congregation in Antioch that the peace they enjoyed today was not due to emperors (Adv. Jud. or. 5.2.10).26 Moreover, while later historians such as Sozomen claim Chrysostom was Libanius’ student (Hist. eccl. 8.2.2), Chrysostom himself never names Libanius as his instructor (cf. Ad vid. jun. 2), nor does Libanius claim Chrysostom as his student, and the debate has not yet been settled among scholars.27 An alternative possibility, says Marasco, is

200

Katherin Papadopoulos

a source in Constantinople (una fonte di Costantinopoli).28 But Chrysostom never waited to get to Constantinople to forage in the past. While it is next to impossible to date most of his homilies, we know from his works that can be dated, that Chrysostom’s forays into imperial history, even naming names, were in commentaries or homilies delivered in Antioch.29 What? Form Chrysostom does not recount these memories of imperial woes in random order. The catalogue which Chrysostom presents resembles a genealogy. The genealogical form is archaic. Long carried in oral traditions, it seeped into written form in the mythic genealogies of the Sumerian kings and the Theogony of Hesiod. With Hecateus’ Genealogiai (Γενεαλογίαι), genealogy became paradigmatic for Greek historiography.30 Such a form conveys a notion of origin, relation, and succession, and Chrysostom’s list is very much a father and sons affair. Because genealogies are temporally sequenced they also form a narrative. The fabula of this genealogy – its mythos or plot – is the troubles of the king and his household (οἰκία). The anonymity of the emperors coupled with this genealogical form serves to both solemnise and universalise the narrative. Modifiers and metaphors – the emperor’s ‘naked’ wife, the emperor’s floor ‘always streaming with blood’ – add drama, even if only for entertainment. The use of a familiar genre not only aids recall by the narrator, in this case Chrysostom, but assists recall by the audience. The anticlimactic nature of this genealogy would have garnered attention but also forced the audience to adopt a new schema to make it congruent. Content Chrysostom’s list of imperial calamities is short. It is centred around seven kings who are subjects or heads of households. It may be coincidental that Chrysostom only recalled seven, but it could also reflect the limits of Chrysostom’s memory. Elsewhere, he refers to nine kings but only enumerates six (Ad vid. jun. 4). Ever since George Miller’s famous study, it has been commonly cited that short-term memory can only manage around seven or so items and that to retain more, people resort to ‘chunking’, that is organising information into larger and larger units or chunks.31 Nevertheless, it is likely his audience would only remember three or four, even if they recognised all of them.32 Raschle notes that all the emperors except Jovian are favourable to the Arians, and that their tribulations are presented, in accordance with Nicene historiographic tradition, as divine retribution; Julian, says Raschle, is also completely absent from the list.33 Assuming that Raschle has correctly identified these kings (and leaving aside his delineation of kings favourable to Arians which is contestable), this does not preclude Chrysostom using pagan sources. Pagan historians such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimus were generally positive about Emperor

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 201 Julian and less disposed towards painting Christian emperors in a good light, and not averse to pointing to divine retribution either. Julian himself subtly described the empress Eusebia’s childlessness and the failed Persian campaign as divine retribution for Constantius II’s murderous record (Or. 5.271a). Julian’s absence could be read as a pagan source pointing to the corruption of Christian emperors, be they Arian or otherwise. The hint of sympathy towards Eusebia (assuming she is correctly identified) as having died at the hand of ‘some wretched and miserable woman’ would not be astray either, if this description comes from a pagan source rather than Chrysostom himself. This is because Eusebia holds an ambivalent position in late antique historiography due to her pro-Arian leanings and Julian’s favourable testimony of her intervention on his behalf (e.g. Julian. Or. 5.272d–273a, 273d–274a). The pagan historian Zosimus seems to have found a compromise by praising her cleverness in saving Julian while denouncing her Machiavellian motivations (Zos. 3.1.1–3). Chrysostom’s list also does not preclude an Arian source. The Arian historian Philostorgius, for example was not uniformly favourable to all pro-Arian emperors. One final point: perhaps Chrysostom himself chose to omit Julian because of personal anathema or a prevailing damnatio. On the other hand, perhaps Chrysostom did mention Julian directly after all, by speaking about the unspeakable: Ἄλλος, οὐδὲ εἰπεῖν καλὸν, οὐδὲ ὅπως κατέλυσε τὸν βίον ἐλεεινῶς. In the case of another [emperor], nothing good can be said about him, nor about how he ended his life pitifully. (In Phil. hom. 16.5) By not saying anything, he leaves his audience to fill the gaps with their own imagination and from their own memories. How? Framing, symbols, imagery Chrysostom uses three key strategies to convince his audience that even emperors are not immune from trouble: framing, recoding symbols, and verbal imagery. Frames (‘how something is presented’) are ‘cognitive resources’ through which people organise and interpret reality.34 Framing presents a certain perspective of facts or events,35 and in Chrysostom’s case, this means presenting imperial disasters in the worst possible light. Rhetorically, framing involves intentionally creating a context by verbal means in which a writer or speaker can forward their interpretation in a way that makes sense to their audience.36 Framing uses preexisting cultural resources, codes, and genres of interpretation – in other words it draws from cultural memory – but configures them differently. Effectual frames create social facts.37 Chrysostom uses several framing devices to provoke his audience’s memory and prompt them to make the connection with the interpretation he wishes to

202

Katherin Papadopoulos

convey. First, Chrysostom introduces his rendition of history with a question to the audience: ‘Whom do you want me to talk about? The emperor?’ (Τίνα γὰρ βούλει; τὸν βασιλέα εἰπεῖν;) (In Phil. hom. 16.5). With this accommodation tactic he evaluates their position and anticipates their possible objection. But at the same time the question serves to persuade: if a member of the audience had not thought to ask about the emperor, they would now assume others have asked and may think that they should too. Second, Chrysostom openly invites his audience to adopt a particular perspective, namely, not to consider a king’s appearance but rather to look ‘at his soul which is far darker than the purple (εἰς τὴν ψυχὴν τὴν μᾶλλον ἐκείνης τῆς ἁλουργίδος μελαινομένην)’ and bound and burdened by worries (In Phil. hom. 16.5). Here Chrysostom reassociates the symbols of imperial royalty – the diadem, the purple, and the spear carriers – with bondage, darkness, and multiplicity of troubles. This is quite a subversive move given the symbols of ‘the diadem and the purple’ (τὸ διάδημα καὶ ἡ ἁλουργίδα) and the entire ceremonial matrix in which they are embedded, were powerful means of representing and exerting imperial authority.38 Chrysostom himself uses these terms frequently as a metonym for the imperial office,39 and under the Theodosian Code, such symbols were to become ‘sacred’ by law,40 but here, Chrysostom encourages his audience to recode them. Thirdly, he indicates why they should adopt that perspective: in the imperial household, death is the expectation by day, and terror is the rule by night (In Phil. hom. 16.5). Here too, Chrysostom resorts again to symbol and image. Chrysostom uses blood as a symbol for death when pointing to the sight of blood before eating and drinking (καὶ πρὸ τῆς τραπέζης τὸ αἷμα ὁρᾶται, καὶ πρὸ τοῦ ποτοῦ) (In Phil. hom. 16.5). This is one of the oldest and most widespread significations of blood, found in both pagan myth, and Jewish and Christian scripture.41 At the same time, blood can be polluting because of its association with death.42 Chrysostom’s description may hint at the Thyestean banquet (τὰ Θυέστεια δεῖπνα) that he will make more explicit at the end of this short discourse on imperial troubles, but it may also allude to death by poisoning, one of the assassination methods of choice by imperials.43 In the early Roman empire, Nero was the poisoner par excellence, allegedly despatching his stepbrother Britannicus, his aunt Domitia, the praetorian prefect Burrus, his two freedmen Pallas and Doryphorus, and attempting three times to poison his mother Agrippina (Suet. Ner. 33–35). By the fourth century, Nero’s name was synonymous with barbarity and vice.44 Indeed, following the Summer of Blood in 337,45 Sidonius Apollinaris (Epist. 5.8.2) reported a couplet put into circulation, attributed to Ablabius, which likened Constantine to Nero.46 Chrysostom was not unfamiliar with Nero; he often compared him with the Apostle Paul, and in doing so, expected his audiences to be familiar with him too (e.g. In 2 Tim hom. 4.3).47 But Nero need not specifically be in mind here, as the allusion to death by poison or bloodshed at a meal is a common enough trope in history, tragedy, even schoolboy declamations. Chrysostom’s use of symbolism, therefore, plays on a wide range of intertextual references and allows his audience to draw from their own memory to supply meaning.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 203 Chrysostom conveys the notion of terror by painting a verbal image of the royals at night jumping and leaping while hallucinating (ἅλλεται καὶ ἀναπηδῶσα φαντασιοῦται) (In Phil. hom. 16.5. Cf. Basil Ep. 233). This image may evoke jumping at shadows, borne by paranoia and fear of assassination,48 but it more likely alludes to visions conjured up during nightmares, born of a guilty conscience.49 Amat observed that ‘the dream that represents subconscious remorse by means of visions of punishment is a constant thematic feature of Greco-Roman literature,’50 while Belfiore finds ‘harm to philoi is a generic characteristic of ancient Greek tragedy’.51 The themes of nightmares and kin slaughter are combined in Lucan’s Pharsalia, the epic Latin poem detailing the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, which also became a popular school text from late antiquity right into the Middle Ages.52 There, Lucan recounts that Caesar’s troops were afflicted by dreams and hallucinations (somni que furentes) as the ghosts of the dead, including their dead kin, haunted their sleep (Phars. 7.764–776). One cannot discount Chrysostom’s or his audience’s familiarity with such literature. Latin was a prerequisite for the army and civil service and Chrysostom’s contemporary Libanius lamented that the fad for learning Latin would see the demise of Greek studies and paideia (Liban. Or. 1.234).53 Chrysostom himself knew Latin (Ps.-Mart. Or. fun. 50) and may have used similar schoolbooks.54 As it is, Chrysostom is aware of guilt-laden dreams, having at one time told his audience that they will not be free of nightmares (καὶ ἀφαντασίαστος ἔσται ἡ νύξ) unless they kept an alms box near their bed (In 1 Cor. hom. 43.4). Chrysostom is drawing from the symbolic stocks of cultural memory – knowledge which he shared with his audience, and which would have been familiar to both the educated and uneducated – in order to reframe his short history of imperial troubles. In a final twist he gives his audience the hermeneutical key for what he is about to describe: the emperor’s floor (ἔδαφος) is streaming with the blood of relatives.55 Narrating It is only after setting up this cognitive frame, engaging his audience, and inviting their imaginative participation, that Chrysostom signals he will relate some events from the past (In Phil. hom. 16.5). As he narrates his genealogy of kings, he selectively chooses episodes for each unnamed emperor, recalling their worst deeds or calamities, and offering commentary. This selection and interpretation reinforce the frame, that the emperors’ lives are plagued with trouble, with the intention of forcing his audience to re-evaluate their schema of what they believed an emperor to be. The Emperor Julian seems to be omitted unless he is the emperor whose life was too awful to relate. On three occasions he mentions wives, but in each case their suffering is also blamed on the emperor. The emperor who had his wife exposed must have suffered incredible passion;56 the wife destroyed by pessaries is presented as the object of the emperor’s suffering; finally, another inflicted suffering on his wife by leaving her a widow. At one stage Chrysostom seems to get side-tracked. When recalling the wife destroyed by pessaries – this empress is thought to be

204

Katherin Papadopoulos

Eusebia, wife of Constantius II – Chrysostom stops to comment on the character of the woman who thought she could cure the empress’s infertility with pessaries. Here Chrysostom’s own personal interest in providence57 and infertility58 causes him to background the empress altogether and use the woman responsible for her death as a moral exemplar. Chrysostom finishes his account of imperial troubles with a short and unexpected statement: Ἀλλ’ οὐχ ἡ βασιλεία τοιαύτη τῶν οὐρανῶν· ἀλλὰ μετὰ τὸ λαβεῖν αὐτὴν, εἰρήνη, ζωὴ, χαρὰ, εὐφροσύνη. But the kingdom of heaven isn’t like that – no, after seizing it there’s peace, life, joy, good cheer. (In Phil. hom. 16.5 [Allen 2013: 314–315]) This new information, signalled by the word ‘but’ (ἀλλά), has not been previously activated by the narration to this point, but it is the cognitively salient part of his presentation. Here Chrysostom steps back as the narrator and offers comment as to its significance, answering, to use Labovian terms, the question ‘so what?’59 This reveals his main motivation for telling his story of imperial woes. It is at once a reinterpretation of the past, and – given genealogies can also serve to justify power hierarchies – a delegitimisation of emperors, and a political statement on his audiences’ present status in the empire. Reflecting Chrysostom ends with a reflection on the relationship between myth and history. Chrysostom astutely observes how often these themes of royal disasters are found in myths, and that nearly all the tragedies of the stage as well as mythical stories have kings for the subjects. In remarking on the number of stories told about kings, he employs the verbs of textile making: myths are ‘plaited’ (ἐπλάκησαν) from these events; tragedies and myths are ‘woven’ (ὑφαίνονται) about kings (In Phil. hom. 16.5). These ancient verbs echo Homer, part of the symbolic universe of both educated and uneducated Greeks, and part of an arsenal of terms drawn from the textile arts which are used as metaphors for the verbal arts.60 They also reflect the conceptual world of an orator, who is trained to ‘weave a speech with ribbons, colours of flowers, and shapes of varied dyes’ (διάπλεκε ταινίαις ὥσπερ καὶ ἀνθέων χροιαῖς καὶ βαφῆς ποικίλης εἴδεσι) in order to add pleasure (Long. Rhet. fr. 49.77–86). In a further insightful observation, Chrysostom suggests that myths and tragedies are ‘fashioned’ (πλάττεται), at least in part, from real events (In Phil. hom. 16.5). This is not necessarily naïve. In literary history, epic is the father of tragedy and history. While our modern sensibilities would instantly classify these myths as ‘a false account of past events’, the nature of myth has preoccupied scholars since Plato, and modern anthropologists have long argued whether myths preserve memories of some historical figure, ancient rite, or natural phenomena, such as floods and earthquakes.61 Perhaps without knowing it, Chrysostom is reflecting on his cultural resources and grappling with the complex

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 205 symbiosis between memory and genre, history and myth which still preoccupies scholars today. Chrysostom’s own reasoning is that it is these real events embedded in myth and tragedy that entertain, or literally give ‘pleasure’ (οὕτω γὰρ ἔχει καὶ ἡδονήν), even the story of Thyestes (In Phil. hom. 16.5). The story of Atreus and Thyestes was extremely popular among Greek and Roman tragedians.62 The storyline is simple, even if gruesome: Thyestes sparks a feud by sleeping with his brother Atreus’ wife. Atreus, who was the king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese, avenges Thyestes’ adultery by killing and cooking Thyestes’ children and feeding them to him at a banquet. The Greeks however were reluctant to show violence on stage,63 and it is arguable whether this reticence is reflected by the oblique references to murder and intrigue in this chronicle of imperial woes. In any case, Thyestean meals – charges of child sacrifice and cannibalism – have a long pedigree and were also part of a rubric of accusations thrown at Christians, particularly in the second and third century.64 Whether Chrysostom’s reflection was intended to accuse the imperial house is difficult to say, but it serves as a coda to reinforce his motive: the disasters which beset kings in tragedies and myths – all part of cultural memory – may be exaggerated for aesthetic reasons, but they nevertheless contain a kernel of truth, and this truth must be reinterpreted in light of the eschatological kingdom of God.65 Why Chrysostom does not refer to his outsider sources (ἀπὸ τῶν παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν συντεθέντων) until the end of this segment. When he offers to give further examples from Scripture, they are perfunctory. His emphasis remains on emperors. But why should Chrysostom focus on emperors or his audience even think of emperors as an example? Firstly, there is the obvious reason from the homily’s context, that as the most powerful individuals, they may be seen as immune from tribulations and consequently people might seek their patronage in pursuit of (false) security. Secondly, as Chrysostom mused, and as literary history shows, kings are a key subject of ancient genealogies, historiography and tragedy, all assets in the repository of Graeco-Roman cultural memory. A key function of remembering ancestors in antiquity was not just to keep an ancestor’s memory alive, or to commemorate them in some way, but also to imitate them. Graeco-Roman historiography constantly evaluated emperors against a past ideal emperor, Roman elite were enjoined to follow their progenitor’s careers, sons were exhorted to imitate their fathers.66 Here, as Raschle notes, Chrysostom presents anti-exemplars.67 Thirdly, Chrysostom lived at a critical time in history. Up until Constantine I, the Roman emperor was also held to be pontifex maximus, the highest priest who regulated religious life for all his subjects. The imperial office had also adopted aspects of Hellenistic political philosophy, which carried the idea of king as the embodiment of law (νόμος ἔμψυχος), who also mediated divine law to society (Diotogenes apud Stob. Flor. 4.7.61; Philo, Mos. 1.162, cf. 2.4).68 The Christian emperors were not hasty in discarding either aspect of the imperial office.69 Nevertheless

206

Katherin Papadopoulos

the advent of Christian emperors prompted the empire’s subjects to re-evaluate their relationship to the emperor. Eusebius of Caesarea for example typified many Christians who initially welcomed Constantine as ‘the herald of Providence sent by God’, but this initial optimism quickly faded and was further complicated by the fallout after Nicaea. On the one hand individual emperors, even if nominally Christian, had little interest in theology and more interest in keeping order rather than adjudicating between pro- and anti-Arian factions. Christians for their part reacted differently depending on the differing levels of support they perceived the emperor gave to their faction, pro-Arian, Nicene, or otherwise. If the Arian controversy began as a purely theological dispute, it soon became ‘a political controversy on theological grounds’.70 In the midst of these convulsions, Julian’s rise and attempted reinstatement of traditional Greek religion scarred many memories, in particular Chrysostom’s. It would seem that Chrysostom intended more than just providing examples to support his moral exhortation while entertaining his audience. Far from being a pure moralist, Chrysostom had developed his own political philosophy since he was a young man,71 having already lived through the reigns of several emperors and witnessed their activities and ceremonials firsthand during their sojourns in Antioch (Ad. vid. jun. 4). By re-presenting and reinterpreting imperial history, whether sourced from written texts or oral traditions, and portraying the emperors as impotent outsiders, dripping with the blood of their relatives, Chrysostom was attempting to reconfigure his audience’s perceptions of the imperial household.

The naked wife I turn now to consider whether analysing the text using a memory perspective can illuminate the fate of Fausta. First, some background. The circumstances around the deaths of Constantine’s wife Maxima Fausta and his son Crispus from his previous relationship with Minervina are unclear,72 and there is much speculation in both the ancient sources and modern scholarly literature.73 The only secure fact is Crispus’ death in 326,74 while even Fausta’s date of death is unknown. Some ancient sources indicate that Constantine was responsible for their deaths, and suggest the two deaths are related,75 and indeed the remaining sources are essentially variations of two traditions, which are also reflected to some degree in modern scholarship. One tradition which dominates eastern Greek sources is that Fausta was executed for adultery (either with Crispus, a courtier, or some unnamed lover) – and the other, which can explain all the western Latin sources, is that Fausta was executed or committed suicide for political reasons, perhaps for falsely denouncing Crispus as a member of a conspiracy.76 Regardless, the literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence indicates memory sanctions were applied to both Fausta and Crispus following their deaths. The Syriac translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia Ecclesiastica for example, omits the references to Crispus in the tenth book of the Greek editions,77 while Eusebius’ Vita Constantini omits mention of both Fausta and Crispus.78 A number of inscriptions attest to the damnatio of Crispus (CIL 2.4107; CIL 3.7172; CIL 5.8021; CIL

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 207 5.8030; CIL 9.6386a; CIL 10.517 = ILS 708) – one also with Fausta who had once been elevated to Augusta (CIL 10.678 = ILS 710). Fausta’s image disappeared from coinage.79 Scholars have noted that Julian praised Fausta’s moral purity in his first panegyric to Constantius II, effectively rehabilitating her memory (Julian. Or. 1.9b – c,80 but once he had ascended to the imperial throne and could speak freely, Julian rounded on her husband Constantine, claiming that he had converted to Christianity to salve his conscience over his bloodletting of relatives (Julian. Or. 10.336a – c; Zos. 2.29).81 This particular charge was refuted, even if poorly, by later Christian historians like Philostorgius (Hist. eccl. 2.4, AP fr. 4b [= AP 45]), Sozomen (Hist. eccl. 1.5.1–5), and Evagrius (Hist. eccl. 3.40–41). The memory sanctions against Crispus however, were never reversed.82 Some scholars who identify the first king in Chrysostom’s list as Constantine the Great also see an allusion to a myth in the description of his bound and naked wife exposed on a mountain to wild beasts and have sought to identify the myth in order to discover, by analogy, more detail about Fausta’s alleged adultery. Pohlsander suggests Chrysostom’s ‘ingenious’ rendition was ‘undoubtedly’ inspired by the myth of Prometheus, ‘or perhaps that of Andromede’.83 Marasco submits that this is Chrysostom’s embellishment to satisfy his audience’s taste for sensation, before proceeding to suggest the crime was more sensational than adultery, being rather incest, which was severely punished in the fourth century.84 Raschle is overly confident in seeing an allusion to ‘a specific myth’ (à un mythe précis) despite acknowledging the lack of consensus and asserts without proof that Chrysostom’s interpretation would later inspire the Arian historian Philostorgius to describe the relationship between Fausta and Crispus in terms drawn from the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus.85 These various positions extend to Chrysostom: Rocco for example, reports that Chrysostom refers ‘to their just condemnation’ (alla loro giusta condanna) while Zecchini writes that the suspicion of adultery was, in Chrysostom’s opinion, ‘completely unfounded’ (il sospetto di adulterio . . . era a suo avviso, del tutto infondato).86 Clearly these cannot all be right. Can an analysis using a memory perspective adjudicate among these positions? I argue that it can, and that it arbitrates against applying either a mythological or historical interpretation because Chrysostom is employing cultural categories related to pollution. We have previously established that Chrysostom likely recalled a written source for this emperor, after which he offers his own commentary. Both source and commentary must therefore be considered separately yet make sense in relation to each other, and to Chrysostom’s audience. Chrysostom’s source identifies the woman as an emperor’s wife, who was ‘already the mother of many emperors by him’ (ἤδη μητέρα γενομένην αὐτῷ βασιλέων πολλῶν) (In Phil. hom. 16.5). This echoes the Emperor Julian’s description of Fausta as ‘the mother of many emperors, not just one’ (πολλῶν αὐτοκρατόρων, οὐχὶ δὲ ἑνὸς μητέρα) (Or. 1.9c), but this would only be recognised by a very small, elite group privy to, and extremely familiar with, Julian’s orations. Coins depicting Fausta lauded her fertility which generated hope for the empire, rather than her being the mother of many emperors.87 However, anyone with basic historical awareness of previous emperors would likely make the connection with Fausta, although this identification is

208

Katherin Papadopoulos

not germane to Chrysostom’s argument on the surface. Given Chrysostom was preaching some 70 years after her death however, her memory may be entering limits of communicative memory, even if we assume she was fully rehabilitated. In this same source, the king is said to have had his wife exposed (ἐξέδωκεν, lit. ‘given over’) to wild beasts on a mountain (In Phil. hom. 16.5). Exposure is a common motif in Greek mythology. Often it is a hero who is exposed as a child before being rescued. Oedipus, for example, was exposed as a child either in the mountains or, according to the alternative version, in a basket in the sea.88 Otherwise evil beings and polluted objects were carried away to other places, including mountains, and left there.89 A pithy Greek curse drawn from Homer (Il. 6.347) says, ‘into the mountain or into the sea’ (εἰς ὄρος ἢ εἰς κῦμα) in order to indicate the two places from which no return is possible.90 This is the reason why, before the propitiatory sacrifice, the healer-seer Calcaus tells the Achaeans in Iliad 1 to ‘wash off their pollution and throw the pollution into the sea’ (Hom. Il. 1.314).91 The purifiers described in De morbo sacra ‘bury (κρύπτουσι) some of the polluted remains in the ground, throw some in the sea (ἐς θάλασσαν ἐμβάλλουσι) and carry others away to the mountains (ἐς τὰ οὔρεα ἀποφέρουσιν) where no one can touch or tread on them’ (Morb. sacr. 1). Far from just a mythological trope, this reflected actual ritual disposal practice of polluting objects. Structuralists would observe, writes Bremmer, that the mountain and the sea are in opposition to the fertile land around the polis on the plain.92 Purity and pollution remained a central concern in Graeco-Roman society, even into late antiquity. Chrysostom himself was well aware of the pagan means of dealing with polluting objects as he demonstrates when taunting the Emperor Julian for his removal of Babylas’ relics from Daphne, ostensibly after an oracle of Apollo: Διὰ τί γὰρ μὴ καταποντίσαι τὴν λάρνακα μήτε ἐκεῖνος ἐκέλευσε μήτε οὗτος ἐθέλησε; Διὰ τί μὴ συνέτριψε καὶ κατέκαυσε; Διὰ τί μὴ εἰς ἔρημον καὶ ἀοίκητον αὐτὴν ἀπενεχθῆναι προσέταξεν; Εἰ γὰρ ἄγος ἦν καὶ μίασμα – καὶ βδελυττόμενος ἀλλὰ μὴ δεδοικὼς ἐκεῖθεν αὐτὴν ἐκίνησεν – οὐκ εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἐχρῆν τὸ ἄγος εἰσάγειν ἀλλ’ ἀποικίζειν εἰς ὄρη καὶ νάπας. Why didn’t he order or wish the coffin to be drowned in the sea? Why didn’t he crush it and burn it up? Why didn’t he command it to be carried away to a desolate and uninhabited place? For, if it was an accursed and polluted thing, which he moved from there out of disgust and not from fear, he should not have introduced that accursed thing into the city but should have banished it to the recesses of the mountains. (De Babyla contra Julianum et gentiles 91) Of interest here too, is the fact that, in that sermon, Chrysostom continues with a litany of emperors as well. In the archaic and classical period even licit sex with one’s husband or wife was polluting in Greek religion, although not for any reason of morality or disgust.93 It is only in the Hellenistic age that adultery was considered more polluting than intercourse with one’s own.94 Adultery was also considered polluting in Roman

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 209 society where the virtue of one’s domus was a matter for protection and praise.95 The language of violation and purity permeates talk of adultery.96 The imagery of a woman suspected of adultery exposed to wild beasts on a mountain is at home in the symbolic universe of late antique Graeco-Roman society. It is hardly surprising then that Chrysostom accepts the exposure as punishment for adultery.97 At the same time, attempts to read a particular myth into the image cited by Chrysostom, as some scholars have done, are possibly misplaced. For example, unlike the emperor’s wife, Andromede was rescued from exposure; Chrysostom also never hints that the emperor’s wife committed suicide so as to warrant an allusion to Phaedra. The notion of Chrysostom or his source referring to a mythological figure probably arises from reading back from later sources or finding dependencies between sources for which no evidence exists. Chrysostom assumed his audience was familiar with the allusion in the text he was quoting, and that it would trigger the necessary memory response to connect with the idea he wished to convey. Had Chrysostom wanted to make a connection with a particular myth he would have been more obvious. As a highly skilled orator he would not have been so clumsy.98 In short, Chrysostom was likely evoking images of pollution rather than myth. And indeed, Chrysostom’s focus is on the ferocity of the emperor’s reaction, not on the empress’s alleged crime and its penalty. He marvels at the intensity of the emperor’s passion (εἰ μὴ σφόδρα κατετάκη τῷ πάθει) which brought about such severe punishment (In Phil. hom. 16.5). Those who would have heard Chrysostom preach regularly would have known Chrysostom conceived humanity as a ‘potent dichotomy’ between those who were slaves of God and those who were slaves of passion.99 If the emperor in view is in truth Constantine, then Chrysostom’s version would nevertheless accord with other eastern sources which hint that Fausta’s failure was adultery, perhaps even with Crispus. This does not mean it was a historical fact, or even that Chrysostom accepted this explanation, as Marasco claims100 – it is simply the way Fausta was remembered in the east at that time. Even if adultery were an ‘official’ explanation to cover for a politically motivated death, as Zecchini claims,101 historical facts are not Chrysostom’s concern here. Chrysostom’s subtext is that this emperor was out of control, perhaps even an outsider (Cf. In Eph. hom. 23.1).

Conclusion This study applied a memory perspective to a catalogue of imperial disasters in Chrysostom’s 16th homily on Paul’s letter to the Philippians in order to assess its historical veracity and filter out some of the interpretative possibilities suggested by historians regarding Fausta. Our brief analysis hinted at a complex dynamic between preacher, audience, and cultural memory: Chrysostom was perhaps recalling a mix of written sources, oral traditions, and his own experience to construct his imperial history. He had little interest in establishing historical facts but moulded his account of the collectively remembered past by means of a genealogical form, selective content, cognitive framing, and the judicial use of symbols, images, and myths drawn from shared cultural memory to advance

210

Katherin Papadopoulos

a counter-memory which presented emperors as impotent outsiders in relation to his Christian community. By this means, he challenged established symbols and pre-existent understandings of an emperor’s power. Beyond just recounting a moralising tale, Chrysostom seems to be promoting a particular political philosophy. This can be viewed against the backdrop of wider discourses about the relationship between Christians and emperors, and about providence. In the case of the naked wife, commonly thought to be Fausta, Chrysostom appears to be recalling a written source employing the language of pollution, which has a long tradition in Graeco-Roman cultural memory, to reinforce the claim that she was punished for committing adultery. Nevertheless, this cannot be seen as evidence of the claim’s veracity or of Chrysostom’s personal belief. Such language, in Chrysostom’s interpretation, underscores the severity of the emperor’s response and his enslavement to the passions – a classic description of an ‘outsider’. Consequently, one can also exclude the scholarly suggestions that Chrysostom is alluding to a myth. Mythic allusions were introduced by later sources and one must not read such interpretations back into Chrysostom or his source. Chrysostom’s focus remains on presenting emperors as anti-exemplars.

Notes 1 This research was funded by the Australian Research Council. I owe thanks to Wendy Mayer, Rajiv K. Bhola, and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. All remaining deficiencies are mine. 2 Stertz 1977; Stevenson 1992; Bourgeal 2017. 3 J. Kelly 1995; Brändle 1999; Mayer & Allen 2000; Tiersch 2002. 4 Mayer 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2017. 5 Allen & Mayer 1995: 271–272, 274–275; Mayer 2005: 4, 99, 189–191, 450–453; Allen 2013: xi–v; pace Raschle 2013. 6 Field’s 1855 critical text differs from and is superior to Montfaucon’s edition printed by Migne (PG 62: 177–298). Field also counts the argumentum as the first homily in the collection, rendering a total of 16 homilies. I use Field’s numeration and text throughout. English translations are my adaptations of Allen 2013. 7 Chrysostom refers to emperors as ‘emperor’, ‘αugustus’, or ‘caesar’ (αὐτοκράτωρ, αὔγουστος, καῖσαρ), but predominantly favours ‘king’ (βασιλεύς), although he does not limit that term’s use to emperors only. See Mason 1974 on use of the Greek word ‘king’ (βασιλεύς) for emperors. Angelov 2014 cautions against reading Christian political ideology into this term. In this chapter, I use ‘king’ and ‘emperor’ interchangeably. 8 See Migne [PG 62: 295n(a) and 296n(a)]. 9 Allen & Mayer 1995: 274–275; cf. Allen 2013: xiii. 10 Raschle 2013. 11 Erll 2011: 95–112. 12 Assmann 2008. 13 Similarly: Raschle 2013: 359. 14 Marasco 1993: 314. 15 Sandwell 2007: 63. 16 This contrasts with other authors, such as Libanius. See Boin 2014: 194. 17 Sandwell 2007: 63–90. More generally: Boin 2014: especially 174–188, 193–196. 18 Resano 2015: 188. 19 For example Tac. Ann. 11.27.2; cf. Shatzman 1974: 549.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 211 20 This empress is often identified as Eusebia, wife of Constantius II, who died childless. Eusebia had every need to conceive, and pessaries were a common means of treating infertility, for example Hippoc. Superf. 32–33. Raschle 2013: 364–367 also observes that such details lend credibility to Chrysostom’s report, as does Woods 2018 who suspects Assyria, wife of magister peditum Barbatio, to be the woman responsible for Eusebia’s death. Allen 2013: xiii, and Allen & Mayer 1995: 275 surprisingly identify the king whose wife died from pesssaries as Constans. Constantine I’s sons are often confused. 21 Harries 2007; Hillner 2015 ad loc. A systematic review of the death penalty in late antiquity has not yet been undertaken. 22 Raschle 2013: 363. 23 Barnes 1993: 101–108; Bleckmann 1999: 85–87. 24 Drinkwater 2000. 25 Marasco 1993: 314. 26 On Chrysostom’s attitude to emperors and empire see contributions by Pasquato, Kessler, Capone, and Rist in Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana 2005, and Stephens 2009. Chrysostom saw bishops as ultimate interpreters of divine law which governed those in authority, including divinely appointed kings, and judged ideal emperor’s traditional virtues such as pietas through a Christian lens. 27 Not enough information: Petit 1956. In favour: Hunter 1989; Wintjes 2005: 177–179. Plausible: Nesselrath 2015. Against: Malosse 2008. 28 Marasco 1993: 314. 29 See, for example, Chrys. Jud. 5; Ad vid. jun.; exp. in Ps. 111; pan. Bab. 2. 30 Nikulin 2015: 43. 31 Miller 1956. 32 Cowan 2010. 33 Raschle 2013: 371. 34 Goffman 1974: 27–28; Dewulf et al. 2009. 35 Van Eemeren 2010: 126. 36 Van Eemeren 2010: 126. 37 Van Eemeren 2010: 126. 38 C. Kelly 1998: 139–150; Reinhold 1970. Reinhold however seems to underplay the use of the colour purple in formal ‘robes of office’ and its function to symbolise an office or power. 39 Generally, τὸ διάδημα alone or τὸ διάδημα καὶ ἡ ἁλουργίδα. Chrysostom rarely uses πορφύρα for the royal ‘purple’, reserving that for clothing of biblical characters or saints. 40 Kelly 1998: 143. 41 Meyer 2007: 1–17; McCarthy 1969. 42 Parker 1983: 104–134; Bendlin 2007; Lennon 2014: 90–135. 43 Kaufman 1932; Holford-Strevens 2001; Friend 1999; Meulder 2002; Day 2015: 141–154. 44 Rougé 1978; Maier 2013. 45 Burgess 2008. 46 Stoehr-Monjou 2012. Cf. P. Opt. Carm. 6; 8; 20 for Constantine as ‘restorer of the Golden Age’. 47 Cf. Mitchell 2002: 206–212; Rougé 1978. 48 Frakes 1997; Lee 2009. 49 Nightmares have received less attention than dreams in general. Patricia Miller 1994 barely mentions nightmares. Harris 2009: 103–104 notes that the technical vocabulary for nightmares (ἐφιάλτης, ἠπίαλος, and incubo) is rarely used and so they are difficult to identify. He also points to different typologies, for example, Macrobius Com. in Somn. Scip. 1.3.4–6 classifies what we would consider nightmares under ‘ordinary dreams’ (insomnia). Harrisson 2013: 45 indicates that different

212

50 51

52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72

Katherin Papadopoulos

societies have different definitions of what constitutes a nightmare, which, along with the paucity and nature of the evidence, contributes to the difficulty of studying nightmares in past societies. All three authors give examples where nightmares are presented in terms of ‘imagination’ (φαντασία) or ‘mental images’ or ‘apparitions’ (φαντάσματα). For contemporary discussion, see Syn. insomn. 3–5 on the relationship between dreams and imagination, and Aug. Conf. 10 on memory as a storehouse of images. Roman judicial savagery also drove Christians to nightmares: see Shaw 2003. Amat 1985: 100 (my translation). Belfiore 2000: 117. Belfiore’s analysis is based on Aristotle’s claim that tragedy occurs within philia relationships (p. 3; cf. Arist. Poet. 1453b19–22), but she perhaps draws too large a circle around the concept of philia which in her study includes harm to self, kin, friends, strangers, and suppliants. Still, there is no shortage of examples: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (patricide); Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes (fratricide); Euripides’ Electra (matricide) and Phoenician Women (fratricide). Colish 1985: 274–275 with n279. See further Cribiore 2007: 205–213. On teaching of Latin to Greek speakers in antiquity, see Dickey 2015. One can also not discount Latin works being available in Greek translation even if few are now extant. This description (‘dripping with the blood of relatives’) appears in a different form in the passion of Artemius (a Dux Aegypti under Constantius II) to describe Constantine the Great’s house. The passion draws from Philostorgius, who presents Artemius as an Arian who was martyred in Antioch under Julian. Philostorgius, Hist. eccl. 2.4, AP fr. 4b [= AP 43]: τοῦ τε ὁμογνίου ἀνάπλεων αἵματος. Cf. Joh. Damasc. AP 43: αἵματος ὁμογνίου γενόμενον ἔμπλεον. Allen’s 2013: 315 translation should perhaps read ‘he wouldn’t have meted out a punishment of such magnitude’. See Chrys. prov, 1–6; scand. See Chrys. pecc.; non desp. Labov 2011. Fanfani et al. 2016. Kirk 1970; Le Goff 1988: 230. Kohn 2013: 131. See Hor. Ars P. 179–188; Easterling 2005: 27n16. See, for example, Athenagoras Leg. 3.1, 34.3, 35.1–2; Eus. Hist. eccl. 5.1.14. For Chrysostom’s conception of contradictory spaces (e.g. kingdom of heaven as negation of kingdom on earth), see Stenger 2019: especially 54–55. Stertz 1977; Stevenson 1992; Bourgeal 2017. Raschle 2013. Goodenough 1928; Dvornik 1966: 1:205–287; Chestnut 1978: 1313–1315; Regev 2013. Cameron 2007; 2016. In this 2016 study, Cameron revises his 2007 opinion and no longer holds that Christian emperors appealed to any special or specific powers inherent in the office in order to manage church affairs, despite Julian’s own appeal to that office as part of his pagan revival. Kashchuk 2014: 143. Stephens 2009. While some scholars refer to Minervina as Constantine’s first wife – see Pan. Lat. 7.4.1 which may refer to Minervina, and to their union as marriage – other ancient testimony suggests she was his ‘concubine’ (παλλακή, concubina), although this could be slander. See Epit. de Caes. 41.4, repeated in Land. Sag. 11.170; Zos. 2.20.2; Zonar. 13.2.37. Pohlsander 1984: 80 remarks that it is also unclear whether Constantine was separated/ divorced or widowed when he married Fausta.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 213 73 Guthrie 1966; Rougé 1980; Barnes 1981: 220–221; Pohlsander 1984; Desnier 1987; Drijvers 1992; Marasco 1993; Woods 1998; Paschoud 2006; Barnes 2011: 144–150; Rocco 2013: 243–260; Resano 2015; Zecchini 2017. 74 See Cons. Const. 159 s.a. 326. Cf. Chron. Pasch. 1.525; RIC VII 387.206, 490, 620.120. 75 For example Hieron. De vir. ill. 80; Euseb.-Hieron. Chron. s.a. 325 (erroneously), Olymp. 276 [cf. Pohlsander 1984 99n171]; Epit. de Caes. 41.11–12; Eutr. 10.6.2. 76 Zecchini 2017: 131. 77 Barnes 1980: 197; Louth 1990: 111–112. The idea of several Greek editions springs from the patterns of variants observed in the manuscript tradition, notably changes relating to Licinius. Johnson 2013: 104–112 argues that all can be adequately explained by positing a single edition dating to 324, but his argument has not gained any traction. 78 Barnes 1980: 197–198; Marasco 1993: 317–319; Zecchini 2017: 128. 79 Vanderspoel & Mann 2002: 354; Boicu 2013: 237. 80 Marasco 1993: 315–316 describes this as an excusatio non petita (not exoneratio non petita as Raschle [2013: 362n19] has it), adding that Julian’s defence of Fausta’s moral purity makes Philostorgius’ and Zosimus’ allegations of a crime ‘against nature’s laws’ (which Marasco names as incest) more understandable. But if Julian, who Marasco thinks was in a better position to know what transpired, was aware of an illicit relationship between Crispus and his stepmother Fausta (although how, given that Crispus was based in Trier, no one can say), then surely Julian would have used that against Constantine once he was able to speak freely? Cf. Julian’s claim of an unjust accusation and damnatio of his half-brother Gallus at Ep. ad. Ath. 271a. 81 Cf. Ridley 1982: 157n64; Paschoud 1971: 334–353. 82 Rocco 2013: 249n27; pace Tantillo 1997: 194–195n68. 83 Pohlsander 1984: 101–103. 84 Marasco 1993: 315–317. 85 Raschle 2013: 362n19. 86 Rocco 2013: 247; Zecchini 2017: 129. 87 Vanderspoel & Mann 2002: 351–355, Boicu 2013: 235–237. 88 Bremmer 1987/2014: 43–44. 89 Parker 1983; Bremmer 1987/2014: 44; Huys 1995: 25–48 and appendices. 90 Bremmer 1987/2014: 44. Versnel 1981: 19 calls it a ‘standard expression’, but the exact phrase (εἰς ὄρος ἢ εἰς κῦμα) is infrequent in extant literature in the first four centuries CE – Syn. Ep. 117; Cyr. Alex. Hom. pasch. 11.3; Eudoc. Homero. 1013 – although the idea may be expressed in other terms. 91 Parker 1983: 210. 92 Bremmer 1987: 44. 93 Parker 1983: 74–103. 94 Parker 1983: 94. 95 Saller 1994: 94; Fantham 2012: 59–66. 96 See, for example, Tac. Ann. 3.18, 13.42; Hist. 3.41. 97 Rocco 2013: 254n54 sees the account as probably conditioned by the penalty for adultery instituted by Constantius II in 339 CE which equates adultery with parricide: see Cod. Theod. 11.36.4. Raschle 2013: 362, on the other hand, observes spectacular executions were no longer included in laws. But as others have observed, even spectacular executions were unlikely to have taken place anyway. In any case, there is no evidence Chrysostom had the Theodosian penalty in mind. 98 For an example where Chrysostom makes an obvious link to a myth – in this case Dionysus and Nicaea – while still remaining somewhat vague, see In mart. omn. 16 [ms. Stavronikita 6, ff. 138v–146r; cf. Mayer & Neil 2006: 253–254]. With thanks to Professor Wendy Mayer for this reference. 99 De Wet 2015: 75–80.

214

Katherin Papadopoulos

100 Marasco 1993: 315. 101 Zecchini 2017.

Bibliography Primary sources Cyril of Alexandria. Paschal Homilies. 1859. PG, 77.401–981. Eudocia Augusta. Homerocentones. Edited by M.D. Usher. 1999. Homerocentones Eudociae Augustae. Leipzig. Hippocrates. De morbo sacro. Edited by É. Littré. 1849. Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, Vol. 8, 472–509. Paris. Homer. Iliad. Edited by T.W. Allen. 1931. Homeri Ilias, 3 vols. OCT. Oxford. John Chrysostom. Adversus Iudaeos. 1862. PG, 48.843–942. John Chrysostom. Ad viduam iuniorem. Edited by B. Grillet and G.H. Ettlinger. 1968. Jean Chrysostome: À une jeune veuve. Sur le mariage unique. SC, 138. Paris. John Chrysostom. De Babyla contra Iulianum et gentiles. Edited by M.A. Schatkin, C. Blanc, B. Grillet, and J.-N. Guinot. 1990. Jean Chrysostome. Discours sur Babylas. Suivi de l’Homélie sur Babylas. SC, 362. Paris. John Chrysostom. Homilies on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. 1862. PG, 61.2–380. John Chrysostom. Homilies on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians; to the Ephesians; to the Thessalonians. 1860. PG, 62.299–390; 177–298; 391–466. John Chrysostom. Homilies on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Edited by F. Field. 1855. Sancti patris nostri Ioannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani interpretatio omnium epistularum Paulinarum per homilias facta. Vol. 5: Continens homilias in epistolas ad Philippenses, Colossenses et Thessalonicenses, 1–171. Oxford. Translated by P. Allen. 2013. In John Chrysostom: Homilies on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. Atlanta. John of Damascus. Passio sancti Artemii. Edited by B. Kotter. 1988. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos. Vol. 5: Opera homiletica et hagiographica, 185–245. PTS, 29. Berlin. Julian Augustus. Various. Edited by J. Bidez. 1932. L’Empereur Julien. Œuvres Complètes. Vol. 1.1: Discours de Julien César (I-V). Budé, 71. Paris. Landulfus Sagax. Historia Romana. Edited by H. Droysen. 1879. Eutropi breviarium ab urbe condita cum versionibus graecis et Pauli Landolfique additamentis. MGH AA, 2. Berlin. Longinus. Ars rhetorica. Edited by M. Patillon and L. Brisson. 2001. Longin: Fragments, Art rhétorique. Rufus, Art rhétorique. Budé, 413. Paris. Lucan. Pharsalia. Edited by D.R. Shackleton Bailey. 1988. M. Annaei Lucani, De Bello Civili libri X. Leipzig. Repr. 1997; Berlin. Macrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Edited by J. Willis. 1970. Ambrosii Theodosii Macrobii Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 2nd edn. Leipzig. Philo. On Moses. Edited by F.H. Colson. Philo: On Abraham. On Joseph. On Moses. LCL, 289. Cambridge, MA. Philostorgius. Church History. Edited by J. Bidez and F. Winkelmann. 1981. Philostorgius, Kirchengeschichte: Mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen, 3rd edn. GCS, 21. Berlin.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 215 Pseudo-Aurelius Victor. Epitome de Caesaribus. Edited by F. Pichlmayr and R. Gruendel. 1966. Sexti Aurelii Victoris Liber de Caesaribus, praecedunt Origo gentis Romanae et Liber de viris illustribus urbis Romae, subsequitur Epitome de Caesaribus, 133–176. Editio stereotypa correctior editionis primae. Leipzig. Stobaeus. Various. Edited by C. Wachsmuth and O. Hesse. 1884–1912. Ioannis Stobaei Anthologium, 5 vols. Berlin. Synesius. Epistles. Edited by A. Garzya and D. Roques. 2000. Synésios de Cyrène: Correspondance, 2 vols. Paris. Zonaras. Epitomae historiarum. Edited by M. Pinder and T. Büttner-Wobst. 1841–1897. Ioannes Zonaras. Epitomae historiarum, 3 vols. CSHB. Bonn. Zosimus. The New History. Edited by F. Paschoud. 1979–2000. Zosime. Histoire Nouvelle, 5 vols. Paris.

Secondary sources Allen, P. and W. Mayer. 1995. ‘Chrysostom and the Preaching of Homilies in a Series: A Re-examination of the Fifteen Homilies In epistulam ad Philippenses (CPG 4432).’ VChr 49 (3): 270–289. Amat, J. 1985. Songes et visions: l’au-delà dans la littérature latine tardive. Paris. Angelov, A. 2014. ‘In Search of God’s Only Emperor: Basileus in Byzantine and Modern Historiography.’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2): 123–141. Assmann, J. 2008. ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory.’ In Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds. A. Erll, A. Nünning, and S. Young, 109–118. Berlin. Barnes, T.D. 1980. ‘The Editions of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History.’ GRBS 21: 191–201. Barnes, T.D. 1981. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA. Barnes, T.D. 1993. Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantinian Empire. Cambridge, MA. Barnes, T.D. 2011. Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire. Malden, MA. Belfiore, E.S. 2000. Murder Among Friends: Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy. Oxford. Bendlin, A. 2007. ‘Purity and Pollution.’ In A Companion to Greek Religion, ed. D. Ogden, 178–189. Oxford. Bleckmann, B. 1999. ‘Decentius, Bruder oder Cousin des Magnentius?’ GFA 2: 85–87. Boicu, D. 2013. ‘Efigii ale împărăteselor constantiniene: Sfânta Elena şi Fausta.’ In Credinţă şi libertate. Coordonatele politicii religioase creştine a împăratului Constantin cel Mare, eds. L. Streza, N. Chifăr, E. Tăvală, and D. Boicu, 230–242. Sibiu. Boin, D. 2014. ‘Hellenistic “Judaism” and the Social Origins of the “Pagan-Christian” Debate.’ JECS 22 (2): 167–196. Bourgeal, M.D. 2017. ‘Los Césares. Los modelos históricos de Juliano = The Caesars. The Historic Models of Julian.’ ETF(hist) 30: 25–142. Brändle, R. 1999. Johannes Chrysostomus: Bischof, Reformer, Märtyrer. Stuttgart. Bremmer, J.N. 1987. ‘Oedipus and the Greek Oedipus Complex.’ In Interpretations of Greek Mythology, ed. J.N. Bremmer, 41–59. Reprint 2014; Abingdon. Burgess, R.W. 2008. ‘Summer of Blood: The ‘Great Massacre’ of 337 and the Promotion of the Sons of Constantine.’ DOP 62: 5–51. Cameron, Al. 2007. ‘The Imperial Pontifex.’ HSPh 103: 341–384.

216

Katherin Papadopoulos

Cameron, Al. 2016. ‘Pontifex Maximus: From Augustus to Gratian – and Beyond.’ In Emperors and the Divine – Rome and Its Influence, ed. M. Kahlos, 139–159. Helsinki. Capone, A. 2005. ‘L’imperatore Giuliano negli scritti di Giovanni Crisostomo.’ In Incontro di studiosi, Giovanni Crisostomo, 2: 821–831. Chestnut, G.F. 1978. ‘The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy.’ In ANRW 2.16.2: 1310–1332. Colish, M.L. 1985. The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Vol. 1: Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature. Leiden. Cowan, N. 2010. ‘The Magical Mystery Four: How is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why?’ Current Directions in Psychological Science 19 (1): 51–57. Cribiore, R. 2007. The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton. Day, K. 2015. ‘Windows and Mirrors: Illuminating the Invisible Women of Rome.’ In Rome Season Two: Trial and Triumph, ed. M.S. Cyrino, 141–154. Edinburgh. Desnier, J.-L. 1987. ‘Zosime II, 29 et la mort de Fausta.’ BAGB 3: 297–309. De Wet, C.L. 2015. Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity. Oakland. Dewulf, A. et al. 2009. ‘Disentangling Approaches to Framing in Conflict and Negotiation Research: A Meta-paradigmatic Perspective.’ Human Relations 62: 155–193. Dickey, E. 2015. ‘Teaching Latin to Greek Speakers in Antiquity.’ In Learning Latin and Greek from Antiquity to the Present, eds. E.P. Archibald, W. Brockliss, and J. Gnoza, 30–51. Cambridge. Drijvers, J.W. 1992. ‘Flavia Maxima Fausta: Some Remarks.’ Historia 41 (4): 500–506. Drinkwater, J.F. 2000. ‘The Revolt and Ethnic Origin of the Usurper Magnentius (350–63), and the Rebellion of Vetranio (350).’ Chiron 30: 131–159. Dvornik, F. 1966. Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background, 2 vols. Washington. Easterling, P. 2005. ‘Agamemnon for the Ancients.’ In Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004, ed. F. Macintosh, 23–36. Oxford. Erll, A. 2011. Memory in Culture. Translated by S.B. Young. New York. Fanfani, G., M. Harlow, and M.-L. Nosch (eds). 2016. Spinning Fates and the Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature. Oxford. Fantham, E. 2012. ‘Purification in Ancient Rome.’ In Rome, Pollution, and Propriety: Dirt, Disease, and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity, eds. M. Bradley and K. Stow, 59–66. Cambridge. Frakes, R.A. 1997. ‘Ammianus Marcellinus and Zonaras on a Late Roman Assassination Plot.’ Historia 46 (1): 121–128. Friend, C. 1999. ‘Pirates, Seducers, Wronged Heirs, Poison Cups, Cruel Husbands, and Other Calamities: The Roman School Declamations and Critical Pedagogy.’ RhetR 17 (2): 300–320. Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston. Repr. 1986. Goodenough, E.R. 1928. ‘The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship.’ In Yale Classical Studies, Vol. 1, ed. A.M. Harmon, 53–102. New Haven, CT. Guthrie, P. 1966. ‘The Execution of Crispus.’ Phoenix 20 (4): 325–331. Harries, J. 2007. Law and Crime in the Roman World. Cambridge. Harris, W.V. 2009. Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, MA. Harrisson, J. 2013. Dreams and Dreaming in the Roman Empire: Cultural Memory and Imagination. London.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 217 Hillner, J. 2015. Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity. Cambridge. Holford-Strevens, L. 2001. ‘Getting Away with Murder: The Literary and Forensic Fortune of Two Roman “Exempla.”’ IJCT 7 (4): 489–514. Hunter, D. 1989. ‘Libanius and Chrysostom: New Thoughts on an Old Problem.’ StudPat 22: 129–135. Huys, M. 1995. The Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth in Euripidean Tragedy: A Study of Motifs. Leuven. Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana. 2005. Giovanni Crisostomo: Oriente e Occidente tra IV e V secolo: XXXIII Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana: Roma, 6–8 maggio 2004, 2 vols. Rome. Johnson, A.P. 2013. Eusebius. London and New York. Kashchuk, O. 2014. ‘The Attitude of the Pro-Arian Bishops towards the Emperor in the Period of Reception of the Nicene Christology.’ VoxP 34 (61): 137–155. Kaufman, D.B. 1932. ‘Poisons and Poisoning among the Romans.’ CPh 27 (2): 156–167. Kelly, C. 1998. ‘Emperors, Government and Bureaucracy.’ In The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425, eds. Av. Cameron and P. Garnsey, 138– 183. Cambridge. Kelly, J.N.D. 1995. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. New York. Kessler, S.C. 2005. ‘Kirche und Staat in den Säulenhomilien des Johannes Chrysostomus: Mönche werden Philosophen.’ In Incontro di studiosi, Giovanni Crisostomo, 2: 809–820. Kirk, G.S. 1970. Myth: Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley. Kohn, T.D. 2013. The Dramaturgy of Senecan Tragedy. Ann Arbor. Labov, W. 2011. ‘Oral Narratives of Personal Experience.’ In Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences, ed. P.C. Hogan, 546–548. Cambridge. Lee, A.D. 2009. ‘Abduction and Assassination: The Clandestine Face of Roman Diplomacy in Late Antiquity.’ International History Review 31 (1): 1–23. Le Goff, J. 1988. Histoire et mémoire. Paris. Lennon, J. 2014. Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome. Cambridge. Louth, A. 1990. ‘The Date of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica.’ JThS NS 41 (1): 111–123. Maier, H.O. 2013. ‘Nero in Jewish and Christian Tradition from the First Century to the Reformation.’ In A Companion to the Neronian Age, eds. E. Buckley and M.T. Dinter, 385–404. Chichester. Malosse, P.-L. 2008. ‘Jean Chrysostome a-t-il été l’élève de Libanios?’ Phoenix 62 (3/4): 273–280. Marasco, G. 1993. ‘Costantino e le uccisioni di Crispo e Fausta, 326 d.C.’ RFIC 121: 297–317. Mason, H.J. 1974. Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis. Toronto. Mayer, W. 2005. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom – Provenance. Reshaping the Foundations. Rome. Mayer, W. 2015a. ‘Medicine in Transition: Christian Adaptation in the Later FourthCentury East.’ In Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity, eds. G. Greatrex and H. Elton, with L. McMahon, 11–26. Farnham. Mayer, W. 2015b. ‘Shaping the Sick Soul: Reshaping the Identity of John Chrysostom.’ In Christians Shaping Identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium, eds. G.D. Dunn and W. Mayer, 140–164. Leiden.

218

Katherin Papadopoulos

Mayer, W. 2015c. ‘The Persistence in Late Antiquity of Medico-Philosophical Psychic Therapy.’ JLA 8 (2): 337–351. Mayer, W. 2017. ‘John Chrysostom: Moral Philosopher and Physician of the Soul.’ In John Chrysostom: Past, Present, Future, eds. D. Costache and M. Baghos, 193–216. Sydney. Mayer, W. and P. Allen. 2000. John Chrysostom. London. Mayer, W., with B. Neil. 2006. St John Chrysostom. The Cult of the Saints: Select Homilies and Letters. Crestwood, NY. McCarthy, D.J. 1969. ‘The Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice.’ JBL 88 (2): 166–176. Meulder, M. 2002. ‘Histoire et mythe dans la ‘Vita Neronis’ de Suétone.’ Latomus 61 (2): 362–387. Meyer, M. 2007. Thicker Than Water: The Origins of Blood as Symbol and Ritual. New York. Miller, G. (1956) 1994. ‘The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information.’ Psychological Review 101 (2): 343–352. Miller, P.C. 1994. Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture. Princeton. Mitchell, M. 2002. The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation. Louisville, KY. Nesselrath, H.-G. 2015. ‘Der Heide Libanios und der Christ Johannes Chrysostomos – Lehrer und Schüler?’ In Bedeutende Lehrerfiguren. Von Platon bis Hasanal-Banna, eds. T. Georges, J. Scheiner, and I. Tanaseanu-Döbler, 153–177. Tübingen. Nikulin, D. 2015. ‘Memory in Ancient Philosophy.’ In Memory: A History, ed. D. Nikulin, 1–84. Oxford. Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford. Paschoud, F. 1971. ‘Zosime II, 29 et la version païenne de la conversion de Constantin.’ Historia 20 (2/3): 334–353. Paschoud, F. 2006. ‘Fausta en nouvelle Phèdre. Étude d’un modèle interprétatif.’ In Eunape, Olympiodore, Zosime: scripta minora: recueil d’articles, avec addenda, corrigenda, mis à jour et indices, ed. F. Paschoud, 459–472. Bari. Pasquato, O. 2005. ‘Giovanni Crisostomo e l’impero romano.’ In Incontro di studiosi, Giovanni Crisostomo, 2: 781–798. Petit, P. 1956. Les étudiants de Libanius. Paris. Pohlsander, H.A. 1984. ‘Crispus: Brilliant Career and Tragic End.’ Historia 33 (1): 79–106. Raschle, C.R. 2013. ‘Jean Chrysostome et les exempla tirés de l’histoire impériale récente.’ DHA Supplément 8: 355–377. Regev, E. 2013. The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity. Göttingen. Reinhold, M. 1970. History of Purple as a Status Symbol in Antiquity. Bruxelles. Resano, E.M. 2015. ‘Las ejecuciones de Crispo, Licinio el Joven y Fausta (año 326 d.C.): nuevas observaciones.’ DHA 41 (1): 177–200. Ridley, R.T. 1982. Zosimus: New History. Sydney. Rist, J. 2005. ‘Chrysostomus, Libanius und Kaiser Julian: Überlegungen zu Inhalt und Umfeld der Schrift De Sancto Babyla contra Iulianum et gentiles (CPG 4348).’ In Incontro di studiosi, Giovanni Crisostomo, 2: 863–882. Rocco, M. 2013. ‘Fausta, Costantino e lo stuprum per vim.’ RSA 43: 243–260. Rougé, J. 1978. ‘Néron à la fin du IVe et au début du Ve siècle.’ Latomus 37 (1): 79–87. Rougé, J. 1980. ‘Fausta, femme de Constantin: criminelle ou victime.’ CH 25: 3–17. Saller, R.P. 1994. Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family. Cambridge. Sandwell, I. 2007. Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch. Cambridge.

The emperor’s floor and the naked wife 219 Shatzman, I. 1974. ‘Tacitean Rumors.’ Latomus 33 (3): 549–578. Shaw, B.D. 2003. ‘Juridical Nightmares and Christian Memory.’ JECS 11 (4): 533–563. Stenger, J.R. 2019. Johannes Chrysostomos und die Christianisierung der Polis: ‘Damit die Städte Städte werden.’ Tübingen. Stephens, J. 2009. ‘Religion and Power in the Early Thought of John Chrysostom.’ In The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, eds. A. Cain and N. Lenski, 181–188. Farnham. Stertz, S.A. 1977. ‘Marcus Aurelius as Ideal Emperor in Late-Antique Greek Thought.’ CW 70 (7): 433–439. Stevenson, T.R. 1992. ‘The Ideal Benefactor and the Father Analogy in Greek and Roman Thought.’ CQ 42 (2): 421–436. Stoehr-Monjou, A. 2012. ‘Sidoine Apollinaire, ep. 5, 8: Constantin le Grande, nouveau Néron.’ In La présence de l’histoire dans l’épistolaire, eds. F. Guillaumont and P. Laurence, 237–260. Tours. Tantillo, I. 1997. La prima orazione di Giuliano a Costanzo. Introduzione, traduzione e commento. Rome. Tiersch, C. 2002. Johannes Chrysostomus in Konstantinopel (398–404). Weltsicht und Wirken eines Bischofs in der Hauptstadt des Oströmischen Reiche. Tübingen. Vanderspoel, J. and M.L. Mann. 2002. ‘The Empress Fausta as Romano-Celtic Dea Nutrix.’ NC 162: 350–355. Van Eemeren, F.H. 2010. Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse: Extending the Pragma-dialectical Theory of Argumentation. Amsterdam. Versnel, H.S. 1981. ‘Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer.’ In Faith, Hope and Worship: Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World, ed. H.S. Versnel, 1–64. Leiden. Wintjes, J. 2005. Das Leben des Libanios. Rahden. Woods, D. 1998. ‘On the Death of the Empress Fausta.’ G&R 45 (1): 70–86. Woods, D. 2018. ‘Chrysostom, Ammianus, and the Death of the Empress Eusebia.’ AC 87: 177–192. Zecchini, G. 2017. ‘Costantino e la morte di Crispo.’ In La storiografia tardoantica. Bilanci e prospettive. In memoria di Antonio Baldini, eds. V. Neri and B. Girotti, 127–138. Milano.

Literary traditions

12 ‘Lest we forget’ Inventions and their memory on the Greek tragic scene Francesco Lupi

Introduction* The theme of the πρῶτος εὑρετής (‘first inventor’) is well attested in fifth-century tragic drama.1 The identification of the individual responsible for specific discoveries or inventions (εὑρήματα),2 generally beneficial to mankind, is a motif which Greek poets had been interested in well before the fifth century. Heurematological accounts, in fact, are found both in epic and in lyric poetry of the Archaic age. An early and well-known attestation of the πρῶτος εὑρετής motif features in the anonymous epic Phoronis (late seventh to sixth century BCE);3 it occurs in the poem’s longest surviving fragment (fr. 2 EGEF), considered to be the earliest literary attestation of the motif.4 The fragment describes the legendary smiths known as Idaian Daktyloi, to whom, through vocabulary later to become traditional for first inventors,5 is ascribed the invention of iron-working.6 The Phoronis fragment, however, is certainly not the only poetic instance of the motif to predate the oldest surviving tragedy.7 Tragedy’s concern with accounts of εὑρήματα, however, provides a particularly attractive opportunity to reflect further on the overarching theme of this volume, memory. In fact, Greek tragedy offers a vantage point with regard to exploring issues of memory in a broad sense; if the performative and ‘agonal’ aspects of Classical tragic drama are taken into account, the implications of memory in tragedy are manifold. As Paola Ceccarelli has most recently and clearly observed: tragic performances in Athens had the potential to play simultaneously on multiple ‘memorial’ registers: on a shared memory central to the common identity of the community of spectators, whether cultural or collective, whether concerning the mythical or the recent past; and on the specific remembrance of previous performances, which brought with itself an awareness of the fact that cultural memories (the memories of the mythical past) might be presented and shaped in different ways – an awareness that might further have led to questions as to whether also collective memory of recent events might be thus (re)shaped.8

DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-15

224

Francesco Lupi

Of the two fundamental memorial registers pointed out by Ceccarelli, this chapter will be primarily concerned with the first (a point which I shall return to further later; see p. 225). In particular, by means of select examples I shall endeavour to expound the variety of tragedy’s accounts of inventions by placing them into different categories and by highlighting their analogies and differences with regard to the theme of memory. The present investigation is primarily concerned with tragic passages which satisfy the following conditions: (1) they amount to quantitatively significant stretches of text; (2) offer a self-contained and focused reflection, description, or catalogue of εὑρήματα, and (3) employ lexical items traditionally associated with first inventors. Also included in my selection are passages which do not comprise a catalogue, but rather are concerned with a single εὕρημα.9 Passages making only a fleeting reference to the topic will also occasionally, if briefly, be dealt with when relevant to the discussion. All cases discussed in the chapter fall into one of the following broader categories: (1) accounts coeval to the ‘age’ of the εὑρήματα, both in the first-person (1a) and in the third-person (1b); (2) accounts about εὑρήματα devised in the more remote, mythical past. In the first part of the chapter, I shall focus on instances of the first type connected primarily with the figure of the ‘cultural hero’ Palamedes.10 In the second part, by focusing on three select cases, I shall argue that instances of the second type may under particular circumstances be seen as a way to test the validity of the particular invention(s) dealt with. Further, I shall argue that this ‘evaluative’ task is feasible provided that the dramatis persona delivering the account enjoys a greater degree of temporal distance from the mythical time when the invention reflected upon originated.

Inventions, the past, and shared memory Εὑρήματα traditionally ascribed to first inventors apply to a vast range of areas, which may be conveniently grouped into a few subsets, including technologicalscientific advancements, objects, religious, legal, political, and general social customs, and, finally, intellectual-rational operations, such as counting, writing, and reading. In most cases, the act of discovery performed by the first inventor(s) has great implications for the development of humankind. At the most basic level, such development is virtually synonymous with human liberation from sheer subjugation to Nature, a condition which several passages from drama overtly describe as beast-like.11 Through the establishment of customs (νόμοι), εὑρήματα create societal bonds, while by bestowing new τέχναι upon humankind, they empower men to make sense of the φύσις that surrounds them: the invention of astronomy turns the sky into a map for the sailor; medical knowledge transforms plants into a means for healing; farming and husbandry bend Nature to suit human material needs, and so on. But how are tragic accounts of inventions relevant to the present chapter and the theme of memory? The answer to this question may be framed from two complementary perspectives. In the tragic accounts I shall focus on εὑρήματα invariably belong to the past; yet, they imply varying degrees of temporal distance between the time of

‘Lest we forget’ 225 their discovery and the time of the dramatic action – namely the time when the heurematological account is delivered by a character on stage. In other words, ‘account time’ and ‘discovery time’ admit of no overlap, since there is always a gap between them. However, the extent of this gap, as we shall see, has significant implications.12 From the extra-dramatic point of view, moreover, εὕρημα passages compel the audience to reflect on their past, and specifically to exercise and assess their memory thereof. Discoveries and inventions belong to an inherited, identity-defining set of cultural traits; the act of remembering them on the tragic stage, through εὕρημα passages, enacts those cultural traits, in some cases validating them, in others questioning them. In this sense, εὕρημα passages may be seen – to quote from Ceccarelli again – to play on a ‘shared memory central to the common identity of the community of spectators’ (p. 224 above). In fact, claiming memory of the circumstances in which innovations crucial to the progress of humankind came about, cements, through the tragedian’s authoritative voice, the community’s sense of control over such innovations. By situating their origin at a precise point in time – or, rather, in the ‘right era’,13 the heroic age – tragic passages concerned with εὑρήματα establish (or reaffirm) tradition. At the same time they allow the audience to acknowledge the continuity of the tradition in which they are themselves embedded,14 to detect discrepancies within the tradition,15 or even to find fault with it.

First- and third-person accounts In this section, I shall focus first and foremost on the Greek hero Palamedes’ own account of his discoveries in Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ Palamedes. Although he does not feature in Homeric epic,16 Palamedes’ story was highly popular in fifthcentury drama. Not only did all three of the great tragedians compose plays on the vicissitudes of the Greek hero, as well as those of his father,17 but so did a number of ‘minor’ playwrights from the fifth to the third century.18 Euripides’ Palamedes even crept his way, through Aristophanes’ parody, onto the comic stage.19 Despite the hero’s theatrical popularity, however, none of the ‘Palamedes plays’20 has survived in its entirety. Among the extant fragments of such plays, a number of them are catalogues (or portions thereof) of the hero’s gifts to humankind, in the form both of (1a) first-person and (1b) third-person accounts. I shall briefly consider, under category (1a), three of those catalogues, starting with Palamedes’ own account of his εὑρήματα in Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ plays of the same name. Several discoveries of Palamedes are mentioned in two of the four (or five)21 fragments from Aeschylus’ Palamedes, frs **181a–*182.22 Both fragments are likely to have belonged to a self-defence speech by Palamedes, in which the hero enumerated the gifts he had bestowed upon his comrades in the Greek army and on humankind in general:23 (1ai) Aesch. fr. **181a (Palamedes)24 ἔπειτα πάσης Ἑλλάδος καὶ ξυμμάχων βίον διῴκησ’ ὄντα πρὶν πεφυρμένον

226

Francesco Lupi θηρσίν θ’ ὅμοιον· πρῶτα μὲν τὸν πάνσοφον ἀριθμὸν ηὕρηκ’, ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων Then I organized the life of all the Greeks and their allies, which previously had been as chaotic as that of beasts. To begin with, I invented the ingenious art of number, supreme among all techniques.

(1aii) Aesch. fr. *182 (Palamedes) καὶ ταξιάρχας χἀκατοντάρχας στρατῷ ἔταξα, σῖτον δ’ εἰδέναι διώρισα, ἄριστα, δεῖπνα δόρπα θ’ αἱρεῖσθαι τρίτα And I appointed brigade and company commanders for the army, and I taught them to distinguish their meals, to take breakfast, dinner and thirdly supper. The third passage in my selection comes from Euripides’ Palamedes, where it was part of the hero’s self-defence;25 it is the only surviving fragment in tragedy to mention Palamedes’ invention of writing: (1aiii) Eur. fr. 578 (Palamedes) τὰ τῆς γε λήθης φάρμακ’ ὀρθώσας μόνος, ἄφωνα καὶ φωνοῦντα, συλλαβὰς τιθείς, ἐξηῦρον ἀνθρώποισι γράμματ’ εἰδέναι, ὥστ’ οὐ παρόντα ποντίας ὑπὲρ πλακὸς τἀκεῖ κατ’ οἴκους πάντ’ ἐπίστασθαι καλῶς, 5 παισίν τε τὸν θνῄσκοντα χρημάτων μέτρον γράψαντα λείπειν, τὸν λαβόντα δ’ εἰδέναι. ἃ δ’ εἰς ἔριν πίπτουσιν ἀνθρώποις κακά, δέλτος διαιρεῖ, κοὐκ ἐᾷ ψευδῆ λέγειν. On my own I established remedies for forgetfulness, which are without speech and (yet) speak, by creating syllables; I invented writing for men’s knowledge, so a man absent over the ocean’s plain might have good knowledge of all matters back there in his house, and the dying man might write down the size of his wealth when bequeathing it to his sons, and the receiver know it. And the troubles that afflict men when they fall to quarrelling – a written tablet does away with these and prevents the telling of lies. Bearing in mind that the evidence we are dealing with is fragmentary, I find it remarkable that, among the extant accounts of Palamedes’ discoveries, the invention of writing should extend for the longest stretch of text. It is expounded at length by Euripides in fr. 578, where particular emphasis is laid on its function as an aid to memory.26 The importance of writing’s mnemonic implications in tragic drama, after all, is well attested by the recurrence, albeit with conspicuous variations in phrasing, of the ‘tablets of the mind’ metaphor, whereby memory is conceived as writing and the φρήν as the writing tablet (δέλτος).27

‘Lest we forget’ 227 In Eur. fr. 578, as Jenkins rightly observes, ‘Palamedes’ accomplishment is literally singular’ (cf. μόνος, ‘on my own’, at the end of line 1), as the hero claims exclusive authorship of the invention.28 This is something that we also find throughout Prometheus’ own account of his gifts to humankind in the Prometheus Bound attributed to Aeschylus,29 which would deserve a full treatment in its own right.30 The most extensive εὕρημα passage found in extant Greek tragedy, PV 436–506 is a grandiose retrospective ‘catalogue narrative’,31 which at times strikingly overlaps, both in terms of content and in terms of language,32 with the accounts of Palamedes’ discoveries. With specific regard to our theme, Prometheus’ catalogue is remarkable in that it likewise emphasises, among the Titan’s ‘intellectual’ gifts to humankind, the mnemonic potential of writing:33 (1aiv) Aesch. PV 459–461 καὶ μὴν ἀριθμόν, ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων, ἐξηῦρον αὐτοῖς, γραμμάτων τε συνθέσεις, 460 μνήμην ἁπάντων, μουσομήτορ’ ἐργάνην· I also invented for them [scil. for mortal men] the art of number, supreme among all techniques, and that of combining letters into written words, the tool that enables all things to be remembered and is mother of the Muses.34 Further instances of a catalogic arrangement of εὑρήματα in the ‘Palamedes plays’ occur in the third person (1b) and they all come from Sophocles: fr. *432 and fr. 479. Of these, fr. 479 (Palamedes) comes from a speech most likely (and treacherously) delivered by Odysseus in defence of Palamedes:35 (1bi) Sophocles, fr. 479 (Palamedes) οὐ λιμὸν οὗτος τῶνδ’ ἀπῶσε, σὺν θεῷ εἰπεῖν, χρόνου τε διατριβὰς σοφωτάτας ἐφηῦρε φλοίσβου μετὰ κόπον καθημένοις, πεσσοὺς κύβους τε, τερπνὸν ἀργίας ἄκος; Was it not he who drove famine away from them, be it said with reverence towards the god, and he who discovered the cleverest ways of passing time for them when they were resting after their struggle with the waves, draughts and dice, a pleasant remedy against idleness?36 Fr. *432, lastly, offers a more articulated, yet textually highly problematic, catalogue of Palamedes’ discoveries delivered by Nauplius, the hero’s father:37 (1bii) Soph. fr. *432 (unknown drama). οὗτος δ’ ἐφηῦρε τεῖχος Ἀργείων στρατῷ, σταθμῶν, ἀριθμῶν καὶ μέτρων εὑρήματα τάξεις τε ταύτας οὐράνιά τε σήματα. κἀκεῖν’ ἔτευξε πρῶτος, ἐξ ἑνὸς δέκα κἀκ τῶν δέκ’ αὖθις ηὗρε πεντηκοντάδας 5 καὶ χιλιοστῦς, καὶ στρατοῦ φρυκτωρίαν

228

Francesco Lupi ἔδειξε κἀνέφηνεν οὐ δεδειγμένα. ἐφηῦρε δ’ ἄστρων μέτρα καὶ περιστροφάς, ὕπνου φύλαξι πιστὰ σημαντήρια νεῶν τε ποιμαντῆρσιν ἐνθαλασσίοις 10 ἄρκτου στροφάς τε καὶ κυνὸς ψυχρὰν δύσιν38 And it was he who devised the wall for the army of the Argives; his was the invention of weights, numbers and measures; he taught them to marshal armies thus and how to know the heavenly signs. He was the first, too, who showed how to count from one to ten and so to fifty and to a thousand; he showed the army how to use beacons, and revealed things that earlier were hidden. He discovered how to measure terms and periods of the stars, trustworthy signs for those who watched while others slept, and for the shepherds of ships at sea he found out the turnings of the Bear and the chilly setting of the Dogstar.

After reviewing the accounts of type (1), two aspects may be singled out. The first is that first-person accounts seem to place a fair amount of emphasis on the invention of writing and its potential for memory, as well as on numbers – that is, on skills of a markedly intellectual-rational nature. The second, arguably more significant aspect deals with the catalogic arrangement that all the texts in the preceding selection invariably share. I suggest that this feature may be read in light of the fact that all accounts of type (1a-b), as already stated, are coeval with the ‘age’ of the εὑρεταί. This implies that in the eyes of the characters delivering, or listening to, such accounts on the stage, the εὑρήματα dealt with have not yet become part of their cultural memory.39 The catalogic arrangement of Palamedes’ (and Prometheus’) discoveries provides a structuring principle which is consequential, stable, and lends itself to repetition, as remarkable verbal overlaps between different accounts may indicate.40 Given these features, I contend, the catalogic accounts may be seen as a way to organise, systematise, and stabilise ‘innovations’ not yet codified within the community’s memory of its cultural past.

Accounts from a (mythical) later time: ‘myth’ and the possibility of criticism In Euripides’ Medea, towards the end of the parodos, which takes the form of a lyrical-dialogical exchange between the Chorus and the Nurse (interspersed with Medea’s laments from within the house), the Nurse takes a nuanced intellectual stance and devotes more than a dozen anapaestic dimeters to criticising poetry (190–203). What the Nurse points out in this passage is poetry’s failure to provide consolation for the suffering. Remarkably, the Nurse holds this inadequacy of poetry to be the result of an ‘originally’ defective invention. She thus projects this state of affairs back to the time of the anonymous inventors of poetry: (2i) Eur. Med. 190–203 σκαιοὺς δὲ λέγων κοὐδέν τι σοφοὺς 190 τοὺς πρόσθε βροτοὺς οὐκ ἂν ἁμάρτοις,

‘Lest we forget’ 229 οἵτινες ὕμνους ἐπὶ μὲν θαλίαις ἐπί τ’ εἰλαπίναις καὶ παρὰ δείπνοις ηὕροντο βίῳ τερπνὰς ἀκοάς· στυγίους δὲ βροτῶν οὐδεὶς λύπας 195 ηὕρετο μούσῃ καὶ πολυχόρδοις ᾠδαῖς παύειν, ἐξ ὧν θάνατοι δειναί τε τύχαι σφάλλουσι δόμους. καίτοι τάδε μὲν κέρδος ἀκεῖσθαι μολπαῖσι βροτούς· ἵνα δ’ εὔδειπνοι 200 δαῖτες, τί μάτην τείνουσι βοήν; τὸ παρὸν γὰρ ἔχει τέρψιν ἀφ’ αὑτοῦ δαιτὸς πλήρωμα βροτοῖσιν. (Text Mastronarde 2002) I have to say our ancestors/showed very little sense/when they invented melodies/for revels, festivals, and feasts,/the sweetest sounds in life, but made no songs or harmonies/to soothe the bitter grief/that leads to death and devastation/and brings whole houses down./A musical cure for that would be/worth having./Why should people sing/when they’re gathered at a feast/and there’s joy enough already/in the meal’s abundance? [Tr. Murnaghan 2018: 8] The preceding passage raises important issues with regard to the relationship between εὑρήματα and memory. Although vocabulary specific to the act of remembering does not feature in these lines, still, there clearly is a ‘memorial’ element to the Nurse’s reflection. She is not recalling anything of which she might have privileged memory; rather, especially in the first half of the passage, she asserts a seemingly ingrained truth about a εὕρημα of old, arguably shared by her community as part of its cultural memory: the ‘inventedness’ of poetry. The Nurse is perfectly aware that poetry (and music) originated from a deliberate inventive act, as the two occurrences of εὑρίσκω in the passage (194 ηὕροντο, 196 ηὕρετο), both at the line beginning and in the aorist tense, make clear.41 However, unlike the εὕρημα accounts of the type (1a-b) discussed earlier (p. 225–228), in the Medea passage the invention of poetry is presented as a remote event, the paternity of which cannot be securely retrieved; hence, this εὕρημα is vaguely ascribed to οἱ πρόσθε βροτοί (191).42 Most importantly, this very vagueness in the Nurse’s reference reveals a flaw in her own and in her community’s memory of their cultural past. The past referred to by the Nurse – the distant past of ‘the men of old’ – has greater depth relative to the time of the dramatic action of Medea, than, say, the past implied in the accounts of the type discussed previously (1a-b), relative to the time of the dramatic action of their respective plays. In other words, the discovery of the ‘men of old’, going back to a time far removed from the dramatic present, does not belong to what John Gould calls the ‘“reality” of personal experience’.43 The invention of poetry falls well beyond the reach of the Nurse’s personal experience: it belongs to ‘myth’, in the same way as

230

Francesco Lupi

it was ‘myth’ for Medea’s fifth-century Athenian audience, and naturally also for the play’s twenty-first-century CE audience and readership. Palamedes’ discoveries (1a-b), on the other hand, have not yet become ‘myth’ within the dramatic fiction (they have, though, for the audience, ancient and modern alike), they are not yet part of the characters’ cultural memory. Thanks to the distancing effect of ‘myth’, then, the Nurse is in a position to adopt an openly critical stance on the εὕρημα of poetry. Her blunt criticism is most evident in that she calls the ‘men of old’ σκαιοὺς . . . κοὐδέν τι σοφοὺς (190).44 By denying that the inventors of poetry possessed any σοφία, she obliterates a trait which, under normal circumstances, is closely associated with πρῶτοι εὑρεταί.45 Another Euripidean passage, this time a fragment (928a), invites similar considerations. We do not possess any evidence on the original context of fr. 928a, preserved by a gnomic anthology on papyrus (itself fragmentary) known as Gnomologium Florentinum. The papyrus explicitly attributes fr. 928a to Euripides, but provides no indication of the play to which it originally belonged.46 Hence, I should like to stress that my argument that follows rests on a possible line of interpretation, which is not contradicted by the evidence, but is ultimately irreconcilable with a recent proposal on the fragment’s ascription.47 (2ii) Eur. fr. 928a (unknown drama) ὁ πρῶτος ἡμῖν τῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ θεῶν βωμοὺς ἱδρύσας εὐαγῆ τ’ ἀγάλματα γλ[υ]πτοῖσι τέχνης ζωοποιήσα[ς] τύποις ̣ ἑνὸς κατημέλησεν ὡς οἶμαι τότε, ὃς τοῦ μεγίστου καὶ θεῶν ὑπερτάτου 5 Πλούτου στεφήρη βωμὸν οὐχ ἱδρύσατο. The man who first established for us altars of the heavenly gods, and fashioned sacred lifelike images of them in artfully carved sculptures, neglected one thing when he did so in my opinion: he established no garlanded altar for Wealth, the greatest and highest of gods . . .48 Here is another instance of what Mastronarde, in his commentary on Eur. Med. 190–204, calls ‘a rhetorical gesture typical of Euripidean characters’ – that of ‘finding fault with the disposition of the world, whether viewed as the arrangement created by the gods or as a usage sanctioned by human custom’.49 One can conveniently apply Mastronarde’s words to the reflection of the unknown persona loquens in the fragment,50 who appears to adopt a critical stance similar to that of the Nurse in the Medea passage discussed earlier. Here, too, the speaker finds fault with a particular εὕρημα, this time relating to religious worship; here, too, the invention reflected upon, in this case the altars and statues for the gods’ worship, is deemed defective in origin, since the inventor neglected ‘the greatest and highest of gods’ (5), namely Wealth, for which, as the speaker objects, no altars were erected.

‘Lest we forget’ 231 Scholars have conjecturally identified the inventor referred to in the text with the mythical craftsman Daedalus,51 who often features in Greek drama.52 Although no certainty can be reached on matters of interpretation when dealing with decontextualised fragments, I suspect that the speaker of fr. 928a shares the same ‘mythical’ perspective as the Nurse in Medea. If my interpretation is correct, the ‘age’ of Daedalus’ inventions belongs, in the eyes of the speaker (and of the other characters within the dramatic fiction), to the ‘mythical’ past. Again, the distancing effect of ‘myth’ accounts for the speaker’s critical attitude. Recently, Caroli has suggested, on several grounds, that fr. 928a should be ascribed to Euripides’ lost Cretans (Κρῆτες).53 As a discussion of Caroli’s informed and ingeniously argued proposal falls beyond the scope of this chapter, I shall merely caution the reader that my preceding point is valid only if fr. 928a does not belong to the Cretans. Should Caroli be right, in fact, my point regarding the distancing effect of ‘myth’ would not apply, as in that case the first inventor criticised in fr. 928a (Daedalus) would also have been a character in the play.54 Thus, no significant temporal distance would have existed between the ‘age’ of Daedalus’ εὑρήματα and the time of the dramatic action of the play – certainly not enough time for the characters to perceive his ‘age’, which was contemporary with the events dramatised in the play, as ‘myth’, and for Daedalus’ inventions to be encapsulated in the cultural memory of the fictional community. Accounts of humankind’s cultural advancement were not the sole prerogative of the spoken parts of tragedy. The account delivered by the Chorus in the first stasimon of Sophocles’ Antigone (332–375), the much celebrated ‘Ode to Man’, is a particularly conspicuous instance of this.55 In the first three stanzas, the Theban Elders offer an extended description of human development that has many points of contact with Prometheus’ own account in PV. Differences, however, are just as remarkable. As scholars have pointed out, Sophocles presents a ‘secular account’ of human progress,56 where man is shown as having autonomously learnt how to cope with the limits imposed on him by Nature. Divine agency is remarkably absent from the account, as man is the sole agent of civilisation.57 His skills and achievements yield admiration: man masters sea and land (navigation and agriculture, 334–341) as well as animals (he hunts, fishes, domesticates wild animals and harnesses them to work for humans, 342–352); he has taught himself (cf. 356 ἐδιδάξατο) speech, thought, the founding of cities, and the construction of houses (353–360). As the Chorus remark midway through the second strophe, man ‘meets nothing in the future without resource’ (360–361 ἄπορος ἐπ’ οὐδὲν ἔρχεται / τὸ μέλλον·) – nothing, that is, except death (361–362), though medicine has indeed afforded humankind ‘escape from desperate maladies’ (363 νόσων δ’ ἀμηχάνων φυγὰς). Undeniably, the Ode extols the formidable ingenuity and civilising prowess of human beings; yet it still manages to conjure up the notions of excess and of the limits of human resourcefulness. Excess is inherent in the very workings of civilisation, by which human beings dominate Nature and recklessly transcend its boundaries.58 Regarding the latter notion, let us briefly turn to the closing antistrophe (365–375), where the Theban Elders explicitly bring up

232

Francesco Lupi

the issue of the moral ambivalence of humankind.59 For all their skills, humankind ‘advances sometimes to evil, at other times to good’ (367 τοτὲ μὲν κακόν, ἄλλοτ’ ἐπ’ ἐσθλὸν ἕρπει). As Kamerbeek puts it, ‘The glory of man’s technical and civilizing achievements, limited by the boundary of death, counts in itself nothing with regard to his good or evil fortune: lawfulness and piety are the determining factors.’60 What we have in the ode is not an overt critique of specific εὑρήματα, as in the case of texts (2i)-(2ii), but rather an account of human achievements which is as wide in scope as it is artfully filled with ambiguity, and which invites the audience’s reflection on the very ethical nature of humans.61 Here again, though, the dramatic action and the (implied) ‘age’ of the technological advancements accounted for – going as far back as the invention of language (Ant. 353)62 – surely stand at a considerable temporal distance from each other. Framed in this way, the ode has some similarities with the Euripidean passages considered earlier (p. 228–231). The human inventive capacity has long yielded marvellous results, yet at the same time it has disclosed a jarring opposition between human progress and the limits of human agency, technological resources and moral action, the cleverness of the human being and ‘his terrible power, which is horrifying, exceeding all limits’.63 The passages analysed in the section Accounts from a (mythical) later time are not enough for us to be confident in detecting a pattern in accounts of type (2). However, one may still appreciate that they have clearly different implications for memory and the way the cultural past is dealt with in comparison with the accounts of Palamedes’ gifts, both in terms of dramatic fiction and in terms of the audience’s reflection upon their cultural memory. The two Euripidean cases, in particular, qualify as an act of sharing cultural memory on the part of a character who, by being far removed from the distant past or ‘mythical’ era of the πρῶτοι εὑρεταί, is in a position to expose the limits of their inventions, thus ultimately reappraising the (fictional) community’s memory of its cultural past and testing its validity. At the same time, I contend, texts (2i) and, possibly, (2ii) invite a similar reflection on the part of the audience. In a sort of mirroring effect, the audience’s and the characters’ perspectives align, as they both view their past in terms of ‘myth’. In other words, both the intra- and the extra-dramatic perspectives ‘agree’ that what is being reflected upon (namely, the validity of specific εὑρήματα) is an inherited trait of one’s cultural memory – a cultural memory, one may add, which in such instances transcends the divide between the stage and the audience. The case of Antigone seems to be working on a more general level. While in this case interpretation is more open-ended and the mechanics of it less straightforward, it may still be argued that the account of man’s cultural advancements delivered by the Chorus offered a compelling stimulus for the fifth-century audience to reflect on the role of humans (and on their own role as human beings) in the world, to assess the extent of human agency within it, and to discern its limits and ambiguities64 – and all the more so, I contend, because Sophocles opted to present civilisation as an inherently human phenomenon.

‘Lest we forget’ 233

Notes * For the fragments of the major tragedians I print both the text and the translation of the following editions: Aeschylus: Sommerstein 2009b; Sophocles: Lloyd-Jones 2003; Euripides: Collard & Cropp 2008. The fragments’ numbering is that of Radt 1985 and 1999 for Aeschylus and Sophocles respectively, that of Kannicht 2004 for Euripides. Given the scope and aims of this chapter, in handling the fragments I have refrained from overzealously delving into most of the philologically contentious issues, though some of such issues will be signposted in the footnotes. Editions and translations used for extant plays, as well as for other literary works, will be specified later. I am most grateful to Suzanne Sharland for revising the English of the chapter and for useful comments. 1 On the motif of the πρῶτος εὑρετής, see Kleingünther 1933; Thraede 1962; Brelich 2010: 138–146. 2 While the English words ‘invention’ and ‘discovery’ refer to neatly defined concepts, both meanings are conveyed by the Greek noun εὕρημα (the same applies to the verb of the same root εὑρίσκω): on the broad spectrum of activities covered by εὕρημα, see Shalev 2006: 312. 3 On the poem’s possible date, see the Early Greek Epic Fragments edition of Tsagalis 2017: 411. 4 See Thraede 1962: 161. 5 On terminological matters, see Thraede 1962. 6 Cf. Phor. fr. 2.5–6 EGEF οἳ (scil. the Idaian Daktyloi) πρῶτοι τέχνῃς πολυμήτιος Ἡφαίστοιο / εὗρον ἐν οὐρείῃσι νάπαις ἰόεντα σίδηρον κτλ. (‘who first discovered, by the craft of wise Hephaistos, / dark iron in the mountain glens’; tr. Tsagalis 2017: 404). On the motif of first inventors in the Phoronis, see Tsagalis 2017: 411, 415–418. 7 Aeschylus’ The Persians, staged in 472 BCE (cf. Snell and Kannicht 1986: 43, DID C 2). On other instances (pre-tragic and otherwise) of the πρῶτος εὑρετής motif and their formal features, see Davies 1986. 8 Ceccarelli 2019: 95. On the distinction between cultural and collective memory, Ceccarelli follows Chaniotis 2009: 255–259, according to whose definitions the latter notion ‘refers to what a community had jointly experienced, i.e., to events of the recent past; by contrast, the cultural memory consists of events of the mythical or remote past, the knowledge of which is obscured by time’ (255; emphasis in text). In the following pages I also use the term ‘cultural memory’ in this sense. 9 Occurrences of the πρῶτος εὑρετής motif in satyr-drama, (on which see Kleingünther 1933: 91–93) and in comedy are not analysed. 10 On Palamedes as ‘eroe culturale’, see Brelich 2010: 141–142. 11 Tragedy: Aesch. fr. **181a.2–3 (pp. 225–226); PV 443–457 esp. 452–453; Eur. Supp. 201– 202; Moschio Trag. fr. 6.3–17 Sn.-Kn.; satyr-drama (?): Critias fr. 19.1–2 Sn.-Kn.; outside drama, cf. h. Hom. Heph. 20.3–4. For further passages, see Cantarella 1970: 291 n. 45. 12 Aetiological passages memorialising the establishment of cults and rituals are, in this respect, different, as they refer to a time that (normally) lies beyond the temporal limits of a play’s dramatic action. In other words, from the intra-dramatic point of view the cultic foundations accounted for in tragic aetiologies refer to future practice rather than to the past; as such, aitia passages do not lend themselves to my analysis and are therefore not taken into account. On Euripidean aetiology, see Scullion 2000, with Seaford’s 2009 response. 13 See Easterling 1985: 5. 14 According to Thraede 1962: 160, the Greeks were led to reflect upon the origin of τέχναι by the development (from the sixth century BCE and under particular conditions) of a ‘Gefühl für die Wichtigkeit von Tradition und Kontinuität gesellschaftlicher Phänomene’. 15 This could be seen in the case of alternative heurematological accounts relating to the same πρῶτος εὑρετής, or through competing accounts, where the same εὑρήματα are

234

16 17

18

19

20 21

22

23 24

25 26

Francesco Lupi

ascribed to different mythical figures. With regard to the latter point, it will easily be seen that attributing human cultural development to divine benefaction or to humans themselves will have elicited a different response from the audience. On Homer’s ‘silence’ over Palamedes and his story, see Neri 2007: 167 n. 1; Sommerstein 2010: 250. Aeschylus: Palamedes (frs 181–*182a); Sophocles: Palamedes (frs 478–481), Nauplius at Sea (Ναύπλιος καταπλέων), and Nauplius the Fire-Kindler (Ναύπλιος πυρκαεύς) (frs 425–438); Euripides: Palamedes (frs 578–590). The only securely dated play among this group is Euripides’ Palamedes, staged at the City Dionysia in 415 BCE along with Alexander, Trojan Women, and the satyr-play Sisyphos (cf. Snell and Kannicht 1986: 47, DID C 14). Sophocles dealt with the story of Palamedes also in The Madness of Odysseus (Ὀδυσσεὺς μαινόμενος), of which only two lines and a handful of disjointed words survive (frs 462–467). Among the tragedians, Philocles (fifth century BCE) composed a Nauplius (test. 1 Sn.Kn.); Astydamas the Younger (fourth century BCE) both a Nauplios (fr. 5 Sn.-Kn.) and a Palamedes (test. 1 = fr. 5a Sn.-Kn.); Lycophron (third century BCE) a Nauplios (test. 3 Sn.-Kn.); Theodotus (first century BCE (?)) a satyric Palamedes (Snell and Kannicht 1986: 37, DID A 13, 5). A Palamedes may have featured in the comedian Philemon’s oeuvre; the only evidence for this (from Stobaeus’ Anthology, 3.9.20 [3.350.5 H.]), however, is contested (cf. Philemon fr. 60 K.-A. = Eur. fr. 585). On Palamedes’ fortune in the philosophical (Socratic) and sophistic circles, see Neri 2007: 167 n. 1. Cf. Ar. Thesm. 776–784, with schol. ad v. 770a p. 46 Regtuit (= Eur. fr. 588a); on Aristophanes’ parody of Euripides’ Palamedes – which is also referred to at Thesm. 848 and further alluded to in the later Frogs (1451) – see Rau 1967: 51–53; Austin & Olson 2004: lviii-lx, 259 ad Ar. Thesm. 770–771. With ‘Palamedes plays’ I also refer to the two Nauplius plays by Sophocles (n. 17), even though they both dramatised episodes in which Palamedes, already dead, did not feature. Sommerstein 2000 has suggested that a seven-line papyrus fragment (P.Oxy. 2253 = Aesch. fr. 451k in Radt’s 1985 edition [unknown drama]) be identified as the opening lines of Aeschylus’ Palamedes (see Sommerstein 2009b: 183–185, where the fragment, placed among those of Palamedes, is assigned number 180a). Further references to Palamedes in comedy are found in Eup. fr. 385 K.-A., a comical instance of the πρῶτος εὑρετής motif, filled with diction typical of the theme (cf. 3 πρῶτος ἐξηῦρον, 4 εὑρών, 5 τίς εἶπεν . . . πρῶτος; Palamedes is openly evoked in line 6 Παλαμηδικόν γε τοῦτο τοὐξεύρημα καὶ σοφόν σου. ‘Now that was a clever invention of yours, one worthy of Palamedes.’ [said of piss-pots!]; tr. Storey 2011: 255; see further Olson 2014: 123–140), and Anaxandr. fr. 10 K.-A. Although our sources for these fragments do not explicitly ascribe them to Aeschylus’ play, such ascription enjoys scholarly consensus today. That fr. *182 belongs to that play is virtually certain (our best sources simultaneously attribute it to Aeschylus and identify the persona loquens with Palamedes: see Radt 1985: 297 app. font. ad loc., esp. sources I-II); in the case of fr. **181a, the degree of conjecture being higher, other solutions too have been proposed in the past (see Radt 1985: 296 app. font. ad loc.). Cf. Sommerstein 2000: esp. 121–122. The elided verb-forms διῴκησ’ (2) and ηὕρηκ’ (4) are not a fatal objection to regarding fr. **181a as a first-person account: according to Sommerstein 2012: 119 n. 35, ‘it is almost beyond doubt that this fragment comes from the same speech as fr. 182’ (my emphasis). See Collard & Cropp 2008: 48. One of the reviewers points out that fr. 578 ‘focuses on the importance of writing in the case of absence of a speaker, either through distance or death’, and that writing may be seen here ‘rather as a means of transmission when oral transmission is not possible’. This is certainly correct and one may add that writing was used precisely in this way in Euripides’ Palamedes (in the play, Palamedes’ brother Oeax inscribed

‘Lest we forget’ 235

27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34

35 36 37

the message of the former’s death on oar-blades, which he then threw into the sea in hope that the news would reach their father Nauplius: cf. fr. 588a; moreover, a forged letter was the reason for Palamedes’ incrimination and death). However, the definition of writing as τὰ τῆς . . . λήθης φάρμακ(α) (1) unequivocally indicates that the ‘memorial’ or mnemonic potential of this εὕρημα is clearly implied in the fragment; further, as Neri 2007: 170 suggests, the verb ὀρθοῦν in line 1 ‘de litteris tamquam moenibus contra oblivionem erectis fort. hic dicitur’; according to Ceccarelli 2013: 81, in fr. 578 ‘the primary functions of the discovery [. . .] are the preservation of information (memory) and the enabling of long distance communication’ (emphasis mine). The connection between writing and memory is stressed in several heurematological contexts, both in prose (a) and in poetry (b): (a) Gorg. Pal. (82 B 11a D.-K.) 30 γράμματά . . . μνήμης ὄργανον (Palamedes’ enumerating his discoveries in selfdefence); Pl. Phdr. 274e, where the Egyptian god Theuth describes writing as μνήμης . . . φάρμακον (possibly, as Rutherford 1990: 379 argues, a ‘conscious or unconscious imitation of τὰ τῆς . . . λήθης φάρμακα’ in Eur. fr. 578.1; see further Falcetto 2002: 98–100 ad loc.); (b) Aesch. PV 460–461 (p. 227); cf. also, in comedy, Cratin. fr. 128 K.-A. and esp. Philem. fr. 10 K.-A. On the value of these passages as evidence for Athenian literacy in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, see Harvey 1966: 615–618, with Burns’ 1981: 376–377 further remarks on Eur. fr. 578. On the metaphor, which is first found in Pind. O. 10.1–3, see Magini 1997–1998; full list of tragic occurrences on p. 219 n. 2. Jenkins 2005: 42. As is well known, the authorship of the Prometheus Bound has long been disputed. The uncertainty surrounding its author’s identity, however, is not detrimental to any of the points made in this chapter. Prometheus repeatedly emphasises his claim to exclusive authorship and stresses the temporal primacy of his inventions: 457–458 ἔστε δή σφιν . . . ἐγὼ / . . . ἔδειξα (‘until I showed them’), with ἐγώ emphatically at line-end; 467–468 οὔτις ἄλλος ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ / . . . ηὗρε (‘And it was no one other than me that invented’); 462, 485 πρῶτος (both before the penthemimeral caesura); 481–482 πρίν γ’ ἐγώ σφισιν / ἔδειξα (‘until I showed them’); 502–504 τίς / φήσειεν ἂν πάροιθεν ἐξευρεῖν ἐμοῦ; / οὐδείς, σάφ’ οἶδα, μὴ μάτην φλύσαι θέλων (‘who can claim to have discovered them before I did? No one, I know for sure, unless he wanted to spout’); see Griffith 1983: 168–169 ad 456–458. All quotations from PV are based on the text and translation (in this footnote with added emphasis) by Sommerstein 2009a. Barrett 2007: 265. A four-line intervention by the Chorus-leader (472–475) formally divides Prometheus’ account into two speeches (442–471; 476–506). See for example Sommerstein 2000: 121 with n. 8. Prometheus’ catalogue includes writing, but does not mention the gift of language explicitly: on this aspect, see Levine Gera 2003: 120–121. Despite the definition of number as ‘supreme among all techniques’ (a striking verbal correspondence with Aesch. fr. **181a.4, p. 226) writing is seemingly given rhetorical pre-eminence over the former: its mention, which alone fills one line and a half, in line 461 involves two appositions, a hapax (μουσομήτορ’), and figures of sound (alliteration: μνήμην . . . μουσομήτορ’; internal ‘rhyme’ between μνήμην and ἐργάνην, the two nouns framing the line). See Sommerstein’s 2012: 112–126 reconstruction. Draughts and dice are also mentioned in fr. 429, a single iambic line from Ναύπλιος πυρκαεύς and ‘clearly part of a catalogue of Palamedes’ inventions’ (Sommerstein 2012: 136). So we are told by the fragment’s source (Ach. Tat. de univ. 1, 4 [p. 6.1–11 Di Maria]); however, there is no positive evidence as to the play in which the speech was delivered. Almost certainly, it was one of Sophocles’ two plays entitled Nauplius: see, among recent studies, Sommerstein 2012 (Ναύπλιος πυρκαεύς) and Lupi 2015 (Ναύπλιος καταπλέων).

236

Francesco Lupi

38 Although this chapter is not concerned with textual matters, I note in passing that the fragment’s text is highly problematic: lines 6 and 9 have come down to us in corrupt form (Lloyd-Jones’ text incorporates emendations by Scaliger, Nauck, and Gomperz in line 6, by Nauck in line 9), and the transmitted sequence of Palamedes’ discoveries (followed by Lloyd-Jones) has been suspected by a number of scholars since at least the sixteenth century. For an overview of the changes proposed to the transmitted line order and for tentative restorations in lines 6 and 9, see Radt’s 1999 extensive critical apparatus on pp. 357–359; see also Degani 1991: 100; Sommerstein’s 2012: 164–168 commentary on the fragment; Lupi 2015: esp. 44–52. 39 On the notion of ‘cultural memory’, see n. 8. The case of Prometheus’ account in PV is admittedly resistant to my point, in that the mythical dimension in which that play is located is profoundly different from that of the events of the Trojan War (among which those dramatised in the ‘Palamedes play’). On the peculiar mythical perspective of PV, which is ‘set within the “Hesiodic” timeframe of theogonic myth’, see Gould 2001: 407. 40 See n. 33. 41 The use of εὑρίσκω in the aorist, a trait typically associated with εὕρημα passages (see Thraede 1962; Shalev 2006: 312), is worth stressing. On εὑρίσκω and its meaning in the Medea passage, see Stieber 2011: 403. 42 A similar phrase is found in Hom. Il. 9.524–525 (. . . τῶν πρόσθεν . . . κλέα ἀνδρῶν / ἡρώων κτλ., ‘the glorious deeds of men of old who were warriors’; here and below in this note tr. Murray and Wyatt 1999: vol. 1, 433); remarkably, this is just before Phoinix starts remembering the old story of Meleager (cf. 527 μέμνημαι τόδε ἔργον ἐγὼ πάλαι οὔ τι νέον γε / ὡς ἦν· κτλ., ‘Myself I recall this deed of past days and not of yesterday, how it was’). 43 Gould 1999: 406. Gould employs this phrase with reference to Creousa’s own perspective on her rape by Apollo in Euripides’ Ion. The points made in this paragraph owe much to Gould’s 2001: 406 insightful distinction between ‘two different perspectives of “myth” in Greek tragedy: that of the modern reader or ancient audience, on the one hand, and that of the characters [. . .] within the dramatic fiction, on the other’. 44 On the antithesis between σκαιός and σοφός, see Mastronarde 2002: 202 ad loc. 45 With reference to the ‘Palamedes plays’ discussed earlier, cf. Aesch. fr. **181a.3–4 (τὸν πάνσοφον / ἀριθμὸν . . . ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων); Soph. fr. 479.2 (χρόνου τε διατριβὰς σοφωτάτας); in Eur. fr. 588.2-3, which originally belonged to a lyric section, the dead Palamedes is referred to as πάνσοφον . . . ἀηδόνα Μουσᾶν (‘that all-wise nightingale of the Muses’); the occurrence of πάνσοφος, a rare adjective in tragedy overall (5x), both here and in Aesch. fr. **181a.3 is particularly noteworthy. On the term, see Falcetto 2002: 151–152 ad Eur. fr. 588.2; among its occurrences, note Eur. HF 188, where it designates, as it does in Aesch. fr. **181a, the invention rather than the inventor (πάνσοφον . . . εὕρημα, of the bow). 46 PSI 1476, dated to the second half of the second century CE (see Bastianini 2008: 51ff.). The anthology is written on the verso of the papyrus and is organised thematically. Fr. 928a is one of a number of excerpts belonging to a section possibly titled περὶ πλούτου (fr. 1 of the papyrus; fr. 928a is at ll. 11–19). Other excerpts (tragic and otherwise) retrieved from the remains of the anthology deal with a variety of themes (the only section for which a title survives is devoted to the theme of virtue, περὶ ἀρετῆς [fr. 3, col. II]). On the Gnomologium, see most recently Caroli 2016. 47 See p. 231. 48 Two other words are legible in the papyrus (ἔμοιγε and Ζεὺς, ll.18–19), after which only traces of three further letters are discernible. 49 Mastronarde 2002: 201. 50 In terms clearly associated with the πρῶτος εὑρετής motif: cf. 1 ὁ πρῶτος ἡμῖν (on the dative ἡμῖν, ‘for us’, as equivalent with ‘mankind’ as the beneficiary of discoveries, see Davies 1986: 26, citing Ar. Ran. 1032 and Machon 464–465 Gow); 2 ἱδρύσας, 6 ἱδρύσατο (on ἱδρύω in εὕρημα passages, see Shalev 2006: 313 n. 19, with Diog. Laert. 1.112.5, where the verb is used of Epimenides’ temple-founding).

‘Lest we forget’ 237 51 See Kannicht 2004: 930 app. crit. ad fr. 928a.2–3, citing Apollod. 3.15.8 (3.214 W.) πρῶτος ἀγαλμάτων εὑρετής (of Daedalus); the proposal is accepted and further developed by Caroli 2016: esp. 212–216. 52 The story of Daedalus provided the subject matter for several lost plays, some of which were even named after him: references in Caroli 2016: 212–213 with nn. 14–15. 53 Caroli 2016: 211–216. The standard edition of the Cretans can be found in Kannicht 2004: 503–516 (frs 471a-472g). 54 On the dramatis personae of Euripides’ Cretans, see Kannicht 2004: 504. With regard to Caroli’s proposal and its plausibility, I am slightly hesitant to accept that a character in the play (Daedalus) should be obliquely referred to with so vague a phrase as the substantival participle ὁ πρῶτος ἡμῖν . . . ἱδρύσας . . . ζωοποιήσα[ς] (1–3). Admittedly, in Anaxandr. fr. 31 K.-A. (Nereus) similar phraseology (1 ὁ πρῶτος εὑρὼν) does indeed refer to a character in the play (the eponymous sea-god); this case, however, is different from Eur. fr. 928a, in that Nereus’ identity is disclosed in the very same sentence (4). 55 All quotations from Antigone’s first stasimon are based on the text and translation by Lloyd-Jones 1994: 34–37. 56 Conacher 1977: 189 (emphasis in text); see further Cantarella 1970; Oudemans & Lardinois 1987: 123; Gregory 2012: 531. 57 As Oudemans & Lardinois 1987: 123 note, however, references to the gods are found in Ant. 338, 361, 369. 58 Griffith 1999: 181 notes that in the ode ‘culture is presented as an aggressive process of “defeating” and “mastering” nature’ (cf. esp. Ant. 338–339, 343, 347); for the idea of man ‘violating’ natural boundaries, see Griffith’s comment ad 334–341 (185). On both aspects (man imposing his power on Nature; transcendence/transgression of boundaries), see Oudemans & Lardinois 1987: 121–131, whose analysis provides a thorough discussion of the ode’s ambiguities. 59 For hints of ambivalence in the previous stanzas, see also Coleman 1972: 10. 60 Kamerbeek 1978: 15. Cf. the reference to νόμους . . . χθονὸς / θεῶν τ’ ἔνορκον δίκαν (‘the laws of the earth and the justice the gods have sworn to uphold’) in Ant. 368–369. 61 I do not tackle the issue of the ode’s relevance in its dramatic context. Opinions on the matter vary greatly: see Kitzinger 2008: 22. 62 See, however, Griffith 1999: 188 ad 353–364. 63 Thus Oudemans & Lardinois 1987: 129, on the semantic value of δεινός in the ode’s opening lines: cf. 332–333 πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀν-/θρώπου δεινότερον πέλει· (‘Many things are formidable, and none more formidable than man!’). 64 Ultimately, it is through the cultural advancements accounted for in the stasimon, as the audience will have known from everyday experience, that man exercised his power and skills both in the natural world and within the compass of the social relations that obtain in the civilised world.

Bibliography Primary Aeschylus. Fragments. Edited and translated by A.H. Sommerstein. 2009b. Cambridge, MA and London. Aeschylus. Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliants. Prometheus Bound. Edited and translated by A.H. Sommerstein. 2009a. Cambridge, MA and London. Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. Edited by M. Griffith. 1983. Cambridge. Aristophanes. Thesmophoriazusae. Introduction Text and Commentary. Edited by C. Austin and S.D. Olson. 2004. Oxford. Bastianini, G. (ed). 2008. ‘Antologia gnomologica.’ PSI 15: 51–93.

238

Francesco Lupi

Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic. Edited by C. Tsagalis. 2017. Berlin. Euripides. Fragments: Oedipus – Chrysippus. Other Fragments. Edited and translated by C. Collard and M. Cropp. 2008. Cambridge, MA and London. Euripides. Medea. Edited by D.J. Mastronarde. 2002. Cambridge. Euripides. Medea. Translated and edited by S. Murnaghan. 2018. New York and London. Falcetto, R. (ed. and trans.). 2002. Il Palamede di Euripide. Edizione e commento dei frammenti. Alessandria. Homer. Iliad. Translated by A.T. Murray and W.F. Wyatt. 1999, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA and London. Kannicht, R. (ed). 2004. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 5.1–2, Euripides. Göttingen. Olson, S.D. (ed. and trans.). 2014. Eupolis frr. 326–497: Fragmenta incertarum fabularum, Fragmenta dubia. Heidelberg. Radt, S. (ed). 1985. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 3, Aeschylus. Göttingen. Radt, S. (ed). 1999. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 4, Sophocles, editio correctior et addendis aucta. Göttingen (1977). Snell, B. and R. Kannicht (eds). 1986. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. 1: Didascaliae tragicae, catalogi tragicorum et tragoediarum, testimonia et fragmenta tragicorum minorum, editio correctior et addendis aucta. Göttingen. Sophocles. Antigone. Edited by M. Griffith. 1999. Cambridge. Sophocles. Antigone. The Women of Trachis. Philoctetes. Oedipus at Colonus. Edited and translated by H. Lloyd-Jones. 1994. Cambridge, MA and London. Sophocles. Fragments. Edited and translated by H. Lloyd-Jones. 2003. Cambridge, MA and London. Sophocles. ‘Palamedes, Nauplios Katapleon (The Arrival of Nauplius) and Nauplios Pyrkaeus (Nauplius and the Beacon).’ In Sophocles. Selected Fragmentary Plays. Volume II. The Epigoni, Oenomaus, Palamedes, The Arrival of Nauplius, Nauplius and the Beacon, The Shepherds, Triptolemus, eds. A.H. Sommerstein and T.H. Talboy, 110–173. 2012. Oxford. Storey, I. (ed. and trans.). 2011. Fragments of Old Comedy, 3 vols. Cambridge, MA and London.

Secondary Barrett, J. 2007. ‘Aeschylus.’ In Time in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, volume two, eds. I.J.F. De Jong and R. Nünlist, 253–273. Leiden and Boston. Brelich, A. 2010. Gli eroi greci. Un problema storico-religioso (1958). Milano. Burns, A. 1981. ‘Athenian Literacy in the Fifth Century B.C.’ JHI 42 (3). Cantarella, R. 1970. ‘L’incivilimento umano dal ‘Prometeo’ all’‘Antigone’ (Con una Appendice sulla datazione del De antiqua medicina).’ In R. Cantarella, Scritti minori sul teatro Greco, 267–293. Brescia (originally printed, with slightly different title, in RAL 22, 1967: 153–174). Caroli, M. 2016. ‘Timone di Fliunte, Euripide e Potamone: nuove ipotesi di attribuzione per PSI XV 1476.’ APapyrol 28: 207–235. Ceccarelli, P. 2013. Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History (600 BC-150 BC). Oxford.

‘Lest we forget’ 239 Ceccarelli, P. 2019. ‘Economies of Memory in Greek Tragedy.’ In Greek Memories: Theories and Practices, eds. L. Castagnoli and P. Ceccarelli, 93–114. Cambridge and New York. Chaniotis, A. 2009. ‘Travelling Memories in the Hellenistic World.’ In Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture. Travel, Locality, and Pan-Hellenism, eds. R. Hunter and I. Rutherford, 249–269. Cambridge and New York. Coleman, R. 1972. ‘The Role of the Chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone.’ PCPhS, n.s., 18: 4–27. Conacher, D.J. 1977. ‘Prometheus as Founder of Arts.’ GRBS 18 (3): 189–206. Davies, M. 1986. ‘The Motif of the πρῶτος εὑρετής in Alcman.’ ZPE 65: 25–27. Degani, E. 1991. ‘Note critico-testuali ai frammenti tragici greci.’ Eikasmos 2: 91–104. Easterling, P.E. 1985. ‘Anachronism in Greek Tragedy.’ JHS 105: 1–10. Gould, J. 2001. ‘Myth, Memory, and the Chorus: “Tragic Rationality.”’ In Myth, Ritual, Memory, and Exchange. Essays in Greek Literature and Culture, J. Gould, 405–414. Oxford (originally printed in R. Buxton (ed). 1999. From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought, 107–116. Oxford). Gregory, J. 2012. ‘Sophocles and Education.’ In Brill’s Companion to Sophocles, ed. A. Markantonatos, 515–535. Leiden and Boston. Harvey, F.D. 1966. ‘Literacy in the Athenian Democracy.’ REG 79: 585–635. Jenkins, T.E. 2005. ‘Palamedes’ Writing Lesson: On Narrative, Writing, and Erasure.’ CML 25: 29–53. Kamerbeek, J.C. 1978. The Plays of Sophocles. Commentaries, Part III: The Antigone. Leiden. Kitzinger, M.R. 2008. The Choruses of Sophokles’ Antigone and Philoktetes: A Dance of Words. Leiden and Boston. Kleingünther, A. 1933. ΠΡΩΤΟΣ ΕΥΡΕΤΗΣ. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte einer Fragestellung. Philologus, Supplementband 26.1. Leipzig. Levine Gera, D. 2003. Ancient Greek Ideas on Speech, Language, and Civilization. Oxford. Lupi, F. 2015. ‘Nauplio e i “segni celesti”: intorno a Soph. TrGF 4 F *432, 3.’ RFIC 143 (1): 35–55. Magini, D. 1997–1998. ‘“Scrivere nelle tavolette della mente”: la memoria nei tragici greci.’ RAAN 67: 219–246. Millis, B. (ed). 2015. Anaxandrides. Introduction, Translation, Commentary. Heidelberg. Neri, C. 2007. ‘I rimedi dell’oblio (Eur. Palam. fr. 578 K.).’ Eikasmos 18: 167–171. Oudemans, T.C.W. and A.P.M.H. Lardinois. 1987. Tragic Ambiguity: Anthropology, Philosophy and Sophocles’ Antigone. Leiden, New York, København and Köln. Rau, P. 1967. Paratragodia: Untersuchung einer komischen Form des Aristophanes. München. Rutherford, I. 1990. ‘Μνήμης . . . Φάρμακον at Plato “Phaedrus” 274e-275a: An Imitation of Euripides fr. 578?’ Hermes 118 (3): 377–379. Scullion, S. 2000. ‘Tradition and Invention in Euripidean Aitiology.’ In Euripides and the Tragic Theatre in the Late Fifth Century (ICS 24–25 [1999–2000]), eds. M. Cropp, K. Lee, and D. Sansone, 217–233. Champaign, IL. Seaford, R. 2009. ‘Aitiologies of Cult in Euripides: A Response to Scott Scullion.’ In The Play of Text and Fragments: Essays in Honour of Martin Cropp, eds. J.R.C. Cousland and J.R. Hume, 221–234. Leiden and Boston. Shalev, D. 2006. ‘The Role of εὑρήματα in the Lives of Diogenes Laertius, and Related Literature.’ Hermes 134: 309–337. Sommerstein, A.H. 2000. ‘The Prologue of Aeschylus’ Palamedes.’ RhM 143: 118–127.

240

Francesco Lupi

Sommerstein, A.H. 2010. ‘Sophocles’ Palamedes and Nauplius Plays: No Trilogy Here.’ In A.H. Sommerstein, The Tangled Ways of Zeus and Other Studies in and around Greek Tragedy, 250–258. Oxford. Stieber, M.C. 2011. Euripides and the Language of Craft. Leiden and Boston. Thraede, K. 1962. ‘Das Lob des Erfinders. Bemerkungen zur Analyse der HeuremataKataloge.’ RhM 105: 158–186.

13 Treacherous transmission The case of Augustine’s Sermons 151–156 Hubertus R. Drobner

It was the Maurist edition of Augustine’s Sermones ad populum from 1683 that first arranged Sermons 151–156 in a continuous sequence because they regarded them as a chronological series of homilies which Augustine preached in short succession in the same place on the exegesis of Romans 7–8.1 They based their assessment mainly on the internal evidence of the sermons, which contain several references to preceding sermons. However, also the manuscript transmission as they knew it and the pre-Maurist edition might have lent some support towards their evaluation. Since 1683, the Maurists’ opinion has not been fundamentally challenged. Later scholars made minor adjustments and additions, however, always on the basis of the prior conviction of the chronological connection of the series and thus with the aim of confirming the Maurists’ theory.2 Nevertheless, the comparatively recent upheaval regarding the chronology of Augustine’s sermons, including the evaluation of their manuscript transmission and the validity of the arguments used to establish their chronology,3 casts doubt on all suggestions regarding the dating of Augustine’s sermons, including so prominent and apparently clear-cut cases as that of Sermons 151–156. One important aspect of the vivid discussion regards the meaning and validity of the manuscript transmission which falls exactly under the topic of the Colloquium ‘Making and Unmaking of Memory in the Ancient World’. For memory is certainly made or unmade during the times of the events or their immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, the role of the later history of reception, the transmission or loss of texts, and, last but not least at all, their interpretation by modern scholars decide what we know or do not know of antiquity. In this vein, the present chapter selects the case of Augustine’s Sermons 151– 156 as an example of how treacherous the interpretation of the manuscript and textual transmission can be and how it may rather distort the modern view of his oratory. Naturally, this will not be a complete discussion of all the numerous aspects and arguments regarding the unity, place(s), and date(s) of Sermons 151–156 – this needs to be done in another place. This chapter will strictly limit itself to discuss the manuscript tradition and the possible pitfalls of its interpretation. DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-16

242

Hubertus R. Drobner

The manuscript transmission4 The manuscript transmission that the Maurists were acquainted with does not contain Sermons 151–156 as a complete group. They are only transmitted as single items or in smaller groups in changing combinations of two to four pieces, respectively: s 151 alone s 151–152 s 151–154

s 152 alone

s 153–154 s 153–155 s 153–156

s 155–156

s 156 alone

Only one manuscript contains all six sermons: Dijon Bibl. Mun. 143 (110) (first half 12th cent.) from Cîteaux; however, again not as a continuous series in the sequence established by the Maurists, but in separate smaller groups and in the sequence of the biblical passages treated therein, while other texts intervene:5 s s s s

153–154 151–152 155 (fol. 156 (fol.

(fol. 151v–157v) on Rom 7:5 and 7:14; (fol. 159v–164r) on Rom 7:19 und 8:3; 164r–167v) on Rom 7:25; 183r–187r) on Rom 8:21.

The Maurists did not consult this manuscript,6 and Gert Partoens considers the joint transmission of all six sermons as ‘a secondary phenomenon caused by the combination of two series’.7 Conclusion 1: The manuscript transmission in itself does not suggest and certainly does not prove a historical connection of Sermons 151–156, and the possibility of a later artificial arrangement because of their common theme cannot be excluded.

The pre-Maurist editions The pre-Maurist editions printed Sermons 153–155 according to their joint transmission in the collection De verbis Apostoli (8th cent.):8 Sermo

De verbis Apostoli

Amerbach III (1494)

Erasmus X (1529)

Lovanienses (1614)

153

no. 4

fol. 6r1–7v2

177–181

98–101

154

no. 5

fol. 8r–10r

181–186

101–104

155

no. 6

fol. 10r1–12r1

186–192

104–107

1

Then follow (according to the later Maurist numbering): Nr. 7: Sermon 165 on Eph 3,13–18; Nr. 8: Sermon 174 on 1 Tim 1,15;

Treacherous transmission Nr. Nr. Nr. Nr.

243

9: Sermon 175 on 1 Tim 1,15–16; 10: Sermon 176 on 1 Tim 1,15–16; 11: Sermon 26 on Ps 94 and Gal 3,21; 12: Sermon 30 on Ps 118 and Rom 7,14.

Sermon 156 follows in position no. 13: Sermo

De verbis Apostoli

Amerbach III (1494)

Erasmus X (1529)

Lovanienses (1614)

156

no. 13

fol. 21r2–23v2

pp. 211–216

pp. 118–121

Sermon 151 was inserted as no. 45 under the liturgical category ‘De tempore’: Sermo

De verbis Apostoli

Amerbach III (1494)

Erasmus X (1529)

Lovanienses (1614)

155

no. 45

fol. 41v2–43r1

pp. 466–469

pp. 238–240

Ioannes Vlimmerius only published Sermon 151.9 Sermon 152 was unknown to the pre-Maurist editors. The Maurists expressly confirm that they knew this state of transmission and consulted those four prior editions.10 The Maurists copied Sermon 152, which had so far been unknown, from Codex Orléans 159 (136) (3rd quarter 9th cent. or 10th cent.) from Fleury, St-Benoît-surLoire (Loiret), where Sermon 152 (pp. 8–18) comes immediately after Sermon 151 (pp. 2–8) and before Sermons 153–154 (pp. 18–41).11 Thus, the transmission as the Maurists knew it could at least suggest a connection between Sermons 151 to 154. However, the Maurists did not introduce the state of the manuscript transmission as an argument for the new order they gave to Sermons 151–156. Only since the middle of the twentieth century it has been used in order to support the already established thesis of Sermons 151–156 as a continuous series, united by their chronology and topography.12

The Maurist edition The Maurists deduced the chronological connection between Sermons 151–156 on the basis of (A) the common biblical texts which they comment upon and which seem to have been the liturgical readings of the days, and (B) a series of remarks inside the sermons which seem to connect them to one another. A

Internal evidence in all six sermons show that the readings which were proclaimed during the preceding liturgy were passages from Romans 7 and 8:13 Sermon 151 – Rom 7:14–25 (cf. §§ 1–2); additional quotations: Rom 7:7 (with Rom 5:20); Sermon 152 – Rom 7:25b–8:4 (cf. § 1); additional quotations: Rom 7:7.11–13.18.22;

244

Hubertus R. Drobner Sermon 153 – Rom 7:5–13 (with Rom 5:12) (cf. §§ 1–2); Sermon 154 – Rom 7:14–25 (with Rom 4:15; 7:7; 11:20) (cf. §§ 1–2); Sermon 155 – Rom 8:1–11 (cf. § 2 et passim); additional quotations: Rom 7:6.12–14.17.20.22–25; 8:29–31 (with Rom 5:20; 6:6.12–13); Sermon 156 – Rom 8:12–17 (cf. § 3 et passim); additional quotations: Rom 7:15.25; 8:6.28 (with Rom 5:5.20; 9:16).

B

With the exception of Sermon 151 being the first member of the supposed series and Sermon 153, all other sermons contain references to preceding sermons which, according to the Maurists, establish the sequence as arranged by them:

1

Sermon 152:1: ‘Your graces should remember that I discussed with you the very difficult question raised by the apostle Paul’s letter, where he says, For it is not what I want to that I do; but what I hate, that is what I do (Rom 7:15)’14 (interpreted as a reference to Sermon 151).15 Sermon 152:2: ‘I have already told you how to take what the apostle says: With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25); it means you must allow the flesh nothing more but its desires, without which it cannot exist’ (also interpreted as a reference to Sermon 151).16 Sermon 154:1: ‘Those of you who were present for the sermon, heard what was read yesterday from the letter of the holy apostle Paul; the reading that has been chanted today follows on that one. We are still dealing with that difficult and perilous passage, which with the help of our Lord, and the assistance of your religious supplications to him, I have undertaken to explain and unravel for you, with whatever powers he is pleased to grant me. . . . That the apostle finds no fault with the law, I rather think I proved to the satisfaction of those who heard me yesterday. Thus he said then, . . . (quotations from Rom 7:7–13)’17 (interpreted as a reference to Sermon 153).18 Sermon 154:2: ‘So in this reading too, which was chanted today, the person is speaking who has found himself. For we know, he says, that the law is spiritual; I, though, am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand how I am behaving; for it is not what I want to that I do; but what I hate, that is what I carry out (Rom 7:14–15)’19 (together with text no. 3 it implies a reference to Sermon 153). Sermon 155:1: ‘Yesterday the reading from the holy apostle ended where it says, I myself therefore with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25)’20 (after the Maurists, interpreted as a reference to Sermon 154). Sermon 155:8: ‘So how can it be true that he had no sin, if it was from sin that he condemned sin? I have already explained this to you a short while ago; still, let those of you who remember recognize what I say, those of you who didn’t hear it, hear it now, those of you who have forgotten, recall it to mind. . . . Speaking about him, he says, him who knew no sin – that’s the statement I was explaining to you when I was talking about this – him, he says, who knew

2

3

4

5

6

Treacherous transmission

7

245

no sin God the Father made into sin for us; him, Christ himself, who knew no sin God the Father made into sin for us, that we, in him, might be the justice of God (2 Cor 5:21)’21 (interpreted as a reference to Sermon 152).22 Sermon 156,(XIII)14: ‘Those of you who were here the day before yesterday, heard how the people standing a long way off were terrified by voices, fire, smoke on the mountain; but how when the Holy Spirit came, himself being the finger of God, how he came on the fiftieth day after the shadow Passover, and in tongues of fire settled on each one of them’23 (interpreted as a reference to Sermon 155).24

On the basis of these references the Maurists reconstructed the following chronological sequence: • • • •

Sermon 151 was preached shortly before Sermon 152 because of the sequence of the biblical quotations commented upon [paulo ante/proxime (cf. texts no. 1–2)]. Sermon 152 was preached some days before Sermon 155 [according to text no. 6]. Sermon 153 was preached on the day before Sermon 154 [cf. Sermon 154:1 ‘yesterday’s reading’ (text no. 3, supported by text no. 4)]. Sermon 155 was preached two days before Sermon 156 [cf. Sermon 156:14 ‘the day before yesterday’ (text no. 7)].

However, the Maurists did not relate the reference in Sermon 155:1 ‘yesterday’s reading’ (text no. 5) to Sermon 154, though the sequence of the sermons implies it, and all later scholars understand it to be the case.25 The Maurists’ reconstruction of Sermons 151–156 as a chronological sequence has been accepted ever since. Only small details were slightly adjusted:26 • • • •

Sermon 151 one day before Sermon 152; some days or weeks intervening between Sermon 152 and Sermon 153; one day each between Sermons 153–155; Sermon 156 two days after Sermon 155.

How conclusive is the internal evidence? Nevertheless, the one question that has never been asked and discussed is: Is this interpretation of the manuscript and textual transmission of Sermons 151–156 really the only possible one, so that it conclusively points towards their historical connection as a chronological series, especially in light of the recent doubts regarding the whole of the chronology of Augustine’s sermons and the validity of the arguments supporting it?27 1

The seemingly clear inner references between Sermons 151–156 are not unequivocal. This is proven by the fact that the Maurists originally followed

246

Hubertus R. Drobner the opinion of the editors from Louvain that Sermon 155:8 refers to Sermon 134:4–6 (= De verbis Domini 48) which also comments upon Rom 8:3–4.28 Only after their discovery of Sermon 152 did they change their mind and related Sermon 155:8 now to Sermon 152:10–11.29

However, this change of mind shows that Sermon 152 is not the only possible reference for Sermon 155 and, consequently, there is no definite proof that Sermons 152 and 155 must necessarily relate to one another. In general, this uncertainty shows how unreliable internal references are on principle. For without the discovery of Sermon 152 most probably the Maurists (and all later scholars?) would have regarded Sermon 134 as being meant by Sermon 155 (and inserted it into the presumed chronological series?). 2

The fact that Sermon 155 is supposed to refer to a sermon that had been lost up to the times of the Maurists shows that there is no compelling reason for the conclusion that the references in Sermons 151–156 relate to any of Augustine’s sermons that have been preserved. Up to 90% or even more of them have never been taken down or have been lost in the history of transmission.30 Consequently, Sermon 155 could as well refer to one of Augustine’s lost sermons.

It is true that probably most of Augustine’s sermons were never taken down, because the people commissioned the stenographers (notarii).31 Consequently, it seems more plausible that sermons on special occasions or series of sermons had a better chance to be written down than a sermon on any current day of the year. On the other hand, how many times might Augustine have preached on texts like Romans 7–8, including multiple special occasions in various places and at various times? At any rate, reasoning founded on probabilities and plausibilities cannot provide compelling arguments in particular cases. 3

If that is so, all the apparently perfectly fitting references in Sermons 151–156 do not prove beyond any doubt that they relate to one another. It is true that some of them have been transmitted as coherent groups (see ‘The manuscript transmission’ earlier in the chapter). However, whether this is due to the fact that they originally belonged together or medieval scribes arranged them in this order remains an open question. For the theory that series of sermons in the manuscript transmission reflect an historical order has become highly doubtful,32 and that medieval copyists arranged sermons according the theological or liturgical intentions and needs of their own times has become quite clear.33

In addition, in the case of Sermons 151–156 there is no indication as to whether the scribes arranged them because of their internal references or because of their common biblical texts from the Letter to the Romans as, for instance, Codex Dijon Bibl. Mun. 143 (110) seems to have done (see ‘The manuscript transmission’ earlier in the chapter).

Treacherous transmission 4

247

Therefore, strictly speaking, only the following facts can be reliably derived from the internal evidence of Sermons 151–156: a

b

c

d

e

f

(cf. texts no. 1–2) Before Sermon 152 Augustine preached a sermon on Rom 7:15.25 inside a time span of the vivid memory of his audience. However, the exact chronological distance of the two sermons remains an object of surmise. (cf. texts no. 3–4) On the day before Sermon 154 Augustine preached a sermon on the liturgical reading of the day Rom 7:7–13. The reading in Sermon 154 continued directly the passage of the previous day which would fit Sermon 153. Nevertheless, this does not prove that Sermon 153 is in fact the historical predecessor of Sermon 154. (cf. text no. 5) On the day before Sermon 155 Augustine preached a sermon on the liturgical reading of the day from Rom 7 which ended with verse no. 25. This reference fits Sermon 154 which indicates the reading of the day as Rom 7:14–25. Nevertheless, this only proves a thematical, not a historical connection between those two sermons. (cf. text no. 6) Some time before Sermon 155 Augustine discussed the problem how Christ could be without sin and yet condemned sin from sin. He does not indicate a precise time span, but he does take into account that some of his listeners might already have forgotten about it. It is true that this reference fits Sermon 152:9–11, supposedly preached a few days before Sermon 155. Nevertheless, it also fits Sermon 134:5 (see ‘The Maurist edition’ earlier in the chapter) and, possibly, other sermons that have been lost. (cf. text no. 7) In Sermon 156:14 Augustine points out that his auditorium had heard about the legislation on Mount Sinai (Ex 20:18) and the mission of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4) two days before.34 He adds that he himself was present but leaves open whether these were just the readings of the day or whether he preached on them. Consequently, an exact relationship to Sermon 155 is not proven by this remark. Augustine preached four pairs of sermons: • • • •

Sermon 152 and another sermon some time before (cf. texts no. 1–2) Sermon 154 and another sermon on the day before (cf. texts no. 3–4), Sermon 155 and another sermon some time before (cf. texts no. 5–6) and Sermon 156 and another sermon two days before (cf. text no. 7).

Each pair was pronounced in the same place. However, there is no indication towards the conclusion that all of the possibly four different places were in part or even overall identical. Conclusion 2: It cannot be reliably proven that Sermons 151–156 form a continuous historical series of sermons. Consequently, in this case, no conclusion can be drawn regarding their common place and date of preaching. Each sermon needs to be treated as a separate item.

248

Hubertus R. Drobner

Further arguments from manuscript transmission As was said earlier (see ‘The pre-Maurist editions’ earlier in the chapter), the Maurists were acquainted with the specific manuscript transmission of Sermons 151–156. However, they did not use it as an explicit argument in favour of their continuous arrangement of the sermons but based this exclusively on the inner references. Cyrille Lambot Only more than 260 years later, Cyrille Lambot introduced the manuscript transmission of Sermons 151–156 as an argument in support of their – preconceived – historical connection.35 He analysed the collection De Alleluia and noted that in all its manuscripts known (since the 9th cent.) Sermon 151 as no. 29(18) abruptly ends at the beginning of section 3 with the words ipsa concupiscentia.36 After that Sermon 349:4 follows seamlessly, beginning with the words et ecce licita;37 sections 1–3 are missing (cf. Figure13.1).38 Consequently, Cyrille Lambot asks whether between those two fragments not only the end of Sermon 151 and the beginning of Sermon 349 went missing, but also further sermons, and reaches the conclusion: ‘That is probable if the manuscript of the archetype lost one or even several quires.’39 This conjecture leads to the question which sermons these might have been, and he considers it ‘an enticing venture’ to surmise that Sermons 152–156 followed Sermon 151. For ‘this group formed a remarkable unity with Sermon 151, both because of its logical and chronological unity and its manuscript transmission’.40 It is true that Cyrille Lambot has to admit that he does not know any manuscripts that transmit Sermons 151–156 jointly, only either Sermons 151–154 or 153–156 as a group (see ‘The manuscript transmission’ at the beginning of the chapter). Nevertheless, as he is firmly convinced of the unity of the presumptive series he surmises: ‘However, if the second part of Sermon 151 showed up in a better preserved copy of the collection Alleluia, it would not be surprising that it followed there, and if not the whole group, then at least Sermons 152–154.’41 With all respect due to the great scholar Cyrille Lambot, here he enters the realm of pure speculation. Instead of deducing an argument from the manuscript transmission in favour of Sermons 151–156 as a continuous series, he imports his preconceived idea of the same into his interpretation of the manuscript transmission without a reliable basis. In fact, his line of argument has never been followed up. The editor of the recent critical edition of the sermons, Gert Partoens says: It seems highly improbable that Sermons 152–154/156 ever occupied this place. . . . For in the collection De lapsu mundi42 Sermon 349 immediately follows on Sermon 151, and in the Brussels Collection43 Sermon 17 intervenes in between those two items.44

Treacherous transmission

249

Figure 13.1 Codex Paris. Bibl. Nat. 13376 (9th cent.), fol. 58r, line 7: end of Sermon 151:3 [beginning of Sermon 349:4]

B. Gert Partoens Gert Partoens himself points out two texts which in his view could further support the connection of Sermons 151–156:45 1

A new manuscript used for the critical edition of Sermons 151–156, London Brit. Libr. Royal MS 5 C VIII, fol. 242v–245 (2nd quarter 12th cent.) from Rochester, transmits a unique variant for Sermon 152:1 (CCL 41Ba, 33 lines 11–12). Instead of the text established by the Maurists which read ‘illa vero

250

Hubertus R. Drobner quae tunc lecta sunt, nec tractata verba’ it has the variant ‘[. . .] nec tractata heri’. Partoens inserts this unique variant in his critical text and reasons: ‘If one accepts the reconstruction of the text of Sermon 152 lines 11–12 as suggested by this edition, the time lag between Sermons 151 and 152 is shortened to a single day.’46

While this singular variant sounds very attractive for establishing the chronology of the presumptive series of sermons, one needs to ask critically whether it can stand against the otherwise unanimous testimony of all other manuscripts. It is true that Partoens explains his choice at length,47 amongst other arguments with the textual difficulties of the passage as transmitted by the hyparchetype. However, exactly those difficulties may have induced a (medieval) copyist to replace the word ‘verba’ by the more smoothly fitting ‘heri’. Moreover, the manuscript contains only Sermons 151 and 152 in consecutive order (fol. 242v–249r) and does not transmit Sermons 153–156. It would be absolutely plausible if the copyist referred Augustine’s remark in Sermon 152:1, ‘Your graces should remember that I discussed with you the very difficult question raised by the apostle Paul’s letter, where he says, For it is not what I want to that I do; but what I hate, that is what I do (Rom 7:15)’ to the sermon before, that is Sermon 151 – as also the Maurists did (see ‘The Maurist edition’ earlier in the chapter). Consequently, the correction ‘heri’ seemed appropriate. Sermon 140 presents a similar case. In some comparatively early manuscripts it bears the title: ‘In die Natalis Domini.’ This specification seems to be supported by the double notice of ‘hodie’ in sections 2 and 6. Thus, Jacques Sirmond reproduced Sermon 140 as a Christmas sermon.48 The Maurists, however, pointed out that they regard both instances of ‘heri’ as later insertions by medieval copyists because Sermon 140 was used as a Christmas sermon according to their liturgical calendar.49 Cyrille Lambot supported the Maurists’ opinion, because the early manuscript St. Gallen Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1395, 415 (7th cent.) does not have ‘heri’ in section 2.50 [§ 6 is not transmitted by this manuscript as it only contains a fragment of Sermon 140 on pages 414–415 and 412–413 (in this sequence) from the beginning to the end of § 3, ending with the words ‘addendo dixi’.]51 Consequently, it remains at least doubtful whether the unique variant of ‘heri’ in Sermon 152:1 belongs to the original text. It might well be a later addition of a medieval scribe. 2

Gert Partoens interprets the second part of Sermon 156:1 as a reference to the fact that Augustine indeed regarded Sermons 151 and 156 – despite of their separate transmission in two groups of Sermons 151–152 and 153–156 – as beginning and end of a unified series.52

There Augustine says: The part that remains, however, which was chanted today [Rom 8:12–17], does not have such difficulties in it as did the earlier passages [Rom 7:5–8.11],

Treacherous transmission

251

which with the Lord’s help we have found our way through as best we could; still, it requires your close attention. It comes, you see, as a kind of conclusion to what was said in the previous readings, where we found the going hard, to save the apostle from being judged guilty somehow of all possible sins, because he said, For it is not what I want to that I do (Rom 7:15). Next, in case it should seem that the law could be all that people need who have free will, even if no divine help is extended to them over and above the law, or else in case you should think it was given to no purpose, we were also told the reason why the law was given, because it too was given to help us, though not in the way grace does.53 On the basis of this passage, Partoens concludes that Sermon 156 ‘obviously concludes a series of sermons, which began with the refutation of an unacceptable exegesis of Rom 7:15 where St. Paul confessed to be a sinner’.54 Though Partoens is compelled to concede that also Sermon 154:2–10 rebuts the erroneous interpretation of Rom 7:15,55 he is firmly convinced that Sermon 156 refers back to Sermon 151, because this refutation forms the red thread beginning from Sermon 151. Therefore, our six homilies seem to form a complete whole and not a remnant of an even larger series dedicated to the exegesis of the Letter to the Romans. We shall see further below that this impression is confirmed by the manuscript transmission of these sermons.56 However, the manuscript transmission as presented later does not go beyond what was explained here in ‘The manuscript transmission’ section at the beginning of the chapter. Therefore, it rather seems that Partoens, too, introduces the preconceived conviction of a continuous series a priori into his interpretation of the manuscripts and texts. For the manuscript transmission in itself presents no compelling reason why Sermon 156 might not refer back to Sermon 154 or, for that matter, neither to Sermon 151 nor to 154. Only the prior conviction that Sermons 151–156 form a continuous series can suggest this. However, this opinion is not convincingly supported by the manuscript transmission.

Final considerations Augustine’s Sermons 151–156 present an exemplary case of how crucial the modern interpretation of ancient sources is for the ‘Making and Unmaking of Our Memory of the Ancient World’. Augustine was one of the most influential thinkers and ecclesiastical officials of his times and has remained so through the centuries. Time and again his thoughts and their development have been employed to justify significant opinions and decisions. However, if the seemingly well-based knowledge of the system of his thoughts cannot rely on a valid chronology, the often far-reaching conclusions will be erroneous. Thus, chronology which may seem to be a technical detail at the margins of writing and employing history, may prove to make a crucial overall difference in our perception of the past.

252

Hubertus R. Drobner

In the case of Sermons 151–156, according to contemporary standards, there seems to be no objective support for the general conclusion that they form a continuous series of sermons. Consequently, they cannot be used to ascertain Augustine’s interpretation of Romans 7–8 at a certain time and in a certain place. And thus, they cannot be inserted into a definite train of his thoughts. Of course, this might seem a small detail in the overall reception of Augustine’s works and thought. Nevertheless, as it is a case of changing the categories of interpretation, this concerns not only this single instance but needs to be applied to all parts of his works and might thus eventually make a decisive overall difference.

Notes 1 Maurini V. 2 For the history and present state of research cf. Partoens & Lössl 2008b. 3 Cf. for example Hombert 2004; Drobner 2004; Dolbeau 2005; Drobner 2012; Dupont 2012; Dolbeau 2016: especially 853–855. 4 Cf. Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xv–clii; 2008a: 3–9. 5 Bibliothèque municipal de Dijon 2018. Cf. Samaran & Marichal 1968: 181 and plate 183; Molinier et al. 1889: 39–40. Cf. Partoens & Lössl 2008b: lxix, ciii; 2008a: 5. 6 Cf. Lambot 1951: especially 259 (= 1969: 108). 7 Partoens 2004: especially 684 note 35; Partoens & Lössl 2008b: lxxn1. 8 Cf. Verbraken 1967, 1976; Partoens 2001. 9 Sermonum pars una, fol. 98v–100v. 10 Cf. the marginal notes and footnotes in the edition Maurini V. 11 Cf. Maurini V, col. 722 (= PL 38: 819 Anm. A); Lambot 1951: 259 (= 1969: 108) (10th cent.); CCL 41Ba 4 (3rd quarter 9th cent.; MS 0159, available online through Médiathèques d’Orléans). Catalogue: Pellegrin et al. 2010: especially 181. 12 See section in this chapter titled ‘Cyrille Lambot’. 13 Cf. Margoni-Kögler 2010: 37, 148, 165, 231, 324–329, 338. 14 Translation: Hill 1992: 48. 15 Maurini V, 717 note (a), 722 [= PL 38: 814 note (b), col. 819 with note (a)]. 16 Hill 1992: 49; 55n3: ‘Sermon 151.8’. 17 Hill 1992: 69. 18 Maurini V, 727n(a) [= PL 38: 825 note (b)]. 19 Hill 1992: 69. 20 Hill 1992: 84. 21 Hill 1992: 89. 22 Maurini V, 722 [= PL 38: 819n(a)]; 745–746n(a) [= PL 38: 845n(a)]. 23 Hill 1992: 105. 24 Maurini V, 749n(a) [= PL 38: 849n(b)]; 756n(e) [= PL 38: 857n(a)]. 25 From Degert 1894: 26. 26 Cf. CCL 41Ba, xiii; Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xxiii–xxiv, xxvii. 27 Cf. n. 3. 28 Cf. Lovanienses X, 105 in marg; Maurini V, 653–654n(a) [= PL 38: 742n(b)]. 29 Cf. Maurini V, 722 [= PL 38: 819n(a)], 745–746n(a) [= PL 38: 845n(a)]. 30 Cf. Drobner 2012: 97–99. 31 Cf. Retractationes II 67(93); Possidius, Vita Augustini 7:3. Ohlmann 1905; Deferrari 1922: especially 119–123; Teitler 1985; Hagendahl 1971: especially 33–35. Hübner 2012; Dolbeau 2016: especially 858–859. 32 Cf. n. 3. 33 Cf. Drobner 2012: 100–103.

Treacherous transmission

253

34 Dulaey 2016 interprets these two readings as an indication that Sermons 155–156 do not date from September/October 417 as Gert Partoens und Josef Lössl suggest (CCL 41Ba [2008] ix–lv), but rather after Pentecost, 26 May 418. While Dulaey herself nevertheless accepts the hypothesis of an overall connection of Sermons 151–156, her new dating may raise further doubts in that respect. For so far there is no proof whether the sequence of readings from Rom 7:5 to 8:21 as is postulated for the series can be ascertained during the liturgical season shortly after Pentecost. If not, this could provide a further argument against the postulated unity of the series. However, as Dulaey’s argument is not based on the manuscript tradition, and the validity of her new date also needs to be discussed first, this exceeds the scope of the present chapter and needs to be treated in the general context of the chronology of Sermons 151–156. 35 Lambot 1947. 36 CCL 41Ba, 17 line 55. 37 Maurini V, 1346 line 13 (= PL 38: 1531 line 18). 38 Codex Paris. Bibl. Nat. 13376, fol. 58r line 7. 39 Lambot 1947: 91. 40 Lambot 1947: 91. 41 Lambot 1947: 92. 42 Cf. Verbraken 1976: 231 no. 18–19. 43 Cf. Verbraken 1976: 227–228 no. 30–32. 44 Partoens & Lössl 2008b: lxxi note 5. 45 Cf. Partoens 2004: 674–675; Partoens & Lössl 2008b: x–xiii. 46 Partoens & Lössl 2008b: x. 47 Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xi note 6. 48 Sirmond 1631: 194 no. 16. However, the list of contents does not contain this information. Sirmond’s manuscript sources are (394): ‘Ex vet. codice N.F. & altero S. Victoris’ (N.F. = Nicolai Fabri). 49 Cf. Maurini V, 679–680 notes a and c (= PL 38: 773 notes b and d). 50 Cf. Lambot 1967: especially 220–221, with note 2. 51 Cod. Sang. 1395, 414. Cf. Scherrer 1875: 461–464; Bergmann et al. 2005: 2; 588–589 no. 256. 52 Cf. CCL 41Ba, 136 line 23–137 line 34; cf. Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xi–xii; Partoens 2004: 674–675. 53 Translation: Hill 1992: 5: 96–97. 54 Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xii. 55 Cf. Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xii note 8. 56 Partoens & Lössl 2008b: xiii.

Bibliography Primary Amerbach III. 1494. Plura ac diversa divi Aurelij Augustini sermonum opera. Edited by S. Brant. Basel. Retrieved December 9, 2019, from http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/ augustinus1494-3. CCL 41Ba. Edited by G. Partoens. 2008. Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones in Epistolas apostolicas. Vol. 1: Sermones CLI-CLVI secundum ordinem vulgatum inserto etiam uno sermone post Maurinos reperto: recensuit Gert Partoens; secundum praefationis caput conscripsit Josef Lössl. Turnhout. Translated by E. Hill. 1992. In J.E. Rotelle (ed.), The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. Part 3, Vol. 5: Sermons (148–183). New Rochelle, NY.

254

Hubertus R. Drobner

Cod. Sang. 1395. 5th to 10th century. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek. Veterum Fragmentorum Manuscriptis Codicibus detractorum collectio Tom. II. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/1395. D. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi, Sermonum pars una, . . . Opera & studio Ioannis Vlimmerij. . . . Leuven. Dijon Bibl. Mun. 143(110). Manuscrits de Cîteaux. Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon. Retrieved August 20, 2019, from http://patrimoine.bm-dijon.fr/pleade/ead.html?id=FR212316101_cite aux#!{%22content%22:[%22FR212316101_citeaux_D11010377%22,false,%22%22]} Erasmus, Desiderius. 1529. Decimus tomus operum divi Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi, continens reliqua tractata apud populum. Basel. Retrieved December 9, 2019, from https://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/collections/rsc/viewer/HisBest_derivate_ 00003999/BE_0660_0001.tif. Lovanienses, X. 1614. S. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi operum tomus X. Continens sermones ad populum et clerum. Paris. Maurini, V. 1683. In Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi . . . Operum tomus quintus, continens Sermones ad populum, . . . opera et studio monachorum ordinis Sancti Benedicti, è congregatione Sancti Mauri, 717–757. Paris: n.p. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from https://books.google.de/books?id=BfpJAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover& hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false. (= PL 38: 814–859). MS 0159. 9th century. Traités divers de S. Augustin. – Traité d’Amalaire sur l’office divin. Manuscrits de la médiathèque d’Orléans. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from https:// mediatheques.orleans-metropole.fr/ark:/77916/FRCGMBPF-452346101-01A/ D18011166.locale=fr.

Secondary Bergmann, R. and S. Stricker, with Y. Goldammer and C. Wich-Reif (eds). 2005. Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften, 2 vols. Berlin. Deferrari, R.J. 1922. ‘Augustine’s Method of Composing Sermons.’ AJPh 43: 97–123, 193–219. Degert, A. 1894. Quid ad mores ingeniaque Afrorum cognoscenda conferant sancti Augustini sermons. Paris. Retrieved August 30, 2019, from https://archive.org/details/ quidadmoresingen00dege. Dolbeau, F. 2005. ‘Les sermons augustiniens de Mayence: bilan des travaux et mise à jour bibliographique (1996–2005).’ In Augustin et la prédication en Afrique: recherches sur divers sermons authentiques, apocryphes ou anonymes, ed. F. Dolbeau, 587–606. Paris. Dolbeau, F. 2016. ‘Praedicatio.’ In Augustinus-Lexikon, Vol. 4.5–6, eds. R. Dodaro, C. Mayer, and C. Müller, 846–865. Basel. Drobner, H.R. 2004. ‘The Chronology of Augustine’s Sermones ad populum III: On Christmas Day.’ AugStud 35: 43–53. Drobner, H.R. 2012. ‘The Transmission of Augustine’s Sermons. A Critical Assessment.’ In Tractatio Scripturarum. Philological, Exegetical, Rhetorical and Theological Studies on Augustine’s Sermons. Vol. 2: Ministerium sermonis, eds. A. Dupont et al., 97–116. Turnhout. Dulaey, M. 2016. ‘Introduction.’ In M Dulaey et al., Augustin d’Hippone. Les commentaires des Psaumes. Ps 118, Sermons 1–14, 42–44. Paris. Dupont, A. 2012. ‘A ‘Status Quaestionis’ on Recent Debates on the Chronology and the Dating Methodology of Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum.’ In Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, XVI, ed. C. Deroux. Brussels.

Treacherous transmission

255

Pellegrin, E., et al. 2010. Catalogue des manuscrits médiévaux de la bibliothèque municipale d’Orléans. Paris. Hagendahl, H. 1971. ‘Die Bedeutung der Stenographie für die spätlateinische christliche Literatur.’ JAC 14: 24–38. Hombert, P.-M. 2000. Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne. Paris. Hübner, W. 2012. ‘Nota, notarius.’ In Augustinus-Lexikon, Vol. 4.1–2, eds. R. Dodaro, C. Mayer, and C. Müller, 216–218. Basel. Lambot, C. 1947. ‘Collection antique de sermons de saint Augustin.’ RBen 57: 89–108. Lambot, C. 1951. ‘Les manuscrits des sermons de saint Augustin utilisés par les Mauristes.’ Mélanges Joseph de Ghellinck S.J. Volume 1: Antiquité, 251–263. Gembloux: J. Duculot. Repr. 1969. RBen 79: 98–114. Lambot, C. 1967. ‘La tradition manuscrite des sermons de saint Augustin pour la Noël et l’Épiphanie.’ RBen 77: 217–245. Margoni-Kögler, M. 2010. Die Perikopen im Gottesdienst bei Augustinus. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der liturgischen Schriftlesung in der frühen Kirche. Vienna. Molinier, A., et al. 1889. Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Départements. Tome V: Dijon. Ohlmann, D. 1905. ‘Die Stenographie im Leben des hl. Augustinus.’ Archiv für Stenographie 56: 273–279, 312–319. Partoens, G. 2001. ‘La collection de sermons augustiniens De verbis Apostoli. Introduction et liste de manuscrits les plus anciens.’ RBen 111: 317–352. Partoens, G. 2004. ‘La prédication et la transmission antique des sermons 151–156 de saint Augustin.’ In Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità Cristiana. 2003. Comunicazione e ricezione del documento Cristiano in epoca tardoantica: XXXII Incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana, Roma, 8–10 maggio 2003, 673–691. Rome. Partoens, G. and J. Lössl. 2008a. Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones in Epistolas apostolicas. Vol. 1: Sermones CLI-CLVI secundum ordinem vulgatum inserto etiam uno sermone post Maurinos reperto: recensuit Gert Partoens; secundum praefationis caput conscripsit Josef Lössl. Turnhout. Partoens, G. and J. Lössl. 2008b. ‘Introduction, Chapters I–II.’ In Sermones in epistolas apostolicas, eds. G. Partoens and J. Lössl, ix–lv. Turnhout. Samaran, C. and R. Marichal. 1968. Catalogue des manuscrits en écriture latine portant des indications de date, de lieu ou de copiste. Vol. 6: Bourgogne, Centre, Sud-est et Sudouest de la France. Notices établies par Monique Garand, Madeleine Mabille et Josette Metman. Paris. Scherrer, G. 1875. Verzeichnis der Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek von St. Gallen. Halle. Sirmond, J. 1631. S. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi sermones novi: numero XL. Paris. Teitler, H.C. 1985. Notarii and Exceptores. An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D.). Amsterdam. Verbraken, P.-P. 1967. ‘La Collection de sermons de saint Augustin De verbis Domini et Apostoli.’ RBen 77: 27–46. Verbraken, P.-P. 1976. Études critiques sur les sermons authentiques de saint Augustin. Steenbrugge.

14 Cultural memory and classical education in late antique Gaul Alison John

Introduction As the western Roman empire gradually lost control and influence in Gaul throughout the fifth century, Gallo-Roman aristocrats increasingly looked to traditions of their cultural and intellectual heritage to feel anchored to their Roman identity. Traditional literary education, based on a curriculum of Greek and Latin authors and largely unchanged for centuries, was a key aspect of such elite Roman identity. This chapter examines the role grammatical and rhetorical education played in shaping a collective cultural memory of ‘Rome’, and thus in perpetuating elite Roman identity in late antique Gaul. Taking a diachronic approach, this study considers sources from the fourth and fifth centuries in Gaul including Eumenius, Ausonius, the Theodosian Code, Sidonius Apollinaris, Claudianus Mamertus, and Ruricius of Limoges. Such an approach allows us to observe how perceptions of education and priorities of Gallo-Roman aristocrats shifted from the fourth to fifth centuries in Gaul and contends that such shifts in attitudes towards traditional literary education are part of the larger political and societal changes taking place in this period. It will argue that, amid the shifting political, cultural, and religious landscapes of fifth-century Gaul, Gallo-Roman aristocrats clung to the educational pursuits of their ancestors, and memories of the classical Roman past transferred and preserved in such literary education, to define and understand themselves, and feel connected to their Roman culture, identity, and to each other.1

Education and elites in the later Roman empire Roman literary education, so named because the curriculum was based on learning the language and style of a specific literary canon, had three main stages: elementary learning, grammar, and rhetoric. Though there were naturally many variations to this tripartite system, for centuries it remained the standard direction and model of Roman literary education across the empire.2 Elementary learning comprised the basics of reading, writing (prima elementa), and arithmetic and was often taught privately in the home, or by lower-level teachers within grammatical schools.3 Students would begin their grammatical education at the age of DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-17

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

257

six or seven. For example, at the end of the fourth century, Paulinus of Pella began his formal grammatical instruction when he was six, after learning basic literacy at home (Paul. Pell. Euch. 60–67, 72–74). Grammarians taught advanced reading and writing, focusing on syntax, parts of speech, pronunciation, and systematic line-by-line explication of a canon of prose and poetry, putting these texts in their historical, literary, and moral contexts.4 Rhetors generally accepted students from the ages of 12 or 13. Rhetorical instruction could last as long as four to six years, but many students left their studies early or moved to different teachers or types of schools.5 Students of rhetoric learned the arts of oratory – of speaking and writing persuasively. They memorised model texts called progymnasmata, which illustrated principles of rhetoric; they learned the rules and use of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and actio; and finally they put these into practice by composing and delivering mock speeches, declamationes, on set topics from Roman law, history, and mythology. In these declamationes students put themselves in the shoes, as it were, of famous figures from Rome’s mythic and historic past. Students were taught to draw on the examples and advice of classical authors, especially Cicero (and in Greek, Demosthenes).6 The students performed their mock speeches in public before their teachers, fellow students, parents, and family friends. Such performances continued in the late fifth century in Gaul. For example, while his young friend Burgundio was preparing a speech on Julius Caesar, Sidonius promised to gather an audience to listen, support, and critique the student’s performance (Ep. 9.14.7– 9). Rhetorical training instilled the art of speaking well, thus preparing students for public life as lawyers, diplomats, and politicians. More crucially, though, by immersing students within Rome’s mythical and historic past, grammatical and rhetorical schools promoted a collective memory and vision of ‘Rome’, thus fostering a common ‘Roman’ character and outlook among its students. Literary education was central to elite Roman life. It defined and shaped aristocratic identity and provided a potential entry point for would-be elites to the opportunities of the governing classes. Education was tied explicitly to political power and cultural prestige, and it was one of the main socialising forces of Roman youth. For example, when Pliny recommends the teacher Julius Genitor for the son of his friend Corellia Hispula (Ep. 3.3), Pliny assures her that Genitor will teach her son not only how to speak, but also how to act, prioritising morals over eloquence.7 Understanding and being able to engage with the classical literary canon of Latin and Greek granted access into a privileged group and taught young aristocrats how to behave and think. Education went beyond the curriculum taught at school; in its broader sense literary education included the lifestyle, values, culture, and priorities of the educated class, which in Greek was termed paideia and can be approximated with the Latin terms doctrina (‘teaching’) or disciplina (‘learning’). This was manifested in many ways: literary production and patronage, participation in intellectual and literary networks, letter writing, and copying and publishing contemporaries’ works. A literary education was essential as it allowed aristocrats to participate fully in elite activities and social life. Gallo-Roman aristocrats would show off

258 Alison John their learning through word play and allusions in literature that they would compose and circulate or perform at parties.8 Sidonius recalls such a party in Arles, during Majorian’s reign. He and his fellow guests Lampridius, Domnulus, and Severianus spurred each other on to compose, extempore, verses in various metres about a recent work of the writer and magister epistularum Petrus that had been discussed at the party (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 9.14.4–5). Attending the schools of the grammarian and rhetor could pave the way for successful public careers in the courts and the imperial administration, especially in the expanding imperial bureaucracy of the fourth century.9 It was taken for granted that members of the aristocracy would complete grammatical and rhetorical education, but those of lower standing, or would-be elites, could also improve their position and prospects by virtue of their literary training.10 When Gallo-Roman authors in the fourth century mention education, they tend to emphasise these practical rewards for literary training, linking their schooling to career advancement and explicitly tying education to the interests of the Roman state. We can understand the Roman state’s own awareness of the practical value of literary education through their attitude towards teachers and students in legislation from the Theodosian Code. The imperial government granted exemptions from tax and civic duties to teachers of grammar and rhetoric and occasionally set salaries, established professorships, and oversaw student life in Rome and Constantinople. Teachers were granted such special privileges because the emperors understood that they provided an essential and valuable service to the state. This is stated most explicitly in CTh 13.3.18, which says that exemptions should be granted to physicians and teachers of literature pro necessariis artibus et liberalibus disciplinis (‘because of their necessary arts and liberal instruction’).11 Moreover, while eloquence often helped to advance a public career, it sometimes even served as a prerequisite for a position in the imperial service. For example, in order to obtain a position within the first order of the decuriales in Rome, candidates had to excel in the ‘practice and training of the liberal studies’ and be ‘so polished in the use of letters’ that they could speak grammatically, with no mistakes.12 The emperors were also keen to recruit talented students into their administration. An edict issued by Valentinian in 370 to Olybrius, the urban prefect, stated that the prefect should earmark potential future officials by sending a register of talented students to the emperors each year (CTh 14.9.1). This legislation was a clear message of the value the state placed on literary education, and that students trained in grammar and rhetoric could hope for career advancement within the imperial administration. The practical importance of education, both for the individual and for the state, is also conveyed by Eumenius in his panegyric Pro instaurandis scholis (Pan. Lat. IX (4)), which he delivered in Gaul in the final years of the third century AD.13 In this speech Eumenius, a teacher of rhetoric in Autun, justifies his decision to use his teaching salary to rebuild the town’s school buildings. In doing so he sets out how grammatical and rhetorical education is beneficial to the emperors (Maximian and Constantius) and necessary for the proper running of the Roman state. Eumenius shows how literary and rhetorical training is relevant to future

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

259

careers in the bureaucracy and military (Pan. Lat. IX (4) 5.4; 15.4), and argues that the skills learned at classical schools can be applied to all life’s duties, even a military career (8.2).14 Eumenius emphasises the link between the empire’s military stability to literary education, saying that the emperors will only feel that the Roman state is strong, ‘if not only Roman power but even Roman eloquence flourishes again’ (si non potentia sed etiam eloquentia Romana reuirescat; 19.4). The links, both real and perceived, between the state, office-holding, and education are also expressed by Ausonius. Ausonius was a teacher of grammar and rhetoric in Bordeaux before becoming private tutor to the young Gratian, and later holding offices within the imperial government, including the consulship and Praetorian Prefecture of Gaul. In his Gratiarum Actio Ausonius celebrates his accomplishments culminating in his consulship, drawing a clear line between his education, teaching career and later political success.15 Ausonius hints at his special qualifications that made Gratian bestow such an honour, setting himself apart from the types of people who usually are granted the consulship (Fecisti autem et facies alios quoque consules, piissime Gratiane, sed non et causa pari; Aus. Grat. Act. 4.16) and is careful to emphasise his unique position, saying, quorum me etiamsi non secerno numero, tamen, quod ad honoris viam pertinet, ratione dispertio (4.16). Ausonius reminds his audience that he was Gratian’s tutor (anne quod docui?; 5.24), underlining this important connection between his literary training and his success in politics.16 Ausonius hoped his children and grandchildren would also achieve high honours and illustrious careers. In his Protrepticus ad Nepotem, a poem of encouragement and instruction written for one of his grandsons, Ausonius draws a direct link between literary and rhetorical training and success in the imperial service: . . . aut si inuidia est, sperabo tamen, nec uota fatiscent, ut patris utque mei non inmemor ardua semper praemia musarum cupias facundus et olim hac gradiare via, qua nos praecessimus et cui proconsul genitor, praefectus auunculus instant. or if this be begrudged, yet will I hope – nor shall my prayers grow weary – that, not unmindful of your father and myself, you may ever strive to win through eloquence the hard-won prizes of the Muses, and some day tread this path wherein I have gone before and your father, the proconsul, and your uncle the prefect now press on. (Protr. 39–44) The poem ends with repeated hopes for the bright future of his grandson. The final lines encapsulate the main argument of the poem: study well and you can be consul (hunc tu/effice, ne sit onus, per te ut conixus in altum/conscendas speresque tuos te consule fasces; Aus. Protr. 98–100).17 We should keep in mind that both Eumenius and Ausonius were individuals with a real stake in the survival and prestige of schools of grammar and rhetoric.

260 Alison John Therefore, their testimony may not entirely reflect the typical elite Roman’s attitude towards education in this period. At the same time, however, we should reflect on the fact that two such individuals connected to the pedagogical environment were important political figures, and their work has survived, attesting to the enduring importance of both author and work and to the real connections between pedagogy and power in the later imperial period.18

Education, cultural memory, and elite identity in the fifth century In the fifth century, education took on a specialised significance for Gallo-Roman aristocrats. While their predecessors in the fourth century tended to emphasise the importance of education for career advancement, as we shall see later, for the Gallo-Roman elite in the fifth century literary education had greater ideological and personal value.19 As men like Sidonius, Claudianus Mamertus, and Ruricius of Limoges navigated the political and cultural upheavals of fifth-century Gaul, traditional Roman education could serve as an anchor and lifeline to their Roman past and help them to underline their Roman aristocratic heritage and identity. Classical education, in which memories of the glorious Roman past were deeply embedded and promoted, provided common ground for friendships and networks, and was a key factor in how these Gallo-Roman elites sought to maintain and affirm their aristocratic status and Roman identity amid the uncertainties and transformations of the period. By the second half of the fifth century, the period in which the bulk of the literary evidence and surviving letters of fifth-century Gallo-Roman aristocrats originates, Gallo-Romans had witnessed the ever-increasing expansion of barbarian kingdoms and the ultimate withdrawal of imperial control in Gaul. By this time the north of Gaul had long been essentially out of Roman control, and the situation was exacerbated after the defection of the magister militum Aegidius in 461. The following year Narbonne and its surroundings was granted to the Visigoths,20 and soon after the Burgundian king Gundioc was made magister militum, which gave him a legitimate position to justify the Burgundian expansion into Lyon and along the Rhône.21 After four years of summer sieges on Clermont, the city was granted to the Visigothic king Euric in exchange for Provence in 475, and only two years later the western Roman empire would ‘fall’, when Odoacer deposed the emperor Romulus. Even before these major political turning points, Sidonius, Claudianus, and Ruricius had grown up in a Gaul where Visigoths, Burgundians, and other barbarian groups already played a significant role in politics and defence, were forming close connections with Gallo-Roman elites, and exercised increasing influence in daily life. In the mid 450s Sidonius’ father-in-law Avitus had been made emperor, albeit briefly, with the support of the Visigoths who had settled and controlled Toulouse and its surroundings, and Sidonius had visited the court in Toulouse as a young man.22 In the 460s both the Visigoths and Burgundians even interfered in local Church affairs. In 462 the Visigoths appealed to pope Hilarius in Rome over the consecration of bishop

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

261

Hermes in Narbonne, and a year later the Burgundians opposed the election of Marcellus as bishop of Die.23 Throughout these decades of political turbulence and cultural change, GalloRomans still had some tangible connections to the central imperial government in Rome. Sidonius, for example, was Urban Prefect in 468, and during the same period the Council of the Seven Provinces, which met at Arles, referred Arvandus’ case of treason against Rome to a higher court, the senate, in Rome itself. Nevertheless, men like Sidonius could not have but felt the tides of change, and the attitudes of Gallo-Roman elites towards classical education, as expressed in their epistolary exchanges, had altered markedly from previous periods. Without the superstructure of the Roman empire, the practical value of education had greatly diminished. Eloquence and rhetorical prowess could certainly be useful for a bishop, and basic literacy and legal training was an asset within the administrations of barbarian kingdoms, but the fundamental connection between literary training and cultural prestige and political power faltered with the fall of the western empire and the withdrawal of centralised imperial power in Gaul.24 Amid this changing socio-political landscape, the classical schools acquired a new significance for Gallo-Roman aristocrats. We see in the correspondence of Gallo-Roman aristocrats the increasingly personal and private value of education, as opposed to the public value that literary training had under the Roman empire. For example, in their letters Gallo-Romans idolise teachers of grammar and rhetoric, defining them as the champions of Rome’s cultural heritage and, in this way, custodians of elite Roman identity. Claudianus sees the teacher Sapaudus as the last hope for doctrina and the os Romanum in Gaul,25 and Sidonius likewise credits the teacher Johannes with the preservation and revitalisation of literary culture in Gaul and dubs him Latin’s ‘reviver’, ‘promoter’, and ‘champion’ (suscitator, fautor, assertor), who alone, ‘amid the storms of war has enabled Latin speech to gain a haven of refuge, although Latin arms have suffered shipwreck’ (Ep. 8.2.1).26 In this same letter Sidonius clearly articulates why the efforts of Johannes, and other teachers like him, are so precious to men like Sidonius. In the later fifth century, literary education and paideia provided a new measure of nobility and took on a new significance for Gallo-Roman aristocrats. Sidonius claims, ‘for now that the old degrees of official rank are swept away, those degrees by which the highest in the land used to be distinguished from the lowest, the only token of nobility will henceforth be a knowledge of letters’ (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 8.2.2).27 This letter to Johannes is almost certainly dated to c. 478.28 By this time Sidonius had lived through four consecutive summers in Clermont under siege by the Visigoths, and witnessed its ultimate transferral to Visigothic hands, had been exiled by the Visigothic king from his bishopric, and the last emperor had been deposed and Italy was under the rule of the barbarian king, Odovacer. While Sidonius had previously hinted at this idea (namely, that it was education in particular that conferred nobility) in letters from 469/70 to Philagrius (Ep. 7.14.7),29 and to Syagrius (Ep. 5.5.1),30 it is only later, in his letter to Johannes in the post-imperial context, that Sidonius fully develops and explicitly expresses such feelings.31

262 Alison John In a letter to the teacher Hesperius in the late 470s, Ruricius of Limoges conveys a similar sentiment about the value and necessity of literary education in shaping the minds of his sons and establishing their status among the Gallo-Roman nobility.32 Ruricius, writing as a parent with concerns for his family’s prestige, places great value in Hesperius’ role as a teacher of grammar and rhetoric, and tells Hesperius that his sons would ‘indeed lose their nobility if they did not have you as an example’ (Rur. Ep. 1.3).33 Gallo-Roman aristocrats in the fifth century could invest such importance in education because classical schools did not just teach young Romans the literary canon; they also shaped their broader aristocratic behaviours and thoughts, showing them who and how they ought to be. Grammatical and rhetorical education taught students how to act and think as a member of the elite classes, what the proper world view was, and how they should situate themselves and others in Roman society.34 In addition to teaching students to read, write, and speak, teachers of grammar and rhetoric gave their students the tools with which to understand their own place within Roman society and know what it meant to be ‘Roman’. As mentioned earlier, the ‘curriculum’ of the Roman schools by the fourth and fifth centuries had largely remained unchanged since Quintilian codified it in the first century AD. Most of the principal school texts that were used in the late antique west were produced in the Republican or early imperial periods, such as the works of Terence, Cicero, Virgil, or Sallust.35 In his letter of advice to his young grandson, Ausonius lists some of the authors that will be read in school, including Homer, Menander, Valerius Flaccus, Virgil, Terence, and Sallust (Aus. Protr. 45–63). Another grandchild of Ausonius, Paulinus of Pella, recalls reading the dogmata Socratus, Homer, and Virgil as a young boy in Gaul (Paul. Pell. Euch. 72–80). Almost a century later, Sidonius was reading Menander and Terence with his son (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 4.12),36 and Claudianus Mamertus advocated a reading list of traditional, canonical authors for the teacher Sapaudus and his students, namely Naevius and Plautus, Cato, Varro, Gracchus, Chrysippus, Fronto, and Cicero (Claud. Mam. Ep. 205 l. 30–206 l.3).37 It is significant that late antique students continued to be brought up mainly or exclusively on literature of the Republic and early empire, rather than on more contemporary authors. Through such ancient and established texts, fourth- and fifth-century students not only learned the ‘correct’ form and style of Latin but were also immersed in Roman history and long-entrenched, traditional ideas of Roman society and values. The centrality of such texts in boyhood, especially the school text par excellence, Virgil’s Aeneid, which dramatises and glorifies the founding of the Roman empire, meant that a specific collective cultural memory of ‘Rome’ would be perpetuated throughout these students’ lives and would inform how they conceived of themselves and their place within the long arc of Rome’s history. A collective cultural memory of ‘Rome’ and its values was also at the heart of rhetorical education. Students imitated the style and argumentation of these canonical authors at rhetorical schools through practice speeches, or declamations.38 Students composed and delivered speeches in public in which they deliberated points of law revolving around fictional cases of ‘stock’ figures from

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

263

Roman society, such as sons who inherit wealth, or wronged women or slaves. These types of speeches reinforced social values and taught the young elite the proper modes of authority and social hierarchy in Roman society. As Bloomer remarks in his important contribution on Roman education, declaimers were playing at the grandest role in Roman society, not that of the emperor (which was not an ambition to acknowledge) but that of the orator, the man who speaks to defend his friends, reunite the family, repair society, and champion Roman values. As little Ciceros, the speakers place themselves at the apogee of an imaginary Roman society, in a sort of idealized, frozen republicanism where the chief virtue and the end of life is the doing of beneficia to clients through speech to the acclamation of the society at large.39 In this way, preparing such speeches not only trained students for law courts and bureaucracy, but it also made them aware of their place in society and of their role as the future governing class of the empire. In other types of declamations students gave voice to a set of famous characters from Roman history and myth, which helped to create and instill a collective cultural memory of ‘Rome’ and show students their place within Roman history and society.40 Juvenal, for example, wondered how many more times Roman audiences would have to hear students advising Hannibal (Sat. 7. 160–67, cf. 10. 167– 68). Centuries later, the same practice of reimagining key events in Roman history was taking place in Gaul. As mentioned earlier, Sidonius sends well wishes to his young friend Burgundio in advance of a declamation Burgundio will perform, in which he will praise the exploits of Julius Caesar (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 9.14.7–8).41 Sidonius hopes that Burgundio will rise to the occasion and be able to match the works of famous authors who also wrote on the topic, such as Livy, Suetonius, Juventius Martialis, and Balbus: quae materia tam grandis est, ut studentum si quis fuerit ille copiosissimus, nihil amplius in ipsa debeat cauere, quam ne quid minus dicat. nam si omittantur quae de titulis dictatoris inuicti scripta Patauinis sunt uoluminibus, quis opera Suetonii, quis Iuuentii Martialis historiam quisue ad extremum Balbi ephemeridem fando adaequauerit? The subject is so colossal that even the most eloquent of students must guard against one thing particularly – the danger of not rising to the occasion. For if we leave out of account all that is recorded of the invincible dictator’s glories in the books of Livy, what author’s style could match the works of Suetonius, the history of Iuventius Martialis, and lastly the journal of Balbus? (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 9.14.7) The student Burgundio is not only tasked with learning about and speaking the praises of one of the most famous figures in Roman history, but he is also able to interact with Roman literary history and find a place and voice for himself within it. Moreover, declamations did not only reinforce a collective memory of

264 Alison John Rome for the students performing, but also for the audience and wider public. Sidonius refers to Burgundio’s performance as a ‘public examination’ (palaestra publici examines; 9.14.9) and promises to gather an audience to listen and critique his effort. In this way rhetorical education continued to evoke a specific idea of ‘Romanness’ and to promote a shared cultural memory of Rome’s past far beyond the years spent at school.42 Because of this strong link between education and ‘Romanness’, Gallo-Romans in the fifth century were able to look to their schools and literary training as an anchor, or solid link, to their Roman heritage and identity. Classical literary education cultivated a collective cultural memory by instilling in students the notion of a personal connection to Rome’s mythical and historic past. This shared cultural identity not only connected students to their past, but also to one another. As we have seen, education could shape and define elite identity. Memories of school days, shared classroom experiences, and common literary interests also gave Gallo-Romans tangible links to each other and helped them to form and cement friendships and networks in adult life.43 Such networks would prove even more valuable for Gallo-Roman aristocrats in the changing political and cultural environments of fifth-century Gaul. Sidonius, for example, can attribute his close bond to his cousin Probus not only to family ties but also to shared intellectual and literary tastes (studiorum parilitas), which both men would have first cultivated under the guidance of their masters of grammar and rhetoric. According to Sidonius, he and Probus, ‘have the same taste in literary matters, praising and blaming the same things, and are always at one in approval or disapproval of any particular form of diction’ (idem sentimus culpamus laudamus in litteris et aeque nobis quaelibet dictio placet improbaturque; Sid. Apoll. Ep. 4.1.1). Similarly, Sidonius and Avitus, the recipient of the first letter of the third book of Sidonius’ correspondence and a relative of the emperor Eparchius Avitus, were united not only by blood, but also because they were ‘born in the same times, studied under the same teachers, were trained in the same accomplishments, amused (themselves) with the same sports, received advancement under the same emperors and passed through the same state service’ (ipsi isdem temporibus nati magistris usi, artibus institute lusibus otiati, principibus euecti stipendiis perfuncti sumus; Sid. Apoll. Ep. 3.1.1). Furthermore, not only were the grandfathers of Sidonius and a certain Aquilinus united by ‘their literary pursuits and dignities’ (laudabili familiaritate coniunxerart litterarum dignitatum; Sid. Apoll. Ep. 5.9.1), but the grandsons were likewise linked, largely because of their shared school experiences and memories. Sidonius recalls in his letter to Aquilinus, ‘the same school drilled us, the same master taught us, the same joys cheered us, the same strictness checked us, the same training moulded us’ (unus nos exercuit ludus, magister instituit; una nos Laetitia dissoluit, seueritas cohercuit, disciplina formauit; Sid. Apoll. Ep. 5.9.3). For Sidonius, shared education and literary tastes were second only to blood ties in cementing bonds that lasted throughout adulthood. These bonds that were formed during school helped to establish the connections that would be crucial for the status, reputation, and

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

265

careers of Sidonius and other Gallo-Romans of the governing classes in the later fifth century. Moreover, because the system of literary education was standard throughout the empire, in adulthood friendships and connections could be made with members of this educated elite from different cities or provinces on the basis of shared school experience and literary taste.44 Perhaps one of the defining features of the system of classical education was that it was standard throughout the empire and had remained largely unchanged since the first century AD. In this way education, and memories of one’s schooldays, helped unify and define the elite Roman world, and as Robert Kaster remarks in his seminal contribution on the role of grammarians in late antique society, education ‘provide[d] the language and mores through which a social and political elite recognized its members’.45 Roman aristocrats could turn to the friendships and networks forged with their peers in their later careers.46 Romans could use their education and reputation for eloquence to make connections with influential people, especially when moving to a new town or seeking employment in the courts or imperial administration. Roman aristocrats had long relied on networks of friends and acquaintances to further their careers or prospects, and their common culture and experience of paideia facilitated these connections. In letters of introduction, benefactors would cite the subject’s literary abilities and educational achievements as a way of advertising their skills, moral merits, and membership of the elite class. Ennodius of Pavia, for example, took a keen interest in Deuterius’ school in Milan, and wrote letters of recommendation for his young friends after they had ‘graduated’.47 In this way, classical literary education, both the actual time spent at the schools of the grammarians and rhetors, the memories school, and the shared experiences across the empire, was integral in establishing friendships and networks among the governing classes of the Roman world. Education linked elite Romans not only to each other, but also to the idea and memory of ‘Rome’.

Conclusion For centuries throughout the Roman empire, literary education had been considered useful and necessary for careers, and explicitly connected to cultural prestige and public office. Both aristocrats and would-be elites could reliably presume that sending their children to learn grammar and rhetoric would help them to get better jobs, make connections, or improve their social standing. By the mid-to-late fifth century, there was a shift in the way education is valued, and how Gallo-Romans perceived it. Increasingly, literary education was appreciated primarily for its personal and ideological value in shaping and preserving elite Roman identity, language, and culture. Through close study of canonical Roman and Greek authors under the guidance of grammarians, and practice speeches in which students reimagined events and impersonated real and fictional characters from Roman society and history, classical schools fostered a common cultural memory of ‘Rome’. By immersion in the literature of their ancestors, and by re-imagining key moments in Roman history through

266 Alison John declamations, young men could connect themselves to their cultural inheritance and find a place for themselves within Rome’s journey through history. The curriculum of the classical schools ensured that students felt the presence and weight of the Roman past. In the shifting cultural and political worlds of fifth-century Gaul, this inherent feature of classical education took on special significance, and shared experience in classical schools became integral not only for anchoring Gallo-Romans to their past but also to their own identity and to each other.

Notes 1 For this line of argument, and especially for the connection between the weakening of the political superstructure of the Roman empire and the disappearance of classical education as a ‘public’ institution in late antique Gaul, see my PhD dissertation, ‘Learning and Power: A Cultural History of Education in Late Antique Gaul’ (defended September 2018, University of Edinburgh). 2 The three-stage system of literary education, while never standardised or overseen by any authority, was nevertheless standard across the Roman empire, from east to west, and remained largely unchanged throughout the imperial period, from Quintilian to Ausonius and Sidonius. For the fluidity of this overall system, see Kaster 1983. 3 For elementary education in the ancient world cf. Kaster 1983; Booth 1978, 1979, 1981; Bonner 1977: 34–46, 115–145, 165–188; Marrou 1956: 358–368. For education in the post-Roman west, see Riché 1962. 4 For grammar and grammarians see especially Kaster 1988; Morgan 1998: 152–189; Bonner 1977: 189–249; Marrou 1956: 369–380. 5 For rhetoric and rhetors see Morgan 1998: 190–239; Bonner 1977: 250–327; Marrou 1956: 381–387; for Libanius and rhetoric in the late antique eastern empire see especially Cribiore 2001, 2007, 2013, and also Van Hoof 2013, 2014. 6 Cf. Quint. Inst. 10.1.39. For the role of Cicero’s speeches in Roman education, see La Bua 2019. 7 proinde fauentibus dis trade eum praeceptori, a quo mores primum mox eloquentiam discat, quae male sine moribus discitur, Plin. Ep. 3.3.7 (‘So with the gods’ support you must entrust him to the teacher from whom he is to learn first upright behaviour, and then eloquence. One cannot properly learn the second without the first.’) Text is from Mynors 1963. Translation is from Walsh 2006. 8 For example, Ausonius’ Technop., Ludus, and his letter to Axius Paulus that switches between Greek and Latin (Ep. 6). On this letter, see John 2022. Also, cf. the ‘literary salons’ at the home of Claudianus Mamertus (Sid. Apoll. Ep. 4.11). 9 For education and office holding, see Brown 1992: 35–70; Kaster 1988: 28–31, esp. n.74; MacMullen 1962: 367–368, esp. n.16; Haarhoff 1920: 124–131; Van Hoof 2013. Jones 1964: 512–513, 527, 990; Cribiore 2001, 2009; Sanchez Vendramini 2016. Some individuals, such as notaries or autodidacts, could gain advancement without formal literary training in grammar and rhetoric. Cf. Kaster 1988: 47–50; Teitler 1985; Hopkins 1974. Such individuals annoyed Libanius: Or. 42.23–24; Or. 62.46. Cribiore 2009: 237–238. 10 Sidonius remarks that Paeonius, though of ‘municipal stock’, became vicarius of the Seven Provinces and then praetorian prefect (Ep.1.11.5). And Gaudentius was able to rise in the imperial ranks not because of his birth or status, but because of proving his abilities at court (Ep. 1.4.1). 11 Cf. CTh 14.1.1; 6.26.1. 12 CTh 14.1.1, issued in 360 by Constantius and Julian. (in decuriarum ordine insigni, cui librariorum vel fiscalium sive censualium nomen est, nequaquam aliquis locum primi ordinis adipiscatur nisi is, quem constiterit studiorum liberalium usu adque

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

13

14

15 16 17 18

19

20 21 22 23

267

exercitatione pollere et ita esse litteris expolitum, ut citra offensam vitii ex eodem verba procedant). Excellence in literary studies could also earn such a candidate a ‘more honorable rank’ (ne autem litteraturae, quae omnium virtutum maxima est, praemia denegentur, eum, qui studiis et eloquio dignus primo loco videbitur, honestiorem faciet nostra provisio sublimitate). Text is from the edition of Mommsen & Meyer 1905. Translations are by Pharr, Pharr, and Davidson 1952. Text of Eumenius Pan. Lat IX (4) is from Mynors 1964. Translations are from Nixon & Rodgers 1994. On the date and location of the speech see Rees 2002: 133–134; Nixon & Rodgers 1994: 147–148; Rodgers 1989: 266; Gibson & Rees 2013: 151. On Eumenius’ panegyric, see also La Bua 2010 and Van Sickle 1934. Quae [sc. Continentiae modestiae uigilantiae patientiae (preceding clause)] uniuersa cum in consuetudinem tenera aetate uenerunt, omnia deinceps fficial uitae et ad ipsa quae diuersissima uidentur militae atque castrorum munia conualescunt (‘All of these (sc. Self-control, moderation, vigilance and patience), when they become habitual at a tender age, grow strong thereafter in the face of all of life’s duties, even the very one which seems the most divorced from them, the service of military life and the camps’). Aus. Grat. Act. 4.16–17; 5.24. Cf. Aurelius Victor, who was from a humble background but went to school and thereby gained positions within the imperial bureaucracy, such as a consular governorship and urban prefecture (Aur. Vict. De vir. Ill. 20.5). Text of Ausonius in this chapter is from Green 1999. Translations are from EvelynWhite 1919–1921. ‘This render thou no load, but by thine own efforts struggle to climb on high and hope for thine own insignia, thine own consulate.’ See Brown 1992 for ideas of ‘pedagogy and power’. On the question of how far we are to believe literary figures’ insistence on the importance of literary culture in aristocratic life and identity, see Woolf 2003 for the first and second centuries AD. Also see Cribiore 2009 for the actual evidence of literary education among governors in the world of Libanius and the late antique east, and Heather 1994 for the changing uses of literacy in the late- and post-Roman world. On this theme see Mathisen 1993: 105–118; for example, ‘During the barbarian occupation of the Roman west, such [literary] pursuits seem to have attained an even greater importance’ (105) and ‘in late Roman Gaul participating in literary pursuits came to play an even larger role than before as a determinant of aristocratic status’ (109). Mathisen argues against the (then) widely held scholarly assumption that literary culture was in decline in the fifth century, demonstrating that contemporary claims of literary decline should not be taken at face value. He argues that they reflect, if anything, a quantitative decline, rather than a qualitative decline in literary ambitions, resulting from the ‘contemporary retrenchment’ (108) of the school system in the fifth century [a viewpoint which he pivots away from in later publications; e.g. Mathisen 2005. Cf. n. 25]. In this chapter, Mathisen argues for education’s role in fostering a ‘sense of superiority’ (108) among Gallo-Roman elites, and a ‘cultural rallying point against the barbarians’ (110) – issues related to but distinct from the arguments of this present chapter. This treaty was handled by Agrippinus, who replaced Aegidius after Aegidius revolted against Ricimer and Libius Severus. Hydat., Chron. 212, s.a. 462, ut Gothorum meretur auxilia. See Shanzer & Wood 2002: 13–27: Gundioc was vir illustis magister militum (per Gallias), as recorded during episcopal election at Die in 462/3, Epistolae Arelatenses Genuinae 19, MGH Epp. 3. Cf. Sidonius’ description of Theodoric, Ep. 1.2. See Harries 1994: 101–102 for Sidonius’ carefully balanced relationship with the Visigoths. For Roman-Barbarian relations in general in Gaul, see Mathisen 1993: 27–35, 67–85, 119–131. Harries 1994: 133–140.

268 Alison John 24 Mathisen 2005 suggests an alternative picture of the use of literary training in late- and post-Roman Gaul, arguing that classical schools continued to exist in Gaul into the seventh century, and argues for the continued relevance of grammatical and rhetorical training for the barbarian administrations and the Church. Mathisen’s conclusions are problematic, largely because they are based on incorrect prosopographical data about the number of teachers in Gaul in late antiquity, and do not take into account the reality of the levels of literacy that would have been required by power brokers in the post-Roman world (i.e. barbarian kingdoms and the Church). For a refutation of these views, see John 2022. For a discussion of the relationship between Roman literary education and power brokers in late- and post-imperial Gaul, see my PhD dissertation, ‘Learning and Power: A Cultural History of Education in Late Antique Gaul’ (defended September 2018, University of Edinburgh). 25 Claud. Mam. Ep. 2: quorum egomet studiorum quasi quandam mortem flebili uelut epitaphio tumularem, nisi tute eadem uenerabili professione, laudabili sollertia, acri ingenio, profluente eloquio resuscitauisses . . . hinc uero procul iniuria ceterorum penes Galliam nostram professionis tuae par unus et solus es. (‘I would bury these studies, as though dead, with a tearful epitaph, as it were, if you had not resuscitated them with this very venerable profession, praiseworthy skill, sharp intellect, and fluent eloquence . . . But as it is, without injustice to others, you are the one and only equal to your profession within our Gaul.’) Text is from the critical edition of Engelbrecht. Translations are my own. 26 . . . teque per Gallias uno magistro sub hac tempestate bellorum Latina tenuerunt ora portum, cum pertulerint arma naufragium. Cf. Sidonius on Hesperius’ preservation of proper Latin forms; Ep. 2.10.1. Latin text throughout this chapter is from Loyen 1970. Translations are from Anderson 1936, 1965. 27 nam iam remotis gradibus dignitatum, per quas solebat ultimo a quoque summus quisque discerni, solum erit posthac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse. 28 This date is agreed upon by various editors and commentators of Sidonius’ letters, including Baret 1878 and Dalton 1915. Loyen 1960–1970 and the PLRE II.601 (‘Ioannes 30’) date the letter from 476–477, and Kaufmann 1995 to the period from 470–478. 29 conclamata sunt namque iudicio universali scientiae dignitas virtus praerogativa, cuius ad maximum culmen meritorum gradibus ascenditur (Ep. 7.14.7). 30 Sidonius says Syagrius’ grandfather would have been famous by his literary pursuits, even if he had not held high office: cum sis igitur e semine poetae, cui procul dubio statuas dederant litterae, si trabeae non dedissent (Ep. 5.5.1). 31 Ennodius expresses something similar in the early sixth century, when he says (at Dict. 8.4) to a teacher of relatives of his from Gaul: tibi uni concessum est claritatem aut dare aut reparare maiorum. 32 This is the same teacher Hesperius to whom Sidonius wrote. This letter from Ruricius is dated to 475/480. 33 quae utique in tanta rerum confusione amitterent nobilitatem, si indicem non haberent (‘amid such worldly confusion they would indeed lose their nobility if they did not have you as an example’). Text of Ruricius throughout this chapter is from Engelbrecht 1891. Translations are from Mathisen 1999. 34 Cf. La Bua 2019; Watts 2012, 2015; Bloomer 1997. Cribiore 2001: 8–9, in reference to Greek education in Greco-Roman Egypt, sees the school system as ‘an agent of social, cultural, and political continuity. . . . Learning some skills and elements of a cultural patrimony went hand in hand with assimilation of and submission to the rules of the dominant order.’ Cf. Nixon 2012: 223–239 for the role the Panegyrici Latini played in forming the political attitudes of the youth in Gallic schools in the fourth century. 35 On such canonical texts, cf. Cassiod. Inst. 1.15.7; Sid. Apoll. Carm. 2.182–192. 36 On this letter, see Courcelle 1969: 254–255; Amherdt 1999: 305–313; Lafaye 1916: 18–32.

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

269

37 Naeuius et Plautus tibi ad elegantiam, Cato ad grauitatem, Varro ad peritiam, Gracchus ad acrimoniam, Chrysippus as disciplinam, Fronto ad prompam, Cicero ad eloquentiam capessendam usui sint. On Sidonius’ and Claudianus’ differing reading preferences see Pelttari 2020. 38 The more rudimentary speeches were called progymnasmata, speeches revolving around imaginary legal cases were controversiae, and those about famous characters from history and myth were suasoriae. 39 Bloomer 2011: 173. Also cf. Corbeill 2007: 69: addressing the challenges offered by Beard 1993, who suggests that the Roman declamatory exercises of the first centuries CE function as ‘cultural myth-making’. Declamation, that is, uses a restricted set of fictional scenarios to work out – through continual study, rehearsal, and performance – what it means to be ‘Roman’. . . . [it] ultimately serves to recreate and reinforce social and political hierarchies. 40 For the use of the historic, but also more recent, past in the Panegyrici Latini, see Nixon 1990. For a study of Sidonius’ use of historic exempla in Ep. 7.7, a letter to Bishop Graecus on the eve of the ceding of Clermont to the Visigoths, see Mratschek 2013. For a larger study of the uses of the past in the creation of elite status and self-fashioning, see Meurer 2019, whose work I only became aware of in the final editing phase of this chapter. 41 namque imminet tibi thematis celeberrimi uotiua redhibitio, laus uidelicet peroranda, quam meditaris, Caesaris Iulii . . . officii magis est nostri auditoribus scamma componere, praeparare aures fragoribus intonaturis, dumque uirtutes tu dicis alienas, nos tuas dicere (‘An ideal chance will shortly be yours of repaying me by means of your exercise on an illustrious theme, I mean the laudatory declamation on Julius Caesar which you are composing.’) 42 On the theory of ‘cultural memory’ see especially Galinsky 2015: 2, who articulates how traditions and collective memories contribute to the formation of identity: What, then, about ‘cultural memory’ specifically? The concept, even if used quite generally at times, has become a commonplace since it was articulated by Jan Assmann. Put succinctly, it denotes an ensemble of cultural traditions and practices and their manifestations in a variety of media, such as text, art, cult, and festivals, constituting ‘the way of remembering chosen by a community, the collective idea of the meaning of past events and of their embeddedness within temporal processes’ all with an obvious relation to identity formation.

43 44 45 46 47

For a quick summary of various ways ‘Roman’ was used to signify identity in the late and post-Roman period (i.e. political, religious, ethnic, familial, legal, cultural, or personal ‘identities’), see Mathisen 2018. For experiences of students in the eastern empire, see Watts 2000, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2015: 37–58; Cribiore 2001, 2007; McLynn 2007. For example, Libanius and Symmachus (even though Libanius could not read Latin). Kaster 1988: 14. For friendship, philia developed at school, see Brown 1992: 45–47; McLynn 2007. For example, Ennod. Ep. 9.2, 9.4; 5.9, 5.11; 6.15, 8.38, 9.8.

Bibliography Primary sources Ausonius. Edited by R. Green. 1999. Decimi Magni Ausonii opera: recognovit brevique annotatione critica instruxit. Oxford. Translated by H. Evelyn-White. 1919–1921. Ausonius, 2 vols. LCL, 96, 115. Cambridge, MA.

270 Alison John Claudianus Mamertus. Epistula ad Sapaudum. Edited by A. Engelbrecht. 1885. Claudiani Mamerti Opera, 203–206. CSEL, 11. Vienna. Codex Theodosianus. Edited by Th. Mommsen and P. Meyer. 1905. 2 vols. Berlin: Weidmann. Translated by C. Pharr, with T.S. Davidson and M.B. Pharr. 1952. The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions. Princeton. (Repr. 2001. Union, NJ.). Ennodius of Pavia. Edited by G. Hartel. 1882. Magni Felicis Ennodii Opera Omnia. CSEL, 6. Vienna. Eumenius. Panegyricus IX (4): Pro instaurandis scholis oratio. Edited by R. Mynors. 1964. In XII Panegyrici Latini, 230–243. OCT. Oxford. Translation by C. Nixon and B.S. Rodgers. 1994. In In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini. Introduction, Translation and Historical Commentary, with the Latin Text of R.A.B. Mynors, 151–177. The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, 21. Berkeley. Hydatius. Hydatii Limici Chronica Subdita. Edited by R.W. Burgess. 1993. In The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana: Two Contemporary Accounts of the Final Years of the Roman Empire, 69–123. Oxford. Pliny the Younger. Epistolae. Edited by R. Mynors. 1963. C. Plinii Caecili Secundi: epistolarum libri decem. Oxford. Translated by P.G. Walsh. 2006. Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters. Oxford. Ruricius of Limoges. Epistulae. Edited by A. Engelbrecht. 1891. Fausti Reiensis et Ruricii Opera. CSL 21: 351–450. Vienna. Translated by R. Mathisen. 1999. Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A Collection of Letters from Visigothic Gaul. TTH, 30. Liverpool. Sidonius Apollinarus. Edited by A. Loyen. 1960–1970. Sidoine Apollinaire, 3 vols. Collection des universités de France. Paris. Translated by W. Anderson. 1936, 1965. Sidonius, 2 vols. LCL, 296, 420. Cambridge, MA.

Secondary sources Amherdt, D. 1999. Sidoine Apollinaire: le quatrième livre de la correspondence. Introduction et commentaire. Bern. Baret, E. 1878. C. Soll. Apollinaris Sidonii opera. Paris. Bloomer, W. 1997. ‘Schooling in Persona: Imagination and Subordination in Roman Education.’ ClAnt 16: 57–78. Bloomer, W. 2011. The School of Rome. From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. London. Bonner, S. 1977. Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. London. Booth, A. 1978. ‘Notes on Ausonius’ “Professores.”’ Phoenix 32: 235–249. Booth, A. 1979. ‘Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman Empire.’ Florilegium 1: 1–14. Booth, A. 1981. ‘Litterator.’ Hermes 109: 371–378. Brown, P. 1992. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. Madison. Corbeill, A. 2007. ‘Rhetorical Education and Social Reproduction in the Republic and Early Empire.’ In A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, eds. W. Dominik and J. Hall, 69–82. Maldon, MA. Courcelle, P. 1969. Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources (trans. H. Wedeck). Cambridge, MA. Cribiore, R. 2001. Gynmnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton, NJ.

Cultural memory in Late Antique Gaul

271

Cribiore, R. 2007. The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton, NJ. Cribiore, R. 2009. ‘The Value of a Good Education: Libanius and Public Authority.’ In A Companion to Late Antiquity, ed. P. Rousseau, 233–245. Oxford. Cribiore, R. 2013. Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality and Religion in the Fourth Century. Cornell. Dalton, O. 1915. The Letters of Sidonius, 2 vols. Oxford. Galinsky, K. 2015. ‘Introduction.’ In Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire, eds. K. Galinsky and K. Lapatin, 1–22. Los Angeles. Gibson, R. and R. Rees. 2013. ‘Introduction: Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity.’ Arethusa 46 (2): 141–165. Haarhoff, T. 1920. Schools of Gaul: A Study of Pagan and Christian Education in the Last Century of the Western Empire. London. Harries, J. 1994. Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome. Oxford. Heather, P. 1994. ‘Literacy and Power in the Migration Period.’ In Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, eds. A. Bowman and G. Woolf, 177–197. Cambridge. Hopkins, K. 1974. ‘Elite Mobility in the Roman Empire.’ In Studies in Ancient Society, ed. M. Finley, 103–120. London. John, A. Forthcoming, 2022. ‘(Mis)Identifying Teachers in Late Antique Gaul. Sidonius’ Ep. 4.11, Mamertus Claudianus and Classical vs. Christian Education.’ Mnemosyne (published online ahead of print, 2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525X-BJA10073. Jones, A. 1964. The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 3 vols. Oxford. Kaster, R. 1983. ‘Notes on Primary and Secondary Schools in Late Antiquity.’ TAPhA 113: 323–346. Kaster, R. 1988. Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity. Berkeley. Kaufmann, F.-M. 1995. Studien zu Sidonius Apollinaris. Frankfurt. La Bua, G. 2010. ‘Patronage and Education in Third-Century Gaul: Eumenius’ Panegyric for the Restoration of the Schools.’ JLA 3: 300–315. La Bua, G. 2019. Cicero and Roman Education. The Reception of the Speeches and Ancient Scholarship. Cambridge. Lafaye, G. 1916. ‘Le modèle de Térence dans l’Hécyre.’ RPh 40: 18–32. Loyen, A. 1960–1970. Sidoine Apollinaire, 3 vols. Collection des universités de France. Paris. MacMullen, R. 1962. ‘Roman Bureaucratese.’ Traditio 18: 365–378. Marrou, H. 1956. A History of Education in Antiquity (trans. G. Lamb). New York. Mathisen, R. 1993. Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition. Austin. Mathisen, R. 2005. ‘Bishops, Barbarians, and the “Dark Ages”. The Fate of Late Roman Educational Institutions in Late Antique Gaul.’ In Medieval Education, eds. R.B. Begley and J.W. Koterski, 3–19. New York. Mathisen, R. 2018. ‘“Roman” Identity in Late Antiquity, with Special Attention to Gaul.’ In Transformations of Romanness: Early Middle Regions and Identities, eds. W. Pohl, C. Gantner, C. Grifoni, and M. Pollheimer-Mohaupt, 255–274. Berlin. McLynn, N. 2007. ‘Disciplines and Discipleship in Late Antique Education: Augustine and Gregory of Nazianzen.’ In Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions, eds. K. Pollmann and M. Vessey, 49–65. Oxford. Meurer, T. 2019. Vergangenes verhandeln. Spätantike Statusdiskurse senatorischer Eliten in Gallien und Italien. Berlin. Morgan, T. 1998. Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Cambridge.

272 Alison John Mratschek, S. 2013. ‘Creating Identity from the Past: The Construction of History in the Letters of Sidonius.’ In New Approaches to Sidonius Apollinaris, eds. J. Van Waarden and G. Kelly, 249–271. Leuven. Nixon, C. 1990. ‘The Use of the Past by the Gallic Panegyrists.’ In Reading the Past in Late Antiquity, ed. G. Clarke, 1–36. Rushcutters Bay. Nixon, C. 2012. ‘Latin Panegyric in the Tetrarchic and Constantinian Period.’ In Latin Panegyric, ed. R. Rees, 223–239. Oxford. Nixon, C. and B.S. Rodgers. 1994. In Praise of the Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini. Introduction, Translation, and Historical Commentary, with the Latin Text of R.A.B. Mynors. Berkeley. Pelttari, A. 2020. ‘The Rhetor Sapaudus and Conflicting Literary Models in Sidonius Apollinaris and Claudianus Mamertus.’ In Lo specchio del modello. Orizzonti intertestuali e Fortleben di Sidonio Apollinare, eds. M. Onorato and A. Di Stefano, 191–210. Naples. Rees, R. 2002. Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric, AD 289–307. Oxford. Riché, P. 1962. Éducation et culture dans l’Occident barbare: VIe-VIIIe siècles, 2nd edn. Paris. Rodgers, B. 1989. ‘Eumenius of Augustodunum.’ AncSoc 20: 249–262. Sanchez Vendramini, N. 2016. ‘Paideia and Self-Fashioning in Ammianus Marcellinus.’ Histos 10: 34–64. Shanzer, D. and I. Wood. 2002. Avitus of Vienne. Letters and Selected Prose. Liverpool. Teitler, H. 1985. Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.D.). Amsterdam. Van Hoof, L. 2013. ‘Performing Paideia: Greek Culture as an Instrument for Social Promotion in the Fourth Century A.D.’ CQ 63: 387–406. Van Hoof, L. (ed). 2014. Libanius: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge. Van Sickle, C. 1934. ‘Eumenius and the Schools of Autun.’ AJPh 55: 236–243. Watts, E. 2000. ‘The Late Antique Student’s Perspective on Educational Life.’ NECJ 27: 73–78. Watts, E. 2004. ‘Student Travel to Intellectual Centres: What Was the Attraction?’ In Travel, Communication, and Geography in Late Antiquity, eds. L. Ellis and F. Kidner, 12–23. Aldershot. Watts, E. 2006. City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. Berkeley. Watts, E. 2012. ‘Education: Speaking, Thinking, and Socializing.’ In The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. S. Johnson, 467–479. Oxford. Watts, E. 2015. The Final Pagan Generation. Oakland. Woolf, G. 2003. ‘The City of Letters.’ In Rome the Cosmopolis, eds. C. Edwards and G. Woolf, 203–221. Cambridge.

15 ‘Some power unseen’ Gothic agency, god, and creation in John Mason Good’s Lucretius Sean Moreland

Introduction This chapter situates the translation of Lucretius (1805) by English physician, theologian, and popular science writer John Mason Good (1764–1827), as well as its critical influence and reception, in the broader context of both the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British Gothic romance and Good’s engagements with contemporaneous political, theological, and natural historical debates. Good’s English translation was based on the Latin edition of Gilbert Wakefield, which was included, on facing pages, with Good’s English in the 1805 edition. Despite its tendentious interpretations, Good’s Lucretius was the most widely read English translation of De rerum natura across the nineteenth century. While it has received little contemporary critical attention, its importance as a source for not only writers including Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, but also theologians and theistic scientists and historians, make it a crucially important text for understanding Lucretius’ nineteenth-century reception. The first section of the chapter highlights how two earlier English translators, Lucy Hutchinson and Thomas Creech, shaped the context of Lucretius’ eighteenth-century English reception, focusing particularly on how each of these translators renders Lucretius’ depiction of religio in relation to their own religious and political views, thereby policing distinctions between ‘real’ religion and superstition. The second considers how the resultant distinctions between religion and superstition were reflected both by early British Gothic writings and Good’s contemporaneous interpretations of Lucretius. The third section explores how Good’s translation relies on Burkean Gothic aesthetics to marry Epicurean philosophy and nineteenth-century scientific materialism to creationist theology. The Gothic sensibility of Good’s translation informs his revision of the Lactantian distinction between ‘true’ religion and superstition, as he defends his consistent translation of religio as ‘superstition’ by copiously arguing that De rerum natura, the Bible, and the scientific world view are mutually reinforcing. The conclusion outlines how Good’s inventive interpretations influenced later nineteenth-century transatlantic intellectual culture, shaping not just Lucretius’ Victorian reception, but that of evolutionary and cosmological theory. DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-18

274

Sean Moreland

‘Religions ape’: religion and superstition in Hutchinson’s and Creech’s Lucretius The wide influence of Good’s Lucretius across the nineteenth century can be brought into focus by contextualising the more dramatic departures between his translation and those of earlier English translators. The first complete English translation of De rerum natura (DRN) to be published was written by a young Oxford don named Thomas Creech (1659–1700), and its first edition appeared in 1682, more than 20 years after the Restoration of Charles II. The earlier translation of and commentary on Book I by English poet and diarist John Evelyn (1620–1706) published in 1656 was known to and admired by Creech. Evelyn wrote a poetic paean for the second edition (1683) of Creech’s translation that suggests his high estimation of the work, while underlining the Royalist convictions the two men shared: So you the rich Lucretius (Unknown to th’English world) bravely have made Your Own. And by just title, you deserve the Crown. (emphasis original)1 However, Evelyn’s crowning of Creech ignores the fact that 30 years before Creech’s translation saw print, during the Interregnum (1649–1660), the Puritan poet and republican Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681) completed a translation of all six books, presenting them to her benefactor, Arthur Annesley, Earle of Anglesey. Hutchinson discouraged Lord Anglesey from publishing her translation, and her commentaries make clear her desire to distance herself from the dangerous ideas of the Roman Epicurean. Hutchinson’s translation would not see wide publication until the end of the twentieth century, although it was available for consultation in the British Library by the mid-nineteenth. Nevertheless, while Hutchinson’s translation itself was unavailable to most readers for three centuries, her other writings drew upon, and warned readers against, Lucretius in ways that would profoundly affect his subsequent British reception. While Hutchinson condemned Lucretius’ atomist philosophy, which she understood as inextricably atheistic, she was sympathetic with his many criticisms of both Roman pagan religion and courtly politics. As David Hopkins explains, Hutchinson’s hostility to Lucretius’s theology seems to have been counterbalanced by an attraction to his intellectual radicalism, and particularly his scathing attacks on warmongering, priestcraft, superstition and courtly luxury; she was to recycle some of Lucretius’s anti-court sentiments in Order and Disorder, the Christian epic poem of her last years.2 Hutchinson’s own religious convictions and sympathy for Lucretius’ disavowal of state politics informed her decision to translate Lucretius’ religio (a term he uses to represent both theistic cultic belief and practice itself, and the figuration of this practice as a mythic, monstrous, feminine deity) consistently not as ‘religion’ but

‘Some power unseen’ 275 rather as ‘superstition’. Lucretius’ dramatic introduction of this figure as a menacing demi-god, trampling upon humanity, Hutchinson renders as: With burth’nsome superstition sore opprest, Who from the starry regions shewd her head, And with fierce lookes poore mortalls menaced, A Greeke it was that first durst lift his eies Against her, and oppose her tirannies.

(Lucr. 1.62–66 [Hutchinson, 19])

Despite her sympathies for Lucretius’ anti-authoritarian sensibilities, however, Hutchinson’s rhetorical self-distancing from and condemnation of his Epicurean philosophy is stridently announced in her prefatory note, which condemns the atomistic account of life, and censures its seventeenth-century admirers and advocates: I thought this booke not worthy either of review or correction, the whole worke being one fault. But when I haue throwne all the contempt that is due upon my author; who yet wants not admirers, among those whose religion little exceeds his, I must say I am not much better satisfied with the other fardle of Philosophers, who in some pulpitts are quoted with devine epithetes. They that make the incorruptible God part of a corruptible world, & chaine up his absolute freedome of will to a fatall Necessity; That make nature, which only is the Order God hath sett in his workes, to be God himselfe, that feigne a God liable to Passion, impotence and mutabillity, & not exempt from the vilest lusts; that believe a multiplicitie of Gods, adore the Sun & Moone and all the Host of Heaven, and bandy their severall deities in faction one against another; All these, and all the other poore deluded instructors of the Gentiles, are guilty of no lesse impiety, ignorance & folly then this Lunatick, who not able to dive into the true Originall & cause of Beings & Accidents, admires them who devizd this Casuall, Irrationall dance of Attomes.3 As Hutchinson’s later theological treatise On the Principles of the Christian Religion makes clear, many of her criticisms of Lucretius’ irreligious tendencies were drawn from her appreciative reading of the Christian patristic writer, Lactantius.4 In his work of eschatological apologetics, Institutiones Divinae (The Divine Institutes), Lactantius offers an etymological and semantic revaluation of religion that draws heavily on Lucretius. As Ada Palmer points out, ‘Lactantius clearly had a good knowledge of Lucretius, and every excuse for sin that Lactantius lists can be tied to a specific Epicurean doctrine, many to specific Lucretian verses.’ However, it is the ‘Epicurean denial of Providence’ that ‘receives the bulk of Lactantius’s attention. He says that this opinion derives from Epicurus’s observations that evils often befall pious men, while blessings fall seemingly randomly on the wicked.’5 Lactantius exploits Lucretius’ emphasis on religio as something binding and enchaining to yoke religion exclusively to monotheistic piety: ‘hoc uinculo

276

Sean Moreland

pietatis obstricti deo et religati sumus: unde ipsa religion omen accepit, non ut Cicero interpretatus est a relegendo,’ which Bowen and Gurnsey translate as ‘This is the chain of piety that ties and binds us to God; hence the word religion, and not as Cicero takes it, from re-reading’ (Lact. DI 4.28.3–4 [Bowen and Garnsey, 275]). Lactantius continues: As for Cicero’s remark that ‘those who carefully reviewed everything of relevance to the worship of gods were called religious from relegere’, why should those who act so many times a day lose the title of religious when as a result of their concentration they are simply making a much more careful review of the ways in which gods are worshipped? Well? Religion is of course worship of what is true, and superstition is worship of what is false [nimirum religio veri cultus est, superstitio falsi]. (Lact. DI 4.28.10–11 [Bowen and Garnsey, 276]) This is an invocation and subversion of Lucretius’ statement of his Epicurean goal as ‘religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo’, which Hutchinson renders as ‘[I will] superstitions tangled knotts untie/With which she kept minds in captivitie’ (Lucr. 4.7 [Hutchinson, 223]). While for Lucretius, religio binds humanity to superstition, Lactantius opposes it to superstitio falsi, a distinction he insists rests on ontological grounds. Lucretius’ exclusive use of religio, instead of superstitio, was seen by Hutchinson and Creech alike as evidence of his blasphemous atheism. Lactantius’ subversion offers a vivid reminder that Lucretius had a poetic rationale for this dictional decision. Religio is a term with rhetorical possibilities that superstitio lacks; it is something that knots, yokes, binds and enchains. These connotations reinforce Lucretius’ conception of religion as characterised by a feeling of awe, of dread, an excess of fearful passion that motivates slavish adherence to irrational practices and the commission of immoral acts. As David Norbrook writes, ‘For Lucretius, the horror inspired by the infinite cosmos is to be strongly contrasted with fear of creating or punishing deities, animi terrores’, mere terrors of the mind, since ‘the supernatural machineries and explanations’ invented ‘to accommodate this wonder in fact tame and diminish it’.6 Horror and wonder, Norbrook emphasises, are associated with an Epicurean penetration into nature and her laws. Religion, contrastively, trades in dread and awe, stilling curiosity and imposing compulsion. The abolishment of such ‘terrors of the mind’ is the promise of Epicureanism. Lucretius’ terminology is adopted, and exploited, by Lactantius in ways that, as Palmer states, ‘frequently colored’ the understanding of Lucretius’ early modern readers and translators.7 Lactantius uses Lucretius’ reliance on the word religio, rather than superstitio, to enact a revaluation of the concept of religion itself. For Lactantius, the implication of binding or tying together conveyed by religio becomes a positive, definitive feature of religion; ‘true’ religion binds humanity to its supposed divine creator.8 Lactantius’ definition has shaped dominant conceptions of what ‘religion’ means in Christian culture for more than 1,500 years. René Gothóni writes that despite ‘the

‘Some power unseen’ 277 conclusions of philologists that Cicero’s etymological derivation is preferable’, it is Lactantius’ ‘that is still presented in nearly all encyclopedias and handbooks’.9 It played an important role in polemical attempts to discern religion from superstition, and to defend Christianity from rational scrutiny, throughout the early modern period and the Enlightenment, while serving as a lens through which translators would (mis)understand Lucretian religio. It is approvingly echoed by Hutchinson’s Principles, which attempts to discern superstition from religion with tendentious reference to the work of a number of pagan and Christian classical writers. Hutchinson echoes Lactantius’ discussion of Cicero, when she declares ‘vulgar superstition’ the beliefs of those who ‘all their dayes made prayers, that their children might survive them, which custome is witnessed in all ancient authors’, and retained by ‘the Papists [. . .] in their baptisme’.10 She continues: Lactantius sayes, men are sayd to be superstitious who adore the memory of the dead, surviving in other places. Plautus terms him superstitious who is possest with God, and speakes from God; but the common acceptation of the word superstition, is for a corrupt affection of the mind concerning devine things, or for vaine and foolish worship. In this last sence, Tacitus and Suetonius call the Christian religion a pestilent superstition, and some under that name of superstition reiected all religion; Vana Superstitio dea sola in pectore virtus – Vaine superstition is vertue alone, a god in every brest. Which former example of madnes, I wish none of those, who at this day may be infected with it, could find out. But though the religion of the heathen was nothing elce but a pernitious superstition, yet they acknowledged a difference, and did affirme that in regard of the promiscuous multitude, religion was necessary.11 Hutchinson’s strained translation of a passage from the first-century CE epic poet Silius Italicus’ Punica (Sil. 5.126) in this context is telling. She uses it to exemplify the ‘infectious madness’ of understanding all religion as superstition. Given how many passages condemnatory of religio in Lucretius could have better served to make this point, this substitution suggests the degree to which Hutchinson’s reading of Lucretius was filtered through Lactantius’ discussion of the etymology and meaning of religio. Hutchinson’s usage reflects a distinction that had become widespread by the early seventeenth century, although it was used to different polemical effects depending on the religious views of the writer making use of it. For example, the French Catholic theologian and disciple of Montaigne, Pierre Charron, proposed the following distinction between superstition and religion in an eminently Lactantian meditation: The part affected of superstition, is the brain, heart, will, understanding, soul it self, and all the faculties of it, totum compositum, all is mad, and dotes. Now for the extent, as I say, the world it self is the subject of it, (to omit that

278

Sean Moreland Grand Sin of Atheisme) all times have been misaffected, past, present, there is not one that doth good, no not one from the prophet to the priest &c. A lamentable thing it is to consider, how many myriads of men this idolatrie and superstition (for that comprehends all) hath infatuated in all ages, besotted by this blind zeal, which is Religions Ape, Religions Bastard, Religions Shadow, false glass.12

Hutchinson’s awkward invocation of Silius also had contemporary political significance. Silius was reputed to have been an informer for Nero, notorious for his persecution of the early Christians.13 A parallel can be detected here with the post-Restoration persecution of the Puritans under Charles II, especially when it is considered that Hutchinson’s husband, John, died in prison while awaiting trial for regicide during the period when she was writing Principles, which she intended as an aid to the religious and moral education of her daughter.14 Taken together, Principle’s silence on Lucretius’ condemnation of religio, emphasis on the superstitious nature of infant baptism, condemnatory reference to Silius, and approving echoes of Lactantius offered Hutchinson an indirect means of condemning the restored monarchy and Anglican church, shoring up the association between her Republican politics and Puritan beliefs. It is, in part, such Puritan and Republican appropriations of Lucretius that Creech sought to combat in his translation and commentaries. Creech translates the introduction of religio as: Long time men lay opprest with slavish fear, Religion’s Tyranny did domineer, Which being placed in Heaven looked proudly down And frighted abject spirits with her frown At last a mighty one of Greece began T’assert the natural liberty of Man, By senseless terrors and vain fancy led To slavery, straight the conquer’d Fantoms fled. (Lucr. 1.64–68 [Creech, 3]) Like Hutchinson, Creech condemns the atheistic tendencies of Lucretius’ poem. Unlike both Evelyn and Hutchinson, however, he translates religio not as superstition but as religion, a decision informed by his conviction that modern enthusiasm for the Roman poet was a threat to both the Christian religion and the British monarchy. Creech sought favour in the court of Charles II, and had no sympathy for Lucretius’ anti-courtly sentiments. He advertised his translation as a valuable exposure of, and counter to, Lucretius’ growing influence upon seventeenthcentury materialist philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and libertines like John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester. His phrasing of Epicurus as championing ‘the natural liberty of Man’ offers a deliberate echo of Hobbes, as well as a remarkable anticipation of the language of John Locke’s Treatises on Government, which would be published a few years later.

‘Some power unseen’ 279 Creech sought to expose the debt of both these philosophers to Lucretius, and to counter their advocacy of dangerous, disruptive political ideals. This is made explicit by Creech’s ‘Notes Upon the Fifth Book’, which contains Lucretius’ account of the development of both human language and human society, an account echoed by Hobbes’ Leviathan, and one that would later also become important for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s conception of the social contract.15 Creech claims: Those that endeavor to disgrace Religion, usually represent it as a trick of state, and a Politick Invention, to keep the credulous in Awe; which however absurd, and frivolous, yet is a strong argument against the Atheist, who cannot declare his Opinions, unless he be a Rebel, and a disturber of the Common-wealth. The Cause of God, and his Caesar, are the same, and no affront can be offered to one, but it reflects on both; and that the Epicurean Principles are pernicious to Societies, is evident from the account they give of the rise of them.16 Creech condemns Epicureanism as opposed to the political theology necessary for the stability of society and the state. His account of the dangers of Epicurean rationalism exerted a tremendous influence on Lucretius’ reception through the course of the eighteenth century, and particularly resounded during the French Revolution. Noel Jackson explains, ‘From 1682, when Thomas Creech published the first (and, until 1805, only) complete translation of De rerum natura, readers had at hand an “Englisht” model for the boldly rational program of the philosophical poet’, and this program was understood as the basis for both materialist philosophies and the revolutionary social movements they gave rise to.17 Creech’s sense of the dangers inherent in an enthusiasm for Lucretius’ poem, or Epicureanism tout court, was only intensified by the critical and popular response to the first edition of his translation. The proto-feminist playwright and poet Aphra Behn, associated with the libertine circle of Lord Rochester, expressed her gratitude and admiration for Creech’s translation, which made Lucretius available to those unversed in Latin, with a poem printed, alongside Evelyn’s and several other paeans, in the translation’s second edition (1683). She praised Creech’s Lucretius because: It Pierces, Conquers, and Compels Beyond poor feeble Faith’s dull Oracles, Faith the despairing Souls content, Faith the Last Shift of Routed Argument.18 Behn’s praise for Creech’s translation celebrates what she understood as its persuasive argument for atheism by echoing Lucretius’ description of Epicurus’ conquest of religio. Creech, she suggests, has aided the cause of vanquishing the antiquated despotism of religion. Unsurprisingly, Behn’s tribute would be disavowed by Creech, and stricken from subsequent editions of the poem, because

280

Sean Moreland

it celebrates precisely those aspects of Lucretius that Creech sought to distance himself from.19

‘A pleasing horror thrills through the veins’: Gothic agency and Good’s Lucretius Creech died by suicide in 1700. The political theology articulated by his commentaries, however, would persist through much of the eighteenth century. A similar conception was developed by the Irish Whig statesman and writer Edmund Burke, who argued that Britain’s shared national-cultural history should be commemorated and monumentalised by each generation using the affective resources of both religion and the cultural arts. Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) presented a psycho-physiological account of the sublime meant to serve as a tonic against the devitalising effects of industrialisation, urbanisation, and rationalism. It would provide an aesthetic template for the Romantic sensibility, and particularly for British writers of Gothic romance. Burke’s Enquiry foregrounds Lucretius alongside John Milton and William Shakespeare as a literary artist of the sublime. Burke focuses especially on Lucretius’ description of religio as embodying the sublime, due to its powerful expression of mystery and obscurity. Lucretius’poem is sublime, Burke claims, because he has not ‘said a single word which might in the least serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive’.20 Burke’s aesthetic appreciation for Lucretius, however, is ultimately at odds with his suspicion of Epicureanism’s epistemological basis and political consequences. Eric Baker explains that the Enquiry was meant to counter ‘the privileging of theoretical knowledge over feeling (of Locke’s Essay over Milton’s Paradise Lost)’. Like Creech, Burke ‘viewed Lucretius as complicitous in the rationalist tendency to declare everything that cannot be clearly understood and explained – such as the experience of the sublime – to be devoid of value’.21 Burke’s later Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) articulates a political theology redolent of Creech’s notes on Lucretius more explicitly. Reflections argues that since ‘man is by his constitution a religious animal’, the rejuvenation of political and cultural heritage must necessarily exploit superstition, the ‘religion of feeble minds’, for its ‘resources’.22 Burke’s defense of superstition as necessary for the stability of society and state is a rebuke to rationalist and skeptical modern philosophers, whose ideas he blames for the violence of the revolutionaries that Reflections stridently condemns. Reflections offers a particular rejoinder to David Hume, whose essay ‘Of Superstition and Enthusiasm’ had explained superstition as entirely negative and pathological: ‘ceremonies, observances, mortifications, sacrifices, presents, or in any practice, however absurd or frivolous, which either folly or knavery recommends to a blind and terrified credulity. Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are, therefore, the true sources of SUPERSTITION.’23 Burke’s Reflections defends the role of Catholic monasticism in French society while rejecting Hume’s denigration of superstition. For Burke, superstition, like

‘Some power unseen’ 281 the religion from which it is inextricable, provides a crucial moral and social function: ‘Superstition is the religion of feeble minds; and they must be tolerated in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some enthusiastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds of a resource necessary to the strongest.’24 As Derek Beales explains, ‘From Burke’s eloquent conclusion it emerges clearly enough that he is setting up monastic “superstition” as less dangerous than what he dares to call the “superstition” of the philosophes, and doubting the power of cool “wisdom” to control either.’25 Like Hutchinson, Burke warmly receives Lactantius’ conception of religion as a bondage of pietistic duty and a means of providing ‘bondage’ and social cohesion. Unlike her, he implicitly rejects the Lactantian distinction between ‘true’ religion and ‘false’ superstition, being more concerned with their aesthetics and politics, their affective power and potential value for the maintenance of cultural and political order. Anthony Pagden writes that Burke ‘offered an image of a world of independent states, united as a common culture, based upon “the old Gothic customary [law] . . . digested into system and disciplined by the Roman law”’.26 Lactantius’ conception of religion as knotting together humanity in bonds of common piety admirably suits such an image. Burke looms large over Good’s translation and copious commentaries, compiled into two volumes and published in 1805. In contrast to Creech, who portrayed Epicureanism as pernicious to the monarchy because of its atheistic implications, Good repeatedly asserted, in David Hopkins’ words, ‘a far greater degree of compatibility than most of his predecessors between Lucretian Epicureanism and Christianity’.27 From when he began work on his translation in the mid-1790s until his death in 1827, Good emphasised Lucretius’ importance as both a champion of Enlightenment values and a precursor to Christian theology. At the same time, Good drew on the aesthetics of the Burkean sublime to render his translation as vivid and affecting as possible, while attempting to counter the suspicions of Burke and others who saw in Lucretius a precursor to bloodless rationality and soul-destroying atheism.28 Even more importantly, Good devoted himself to reconciling Epicurean physics with contemporary natural philosophy and medico-scientific discoveries, as the next section will explore in more detail. Good produced his translation while enthusiasm for the Burkean sublime was sweeping Britain, especially via the Gothic romances that were the period’s most popular form of literary entertainment.29 The association between the Burkean sublime, the Gothic, and Lucretius was, in fact, emphasised by the first critical notice of Good’s translation to appear, five years before the publication of Good’s Lucretius itself. ‘Observations on the Writings and Genius of Lucretius with Specimens of a New Translation’ was written by Good’s friend and fellow physician, Nathan Drake, and appears in Drake’s influential collection of essays, poems, and tales, Literary Hours; or, Sketches Critical and Narrative (17981, 18002, 18043, 18204).30 Drake praises Good’s translation especially for its Burkean sublimity: ‘When emerging from the intricate and eccentric mazes of elaborate disputation, what a pleasing horror thrills through the veins on the magnificent prosopopeia of

282

Sean Moreland

Nature.’31 He ties this affective power, identical to that of the Gothic, to the poetic device Good’s version amplifies to an extraordinary degree: Lucretius’ personification of natura, and her illusory shadow, religio. Prosopopeia allows Lucretius to present nature as a female figure whose apparent anthropomorphic divinity is revealed by Epicurean inquiry to be mythical and metaphorical. It also allows him to personify an enlightened naturalism in the figure of Epicurus himself, portrayed as at once epic hero and solar divinity, overthrowing the oppressive force of theistic cultism. Finally, it allows him to portray religio as a veil or shadow cast over the face of natura, one that Epicureanism promises to lift. This poetic myth is fundamentally that of the Enlightenment itself, and resonates throughout the work of many of the Revolutionary period’s most prominent writers.32 It is re-staged repeatedly by Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic romances, for which Drake professed high admiration; Drake referred to Radcliffe as ‘the Shakespreare of Romance writers’.33 Radcliffe’s debt to Lucretius’ rhetoric is most explicit in her early novel A Sicilian Romance (1790), in which the poem, ‘Superstition: An Ode’ is embedded. As Radcliffe’s knowledge of Lucretius was limited, the poem was most likely inspired by her reading of Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry, to which she also refers in her essay ‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’. Burke’s Enquiry provided an aesthetic justification for the affect privileged by the Gothic romance, which Radcliffe’s essay calls ‘sublime terror’.34 In Radcliffe’s poem, superstition is: Enthron’d amid the wild impending rocks, Involv’d in clouds, and brooding future woe, The demon Superstition Nature shocks, And waves her Sceptre o’er the world below.35 Writing one year into the intensifying French Revolution, Radcliffe shows her Whig, and perhaps even Revolutionary, sympathies by making the demon Superstition a monarch and seating her upon a throne. Drake produced a similarly titled poem, ‘On Superstition’, which synthesises Lucretius’ description of religio with an imitation of Milton’s ‘Il Penseroso’. While the Whig politics of Drake’s poem are less evident, it too aligns itself forcibly with interchangeably Epicurean and Enlightenment values, while paradoxically celebrating the aesthetics and affective intensity of Gothic superstition: What dreadful shape was that? yon dismal cry Strikes cold my flutt’ring soul, O God! some livid face and deadly eye Seems mid the dark to roll. Avaunt! ’tis Superstition’s horrid gloom, Delusive clouds the mind, Demon accurst! from Nature’s shadowy womb Of miscreated kind; Of ghastly Fear and darkest Midnight born, Far in a blasted dale

‘Some power unseen’ 283 Mid Lapland’s woods and noisome wastes forlorn, Where lurid hags the Moon’s pale orbit hail.36 Drake’s imagery is Lucretian; Superstition is a ‘delusive cloud’ produced by ‘Nature’s shadowy womb’, just as religio is an illusion cast by a misapprehension of natura. While Radcliffe’s poem is embedded within a scenic passage in her novel, Drake’s is appended to an essay titled ‘On Gothic Superstition’, which muses on the interconnection between the dangers of superstition and the sublime appeal of Gothic fiction. Drake’s essay claims that, Of the various kinds of superstition which have in any age influenced the human mind, none appear to have operated with so much effect as what has been termed the Gothic. Even in the present polished period of society, there are thousands who are yet alive to all the horrors of witchcraft, to all the solemn and terrible graces of the appalling spectre. The most enlightened mind, the mind free from all taint of superstition involuntarily acknowledges the power of Gothic agency.37 Drake’s insistence that even ‘the most enlightened mind’ must ‘involuntarily’ feel the power of Gothic superstition parallels Burke’s claims in Reflections. However, where Burke argues for the social and moral value of religious superstition, Drake describes the power of religious dread giving way to the imaginative pleasures of Gothic fantasy: ‘the power of Gothic agency’ is able ‘to arrest every faculty of the human mind, and to shake, as were, all nature with horror, yet does it also delight in the most sportive and elegant imagery’. He further praises the Gothic imagination’s literary sources in ‘The Provencal bards, and the neglected Chaucer and Spenser’, who ‘are the originals from whence this exquisite mythology has been drawn, improved, and applied with, so much inventive elegance by Shakspeare. The flower and the leaf of Chaucer is replete with the most luxuriant description of these praeternatural beings.’38 Radcliffe’s ‘Superstition: An Ode’ and Drake’s ‘On Superstition’ are as discernible in Good’s translation of Lucretius as the influence of Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, whose blank verse form Good imitates. Good renders the passage introducing religio as: . . . the tyrant power Of superstition swayed, uplifting proud Her head to heaven.

(Lucr. 1.63–65 [Good, 1.23])

Good’s commentary on this passage forcibly marks his interpretation out from Creech’s, laying the groundwork for Lucretius’ compatibility with Christianity: The word here translated superstition is in the original religio, and has generally, to the present time, been rendered by the translators of our poet in every language, religion [. . .] and much odium has been thrown upon the Roman bard, for the impiety he is here supposed to exhibit. But even without

284

Sean Moreland minutely entering at present into the theology of the Epicureans, it is obvious, from the instance he shortly afterwards adduces, – that, I mean, of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, – that the religion to which he immediately adverts is the superstitious tenets and practices that were popular among his own countrymen, and the pagan world at large.39

Good’s comments on his lexical decision bear comparison with those of English musicologist Thomas Busby, whose 1813 translation (discussed further in the conclusion) competed, largely unsuccessfully, with Good’s. Busby similarly echoes Lactantius’ distinction, affirming that the religio Lucretius attacks ‘was a superstition, no less in his consideration than in ours: the two terms were with him synonymous’. Unlike Good’s, however, Busby’s translation uses these denominations indifferently: for, if false religion is superstition, the religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans was a superstition; and, consequently, I could have no inducement to prefer one term or the other, but that of varying the expression or procuring metrical accommodation.40 Good’s insistence that only superstition can properly translate religio is integral to his attempt to ‘baptize’ Lucretius, while the style of his rendition of the passage in which the horrific spectre religio is introduced foregrounds precisely those aspects of Lucretius’ poem that Burke praises as the most conducive to sublime terror. Drake praises Good’s ability to translate this ‘pleasing horror’. Just as the dread and awe of religion are but the shadow of the wonder and horror of an Epicurean apprehension of reality, the feminine figuration of religio is but the shadow cast by natura, when she is not properly illuminated by Epicurean naturalistic philosophy. Good’s amplification of Lucretius’ prosopopeia, however, has a rhetorical function very different from Lucretius’ original use of the device: it serves to recuperate Lucretius for theistic creationism. Good stresses Lucretius’ personification of impersonal forces; for example, where most English translators render the atomic and cosmic phenomena in Lucretius’ poem by the genderless pronoun ‘it’, Good genders pronouns, while also rendering descriptions of natural forces in uppercase letters. Such techniques polemically undermine the non-theistic character of Epicurean physics. Good also tirelessly inserts the adjective ‘sublime’ into his translation, never more frequently than when Lucretius is describing the human form, stylistically suggesting humanity’s creation in imago Dei, contrary to the poem’s naturalistic argument.41 Even more dramatically telling, however, is Good’s treatment of the Lucretian phrase vis abdita quaedam, to which we shall now turn.

Vis abdita quaedam: Good’s Gothic Holy Ghost As Yun Lee Too details, the phrase vis abdita quaedam has divided interpreters into two camps throughout the history of Lucretius’ modern reception, with many commentators interpreting it as a kind of impersonal, indifferent force, whereas

‘Some power unseen’ 285 others have read Lucretius as describing this unseen force, the wind, as ‘misunderstood as the wrath of the gods’.42 Good’s translation swerves to suggest that this is no misunderstanding, but rather evidence for Lucretius’ crypto-theistic creationism: So, from his awful shades some POWER UNSEEN O’erthrows all human greatness! treads to dust Rods, ensigns, crowns – the proudest pomps of state, And laughs at all the mockery of man! (Lucr. 5.1230–1234 [Good, 2.395])

Good’s comment on this passage makes clear how his stylistic cultivation of ‘Gothic agency’ serves theologico-propagandistic ends. Good presents this malegendered ‘POWER UNSEEN’ as evidence of Lucretius’ ultimate compatibility with Judeo-Christian monotheism: These verses baffle all commendation: they are equally energetic, sublime, and true. They are full of the existence of a supreme controlling power, while, with becoming modesty, they pretend not to a knowledge of his essence or qualities. To our poet he was concealed, invisible, unknown, VIS ABDITA QUÆDAM; but his effects were obvious and incontrovertible. Who of us, without presumption, can pretend to a more intimate knowledge of him in the present day?43 Good even asserts that Lucretius’ vis abdita was inspired by the same ‘Unknown God’ about whom St. Paul wrote. He claims, It was about a century before St. Paul’s visit to Athens, that Lucretius was studying in the same seat of philosophy and superstition, and as there can be little doubt that this altar was at that time in existence, it is no extravagant conjecture that our poet himself had repeatedly noticed it, and had its inscription in his recollection when composing the passage before us.44 Good reinforces the parallel in his translation of the Book of Job, published in 1812, by aligning Lucretius’ vis abdita with the ‘hidden God’ of Isaiah 45:15 and Job 12:21.45 Good’s comments on Job use his Mosaic materialism to reinforce the tradition that Moses himself was Job’s author against historical hermeneutic challenges.46 His primary evidence for this is that ‘the order of the creation, as detailed in the first chapter of Genesis, is precisely similar to that described in Job’.47 Good concludes that the fundamental purpose of Job is completing both the Christian and Jewish canons by providing a full account of the ‘chief doctrines of the patriarchal religion’, including the nature and sequence of God’s absolute creation of the world and matter, not from Chaos, but ex nihilo.48 Good’s crusade to reclaim Lucretius for this synoptic vision of Mosaic materialism continues through his

286

Sean Moreland

copious later writings. For example, the first volume of the popular, lavishly illustrated Gallery of Nature and Art, or A Tour Through Creation and Science (1821), which Good co-wrote with Edward Polehampton, includes a ‘History of Systematical Physics’ describing the non-teleological, contingent character of Epicurean physics. It explains that Epicurus, reviving the ideas of Leucippus and Democritus, thought he very well comprehended that particles of matter, different in form, having subsisted from all eternity, had, after a certain time, linked themselves to one another in the vacuum; that some proceeding in straight lines, and others in curved, fell into different clusters, and formed bodies and spirits; that the free agency of man was, above all the work of atoms that moved in a declining line; thus chance made the sun, peopled the earth, established the order which subsists in it*, and framed, out of one and the same paste, the world, and the intelligent being, which is the spectator of it.49 The tone of incredulity with which Epicurus’ theory is presented here is striking. The asterisk leading readers to a rather contradictory footnote is more so: Atheism does not appear to have extended so far as is here conceived: and it is due to the character of Epicurus, and it is demanded of us by the candour of genuine philosophy, to observe, that the common opinion of this great supporter of the atomic sect supposed the visible universe to have been produced by chance, has no foundation in any part of his writings that have descended to our day, and is in many passages most peremptorily contradicted by them.50 Good and Polehampton reassure readers that Epicurean philosophy is hardly as atheistic as it might at first seem. Their primary source for this claim? ‘Mr. Good’s elaborate examination of it in his Life of Lucretius, prefixed to his translation of the NATURE OF THINGS, to which indeed we are indebted for these extracts.’51 The compatibility between Epicurean atomism and Protestant theology Good declaims here stands in stark contrast to every earlier, and most later, English translators of Lucretius. It is a compatibility dependent both upon the conception of theological materialism Good espoused, and upon the stylistic peculiarities of his translation. Good was a radical creationist; he claimed matter was directly created by God, not out of primordial chaos, but ex nihilo. His collected lectures, Book of Nature (first edition 1826) reinforces this characterisation repeatedly: while ‘matter under every visible form and modification [. . .] is perpetually changing’, this in no way contradicts that it ‘is the production of an almighty intelligence’.52 However, after publishing his edition of Lucretius, Good found his creationist doctrine misrepresented even by sympathetic readers, including Drake, whose essay on Lucretius states: Some philosophers of the present day have, with no little extravagance, inferred the perfectibility of human nature [. . .] that as reason and knowledge

‘Some power unseen’ 287 advance, the agency of volition will be unlimited, and that ultimately the corporeal functions will be rendered completely subservient to the powers of intellect. Lucretius has wisely rejected this day-dream of philosophy, for, though he appear to believe that man may by his own efforts approach toward perfection, and emulate the gods in happiness, yet he has taken care to qualify this opinion by affirming that the seeds of vice and imperfection cannot be altogether eradicated; that man, in fact, cannot shake off the imbecilities incident to materiality. In support of this claim, Drake quotes Good’s translation: Thus varies man: tho’ education oft Add its bland polish, frequent still we trace The first deep print of nature on the soul, Nor aught can all-erase it.53

(Lucr. 3.307–309)

Despite Drake’s praise for and influence upon Good’s translation, this assessment underlines a philosophical dispute between the two writer-physicians. Drake’s claim that there are ‘imbecilities incident to materiality’ contradicts the conception of matter Good’s commentaries on Lucretius themselves present: Perception, consciousness, cognition, we continue to be told, are qualities which cannot appertain to matter; there must hence be a thinking, and an immaterial principle, and man must still be a compound being. Yet why thus degrade matter, the plastic and prolific creature of the Deity, beyond what we are authorised to do?54 Much of Good’s subsequent work, including Book of Job and Book of Nature, seeks to both counter and explain this tendency. The latter explains that modern theologians, philosophers, and scientists tend to ‘degrade matter’ because of the persistent, pervasive, but specious doctrine of chaos itself. Good’s Pantologia entry explains this doctrine as: that confusion in which matter lay when newly produced out of nothing at the beginning of the world, before God, by his almighty word, had put it into the order and condition wherein it was after the six days’ creation. Chaos is represented by the ancients as the first principle, ovum or seed of nature and the world. All the sophists, sages, naturalists, philosophers, theologues and poets held that chaos was the eldest and first principle.55 The belief that matter existed in a primordial state of disorder before being shaped by Deity was so pervasive amongst the ancients, Good claims, due to Parmenides’ condemnation of the ‘supposed absurdity in conceiving that any thing could be created out of nothing’, which led to widespread adoption of the ‘doctrine of

288

Sean Moreland

the eternity of matter’.56 Good maintains that this belief contaminated nearly the whole of modern philosophy and theology via the pernicious influence of Plato on the early Christian fathers, who attempted to blend the narrative and doctrines of Moses with the principles of Platonism, which, in truth, had been embraced by many of them before their conversion. The text of Moses, when accurately examined, will be found, if I mistake not, to lead us to a very different conclusion. That conclusion, Good claims, is that God performed ‘an absolute creation of the heaven and the earth’.57 Good elsewhere singles out both Augustine and Lactantius as particularly prone to such doctrinal contamination. While both Hutchinson and Creech privileged Lactantius’ authority as a Christian writer over Lucretius’ as an apatheistic pagan, Good was better able to reconcile Lucretius’ Epicureanism with his synthesis of Christianity and modern materialism than Lactantius’ supposed Platonism. As Pantologia’s entry on Lactantius puts it, ‘though he writes with the greatest purity and force, especially in confuting the heathens, yet he was not a profound divine. He blends too much philosophy with his theology and does not steer quite clear from error.’58 The Platonism contaminating both patristic writers and contemporary philosophers becomes a major preoccupation of Book of Nature, which insists that the widespread acceptance of primordial chaos has led to ‘a strange propensity among mankind’, to look upon matter with contempt. The source of this has never, that I know of, been pointed out; but it will, probably, be found to have originated in the old philosophical doctrine we had formerly occasion to advert to, that ‘nothing can spring from or be decomposed into nothing’; and consequently, that MATTER must have had a necessary and independent existence from all eternity; and have been an immutable PRINCIPLE OF EVIL running coeval with the immutable PRINCIPLE OF GOOD.59 According to Good, the doctrine of matter’s eternity created a false perception of its independence of, and alienation from, God. Good even insists that Epicurus himself was not immune to this Platonic delusion, arguing his acceptance of the precept ‘nothing can come from nothing’ led him to assert the uncreated eternity of atoms and the void, as well as an undirected and unpredictable aspect to atomic behaviour, the declination of atoms that differentiates Epicurean physics from the strictly deterministic character of Democritean atomism, making it irreconcilable with Stoic teleology and Calvinistic providence alike.60 If these ‘specious’ developments are set aside, Good insists, Lucretius harmoniously merges with both Newtonian physics and Christian Revelation. This dubious speculation, mutually reinforced across Good’s copious writings, was hugely influential. Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley discovered it after

‘Some power unseen’ 289 purchasing and perusing Good’s Lucretius in 1815. The following year, during the cold, dark summer of 1816, they each refracted Good’s ‘unseen power’. Percy gives it a Platonic spin in the opening stanza of ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’: ‘The awful shadow of some unseen Power/ Floats though unseen among us.’61 As Angela Leighton notes, ‘in spite of the poem’s inspired celebration of the manifestation of Intellectual Beauty in the natural world, it nonetheless strains after knowledge of a different and more remote Power.’62 Good’s ‘POWER UNSEEN,’ hidden behind nature, inaccessible to and contemptuous of scientific inquiry, very differently inspires Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which echoes Good’s critical remarks about the writings of Erasmus Darwin, who is among the writers that Book of Nature most frequently censures.63 The first Canto of Darwin’s poem ‘The Economy of Vegetation’ makes an elaborate comparison between God’s creation of the universe from Chaos and humanity’s harnessing of the power of steam, depicted as a giant used by humanity to master nature, a mastery conveyed explicitly as a rape of the earth: The Giant-Power from earth’s remotest caves, Lifts with strong arm her dark, reluctant waves; Each cavern’d rock, and hidden den explores, Drags her dark coals, and digs her shining ores.64 Darwin’s imagery was not lost on Shelley, whose novel literalises this anthropomorphised, sublime steam engine: a male scientist creates sentient life in a mockery of the ‘POWER UNSEEN’ looming beyond nature. This creature inevitably responds to its creator’s unloving and violent means of creation by murdering those he most loves.65 For Good, on the other hand, Darwin’s poem affirmed the dangerous connection between the doctrine of eternal matter and primordial chaos, and exposed the non-theistic implications of early evolutionary thinking. Book of Nature attacks not only Darwin but Carl Linnaeus, Comte de Buffon, Claude Adrien Helvétius, and Lord Monboddo for their departures from the Scripture-approved story that humanity was created in imago Dei: And from whom do these philosophers, thus departing from the whole letter and spirit of the Mosaic history, pretend to derive the race of man? The four former from the race of monkeys; and the last, to complete the absurdity, from the race of oysters; for Dr. Darwin seriously conjectures that as aquatic animals appear to have been produced before terrestrial. [. . .] Man himself must have been of the aquatic order on his first creation.66 With its non-teleological and mechanistic account of the origins of life, DRN was the primary focus for attacks by creationists until the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859.67 Good’s peculiar creationism, however, leads him to an unusual appreciation for Lucretius’ proto-evolutionism. While

290

Sean Moreland

he condemned the supposedly unwarranted speculations of latter-day Epicurean evolutionists like Erasmus Darwin, he nevertheless found much to praise in Lucretius’ account of the emergence of life. Good claimed the non-teleological and anti-providential character of Lucretius’ zoogony had been exaggerated by writers like Darwin, and had in any case initially arisen due to the supposed pernicious influence of Plato on Epicurus. Aside from this, he found Lucretius’ account more reconcilable with what he understood to be the truth of both science and Scripture than that of the Platonising Lactantius, whose De opificio Dei offers an account of sexual reproduction Good censures as ‘nonsensical puerility’.68

Conclusion: the long shadow of Good’s Lucretius By 1813, Good’s widely circulated verse translation faced additional competition. English musicologist and composer Thomas Busby (who would later produce a number of entries for Good and Gregory’s Pantologia) published his own twovolume translation of De rerum natura in rhyming couplets, complete with notes and supplementary materials. While Busby’s edition studiously avoids explicit reference to Good’s, it is clear that Busby intended to offer critical correctives to some of Good’s more inventive interpretations; most notably, Good’s claim that Lucretius’ vis abdita was an intimation of the Christian God. Busby explicitly rejects the argument made ‘by some commentators’ that the vis abdita quaedam is an ‘acknowledgement of a supreme ruling power’. Such an argument, he points out, takes advantage of an accidental mode of expression, instead of reasoning from the premeditated premises of the author. The state of natural philosophy in the time of Lucretius was too imperfect to trace backward to any distance the link of causes through which any phenomenon was produced. [. . .] This cause, then, of whatever it might consist, was the hidden operation of nature, the unknown power which, paying no respect to human greatness, but blindly obeying its own despotic cause, swept the face of the ocean, heaved the waters, and bade them swallow the admiral and his fleet. What can rationally be supposed more foreign from the poet’s idea than that the confession of which would most imperiously oppose, and decidedly subvert, the whole tenor of his doctrine?69 Busby’s rhyming translation did not enjoy the widespread and long-lasting popularity of Good’s blank verse rendition. Where Busby’s translation was largely forgotten within a decade of its publication, Good’s continued to be read and cited across the remaining century, being re-introduced to a large transatlantic readership through its inclusion with John Selby Watson’s prose translation, first published in 1851 and reprinted regularly into the 1890s.70 The continued popularity of Good’s translation decisively influenced not only Lucretius’ reception, but also

‘Some power unseen’ 291 popular conceptions of evolutionary and thermodynamic theory during the Victorian era, as writers invoked Good’s authority to support their own attempts to reconcile contemporary scientific materialism and Christian theology. For example, in an 1875 article, the Rev. H.H. Higgins claims: The possible connection between the ‘vis abdita quaedam’ of Lucretius, and the inscription ‘To the Unknown God’ on an altar at Athens, read by St. Paul, and referred to by him as pointing to the God whom he came to declare, as ‘the God who had made of one blood all nations of men, and had determined the times before appointed and the bonds of their habitation’ [. . .] has been critically examined and confirmed by John Mason Good, in his translation of Lucretius.71 Similarly, chemist Samuel D. Tillmann’s 1872 article, ‘Atoms and Molecules’, tells readers that while ‘a full exposition of the ancient atomic philosophy would be foreign to the purpose of this paper’, readers should examine the Third Chapter of Dr. Good’s Book of Nature, in which Epicurus is ably defended against the charge of atheism. Evidently the Epicureans were opposed to Mythology; but while ignoring the power of its gods, they were naturally led to the recognition of a higher Power, an Intelligent Cause, Selfexistent and Supreme.72 Crucially for the popular reception of thermodynamic theory during the late Victorian era, Good also argues that Lucretius’ apocalyptic vision was both an anticipation and affirmation of Biblical eschatology. He presents Lucretius’ account of a universe composed exclusively of atomistic circulation and transformation, structured by unidirectional temporality and inevitable decay, as mutually reinforcing Scriptural accounts of the apocalypse: this idea of the dissolution of the earth, by a general conflagration, is corroborated by the express prophecies of the Scriptures, which inform us (2 Pet. Cap. iii.v. 10–12), that ‘the heavens shall be dissolved with fire, and shall pass away with a great noise: that the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up.’73 This synthesis both anticipated and influenced the cosmo-theological implications of the second law of thermodynamics developed by theistic scientists later in the century. As Helge Kragh explains, scientific arguments were often secondary to, or mixed up with, beliefs of a religious, social, and ideological nature. With few exceptions, conservative and religiously oriented authors tended to accept the heat death, whereas materialists, atheists and ‘scientific naturalists’ denied it and argued that the universe regenerates itself.74

292

Sean Moreland

For such theistic scientists, Good’s conception of the vis abdita as an unseen God, existing outside of nature and making possible its renewal, became a source of hope in the face of the seemingly grim implications of cosmic entropy.75 This is illustrated by the phrasing of astronomer Simon Newcomb’s 1884 article, ‘The Stellar Universe,’ which claims, all modern science seems to point to the finite duration of our system in its present form, and to carry us back to the time when neither sun nor planet existed, save as a mass of glowing gas. How far back that was it cannot tell us with certainty; it can only say that the period is counted by millions of years, but probably not by hundreds of millions. It also points forward to the time when the sun and stars shall fade away, and nature shall be enshrouded in darkness and death, unless some power now unseen shall uphold or restore her.76 (italics mine) Such examples reveal what a powerful force Drake’s ‘Gothic agency’ was for Good’s theologico-propagandistic crusade. Good’s claim that Lucretius’ poem supported the compatibility of scientific materialism and the Christian doctrine of creationism was driven by his use of the affective power of the Burkean sublime, enabling him to conjure from Lucretius’ vis abdita quaedam a ‘holy spirit’. This ‘POWER UNSEEN’ haunted the transatlantic Anglophone reception of Lucretius, and continued to fuel attempts to ‘baptize’ Epicureanism, evolutionary biology, and cosmology alike, across the nineteenth century.

Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Evelyn 1683. Hopkins 2007: 254. Hutchinson 2012: 6–7. On the Principles of the Christian Religion was written following the Restoration, but the exact dates of its composition are unclear. It would not be published until 1817, notably by the same publisher that brought out both Good’s Lucretius and the first edition of his Book of Nature. Palmer 2014: 214. Norbrook 2013. Palmer 2014: 126. For a recent discussion of how this continues to be reflected in modern political discourse regarding religion, see Colman 2009. For a detailed discussion, see Gothóni 1994. For a discussion of how Lactantius’ criticisms of Lucretius affected the latter’s Renaissance reception, see Palmer 2014: 124–126. Gothóni 1994: 43. See also Hoyt 1912. Hutchinson 1817: 283–284. Hutchinson 1817: 284. Charron 1612: 263. Dewar 2010. For a detailed discussion of this period in Hutchinson’s life and English political history, see Norbrook 2012. For Rousseau’s uses of Lucretius, see Konoval 2017.

‘Some power unseen’ 293 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Creech 1682: 39. Jackson 2009. Pooley 2015: 623. For a detailed discussion, see Linker 2011. Burke 1958: 152 [3.21]. For Burke’s relationship to Lucretius and Epicurean thought, see Bullard 2011. Baker 2007: 284. See also Colman 2009: 228–229. Burke 2003: 77, 135. In this respect, Burke’s political theology is a more nuanced and agnostic re-statement of Creech’s earlier arguments. Hume 1825: 67. Burke 2003: 269. Beales 2005: 430. Pagden 2002: 43. Hopkins 2007: 257. See Baker 2007: 284. For a detailed recent re-examination of the relationship between the peak popularity of Gothic romance and the revolutionary politics of the era, see Crawford 2013. Drake 1820. Drake 1820: 7–8. See Kavanagh 2016. See Norton 2009. See also the preface by Dale Townsend and Angela Wright 2014 for the edited volume Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic. For the textual history and sources of Radcliffe’s essay, see McKillop 1932. Radcliffe 2008: 45. For comparison, see Good 1839: Book 1, lines 65–70, 23–24. Drake 1790b: 83. Drake 1790a: 43. Drake 1790a: 43. Good 1805: 23. Busby 1813: vi, note to Book I, Verse 71. See Moreland 2019 and 2016: 16–18 for brief discussions of Good’s rhetorical use of ‘sublime’ as an adjective. Too 1991: 256. Good 1805: 2.394 note on Lucr. 5.1260. Good 1805: 1.lxxii. Good 1812: 146. See Lucr. 5.1232. Good 1812: liv. Good 1812: lvii. Good 1812: lxiv. Good & Polehampton 1821: 215. Good & Polehampton 1821: 215. Good & Polehampton 1821: 215. Good 1839: 34–35. Drake 1800: 36–37. Good 1805: 1.xxxvi. Good 1819a. Good 1839: 26. Good 1839: 27–28. Good 1819b. Good 1839: 324. Good 1805: 1.195, note to Book II, Verse 63. Shelley 1997: 135. See also the editors’ comments on draft versions of the poem; Reiman & O’Neill 1997: xiii. Leighton 1984: 53. See Moreland 2019.

294 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Sean Moreland

Darwin 1825: 16. Moreland 2019. Good 1839: 201. For a detailed discussion of both Lucretius’ account of zoogony and some of these attacks, see Campbell 2003. Good 1805: 202, note to Lucr. 4.1220. See also the comments at Good 1827: 16. Busby 1813: xxxv, note to Book 5, Verse 1515. Watson 1890. Higgins 1875: 42. Tillmann 1872: 361. Tillman’s article is reprinted in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science. Good 1805: 1.362. Kragh 2007: 373. For a fulsome discussion of this, see Kragh 2004. Newcomb 1884: 501–502.

Bibliography Primary Lactantius. De institutiones divines. Edited by E. Heck and A. Wlosok. 2005–2011. Divinarum institutionum libri septem, 4 vols. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Berlin. Translated by A. Bowen and P. Garnsey. 2003. Lactantius: Divine Institutes. TTH, 40. Liverpool. Lucretius. De rerum natura. Edited by M. Deufert. 2019. Titus Lucretius Carus: De rerum natura. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Berlin. Translated by J.M. Good. 1805. The Nature of Things: A Didactic Poem Translated from the Latin of Titus Lucretius Carus, Accompanied with the Original Text, and Illustrated with Notes Philological and Explanatory, 2 vols. London. Translated by Thomas Creech. 1682. T. Lucretius Carus, the Epicurean Philosopher: His Six Books De rerum natura done into English Verse with Notes. Oxford. Translated by L. Hutchinson. 2012. The Works of Lucy Hutchinson. Vol. 1: The Translation of Lucretius, Part 1: Introduction and Text. Edited by R. Barbour and D. Norbrook. Oxford.

Secondary Baker, E. 2007. ‘Lucretius in the European Enlightenment.’ In The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, eds. S. Gillespie and P. Hardie, 274–288. Cambridge. Beales, D. 2005. ‘Edmund Burke and the Monasteries of France.’ The Historical Journal 48 (2): 415–436. Bullard, P. 2011. ‘Epicurean Aesthetics of the Philosophical Enquiry.’ In Edmund Burke and the Art of Rhetoric, ed. P. Bullard, 79–108. Cambridge. Burke, E. 1958. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. J.T. Boulton. London. Burke, E. 2003. Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. F. Turner and D. McMahon. New Haven. Busby, T. 1813. The Nature of Things, a Didascalic Poem, Translated from the Latin of Titus Lucretius Carus, Vol. 1. London. Campbell, G. 2003. Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura, Book Five, Lines 772–1104. Oxford and New York.

‘Some power unseen’ 295 Charron, P. 1612. Of Wisdom (trans. S. Lennard). London. Colman, J. 2009. ‘Lucretius on Religion.’ Perspectives on Political Science 38 (4): 228–239. Crawford, J. 2013. Gothic Fiction and the Invention of Terrorism: The Politics and Aesthetics of Fear in the Age of the Reign of Terror. London. Creech, T. 1682. T. Lucretius Carus, the Epicurean Philosopher. Oxford. Darwin, E. 1825. The Botanic Garden: A Poem in Two Parts Containing the Economy of Vegetation and Loves of the Plants. London. Dewar, M. 2010. ‘Silius Italicus.’ In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford. Retrieved April 19, 2020, from www-oxfordreference-com.proxy.bib.uottawa. ca/view/10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001/acref-9780195170726-e-1165. Drake, N. 1790a, 6 April. ‘On Gothic Superstition.’ The Speculator, 43–48. Drake, N. 1790b, 17 April. ‘Ode to Superstition.’ The Speculator, 83–87. Drake, N. 1800. ‘Observations on the Writings and Genius of Lucretius with Specimens of a New Translation.’ In Literary Hours: Or Sketches Critical and Narrative, 2nd edn, Vol. 1, 1–50. Sudbury. Drake, N. 1820. ‘Observations on the Writings and Genius of Lucretius with Specimens of a New Translation.’ In Literary Hours: Or Sketches, Critical, Narrative, and Poetical, 4th edn, Vol. 1, 1–26. London. Evelyn, J. 1683. ‘To Mr. Creech On His Accurate Version of Lucretius.’ In T. Lucretius Carus, the Epicurean Philosopher: His Six Books De Natura Rerum Done into English Verse with Notes, 2nd edn. Oxford. Good, J.M. 1805. The Nature of Things: A Didactic Poem Translated from the Latin of Titus Lucretius Carus, 2 vols. London. Good, J.M. 1812. The Book of Job, Literally Translated from the Original Hebrew and Restored to Its Natural Arrangement. London. Good, J.M. 1827. The Study of Medicine, Vol. 5. New York. Good, J.M. 1839. The Book of Nature, Complete in One Volume. Hartford. Good, J.M. and E. Polehampton. 1821. The Gallery of Nature and Art, or A Tour through Creation and Science, Vol. 1. London. Good, J.M., et al. 1819a. ‘Chaos.’ In Pantologia, Vol. 3. London. Good, J.M., et al. 1819b. ‘Lactantius.’ In Pantologia, Vol. 6. London. Gothóni, R. 1994. ‘Religio and Superstitio Reconsidered.’ Archive for the Psychology of Religion 21 (1): 37–46. Higgins, H. 1875. ‘Potency in Matter.’ In Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, During the Sixty-Fourth Session, 1874–75, No. XXIX, 37–68. London. Hopkins, D. 2007. ‘The English Voices of Lucretius from Lucy Hutchinson to John Mason Good.’ In The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, eds. S. Gillespie and P. Hardie, 254– 273. Cambridge. Hoyt, S. 1912. ‘The Etymology of Religion.’ JAOS 32 (2): 126–129. Hume, D. 1825. ‘Of Superstition and Enthusiasm.’ In Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. Vol. 1: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, 67–72. London. Hutchinson, L. 1817. On the Principles of the Christian Religion, Addressed to Her Daughter, and On Theology. London. Hutchinson, L. 2012. The Works of Lucy Hutchinson. Vol. 1: The Translation of Lucretius, Part 1: Introduction and Text, eds. R. Barbour and D. Norbrook. Oxford. Jackson, N. 2009. ‘Rhyme and Reason: Erasmus Darwin’s Romanticism.’ Modern Language Quarterly 70 (2): 171–194.

296

Sean Moreland

Kavanagh, T. 2016. ‘Epicureanism across the French Revolution.’ In Lucretius and Modernity, eds. J. Lezra and L. Blake, 89–103. New York. Konoval, B. 2017. ‘Between Aristotle and Lucretius: Discourses of Nature and Rousseau’s Discours sur l’inégalité.’ Modern Intellectual History 14 (1): 1–33. Kragh, H. 2004. Matter and Spirit in the Universe: Scientific and Religious Preludes to Modern Cosmology. London. Kragh, H. 2007. ‘Cosmology and the Entropic Creation Argument.’ Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37 (2): 369–382. Leighton, A. 1984. Shelley and the Sublime. Cambridge. Linker, L. 2011. Dangerous Women, Libertine Epicures, and the Rise of Sensibility, 1670– 1730. Farnham, Surrey. McKillop, A. 1932. ‘Mrs. Radcliffe on the Supernatural in Poetry.’ The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 31 (3): 352–359. Moreland, S. 2016. ‘Beyond ‘De Rerum Naturâ, Esqr.’: Lucretius, Poe, and John Mason Good.’ The Edgar Allan Poe Review 17 (1): 6–40. Moreland, S. 2019. ‘The Plastic and Prolific Creature: Macranthropic Monstrosity, Good’s Lucretius, and Shelley’s Frankenstein.’ Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies 30 (3): 27–44. Newcomb, S. 1884. Popular Astronomy, 4th edn. New York. Norbrook, D. 2012. ‘Memoirs and Oblivion: Lucy Hutchinson and the Restoration.’ Huntington Library Quarterly 75 (2): 233–282. Norbrook, D. 2013. ‘Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, and the Lucretian Sublime.’ In The Art of the Sublime, eds. N. Llewellyn and C. Riding, Tate Research Publication. Retrieved April 19, 2020, from www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/ david-norbrook-milton-lucy-hutchinson-and-the-lucretian-sublime-r1138669. Norton, R. 2009. ‘Ann Radcliffe, “The Shakespeare of Romance Writers.”’ In Shakespearean Gothic, eds. C. Desmet and A. Williams, 37–59. Cardiff. Pagden, A. 2002. ‘Europe: Conceptualizing a Continent.’ In The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union, ed. A. Pagden, Vol. 13: 33–54. Cambridge. Palmer, A. 2014. Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance. Cambridge. Pooley, R. 2015. ‘Unbelief and the Bible.’ In The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530–1700, eds. K. Killeen, H. Smith, and R. Willie, 613–625. London. Radcliffe, A. 2008. A Sicilian Romance. Oxford. Reiman, D. and M. O’Neill (eds). 1997. Works VIII: Fair-Copy Manuscripts of Shelley’s Poems in European and American Libraries. New York. Shelley, P.B. 1997. ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.’ In Works VIII, eds. D.H. Reiman and N. Fraistat, 134–141. Tillmann, S. 1872, April. ‘Atoms and Molecules.’ The American Chemist 2 (10): 361–365. Repr. 1872, 27 June. Nature 6 (139): 171–173. Too, Y. 1991. ‘A Note on “vis abdita quaedam” (DRN 5.1233).’ CQ 41 (1): 255–257. Townsend, D. and A. Wright. 2014. ‘Preface.’ In Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic, eds. D. Townsend and A. Wright, xiii–xiv. Cambridge. Watson, J. 1890. Lucretius on the Nature of Things: A Philosophical Poem in Six Books. London.

16 ‘Fiery color and splendid concentration of passion’ The Classical recollections of Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides Suzanne Sharland The spiritualist is satisfied in seeing the sensuous elements escape from his conceptions. . . . But the artist steeps his thought again and again into the fire of color. Walter Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873: 195)

Memory is subjective and not always reliable, or at least our reconstructions of the past may sometimes be one-sided or misleading. For example, ancient Greek and Roman statues were long considered ‘objects of pure white marble’, since that is the way they look in most modern museums. Recent research, however, has shown that ancient sculptures were brightly, even gaudily painted.1 While the orthodox Victorian belief was that ‘the hallmark of all the best Greco-Roman literature was its serenity and balance’, according to E.R. Dodds, author of The Greeks and the Irrational,2 Oscar Wilde was an early proponent of the romantic reaction against this conventional, idealised view of Greek culture as characterised solely by rationalism.3 In an anonymous composite review of R.C. Jebb’s entries on Greek history and literature in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Volumes X and XI) published in the Athenaeum on 4 September 1879, Wilde took Jebb to task for, among other things, treating Theocritus as a purely pastoral poet, which meant that he had completely ignored Idyll 2 (‘The Sorceress’ or the ‘Pharmaceutria’), which, Wilde claimed, ‘for fiery color and splendid concentration of passion is only equaled by the Attis of Catullus in the whole range of ancient literature’.4 From his extensive reading of Greek and Latin poetry, Wilde was well aware that passion and the irrational were an equally significant part of Classical literature. This may be why he made passion, Eros, and irrationality the focus of many of his Classically themed early poems,5 including Charmides, an account of a youth ironically named after the hero of a Platonic dialogue on self-control, but who succumbs to what Dodds terms ‘nonrational’6 passions. Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides describes the actions of a beautiful Greek youth7 who, returning from Sicily to Athens by sea, commits a sexual and religious outrage by simulating sexual intercourse with a statue of the virgin goddess Athena in her temple. The slighted goddess takes revenge for this impropriety, causing the youth to jump to his death off the ship in which he is travelling. Charmides’ remains wash up on the shore, where a Dryad becomes enamored with his DOI: 10.4324/9780429352843-19

298

Suzanne Sharland

corpse, and, after unsuccessfully attempting to wake the boy, perishes over his body. Aphrodite, however, arranges that both ill-starred lovers may be united in Hades, where their passion is consummated. Apart from its Classical inspiration and influences, Charmides contains a story that is eerily prescient of Wilde’s later disgrace and fate,8 as it reworks a theme often recycled by him: a young man risks life and limb in order to satisfy his erotic desires. After consummating his desires, which are forbidden by his particular society, the young man is later punished and killed for this outrage. But this is not the end, for Charmides’ belief in Eros ultimately redeems him. The poem dates from an early period in Wilde’s writing career, since it was initially published in the first collected edition of his poems brought out by the publishing house Bogue in 1881.9 Reviewers of Charmides, even as early as 1882, have found this poem to be excessively cloying in its sentimentality in addition to being ‘classical, sad, voluptuous’,10 or an example of Wilde’s ‘sensuous pseudoclassicism’.11 While it may be easy to dismiss it as an early experiment, Wilde himself apparently considered Charmides his best poem, and his biographer Richard Ellmann conceded that it was certainly his ‘most ambitious’.12 Wilde’s Classical learning is well known, and his engagement with ancient Greece and, to a lesser extent, ancient Rome, has been the subject of a number of recent studies.13 As Iarla Manny has recently observed, ‘Wilde may be best known as a wit, epigrammatist, and dandy, but he was also a more than capable classical scholar whose engagement with antiquity spanned almost the entirety of his tragically cut-short life’.14 Far from being a passive recipient and consumer of the Classical tradition, Wilde was an extremely learned, active, and sophisticated receiver and re-user of Classical sources, even anticipating, as Manny has suggested, the evolution of the sub-discipline of Classical Reception Studies by almost a century with his perceptions on art and literature.15 Although his many references to earlier literature sometimes resulted in accusations of plagiarism, Wilde was clearly following the Classical view that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and he was aided both in his Classically inspired early poetry and in his later works by a phenomenal memory. As Serena Witzke, who has studied the Classical influences on Wilde’s mature society comedies, notes: ‘Oscar Wilde had an extraordinary memory – he could quote ancient authors years after he studied them and often annotated his texts with quotes from authors from memory.’16 The Charmides poem is a bold, almost baroque pastiche of numerous Classical sources, and the use to which Wilde puts these Classical recollections and reflections will be the focus of the present chapter.

‘Absolutely over-educated’: the classical education of Oscar Wilde Wilde once remarked: ‘The only way to atone for being occasionally a little overdressed is by being always absolutely over-educated’.17 Wilde was certainly the latter, and in his heyday as the ‘poster child’ for Aestheticism, often the former too. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854, the second son of Sir William Wilde, a

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 299 celebrated eye specialist,18 and his well-educated but rather eccentric Irish Nationalist wife Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (née Elgee), who published under the nom de plume Speranza.19 Speranza hosted an intellectual salon at her home, 1 Merrion Square, Dublin, on Saturdays, to which noted Irish intellectuals and international guests were invited, and she allowed her children to attend these sessions from an early age.20 Oscar Wilde was educated at home until the age of ten, and thereafter he attended Portora Royal School at Enniskillen; like most educated men of his day, he learnt both Latin and Greek at school.21 In his last few years at school, Wilde was noted for his excellent translations of Thucydides, Plato, and Virgil, and he developed a deep devotion to Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, which was to last him the rest of his life.22 Like most Irish Protestants of his generation, Oscar Wilde went on to attend Trinity College, Dublin, where his brilliance at Classics won him the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek in his final year.23 He also won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he continued his study of Classical philology and the ancient world, and graduated from Oxford with a prestigious ‘Double First’ in ‘Moderations’ and ‘Greats’.24 His education in Classics at two renowned universities meant that Wilde’s learning had an extensive range and flexibility. For a while Wilde may even have considered the possibility of pursuing a formal career in academia,25 but instead he went to work as a journalist and writer in London, abandoning, as he put it, ‘Parnassus for Piccadilly’.26 As noted, Charmides is an early work, possibly written shortly after the completion of Wilde’s degree or even while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford, perhaps after he was ‘sent down’ for a term for arriving back at Magdalen College, Oxford, late from a trip to Italy and Greece in April 1877. While visiting Italy, Wilde had been diverted by his former tutor at Trinity College, Dublin, John Pentland Mahaffy, from his interest in Rome and Catholicism, and instead he accompanied Mahaffy and another student to Greece.27 The poem appears to show some knowledge of the region’s geography, apart from some anomalies, as we shall see. What better way to spend your rustication than composing poetry calling to mind the very places you have always read and dreamt about, but which you have only but lately seen for yourself?28 During the same period, Wilde also composed a poem called Ravenna, for which he won the Newdigate Prize in 1878.29

Charmides’ Classical sources In Wilde’s poem the eponymous Charmides has developed a passion for the goddess Athena, and his crime is to have or at least simulate sexual intercourse with the goddess’s statue. While Wilde may have derived his hero’s name from the Charmides, a dialogue of Plato’s in which the issue of sophrosyne or the wisdom of having self-control, is significantly debated,30 the story of a male practising frottage on a statue comes from pseudo-Lucian’s Erotes 15–16.31 Here we read the bizarre tale of a nameless youth ‘of not undistinguished family’32 who falls in love with Praxiteles’ statue of Aphrodite, housed in the goddess’s temple at Cnidus, and eventually finds he has to have his way with the statue. He hides in the sanctuary, is locked in overnight, and as a result of his ‘reckless deeds’, the

300

Suzanne Sharland

goddess’s statue thereafter shows a tell-tale stain on one thigh, ‘to prove what she’d suffered’ (16).33 The youth concerned was said ‘according to a popular story told, to have hurled himself over a cliff or down into the waves of the sea and to have vanished utterly’34 (pseudo-Lucian Erotes 16).35 What Charmides does in Wilde’s poem is very similar to this, confirming that pseudo-Lucian’s account was one of his sources. Charmides is different, however, in his choice of goddess-statues to lust after; instead of Aphrodite, Charmides is smitten by Athena. After arriving at Athens by sea from Sicily, he heads straight for the Parthenon. Clearly having planned carefully what he was going to do, Charmides climbs the hill to Athena’s sanctuary. On arrival, he hides inside the temple until all the priests and worshippers have departed, and then sneaks out of his hiding-place, and removes all the statue’s armor and attire. Looking upon the goddess naked, Charmides is described as gazing upon her (as yet) ‘sweet unravished limbs’ (stanza 21, line 03).36 As we know from Classical literature, looking upon goddesses in the nude never ends well for mortal men. In Callimachus’ Bath of Pallas (Hymn 5), Tiresias accidentally comes across the goddess Athena bathing, and is blinded for his troubles, although he is later compensated with the gift of prophecy. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (3.155–252), Actaeon erroneously intrudes on the goddess Diana’s bath, and is punished by being transformed into a stag and hunted down by his own hounds. Charmides, however, does more than just look: he spends the night kissing, stroking, and simulating sexual intercourse with the statue. Like many other readers, I find it hard to picture this as the colossal statue located inside the Parthenon: sexual intercourse with a closer-to-life-size statue would make more sense, and this is what the poem implies.37 The problem, I suspect, has arisen because Wilde was initially inspired by pseudo-Lucian’s story about frottage with a near life-size, sensuous statue of Aphrodite, but then decided to alter the goddess to Athena, ‘because being virginal she would feel particularly violated and vindictive’.38 The contrast between the animate and the inanimate is strikingly observed, as the hapless Charmides presses ‘(h)is hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast’ (stanza 21, line 06). All this is, naturally, in ancient Greek terms a shocking breach of religious propriety and a callous denigration of the shrine, now housing the up-until-recently virgin goddess. Yet Wilde describes Charmides’ act, which may seem particularly laughable to us, as both a pitiful and courageous attempt to find the desperately needed release for frustrated, pent-up desire, and even as something sacred, rare, and beautiful. Wilde perceptively explores both the eroticism of religious obeisance, wonder, and worship, on the one hand, and the extent to which erotic devotion and obsession may border on religious mania, on the other.39

Pastoral interlude: Hylas, Narcissus, and Dionysus The central portions of the poem take on a pastoral tone, a mode often used by Wilde in his early poetry in imitation of both Classical sources such as Theocritus’ Idylls and Virgil’s Eclogues, and of more recent adapters such as Keats and

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 301 Swinburne.40 Having fulfilled his erotic mission, all passion spent, the youth climbs down the hill: ‘Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast/Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan’ (stanza 25, lines 01–02). For the rest of the next day Charmides lies basking somewhat smugly in the afterglow, asleep on the peaceful Greek hillside teeming with beauty and nature, viewed solely by superstitious shepherds and shy country girls, going about their daily toils. All of these pious folk, incidentally, think they are witnessing a beautiful young male god sleeping off some escapade, and are thus loath to disturb him. Charmides is variously described as ‘a Grecian lad’ (stanza 1, line 01), a ‘boy’ (stanza 1, line 05), a ‘lover’ (stanza 21, line 01), and an ‘adulterer’ (stanza 45, line 01), in a seemingly progressive process of relative maturation. Wilde tells us repeatedly that Charmides is very good-looking, in the manner of a pais kalos,41 with ‘crisp brown curls’42 (stanza 1, line 04). Charmides is also possessed of a pale complexion prone to blushing: he is described as having ‘hot flushed cheeks’ in the wake of his sexual exertion (stanza 27, line 04). Seen sleeping by the shepherds, the beautiful Charmides is compared by one of them to the mythical Hylas, lost beloved of Herakles who, when sent by his lover to fetch water from a spring, either drowned, was kidnapped, or was maybe even enticed away by nymphs (stanza 30, lines 02–04).43 This image is very appropriate since while Charmides is to all appearances a textbook pais kalos, he is, in the course of this poem, both the lover of a goddess, and eventually, of a mortal female, a nymph who is in a particularly mortal state when their love is consummated. Like Hylas, too, Charmides will die by drowning. Another shepherd disagrees with this, and instead likens the slumbering Charmides to the beautiful Narcissus, described as ‘his own paramour’ (stanza 30, line 05) – in other words, a lover of himself. This second shepherd-interlocutor claims that, like Narcissus, Charmides is possessed of ‘the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure’ (stanza 30, line 06).44 In his Metamorphoses Ovid explicitly describes Narcissus in the manner of a pais kalos, with the pale, rosy complexion so admired in women (see esp. Met. 3.415–424), and he showcases Narcissus’ callous rejection of the nymph Echo (Met. 3.388–392). Yet Ovid’s Narcissus, if this is Wilde’s inspiration here, is not just anti-women; he is anti-everybody. Many youths and many girls have desired Narcissus, Ovid relates, but he considers himself too good for any of them. The desperate prayer of one of Narcissus’ rejected male suitors finally reaches the ears of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, who decides to punish the arrogant beauty (Met. 3.404–406). As a result, Narcissus finally falls fatally in love with his own reflection and dies, unable to move from the pool in which he sees his own image (Met. 3.463–503). He is transformed, in death, into the Narcissus flower, which is white with a yellow centre and habitually grows near water.45 Like Narcissus, Charmides is punished for transgression in the sphere of Eros, and he too dies for his sin; Charmides’ error is a sin of active commission, however, whereas Narcissus’ was one of omission and passivity. A third shepherd compares the sleeping Charmides, perhaps appropriately, to Dionysus, the god of wine and madness who has fallen asleep after hunting (stanza 31, lines 02–04), like an exhausted maenad.46 All three images – of Hylas,

302

Suzanne Sharland

Narcissus, and Dionysus – refer, more importantly, to young, extremely goodlooking male icons, with ambiguous gender and/or sexuality, and with pale skin and long hair in the mold of the pais kalos.47 References to Hylas and Narcissus are particularly common in Wilde’s writing, and usually stand for the pais kalos figure.48 These modes of description were later applied even to real-life relationships. In mid-1892, for example, Wilde wrote of his lover Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas in a letter to Robert Ross as follows: ‘He is quite like a narcissus – so white and gold . . . Bosie is so tired: he lies like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him.’49 Likewise, Wilde spends an inordinate proportion of the poem Charmides describing and celebrating male beauty in great detail.50 After sleeping off the adventures of the previous night, Charmides returns to sea the following evening with his companions, whom he appears to have at his beck-and-call – it is he, not they, who decide when they will embark again (stanza 40). This confirms our impression that our hero is of high social status. Once the ship is out to sea, however, the slighted goddess Athena has her revenge.51 A huge owl ‘with yellow sulphurous eyes’ (stanza 42, line 01), the symbol of Athena, first alights on the ship’s mast, and then out at sea there appears to Charmides a vision of the goddess Athena herself, clad in full armor, walking over the waves: ‘And clad in bright and burnished panoply/Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea!’ (stanza 43, line 05–06). Wilde makes it clear that most of the other sailors fail to see this sight – either they logically dismiss the appearance of the goddess as just the storm and the waves, or else, plainly, the maddened Charmides is the only one for whom this epiphany is intended (stanza 44).52 Assuming that the goddess herself is calling upon him out of love, Charmides jumps overboard and drowns.53 He whom the goddess would destroy she first makes mad: But he, the overbold adulterer, A dear profaner of great mysteries, An ardent amorous idolater, When he beheld those grand relentless eyes Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’ Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam. (stanza 45) Charmides’ companions attribute his suicide to his having done something to anger the gods, and with all the strange superstition of seafarers, do not refer to the incident again. Having satisfied her quest for revenge, the goddess Athena’s response – to return at once to Athens with a thoughtless decisiveness – is arguably presented by the poet as heartless and cold, with a touch perhaps of puerile amusement: And back to Athens on her clattering car In all the pride of venged divinity Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank, And a few gurgling bubbles arose where her boy lover sank. (stanza 46, lines 03–06)

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 303 This is not the end of Charmides’ story, however; it is only the end of the first of three parts. At the start of the second part, by means of some sort of tidal wave, Charmides’ corpse lands up at Colonus, the deme of the tragedian Sophocles and thus an appropriately tragic place to come to rest (stanzas 49–51).54 Here the plot is ever more complicated, and the pastoral atmosphere enhanced, when a Dryad or wood-nymph discovers the dead body of the boy who died for love of Athena. Charmides is apparently as good-looking in death as he was in life – no bloated, drowned bodies here. The unnamed Dryad falls in love with him, apparently unaware that the reason that the object of her affections is so unresponsive is because he is actually dead. Fatally, like Narcissus, who is unable to tear himself away from the image he sees in the pond, the child-like nymph55 spends all her time sitting next to Charmides’ corpse, described as ‘her new toy’ (stanza 62, line 02). Wilde relates that the nymph ‘(t)hen frowned to see how forward was the boy,56/Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,/Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine’ (stanza 62, lines 04–06). The innocent but lusty Dryad is also unaware that her new-found love is a sinner: ‘Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done . . .’ (stanza 63, line 01). Unable to understand the object of her affection’s complete passivity, the wood-nymph defends her beauty on the evidence provided by others: ‘Even the jealous Naiads call me fair . . .’ (stanza 72, line 01); likewise, Narcissus languishing by the pool in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 3, comments that it cannot be his beauty or age that cause the boy’s image to flee him, citing the fact that the nymphs have also loved him.57 As Mark English has observed, Wilde’s Dryad echoes Theocritus Idyll 11, when she comments that she has other suitors offering her gifts: ‘And every morn a young and ruddy swain/Woos me with apples and locks of hair . . .’ (stanza 72, lines 02–03), just as Polyphemus at Theocritus’ Idyll 11.10 is said to woo Galatea ‘not with roses, nor with apples, or locks or hair’.58 The wood-nymph is convinced that Charmides is a slumbering sea-deity, and imagines at first that she will be able to join him in his underwater kingdom (stanza 63, line 06 to stanza 67, line 06). Likewise, as English also notes, Polyphemus mistakenly imagines he will be able to join his unrequited love, the sea-nymph Galatea, underwater (Idyll 11.54–62).59 At the end of Theocritus’ Idyll 11, Polyphemus is said to find relief for his unrequited love in ‘the cure’ of music; however, the same does not seem to be the case for Wilde’s Dryad. Rather like Ovid’s Echo, frustrated by Narcissus’ refusal to love her or even acknowledge her affections, this nymph too finally wastes away and almost dies for unrequited love of the unresponsive (but admittedly deceased and hence, uncomprehending) Charmides. However, at the last minute the Dryad is actually dispatched by her angry mistress Artemis’ arrow (stanzas 88–89), just as she predicted (stanza 86). The pitiful Dryad dies sobbing, frustrated by the lack of love’s fulfilment and consummation: Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid, Sobbing for incomplete virginity, And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,

304 Suzanne Sharland And all the pain of things unsatisfied, And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing side. (stanza 90) However, all is not lost. The dea ex machina, appropriately, turns out to be Aphrodite, goddess of love, who happens to be passing over the scene in her pigeon-powered chariot, and who, having just sated her own sexual desires in an all-nighter with Adonis (another tragedy in-the-making), looks down and pities the hapless pair (stanzas 92–93). The dead lovers are described as two fallen flowers lying side by side, struck down by a mower or trampled by a shepherd. By means of an extended simile (stanzas 94–95), Wilde evokes famous classical imagery that is reminiscent of Sappho of Lesbos,60 Catullus,61 and Virgil,62 but in stanza 96 he adapts this image to the present day when he speaks of a schoolboy who tires of reading by a stream, plucks two water-lilies, plays with them for a time, and then leaves them in the sun to die. Wilde improves upon the image bequeathed him by his Classical forebears by having not one but two dead flowers lying side by side, unnoticed and forgotten by those who carelessly destroy them: For as gardener turning back his head To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows With careless scythe too near some flower bed, And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose, And with the flower’s loosened loveliness Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness Driving his little flock along the mead Treads down two daffodils, which side by side Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede And made the gaudy moth forget its pride, Treads down their brimming golden chalices Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages; Or as a schoolboy tired of his book Flings himself down upon the reedy grass And plucks two water-lilies from the brook, And for a time forgets the hour-glass, Then wearies of their sweets and goes his way, And lets the hot sun kill them, even so these lovers lay. (stanzas 94–96) Aphrodite at first assumes that it is Artemis who has cruelly punished the lovers by ending their lives – not an unreasonable assumption, given that one of the deceased is a wood-nymph – but she also considers the possibility that it is Athena who is the guilty party in this story (stanza 97). In fact, it is both vengeful virgin goddesses who have wrought the lovers’ destruction, seeing that Athena lured Charmides to his death (stanza 42), and Artemis fatally shot the love-sick Dryad with an arrow (stanzas 88–89). Both virgin goddesses are the natural enemies

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 305 of the goddess of love and sexuality. Aphrodite, however, does not devote herself to the blame game, but decides instead to do something positive for the illstarred lovers. Enlisting the help of Proserpina (Persephone), whose beauty, we are reminded, ‘made Death amorous’ (stanza 103, line 04), the goddess of love begs that she ask a favour from her husband Hades. And so it comes to pass that, in the third and final section of the poem, incredibile dictu, the martyrs to Eros, Charmides, who perished for love of Athena, and the stillunnamed Dryad, who perished for love of Charmides, both awaken in Hades. Here Charmides proves to be quite unlike the narcissistic Narcissus, who is too vain and self-absorbed to respond to the advances of Echo, and who is sometimes pictured looking at his own reflection even in Hades.63 By contrast, Charmides, now reanimated in the afterlife, is responsive to the now-also-dead Dryad’s approach. The two lovers find redemption through their love, and consummate their union in Hades. Wilde waxes especially lyrical in the penultimate stanza, while at the same time revealing that this permissive breach of Underworld policy is to be a once-off thing: Enough, enough that he whose life had been A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame, Could in the loveless land of Hades glean One scorching harvest from those fields of flame Where passion walks with naked unshod feet And is not wounded, – ah! enough that once their lips could meet. (stanza 110) Two last images ensure that Wilde’s poem does not end on a note that entirely glorifies heterosexual love, but stresses its connection with death. First, in a gesture to his own poetry to cease, he mentions the Lesbian poet Sappho, previously referenced, although not named, in the flower imagery discussed earlier. Now, however, Sappho is mentioned in a context that both gives a nod to her brilliance as poet, but also reminds us of a version of her death, nowadays largely thought apocryphal, that had the otherwise woman-loving writer committing suicide over a male love-object called Phaon: ‘Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quill!’ (stanza 109, line 06).64 Like the necessarily anonymous lover of Aphrodite of Cnidus mentioned in pseudo-Lucian’s text, who jumps to his death over a cliff into the sea, like Hylas who was drawn underwater by the nymphs, and like Charmides himself, who jumps off the boat, Sappho is, according to this story, said to have killed herself by jumping off a cliff into the sea to drown because she was frustrated by her unrequited love for Phaon. Second, the final lines of the poem refer to Persephone’s rape by her uncle Hades, hardly a positive image in spite of the mercy she has persuaded her now-husband Hades to show to Charmides and his Dryad. However, Wilde’s obscure reference to the scene of Persephone’s abduction and loss of her virginity neatly brings the poem full-circle back to Sicily, from where Charmides is returning by sea at the poem’s start (stanza 1, line 02): In that wild throb when all existences Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy

306

Suzanne Sharland Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne Of the pale god who in the fields of Emma loosed her zone. (stanza 111)

Catullus 63: Charmides’ shadow text While Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides makes abundant, even possibly excessive, baroque use of numerous Classical sources, I would argue that it has, in addition, a shadow text, a text which is very nearly its opposite or antithesis, and that this poem is Catullus 63.65 As we have seen, Wilde himself referred to Catullus 63 in his criticism of Jebb’s omission of Theocritus Idyll 2 which, Wilde claimed, ‘for fiery color and splendid concentration of passion is only equaled by the Attis of Catullus in the whole range of ancient literature’.66 The diction of this statement sounds typical of Wilde, and the writer praises the Attis as primarily a poem of passion.67 There is good reason to think that Wilde may have had Catullus 63 at the back of his mind when composing Charmides. Both poems look at passions of different, almost opposite types, interrogating the intersection between sexuality and religion. Attis sacrifices his sexuality for religion, while Charmides sacrifices religious scruples to his sexual pleasure or fulfilment. Like Wilde’s Charmides, Catullus’ Attis is at the start of the poem a privileged Greek youth,68 travelling over the seas rapidly and with a purpose. But instead of heading for Attica, as Charmides is doing, Attis is going to Phrygia. Both, it turns out, have pre-made plans which must have ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’; both are in some way in the thrall of a powerful goddess, Charmides to Athena, to whom he is sexually attracted, and Attis to Cybele, whose devotee he wishes to become. Both of these goddesses, albeit in different ways, could be labelled ‘anti-male’. Athena, the ‘brainchild’ of her father Zeus, is after all a virgin goddess, who, while she favours certain heroes (like Odysseus) and certain cities (like Athens), is, in her own lifestyle choices, anti-men, anti-marriage, and anti-sexual. Cybele, the mother goddess of Phrygia, is apparently so offended by maleness that she demands self-castration of her priests.69 Both Charmides and Attis are good-looking, privileged young men of high social status who voluntarily destroy themselves in obeisance to a goddess through temporary or permanent insanity.70 On disembarking in Athens and Phrygia respectively, neither Charmides nor Attis stop to think twice about what they are going to do, but straightaway carry out their predetermined plans. Catullus makes plain that it is insanity that results in Attis’ self-castration within the first few lines of poem 63: stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animis,/devolsit ili acuto sibi pondera silice – ‘goaded there by raving madness, wandering about in his mind, [Attis] tore off with sharp flint the burdens of his groin’ (63.4–5). A few lines later, now feminised as a ‘she’, Attis begins banging on the tambourines. She addresses her fellow comrade Galli (or Gallae), whom she praises for having braved the ‘raging salt sea and the ocean’s savagery’71 under her leadership, and for having emasculated themselves ‘through excessive

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 307 hatred of Venus’ (Veneris nimio odio, 63.17).72 While Charmides’ sin seems to have been the result of excessive or misguided sexuality, Attis’ self-castration, by contrast, is a denial or abnegation of sexuality. Charmides is motivated by love, Attis by hate.73 Both are motivated by the need for passionate, ecstatic worship. Unlike Charmides, however, Attis wakes up the next day, suddenly chastened and remembering what s/he did, realises that s/he has lost everything. Attis no longer has his (or her) erstwhile privileged identity as a Greek male citizen. He is alone in an unknown, unrecognisable land, his former possessions, his former country, his former friends, his former family, the former adoring crowds of admirers strewing flowers on his house’s threshold no longer there (63.50–67). Even Attis’ gender is no longer his, nor even hers, since as Catullus tells us, Attis is not a real woman but a fake or ersatz woman, a notha mulier (63.27).74 The worst of it is, Attis did this all to himself, and s/he ends up trapped in a literal (and littoral) no man’s land, forbidden by the vicious Cybele from ever leaving her strange shores.75 While Charmides’ crime is to disrespect a religious sanctuary and its incumbent goddess with his excessive lust and ironic lack of self-restraint, Attis, on the other hand, allows extreme devotion to the Magna Mater to destroy his sexual and procreative future. Charmides literally loses his life, while Attis loses his gender, identity, culture, and homeland – so, in effect, his ‘life’ as well. Charmides’ ecstatic ‘worship’ of Athena’s statue seems to raise him temporarily to godlike status: as we have seen, while sleeping off his escapade he is thought a deity by many of the pastoral passersby. Later, the Dryad who falls in love with his corpse is convinced that Charmides is a sea-deity. Attis, on the other hand, goes from being an exalted object of erotic ‘worship’ as a celebrated pais kalos in his native Greek city to being a despised and lowly female ‘servant’ (famula, 63.68) and prisoner of the goddess Cybele in the wilds of Phrygia. In the end Charmides and his Dryad, as we have seen, serve Persephone by Hades’ ‘ebon throne’ (stanza 111, line 05), although their terms of service seem more agreeable than the crazed, terrified Attis’ involuntary enslavement. Catullus’ account of Attis, as Stephen Harrison has observed, partly follows the pattern of ancient hymns to deities in which human offences and their consequent divine punishment are recounted.76 Wilde’s poem is an inversion of this pattern: Charmides is punished at first with death by Athena, but ultimately he is rescued, redeemed, and rewarded by a benevolent or at least sympathetic deity in the guise of Aphrodite. Wilde’s poem is characteristically light-hearted and amusing, but the same cannot be said for Catullus 63. Wilde’s poem is a comedy, whereas Catullus’ is a tragedy. While Attis plays the abandoned tragic heroine, Charmides, by contrast, has no recognition scene, no sudden awareness and awakening with the realisation that he was wrong. Although both poems highlight human suffering at the hands of cruel goddesses, only Attis experiences the agony of acknowledging his own role in his fate. Charmides never sobers up and lives to regret what he has done; he never takes responsibility for his actions, but ultimately his belief in Eros, the nymph who loves him, and the compassion of Aphrodite herself all conspire to save the undeserving wretch. Of course, it is the youthful poet who cannot bear not saving or in some manner redeeming Charmides.

308

Suzanne Sharland

Both Charmides and Attis demonstrate what some psychologists tend to view as a type of ‘arrested development’.77 While such theories have been misguidedly used in the past to categorise homosexuality as an aberration or illness, it is striking that both poems have an underlying homoeroticism which in either case converges on the figure of the beautiful male sexual object, the pais kalos. Both Charmides and Attis are stuck in the adolescent stage, refusing to ‘move on’ to what their societies (or those of their authors) deem appropriate sexual maturation. Charmides’ agalmatophilia means that he selects what is really an inanimate object as his sexual fetish rather than engaging in sexual intercourse with another human – while he is alive, at least. Perversely, Charmides’ necrophilia in the Underworld is very redeeming. Likewise, some scholars have seen in Attis’ flight from his homeland and self-castration evidence of his inability to relinquish the temporally brief sexual role of pais kalos or eromenos for that of erastes or married man. As is clear from his recollections of his popularity in his home city, Attis enjoyed being a pais kalos and did not wish to ‘move on’ to mature roles.78 Unfortunately, his self-castration would have meant that he could not return to the role of eromenos either or have any part in conventional Greek culture. Both Catullus’ Attis and Wilde’s Charmides could equally be praised for their ‘fiery color and splendid concentration of passion’. The chief distinction between Wilde’s poem on Charmides and Catullus’ poem on Attis lies in the difference between the two poets and their general Weltanschauung. Oscar Wilde, with his Christian background and personal faith, however unorthodox, believes in an afterlife and in redemption; the ancient Roman Catullus, by contrast, believes in neither of these things, as his poem saying forever ‘hail and farewell’ (ave atque vale) to his dead brother also subtly reveals (Poem 101).79 Yet there are sufficient similarities between the poems for us to suspect that Charmides is Attis’ antithesis; Charmides is the anti-Attis. Both poems centre on a beautiful youth, a pais kalos of high social status, who makes a fatal error at the interface between sexuality and religion. Both are poems about passion, and make tantalising suggestions about the subversive sexuality of their authors. In Oscar Wilde’s case this may seem to have been confirmed by the events of his life, but about both poets, particularly Catullus, we can only speculate. If we, as spectators, can learn anything from the poems (and Wilde would be horrified by the idea that we could), they are both about the folly of confusing sex and religion, reality and reflection, and the futility of self-sacrifice on the altar of either. This, at least, is my reading of the poem(s); and after all, it is the spectator, and not life, that art truly mirrors.80

Notes 1 See Talbot 2018 ‘The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture’. 2 E.R. Dodds’ seminal work looks at ‘nonrational’ aspects of ancient Greek religious experience, which is particularly relevant to Charmides’ case of agalmatophilia. 3 Ellmann 1987: 103; cf. 563 n. 9, where Ellmann reveals that Dodds’ comment is from a letter the author personally sent to him. 4 See Ellmann 1987: 103; cf. 562 n. 26, where Ellmann points out that ‘Wilde’s partial authorship of this article in the Athenaeum is marked in the files of that periodical’; cf. Manny 2017: 239, 265–266.

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 309 5 In her study of the link between Eros and aesthetics in Wilde’s works, particularly in his early poems, Patricia Flanagan Behrendt observes: ‘Wilde’s writings and the critical responses they elicited . . . reveal the degree to which sexual subject matter is at the core of his aesthetics’ 1991: 5. Behrendt argues that Charmides develops a theme which emerges from Wilde’s early poetry where heterosexual passion is closely linked to death 1991: 47–50. 6 See for example Dodds 1951: 1. 7 We find out in the poem’s first line that Wilde’s hero is ‘a Grecian lad’, who is ‘coming home’ with agricultural imports from Sicily. We may have recognised his Greek aspect from his name in the poem’s title, but the name ‘Charmides’ itself is not actually mentioned until stanza 48, line 01, where we hear that his fellow crew-members never dare mention his name again after his apparent suicide. The only other time Charmides’ name occurs is at stanza 105, line 02, towards the end of the poem. Stanza 26 confirms that Charmides is originally from Attica, since, after his escapade with Athena’s statue, he selects a quiet stream to sleep next to, which he had known and fished at as a boy. 8 As is well known, after three trials (in the first of which Wilde was the plaintiff for libel against the Marquess of Queensbury, father of his lover Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas) and a complicated legal process, in 1895 Wilde was convicted for acts of ‘gross indecency’ under Britain’s 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, which made acts of homosexuality between males illegal, even when committed in private and between consenting adults. Wilde was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor (the maximum sentence). The harsh treatment of the prison system (including lack of appropriate medical care), as well as the fact that he was from then on a social outcast, arguably weakened and demoralised Wilde so much as to contribute to his early death at the age of 46 in ‘exile’ in Paris in 1900. For details and clarification of misconceptions concerning the trials, see the account of his grandson Merlin, Holland 2013: 197–120. 9 This collection was entitled Poems by Oscar Wilde, published by David Bogue of London (1881). Charmides, together with other poems by Wilde that had never been published before, was placed in Bogue’s collected edition along with poems which he had previously had published in various journals and other university publications. 10 Hamilton 1882: 105; cf. Beckson 1974: 39. 11 Stedman 1903: 467. 12 See Ellmann 1987: 134. 13 See Ross 2013; Riley et al. 2018. 14 Manny 2017: 7. 15 Manny 2017 (Abstract) observes this in relation to Wilde’s famous aphorism from the preface of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray: ‘It is the spectator, and not life, that art truly mirrors’ Wilde 1990: 11. 16 See Witzke 2013: 224. 17 From ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young’, published in the Chameleon, December 1894 (see Wilde 1990: 855). 18 Ellmann 1987: 10–15. 19 Ellmann 1987: 5–9. 20 See McCormack 2013: 18; Manny 2017: 19. In this context, although the children were not permitted to talk at these salons, but only listen, Wilde was nevertheless exposed to intellectually stimulating discourse and witty repartee from an early age. 21 Ellmann 1987: 3. 22 Ellmann 1987: 21–22. 23 Ellmann 1987: 28–29. 24 See Grech 2019: 131; for a discussion of the influence of the Oxford Classical curriculum and the university’s ethos on Wilde’s intellectual development, see Grech 2019: 3–12. 25 Ellmann 1987: 101. Discussing his future, Wilde is recorded as having boasted to his friends that he would not be ‘a dried-up Oxford don’, but ‘a poet, a writer, a dramatist’, and that he would ‘be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious’. However, Grech 2019: 4 has pointed out that in practice Wilde was much more circumspect, making

310

26 27

28

29 30

31

32

33 34

35

Suzanne Sharland

some attempts to get scholarships and academic positions, and only abandoning his hope of an academic career and gravitating towards London when it became clear that such positions were scarce. See Wilde’s letter to Herbert Warren in October 1885, Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 265. Alastair Blanshard 2018: 29 observes that, by inviting Wilde to Greece, the Irish Protestant Mahaffy was deliberately attempting to steer his former student away from Rome in order to distract him from his increasing interest in Catholicism. This is confirmed by a letter Mahaffy wrote to his wife. Wilde had begun to be interested in Catholicism in Ireland, and was encouraged by the current Oxford trend towards Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism. Wilde’s initial trip to Italy had been funded by Jesuit priests. Also see discussions of Beckson & Fong 1997: 58 and Grech 2019: 48. Unfortunately, Wilde’s own account of his only visit to Greece has not survived, but Iain Ross 2009 has painstakingly reconstructed the itinerary and Wilde’s likely reactions to it from notes and letters written by Wilde himself, as well as through the published accounts of his travelling companions, J.P. Mahaffy and George Macmillan. Ross 2009: 194–195 suggests that Wilde may have found it difficult to reconcile the real modern Greece with the ancient Hellenic world of his imagination. See Wilde’s letters about this at Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 70–71. While it is amusingly ironic that the Charmides in this poem shows no self-restraint, it is likely that Wilde meant the name as a reference to Plato’s eponymous dialogue, where Charmides is appropriately a youth as beautiful as a statue: ἀλλὰ πάντες ὥσπερ ἄγαλμα ἐθεῶντο αὐτόν – ‘But they were all looking at him as if he were a statue’ (Plato Charmides 154d). Although the dialogue also raises questions about the inner beauty of the soul and sophrosyne, there are a number of homoerotic aspects, such as when Socrates gets a peek inside Charmides’ cloak and is sexually aroused: εἶδόν τε τὰ ἐντὸς τοῦ ἱματίου καὶ ἐφλεγόμην καὶ οὐκέτ᾿ἐν ἐμαυτοῦ ἦν – ‘I saw inside his cloak and I was inflamed, and I no longer had possession of myself’ (Plato Charmides 155d). Ironically, even Socrates struggles with self-restraint when confronted by such an attractive youth. In his essay on Winckelmann, Walter Pater had mentioned that Greek religion too has ‘its statues worn with kissing’ 1873: 175. Pater had also said of Winckelmann that he ‘fingers those pagan marbles with unsinged hands, with no sense of shame or loss. That is to deal with the sensuous side of art in the pagan manner’, Pater 1873: 196. This reference to agalmatophilia reminded Wilde of the story he had read in pseudo-Lucian (discussed earlier), which gave him the inspiration for the plot of Charmides. Wilde, however, decided to change the statue of the goddess from Aphrodite to Athena. See discussion of Ellmann 1987: 134–135. This is Macleod’s translation of οὐκ ἀσήμου γένους 1967: 173. The story, related by Lycinus in a dialogue with Theomnestus, is told to Lycinus and two other tourists, Charicles of Corinth and Callichratidas of Athens, by a woman who is an attendant at the temple housing the famous statue. Macleod 1967: 177. Macleod 1967: 177. This story from pseudo-Lucian concludes with the audience of this account engaging in a debate about the relative merits of love of women and love of males. In his introduction to this dialogue, Macleod comments that the title Erotes could be more accurately rendered Two Types of Love 1967: 147, which would have been appropriate for Wilde. In the debate, the clearly ‘heterosexual’ Charicles of Corinth argues the case for women, and the boy-loving Callichratidas of Athens argues for boys. Lycinus’ summation comes subtly down on the side of the latter. Charicles and Callichratidas, in fact, spar comically with each other throughout Lycinus’ account of his visit to Cnidus. Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 36.20) briefly recounts a similar story. Shawn O’Bryhim has argued that racy accounts of agalmatophilia were so common in antiquity, particularly from Hellenistic times on, that they seem to have acquired a mythical status akin to

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 311

36 37

38 39

40

41

42

modern ‘urban legends’ 2015: 423–424. O’Bryhim points out that many ancient cities seem to have encouraged titillating tales of travelers falling in love with and acting out their fantasies on famous statues in order to attract more curious tourists (and thus income) to their cities 2015: 428. All quotations from Wilde’s Charmides cited in this chapter are taken from Wilde 1990: 731–748. Iain Ross 2008: 456–457; 2013: 73 has pointed out that Wilde possibly conflates two statues here, the almost 50-foot chryselephantine Athena Parthenos housed in the Parthenon, and an older wooden statue of Athena Polias housed in the Erechtheion, for which the saffron-colored gown was woven and dedicated every four years at the Greater Panathenaic festival. The ‘burnished spear’ (stanza 2, line 01) which Charmides, on approaching Athens, spies from the sea at dawn and which looks like ‘a thin thread of gold against the sky’ (stanza 2, line 02), clearly seems to refer to the colossus. However, the idea of a human simulating sex with such a large statue is ridiculous; Ross notes that Charmides ‘would have had to be content with embracing her shin’, 2008: 457; 2013: 73. The statue with which Charmides engages has both a cuirass and a ‘crocus gown’ (stanza 18, line 01), which her assailant removes to reveal ‘breasts of polished ivory’ (stanza 18, line 02). The poem implies that this statue is close to life-size. Ellmann 1987: 135. The nature of ancient religious worship is very similar to the rituals of courtship, with points of comparison including: an attitude of awe, flattery, or praise of the object’s power or beauty, the provision of gifts to please and ensure the benevolence of the intended, pleading, groveling, and so on. Sappho fr. 31 and Catullus Poem 51 respectively claim that someone merely sitting opposite the intended is equivalent to the gods or even superior to the gods. Imagery of a religious cult could also be applied to romantic Victorian homosexual ‘crushes’, as they often spoke of ‘boy worship’ in single-sex institutions; cf. Wilde’s comment on ‘Bosie’ Douglas in a letter to Robert Ross referred to later: ‘I worship him’ Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 526. Although Charmides fears that he may be struck dead before his assault on the goddess’s statue begins, he is also very decisive and opportunistic once his fears are put to rest (stanza 16). His sexualreligious experience with Athena could be described as ‘ecstatic’, in the manner of many ‘nonrational’ religious experiences. Ross 2013: 74 observes: ‘Charmides abandons the world of carefully reconstructed history after the transgression in the temple and enters the world of myth as mediated by the English literary tradition.’ Ross feels that this change from relative historically accurate detail in the first portion of the poem, set in Athens, to the artificial world Wilde creates in imitation of Keats in the central portions, is particularly jarring. As is well known, the cultural norm for many ancient Greek communities including fifth-century Athens was pederasty, a romantic (and to some extent didactic) relationship between an adult male, known as the erastes (‘lover’), and a youth of approximately 14 to 18 years of age, known as the eromenos (‘beloved’) or pais kalos (‘beautiful boy’). The erastes was expected to court the eromenos or pais kalos openly, and be the active partner in the relationship, while the eromenos was expected to be dispassionate and passive, see Dover 1978. One suspects that real-life relationships only partially reflected the ideals suggested, for example, by Plato’s Symposium. Once the youth had begun to grow a beard, he was considered past his ‘sell-by date’ and no longer an ideal pais kalos. The pais kalos was celebrated in ancient Greek and later imitative Latin poetry for a fair, but rosy complexion (often compared to lilies and roses), smooth cheeks and other qualities admired in women. Wilde appears to have taken over many of these pederastic ideals from his reading of ancient Greek writers, especially Plato, as well as contemporaries such as John Addington Symonds and Walter Pater. Ross 2013: 75 identifies this as one of the many echoes of Keats in the poem. To continue our theme of worship, we could say that the young, good-looking ‘god’ at whose altar Wilde is truly paying homage in this poem is Keats.

312

Suzanne Sharland

43 For ancient accounts of Hylas’ disappearance, see Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 1.1207–1357, Theocritus Idyll 13, and Propertius 1.20. 44 This phrase is perhaps deliberately ambiguous. I understand it to mean that Charmides’ lips (like Narcissus’) are such that no woman could entice him to use them on her – in other words, this is a boy in no way attracted to women. It could also mean that no woman has lips as red, luscious and alluring as Charmides (or Narcissus). As we shall see shortly, Narcissus rejects all potential human suitors, male and female, although the fact that he falls in love with his own reflection suggests that he is somewhat more homosexually inclined. For a long portion of Ovid’s account, Narcissus appears to believe that the reflection he sees in the pool is a real boy (Met. 3.415–462), although when he finally recognises the truth (463–470), it is of course too late to leave. 45 Ovid Metamorphoses 3.508–510. 46 As Jan Bremmer notes 2004: 564, the image of a maenad falling down from exhaustion and sleeping appealed to Roman poets, occurring not just at Catull. 63.35–38, where the imagery concerning the worship of Cybele has included many aspects commonly associated with the worship of Dionysus, but also famously at Propertius 1.3.5–6, where the poet compares the sleeping Cynthia to an exhausted maenad, and at Ovid Amores 1.14.21–22. 47 Dionysus’ long hair and effeminacy arouse both hostility and opportunism in his enemies. When first discovered on Chios by the ill-intentioned sailors in Acoetes’ tale, which is part of Ovid’s Pentheus episode, Bacchus is described as a boy with the appearance or beauty of a girl (virginea puerum . . . forma, Ovid Metamorphoses 3.607). The sailors are punished, however, when they are turned into dolphins by Dionysus as this story’s transformation. 48 In Wilde’s only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton describes the portrait Basil Hallward has painted of the eponymous Dorian as ‘a Narcissus’, Wilde 1990: 13. Wilde’s most brilliant adaptation of the Narcissus myth, however, occurs in one of his self-titled Poems in Prose, called ‘The Disciple’. Here the nymphs, bewailing the death of Narcissus, find to their astonishment the Pool next to which Narcissus died confessing that he in turn had loved Narcissus, because ‘as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored’, Wilde 1990: 838. 49 Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 526 (my emphasis). Note the use of ‘worship’ in the erotic context. 50 After his initial exertions with the statue of Athena, the hero Charmides spends a large portion of the poem at first sleeping, then lying decoratively dead, although believed by the enamored Dryad to be asleep. These recumbent poses and the theme of love and beauty, give Wilde, as Ellmann cynically remarks, ‘full scope to describe male beauty’ 1987: 135. 51 The timeframe of Athena’s revenge is somewhat confusing seeing we are told that ‘nine suns’ (stanza 41, line 01), and ‘nine pale moons’ (stanza 41, line 03) have passed before the owl, the harbinger of Athena, appears to announce her approach (stanza 42). This may seem to refer to nine days and nine nights, but Grinstein 1980: 172 suggests that ‘nine moons’ may potentially refer to a symbolic maternal, gestational nine months, and employs this as part of his argument that Athena represents a forbidding mother figure in Wilde’s subconscious psychology. 52 The old pilot, however, rapidly instructs his men to change course (stanza 44, lines 05–06), and later recounts to them how he had seen ‘Close to the stern a dim and giant form’ (stanza 47, line 05). I thank one of the chapter’s anonymous referees for alerting me to this. 53 This naturally parallels the suicide of the anonymous youth in pseudo-Lucian’s account (Erotes 16). 54 The link with Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, with its themes of atonement and redemption, is what may have inspired Wilde’s geographically improbable choice. Colonus is

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 313 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64

65 66 67

68

quite a distance inland from the Piraeus. Ross 2013: 74, however, identifies the ‘lawn’ on which Charmides’ body comes to rest as deriving from Keats Endymion 1.82. Grinstein 1980: 165–169 rather disturbingly connects the Dryad with Wilde’s younger sister Isola, who died at the age of ten before reaching womanhood, and whose death is mourned in his early poem Requiescat, Wilde 1990: 703. Clearly, ‘forward’ meant something else in those days, since nowadays it is often taken to mean sexually precocious; here it presumably means ‘presumptuous’, as the Dryad is unaware that Charmides is dead. Ovid Met. 3.455–456: certe nec forma nec aetas / est mea quam fugias, et amarunt me quoque nymphae – ‘It’s certainly not my beauty nor youth that cause you to flee me, and the nymphs too have loved me.’ English 2017: 636. English 2017: 636. Sappho fragment 105c L-P describes a hyacinth flower growing high on a mountain slope, which shepherds trample underfoot and destroy. In the context of epithalamic poetry, this probably was a reference to lost virginity. Catullus 11.21–24 has an image of a flower at the edge of a meadow being destroyed by a passing plough, and this is usually understood to describe the destruction of his own love for his cruel mistress. Catullus also uses this image of a picked flower in an epithalamic context at 62.39–47, where a chorus of maidens at a wedding lament the loss of the bride’s virginity. Most significantly, Virgil Aeneid 9.433–437 applies the image of the cut-down flower to describe the dying Euryalus, lover of Nisus. Ovid Metamorphoses 3.504–505: tum quoque se, postquam est inferna sede receptus,/ in Stygia spectabat aqua. This story, as Ellen Greene observes 1996: 6), dates from at least two centuries after the historical Sappho’s death, appearing for the first time in a fragment attributed to the fourth-century BCE playwright Menander in a play called The Leukadia. The speaker of the fragment claims that Sappho was the first to jump to her death from the White Rock of Leukas on the west coast of the Greek mainland Greene 1996: 6 n. 8. Ovid takes it up in his Heroides 15, where Sappho as an abandoned woman writes to her lost lover Phaon. The story was one of the main recurrent themes concerning Sappho in Roman and Renaissance texts, but has been largely discredited today. In several personal letters, Wilde mentions studying Catullus Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 19, 20, and he also quotes from one of Catullus’ poems (Catull. 95.8, although he incorrectly attributes the quote to Juvenal; Holland & Hart-Davis 2000: 24 n. 4. Ellmann 1987: 103; Manny 2017: 239, 265–266. Towards the end of his poem The Sphinx, Wilde also appears to refer to Attis’ act of self-castration, although he uses the alternative but historically incorrect spelling ‘Atys’. The speaker berates the Sphinx as follows (stanza 85): ‘You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life, / And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am,’ Wilde 1990: 815. While in all prior versions of the tale of Attis and his relationship to Cybele, the youth is said to be Phrygian or Lydian, in Catullus 63 Attis is for the first time of clearly Greek origin, although no specific location can be definitely identified Harrison 2004: 520– 521. When the finally sobered-up Attis utters his second speech the next day (63.50ff), his regrets at leaving his ‘country’ (patria) include nostalgia for the common amenities of a Greek city, including the marketplace (forum could ostensibly refer to the agora of a Greek city), the palaestra, the stadium, and the gymnasia: abero foro, palaestra, stadio et gyminasiis? – ‘Am I to be absent from the market-place, the palaestra, the stadium and gymnasia?’ (Catullus 63.60). Attis refers to himself as having been an ephebe (63.63), and makes clear that he was good-looking, successful, and very popular in his previous life, a classic pais kalos or eromenos courted by strings of would-be lovers

314 69

70

71 72 73

74

75

76 77 78

79

Suzanne Sharland

(63.63–67). Harrison 2004: 522 raises but ultimately dismisses as too speculative the possibility that Attis may be ‘from Attica’ (i.e. Atthis, a woman’s name). Lynn Roller’s 1999 investigation into the cult has shown that while there is little evidence for castration of male devotees in the early history of Cybele’s worship in Phrygia, it was a definitive feature of Cybele’s priests and followers by the time the cult became established in Rome. Roller argues that while the Romans had embraced the cult of the Magna Mater and made it part of their state religion, they seem to have resented the Galli, her eunuch priests. She suggests that, whereas ecstatic rites and worship were private affairs with regard to the goddess’s acceptance in the Greek and Hellenistic world, in Rome Cybele’s link to the state cult caused some anxiety and paradoxical attitudes 1999: 317. Attis implies awareness that his/her regained sanity will be temporary (i.e. a lucidum intervallum) when s/he addresses her homeland as follows in his/her second speech: ‘cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi derigere aciem,/ rabie fera carens dum breve tempus animus est’ – ‘My very pupils desire to direct their gaze toward you, while my mind for a brief time is without wild mania’ (63.56–57). The translation of Lee 1990: 75 for rapidum salum . . . truculentaque pelagi (Catullus 63.16). sectam meam exsecutae duce me mihi comites / rapidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelagi, / et corpus evirastis Veneris nimio odio, Catullus 63.15–17. As if to express Attis’ hatred of Venus, there are appropriately many repetitions of the letter ‘r’, the lettura canis, the growling and most dog-like letter of the alphabet, in this poem. Kroon 2004: 646, as part of her study of repetition in Catullus 63, lists 21 words beginning with the letters re- in the poem (an average of one every four to five lines). I find it interesting that, in spite of all the gender changes in this poem, where the castrated Attis is often referred to in feminine terms, the one entity for whom this gender sacrifice appears to mean nothing is Cybele herself, who (if the textual readings are correct) releases one of her lions and instructs it to pursue the recalcitrant Attis in order to terrify him into submission. She refers to Attis as hunc (‘this one’, ‘this man’): ‘agedum’ inquit, ‘age ferox , fac ut hunc furor – ‘Come on, fierce one’ she said, ‘see to it that mad terror sends this fellow fleeing’ (63.78). Unlike Charmides, at the end of Catullus 63 Attis does not die, but suffers what is in effect ‘a fate worse than death’, being forever trapped on the shore, the no-man’s land between Cybele’s dense, dangerous, uncivilised forest, and the sea, which represents the way home. Attis’ reluctant and thus incomplete transformation into a servant (famula) of Cybele means that s/he is in a permanent state of ‘liminality’, as De Villiers 2017 has recently argued. In a sense, Attis is ‘too liminal’ to die in Catullus’ poem (although one wonders how long s/he would last in reality). Harrison 2004: 530; see for example Callimachus’ Bath of Pallas (Hymn 5). Krafft-Ebing 1939: 525 explains frottage of statues as follows: ‘The simplest explanation seems to be that frottage is a masturbatorial act of a hypersexual individual who is uncertain about his virility in corpore feminae.’ See especially Skinner 1997: 137, who suggests that Attis’ narcissism in his previous role of eromenos encourages him to castrate himself in order to ‘remain fixed at the passive stage’ and to avoid having to take on the active sexual male role, as he would eventually be expected to do, whether his partners were male or female. See also the discussion of Oliensis 2009: 113. The first lines of Catullus 63 and 101 are similar, as both contain the word vectus ‘carried’, or ‘having travelled’, and both refer (at least partially in the case of 101) to sea travel: cf. Catull. 63.1: super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria – ‘Attis, having been carried/having travelled over the high seas in a fast boat’; Catull. 101.1: multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus – ‘having travelled through many nations and over many seas’. Attis’ travel, however, seems manically hasty (courtesy of the galliambic metre), whereas Catullus’ hexametric travels in the first line of the elegiac poem 101 feel more drawn-out and wearisome, like those of Odysseus.

Oscar Wilde’s poem Charmides 315 80 There is an ironic postscript to the agalmatophile Charmides in the fate of its author’s tomb, pointing perhaps to a parallel ‘redemption’ by Eros. An article in The New York Times of 15 December 2011 reported that Oscar Wilde’s tomb in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris had had to be shielded with a glass wall due to erosion caused by a multitude of lipstick kisses implanted by admirers on the tomb (see Tagliabue 2011). I am thankful for having been able to pay my well-behaved, humble homage there relatively unhindered in early 1994.

Bibliography Beckson, K. (ed). 1974. Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage. London and New York. Beckson, K. and B. Fong. 1997. ‘Wilde as Poet.’ In The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde ed. P. Raby, 57–68. Cambridge. Behrendt, P.F. 1991. Oscar Wilde: Eros and Aesthetics. New York. Blanshard, A.J.L. 2018. ‘Mahaffy and Wilde: A Study in Provocation.’ In Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity, eds. K. Riley, A.J.L. Blanshard, and I. Manny, 19–25. Oxford. Bremmer, J.N. 2004. ‘Attis: A Greek God in Anatolian Pessinous and Catullan Rome.’ Mnemosyne 57 (5): 534–573. De Villiers, A. 2017. ‘Liminality and “Catullus” Attis.’ Helios 44 (2): 157–179. Dodds, E.R. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley. Dover, K.J. 1978. Greek Homosexuality. London. Ellmann, R. 1987. Oscar Wilde. London. English, M. 2017. ‘Some Minor Sources of Oscar Wilde’s “Charmides” and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.’ Notes and Queries 64 (4): 634–639. Grech, L. 2019. Oscar Wilde’s Aesthetic Education: The Oxford Classical Curriculum. New York and Los Angeles. Greene, E. (ed). 1996. Re-Reading Sappho: Reception and Transmission. Berkeley. Grinstein, A. 1980. ‘Oscar Wilde.’ American Imago 37 (2): 125–179. Hamilton, W. 1882. The Aesthetic Movement in England. London. Harrison, S. 2004. ‘Altering Attis: Ethnicity, Gender and Genre in Catullus 63.’ Mnemosyne 57 (5): 520–533. Harrison, S. 2004b. ‘Catullus 63: Text and Translation.’ Mnemosyne 57 (5): 513–519. Holland, M. 2013. ‘Oscar Wilde’s Crime and Punishment: Fictions, Facts and Questions.’ In Oscar Wilde in Context, eds. K. Powell and P. Raby, 97–210. Cambridge. Holland, M. and R. Hart-Davis (eds). 2000. The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. London. Krafft-Ebing, R. von. 1939. Psychopathia Sexualis: A Medico-Forensic Study. London. Kroon, C. 2004. ‘The Effect of the Echo: A Text Linguistic Approach to Catullus Carmen 63.’ Mnemosyne 57 (5): 629–650. Lee, G. 1990. Catullus: The Complete Poems Translated with an Introduction and Notes. Oxford. Macleod, M.D. 1967. Lucian, Vol. 8. London. Manny, I. 2017. ‘Looking with Narcissus: Oscar Wilde’s Reception of the Dying God.’ PhD thesis, The Open University. McCormack, J. 2013. ‘Wilde’s Dublin; Dublin’s Wilde.’ In Oscar Wilde in Context, eds. K. Powell and P. Raby, 17–27. Cambridge. O’Bryhim, S. 2015. ‘The Economics of Agalmatophilia.’ CJ 110 (4): 419–429. Oliensis, E. 2009. Freud’s Rome: Psychoanalysis and Latin Poetry. Cambridge. Pater, W.H. 1873. Studies in the History of the Renaissance. London. Powell, K. and P. Raby (eds). 2013. Oscar Wilde in Context. Cambridge.

316

Suzanne Sharland

Riley, K., A.J.L. Blanshard, and I. Manny (eds). 2018. Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity. Oxford. Roller, L.E. 1999. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. Berkeley. Ross, I. 2008. ‘Charmides and The Sphinx: Wilde’s Engagement with Keats.’ Victorian Poetry 46 (4): 451–265. Ross, I. 2009. ‘Oscar Wilde in Greece: Topography and the Hellenist Imagination.’ International Journal of the Classical Tradition 16 (2): 176–196. Ross, I. 2013. Oscar Wilde and Ancient Greece. Cambridge. Skinner, M.B. 1997. ‘Ego mulier: The Construction of Male Sexuality in Catullus.’ In Roman Sexualities, eds. J.P. Hallett and M.B. Skinner, 129–150. Princeton. Stedman, E.C. 1903. Victorian Poets. Boston. Tagliabue, J. 2011. ‘Walling Off Oscar Wilde’s Tomb from Admirers’ Kisses.’ The New York Times, December 15, 2011. Reteieved August 30, 2019, from www.nytimes. com/2011/12/16/world/europe/oscar-wildes-tomb-sealed-from-admirers-kisses. Talbot, M. 2018. ‘The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture.’ The New Yorker, October 22, 2018. Retrieved November 27, 2019, from www.newyorker.com/magazine/ 2018/10/29/the-myth-of-whiteness-in-classical-sculpture. Wilde, O. 1881. Poems. London. Wilde, O. 1990. The Complete Stories, Plays and Poems of Oscar Wilde. London. Witzke, S. 2013. ‘An Ideal Reception: Oscar Wilde, Menander’s Comedy and the Context of Victorian Classical Studies.’ In Menander in Contexts, ed. Alan H. Sommerstein, 215–232. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies. New York.

Index

Acradina 17, 23, 28n28, 31n59 administrative reforms 151 Aeneas 75, 77, 80, 83–84, 86–87, 90n16 aerarium Saturni 97, 99–100, 108n18 agentes vices praefectorum praetorio 164n14 agora 23 Agrippina 122, 124–125, 127, 202 Alba Longa 77, 90n16 Alexander 3, 11–12, 24, 25n2, 25n6, 28n31, 29n37, 31n69, 43, 48–63, 63nn7–9, 64n11, 64n13, 64nn18–21, 65nn24–26, 65n31, 65n34, 66n40, 66n43, 66nn47–48, 66n51, 66n55, 67n60, 67n64, 67n66, 68nn67–68, 68n71, 69nn77–78, 69nn85–86; Alexander-myth 50; Alexander Romance 49, 52, 63n7 Altar of Victory 154 Ambrogio Lorenzetti 128 Ammianus Marcellinus 200 Anastasius I, emperor 161 ancestors 4, 75, 79, 83–84, 87, 205, 229, 256, 265 Andromachus 49–50, 52, 55, 57–59, 64n11 Antichrist 4, 125–127, 131 Antoninus Pius, emperor 122, 131 Aphrodite 298–300, 304–305, 307, 310n31 apocalypse 125, 128, 291 Apollo 82, 122–123, 125, 130, 152, 160, 172–174, 175n7, 208, 236n43 Apollocrates 14, 23, 26n13, 31n63 Apulia 21 architecture 2, 4, 119, 128 Arianism 190–191, 198, 200 Aristomache 13, 26n14, 29n34, 31n64 Aristotle 24, 40–41, 44n20, 212n51 Arrian 52, 55–56, 63n4, 64n18, 65n27, 66n41, 66n44, 66n48

Artaxerxes I, king 49, 54–55, 61, 65n38 Artemidorus 98–100, 103, 109n28 Athena 297, 299–300, 302–307, 309n7, 310n31, 311n39, 312nn50–51 atomism 6, 286, 288 atrium 73 Attis 7, 297, 306–308, 313nn67–68, 314n70, 314nn73–75, 314n79 Augustine, Saint 4, 6, 126, 241, 246–247, 250–251, 288 Augustus 3–4, 12, 29n42, 73–88, 89n2, 89n5, 89–90n9, 90n27, 91n41, 91n50, 107n4, 122, 150, 152–154, 159, 163n10, 164n23; Res Gestae 3, 86 Aurelian, emperor 152, 164n20 Aurelius Victor 125 aurum comparaticium 152 Ausonius 125, 256, 259, 262, 266n2, 266n8, 267n16 Aventine 121, 136n26 Babylas 5, 169–170, 172–174, 175n8, 178n58, 208 Babylon 56, 60, 66n48, 68n71, 68n73 Baebius Massa 98, 108n15 barbarian expansion 159, 260 Basilica Aemilia 78 Baths of Nero 4, 120 Belisarius 11 benefactor 1, 265, 274 biography 15, 26n6, 29n43, 126, 156, 163nn8–9, 164n25 Book of Revelation 125 Botticelli, Sandro 130 Burke, Edmund 280–284, 293n20, 293n22, 293n24 Cabala 19 Callimachus 300, 314n76

318

Index

Callisthenes 52, 58, 63n7, 68n71, 69n86 Camarina 16–17, 27n16, 28n29, 39 Campus Martius 82, 119, 128, 132, 136n14 canonic sources 49, 55–56, 58–60, 67n64 Caracalla, emperor 119, 124 Cardano, Gerolamo 130–131, 135, 139n104 career 4, 6, 27n19, 38, 78, 86, 95–97, 100, 102–106, 108n12, 108n25, 109n30, 110n51, 110n63, 155, 157, 205, 258–260, 265, 298–299, 310n25 Carthaginians 3, 15–17, 22, 27n16, 27n20, 28n26, 30n48, 36–43 Catullus 297, 304, 306–308, 313n61, 313n65, 313n68, 314nn71–73, 314n75, 314–315n79 Caulonia 21, 26n12, 31n54 Christian 3, 5–6, 49–50, 57, 60–61, 67nn64–65, 121, 125–126, 152–162, 164n22, 164n28, 165n35, 166n56, 166n60, 169–173, 182–186, 188, 191, 193n10, 193n30, 201–202, 205–207, 210n7, 211n26, 212n69, 274–278, 281, 285, 288, 290–292, 308 Christian Church 153, 161 Christianisation 153–154, 164n24 Chronicles 51 chrysargyron 152, 161–162; see also Dio Chrysostom Church of St. Babylas 174 Cicero 1, 3, 11–13, 25, 25n4, 84, 132, 139n111, 257, 262, 276–277 Circus Maximus 4, 121–122 clarissimus 151 Claudian, poet 125 Claudianus Mamertus 256, 260, 262, 266n8 Claudius 79, 81, 107n7, 114, 132, 135, 139n111 Cleander 35, 43n4 Cleitarchus 51–52, 59, 63, 64n18, 65nn26–27, 67nn57–58, 67n60 clergy Coele Syria 49, 57, 60–61, 67n61 cognitive frame 203, 209 coiffure 117, 119, 121–122, 130–132, 134 coins 2, 4, 85, 114, 120, 122, 128, 130–131, 133–134, 136n20, 207 collective guilt 18 collective memory 4–7, 73, 75, 83, 86–87, 89n2, 91nn40–41, 106, 183, 223, 233n8, 257, 263 Colossus of Nero 4, 120 comes sacrarum largitionum 151

comitatus 151 Commodus, emperor 114, 120, 124, 126, 131, 138n66 communicative memory 124, 198, 208 community 12, 18–19, 24, 28n24, 29n34, 29n39, 169, 191, 198, 210, 223, 225, 228–229, 231–232, 233n8, 269n42 Comum 106, 110nn61–62 Constantine 119–122 Constantine I, emperor 196–198, 205, 211n20; civil war with Licinius 156, 159, 165n52; conversion 155, 157–159, 162 Constantinople 5, 159, 162, 165n46, 166n56, 182–184, 186–188, 191–192, 196, 200, 258 Constantius I Chlorus, emperor 155, 157, 164n28, 165n51 Constantius II, emperor 199, 201, 204, 207, 211n20, 212n55, 213n97 continuity 110n51, 156–158, 164n17, 225, 268n34 contorniates 122–123, 125, 130–131 conversion, Christianity 155, 157–159, 162 Cornelius Nepos 21, 26n6, 30n48, 30n52, 31n56 Corsica 19 Creech, Thomas 6, 273–274, 276, 278–281, 283, 288, 293n16, 293n22 Crispus, Caesar 156, 161, 206–207, 209, 213n80 Cronium 19 cultural change 1, 261 cultural memory 6, 124, 197, 201, 203, 205, 209–210, 228–232, 233n8, 236n39, 256, 260, 262–265, 269n42 Curiae Veteres 120 Curiatus Maternus 124 currency 152 Curtius 49, 52, 56–57, 59–60, 63, 64n11, 67n57, 67n60, 67n65 Cyrus II, king 58, 60, 62, 67n64, 68n73 damnatio memoriae 4, 101, 109n36, 135 Daniel 49, 56, 59–61, 65n24, 68n75, 69n85 Darius II 49, 54, 65n38 Darius III 49, 54–55, 62, 63n8, 66n38 declamation 257 dedication 3, 43n9, 76, 86, 91n46 deification 105, 114–115; posthumous deification 79 Deinomenid 35–37, 39–40, 42–43, 44n16, 44n19

Index

319

Delphi 3, 36, 160 demographics 21 diadochi 50 diaspora 48, 56 Diderot Denis 135 Dio Chrysostom 126 Diocletian, emperor 119, 158, 164n14 Diodorus Siculus 3, 44n22 Dion 13–15, 20–24, 26n14, 27n15, 30n46, 30nn48–49, 30n52, 31nn56–58, 40 Dionysius I 3, 11–15, 20–21, 26nn6–7, 27n15, 27n18, 29n45, 30n48, 35, 38–39 Dionysius II 3, 11, 14 disfigurement 114 distortion 95 Dolabella 85 Domitian, emperor 4–5, 95–97, 99–106, 108n11, 108n22, 110nn51–52, 110nn58–59, 114, 116–121, 126, 132–133, 137n51, 138n66, 139n111 Donatists 164 dreams 203, 211–212n49, 313n67 dynasty 24, 30n51, 31n56, 35, 41, 62, 74, 89, 150, 153, 199

Eusebius of Caesarea 5, 153, 206; Chronicon 57, 64n11; De vita Constantini 206; istoria ecclesiastica 206 Eutropius 125–126, 185 Evagrius 161–162, 166n66, 207

education 6, 13–14, 26n11, 256–266, 266nn1–3, 266n6, 266n9, 267n18, 268n24, 268n34, 278, 287, 298–299 Egypt 3, 49, 56–58, 60, 63, 64n11, 68n71, 121, 185, 188, 268n34 Elagabalus, emperor 124, 126, 138n66 encomiastic 13 Epaminondas 11 Ephorus 11, 25, 28n23, 31n70, 37 epic 59, 203–204, 223, 225, 274, 277, 282–283 Epicureanism 276, 279–282, 288, 293 epigonoi 52 Epipolai 17 erasure 101, 121 Etruscans 3, 31n67, 36–37 Eudoxia 185–186, 192 Eugenius IV 128 Eumenius 256, 258–259, 267n13 Eunapius 153, 166n60 euergetistic 131 εὕρημα 224–225, 227, 229–230, 233n2, 235n26, 236n41, 236n50 Euripides 32n71, 122, 212n51, 225–226, 228, 230–231, 233; Medea 228–231, 236n41 Eusebia, empress 201, 204, 211n20

Galba 116, 119, 122, 132, 139n111 Gaza 49, 55–59 Gela 15–17, 19, 27n16, 28n21, 28n24, 28n26, 28n29, 35–36, 43n6 Geloans 15–16, 28n23 Gelon 3, 11, 14, 22, 25, 27n16, 31n59, 32n73, 35–43, 43n3, 43n7, 44n24, 44n29, 45n43 genealogies 200, 204–205 gens Flavia 96, 152, 164n19 Good Emperors, The 157 Good, John Mason 7, 273, 291 Gothic romance 273, 280–282, 293n29 Goths 1–2, 159, 188, 190–191, 193n28

fabricate 102 faction 2, 35, 206 factional strife 35 falsification 95 fascinum 84 Fausta, empress 161, 196–197, 206–207, 209–210, 212n72, 213n80 federatus 151 Festus 125 Filarete, Antonio 128–131 First Pythian 37, 43n15 flagellum dei 131 Flavians 4, 104–105, 120–121 fleet 16–18, 21–23, 25n5, 30n48, 30–31n53, 290 Forum Augustum 3, 73–79, 81–84, 86–88, 89nn3–4, 90n17, 91nn38–39 Forum Iulium 77–79, 81–82, 84, 90n14, 90n16 frontier 1, 151, 187

Hades 127, 298, 305, 307 hairstyle 117, 121 Hamilcar I, king 36 Hebrew 3, 125, 171, 173, 177n43 Hellenic resistance 37 Heraclides 22 Hercules 120 Herculian 152 Hermocrates 12, 15, 25n5, 26n9, 28n23 hero, heroes 1, 5, 37, 69n86, 73, 89n3, 182, 208, 225–227, 282, 297, 299, 302, 306, 309n7, 312n50

320

Index

Herodotus 7, 17, 28n32, 32n72, 38, 40, 43n3, 43n6, 149, 163n3 Himera 3, 19, 22, 27n16, 27n20, 28n23, 36–42, 44n41; Battle of Himera 3, 36–37, 39, 41–42 Hipparinus 13–14, 23, 26nn13–14 Hippocrates 30n45, 35, 39, 43nn5–6 historians 1–3, 7, 12, 53, 59–60, 95, 97, 149–150, 153, 158, 161, 162n1, 163n3, 197, 199–200, 207, 209, 273 historiographical tradition 39, 44n22 historiography 60, 62, 127, 149–150, 164n22, 200–201, 205 honour(s) 1, 42, 50–52, 57–58, 64n11, 68n73, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82–83, 86, 89n5, 91n46, 101–102, 119, 122, 188, 193, 259 hostis 114 humiliation 20 Hutchinson, Lucy 273–278, 281, 288, 292n3, 292nn10–11, 292n14 ideology 48, 53, 152, 164n19, 210n7 imitatio Christi 184, 186, 188, 191 imitation 40, 48, 125, 132, 185–186, 188, 235n26, 282, 298, 300, 311n40 imitatio Pauli 188 imperial family 73–75, 83–84, 86–88, 108n11 imperial policy 150 intermarriage 2, 54 invention 2, 6, 14, 104, 136n26, 151, 154, 176, 223–232, 233n2, 234n21, 235n30, 235n36, 236n45, 279 inventor 6, 131, 223–224, 228, 230–231, 233n6, 236n45 Jacobus da Varagine 127 Jaddous 54–56, 58, 66n39 Jerome 2, 50, 57, 63n6, 64n11, 67n60, 99, 108n17 Jerusalem 2–3, 48–50, 52–63, 63n5, 64n11, 64n13, 65n37, 66nn47–48, 66n51, 67n61, 68n68, 169, 177n43, 186, 193n17 Jews 3, 48–63, 64n13, 66n47, 67n64, 68nn67–68, 69n78, 173, 198 Josephus 3, 48–50, 52–63, 63n3, 63n6, 63n8, 64n11, 64n14, 64n18, 65n29, 65n34, 65nn36–38, 66n39, 66n47, 67n60, 67n63, 68nn67–68, 69n78, 69n80, 69n85 Josippon 52, 61 Jovian, emperor 152, 200

Judaea 55, 57, 64n11 Judaeo-Christian 5 Julian, emperor 4–5, 25n2, 73–75, 77–79, 81, 83–87, 89, 89n2, 89n4, 122, 125, 153, 161, 164n21, 165n34, 166n60, 169–175, 175n7, 175nn14–16, 177nn42–43, 177n53, 178n60, 200–201, 203, 206–208, 212n55, 212n69, 213n80 Julio-Claudian 4, 121–122, 124, 131, 133 Justin I, emperor 166n58 Juvenal 124, 263, 313n65 Koimeterion 173 Lactantius 125, 193n14, 275–278, 281, 284, 288, 290, 292n8 laurel 117, 122 leadership 15, 19, 86, 88, 306 legacy 5, 114, 116, 125, 127, 131, 135 legitimising propaganda 39 Lenaean festival 42 lex Annalis 99 Libanius 199, 203, 210n16, 266n5, 266n9, 267n18, 269n44 liberator 1, 37, 41, 43, 56, 68n71 Licinius 151, 155–159, 162, 164n28, 165n52, 213n77 Ligorio, Pirro 131 Locri 18, 20–21, 23, 26nn12–13, 29nn33–34, 31n54, 31n64 loyalty 12, 55, 58–59, 104 Lucanians 20–21, 30nn49–50 Lucretius 6–7, 273–292, 292n4, 292n8, 292n15, 293n20, 294n67 Lugdunum 114 lyric poetry 223 Lysias 19, 29n43, 42 1 Maccabees 49–52, 61, 64n18, 65n24, 69n85 Machiavelli, Niccolò 131 Macedonians 11, 24, 26n6, 49, 52–53, 58, 64n11, 65n35, 67n60, 68n67 Macrobius 76, 211n49 Magister militum 260, 267n21 Magna Graecia 21 Magna Mater 307, 314n69 Magnentius, usurper 199 maiestas 97 Malalas 126, 138n74 Marcus Aurelius, emperor 131 Marius 11

Index Mars Ultor 75–83, 85, 87, 89n1, 89n5, 90n13, 91n46, 92n54 Martial 101, 119, 124, 136n25, 137n52 martyrdom 127–130, 174, 182–184, 186, 191; martyr cult 169–170, 173; martyr shrine 169–170, 173–174 masculinity 182, 184, 187–188, 191, 193n30 Mauricus 98, 105 Maurists 241–246, 248–250 Maxentius, emperor 119–120, 155, 157, 162, 165n52 medallions 4, 122, 130 media 7, 56, 269n42 Medici, family 132–134 memorial 1, 5–6, 114, 150, 159, 163n1, 182, 223–224, 229, 235n26 memories 1–3, 5–7, 91n38, 91n40, 104, 106, 115, 149–150, 152–155, 157–158, 161–162, 164n24, 166n62, 174, 183, 197, 200–201, 204, 206, 223, 256, 260, 264–265, 269n42 memory construction 149–150, 154 mercenary, mercenaries 15–16, 18, 21–23, 27n16, 28n24, 28n32, 31n55, 31n61, 31n63 Metz Epitome 52, 64n18 Michelangelo 130 Midrashim 52 military 2–3, 11–12, 15, 17–22, 24–25, 27n15, 28n23, 30nn48–49, 35–36, 40, 42, 53, 68n67, 73–74, 78, 82, 84–85, 87–88, 95, 97, 99–100, 105–106, 108n11, 150–152, 159, 163n11, 259, 267n14 military campaign 17–19, 82, 106 military policy 151, 163n11 mirabilia 127 Mishnah 52 mnemohistory 7 mnemonic 124, 226–227, 235n26 Mommsen, Theodor 97–99, 108nn12–14, 108n16, 267n12 monotheism 285 monument, monuments 1, 3, 36, 59, 68n67, 73, 75, 77, 81–84, 86–87, 89, 91n36, 101–102, 114, 119–122, 128, 198, 280 Moral Foundations Theory 170 moral psychology 171–172, 175n18 Moses 48, 54, 62, 157, 165n34, 189, 192, 285, 288 Motya 17–19, 28n23 Narcissus 300–303, 305, 312n44, 312n48 Nehemiah 49, 54–55, 61, 65nn37–38

321

Nero, emperor 4–5, 114–135, 136n14, 136n19, 137n42, 138n66, 139n98, 157, 202, 278 Nerva, emperor 100, 102, 104–105, 110n51, 132, 139n111 Nicias, general 22 Nypsius 23 obeisance 300, 306 Olympiodorus 153 omen 39 oracle at Daphne 5 Ortygia 22–23, 31n63 Ovid 107n4, 301, 312nn45–47, 313n57, 313nn63–64 paganism 157 pagan temples 160, 166n56 Palamedes 6, 224–228, 230, 232, 233n10, 234nn16–22, 235n26, 235n36, 236nn38–39, 236n45 Palazzo Borghese 132 panhellenism 3, 29n43, 36–38, 42–43, 44n16, 44n19 Parthians 83, 85, 89n5, 91n46, 92n54, 127 Pater Patriae 75, 79, 84, 86–87 patronage 84, 186–187, 191, 205, 257 Paul, Apostle 196, 202, 209 Paulinus of Pella 257, 262 penates 84 Persia, Persian 3, 29n35, 35–38, 42, 54–56, 58, 60, 62–63, 66n38, 68n71, 156, 159, 185, 188, 201 Persian Wars 36–38, 42, 43n2, 43n8, 44n16, 159 persona 114, 135 Petrarch 128 Philippi 76–77, 81, 83, 85, 90n13 Philistus 3, 11–12, 17–18, 20, 24, 25n5, 26n9, 27n15, 29n45, 30n47, 31n53, 31n56, 31n69, 38–42, 44nn27–28 physiognomy 117, 119, 121, 131, 134 Pindar 3, 32n73, 36–37, 43n3, 43n15 Plataea 3, 36–38 Plato 3, 11, 13–14, 25, 27n15, 30nn48–49, 204, 288–290, 299, 310n30, 310n41 Plemmyrion 22 Pliny the Elder 124–125, 310n35 Pliny the Younger 95–96, 125; Panegyricus 95–97, 99–104, 106, 107n1, 107n5, 109n44, 110nn50–51 Plutarch 3, 11, 13–15, 21–22, 25, 25n6, 27nn17–18, 29n43, 30n52, 31n57,

322

Index

31n59, 31n69, 40, 42, 65n27, 127; Life of Timoleon 14 poena post mortem 114 pollution 5, 170–175, 175n12, 177n38, 207–210 Polybius 24, 66n42, 158 Polyphemus 303 Pompeius Trogus 52 Poppaea 115, 119, 130, 139n99 portraits 4, 52, 73, 81, 109n38, 114–117, 119–122, 124, 128, 130–135, 139n113, 312n48 posterity 103, 106 power 2–6, 12–13, 15, 17, 19–20, 22–25, 26nn12–14, 28n25, 31n70, 35, 38–42, 43n6, 51, 73–75, 82, 84, 86, 89n2, 90n9, 96, 102, 153–154, 156, 158, 170, 183, 187, 192, 196, 204, 210, 211n38, 232, 237n58, 237n64, 257, 259–261, 268n24, 281–283, 285, 289–292, 311n39 Praetorian Guard 105, 151 praetorian prefect 202, 266n10 propaganda 37, 39, 43n3, 43n6, 43n15, 44n27, 74, 165n51 Prudentius 125 public service 258 Pyrgi 19 quaestor sacri palatii 151 Quintus Curtius 49, 52, 63n4 Quirinal 121, 136nn26–27 Radcliffe, Ann 282–283, 293nn34–35 rationalis rei privatae 151 reception 6, 25, 48, 52, 56, 136n12, 166n62, 173, 241, 252, 273–274, 279, 284, 290–292, 292n8 reconfigure 116–117, 121, 206 reconstruction 6–7, 35, 37, 43, 149, 235n35, 245, 250, 297 redemption 305, 308, 313n54, 315n80 rediscovery 7 reflection 26n11, 44n31, 198, 204–205, 224, 229–230, 232, 298, 301, 305, 308, 312n44 reinterpretation 2, 7, 198, 204 re-invent 96 religio 6, 273–280, 282–284 reputation 4, 15, 20, 38, 40–43, 51, 104, 122–124, 127–128, 130, 134–135, 185, 264–265 respect 59, 290

Rhegium 19, 21 rhetoric 6, 15, 38–39, 44n26, 50, 126, 156, 158, 161, 170, 182, 256–259, 261–262, 264–265, 266n5, 266n9, 282 rituals 73, 80–82, 91nn37–39, 159, 171, 233n12, 311n39 Roman education 260, 263, 266n6 Romanitas 157, 162 Rome 155, 156, 158; sack of Rome 2 Romulus, king 75, 77–80, 83, 87, 90n24, 120, 260 Ruricius of Limoges 256, 260, 262 Rusticus 97–98, 105 Salamis 3, 32n71, 36–38 salvation 36–37, 58, 67n64, 178n57, 189 Samaria 49, 54–55, 57–58, 61, 63n8, 66n51, 67n60 Samaritan, Samaritans 3, 49–50, 52–59, 61, 63, 63n8, 64n11, 63n13, 65n29, 66n38, 67n63, 67n66, 68n68 Sanaballetes 49, 54–57, 60–62, 63n8, 65n36 Sanctuary of Apollo (Daphne) 172 Sappho 304–305, 311n39, 313n60, 313n64 Sarmatians 159 saviour 35–36, 38–39, 42, 74 sculpture 2, 79, 131, 134, 139n99, 230, 297 Secular Games (313 CE) 158–159 sentimentality 298 Septimius Severus, emperor 114, 150 Septuagint 48–49, 51, 65n38, 66n39 Severus Alexander, emperor 120, 136n20 shrine, shrines 5, 29n41, 36, 68n71, 90n27, 170, 173–174, 300 Sicily 3, 13–14, 17–19, 22–25, 25n5, 26n9, 27nn15–16, 27nn19–20, 29n45, 30n52, 31n68, 32n71, 35–43, 43n2, 44n18, 297, 300, 305, 309n7 Sidonius Apollinaris 202, 256 Sienkiewicz, Henryk 135 Silius Italicus 277 slander 68n67, 102, 105, 212n72 slaves 20, 209, 263 social memory 81, 162–163n1 social status 18, 26n6, 302, 306, 308 solidus 152, 164n18 Sol Invictus 152, 164n20 Sophocles 212n51, 227, 231–233, 234n17, 234n20, 235n37, 303, 313n54 sophrosyne 299, 310n30

Index Spartan, Spartans 15, 24, 31n68, 37 spoils 36, 76, 80, 82–83, 87 stasis 14, 22–23 Statius 124, 137n51 statue, statues 1–2, 4, 36, 73, 75, 78–84, 89n3, 90n18, 90nn27–28, 101, 114, 120–121, 152, 154, 230, 297, 299–300, 307, 309n7, 310nn30–32, 311nn35–37, 311n39, 312n50, 314n77 Stesichorus 40–41 Stoic martyrs 97 Strabo 19, 21, 58, 68n71 Straits of Messina 21 succession 14, 29n44, 50, 54, 156, 158–160, 200, 241 Suda 127, 138n77 Suetonius 81, 86, 101, 105, 107n7, 124–126, 131, 135, 263, 277 Sulla 25n6, 27n17 Sulpicius Severus 126, 138n72 summi viri 73–75, 78, 80–81, 83–84, 89, 90n9, 90n19 Syncellus 50, 57, 63n6, 64n11, 67n60 Syracuse 3, 11–13, 15, 17–25, 25n5, 26n9, 26n12, 26n14, 27nn15–16, 28n21, 28nn23–24, 28n28, 29n34, 29nn42–43, 29n45, 30nn48–49, 31n54, 31n57, 31n59, 31n65, 31n68, 35–38, 40–43, 43n3 Tacitus 98, 101, 105, 107n5, 110n58, 124–125, 131, 135, 154, 163n10, 164n23, 277 Talmud 50, 52, 59, 63n6, 64n21, 65n29, 67n66 Tauromenium 19, 29n39 tax 68n67, 151–152, 161, 258 Temple of Bellona 82 Temple of Mars the Avenger 4, 81 Templum Pacis 78, 120 Tertullian 125 tetrarchy 152, 164n15 Themistocles 11, 38 Theocritus 297, 300, 303, 306, 312n43 Theodoric 124, 137n42, 267n22 Theodorus 41 Theodosian Code 202, 256, 258 Theodosius, emperor 153–154, 187 Theon of Alexandria 40 Theophilus 184–186, 188–189, 191–192 Thermopylae 37–38

323

Theron of Acragas 36 Thucydides 2–3, 17, 24, 28n32, 31nn67–68, 31n70, 43n3, 149, 163nn3–4, 299 Timaeus of Tauromenium 12, 14, 17–18, 20, 25, 26n7, 28n23, 28n27, 28n31, 30n47, 30n50, 31n70, 32n71, 32n74, 39, 44n21 Timoleon 22–24, 29n45, 30n48, 30n51, 31n65, 39 Titus, emperor 108n11, 117–121, 124, 139n111 traditionalism 73–74, 89n3 tragedy 6, 27n15, 32n71, 42, 202–205, 212n51, 223–224, 226–227, 231, 236n45, 307 Trajan, emperor 4, 11, 81, 89n2, 91n32, 95–96, 102–104, 106, 107n4, 110nn51–52, 110n63, 119, 121–122, 128, 130 transmission 6, 17, 157, 234n26, 241–243, 245–246, 248, 250–251 tribute 14, 27n16, 30n48, 55, 279 triumph of Christianity 153 triumphatores 73, 83, 87 Trojan War 42, 236n39 trophies 73, 81, 83 Troy 2, 77, 80, 125 turannos 2 tyranny 4, 11, 13–14, 20, 23–25, 28n25, 29n43, 31nn67–68, 35, 41, 43nn2–3, 44n38, 95, 102, 128 tyrant 2, 4, 12–15, 19–22, 26n13, 27n16, 29n40, 29n42, 30n45, 32n71, 32n74, 40–42, 43nn2–3, 65n24, 74, 97, 102, 104, 124–125, 128, 135, 159, 164n28, 189, 283; see also turannos Tyre 3, 28n31, 49, 55, 57, 59, 63n10, 64n11, 68n71 Tyrians 55 Uzziah 51, 64n20, 69n85 Valentinian, emperor 258 Valerius Maximus 39, 44n31 Veiento 105, 110n54 Venus Genetrix 77–79, 84, 90n16 Vespasian, emperor 116–117, 119–120, 122, 124 vicarius 151, 266n10 victory, victories 1, 3–4, 19–20, 22, 27n16, 31n67, 32n73, 36–42, 56, 58, 64n13,

324

Index 312n50, 313n55, 313n65, 313n67; Charmides 7, 297–315

69n85, 78, 155, 157, 164n28, 165n53, 166n60, 177n45, 186 Villa Borghese 132–133, 139n109 Virgil 2, 262, 299, 304, 313n62 Voltaire 135

Xanten amethyst 115 xenophobia 18 Xenophon 17, 25, 28n32

Wilde, Oscar 7, 297–308, 309nn8–9, 309n15, 309n17, 309n20, 309nn24–25, 310nn27–28, 310nn30–31, 310n34, 311nn36–37, 311nn40–42, 312n48,

Zosimus 5, 149–151, 153–154, 158–162, 163n1, 164n22, 165nn45–47, 165n54, 166n58, 166n60, 166n62, 166n66, 200–201, 213n80