The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus [1 ed.] 9780299343507, 0299343502

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Augustus and the End of Republican Masculinity
1. Catullus and Cicero: Word Play in the Ruins
2. Virtus under the Principate
3. Resistance through Authority
4. Disengagement through the Recusatio
5. Speaking through the Gods
Conclusion: After Augustan Masculinity
Notes
References
Index
Index Locorum

Citation preview

The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus

The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus

Melanie Racette-Campbell

The University of Wisconsin Press / Wisconsin Studies in Classics

Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through the generous support and enduring vision of Warren G. Moon. The University of Wisconsin Press 728 State Street, Suite 443 Madison, Wisconsin 53706 uwpress.wisc.edu Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road London EC1R 5DB, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2023 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America This book may be available in a digital edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Racette-Campbell, Melanie, author. Title: The crisis of masculinity in the age of Augustus / Melanie Racette-Campbell. Other titles: Wisconsin studies in classics. Description: Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2023] | Series: Wisconsin studies in classics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022042405 | ISBN 9780299343507 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: Masculinity—Rome. | Rome—Social life and customs. | Rome—History—Augustus, 30 B.C.–14 A.D. Classification: LCC DG272 .R33 2023 | DDC 937/.07—dc23/eng/20221108 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022042405

For Day vi d

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: Augustus and the End of Republican Masculinity

3

1 Catullus and Cicero: Word Play in the Ruins

23

2 Virtus under the Principate

47

3 Resistance through Authority

81

4 Disengagement through the Recusatio 125 5 Speaking through the Gods

163

Conclusion: After Augustan Masculinity

191

Notes

203

References

235

Index

253

Index Locorum

259

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I was writing my doctoral dissertation, I read everything I could find on Roman masculinity. I kept reading about a crisis or disruption of masculinity as the Republic turned into the Empire but looked in vain for a monograph on the crisis itself. So when I finished, rather than turning my dissertation into a book, I decided to write the book that I had wanted to read. Through seven years of contingent positions, I worked away on this manuscript in the time left over from teaching and job searches and quickly finished it once I landed the elusive tenure-track position. Many groups and individuals helped me along the way, and I will try to mention all of them in these acknowledgments; if I miss anyone, it was not intentional. I came to Classics through a roundabout route, with a BA in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Saskatchewan, which does not have a Classics department. I start by thanking the professors in undergraduate courses in a variety of fields who put me on the track to become the scholar I am today: Alison Maingon, who taught me Greek and courses that combined gender studies and the study of material culture; Diana Relke, who taught me how to apply a gendered lens to analyze texts ranging from medieval treatises to Star Trek; and Angela Kalinowski, who taught my first senior Latin course. As I pursued an MA in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies, also at the University of Saskatchewan, Frank Klaassen introduced me to the systematic study of masculinity, which started me on an intellectual journey that is going to take me well into my mid­ career years, if not beyond. But, above all, at U of S I have to thank John Porter, who believed in my scholarly potential to the point that he designed ix

x Acknowledgments

a master’s program just for me and supervised my master’s thesis, which would go on to be my first published article. Thanks also go to my professors at the University of Toronto Classics department, especially my adviser and mentor Alison Keith, and all my friends and colleagues from the Toronto years who made that journey easier and more fun, especially Ben Akrigg, Megan Campbell, Kate Cooper, Alex Cushing, Spencer Gough, Patrick Hadley, Matt Mallott, Kathryn Mattison, Laura Mawhinney, Karen Maybury, Sarah McCallum, Rob McCutcheon, Janet Mowat, Mariapia Pietropaolo, Randi Robinson, and Jessica Westerhold. The introduction to this work draws on monuments in Rome, so I must acknowledge the lifechanging experience of participating in the American Academy in Rome’s Classical Summer School in 2009. Going to Rome for the first time and seeing the places I had only read about changed my ways of thinking about and understanding the ancient world in ways that are still unfolding. I’d like to thank in particular Greg Bucher, who led the summer school that year, and my dear friends Jenny Muslin and Sophie Klein, whom I met that summer. I have also benefited from many excellent colleagues at the University of Winnipeg, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Concordia University and from the financial support of the University of Winnipeg Research Office. When I first started this book, I had many excellent conversations with Emer O’Toole of the School of Irish Studies at Concordia University, who at the time was writing her own very different book on gender and identity. Talking through my ideas with someone who works on gender but not in Classics was incredibly useful and has made me stop and think about what I need to explain and what is self-evident throughout the project. Thank you to Claire Horsnell, Kapua Iao, Becky Littlechilds, Lindsey Mazurek, Aven McMaster, and Luke Roman, who all gave me valuable feedback on chapters, and to Alison Keith, who generously read and commented on the entire manuscript before I submitted it, as well as to my research assistant at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Morgan Locke, for proofreading and aiding in compiling the bibliography. I also appreciate the comments from conference attendees at the Classical Association of Canada, Atlantic Classical Association, and Society for Classical Studies over the past number of years and from those who attended talks I gave at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Acadia University, and the University of New Brunswick. The editors and referees at the University of

Acknowledgments xi

Wisconsin Press offered many helpful suggestions to improve this book; all remaining errors are my own. And, finally, these thanks would not be complete without giving credit to my loving partner, Dayvid Racette-Campbell. He put his own career on hold to run our household and raise our children, and without his constant support, I could not have the life I do.

The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus

Introduction Augustus and the End of Republican Masculinity

Augustus’ youth saw the last gasp of the Republic; the smooth transition to the reign of Tiberius after Augustus’ death ensured that the Republic would not rise again. Yet the decades between the death of Julius Caesar and the death of his adopted son were not an uninterrupted progression toward the imperial era, regardless of how it may have appeared to Tacitus (Ann. 1.2) with the benefit of hindsight. The Roman people, particularly the elite males among them, did not foolishly or fearfully agree to whatever the regime and the steady march of progress required of them. Nor was it apparent that they were moving inevitably toward a fixed goal; it may not even have been clear that there was a unified regime and agenda. The era was a time of adjustment, experiment, resistance, and acquiescence as Romans navigated a world that was changing radically even as it maintained many of the features of the past. This book addresses one central question: how did the authors of the triumviral and Augustan periods conceive of themselves and others as men? Volumes have been dedicated to the (usually elite) Roman male’s selfconception in the Republic and in the Empire.1 Moreover, there is a general consensus that this self-conception and the way that it was displayed publicly and privately were different in the Empire and in the Republic.2 Authors both ancient and modern situate the locus of this change in the Augustan period. There was, it appears, a “crisis of masculinity” in the late first century BCE. This crisis was in response to a very real change in the social and political culture of Rome as it adjusted to one-man rule: how could a man prove that he was a man when the markers of masculinity had been monopolized by an emperor? 3

4 Introduction

The root of this crisis of masculinity, however, is not Augustus or even the fall of the Republic but rather the particularly performative nature of Roman masculinity. It was not enough for a man to be an adult male: there were plenty of examples of adult males who were not considered men, especially but not limited to enslaved males. Like most characteristics and virtues in Rome, masculinity was public and outward facing, rather than something grounded in an interior “true self,” and it required that the community confirm and affirm it.3 A Roman man needed to carry out socially approved activities in both the private and public spheres and to be recognized by others as doing so throughout his life. Roman masculinity was “performative,” which meant it had to be not only “performed” but also repeated, so that the repeated performances, all interacting with and referring to one another, constitute the characteristic.4 Judith Butler’s foundational work Bodies That Matter is key to my understanding of the concept of perfor­ mativity, which is even more useful for analyzing the extremely outwardfocused society of ancient Rome than it is for the more modern populations that Butler considers. She considers the way that sex is not a bodily given but a cultural norm that compels its materialization in the body. These norms are constructed not in one single act but by the very practice of carrying them out: the norms emerge as a result of the repeated practice of citing them. But it is in this repetition that room for instability and disruption exists; repetition of norms tries to create a boundary that excludes nonnormative actions and behaviors. But the very necessity of repetition exposes the artificiality of the structures and the boundaries, opening up the possibility for the excluded, in the case of Butler’s work queer performances of identity, to slip in.5 This possibility increases in times when the performance is destabilized by external factors, which is what happened during the unrest and renegotiation of norms in the late Republic and Augustan periods. Performative acts also require witnesses, an “audience” that agrees that the performance succeeds, although this “agreement” is generally tacit, since successful performances generally lead both audience and performer to view them as reality.6 The audience itself must also carry authority in the context in which the performance is carried out: in this case, Roman men’s masculinity had to be recognized by their peers.7 Although this was probably true for all Roman men, this study focuses on males of the upper classes, both as individuals and as a group, because they produced and largely consumed the literary evidence on which most of the analysis is based. “Upper class”

Introduction 5

is understood to encompass not only the Roman senatorial elite but also the equites (a class of wealthy, privileged men who met the qualifications for involvement in public life), the provincial elite (from which the majority of the Augustan authors, and Augustus himself, come), and in general all those with sufficient property to support themselves and to acquire a full literary education. According to the information currently available, they were also the group that most clearly experienced a crisis in a kind of masculinity that was based on masculine engagement in the public sphere. Roman Masculinity: Republic to Empire through the Age of Augustus

While Rome remained an oligarchic republic, elite masculinity was performed in a variety of arenas, many of which were closed to men who did not meet the requirements of wealth or birth.8 An elite male who possessed the necessary prerequisites would hold offices on the cursus honorum (the official career path of elected political offices) and be active in military service as an officer. He should be well educated in oratory and perhaps philosophy and knowledgeable about Roman and Greek literature and culture. In his personal life, he ought to be a responsible landowner who used his wealth to benefit his family, friends, and the state and have a well-managed household, a virtuous and fertile wife, respectful and successful children, and a wide network of friends and clients. Competition was a key part of this system: elite men competed for offices, for commands, for provincial postings, for the love and respect of the people, and for recognition among their peers.9 The physical locations for such competition included the Forum (the political, religious, and judicial center of the city of Rome), the senate, private homes, public monuments, the battlefield, and the courts. Successes in the city of Rome tended to be the most valuable, as they could be witnessed by the most people; for example, the triumph (a prestigious victory parade) brought the honor gained on the distant battlefield into the view of the Roman people.10 Ultimately, however, this competition was meant to benefit Rome, and each individual was supposed to subsume his own interests to those of the state. Roman history is full of tales of Romans who overreached in search of selfish glory and were ultimately either punished or brought back into the fold.11 In the late Republic, however, there was a rise in individual ambition fed by the increased wealth and power of Rome’s growing empire, which by the

6 Introduction

death of Julius Caesar included almost all the lands around the Mediterranean and significant incursions into three continents.12 The spirit of competition and the value placed on the performance of masculine roles, coupled with opportunities and resources beyond what the early Romans could ever have anticipated, allowed for the rise of extremely powerful warlords: first Marius, then Sulla, Pompey, and, finally, Julius Caesar.13 This trend culminated in the increasing hostility between Caesar’s general Mark Antony and Caesar’s heir, Octavian, in the 30s BCE and was resolved not by a return to Republican equilibrium but by the end of Empire-wide competition when Octavian, renamed Augustus, successfully defeated, conciliated, or outlived all the other contenders.14 By the end of his life, Augustus was in theory a princeps, “first among equals,” but in fact a super-patron from whom all honors and real power flowed. Elite males still engaged in competition with one another, but the aims and forms of these contests were significantly different.15 This is where the crisis emerges: how does a Roman man perform masculinity and earn the recognition of his peers when all the most significant markers of that performance have been monopolized by one man who has no real peers? Augustus himself, whether intentionally or not, changed the terms of the elite performance of masculinity.16 He therefore looms in the background of this study but outside this introduction is not the main character. He is a foil and a symbol that represents any number of things to the authors whose work is at the center of this volume. I begin, however, by delving into what we can discover about Augustus’ own relationship to Augustan masculinity. His self-construction is equally embedded in the crisis and the changes in the performance of masculinity in this era. Augustus is not simply a mastermind dictating to others how they should act but one of the many players in the drama of his time. Augustus’ Self-Fashioning in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti

To study the types of masculine behaviors and characteristics Augustus projected in his own public image, I use textual sources, especially the Res Gestae Diui Augusti (The Achievements of the Divine Augustus).17 I also investigate what masculine actions and traits were promoted by the public monuments and art that were most closely associated with the princeps, both through ancient descriptions of them and from their physical remains.

Introduction 7

Together, these sources can shine a light on hegemonic masculinity: the values, behaviors, and actions that combine to showcase the style of manhood that is in the mainstream of any given society or culture.18 But it differs depending on the time, place, culture, subculture, and so on, so there is no one single definition. By clearly defining the actions, character traits, and behaviors that Augustus valued for himself and for others, I set up the hegemonic “Augustan” masculinity with which other Roman men interacted. The Res Gestae Diui Augusti was originally inscribed on bronzes outside the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome, which have long since vanished. There are three extant copies, all from the province of Galatia in what is now Turkey.19 It is written in the first person, and it is generally agreed that it was composed by Augustus himself.20 The text purports to be a straightforward list of his accomplishments, starting shortly after the death of Julius Caesar and ending with the statement that he wrote it in his seventy-sixth year (13/14 CE). I take up three primary issues in my reading of the Res Gestae. The first is how the mature Augustus reconfigures the actions of the young Octavian, who came to power through a series of illegal, or at least untraditional, actions. Augustus rewrites this period to make his younger self seem both morally correct and utterly Roman, creating an exemplary figure out of some extremely transgressive acts. Second, and most important, is that Augustus’ successes in both his youth and his life as a whole match up to the traditional areas for the performance of masculinity. I show that the princeps highlights the main public arenas for display—politics, the military, and public benefactions—and that Augustus’ activities generally do fit into Republi­ can Roman ideas of manhood, although with some important qualifications. As part of both the first and second subsections, I also examine the role of the senate and people of Rome in his narrative. Augustus frequently emphasizes how these political bodies legitimized, supported, and even created his powers and position, which supports his claims about the traditional and legal nature of his role in the state. Finally, I ask what Augustus leaves out. The most glaring omissions are the names of those he defeated: Brutus and Cassius, the leaders of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar; Mark Antony, his main rival in the period after Caesar’s death; and Sextus Pompey, son of Caesar’s rival Pompey and leader of the anti-Caesarian faction after the defeat of Brutus and Cassius. Furthermore, the text almost entirely omits the names of other Roman males, with the exception of Augustus’ potential

8 Introduction

heirs and those used in dating formulae,21 and the women of the imperial house are completely absent, although the relationships of marriage and blood that they cement are not. Augustus focuses the story of his successes on himself and his public actions, with little room for others. Rehabilitating Octavian

The first two chapters of the Res Gestae cover the career of the young Octavian. The longer chapter 1 summarizes his actions from Caesar’s assassi­ nation to the forming of the Second Triumvirate (a group of three men who were given far-reaching powers to stabilize the Roman state), while a single sentence suffices for the war against the tyrannicides. The aged princeps emphasizes some aspects of his youthful actions and omits or glosses over others (Res Gestae 1): annos undeuiginti natus exercitum priuato consilio et priuata impensa comparaui, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem uindicaui. eo nomine senatus decretis honorificis in ordinem suum me adlegit C. Pansa et A. Hirtio consulibus consularem locum sententiae dicendae simul dans et imperium mihi dedit. res publica ne quid detrimenti caperet, me pro praetore simul cum consulibus prouidere iussit. populus autem eodem anno me consulem, cum consul uterque in bello cecidisset, et triumuirum rei publicae constituendae creauit. [Aged nineteen, I mustered an army at my personal decision and at my personal expense, and with it I liberated the state, which had been oppressed by a despotic faction. For this reason the senate passed honorific decrees admitting me to its body in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, at the same time giving me consular precedence in stating my opinion, and it gave me supreme command. To prevent the state from suffering harm, it ordered me as propraetor to take precautions together with the consuls. In this same year, moreover, the people appointed me consul, after both consuls had fallen in war, and triumvir for settling the state.]22

Augustus begins the text with his age, placed in a prominent position that underlines his extreme youth at the beginning of his career. At a point when most aristocratic youths were just beginning their military service or undergoing the tirocinium fori (an apprenticeship under an experienced orator), Octavian had raised an army and saved the Republic.

Introduction 9

In a way, Octavian is a model youth. He is proactive, identifying problems that need his particular assistance and attacking them. Comparisons to other youthful saviors of the state were likely noted at the time and have been noted by modern scholars: in particular, Scipio Africanus and Pompey, both of whom received imperium (power to command) from the senate at an unconventionally young age and both of whom went on to provide exemplary service to the state.23 Octavian is another in this list of exemplars. By the time he wrote the Res Gestae, Augustus had shown an abiding interest in guiding the young men of the imperial family and of the Roman elite along suitable paths toward adulthood. By placing his own youthful exploits so prominently in his summary of his life’s achievements, he offers himself as a model, but what sort of model he is and for whom are not questions with simple answers. Augustus’ brief account of the events of 44 and 43 BCE puts much of the responsibility for those events in the hands of the senate and people of Rome. After a pair of first-person verbs in the opening sentence, the remaining verbs are third person: the senate admitted (adlegit), the senate gave (dedit), the senate ordered (iussit), and the people appointed (creauit). These actions of the senate and people are a reward for the actions undertaken by Octavian in the first sentence. Outstanding service to the Republic, a central tenet of Roman masculinity, is repaid by extraordinary honors from the senate first, then the people. More important, Octavian’s extraordinary actions, which he was compelled to take because of a crisis, are quickly both legitimized and brought under control by his elders. The Res Gestae offers a model of responsible youthful action, recognized by the systems of authority in place in the Republic. Despite this, it is unlikely that Augustus wished most of the young men reading his text to follow in his footsteps: the audience to be inspired by his actions is restricted to his successors.24 Augustus had spent much of the second half of his life trying to find and train a young man to take on his responsibilities, and many of these young men are mentioned by name in the course of the Res Gestae (Marcellus, 21.1; Gaius Caesar, 14.1 and 27.2; Lucius Caesar 14.1; and Tiberius, 30.1).25 For the men of the imperial house, Augustus’ life and achievements were a model and would remain so for generations, if not centuries, to come.26 Ideally, imperial power would be sanctioned by the willing and grateful senate and people as long as it was used to serve the state, regardless of how that power was acquired. For other aristocratic young

10 Introduction

men, however, Augustus’ own model was not a particularly good one, as it could only challenge the supremacy of his house and lead to a renewal of the civil disturbance of the late Republic. For it is not very difficult to take Octavian’s actions and make him a danger to the Republic, an affront to Caesar’s legacy, and a public enemy.27 Octavian raised a private army, which he then marched on Rome. By colluding with conservative forces in the senate, including Cicero, who had publicly sanctioned Caesar’s murder, he acted against his adoptive father’s legacy rather than as the loyal diui filius (son of the divine Caesar) of later years. His private army then joined the fight against Mark Antony, a loyal general of Caesar and holder of proconsular imperium (the power to command). Raising a private army could be the action of a hero of the Republic, but more often it suggested tyranny. For example, when Aemilius Lepidus raised one in defiance of the senate in 77 BCE, the senate felt it had to take action ne quid res publica detrimenti capiat.28 The interpretation that opens the Res Gestae, that Octavian acted to save the Republic, is not the only possible one: a slight shift in point of view makes him, not the unnamed Antony, the enemy of the state. Octavian’s position as savior of the state, however, is cemented by the retroactive approval of the traditional authority of the senate and people. This approval, however, is more complex than the text would suggest and leads us to contemplate what Augustus left out from the tale of young Octavian. First, the conflict and the controversy behind the approval of the senate are missing.29 Second, the statement that the people made him consul is also telling: up until this point, the senate has been the subject of the thirdperson verbs. The switch here is done without fanfare but obscures the very real opposition of the senate to the election of the nineteen-year-old heir of Caesar.30 The most glaring omission, however, is that of his fellow triumvirs, Mark Antony and Lepidus. Augustus states that the people made him a triumvir (member of a group of three men), but he does not name the other two men who made up the trio! This brief paragraph also, not surprisingly, omits the details of the military actions undertaken by Octavian and the other triumvirs in the civil wars and the atrocities of the proscriptions, when Roman citizens were declared public enemies and liable to extrajudicial execution and seizure of their property.31 Augustus was writing a proud declaration of his achievements and providing a model for the young men of the imperial family. A focus on the real harm caused to Roman citizens

Introduction 11

by his actions, the actions of a youth who may not have been the perfect model of mature Roman manhood that he is portrayed as, would be utterly out of place here. The second chapter of the Res Gestae contains the culmination of Octavian’s early career: “qui parentem meum intefecerunt, eos in exilium expuli iudiciis legitimis ultus eorum facinus, et postea bellum inferentis rei pub­ licae uici bis acie” (Those who killed my father I drove into exile by way of the courts of law, exacting retribution for their crime, and afterward I defeated them twice in battle while they were making war upon the state). As with the first chapter of the text, this section is brief, includes a positive (re)interpretation of Octavian’s actions, and excludes any mention of the others involved. Augustus had to include the defeat of the killers of Caesar in his summary of his life’s achievements, since his power, at least at first, was based on his being the heir of Caesar. The young Octavian established his adulthood and affirmed that he took his filial duties seriously through the vengeance he enacted, an act of pietas (familial duty). But he claims that he carried out his duty to his father by completely legal and nonviolent means: he drove his father’s killers into exile through prosecution, presumably for murder, a capital charge. The central part of this statement, ultus eorum facinus, belongs grammatically with the action of driving them into exile, coming before the et, but also casts a shadow over the second independent clause of the sentence. The overt meaning of the second clause is that Octavian made war on Caesar’s assassins only after they made war on the state: his personal need for revenge had been satisfied after he drove them into exile. But most readers would be unable to separate the victory over the forces of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi from vengeance, especially given the use of the word ultus (vengeance): the Forum of Augustus featured the Temple of Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger), vowed as thanks for the war god’s help in avenging Caesar. This temple and forum are mentioned later in the Res Gestae, but here the retribution aspect of the military conflict is glossed over: the unnamed men who killed his father are made crimi­ nals against whom Octavian battles on behalf of the Republic, and Augustus separates his private action as a dutiful son from his public service to the state. The more glaring omission from the second chapter of the Res Gestae is that of his fellow triumvirs. Both Antony and Lepidus were far more experienced military men than Octavian in the early stages of his career, and while Lepidus was in Rome and thus might be left out of the narrative,

12 Introduction

Antony was the true winner of the battle at Philippi.32 In the years after his defeat of Antony at the Battle of Actium, Augustus worked to separate himself from the other triumvirs and especially from their, and his, morally questionable actions. There was a concerted effort to blame the atrocities of the proscriptions on Lepidus and especially Antony and to distance the princeps from land confiscations and civil conflicts.33 Augustus rewrote his early career to be one of restraint and service to senate and Republic, but in doing so he had to engage in significant editing and subterfuge. Some of the activities that the young Octavian had engaged in were ones the elderly Augustus would not wish other Romans to imitate, so he carefully chose incidents that construct a restrained and dutiful young man. This is the foundation on which Augustus built a life story filled with personal success, but always in service to Rome. The Man to End All Men

The achievements that Augustus lists in the Res Gestae largely line up with the traditional areas of elite masculine endeavors and add up to a preeminently successful performance of Roman masculinity on the Republican model. The first sections (chapters 3 and 4) after the summary of his youth give a general overview of his military leadership, including his generosity to veterans (3) and the triumphs and other honors that the senate awarded him (4). His prioritization of military matters may point to the traditional precedence given to them: during the Republic it was very unusual for a man to achieve political prominence without at least adequate military performance.34 Later in the text, he records the territorial gains for which he was responsible (26) but also the gains he did not make but could have: he chose not to make Armenia a province and explains that this choice was in deference to Republican precedent (27.2): “malui maiorum nostrorum exemplo” (I preferred according to our ancestral customs).35 Augustus thus continues to follow the pattern of innovation tempered with respect for tradition that he set up in the first two chapters of the text. Yet the scope of Augustus’ military career was far removed from that of a Republican general, even the warlords of the late Republic. The sheer mass of troops and the benefits conferred upon them eclipse even those of Caesar or Pompey.36 The same is true of Augustus’ triumphs, ovations, and thanksgivings: all of these honors are in accordance with Roman tradition, but such a number of them for a single man is unprecedented. Augustus hides

Introduction 13

his innovation in plain sight, and all his military achievements, not only his youthful actions, are exempla in both senses of the word: to be emulated and to be avoided.37 They may be intended as a blueprint for his heirs to follow, since the loyalty of the legions and, later, the praetorian guard, would be essential to the maintenance of an emperor’s reign, as would at least a pretense of personal military success. But he would not wish for the average Roman to act as he had or to gain the honors he had accrued, which is made clear by the restriction of triumphs to the men of the imperial family after 19 BCE. Augustus fulfills the model of Republican martial masculinity, but to such an overwhelming extent that there is no room for anyone else.38 The same can be said of his political achievements, which continue his practice of maintaining a pretense of moderation and respect for tradition while taking up all the space that was once held by a competitive aristocracy. Augustus proudly proclaims that he refused the dictatorship (5.1): “dictatu­ ram et apsenti et praesenti delatam et a populo et a senatu, M. Marcello et L. Arruntio consulibus, non recepi” (Even though the post of dictator was conferred upon me both when I was absent and when I was present by both people and senate in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius, I did not accept it) and a perpetual consulship (5.2): “consulatum quoque tum annuum et perpetuum mihi delatum non recepi” (When the consulship too was conferred upon me at that time for a year and in perpetuity, I did not accept it), as well as any magistracy that was not according to Roman custom (6.1): “nullum magistratum contra morem maiorum delatum recepi” (I accepted no magistracy conferred upon me that contravened ancestral custom). He also lists the many posts he did hold, including the consulship (thirteen times) and tribunician power (thirty-seven times) (4.4), overseer of the grain supply (5.2), one of the triumuiri rei publicae constitu­ endae (7.1), the position of highest-ranking senator (7.2), and a number of priesthoods (7.3).39 As was the case in the first section of the Res Gestae, Augustus makes sure to credit the senate as a group as the source of his power and legitimacy.40 At the same time, he restrains the senate and people when their enthusiasm for granting him honors and offices exceeds the bounds of tradition. The maintenance of the mos maiorum (the customs of the ancestors) ultimately rests with him. At chapter 6, for example, he declares that many wished him to accept magistracies against Roman custom, and at chapter 10 he proudly proclaims that he refused to supplant his former triumviral colleague, the unnamed

14 Introduction

Lepidus, as pontifex maximus (chief priest) in his lifetime.41 Near the end of the text, he revisits these points, noting that he returned the Republic to the senate and people in 27 BCE (34) and stating that from that point on he possessed the greatest auctoritas but had no more power than any other magistrate (34.3): “post id tempus auctoritate omnibus praestiti, potestatis autem nihilo amplius habui quam ceteri, qui mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae fuerunt” (After this time I excelled everyone in influence, but I had no more power than the others who were my colleagues in each magistracy). Augustus carefully maintains the idea that he was a first citizen and not a monarch. And yet Augustus’ political career was as unprecedented as his military career, and it did not set a pattern for men outside his lineage. The final aspect of the Res Gestae of concern here is the generosity of the princeps, as public-spirited giving was the third vital part of the performance of masculinity in public life.42 In addition to the gifts left to the people of Rome in Caesar’s will and an early settlement of veterans, chapter 15 lists gifts of money and grain granted over the course of his lifetime, always to large numbers of recipients: 15.1: “ad hominum millia numquam minus quinquaginta et ducenta” (to not less than two hundred fifty thousand people); 15.2: “trecentis et uiginti millibus plebis urbanae” (to three hundred twenty thousand of the urban plebs); 15.4: “ea millia hominum paullo plura quam ducenta” (a little more than two hundred thousand people). Augustus’ largesse is extreme and ensures that the loyalty of the people of Rome is directed at him. For well over a century, gifts had been a standard way for politicians to gain the favor of the electorate and thus the political success that was a paramount aspect of the performance of masculinity. In practice, Augustus no longer needed electoral victories, but he had other reasons to continue courting popularity. Street-level violence, partly fueled by poverty and overpopulation, frequently plagued Rome in the late Republic and was often led by rabblerousing politicians who harnessed it for their own political agendas. Those times were not that far in the past, but the princeps ensures that no one can outbid him for the allegiance of these unspecified homines (people) and the plebs urbana. Their support, along with that of the army, was one of the pillars that supported Julius Caesar, and Augustus understood its value. Besides the grants of money and grain, he lists specific benefactions to the city, including his famous restoration of temples (20.4): “duo et octoginta templa deum in urbe consul sextum ex auctoritate senatus refeci” (I restored

Introduction 15

eighty-two temples of the gods in the city as consul for the sixth time, in accordance with a resolution of the senate). Temple construction and restoration was generally paid for with war booty, and Augustus had access to the entire Empire’s booty and provincial revenues as ongoing spoils of war; thus, his benefactions are connected to his conspicuous military success. Augustus concludes this section of the text with a list of the entertainments (ludi) that he financed, either on his own behalf or on behalf of his family members (22–23), including gladiatorial games in his name and those of his sons and grandsons that included some ten thousand gladiators in total; athletic games; ludi in his name and with other (unnamed) magistrates; the Saecular games, along with his friend and colleague Agrippa and on behalf of the quindecemuiri (one of Rome’s colleges of priests); the ludi Martiales (Games of Mars), which he initiated with the assent of the senate; beast hunts comprising 3,500 animals; a naval spectacle, the description of which includes the enormous size of the excavations for the pool and the numbers of ships (thirty) and men (three thousand) involved. Vowing, building, and dedicating temples and sponsoring games were part of the traditional activities of the Roman elite, but again there is the difference of scale. Augustus alone could act as benefactor to Rome and its people on a far greater scale than had been seen before, making his performance of traditional Roman roles outweigh that of any other man. No Room for Competition

Although Augustus’ achievements all technically fall into the realm of traditional masculine endeavors, they are far out of proportion with the deeds of even the most successful Republican magnates. They are also completely removed from the spirit of elite competition that had both compelled and rewarded earlier Roman aristocrats: Augustus even leaves out the names of his fellow triumvirs and significant adversaries. Moreover, as has been noted elsewhere, individual Romans outside the imperial family are absent from the text.43 Even among the members of Augustus’ family there are notable omissions: despite their significant role in dynasty building and in the public image and activities of Augustus’ regime, not even the most prominent women are mentioned, even obliquely.44 The Res Gestae is a masculine text. Augustus’ summary of his life’s accomplishments highlights his achievements in traditional, public arenas, and the only other people he mentions by name are the younger men whom he expected to follow his example. This

16 Introduction

is not a document to provide a model for Roman men in general. It is a statement that Augustus has fulfilled the traditional roles so well and completely that there is no place for anyone else at the top. Augustus has removed military leadership and conquest, public offices, and public largesse at Rome from the realm of open competition. Any lesser success in these areas is ultimately thanks to the patronage of the princeps, and elite competition will need to move to other areas. Augustus Fashioning Romans: The Monuments

The princeps’ words do not provide a model for “Augustan” masculinity for the rest of the population, but the public art and architecture of the era is more fertile ground. In this section, I analyze three monuments associated with Augustus: the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), the Forum of Augustus, and the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. These monuments were part of a program both to glorify Augustus and his family and to beautify Rome.45 They projected a variety of important messages about the princeps and his achievements, but they also served as official encouragement for elite Roman males toward certain types of virtues and behaviors. The Ara Pacis

The Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of Augustan Peace), was originally situated along the Via Flaminia, one of the main roads out of Rome, as part of a group of monuments in the area outside the ancient city walls called the Campus Martius. This open-air marble altar and enclosure was dedicated in 9 BCE on the birthday of Augustus’ wife, Livia. The altar was voted by the senate to commemorate Augustus’ return from Spain and Gaul in 13 BCE, as Augustus himself says at Res Gestae 12.2: “aram Pacis Augustae senatus pro reditu meo consacrari censuit ad campum Martium” (In thanks for my return, the senate voted to consecrate an altar of Augustan Peace on the Campus Martius). The altar and enclosure are carved with reliefs of mythological scenes, religious processions, and luxuriant foliage, imagery that promotes the princeps and the imperial family and celebrates Augustus’ public achievements in civic and military spheres.46 Thus, there are connections between the altar and the Res Gestae, yet the values that the altar’s decorative program promotes go beyond those in the Res Gestae. First, the altar’s depiction of the imperial family is markedly more inclusive, including women and young children as well as adult men and designated heirs. Second, the

Introduction 17

values implied by the imagery on the enclosure walls are more broadly applicable to Romans as a whole, rather than only the imperial family. The friezes on the north and south sides of the enclosure wall, which prominently feature members of Augustus’ family, provide an exemplary model for Roman citizens: the fertility and harmony of the imperial family.47 The Ara Pacis portrays Augustus as a proper Roman head of a family whose presence at a religious occasion shows them carrying out suitable public roles. Women and children who are identifiable individuals are practically unheard of in public art in Rome before the age of Augustus, so the novelty of their appearance draws attention to it.48 The large number of family members, especially the children, suggests fertility and stability: he will pass on his power to the next generation without any return to civil war and chaos. As is well known, in 18 BCE Augustus backed a number of laws regarding marriage and encouraging childbearing, particularly among the upper classes.49 The ostensible reason for these laws was to encourage oldfashioned morality and to increase the birth rate, particularly among the senatorial and equestrian classes. I offer a further suggestion for the focus on marriage and family in these laws and on the Ara Pacis: the laws and the example of the imperial family urged Roman men to see marriage and procreation as a new arena for public competition. This argument is influenced by Susan Lape’s reading of Greek New Comedy.50 She argues that these plays show Hellenistic Athenians displaying their citizenship and their participation in the life of the polis through fulfilling the terms of the Periclean laws on marriage and citizenship. Because of the political situation at the time, many of the public duties and privileges of citizenship were constrained, devalued, or lost: thus, Athenians retreated to the domestic sphere to show their civic spirit. While there are significant differences between Athens in the Hellenistic era and Rome under Augustus, the similarity lies in the restriction or reorganization of the powers and privileges of politically active and engaged citizens under a more autocratic form of government. Augustus, by providing a model of domestic achievement through marital harmony and procreation and buttressing it with legal incentives and punishments, makes the family a suitable arena for elite Romans to display their loyalty and their Roman-ness. The rest of the altar’s decorative program emphasizes traditional values and practices shared by the Romans, such as adherence to traditional Roman religion. Augustus and Agrippa are shown performing priestly roles, along

18 Introduction

with a large group of men on the north and south friezes who are identi­ fiable as members of various priestly colleges, if not as individuals.51 The priests include representatives from the pontifices, including several flamines, the septemuiri epulones, and the quindecimuiri sacris faciundis. Augustus was a member of all of these colleges, as well as the augures. As in the Res Gestae, collective groups of elite Romans are represented as participating in, and therefore approving of, the princeps’ activities. Religious matters were a central part of Augustus’ vision for Rome.52 The Res Gestae, as we have seen, includes restoring and building temples among his most important deeds. At Suetonius Diuus Augustus 31, we see that his religious rebuilding also reached the priesthoods: “sacerdotum et numerum et dignitatem sed et commoda auxit” (He increased the number and dignity of the priests and their advantages). This increase in the number of priesthoods meant that there were more opportunities for elite men to serve as priests, although it also meant that their religious authority was spread out among more men. Augustus alone served on all the major colleges, making religion yet another area in which he technically acted according to tradition, but on a scale that was out of reach for any other elite male.53 In the Res Gestae and in Suetonius’ biography, then, Augustus is presented as a model of religious behavior, but on the Ara Pacis dutiful religious observation and fertility are the major points of the artistic program and, unlike the achievements in the Res Gestae, are open to other Roman men. Indeed, they may be the most important part of the Roman-ness that Augustus wants to encourage in others by his exemplary display of it. The Forum Augustum

Another monument explicitly associated with Augustus, the Forum Augustum (Forum of Augustus), is even more full of exempla than the Ara Pacis.54 This forum was built adjacent to the earlier Forum Iulium (Forum of Julius Caesar), which itself opened into the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum). The Forum of Augustus was an open space with the Temple of Mars Ultor at one end and colonnaded porticoes on both sides.55 In these colonnades were statues of the summi uiri (great men): on one side great Romans, which were meant to inspire everyone, and on the other the ancestors of the princeps, to motivate the imperial family to emulation and everyone else to respect.56 The full list of who was portrayed in the statue galleries of the Forum is irrecoverable at present, but we do know some of the names, either from written sources or from fragments discovered during excavations.57 These

Introduction 19

scraps of information suggest a strong connection between Augustus and the summi uiri: of those we can identify, many were famous for at least one of the virtues particularly valued by Augustus: uirtus (courage/manliness), clementia (mercy), iusititia (just conduct), pietas (dutifulness).58 Furthermore, fourteen of the nineteen men whose careers are known held extraordinary powers at some point.59 The summi uiri, much like the Res Gestae, serve as a justification for Augustus’ actions and a glorification of his character. They also underscore that nothing that Augustus has done is against precedent, while at the same time providing a subtle reminder that the sheer weight of honors, titles, and accomplishments held by the princeps is unprecedented. Ovid, in the entry in his calendar poem the Fasti for the May 12 dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, emphasizes its role in celebrating Augustus’ achievements, while also pointing to its connections with war and exemplarity (Fasti 5.550–70). The most exemplary part of the decoration was the statues of great Romans and great Julii, which, says Ovid, Mars himself can observe from his temple (563–66): hinc uidet Aenean oneratum pondere caro et tot Iuleae nobilitatis auos; hinc uidet Iliaden umeris ducis arma ferentem, claraque dispositis acta subesse uiris.

565

[From here he sees Aeneas burdened by a dear weight and so many ancestors of the noble Julians; from here he sees the Trojan bearing the weapons of his leader on his shoulders, and the famous acts written under the ranks of men.]

These statues provide examples for all men, and the god Mars and arma make clear what is emphasized: the Roman ability in war.60 For the Augustan Forum, unlike the Res Gestae, did more than display Augustus’ power and set an example for his heirs to follow: it was also a site for other elite Romans to learn their place in the new order, most explicitly at the coming-of-age ceremonies for Roman boys. Traditionally, these began at home and then culminated in a public ceremony at the Capitoline.61 Augustus moved this public element to his forum, where the boys gathered before being enrolled as citizens who were therefore eligible for military service.62 The symbolism is clear and unquestionable: Augustus intended the youth of Rome to be

20 Introduction

inspired by the exemplary figures in the forum, by the military leadership of his own youth, and by the example of their own leaders, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, who were prominently featured in the forum’s dedication ceremonies.63 The intended result was that young Romans would willingly and enthusiastically take on military roles.64 The ceremony confirms adult Roman masculinity, and it takes place in the shadow of Augustus and the models he provides for Roman manhood. The coming-of-age ceremony was not the only activity that Augustus moved to the forum. He also made it the location for the most significant military ceremonies: victorious generals dedicated their triumphal crowns and scepters to Mars Ultor; captured military standards were displayed there; governors on their way to military provinces took official leave of Rome from the Forum Augustum; and the senate met in the Temple of Mars Ultor to discuss declarations of war and the granting of triumphs.65 All of these activities had existed in the Republic, but they were transformed by the change of location. Triumphal ornaments, like coming-of-age ceremonies, moved from the oversight of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to Mars Ultor. It has been argued that as early as the Georgics there are indications that Augustus could be viewed as the earthly equivalent to Jupiter, a reading supported by these relocations of civic ceremonies from Jupiter’s temple to a temple intimately associated with the princeps.66 The leave-taking of governors and senatorial debates about war and triumphs technically had not changed location. The senate could meet in any place that had been properly inaugurated, which included any temple large enough to accommodate it. Indeed, for a portion of Augustus’ life the senate must have met only in temples, as the Curia (Senate House) was destroyed in a riot in 52 BCE and the new Curia Julia, begun by Julius Caesar, was not completed until 29 BCE. However, there is a significant ideological difference between meeting in any temple to do senatorial business in general and meeting in the Temple of Mars vowed and built by the princeps to deal with matters specifically pertaining to war. Augustus’ forum becomes the locus for the most important symbolic displays of Roman military power, thus subsuming this important area of masculine achievement to his patronage and leadership. Apollo Palatinus

The final preeminent Augustan monument is the Temple of Apollo Palatinus.67 Like the Forum of Augustus, it was vowed during the triumviral period,

Introduction 21

but, unlike the forum, it was completed relatively early in the principate and dedicated in 28 BCE. A number of contemporary or near-contemporary accounts describe its location and decorative program, both of which emphasize its association with Augustus.68 The temple was almost an annex to his home, located next to it on the Palatine Hill and linked by a private ramp and entrance.69 Identifying the precise location has proved to be difficult due to later building on the Palatine, but fragments of decoration that correspond to contemporary descriptions make it quite likely that a foundation core near the so-called houses of Augustus and Livia is that of the temple.70 Large numbers of fragmentary terracotta pieces depict several scenes in an archaic style, the most notable of which is the struggle of Hercules and Apollo over the Delphic tripod, an allusion to Augustus’ struggle with and ultimate victory over Antony, who was associated with Hercules. Absent are any certain elements from the cult statues of Apollo, Artemis, or Leto, which means that unfortunately we cannot confirm or deny the ancient rumor that one of the statues of Apollo bore an uncanny resemblance to Augustus himself. Here we have a complex that is deeply connected to Augustus and perhaps his family but has little in the way of programmatic statements about their roles as public figures. Unlike the Forum of Augustus, public ceremonies did not become concentrated here, and Apollo himself remained a god associated more with the princeps than with the Roman people. It is a monument to specific successes: the victory over Sextus Pompey, for which it was vowed, and that over Antony, with which it became primarily associated. Ultimately, though, the temple feels more like a private statement by Octavian the triumvir than a public one by Augustus the princeps. There is little overlap with the family and prosperity themes of the Ara Pacis or the military activities and exemplarity that characterize the Forum Augustum, even though Apollo is a vitally important patron of poetry who maintains his associations with the princeps while also being a complex male figure who opens up space for questioning the values and activities promoted by Augustus, as we will see in chapter 4. Conclusion

In the sources most closely identified with the princeps there are two divergent streams of “Augustan masculinity.” One, exemplified by the Res Gestae and, perhaps, Apollo Palatinus, celebrates and provides official approval for

22 Introduction

the extraordinary achievements of Augustus. The princeps is portrayed as someone who has succeeded exceedingly well in all the public arenas of the performance of masculinity, especially military and political success and public benefaction at Rome. The only other named individuals in the Res Gestae are men from his family whom he associates with his own glory, while the role of all other Romans, elite or not, is to approve his actions, be led by him, or be the recipients of his largesse. The text can be read as a model for later emperors, and indeed there is evidence that Tiberius patterned many of his actions on those of Augustus, but it should not be considered exemplary in any wider sense. The second stream continues the glorification of Augustus but adds models for other Roman men, especially those of the senatorial and equestrian classes. The Ara Pacis encourages the fulfillment of one’s duties to the state by marrying and fathering children. It connects familial duty and traditional Roman religious practices to the fertility and prosperity of Rome amid its pacified empire. The Forum Augustum provides an instructional backdrop for boys’ coming-of-age ceremonies and a number of other important military occasions, reminding Roman men of the ongoing need for their service, especially as officers, while also inspiring loyalty to the leadership of the Julian house. Both monuments provide models for elite behavior that emphasize following the lead and guidance of the princeps and his family. Augustus, through text and monuments, emphasized types of masculine endeavor controlled and rewarded by him. By succeeding too well in the areas of Republican competition, he took them out of the realm of possibility for anyone without his resources. Yet he did not create the circumstances that allowed him to flourish and to hold up his own models for the rest of the Roman population. The roots of Augustus’ masculinity and Augustan masculinity were found in the late Republic, as we will see in the next chapter, and, together with the material set out in this introduction, they establish what the authors whose works form the core of this study are working within and against.

1 Catullus and Cicero Word Play in the Ruins

This book is about the Augustan crisis of masculinity, but this first chapter investigates the decades immediately before the death of Julius Caesar. Years before Augustus came to power, many of the traditional values that elite men were supposed to live up to and display had become problematic, of questionable use, or effectively unattainable. These values and the conflicts that surround them are visible in the writings of Catullus and Cicero, two men who flourished during the end of the Republic and were dead long before Augustus defeated Antony.1 Each provides different examples of how men in the late Republic were already challenging, wrestling with, and recreating the terms of the performance of masculinity.2 Cicero and Catullus were outsiders to the traditional Roman hierarchy, as provincial Italians making their way in the urban political and social world.3 This outsider status makes the dynamic negotiation of Roman masculinity more obvious in their writings than in those of men who were fully ensconced in the Roman nobility by birth.4 Their works contain an interesting mixture of conservative enforcement of the behaviors of other men and challenges to the structures of masculine conduct in their own lives, at least in the version of those lives they put into their writing. By examining the masculine self-fashioning of these men, who knew each other and were part of the extremely small world of the political and social elite at Rome, we can see the roots of the crisis that would appear in the following half century.5 Often Cicero and Catullus are read as individuals responding in individual ways to their own individual circumstances.6 The way that they each create versions of their selves in their writing is treated as an idiosyncratic 23

24

Catullus and Cicero

reaction, rather than as part of a larger societal shift: Cicero is the nouus homo (the first man in his family to achieve election to the consulship at Rome) without significant military success, trying to craft a successful political career despite disadvantages of talent and birth,7 whereas Catullus is a rebel poet or a disillusioned provincial, but for each man it is his own interests, or at most those of his circle of friends, that he represents.8 By contrast, I treat these men as working through an underlying problem: what do uirtus (manly courage and/or excellence) and manliness mean in the late Republic? Cicero is innovative in his relocation of uirtus from military/political bases to oratorical and literary ones, but Catullus is also reworking uirtus in his poetry. Cicero and Catullus are part of a systemic change, not individuals acting solely in response to their own individual circumstances; they are indicators of a shift in the cultural zeitgeist, a crisis in masculinity that is coming to a head in the late Republic and will explode when the Augustan monarchy finally makes traditional elite masculinity ineffectual in practical terms, even if still ideologically significant. Catullus and Cicero present versions of themselves in their writing and are active participants in their own self-fashioning, which includes how they succeed and fail in performing elite Roman manhood; how others perceive them and how they perceive themselves; what roles they accept and reject; and how they contribute to the discursive codes and conventions of the performance of masculinity.9 Their interactions with other men are also part of this process of self-presentation. Homosocial relations were particularly important to Roman males, as the competitive and hierarchical nature of these relationships was the main arena for the production of a successfully masculine self.10 Scholars such as Brian Krostenko (2001), Marilyn Skinner (2007), and Sarah Stroup (2010) have investigated the interaction of Catullus’ poetry with the complex sociopolitical network of relationships that characterized the Roman elite. As well, Elizabeth Manwell (2007) and David Wray (2001) have written on the masculine fashioning seen in Catullus’ carmina (poems or songs). Cicero’s work has also been studied by some of these same authors with a view to understanding social relations, but less as a site for the construction of his own masculinity. By reading Catullus and Cicero together, this chapter offers some preliminary findings about the state of elite masculinity at the end of the Republic, with a view to setting the stage on which the Augustan authors will play their parts.



Catullus and Cicero

25

Cicero and Catullus: Success and the City

Catullus and Cicero were sons of families that expected them to rise in society by participating in the traditional masculine endeavors of the upper classes. Catullus was born into a family of local influence but one that had not yet achieved any prominence in Rome itself. Like many young Italian aristocrats of his day, he was educated for a political career and even took the first steps toward it, as is suggested by his poems that refer to his trip to the Roman province of Bithynia, a region in modern Turkey, on the staff of a provincial governor (c. 10, 31, 46; cf 28).11 There is little evidence of the poet having any further political activities, however, as no members of his family, the Valerii Catulli, are known holders of political office during his lifetime.12 Besides his lack of success in moving up the political ladder, Catullus also claims to be unsuccessful in financial affairs. The ancient tradition that Catullus met an early death, however, provides some excuse for his failures in adult masculinity.13 Young men were expected to spend time in the liminal state of youth, in which their excesses and perambulations from the path to manhood were excusable up to a point.14 The traditional age requirements for the steps on the cursus honorum made it impossible for (most) young men of the Republic to attain significant political success before their thirties, and it is likely that Catullus did not live beyond his early thirties.15 Catullus differs from the later Augustan elegists, as we will see in chapter 4, in that he does not see the pursuits of poetry and love and that of a public career as mutually exclusive.16 Further, although he does indeed privilege his relationship with his pseudonymous beloved Lesbia above the other traditional relationships he should value,17 he does not claim that he will only ever be with her: he does not reject the role of husband and father outright in the way that Propertius does a generation later.18 Catullus deviates from the straight path to manhood but looks much like a traditional young man who will eventually find his way back to it. Cicero too came from a family of local distinction that had not yet made a mark on politics in the capital. At the direction of their father, Cicero and his brother Quintus were both educated for a public career, an education about which we have some detail from Cicero’s own accounts.19 Cicero followed a standard career path for the most part, although it was broken up by the civil unrest of his youth, during which Marius and Sulla were in conflict.20 One very notable point, however, is his lack of military success.21

26

Catullus and Cicero

Before Cicero, it was highly unusual for a nouus homo to make it to the consulship without having demonstrated significant prowess as a general; in fact, he seems to have been the first man from a nonconsular, nonsenatorial family to achieve the highest office through oratorical ability.22 His path was, however, controversial. In the Republic, military prowess was the primary measure of masculinity: success in politics depended upon it and opened up further opportunities for foreign commands.23 Cicero not only lacked such accomplishments but also was extremely reluctant to serve outside Rome at all, taking proconsular command of a province only late in life and under compulsion.24 He did, however, like to equate his foiling of a plot against the state with military success, saying in his own poem on the subject: (Cons. fr. 6): “cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi” (let arms yield to the toga, let the laurel yield to praise) and also sought a triumph for his military actions in his province, Cilicia.25 This suggests his acquiescence to the traditional value given to military achievement, coupled with his desire to adjust its definition to fit his own talents and successes. Cicero fulfilled the basic private duties of manhood, marrying Terentia, a woman of fortune and good family, and producing a son and heir, as well as a daughter whose marriages ensured further political alliances. The public face of Cicero’s private life would have looked perfectly acceptable, although Cicero’s private life, like that of other men of his class, was the subject of gossip and invective by his contemporaries and later authors. He claimed to be unusually chaste for a Roman male, but there were rumors of romantic entanglements with two women, his enemy Clodia and his friend and creditor Caerellia. His divorce from Terentia after decades of marriage and his remarriage to his much younger ward Publilia also raised some eyebrows, but his close relationship with his daughter, Tullia, caused the most speculation and even derision. There were (certainly false) rumors of incest, his influence on her marriage choices was less than it should have been, and he was criticized for excessive grief after her death.26 Both Catullus and Cicero eventually joined socially and politically important circles at Rome, and it is in their reactions to and interactions with these circles that we can see their negotiation of masculinity playing out more clearly. Traditionally, Roman masculinity was largely outwardly focused and based in military success and political officeholding, supplemented by suitably restrained conduct in private and in public and firm control over dependents.27 By the late Republic, however, both the standards of conduct



Catullus and Cicero

27

and the very makeup of the Roman elite were changing drastically, circumstances that distressed Catullus and Cicero at the same time as they enabled their own successes in the capital. The Postexile Speeches: Reconstructing Cicero’s Masculinity

Cicero consistently projects his confidence in himself and in his possession of masculinity. This statement may seem obvious, given his near-constant self-aggrandizement and references to his actions during his consulship. On the other hand, it may seem questionable, given the self-doubt he expresses in some of his letters.28 Cicero’s fashioning of his own masculinity is most transparent when he is or has recently been under duress. Therefore, I concentrate on his speeches, letters, and philosophical texts written during and after his exile.29 Cicero was sent into exile by a law promulgated by Clodius, one of his political enemies, in 58 BCE. The exile was particularly demoralizing for Cicero because it was a direct result of his proudest achievement: the thwarting of the Catilinarian conspiracy in his consulship in 63 BCE. Cicero uncovered evidence that a group of Roman noblemen was planning an insurrection against the Roman government, led by Catiline, a man Cicero had defeated in the consular elections. The culmination of Cicero’s defeat of the conspiracy was the execution of a number of the conspirators without trial, and it was this that made him vulnerable to Clodius, since Roman citizens had the right to a trial in capital cases. Clodius’ law required anyone who had taken away this right to go into exile or risk trial and execution in turn. Cicero was able to use his own political connections to get himself recalled from exile after a little more than a year, but his political career was in tatters and never entirely recovered. In the texts Cicero wrote upon his return from exile, he is at pains to present himself publicly as a good, just, and even courageous man. At the same time, he privately admits to fear and despair, and so the letters can shed some light on the differences between theoretical normative masculinity and actual Roman practice. Cicero’s numerous attempts to justify, minimize, and recast his private feelings and the actions they drove him to suggest his fears and doubts about how they would affect his public reputation. Although it is unlikely that he sought to overturn or undermine the standards of the Roman elite, Cicero inadvertently exposes the cracks inherent in traditional masculinity. I analyze what Cicero’s writings suggest about the successful

28

Catullus and Cicero

public performance of masculinity, how he worked to fit himself and his actions into that type of performance, and how he attempted to recast his failures of normative masculinity into successes. In the first book of the De Officiis (On Duties), written near the end of his life, Cicero explicitly sets out the terms of proper behavior (1.15): “sed omne, quod est honestum, id quattuor partium oritur ex aliqua: aut enim in perspicientia ueri sollertiaque uersatur aut in hominum societate tuenda tribuendoque suum cuique et rerum contractarum fide aut in animi excelsi atque inuicti magnitudine ac robore aut in omnium, quae fiunt quaeque dicuntur, ordine et modo, in quo inest modestia et temperantia” (But everything which is proper arises from one of four things: for either it is involved in skill and the perception of truth, or in protecting human agreements and distributing his own property to each man and keeping faith in contracts, or in the force and strength of a swift and unconquered spirit, or in the modest and temperate ordering and measuring of all deeds and words).30 Elsewhere in the same book, Cicero indicates that iustitia (justice) and ben­ eficia (good deeds) are central concerns of the good man (1.20), that a good man takes on civic duties willingly (1.28), that he considers friendship the highest of relationships (1.55), and that he avoids extremes of emotions (1.69). The addressee of the De Officiis is Cicero’s son, Marcus (1.1), and these very characteristics that Cicero presents to his son as those of the ideal virtuous man are among those he ascribes to himself elsewhere. In a number of speeches delivered in the aftermath of his exile in 58/57 BCE, Cicero carefully (re)constructs a public persona for himself.31 The majority of these speeches are related to his vindication when he was recalled from exile. Cicero always describes himself as a generally virtuous man, but these speeches narrow to some specific virtues: the value he puts on friendship; his moderation; his selflessness and courage in protecting the Republic from harm; his devotion to his family; and his worthiness with respect to the beneficia he has received from all ranks of Romans. Cicero, he tells us, was a moderate man. He frequently uses moderatio (moderation) and its cognates to describe himself, his friends, and his supporters, as well as things and actions connected with them. He reins in his anger even while speaking of his greatest enemies (Sest. 14): “sed agam mod­ erate32 et huius potius tempori seruiam quam dolori meo” (But I will act moderately and I will consider the occasion of this gathering rather than my own distress), and his actions against his enemies are as restrained as his



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words (Red. Sen. 23, Red. Pop. 21).33 His property and his needs are moderate (Dom. 147): “etenim ad nostrum usum prope modum iam est definita mod­ eratio rei familiaris” (And indeed, the moderateness of my family property is nearly equal to my need), especially in comparison with the rapacious greed and unbridled licentiousness of his enemies. This moderation is a core virtue for the Roman male. It is the foundation on which self-control, courage, and austerity rest.34 Concurrently, lack of moderatio is the basis of the bad actions and characters of many of the men (and occasionally women) whom Cicero attacks. Without moderation, people give in to their worst urges and eventually turn to crime to support them.35 Cicero’s own claims to moderatio are largely confirmed by both his public works and his private letters: although he was inclined to spend beyond his income and incur debts, these lapses were relatively minor. Cicero’s possession and performance of moderatio are central parts of his performance of masculinity. A moderate man, however, would not spend time puffing himself up, as he would not need to: his deeds would speak for themselves. Thus, Cicero’s defense of his boastfulness is directly related to his claims of moderatio. An example of the sort of criticism that he defends himself against is found in this reported speech of Clodius at Dom. 92: “negas esse ferenda quae soleam de me praedicare” (You say that what I am accustomed to say about myself is not bearable).36 The speeches delivered postexile suggest that he was commonly accused of boastful arrogance, and he repeatedly denies or justifies this alleged behavior, as in this response to a complaint by an unnamed man, phrased similarly to that of Clodius, cited earlier (Har. 17): “aiebant negare ferri me posse, quia, cum ab hoc eodem impurissimo parricida rogarer cuius essem ciuitatis, respondi me, probantibus et uobis et equitibus Romanis, eius esse quae carere me non potuisset” (They were saying that they could not stand me, because, when I was asked by this most unchaste parricide what state I was a citizen of, I answered, with the approval of you senators and the Roman knights, that I was a citizen of that state which was not able to do without me). Immediately before this, he points out that his words do indeed match his deeds (Har. 17): “quamquam si me tantis laboribus pro communi salute perfunctum ecferret aliquando ad gloriam in refutandis maledictis hominum improborum animi quidam dolor, quis non ignosceret?” (Although who would not overlook it, if some sort of sorrow should sometimes lead me, after performing such great labors for the sake of the common safety, to boast in order to refute the evil words of immoral men?).

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Cicero claims to speak nothing less than the truth and suggests that anyone who thinks this is boastful is actually criticizing the virtuous deeds of Cicero and, by implication, wishes harm to the Republic that Cicero saved. Cicero’s service to the Republic is the accomplishment of which he was most proud. Given that public service was one of the core elements of the performance of elite masculinity, and indeed the element to which all other concerns were supposed to submit, this is not surprising. Cicero’s service to the Republic was of an unusual nature, however, and not without controversy. Myles McDonnell (2006) has argued persuasively that military service was the foundation of public service and of manhood itself in Republican Rome. Yet military service was one area in which Cicero was noticeably lacking. Apart from a brief period in his youth, Cicero had generally avoided the military realm, including provincial service, and had instead focused his attention on his greatest strength, oratory.37 It seems clear, however, that he was aware of this lacuna and that he took pains to try to disguise it by framing his other actions in military terms.38 As the first nouus homo to reach the consulship since Gaius Coelius Caldus more than thirty years earlier, and moreover one who was elected in the first year he was eligible for the office, Cicero enjoyed political success that was unquestionable.39 There remained, however, the problem that he was also the only nouus homo ever to reach the consulship on the basis of impressive oratorical, rather than military, success.40 Cicero shows his awareness of the unusual source of his success when he compares himself to Marius, his fellow native of Arpinum, his hometown in the hills southeast of Rome, at Red. Pop. 20: “sed hoc inter me atque illum interest, quod ille, qua re plurimum potuit, ea ipsa re inimicos suos ultus est, armis, ego qua consueui utar oratione, quoniam illi arti in bello ac seditione locus est, huic in pace atque otio” (But this is a difference between me and Marius, that he got revenge on his enemies by military skills, in which area he had the greatest ability, whereas I am accustomed to use oratory, since for Marius’ skill there is a place in war and civil unrest, for mine, in peace and leisure). Cicero makes oratory an equally viable strategy for avenging oneself.41 But the language he uses to indicate which types of circumstances are suited to his strengths and to Marius’ is in some ways surprising and furnishes a further subtle support for Cicero’s point. He uses two pairs of words in prepositional phrases to indicate where military and oratorical skills are useful: “in bello ac seditio” (in war and civil unrest) and “in pace atque otio” (in peace and leisure). The use of balanced,



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if slightly varied, (“ac” versus “atque”) phrases is not surprising in Cicero, nor is a presentation of opposites. Equally unsurprising is the attribution of bellum as the proper sphere for arma or of pax as the proper sphere for oratio. The other two words, seditio and otium, are rather more loaded. First, Cicero reminds us that arma (here translated as “military skills”) may be used in seditio, a state of emergency in which the Republic may be in danger. The Roman audience would have been well aware of the seditio that marked Marius’ feud with Sulla and of the ultimately destructive force of both men’s arma. The conflict between Marius and Sulla was the first of many incidences of civil conflict in which arma were ultimately useless to stop seditio and, if anything, prolonged and worsened it. But Cicero had more successfully used oratio (oratory) in seditio. He repeatedly makes it clear that his words, the words of a consul togatus (consul in civilian dress, as opposed to a consul under arms), had stopped the Catilinarian conspiracy. While arms did play a part in putting down the insurgence of Catiline and his allies, oratio was the real force that allowed those arms to succeed. Oratio was ultimately more powerful than arma alone, for Cicero stopped the seditio during his consulship with success, speed, and safety for the Republic and the Roman people. Cicero has made his particular strength, oratio, more important for public service than arma, even as he purports to talk about both their use in vengeance. The other loaded word in the comparison with Marius is otium, which can mean “leisure” in general or refer to specific activities carried out during leisure time.42 It is in some ways an odd word to find associated with oratory or used as the opposite of seditio.43 Catullus, in a near-contemporary poem (c. 51), considers it a destructive force that ruins cities and men. Cicero’s use of the word here must be indicative of its association with peace, since peace is necessary in order to have otium. If we look to Pro Sestio 98, however, we gain a greater understanding of his usage of this word, which is connected to his valuing of moderatio. This passage is part of Cicero’s explanation of what he thinks the best men (the optimates) are: “neque enim rerum gerendarum dignitate homines ecferri ita conuenit ut otio non prospiciant, neque ullum amplexari otium quod abhorreat a dignitate” (For it is not fitting for men to be so carried away by the seriousness of their duties that they do not provide time for leisure, nor is it fitting for them to embrace any pastime which would shrink away from their dignity). For Cicero, appreciation of appropriate otium is part of being one of the optimates, which

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literally means something like “best men” but in practice meant those men of senatorial rank who had a conservative outlook and believed in the central position of the senate in the governing of the Republic and that they, not the Roman people at large, should hold the real decision-making power.44 Cicero considers those who emulate the ideal Roman man to be optimates and believes that the care for otium as well as for one’s dignitas (a difficult to define term: it implies an informal moral and public authority derived from one’s power and social standing in one’s community) is part of the modera­ tio that an ideal man should possess and display. That said, the very fact that he is aware that there are some forms of otium “quod abhorreat a dignitate” (which would shrink away from their dignity) shows that the word carried multiple associations and that not all achievements in peacetime were virtuous and worthy of optimates. Cicero frequently states that he is the only man to have saved the Republic from ruin while togatus (wearing a toga, that is, in the clothing of peacetime), as opposed to in military dress.45 Cicero also explicitly associates his actions as a togatus with military affairs and courage. In the De Officiis (1.74–76), Cicero suggests that deeds in peace, such as oratory and lawmaking, are at least as important as those in war, and at 1.77 he makes it clear that he is thinking of his own services to the Republic: “illud autem optimum est, in quod inuadi solere ab improbis et inuidis audio: ‘cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi.’ ut enim alios omittam, nobis rem publicam gubernantibus nonne togae arma cesserunt? neque enim periculum in re publica fuit grauius umquam nec maius otium. ita consiliis diligentiaque nostra cele­ riter de manibus audacissimorum ciuium delapsa arma ipsa ceciderunt” (But that is the best example, against which I hear attacks are accustomed to be made by the wicked and envious: “Let arms yield to the toga, let the laurel concede to glory.”46 For while I may omit other complaints, surely arms yielded to the toga when I was guiding the Republic? For there was not ever a more serious danger in the Republic nor was there greater peace [than that which came after]. Thus, because of my counsel and diligence the very weapons slipped from the hands of the most arrogant citizens and fell idle). Note that here Cicero also declares that otium is the result of his actions, connecting his togate service to the Republic with that word again. Cicero considers the service that he provided to be an essential part of the public service of a Roman male, and since the successful performance of masculinity depends upon such civic activities, he is therefore presenting



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himself as an ideal Roman man. He also credits his voice as the tool with which he defends the Republic and the people of Rome (Sest. 2): “ego autem, iudices, qua uoce mihi in agendis gratiis commemorandoque eorum qui de me optime meriti sunt beneficio esse utendum putabam, ea nunc uti cogor in eorum periculis depellendis” (But I, judges, now think to use my voice, which I used to think that I must use in giving thanks and commemorating the good service of those who deserved the best from me, to ward off danger from those same people). Earlier, we saw that bestowing beneficia is an essential part of being a good man; at De Officiis 1.48, Cicero also discusses the importance of repaying beneficia. This is part of the reciprocal nature of Roman social relations, wherein the Roman male must try to maintain a level of equilibrium in his giving and receiving of favors; Cicero is currently in the debt of those who restored him from exile, so he will use his vocal talent in their defense not only because it is the correct thing to do but also in partial repayment of his debt. All of Cicero’s various literary projects combine to build a picture of masculinity that values his skills and actions, even above traditional military endeavors. But Cicero was still vulnerable to criticism for a lack of masculine fortitude, as we can deduce from his repeated discussion of his actions immediately preceding his exile and his emotional state during it. Cicero’s letters, in particular those to his wife, Terentia, and his closest friend and most trusted correspondent, Atticus,47 showcase the despair and depression he felt in this period and his concern that his own weakness or misguided trust in others may have caused his exile. Cicero’s postexile speeches as well frequently refer to his emotional state and his actions before and during his exile and take pains to justify them. It appears that he was accused of cowardice because he left Rome rather than fight against the plans of Clodius. Cicero’s response to these charges is to say that if he had thought only of himself, he would have stayed and fought but that he was instead thinking of the danger to the Republic that would come from such civic battles. Thus, his flight was in fact a form of courage (Sest. 45): “de quo te, te, inquam, patria, testor et uos, penates patriique dei, me uestrarum sedum templorumque causa, me propter salutem meorum ciuium, quae mihi semper fuit mea carior uita, dimicationem caedemque fugisse” (Concerning this accusation, I swear to you, you, I say, my fatherland, and you, Penates and paternal gods, that I, for the sake of your shrines and temples, I, on account of the safety of my fellow citizens, which was always more dear to me than my own life, I fled struggle

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and slaughter). This argument fits into his stand against using arma to further seditio. As a more specific illustration of how his withdrawal into exile was a service to the Republic, he declares more than once that he had managed to shelter the rest of the good people of Rome by drawing all of Clodius’ ire upon himself, for example at Har. 4: “excepi et pro patria solus exarsi, sic tamen ut uos isdem ignibus circumsaepti me primum ictum pro uobis et fumantem uideretis” (I alone have rescued and I alone have burned for my country, so that you, surrounded by the same fires, might see me struck first for your sake and smoking). This is similar to his description of his motives during his consulship: he takes actions to safeguard the state without regard for his own safety. He further emphasizes that his actions may have saved Rome from the even greater danger that could have arisen afterward if he and men like him had been killed, leaving Rome in the hands of Clodius and his ilk (Sest. 47): “‘uicti essent improbi.’ at ciues, at ab eo priuato qui sine armis etiam consul rem publicam conseruarat. sin uicti essent boni, qui superessent? nonne ad seruos uidetis rem uenturam fuisse?” (“The wicked might have been vanquished.” [says an imagined objector] But they were citizens, and would have been vanquished by me, as a private individual, when even as a consul I had saved the Republic without taking up arms. And if the good were vanquished, who would remain? Surely you see the state would have fallen to the slaves?). By leaving the Republic he saved it, again. His actions were not cowardly but courageous; they showed his willingness to put the good of the Republic above his own. He implicitly compares himself to others who would use their strengths to try to bend the Republic to their will, even at the cost of death and destruction. Cicero takes a situation, his flight into exile, that could potentially undermine his masculinity and reframes it to be part of his service to the state and to make himself an exemplary citizen now and for the future. He repeatedly assures his listeners that the very behavior that his enemies criticize was in fact aimed at safeguarding the Republic and suggests that had he done as they wished, had he stayed and fought, he would have been doing a disservice to Rome. Cicero’s distress at leaving his family and friends and his joy at being restored to them as well as to the Republic is another theme found in his postexile speeches. It illustrates the value that Cicero places on friendship and family relationships and is yet another area of life in which he displays exemplary behavior. One of his postexile speeches addresses the senate and



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gives thanks to it for recalling him from exile. This speech begins with lists of what the senate has returned him to, beginning with his family but ending with public concerns (Red. Sen. 1): “qui mihi fratrem optatissimum, me fratri amantissimo, liberis nostris parentes, nobis liberos, qui dignitatem, qui ordinem, qui fortunas, qui amplissimam rem publicam, qui patriam, qua nihil potest esse iucundius, qui denique nosmet ipsos nobis reddidistis” (You have returned my most-wished-for brother to me, and me to my most loving brother; you have returned their father to my children, and my children to me; you have returned dignity, rank, and fortune to me; you have returned my most grand Republic to me, you have returned my fatherland, than which nothing can be more delightful; and finally you have returned my very self to me). Cicero emphasizes the reciprocity of the feelings of joy, which also suggests a reciprocity of feelings of loss while he was in exile. As Cicero missed Rome, so Rome missed Cicero. Later in the same speech, he briefly describes his emotional state in exile, in order to contrast his sorrow then with his joy now by expressing the abrupt change in his feelings as soon as he found out that he would be recalled to Rome (Red. Sen. 24): “me a morte ad uitam, a desperatione ad spem, ab exitio ad salutem uocauit . . . hominem fractum et prope dissipatum” ([a supporter in Rome called] me from death to life, from desperation to hope, from danger to safety . . . [me] a man broken and nearly destroyed). It seems that this emotional distress is another thing that Cicero’s enemies criticized him for. Cicero, however, uses his extreme sorrow and depression to demonstrate both his great concern for Rome, which he left unwillingly for the sake of saving the Republic, and his exemplary relationships with his friends and relatives. For Cicero, emotional distress in exile was a direct result of the fulfillment he found in suitable public and private masculine roles. Cicero’s public and private sorrows are difficult to disentangle from each other, although the personal level is more apparent in his letters to his wife, as we can see in passages from a letter that he wrote to her while he was still in exile (Fam. 14.3.1–2): “conficior enim maerore, mea Terentia, nec meae me miseriae magis excruciant quam tuae uestraeque; ego autem hoc miserior sum quam tu, quae es miserrima, quod ipsa calamitas communis est utriusque nostrum, sed culpa mea propria est. . . . meum fuit officium uel legatione uitare periculum uel diligentia et copiis resistere uel cadere fortiter. hoc miserius, turpius, indignius nobis nihil fuit. qua re cum dolore conficior tum etiam pudore; pudet enim me uxori meae optimae, suauissimis liberis uirtutem et

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diligentiam non praestitisse” (For I am consumed by sorrow, my Terentia, nor do my misfortunes torture me more than yours and those of our children; but I am more wretched than you, who are the most wretched, because the suffering is common to us both, but the fault is my own. . . . It was my duty either to avoid danger by taking the position of legate or by diligence or to resist with troops or to die bravely. Nothing was more wretched, more foul, more undignified than this. For this reason I am consumed by sorrow and even more by shame; for I am ashamed to have not shown courage and diligence for my best wife and my sweetest children). In this letter to his wife, Cicero emphasizes the shame he feels at having failed in his duty to protect his wife and children. He is ashamed that he went into exile and left Terentia in Rome to deal with the aftermath. He wonders whether he should have stayed and fought or whether he should have tried in some way to avoid this conflict by taking a position outside Rome. This is an interesting contrast to his postexile speeches, where he defends the actions he condemns here. Cicero himself portrays his flight into exile as shameful. Therefore, it is not surprising that his enemies did the same, and his attention to these issues in his later speeches is a defense of his actions. Cicero’s letters to Atticus reveal a more general depression and, inter­ estingly, report that Atticus had criticized him for his frame of mind (Att. 3.10.2): “nam quod me tam saepe et tam uehementer obiurgas et animo infirmo esse dicis, quaeso, ecquod tantum malum est quod in mea calamitate non sit?” (For since you so often and so strongly reproach me and say that I am weak-minded, I ask you in response, is there any great evil which is not present in my misfortune?). If even Cicero’s friends said such things to him, it seems likely that his enemies would also have used his mental state as a point of attack. Weakness was not a suitable state for a male, particularly a man who had reached the top of the Roman political system, and Atticus may have been trying to make Cicero see that his open expression of sadness was hurting his cause and making him seem unworthy of aid. Already in this letter, however, we begin to see his justification: his situation is such that he has no choice. Although Cicero did not write these letters to Atticus with the intent that they be made public, the words are not dissimilar to these, which were undoubtedly public (Dom. 97): “accepi, pontifices, magnum atque incredibilem dolorem: non nego, neque istam mihi adscisco sapientiam quam non nulli in me requirebant, qui me animo nimis fracto esse atque adflicto loquebantur” (I felt, priests, a great and incredible pain:



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I do not deny it, nor do I adopt that wisdom for myself which some men were looking for in me, men who were saying that I was too broken and dashed down in spirit). Atticus’ reported animo infirmo is strikingly similar to animo fracto atque adflicto, and dolor also appears again, as it did repeatedly in his letters from exile. His defense of his mental state, however, is greatly elaborated in the speeches, as in the following passage that continues from the lines quoted earlier (Dom. 97): “an ego poteram, cum a tot rerum tanta uarietate diuellerer, quas idcirco praetereo quod ne nunc quidem sine fletu commemorare possum, infitiari me esse hominem et communem naturae sensum repudiare? tum uero neque illud meum factum laudabile nec beneficium ullum a me in rem publicam profectum dicerem, si quidem ea rei publicae causa reliquissem quibus aequo animo carerem, eamque animi duritiam, sicut corporis, quod cum uritur non sentit, stuporem potius quam uirtutem putarem” (Should I have been able to deny that I was a human being and to reject the common feelings of our nature, when I was torn asunder from such a great variety of affairs, the details of which I pass over because not even now am I able to mention them without weeping? Then truly I would say that my action was not worthy of praise nor was any good deed from me toward the Republic significant, if indeed for the sake of the Republic I could have left behind those things which I, calmly, could be without. And I would think that strength of mind to be senselessness rather than courage, just like that of a body that does not feel it when it is burned). Cicero says that only someone who did not care about Rome could go into exile without showing emotion and that a lack of emotion is not courage but rather shows an almost inhuman and unnatural lack of feeling. The language that Cicero uses to describe the actions he did not take, that is, leaving Rome without any feelings of sorrow, has interesting gendered implications. He refers to duritia (strength, hardness) and uirtus and denies that duritia has any relationship to uirtus. Durus (hard) and its cognates are generally opposed to mollis (soft) and its cognates in Roman thought, with the former associated with masculinity and the latter with femininity or effeminacy.48 For Cicero to deny that the sort of duritia that he conspicuously lacked has any relationship with the highly valued quality of uirtus is for him to defend his own manhood.49 Romans likely did not have the same issues with men showing emotion in public as are common in some modern cultures, but they did have difficulty with men showing weakness.50 Cicero, however, reframes his distress as a perfectly reasonable

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response to his circumstances and suggests that to feel any less would be to draw suspicion from others about a lack of love for Rome. For Cicero, the negative emotions are part of his love for Rome and his life there, a love that he expresses in a different postexile speech in language reminiscent of that of Catullan love poetry and later Augustan elegy (Prou. 23): “ardeo, mihi credite, patres conscripti, . . . incredibili quodam amore patriae, qui me amor et subuenire olim impendentibus periculis maximis cum dimicatione capitis et rursum, cum omnia tela undique esse intenta in patriam uiderem, subire coegit atque excipere unum pro uniuersis” (I burn, believe me, conscript fathers, with a certain incredible love of my fatherland, which compelled me at one time when the greatest danger was threatening to come help in a struggle to the death; and again, when I saw every weapon from everywhere to be directed toward my country, my love compelled me to submit to and to receive the weapons on myself alone, in place of everyone). Cicero burns with love of his country as his contemporary Catullus burns with love for the human objects of his desire. Cicero’s love for Rome compels him to endure the greatest dangers and hardships, as the love poets endure sleepless nights and humiliation in order to win over their reluctant beloveds. Further, Cicero says that he went willingly into exile motivated by that same love of his country that led him to act as he did against the Catilinarian conspirators. Cicero consistently presents his actions during the Catilinarian conspiracy as exemplary behavior for an elite Roman male. When Cicero says that he had the same motivations for going into exile as he did for putting down the conspiracy, he gives some of the glory of the earlier success to the later actions. As Cicero had saved the Republic once out of love for his country, so he saved it a second time by refusing to allow his presence to lead to civil unrest. Finally, Cicero makes it clear that he has done nothing of questionable manliness but in fact has ensured that he can continue to save the Republic for many years to come (Sest. 101): “propugnatores autem rei publicae qui esse uoluerunt, si leuiores sunt, desciscunt, si timidiores, desunt: permanent illi soli atque omnia rei publicae causa perferunt” (But those who desire to be defenders of the Republic, if they be fickle men, soon give up the task; if they be timid men, they abandon it; and those men alone remain who endure everything for the sake of the Republic). For the elite of which Cicero was a member, the successful performance of masculinity involved military command, political officeholding, financial responsibility, control



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over one’s household, and dignified public speech. An overview of Cicero’s works in the most vulnerable periods of his life suggests that he was deeply invested in performing these, to the point of reworking his own life experiences and actions to fit his understanding of these preexisting categories. And yet this very reworking constituted a challenge to the traditional venues for the performance of masculinity, regardless of whether Cicero intended it to do so. If Cicero could successfully restage his consulship, with its lack of military action, as a different sort of militia and a source of uirtus, then what was to stop other men from recasting masculinity to fit their circumstances?51 As I demonstrate next, Catullus’ poetry documents another man making a more radical challenge to received models of masculinity and masculine behavior, but Cicero’s self-fashioning was more of a threat, as he held a higher public position. Catullus Upholding and Undermining Masculinity

Catullus in carmen 16, his most overt defense of his own masculinity, fends off an attack on his alleged sexual morals. In this poem, Catullus marks a clear distinction between his poetry and his self, a separation that would not have been automatically assumed by an ancient reader. The effect of the separation is to deflect accusations of effeminacy from the poet through an aggressive and violent performance of masculinity as he threatens to rape his critics.52 The alleged impetus behind the invective of carmen 16 is that two men, Aurelius and Furius, have claimed that Catullus is parum pudicus (not chaste enough) because his poems are molliculi (soft little things). Their specific charge is given in lines 12–13: “uos, quod milia multa basiorum / legistis, male me marem putatis?” (You, because you have read many thousand kisses, think me less of a man?). There could hardly be more explicit words to tie Catullus’ manhood, or lack thereof, to his poetry, inasmuch as these lines refer to several poems about kisses, carmina 5, 7, and 48. Aurelius and Furius seem to believe that no man who could write these poems could be a real man.53 There are a variety of reasons why this might be so. Expressions of desire in Latin often follow the so-called Priapic model of aggressive, penetrative force. The longing and desperation of the kiss poems, which show a poet-lover who has an infinite appetite for a nonpenetrative act, fall outside this model. Furthermore, public displays of affection toward women could be considered a sign of effeminacy.54 Famously, Pompey was criticized for his open adoration of his wife, Julia, and Plutarch

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(Cat. Ma. 17.7) reports that a certain Manilius was removed from the senate by Cato the Censor for kissing his wife in public. These men both received censure for being publicly affectionate with their wives, but the objects of Catullus’ affection open him up to further criticism. Catullus’ kiss poems are addressed to Lesbia (c. 5 and 7), a Roman matron, and Juventius (c. 48), a Roman youth.55 Both matrons and citizen youths were socially and legally off limits for illicit sexual relationships.56 Men who would engage in amatory relationships with members of these prohibited categories showed an unmanly lack of self-control. The kiss poems are legitimate targets for criticism from the standpoint of propriety and social norms. Even if the incident portrayed in carmen 16 never happened, however, (a distinct possibility, as we should not fall into the trap of assuming the poet writes an unvarnished biographical account), we might read this poem as a sort of preemptive strike against potential critics. The poet is aware that some of his poems leave his masculinity open to questions because they do not conform to the standards of conduct expected of a Roman male in his private life, and he is heading off any censure by making and refuting the accusations himself. This poem, however, is hardly the final or only story Catullus’ poetry tells about the poet’s masculinity. At the other end of the scale from carmen 16, carmen 50, the most explicitly homoerotic of Catullus’ poems, features the poet creating an internal challenge to his masculinity. Unlike the other poems in which he expresses sexual desire or makes sexual threats toward other males, this one portrays a meeting of equals, wherein Catullus takes on a role familiar from love poetry: the sleepless lover who can think of nothing but his absent object of affection (c. 50.10–13):57 nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos, sed toto indomitus furore lecto uersarer, cupiens uidere lucem, ut tecum loquerer, simulque ut essem. [Nor did sleep touch my eyes with rest, but, conquered by madness, I was tossing about all over the bed, desiring to see the light, so that I might speak with you and at the same time be with you.]

The issue here is the object of Catullus’ affection: another Roman man. In theory, reciprocal physical relationships between adult males of the same status were socially (and possibly legally) unacceptable.58 Catullus himself



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participates in the social “policing” of sexual behavior between males in his invective poetry, which inevitably paints such relationships as shameful for at least one of the men, and often for both.59 Yet in poem 50, he describes his poetic “games” with Licinius in language highly evocative of the erotic sphere (c. 50.1–6): hesterno, Licini, die otiosi multum lusimus in meis tabellis, ut conuenerat esse delicatos: scribens uersiculos uterque nostrum ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc, reddens mutua per iocum atque uinum. [Yesterday, Licinius, on a leisurely day we played a great deal on my tablets, so that we might come together in being delightful: each of us was playing, writing little verses now in this meter, now in that, giving back delight in turn amidst the jokes and wine.]

Ludo is a verb commonly used to mean “sexual play,”60 and the setting among iocum atque uinum also has erotic potential,61 especially given the torments that Catullus claims he suffered during the night, as reproduced earlier (lines 10–13) and also in the lines immediately following those (14–15): “at defessa labore membra postquam / semimortua lectulo iacebant” (and afterwards my limbs, wearied by labor, were lying halfdead on the bed).62 Licinius is widely recognized as the orator and poet C. Licinius Calvus, born around 84 BCE and therefore nearly the same age as Catullus.63 He is decidedly not a puer delicatus (“darling boy,” a term that is generally applied to adolescent males, often enslaved) who could be an appropriate object of sexual interest; thus, this sort of talk is risqué. There has generally been resistance toward reading this poem as a literal expression of same-sex desire. Instead, it is usually read as purely metaphorical, with Catullus expressing the joy of poetic composition in erotic terms.64 The fact remains, however, that he has chosen to use a metaphor, if it is one, that opens up his self and his poetic production to precisely the kinds of criticism that he has contended with in carmen 16.65 Catullus in this poem portrays his relationship with another man in such a way as to undermine his masculinity. Catullus’ relationships with other men are an important locus for his self-fashioning, in both negative and positive ways, throughout his corpus.

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Catullus presents himself as a loyal friend, providing aid when his friends are in need and expecting them to do the same for him.66 He models and enforces appropriate Roman social relations in his poetry, while at the same time he challenges the values and virtues necessary for acting out those very relationships.67 Catullus endorses ideas like fides (trust), amicitia (friendship), and the exchange of services and favors between equals and unequals alike, but the kinds of services and the contexts in which fides and amicitia are performed are often quite far removed from those approved for the Roman elite.68 Many of Catullus’ poems on friendship or its betrayal have a specifically adulterous context: carmen 68, for example, thanks a friend who provided a house for Catullus and Lesbia to carry out their adulterous affair; carmen 91 tells of a betrayal of friendship, in that the friend in question, Gellius, has stolen away Catullus’ beloved; and carmen 100 thanks a friend who helped him while he was suffering from unrequited love. Catullus removes traditional values from appropriate spheres in his private life, but also in his relationship with the public sphere. Catullus does not, as far as we can tell, seem to have embarked on the cursus honorum. He may have eschewed a public career; he may have died young; or he may have returned to Verona to run the family estate after the death of his brother.69 But he was active in politically important circles in Rome, not only through his connection with the aristocratic circle of Lesbia/Clodia but also through his relationships with other young men and poets.70 The only kind of public service he claims to have engaged in was going to Bithynia in the retinue of a governor, the propraetor C. Memmius Gemellus, in 57 BCE. Rather than seeing his provincial service as a good first step on the road to a career, though, he portrays it as a threat to his masculinity.71 In carmina 10 and 28, Catullus represents Memmius as a sexual aggressor against his fellow elite males, as we can see in the following excerpts (10.9–13): respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis nec praetoribus esse nec cohorti, cur quisquam caput unctius referret, praesertim quibus esset irrumator praetor, nec faceret pili cohortem. [I answered factually, that there was nothing either for the praetors themselves or for their staff that would make them richer (lit. would bring back



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a more-oiled head), and certainly not for those who had an irrumator of a praetor, who does not give a care for his staff.]

and (28.9–10):72 o Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum tota ista trabe lentus irrumasti. [O Memmius, at your leisure you irrumated me while I lay down, you did so well and daily with that whole beam of yours.]

Both poems refer to Memmius as performing irrumatio; he is an irrumator at 10.12 and Catullus says to him irrumasti at 28.10. This cluster of related words all refer to the man who is the penetrative partner in oral intercourse, a particularly humiliating type of sexual act for the penetrated male partner according to Roman sexual ideology.73 This is not to suggest that Catullus was actually made to submit to oral penetration by Memmius; such behavior would have been an outrage if committed against a Roman citizen. Rather, Catullus uses the most demeaning act he can think of to describe the feelings of humiliation and failure he associates with his service in the propraetor’s retinue. The experience that should have set him on the path to full performance of elite masculinity instead left him emasculated.74 Service to another elite male was always fraught with anxiety about status, even when it was simply a standard part of career building.75 Rome was a highly stratified society, in which everyone had to negotiate his (or her) position in a complex hierarchy of superiors, inferiors, and equals. Catullus was near the top of this hierarchy, even as an inexperienced young man, but that very prominence may have made the submission to superiors even more difficult, and we get an impression that the position of client or lesser friend could be a challenging one to inhabit while maintaining one’s dignity, a challenge that is only exacerbated in the principate, when patronage becomes superconcentrated in the hands of one man. Catullus’ discomfort with his provincial service may have a further meaning though, as part of a general rejection of the values of the Roman elite.76 Aven McMaster has argued that Catullus uses the Memmius poems and others to suggest that he and his circle of friends and fellow poets value wit, leisure, and poetry more than offices, wealth, and the cursus honorum.77 There is some truth to this view, which sees Catullus rejecting the traditional

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sites of the performance of masculinity and adopting new ones, a strategy that will be repeated by poets in the principate.78 It is more complex than a case of simple rejection and substitution, however, particularly given that there are poems in which Catullus performs his acceptance of traditional norms and uses them to police the manhood of other Roman men.79 These poems are not treated here, as the focus is on Catullus’ self-fashioning, but Catullus’ participation in a homosocial world of poetry and political intrigue is apparent throughout his works, despite the disproportionate amounts of attention the Lesbia poems tend to garner. Indeed, most of the important relationships elite Roman males had were with other men, both in public and in private settings. Catullus, like Cicero and many others, uses his presentation of these relationships to engage in self-fashioning. The relationships he writes about can sometimes injure his self-image, as we have already seen with Memmius, or they can bolster it, as with his attack on Aurelius and Furius. Many of the poems adopt a more nuanced stance than simply injury or attack, however, and some of them present an internal challenge to his masculine self-fashioning. Catullus portrays an intense internal battle between weakness and masculine posturing in several of his poems. One of the most striking examples comes in carmen 8, a poem that displays “a subject split against itself.”80 The poem begins with self-chastisement, as the poetic voice chides (1–2): “miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, / et quod uides perisse perditum ducas” (Wretched Catullus, cease to be foolish and let go as lost what you see has perished). The next six lines explain what it is that Catullus should stop wanting, his love with Lesbia, but in terms that make it clear that the poem is still dwelling on the lost delights. The initial two lines and a second set of three lines, quoted here, bracket wistful memories of the relationship, like an attempt to enclose them and keep them from the lover (9–11): nunc iam illa non uult: tu quoque impotens noli, nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser uiue, sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura. [But now she does not want it: you, also, refuse to be powerless, do not follow eagerly a woman who flees, nor live wretchedly, but endure, with a determined mind, be strong.]



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Following this encouragement, the voice of the poem becomes momentarily defragmented, presenting itself as “Catullus” rather than addressing “Catullus.” This is still done in the third person, however (12–13): “uale puella, iam Catullus obdurat, / nec te requiret nec rogabit inuitam” (Farewell, girlfriend, now Catullus is firm, and he will not seek you out nor will he ask for you, unwilling). The next five lines (14–18), however, return to the obsessiveness characteristic of lines 3–8 and, for that matter, of many of Catullus’ Lesbia poems, before the poem ends with a final exhortation to firmness of mind (19): “at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura” (but you, Catullus, having been made strong, endure). The language Catullus chooses to represent the frame of mind he desires for himself is strongly gendered, particularly the repeated forms of obdurare. In the context of Roman love poetry, the beloved is stereo­ typically portrayed as durus/a, harsh or hard against the pleas of the lover, who is correspondingly mollis, soft or weak. When the lover is male, as is usual in the surviving poetry, this identification with mollis or mollitia makes him take on the connotation of effeminacy and a general lack of manliness.81 When the poet urges the lover to become hard, to stand firm, and to endure, he is urging him to act like a man and no longer wallow in the feminized role of the desperate lover. This poem, then, is a recognition within the text of the challenge to traditional masculinity that the text contains. Catullus’ poems both affirm and undercut traditional masculinity,82 and his multifaceted poetic persona performs the nuances and contradictions of Roman manhood as the Republic comes to an end. Conclusion

Both Catullus and Cicero exploited the breakdown of traditional forms of masculine endeavor and performance. Neither man was a traditional Roman aristocrat, as both were from nonsenatorial, provincial Italian families. They also both lacked success in certain conventional spheres—the military in Cicero’s case and provincial service in Catullus’. More important for this study, Cicero and Catullus demonstrate that already in the late Republic there were members of the Roman elite who were, at some level, aware of the cracks opening in the facade of Roman manhood and who explored the manifestations and ramifications of the crumbling through their own self-fashioning. Both men attempt to recast their weaknesses as strengths but simultaneously therefore acknowledge that their weaknesses exist. Both

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men use the opportunities presented to them to enter areas of masculine performance that they should not have been able to access. The changes and challenges that we can see in the late Republic are a forerunner of more to come in the triumviral period and the Augustan principate. There is continuity between the periods, as the same issues of changing standards of masculinity with which Catullus and Cicero wrestle are evident in the following decades. Particularly in the 30s and 20s BCE, we see the elite attempt to maintain a hold on the traditional signifiers of power while at the same time the playing field becomes increasingly circumscribed. As Augustus consolidates his power and stabilizes his autocratic rule, however, we begin to see more concern with the performance of an array of masculine roles, with particular emphasis on local power networks, individual private relationships, and external markers of status.83 Equally interesting, however, are the hints in such figures as the poet Propertius and Augustus’ supporter and close friend Maecenas of alternative types of self-fashioning outside the gender binary that suggests a variety of solutions to the crisis of masculinity that may have been possible, even if they were ultimately unsuccessful. Even attempts to work through the crisis that were ultimately abandoned are still informative, since masculine self-fashioning that does not look like the norms of either the Republic or the Empire provides evidence that the principate was a time of flux for men’s identities and that the way masculinity ultimately resolved itself was not the only or inevitable possibility.

2 Virtus under the Principate

One of the most influential studies of Roman masculinity in the past twenty years is McDonnell’s 2006 volume Roman Manliness: “Virtus” and the Roman Republic. He makes two core arguments: first, that during most of the Republic uirtus meant martial courage, and second, that actions of martial courage were at the root of all public achievement for Roman men, especially but not only those of the elite classes. He also traces the development of a new definition of uirtus similar to that of the Greek arete (excellence) that appears as early as the Punic Wars (mid-third to mid-second centuries BCE).1 By the time Cicero was building a political career decidedly not based on martial courage, this later sense of uirtus as virtue or generic “excellence” was gaining in prominence and nearly as common as its earlier meaning of martial courage, at least in elite circles. But the first years of Augustus’ principate show a return to the martial meaning of uirtus, at least in the most “acquiescent” authors: the lyric poet Horace, the historian Livy, and the epic poet Vergil.2 Yet a full consideration of the term in the works of these authors shows that its usage is complex and that even these authors are not always or only serving the interests of the new imperial regime. Even the “martial” meaning appears in troubling contexts, and the “ethical” meaning influences the most martial of tales. This chapter examines the role of uirtus in Horace’s Roman Odes (Car­ mina 3.1–5), Vergil’s Aeneid, and Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (From the Foun­ dation of the City). These works have been selected because they share an engagement with the history and traditions of Rome that was also a concern of Augustus. The Roman Odes are a definitive statement of what Rome 47

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is, has been, and should be and show a marked interest in the behavior of Roman men and boys. The masculinity that is prized in the Roman Odes is martial and obedient to the needs of the state and the man who rules it. Livy explicitly states that his history is meant to provide exempla for his own times, so that whenever he engages with a culturally significant value such as uirtus it is reasonable to read it as exemplary. Vergil’s poem is deeply concerned with investigating and defining Roman morality, including uir­ tus, by using epic traditions and Roman and Italian prehistory to interrogate his own contemporary world. This group of texts functions as an important site for the development of an Augustan-era uirtus. Before we can analyze texts or the meaning of uirtus in first-centuryBCE Rome, a more basic issue must be settled: how we can tell if someone is “acquiescent.” Closely related is the issue of patronage, especially the relationships between Augustan authors and literary patrons.3 I carefully interrogate what patronage means in the Augustan context and who participates in it. Once this work is done, I move on to analyses of the authors’ works, beginning with Horace, who most explicitly addresses the contemporary situation, before looking at the historical and epic worlds in Livy and Vergil. “Pro” or “Anti” Augustan

The question of how to decide which authors, individual poems, or passages can be labeled acquiescent to the values of the Augustan regime is a difficult one, even when these values are narrowed to uirtus.4 Virtus is etymologically related to the Latin word uir (man), making it a virtue that is usually specifically masculine: even when applied to women or inanimate objects, it generally has the effect of gracing them with “masculine” courage or virtue. The uirtus and other masculine characteristics or activities favorably portrayed by the “acquiescent” authors need not always line up with those prioritized by the princeps himself, since the types of masculine endeavors and behaviors that Augustus projects and values for himself may not be those he wanted other men to perform.5 Moreover, in their “self ”projection and in what we know of their biographies, authors rarely appear to fit the models created for elite men in general. For example, neither Horace nor Vergil acquiesced to Augustus’ encouragement of marriage and fatherhood.6 This disjunction may reflect a tension inherent both in identification with the goals of the regime and within those very goals: Augustus and company promoted a return to traditional values at the very same time that



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their remaking of the entire state made some of those values anachronistic and hollow. As a result, the authors of the era often seem to be caught between irony and sincerity. It is thus overly simplistic to label any extant author “pro” or “anti” Augustan, as Duncan Kennedy argued in 1992.7 As a general rule, the poetry and prose that have survived are not classifiable by such terms. Attempts to make any author’s corpus as a whole fit into either camp have required their proponents to ignore undertones, and even overtones, which suggest an incomplete allegiance. Outright and unambiguous criticism is rare, but the same can be said of praise, and generally the so-called pessimist critics actually provide a more balanced reading than the optimists.8 On the socalled optimist side, the most common objection to readings that posit anything less than wholehearted support of Augustus has been that it would have been politically unwise or even impossible to do so. A secondary point of objection is that any author who accepted the patronage of Maecenas, a close friend and supporter of Augustus, or of Augustus himself also accepted an obligation to praise the regime.9 Both of these concerns have been shown to misunderstand the state of censorship and the meaning of patronage in this era. Later imperial authors believed that Augustus had been unusually tolerant of dissent, particularly in the earlier years of his principate.10 He had no official policy of censoring works of literature that praised his enemies or denigrated his own accomplishments or person.11 Prime examples of this tolerance are the jurist M. Antistius Labeo and the historian and rhetorician Timagenes, both of whom were publicly and vocally hostile to Augustus. Their words were not without consequences but were without the type of formal legal punishments we find under some later emperors. Indeed, the late first-/early second-century CE historian Tacitus has Cremutius Cordus, a historian on trial for maiestas (treason based on offense to the dignity of the emperor) because he praised Brutus and Cassius, compare Augustus with the much less lenient Tiberius.12 After listing a number of dissenting authors who flourished under Augustus and Julius Caesar, he says (Ann. 4.34.4): “sed ipse diuus Iulius, ipse diuus Augustus et tulere ista et reliquere, haud facile dixerim, moderatione magis an sapientia” (but the Divine Julius himself, the Divine Augustus himself, both endured and let pass these writings, and it is difficult to say whether this was out of greater self-control or wisdom). Cordus associates the first princeps with the famous clementia

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(mercy) of his father and attributes moderation and wisdom to their inaction, implying that Tiberius has neither. Overall, it is unlikely that Augustus personally insisted on compliance from every author writing during his lifetime. Even the major counterexamples, the poets Gallus and Ovid, were both punished for political offenses, rather than solely for their writing. Gallus lost the friendship of Augustus and died by suicide in 27 or 26 BCE, but his offense was related to overreaching his authority while prefect of Egypt in 29 BCE, not to his love poetry.13 Ovid himself tells us (Tr. 2.207) that he was exiled from Rome in 8 CE for “carmen et error” (a poem and a mistake). The unnamed poem is most often identified as the Ars Amatoria, a didactic poem on conducting extramarital love affairs, although it is rather odd that Augustus waited perhaps as much as twenty years after its initial publication to punish Ovid. But if the error, believed by many to relate to the adultery of Augustus’ granddaughter Julia Minor in 8 CE, was the tipping point, the timeline makes more sense.14 Either way, neither poet was ruined by poetry alone: action was more important than words. It is also important to consider that Vergil, Horace, and Livy were all born well before the end of the Republic: Vergil in 70 BCE, Horace in 65 BCE, and Livy in 64 or 59 BCE.15 Vergil and Horace certainly started their literary careers during the triumviral period (43–32 BCE), and Livy may have. These authors grew up and began writing in an environment in which criticism of political figures in poetry and prose literature was possible, if not common. In poetry, Catullus is a prime example: when the oldest Augustan authors were children, Catullus was writing invective against such preeminent figures as Julius Caesar (11, 29, 54, 57, 93) and Pompey (29), as well as against lesser but still prominent men such as Clodius (79) and Memmius (10, 28). Catullus was able to write scurrilous attacks against men significantly more powerful than he, even in the climate of the late Republic, which saw political enemies literally beating each other to death in the streets. But the only ancient evidence we have for any consequences of Catullus’ literary attacks comes from Suetonius (Iul. 73), who reports the story that Julius Caesar, although upset by the poems, accepted the poet’s apology and then immediately invited him to dinner. This very civil way of solving difficulties may have only been an option for the well-to-do and reasonably prominent: it is worth noting that Caesar had a friendly relationship with Catullus’ father, and one wonders whether a low-class and unconnected person would have



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fared so well. Regardless, given that the authors of Augustus’ era, with the exception of Horace, came from a background similar to Catullus,’ it may well be that they both expected and received similar treatment. And yet, it is clear that none of the major Augustan authors came anywhere near the kind of overt and often obscene written aggression of Catullus, with the ironic exception of Octavian himself!16 Catullan-style invective does not appear to have survived into the triumviral period: the satires of Horace are either notoriously gentle or else aimed at anonymous or unimportant targets,17 and the criticism in the other surviving authors is generally oblique or ambiguously worded. Moreover, it is likely no coincidence that the works of those like Timagenes, who dared to criticize openly, have not survived.18 So while there is no reason to believe that Augustus himself, or even Maecenas as his deputy, outright censored anyone, it is plausible that the general atmosphere of increasing autocracy in the triumviral period and the one-man rule of the Augustan period both decreased the number of interesting targets for actual invective and satire and increased the stakes for the author who might contemplate writing such works. An author’s attitude toward Augustus and his performance of masculinity could be interrelated and complex, so that ultimately there is no simple correspondence between the two. A man who supported the Augustan regime might be a spineless toady, whose lack of independence showed his lack of worth as a man. At the other extreme, he might be a supporter of the return to old-fashioned virtue and a bastion of manly strength against the depravity of the late Republic. More likely, he was somewhere in between these poles, and it is unlikely that any of the authors studied here had a sim­ ple answer to the question “Do you support Augustus?” Instead, the authors studied in this chapter usually aligned with Augustus on some major point of view or priority and rarely oppose him or his vision for Rome outright. That is as close to “acquiescence” as we are likely to find in the major authors of Augustus’ lifetime. They all also accepted some form of patronage from Augustus or his associates, and the question of what patronage meant in this era is also an important one for men’s masculine identities, as we will see in the next section. Literary Patronage and Masculinity

The most obvious way for a poet to make public his association with Augustus and his partisans was to address one of them directly in a poem. The

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address is especially emphatic in a poem that has a prominent position at the beginning or end of a collection or makes a programmatic statement about the poet’s goals and ideals. In prose, authors had long engaged in the practice of dedicating histories, scholarly texts, and philosophical treatises to friends or patrons and so they could also signal their allegiance to the ruling powers. These individuals named by poets and prose authors are sometimes identified by scholars as “patrons,” and this issue of patronage is one that has relevance to the authors’ experience of their own masculinity and their judgment of others. The debate on an author’s “pro” or “anti” Augustan status often hangs on this idea of patronage. The “pro” camp has a tendency to view patronage as a very rigid relationship that compelled poets to fall into step with the goals and values of Augustus and his adherents. They make poetic patronage analogous to the patron–client relationship between a freedperson and his former owner: a formal, legally binding agreement in which the lesser party owed lifelong obligations to the greater and could be punished for failure to perform them.19 If this was indeed what literary patronage consisted of, it would seriously inhibit the author from acting as an adult, freeborn male with control over his own body, actions, and property.20 Indeed, it would be rather shocking if any man of even moderate status were willing to enter such a relationship or if patrons were able to attract any but the most desperate of authors. Roman men valued their status, and to put themselves into a state similar to that of freedmen would be deeply humiliating on a personal and public level. It is necessary therefore to define what patronage means in a literary context. Fortunately, much of this work has already been done.21 Roman literary patronage is qualitatively different from the legal relationship between freedperson and former dominus/a (slave owner), while also being dissimilar to the modern publishing model in which authors are paid a fee and/or royalties for their work. Literary patrons could provide financial assistance to authors, but they did not have to, nor was this the limit of their patronage. More important was the ability to provide authors with less tangible resources. Entry into the circle of prominent aristocrats guaranteed access to peers and an audience, two invaluable commodities for aspiring poets, especially those from outside Rome, like most of the surviving Augustan authors. For a world without a formal publishing industry, patronage from a well-connected Roman was the best way of getting written works to the



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reading public. Even when patrons provided concrete support, it was not necessarily in the form of payment in cash or kind. Just as patrons could help authors by giving them access to an audience and the stimulation of other creative minds, they could also help those who were financially unstable by improving their circumstances so that they could focus on their creative work.22 Horace famously received his Sabine farm from Maecenas, but we should not imagine it as a direct payment for work delivered, such that there was a contract promising “one farm in exchange for one book of odes.”23 All in all, the way that literary patronage worked was similar to the way that Roman friendship worked.24 It was instrumental, in the sense that patrons and authors provided favors or services for each other: Romans also expected this of their friends.25 Augustus himself referred to his relationship with Horace as amicitia (friendship) in a letter quoted in Suetonius’ life of the poet.26 And since Roman literary patronage could therefore be presented as friendship, it did not have to be emasculating for the authors who benefited from it. Because of the overlap with friendship, it can be difficult to define which relationships are those of literary patronage. Most scholars agree, for example, that Catullus’ dedication of his libellus (little book of poems) to Nepos, a man of similar social standing and birth, is not the dedication of a client to a patron.27 Indeed, Catullus does not seem to have ever dedicated a poem to any man who was a social superior and a known patron.28 On the other end of the scale, a freedman author such as the aforementioned Timagenes, if he dedicated a poem or treatise to Augustus, would undoubtedly be acting as a client to a patron. Most of the major authors of the triumviral and Augustan periods fall somewhere in between these two extremes, although they are generally closer to Catullus in status than Timagenes, and so we must rely on careful interpretation to decide who is and is not a patron or a patronized artist. The patrons seem, at first glance, far easier to identify. Augustus, Maecenas, and the general, politician, and author Messalla are the most prominent, with Augustus coming into play somewhat late, after Maecenas’ withdrawal from the role. All important wealthy men with official or unofficial positions as leaders of the state, they appear as recipients of dedications from authors of poetry and, less often, prose. Yet not every dedication necessarily indicates a patronage relationship. For example, should Tullus, the dedicatee of Propertius’ first poem, be considered a patron?29 Tullus and Propertius

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were both young men from privileged backgrounds and seem closer to equals who would not likely enter into a relationship that could put one of them in an inferior position. Many of Propertius’ other addressees are definitely not patrons: some are social inferiors, many are fellow poets and friends.30 And indeed, although Horace’s compliments to Maecenas are more famous now, Maecenas wrote Horace flattering poetry in return: this surely does not mean that Horace was Maecenas’ patron!31 So although one may be able to argue for some addressees as patrons, many of them are not. Indeed, most addressees are not patrons; there is a further necessity of clearly superior status and the power to do favors that would be out of reach of the author’s equals. The specific nature of these favors also shows that patronage held a range of meanings for the author-clients. Horace was the son of a freedman, albeit a wealthy one who was probably not enslaved for very long. This makes Horace unique among the extant authors of his time, since even though he was born to a certain amount of wealth and privilege, his status was forever shadowed by his father’s time as a slave. Horace’s father had him educated, after which he obtained an officer’s position under Brutus during the conflicts following the killing of Caesar, both indications that he was far from lower class.32 But still, in the status-conscious world he lived in, he would have been significantly inferior in birth to many of his friends and fellow authors.33 He is also the only major Augustan author who at any point in his life had to work for a living. Patronage, therefore, meant something significantly different for Horace than it did for a provincial aristocrat like Propertius.34 The provincial aristocracy undoubtedly benefited from high-powered patronage, but it is unlikely that a man like Propertius actually depended on Maecenas for his daily bread. The elegiac poets presented a pose of poverty, but it should not be read as a statement of true need: the elegists may have been less wealthy than the magnates at Rome or dependent on an allowance from their parents, but they were never truly poor. The education and leisure required for learned poetic composition requires a level of income which was far out of reach of the average Roman, let alone the impoverished. For these men, a patron could provide less tangible support through his connections and influence. Their different backgrounds provide an explanation for why Horace spills far more ink on questions of patronage, friendship, and dependence than the other authors: he is in a more precarious position and has had to pay far more attention to the nuances of meaning that such a position necessitates.35



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The authors who claim to have benefited most directly and materially from patronage write material that seems to support or at least align with Augustus’ vision for Rome. But even these authors were not simply sycophants, and there is no evidence that Augustus or Maecenas expected them to write panegyrics.36 The freedom to disagree, chastise, and advise allowed authors to maintain their masculine self-respect and made their freely given praise more valuable an asset.37 Authors who were less dependent on their more powerful friends, such as Propertius and Ovid, also benefited from the general atmosphere of artistic and literary license under this system and were free to disagree with, question, or even utterly ignore the policies and views of the princeps and his circle as they saw fit. As we have seen, later authors viewed the Augustan period as characterized by precisely this type of freedom and Augustus as significantly more tolerant of literary dissent than his heirs. This spirit of literary freedom began to dissipate even during the Augustan period, however, and it seems that Ovid erred in not understanding the changing political climate, an error that led to his exile. But for now, I return to an earlier stage of the principate, when Horace, Vergil, and Livy were writing. All three of these authors received patronage of a sort from Augustus and/or Maecenas: Horace got his farm, Vergil seems to have received preferential treatment when lands around his birthplace were confiscated, and Livy held a post in the imperial household. Thus, they could all be thought of as part of the Augustan machine and therefore obligated or at least inclined to support the princeps’ views, at least in major issues and in their broad strokes. Given that all of these authors wrote large amounts of material, it is necessary to narrow my focus to a specific element: the central role of uirtus both in Rome’s identity and values and in these authors’ works. Virtus in Horace’s Roman Odes

I begin this section with some numbers. Horace uses the word uirtus seventyone times, far more often in the singular (sixty-five) than the plural (six), which is largely confined to a few works from later in his life. The word usually appears in the plural only when used in the ethical sense, but it can hold either meaning in the singular.38 The group of poems examined in this section of the chapter use uirtus only in the singular, suggesting that, in these poems as in the corpus in general, Horace is grappling more with the martial meaning of the word and with the traditional Roman masculinity

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that it represents than with the ethical sense that became prominent in the late Republic. This matters because it suggests that Horace is following the same trend as Augustus in reshaping military uirtus into an actual virtue, influenced by the ethical meaning that Cicero and others seem to have been interested in as the Republic shuddered toward its end. Yet, at the same time, he associates the term more strongly with its military origins, so that, as is so often the case for Augustus and his associates, they are simultaneously conservative and innovative. The Roman Odes explicitly set out parameters for masculine and, less so, feminine behavior in Augustan Rome, though only the former is of concern here.39 Horace, like Livy and Vergil, provides exempla from Roman myth and history, but Horace overtly addresses contemporary behavior and circumstances in a way that the surviving work of the other two does not. For Roman men, the soldier-farmer was an idealized model of manhood, even in the first century BCE.40 The wealthy and sophisticated men who made up the officer class presented themselves as descendants of the semilegendary hero Cincinnatus, who went straight from plowing a field to leading an army and then back again, even though it is unlikely any of them ever took up a plow. While few of the other major Augustan authors took part in the warfare that was the basis of old-fashioned uirtus, Horace had seen combat, albeit on the losing side, fighting under Brutus after the death of Caesar. Horace therefore had more personal familiarity with this aspect of traditional manhood than the other authors of his era. Especially in the Roman Odes, Horace has a great deal to say about the connection linking uirtus, Roman traditions, and the men and boys of his own day. Horace likely wrote his first three books of Carmina (Poems) between 31 and 23 BCE, over the time period from just before the Battle of Actium up to the so-called second Augustan settlement, a term used to refer to a series of agreements and concessions between Augustus and the Roman Senate. Thus, they are products of a time when Augustus had defeated the final threat to his power but was still transforming himself and the state to accommodate and consolidate that power.41 The Roman Odes fit within the general atmosphere of revival and reconstruction and interact with many of the important ideas and issues of the time.42 When Horace writes about Roman men in the Roman Odes, it is thus necessarily programmatic. Horace signals that these are important poems with big ideas in the first stanza,



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in which he combines an allusion to Callimachus with Roman religious language to declare himself a holy man as well as a poet (Carm. 3.1.1–4): odi profanum uulgus et arceo. fauete linguis: carmina non prius audita Musarum sacerdos uirginibus puerisque canto. [I hate the common crowd and I keep it at a distance. Be silent: I, a priest of the Muses, sing songs not heard before to girls and boys.]

Later in the same book (3.30.13–14), Horace states that he as princeps (originator) brings a mastery of Archaic Greek lyric poetry into Roman art, but the first line of Carm. 3.1 instead pulls Hellenistic Greek elegy into his orbit: “odi profanum uulgus” (I hate the common crowd) is a transparent allusion to Callimachus’ declaration in Epigram 28: σικχαίνω πάντα τὰ δημόσια (I loathe all common things). At the same time as he establishes his literary and even sacred status, Horace declares that he has a new and important message for the young people of Rome, from which these “boys” (and men) could learn about their roles as holders of uirtus in Augustan and Horatian Rome. In the rest of the poem, Horace offers positive and negative models for masculine behavior within parameters set by Jupiter in the heavens and Augustus on earth. The poem urges satisfaction with one’s lot in life and makes it clear that Augustus is the one who sets out precisely what that lot will be. Those who try to take advantage of the benefits of the Augustan peace to act in ways that the princeps would not approve are to be punished, not by the law or any human agency but by their own fears and, perhaps, divine or natural agents. In sum, Horace’s first Roman Ode sets up an important lesson for the pueri (boys) of the first stanza on their roles as Roman men: they should be aware of and adhere to their proper place in life, whether that means fulfilling the role of a candidate or patron or a humble farmer; they must avoid opulence and excess regardless of their station; and they must remain content with whatever quantity of possessions or property is appropriate for them. This first Roman Ode introduces four main spheres of activity in which Roman men were able to perform their masculinity: military service, politics, the proper use of wealth and power, and private

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life. All of these lessons are then expanded on in the other Roman Odes, but uirtus and military roles are key, as they were traditionally the bedrock upon which all other public aspects of Roman manhood were based. After setting out the order of the universe in 3.1, Horace moves to more specific matters that both result from and underpin that ordered universe in the next poem. To start, he instructs the pueri of the previous ode in war, military service, and courage, as is clear from the opening lines (Carm. 3.2.1–6): angustam amice pauperiem pati robustus acri militia puer condiscat et Parthos ferocis uexet eques metuendus hasta uitamque sub diuo et trepidis agat

5

in rebus. [Let the boy, sturdy from harsh military service, learn thoroughly how to endure constricting poverty as a friend, and let the knight, fearsome because of his spear, harass the fierce Parthians, and let him lead his life guided by the divine even in fearful circumstances.]

The language of these lines is heavy with descriptive terms that give the impression of a tough and intimidating soldier, whether he is still a boy, already sturdy (robustus) from harsh (acer) training, or a fully formed cavalryman who strikes fear into the hearts of others (metuendus). The lines also make it clear that the training that makes these strong and fearsome soldiers comes along with moral instruction: Horace’s Roman soldiers are not motivated by greed or luxury, and thus these lines connect back to the themes of the first Roman Ode.43 The result of their training and restraint is that they can take on even fierce (feroces) enemies and that they possess the favor of the divine, regardless of the circumstances. In 3.2, Horace urges the soldiers of Rome to excel in traditional Roman uirtus: military excellence. Moreover, he specifically addresses the equestrian class, from which the cavalry and many of the officers were drawn, rather than the foot soldiers of the legion. The reasons for this may lie outside Horace’s poetry in the larger public world. Augustus was involved in



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a number of initiatives to encourage boys of the upper orders to undergo a traditional education, which included military training and service.44 Participation of the equites in military service may have dropped off in the late Republic, but Augustus, in his efforts to involve as many people as possible in the new order, offered explicit encouragement to this order to serve as Rome’s loyal and courageous officer class.45 The second Roman Ode thus begins by affirming the martial value of the Roman equestrian order and dovetails with Augustus’ interests. The fourth stanza reinforces the message of the poem so far by glorifying martial courage even unto death (Carm. 3.2.13–16): dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: mors et fugacem persequitur uirum nec parcit inbellis iuuentae poplitibus timidoue tergo. [It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country: death follows even the man who flees and does not spare the knees or timid back of the unwarlike youth.]

Courage, violence, and youth must all be harnessed to a legitimate goal: dying for Rome. And the goal is death, not just fighting, as the greatest service. This is slightly odd: Roman tradition placed a great deal of value on military success, and although the occasional heroic death is valorized in the historians, such a blatant heroicizing of dying, rather than conquering, is rare. And even when death is promoted as the preferable option, it is usually in contrast to being captured or in a tale of an individual who sacrifices himself to ensure the success of others. In those instances, however, death is often portrayed as an act of uirtus, of military courage, and since 3.2 is about to turn explicitly to the idea of uirtus, the lines here set up certain kinds of death as an ultimate display of that characteristic.46 The move to uirtus immediately after the praise of death in battle colors how Horace conceives of military courage in these poems and what actions and attitudes he encourages in the youth of Rome. And yet the gibe at the man who flees due to timidity, while a common enough trope of ancient literature, will remind an attentive reader that the poet as a young man had not lived up to the standard he sets for others.

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Horace may urge martial uirtus unto death, but in a poem in the previous book he writes that he himself ran away at the battle of Philippi (Carm. 2.7.9–16): tecum Philippos et celerem fugam sensi relicta non bene parmula, cum fracta uirtus et minaces turpe solum tetigere mento; sed me per hostis Mercurius celer denso pauentem sustulit aere, te rursus in bellum resorbens unda fretis tulit aestuosis.

10

15

[With you I experienced Philippi and our speedy flight, my shield left shamefully behind, when courage was shattered and the threats made with foul intent fell to the earth; but swift Mercury supported me through the enemy in a dense cloud, although I was shaking with fear, while the wave swallowed you up again and carried you back to war with its stormy waters.]47

Here, in his longest passage about Philippi, Horace says that he and his friend both ran headlong from the battle. Even after well over a decade, the sense of shame remains palpable in the reference to the abandoned shield and his own fear.48 And it is here that he refers to his own uirtus: his courage, and his very manliness, was broken by his experiences in that battle. Also notable is what he does not say: earlier in the poem, he says he fought with Brutus as his leader (2: “Bruto . . . duce”) but resolutely leaves out any mention of whom he fought against, although he does call them the enemy.49 In Horace’s poem, this elision has the effect of obscuring his own youthful opposition to the avengers of Caesar, while still imparting broken manhood to those who fought against them: it follows that uirtus was with the Caesarian party that day. Along with the breaking of his uirtus, Horace acquiesces to the power of the triumvirs and calls the tyrannicides’ attacks turpe mento: his own failure of masculinity is embedded in his acquiescence to the regime. The uirtus in the lines from Carm. 2.7 leads us back to 3.2, which we left at line 16. Each of the next two stanzas begins with this heavily marked word (Carm. 3.2.17–24):



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uirtus, repulsae nescia sordidae, intaminatis fulget honoribus nec sumit aut ponit securis arbitrio popularis aurae. uirtus, recludens inmeritis mori caelum, negata temptat iter uia coetusque uulgaris et udam spernit humum fugiente pinna.

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20

[Courage, unaware of the filth that it repulses, flashes with unstained honors and does not take up or put aside the axes, influenced by the breeze of popular opinion. Courage, opening the sky to those undeserving of death, attempts a journey by the road that was denied and spurns the meetings of the common crowd and the moist earth with its fleeing wing.]

The context makes it clear that here Horace once again means courage in battle, rather than virtue in a general sense. Odes 3.2’s uirtus is honorable, courageous, unstained by vice, and ultimately too good for this earth. This, as we will see, is a very different way of looking at uirtus from that in Livy or Vergil, where it can be all of these things but, other than courageous, does not have to be. Horace may have taken the military sense of the word as its primary meaning for this poem, but it has been infused with the sense of the Greek arete as well, suggesting that he may be conceiving of uirtus as something that combines traditional and moral definitions. Horace’s conception of uirtus also gives it a certain independence: it does not bend and change with popular demands but exists outside and above them.50 Still, if we are considering Horace’s use of uirtus in terms of his acquiescence, even a new and nuanced model of independent uirtus could destabilize and work against Augustus and the models of masculinity he promoted. After all, if everyone attempted to follow some sort of divine, objective uirtus, it is possible that they might not always do what Augustus wanted. But the identification of the princeps with order and rightness defuses any possibility of such a challenge: anyone who followed a path that did not lead to Augustusapproved ends would not really be performing uirtus. The fifth Roman Ode begins with a prediction of Augustus’ apotheosis (Carm. 3.5.1–4) but quickly shifts to the theme of the lost legions of Crassus,

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a contemporary of Julius Caesar who was defeated in Parthia in 53 BCE, with a viewpoint that comments explicitly on issues of Roman-ness and masculinity (Carm. 3.5.5–12): milesne Crassi coniuge barbara turpis maritus uixit et hostium, pro curia inuersique mores! consenuit socerorum in armis sub rege Medo Marsus et Apulus anciliorum et nominis et togae oblitus aeternaeque Vestae, incolumi Ioue et urbe Roma?

5

10

[Has a soldier of Crassus lived, a foul husband with a barbarian wife and the perverted customs of the enemy in place of the senate house! Do Marsus and Apulus grow old in the army of their in-laws under a Median king, forgetful of their shields and names and toga and eternal Vesta, while Jupiter and the city of Rome are safe and sound?]

By the time Horace was writing, the defeat of Crassus was some thirty years in the past, more than long enough for his captured soldiers to have been absorbed into the society of their captors. Horace paints a disturbing picture: a Roman soldier (miles), who should be a paragon of Roman virtue and manhood, has utterly forgotten who he is and every external and internal sign of his identity. This soldier has used his military abilities to serve his former enemies, who are now his in-laws, and he has lost his reverence for the Roman gods and his Roman male identity itself, symbolized by his name and toga, and he needs Augustus to bring him back into the fold by conquering Parthia.51 Or does he? Horace continues with an exemplum from history that suggests a different approach to captured Roman soldiers: he imagines a speech by Regulus, a general of the first Punic War, who, when captured and then sent back to Rome to negotiate a peace, advised the senate to refuse the terms, after which he returned to his captivity in Carthage, where he was tortured to death. In Horace’s poem, Regulus argues that ransoming captured soldiers encourages them to give up too easily, since they know they can save their lives through surrender and then return home after being



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ransomed. Moreover, the cowardice they learn will make them unable to ever fight bravely or conquer an enemy (Carm. 3.5.25–36): auro repensus scilicet acrior miles redibit. flagitio additis damnum. neque amissos colores lana refert medicata fuco, nec uera uirtus, cum semel excidit, curat reponi deterioribus. si pugnat extricata densis cerua plagis, erit ille fortis, qui perfidis se credidit hostibus, et Marte Poenos proteret altero, qui lora restrictis lacertis sensit iners timuitque mortem.

25

30

35

[Sure, a soldier ransomed for gold will return fiercer to the fight. You add injury to insult. Dyed wool does not get back its lost color, nor does true courage, when once it falls away, care to be put back into lesser men. When a deer fights when released from the tight nets, so then will that man who trusted himself to treacherous enemies be strong and crush the Carthaginians in another battle, a man who stayed still and felt the cords on his bound arms and feared death.]

Horace’s historical exemplum is multifaceted. Horace uses it to explain why it is important that Augustus conquer Parthia, given that he places it immediately after the stanzas about the captive Romans living under Parthian rule. And yet, the moral of the story is not that Romans should ransom their compatriots but rather that there should be no chance of rescue for enslaved Romans. So how does this story relate to the example of the miles Crassi? Horace uses the miles as an example of a man who has lost his manhood and his uirtus. Romans in general conceived of masculinity as a fragile thing that could easily be lost and had to be continually shored up.52 The fifth Roman Ode poses the question: can masculinity, particularly Roman masculinity, be damaged to such an extent that it cannot be regained? The poem is inconclusive. Regulus says yes, but the idea that Augustus can redeem the soldiers of Crassus suggests otherwise.

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And yet the poem dwells on the fate of Regulus (Carm. 3.5.41–56): fertur pudicae coniugis osculum paruosque natos ut capitis minor ab se remouisse et uirilem toruus humi posuisse uoltum, donec labantis consilio patres firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato interque maerentis amicos egregius properaret exul. atqui sciebat quae sibi barbarus tortor pararet; non aliter tamen dimouit obstantis propinquos et populum reditus morantem quam si clientum longa negotia diiudicata lite relinqueret, tendens Venafranos in agros aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum.

45

50

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[They say that he turned away from the kiss of his chaste wife and his small sons as of lesser importance, and fixed his manly gaze fiercely at the ground, until his authority, with advice never given at any other time, strengthened the faltering senators and among his sorrowing friends he hastens away, an extraordinary exile. Indeed, he knew what the barbarian torturer was preparing for him, but nevertheless he parted a way through the kinsmen who were obstructing him and the populace which was delaying his return not otherwise than if he was leaving after having settled the drawn out business of his clients in a lawsuit, making for his Venafrian fields or Spartan Tarentum.]

Horace ends the poem with a model of manhood that is no longer active after the end of the Republic. Once, perhaps, a man like Regulus exemplified every virtue of a bygone Roman-ness: stubborn courage in the face of torment and death; dismissal of family concerns as of lesser importance than public ones; and unquestioning allegiance to the good of Rome above all else.53 If Rome still had men like Regulus, Horace implies, than the miles Crassi would not need Augustus to take him out of his humiliating position, but that is not the reality. Augustus is the man Rome needs because of what



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the rest of the Romans have become: one cannot expect a Regulus to arise now, but one can expect Augustus to lead Rome back to the virtue it has lost.54 The uera uirtus (true courage) Regulus refers to has indeed been lost, but Augustus can, perhaps, recover it, because he is not one of the deteriores (lesser men). Augustus wanted all Romans to perform the role allotted to them to the best of their ability, a concern evident in his approach to the military training and service of boys and men, especially of the higher orders. Much of the unrest of the century before Actium was caused by individual commanders who were more loyal to themselves than to Rome or an ethical concept of uirtus and who were followed by soldiers loyal to their commanders, not to the state.55 And as we will see in Livy, the old sense of uirtus is far from incompatible with the actions taken by these commanders and their armies. It makes sense that Augustus would want to adapt the old idea of military courage into one that also had a moral element and could then be seen as a good in and of itself and as a means to foreign conquest, rather than as a means to dominance in Rome. Horace is not simply toeing a party line here. Like many men of his era, he was weary of civil conflict and grateful for and enthusiastic about a reordering and restoring of society that might stop Rome from devolving once again into internal fighting.56 Horace was also aware of the causes that were commonly listed for the unrest of the previous century, and thus, without having to be told what he should write, he may well have come to similar conclusions about how to reshape and refocus Roman men and their efforts. But Horace’s contemporary Livy took a different approach. Virtus in Livy’s History

Livy connects uirtus with the very earliest history of Rome, the regal period and early Republic.57 In the extant books, the word uirtus appears 285 times, but it is 2.6 times more common in books 1–10 than in books 21–45.58 Indeed, during a short biographical description of L. Papirius Cursor, a consul who avenged the Roman defeat at the Caudine Forks (321 BCE), Livy inserts one of his rare authorial interventions when he situates the height of Roman uirtus in the fourth century (9.16): “haud dubie illa aetate, qua nulla uirtutum feracior fuit, nemo unus erat uir quo magis innixa res Romana staret” (Doubtless in that era, than which none has been more bountiful in acts of uirtus/virtues, there was no single man by whom the Roman state

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was more supported). This association of uirtus with the distant past provides the first contrast between Livy and Horace, who links uirtus with a present-day willingness to sacrifice oneself for Rome, as well as the confidence that one is acting correctly. This point about Horace leads to my second general observation about Livy: most of the time Livy uses the earlier “martial” meaning of the world rather than the later “ethical” meaning: uirtus usually refers to the courage and/or skill of an individual or group in military action and does not have to suggest moral correctness.59 Third, and again in contrast to Horace, for whom uirtus is almost always a positive and specifically Roman char­ acteristic, in Livy non-Romans can exhibit uirtus and so can individuals, Roman and non-Roman, whose actions or characters are ethically neutral or even negative. Livy does not appear to be part of the Augustan renovation of military uirtus as a moral, Roman virtue. The sheer mass of Livy’s work can make it difficult to see patterns, even though most of his magnum opus has not survived to the present day. By looking at the numbers, we can begin to see larger trends before moving on to examining specific instances. In books 1–10, Livy uses uirtus 145 times, almost equally distributed between books 1–5 (73) and 6–10 (72).60 After a gap of ten missing books covering nearly seventy-five years, we pick up the story of the Romans in book 21, which starts in the late third century BCE with the Second Punic War and a description of Hannibal, Rome’s great enemy in that war. But the first two times that uirtus appears in this book, it belongs to the Carthaginian commander. This sets the tone for books 21–30, in which the strength, courage, and strategy of Rome and Carthage will be constantly tested against each other, almost to the exclusion of all other topics. And yet despite the fact that uirtus continues to occupy an important place in the story of Rome’s wars, at some point between the end of the tenth book and the beginning of the twenty-first, the frequency of the word’s appearances has dropped significantly. The total number of times the word uirtus appears in books 21–45 is 140, nearly equal to the 145 times in books 1–10 but spread over twenty-five books instead of ten. It is impossible to tell if this trend continued in the rest of the lost books, which recount events up to Livy’s own lifetime, but even with the limited evidence we have the change is striking.61 In Livy, uirtus is associated with the regal period and the early Republic far more than with the later period covered in the second large section of surviving books, and



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even within 21–45 there are distinct separations: books 21–30 have 88 of the 140 occurrences. This means that at an average of 8.8 times per book it still appears much less frequently than the 14.5 per book of 1–10 but a great deal more frequently than the 3.47 per book of 31–45; indeed, it is in the 40s that we first encounter books in which the word never appears: 43 and 44, followed by 45, in which it appears only once. It may be that Hannibal and his war were, at least as Livy told it, the beginning of the end of Roman uirtus, a possibility that lines up with one of the earliest dates the Romans themselves gave for when their state began its decline, around or shortly after the Second Punic War.62 While in books 31–45 uirtus is still usually used in its martial sense, it is also used increasingly rarely until it peters out near the end of the extant books. Because of the greater concentration in books 1–10, I have chosen to ground the discussion here in these earlier books; references to later books are made occasionally in the notes to illustrate that the themes and ideas are similar, if diluted, there. In terms of their content, the first books also match well with the Roman Odes and the Aeneid. When he sets out the legends and semihistorical tales of early Rome, Livy uses them to illustrate the basic values, ideals, and actions that characterize Rome from its very beginnings.63 As Horace speaks to the use of uirtus in his own time and the ways that men, especially young men, of the first century BCE should use and display it, so Livy writes of the origins of uirtus, how it took shape in and shaped the Roman people, usually men but with the occasional exceptional woman, and those they came in contact with. Starting with book 1 gives us examples of the range of ways Livy uses the term, even those that are uncommon, and helps us to tease out what exactly uirtus means for this author. First, this book is unusual in comparison to the Ab Urbe Condita as a whole, because the martial sense of uirtus is not the only or dominant way that the word is used. For example, at 1.18, in a description of Numa Pompilius, he is said to possess uirtutes. Given the king’s legendary role in establishing Rome’s religious and legal, but not military, institutions, it is unlikely that uirtutes should be taken as multiple instances of military courage: in general, when the word is plural it almost always means something like “virtues.” Another example demonstrates the difficulty of separating the two senses of the term in Livy’s work. At 1.34, in the description of the relocation of the Etruscan nobles and future rulers Tanaquil and Tarquinius Priscus to Rome, Livy states that they are motivated

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by the fact that uirtus is the means by which a person can gain nobilitas (noble status) in Rome. In this context the word could refer to ethical character traits, in the sense that noble status is based on the excellence of a person’s character. But since military success was needed to gain status in Rome, it may be that the uirtus here is martial. Most of the other notable holders of uirtus in Book 1 are distinguished for their martial exploits, including Hercules (1.7, the first time the word is used); the Horatii and the Curiatii, two sets of triplets who fought a triple duel in defense of their home cities (1.25); and Servius Tullius, the second last king of Rome (1.42, during a battle with Veii, one of the primary antagonists of the early books). These are all men whose deeds in battle earned them a place in the mythology of Rome. So for Livy, the martial sense may predominate, but the ethical sense cannot always be discounted, especially if a military context is not immediately obvious. Livy begins by associating uirtus with the founders of Rome, men who did important and public deeds that contributed to the success and prosperity of the city. But although Book 1 sets up many of the themes and ideas about uirtus in Livy’s work as a whole, Book 7 has the most instances of the word uirtus of all the extant books of the Ab Urbe Condita, with twenty-six. This wealth of examples is worth examining for how it demonstrates the varied ways that Livy uses the most common sense of the word, martial courage. Twenty-four of the twenty-six appearances of uirtus are in the unquestionably military context of conflicts with foes such as the Hernici, the Gauls, the Tibertines, and the Samnites. Of these many military uses, the book starts off strong and patriotic, with uirtus listed as one of the two main strengths of the Romans, along with arma, in the context of the self-sacrifice of Curtius, a Roman who leapt fully armored with his horse into a chasm to ensure the favor of the gods (7.6). The term also features in the other famous tale from this book, the single combat between a Gallic champion and Manlius Torquatus, who is announced as a holder of uirtus even before he defeats the Gaul (7.10).64 But uirtus is characteristic not only of individual exemplary heroes, as we can see as the conflict with the Samnites, a confederation of tribes living in a mountainous region south of Rome, begins in section 7.32. In that section, martial uirtus appears three times in a speech given by the consul Valerius before the Romans’ first pitched battle with the Samnites. Twice, the trait is applied to the Romans, first to the Roman soldiers as a



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whole, who will go into battle “gloria belli ac uirtute sua” (with the glory of war and their own martial courage) and second, implicitly, to the consul himself as he says that the soldiers can be confident that any man who holds the consulship has gained it as the “uirtutis . . . praemium” (the reward of military courage).65 But uirtus is not only for Romans: early in the speech, Valerius urges the soldiers “ne Sidicinorum Campanorumque cladibus Samnitium aestimarent uirtutem” (that they not judge the courage of the Samnites by their clashes with the Sidicini and Campanians). This statement works on the assumption that soldiers in general have some level of uirtus that can be judged, tested, and experienced. But though the Samnites may have courage and skill at arms, it is never implied that they alone have it: Romans ultimately outmatch even those enemies who themselves have uirtus.66 Conflicts with those who also possess this marker of masculinity ultimately confirm the Roman supremacy in it. Besides the many times Romans and their enemies display uirtus in battle, there are also two instances in Book 7 when the term does not have an immediate military context. These are also related to Valerius’ speech before facing the Samnites but are part of a retread of a debate about plebeian consuls from Book 6, part of Livy’s narrative about the Struggle of the Orders, a series of conflicts between two groups of Romans, the patricians and the plebeians, in which the plebeians contested the patrician monopoly on elected office, certain priesthoods, and legal knowledge. Twice in this debate (7.18) uirtus is something that patricians and plebeians lay claim to: first, the patricians argue that having two patrician consuls is an issue of uirtus, and second, the tribunes of the plebs who had carried the law requiring one plebeian consul are said to have done so uirtute (by their uirtus). Thus, in the particularly fertile Book 7, we can see the three main ways that Livy uses uirtus in his first Decade (set of ten books): to describe the actions and character of early military heroes or entire Roman armies; to describe major non-Roman opponents and to elevate them as worthy challenges for the Romans;67 and to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, virtues, and vices on display on both patrician and plebeian sides in the Struggle of the Orders. The first two of these are unquestionably military, and the third blends the military and ethical senses of the word, as we see Livy doing as early as the story of Tarquinius Priscus. Three case studies demonstrate how these three categories appear repeatedly throughout Livy’s first ten books.

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Roman Martial Virtus in Book 8

In book 8, all uirtus relates to military action and belongs to Romans. Yet fully half of the times that the word is used, it is associated with disobedient, if valorous, actions: for Livy, Roman uirtus does not always serve legitimate authority.68 First, at 8.7, we see uirtus in T. Manlius, a son who famously disobeyed his father/commander’s orders and was punished with death as a result, despite his successful action against the enemy. In this story, possession of uirtus is irrelevant without obedience to a superior officer. This is a case where uirtus is not an “ethical” virtue or an unambiguous good, as it leads to the undermining of pietas (duty) toward a father and disciplina (military discipline) to a commander.69 But a more striking association of uirtus with disobedience comes at 8.31, when Fabius, a Master of the Horse (a rank that is second in command to a dictator) who had disobeyed his superior’s order not to engage the enemy in his absence, uses the word four times in a speech to his men. The first uirtus belongs to these men, the second to Fabius, the third to all of them, and then the fourth to the men again. Fabius uses the term to unite himself and his men as he argues a point different from but not opposing that made earlier in the book when Manlius decides to execute his son. Fabius is not arguing for uirtus without discip­ lina; instead, he uses his own uirtus and that of his men to bolster his claim that the dictator had attempted to undermine him because of his jealous and grasping nature and his reluctance to share glory with anyone. This point is underlined and supported when Fabius’ own father is described as a man possessing uirtus when he defends his son to the dictator (8.33): father and son were opposed in the story of Manlius but united in that of Fabius.70 Virtus is a valuable characteristic but not one that exists in a vacuum, is inevitably morally correct, or always leads to right behavior. This perhaps explains why Livy sometimes attributes it to non-Romans: it may be the base of Roman excellence, but it is only a tool and, like any tool, can be used for good or ill. Virtus and the Enemies of Rome In Books 1–3, uirtus that is tied specifically to military matters belongs either to individual Roman (or legendary pre-Roman) commanders or groups of Roman soldiers. In Book 4, however, the Volsci, a people inhabiting the area directly south of Latium, possess uirtus in a way that foreshadows the Samnites discussed earlier: at 4.28, the Romans and the Volsci are uirtute



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pares (equals in courage), and at 4.37 the Volsci are reported to be rallying their troops by saying they must either submit to Roman supremacy or else, when facing them, “nec uirtute nec patientia nec disciplina rei militaris cedendum esse” (they must yield in neither courage nor endurance nor military discipline). Shortly afterward, summing up a critique of the Roman general’s poor tactics and preparation, Livy writes that “ergo fortuna, ut saepe alias, uirtutem est secuta” (therefore Fortune, as often in other cases, followed courage): in this battle, uirtus and fortuna are both on the side of the Volsci. Rome engaged in intermittent conflict with the Volsci for around two hundred years, and for a long time they were Rome’s equals in battle.71 The attribution of uirtus to them, then, makes a certain amount of sense: they were capable of standing up to the Romans for so long because they had military courage and skill that measured up to those of the Romans. Indeed, at 4.37 uirtus is presented as a quality in which the Romans and Volsci compete for supremacy. Roman masculinity, grounded in uirtus, requires a challenge, or else its performance feels hollow. This competitive mastery of uirtus as Romans struggle with major rivals appears again later in Livy: the term’s use in the introduction to Hannibal in book 21 has already been mentioned. An equally good example comes at 5.34, during a prelude to the Gallic invasion, traditionally dated to 390 BCE, which explains the events in Gaul that led to the incursion into Italy. Livy attributes uirtus to Ambigatus, the Celtic king who sent the Gauls: “Ambigatus is fuit, uirtute fortunaque cum sua, tum publica praepollens” (Ambigatus was the king, a man eminent as much for his martial courage and fortune as for his public possessions).72 As with the Volsci in 4.37, uirtus and fortuna (luck) are held by a non-Roman who is about to impose a humiliating defeat upon the Romans. Clearly for Livy, uirtus is not a uniquely Roman virtue, and Romans are not the only men who perform this type of manly courage. Virtus and the Struggle of the Orders

External conflict is not the only situation in which two groups might compete for a mastery grounded in uirtus, which brings us to Livy’s third way of using the term. Book 3 features the opening salvo of the Struggle of the Orders, which will continue intermittently for the rest of Livy’s first Decade and still have repercussions during the later books on the Punic Wars. For much of the third book, uirtus is something that the patricians and the plebeians use

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as part of their conflict with each other, beginning at 3.10 when the tribunes denounce a patrician scheme as being non uirtute, thus removing this important Roman virtue from the hands of the patricians. The next five examples of the word (3.12 twice, 3.19 twice, and 3.26) refer to the patrician Cincinnatus and his son Caeso, but then at 3.44 and 58 uirtus transfers to the plebeians who oppose the tyrannical Appius Claudius when he tries to kidnap and enslave a plebeian, Verginia, abusing his power in order to sexually abuse an unmarried freeborn girl. Virtus is a key term in these early days of the conflict. At the end of Book 6, uirtus returns as a central point of contention in the Struggle of the Orders. First, at 6.35 the plebeians argue that they already equal the patricians in uirtus and thus should be allowed to attain the positions in the state that will also make them equal in honos: “peruenire ad summa et patribus aequari tam honore quam uirtute possent” (they could arrive at the highest positions and be made equal to the patricians as much in honor as in uirtus). In opposition, at 6.41 the patricians argue that the plebeians are so lacking in uirtus that they must legislate themselves into the consulship instead of earning it: “et occasionibus potius quam uirtute petere honores malunt” (they prefer to seek honors by making up pretexts rather than by uirtus). Even when used for these more political means, uirtus still carried its essentially martial core, with possession of it showing the worthiness of those who hold power or who desire a share in it, as at the beginning of Book 4, when uirtus appears three times in a speech (4.3) arguing that anyone with ability, which includes uirtus, should be eligible to hold the consulship.73 All these arguments also relate to the public performance of masculinity: the patricians wish to keep the higher steps in the masculine hierarchy for themselves, while the plebeians argue that their possession of martial uirtus should qualify them for those very roles from which they are being excluded. The Verginia episode is not the only one in the Struggle of the Orders that presents opportunities for uirtus to be misused, just as we have seen could happen in strictly military matters. Although at first glance Livy’s writing often seems more sympathetic to the patrician side of this long conflict, this bias is less clear when one considers the attribution of uirtus. Virtus is more often explicitly ascribed to named patricians than to named plebeians, but more often to plebeians as a group than to patricians as a group. In addition, when a group is specifically said to lack uirtus, it is always the patricians. Moreover, negative uirtus that harms rather than helps is almost exclusively



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ascribed to patricians, especially to members of the Appius Claudius family, who stand as negative exemplary figures for how uirtus can serve arrogance and abusiveness. This comes to a head at 9.34, near the end of a speech given by P. Sempronius, a tribune of the plebs, when Appius Claudius Caecus, who was elected censor in 312 BCE, refused to end his tenure of that office after eighteen months: “uirtutem in superbia, in audacia, in contemptu deorum hominumque ponis” (You place uirtus in arrogance, in audacity, in contempt of gods and humans). Virtus can be extremely negative when a man uses it for selfish ends. Based on the extant books, we can make some definitive statements: Livy uses the term uirtus to mean military courage more often than he uses it in its ethical sense; Livy uses uirtus most in the books pertaining to the time of the kings and the Early Republic and more in the books of the Second Punic War than in those on the later Greek wars; uirtus is most often attributed to Romans as individuals or groups, but it is also commonly ascribed to Roman allies and to worthy enemies; and while uirtus is usually presented as a positive attribute, it can at times motivate thoughtless or bad actions, especially if it comes into conflict with more strongly positive traits such as disciplina or pietas. There are significant differences between Livy’s usage of the word and Horace’s, which may point to a weaker ideological similarity with the kind of uirtus Augustus wished to promote, which was martial but ethical and always in service of the polity and of duty. It is similar to that which we will see in Vergil, however, where it also applies to people other than proto-Romans and does not have to correlate with morally correct behavior. Virtus in Vergil’s Aeneid

In the early books of Livy uirtus builds Rome, and in Vergil’s Aeneid uirtus first comes out of Troy with the exiles but eventually helps to join together the different groups who will make up the Roman people. Vergil uses the word forty-one times, the vast majority (thirty-nine) of which are in the Aeneid.74 Vergil, like Livy, usually uses this term in its traditional martial sense and, also like Livy, does not always connect it with Romans (or protoRomans) or with morally positive actions. The concentration of Vergil’s uses of uirtus in the foundation-building Roman myth of the Aeneid means he uses it when writing content that overlaps with the first book of Livy’s

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Ab Urbe Condita.75 There is also intersection with some of the concerns in Horace’s work, which, like the Aeneid, was written under the “patronage” of Maecenas/Augustus. Virtus appears twice as often (twenty-six times) in the second half of the Aeneid than in the first (thirteen times), so that Vergil connects the word more strongly both with the martial matters that dominate books 7–12 and with the events in Italy after Aeneas has begun in earnest the task of settling his Trojans and founding the Roman people.76 Some other general patterns can be discerned from the context in which the words appear. First, in books 1–6 when uirtus is attached to an identifiable person or persons, they are Trojan.77 At no point in the first half of the Aeneid does uirtus belong to any individual or group that opposes the Trojans. The second half of the poem begins in a similar vein: six of the first seven instances, three in book 8 and three in book 9, all refer to the uirtus of either a Trojan individual, Trojans as a group, or non-Trojans who are fighting alongside the Trojans.78 For nearly three-quarters of the poem, uirtus is on the side of the Trojans. The third example in book 9, however, marks something of a turning point, coming as it does in a speech that Turnus, the leader of the Italians who oppose Aeneas and his allies, makes when he rampages against the Trojans after being accidentally trapped in their camp (9.741–42): “incipe, si qua animo uirtus, et consere dextram, / hic etiam inuentum Priamo narrabis Achillem” (Begin, if your spirit has any uirtus, and join in combat with me, you will say that even here an Achilles was found for Priam).79 Turnus is speaking to the Trojan warrior Pandarus, to whom this potential uirtus technically belongs. But Turnus does not simply state that the Trojan has uirtus: he asks if he does and invites him to test it against his non-Trojan enemy, much as Livy has the Romans and their enemies engage in battle as test of uirtus. And at the end of the scene, just over fifty lines later, comes the first occasion when uirtus is attributed to a specific non-Trojan or Trojanallied individual, at 9.794–95: “neque terga / ira dare aut uirtus patitur” (either anger or courage compels him not to turn and run). This line is part of a simile comparing Turnus and the Trojans to a lion and hunters, and the uirtus attributed here to the lion is therefore Turnus’.80 Thus, in the incident in the Trojan camp, Turnus is the only fighter who possesses uirtus. The ending of book 9 foreshadows a significant change in book 10, in which uirtus appears five times but never belongs to a specific Trojan individual or the Trojans as a group. The first three refer to allies of the Trojans,



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Aeneas’ young friend Pallas and the Arcadians he leads, and therefore for much of the book uirtus is still allied with the Trojans.81 Next is a negative example in which no one has uirtus, at 10.712, a line that appears in a simile comparing the exiled Etruscan king Mezentius to a boar: “nec cuiquam irasci propiusue accedere uirtus” (and no one had the courage to anger him or to come nearer).82 In this example, uirtus is not specifically attached to Mezentius, the Trojans’ enemy, but it is lacking in the Trojans and their allies as they fight a man whom the poem characterizes as a villain. The final appearance in book 10 is at 10.752 in a list of those who died in that book’s fighting: “expers Valerus uirtutis auitae” (Valerus, trained by ancestral virtue). Valerus is an Italian, fighting against the Trojans, and has ancestral uirtus, although it is not enough to protect him. The idea of this man’s uirtus as something that has both trained him as a fighter and come from his ancestors implies that the characteristic is something that has been in Italy for some time and that Italians actively use and pass on to new generations. It gives the characteristic a history and grounding in Italy that presages the contributions the Italians will make to the people who will be Romans, which perhaps explains the expansion of uirtus from the Trojans to others. After the transitional stage of book 10, in book 11 we see a major change in who possesses uirtus. King Latinus assures the Latins of their uirtus at line 312, which echoes the death of Valerus in the previous book, since although the Latins have uirtus it has not allowed them to succeed against the Trojans. The remaining four examples in the book are in a long speech by Turnus.83 I pass by the first for now to bring out the connection between the speeches of Latinus (11.302–35) and Turnus (lines 378–444). At line 415 Turnus addresses the Latins, chastising them for their lost uirtus, in contradiction to Latinus’ assurance that they still have it at 312. This chastisement contrasts with Turnus’ confidence in his own uirtus, and Turnus then attributes uirtus to himself the third and fourth times he uses it in the speech. At 441, he vows his life to the Latin cause: “Turnus ego, haud ulli ueterum uirtute secundus” (I Turnus, not second to any of the men of old in courage), and at 444 he takes up Aeneas’ offer of single combat and makes uirtus something that he may gain if he succeeds: “morte luat, siue est uirtus et gloria, tollat” (he may appease [the gods] with his death, or if there is courage and glory, he may take it). In book 11, Turnus wrenches uirtus away from the Trojans for himself, and Vergil sites this important characteristic firmly in the leader of the Italians.

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But at the beginning of his speech Turnus signals a connection between himself and the Trojans, against whose leader he will soon test his uirtus (11.386–87): “possit quid uiuida uirtus / experiare licet” (it is permitted to experience what vigorous courage can contend with). The specific phrase uiuida uirtus has appeared once before in the Aeneid, at 5.754: “exigui numero, sed bello uiuida uirtus” (few in number, but a vigorous courage for war). In book 5, this uirtus belongs to the Trojans who have opted to continue on with Aeneas after the women burned their ships in an attempt to force an end to their wandering. It is also one of the most explicit associations of uirtus with war, even though at that point in the narrative the Trojans cannot know that war is coming for them in Italy. In retrospect, however, it stains the entire early attempts at peace with warlike intentions and makes Turnus’ response to the Trojan incursion seem more justified: the Trojans were never intending to settle peacefully, and uirtus does not go hand in hand with ethical conduct. Turnus and Aeneas’ contest over uirtus, activated near the end of Turnus’ speech in book 11, continues in the final book. In book 12, the word appears seven times, more often than in any other book of the poem. First, we see its continued association with Turnus, as Latinus addresses his demand that a marriage contract between Turnus and Lavinia be drawn up in anticipation of the warrior’s duel with Aeneas (12.19–21): o praestans animi iuuenis, quantum ipse feroci uirtute exsuperas, tanto me impensius aequum est consulere atque omnis metuentem expendere casus.

20

[O young man outstanding in spirit, by as much as you yourself rise above in fierce courage is it right that I deliberate quite carefully and weigh every pitfall anxiously.]

Latinus combines recognition of Turnus’ courage with a caution and fear that suggests that he knows that uirtus may not be enough to win the day: indeed, he has already told his people so in the previous book. In books 10 and 11, as it moves away from being an exclusively Trojan possession, uirtus has been repeatedly associated with the dead or defeated, an asso­ ciation that it has always had in this poem: after all, the Trojans are exiles, driven from their home despite their uirtus. Virtus has never been enough to carry the day on its own.



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The second appearance of uirtus in book 12 is even more troubling, coming as it does in the section of the book when Turnus’ Rutulians break the ceasefire and disrupt the duel between Aeneas and Turnus. Here uirtus is part of a disguise to trick the Rutulians into an act that is morally reprehensible in the epic world (12.224–26): in medias acies formam adsimulata Camerti, cui genus a proauis ingens clarumque paternae nomen erat uirtutis, et ipse acerrimus armis

225

[into the middle of the ranks having reproduced the form of Camers, whose family was great from his ancestors and name was famous for paternal courage, and he himself was most fierce in arms.]

Juturna, goddess and sister of Turnus, has disguised herself as Camers and gone among the Rutulians to incite them to break the agreement. She uses the reputation for uirtus earned by this man’s family to encourage Turnus’ countrymen to disavow the promises made to the gods and to dishonor Turnus himself. She has been encouraged to do so by Juno, so that this use of uirtus for unethical ends has the tacit approval of at least one Olympian. Virtus is emphatically not a simple moral good here, much like in Livy. Eventually, Aeneas is wounded, not by Turnus but by an anonymous arrow, and has to withdraw temporarily. Aeneas references his own uirtus when he addresses his son before returning to battle (12.435–36): “disce, puer, uirtutem ex me uerumque laborem, / fortunam ex aliis” (learn, boy, courage and true labor from me, luck from others). For Aeneas, courage seems to be connected with work, not luck, and is something that can be learned, not unlike the uirtus that Horace encourages in the boys of Rome. This uirtus belongs to Aeneas and is something that will inspire his son if he learns from his example, connecting it to and contrasting it with the paterna uirtus that Juturna fraudulently used on the Rutulians. The next uirtus, however, returns to the enemies of the Trojans, when it motivates Turnus once again (12.666–68): Turnus et obtutu tacito stetit; aestuat ingens uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu et furiis agitatus amor et conscia uirtus

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[And Turnus stood with a silent gaze; enormous shame burns in his lone heart, and insanity mixed with grief and love driven by rage and complicit courage.]

Turnus has just been told of the death by suicide of Queen Amata, his relative and the wife of Latinus, and these lines describe his emotional reactions to the news. Virtus is accompanied by shame, insanity, grief, love, and rage, none of which is a virtue in the Roman sense but all of which, like uirtus, can drive men to acts, good or bad: uirtus will combine with these emotions to drive Turnus to his death. When it next appears, uirtus belongs to both Turnus and Aeneas (12.713– 14): “tum crebros ensibus ictus / congeminant, fors et uirtus miscetur in unum” (then they redouble the flurry of blows with their swords, luck and courage are mixed into one). The clause fors et uirtus miscetur in unum (luck and courage are mixed into one) calls back to two previous uses of uirtus in book 12, for Aeneas at line 435 and Turnus at 668, and introduces a complex reading of their battles.84 First, earlier in the book Aeneas had instructed his son Ascanius to learn uirtus from him but fortuna (luck) from others. Rather than contrasting those two qualities, however, here Vergil connects them, mixing them into a single characteristic that applies to both men and undermines the idea that uirtus and labor are somehow distinct from luck. Chance will have as much to do with who comes out victorious as courage. More worryingly, though, are the words miscetur and unum, which have recently appeared in the same line during Turnus’ emotional reaction to Amata’s death. There, it is insanity and grief that are mixed, along with shame in Turnus’ singular heart (uno corde), and the repetition of the words in this line contaminates Aeneas with the emotions that affect his rival and that will lead to the rage that drives Aeneas to kill Turnus at the end of the poem. The second to last instance of uirtus in the Aeneid is in the speech in which Juno finally concedes to Jupiter and agrees to allow the settlement of the Trojans in Italy and the union of Aeneas and Lavinia. The term appears in her conditions (12.826–27): “sit Latium, sint Albani per saecula reges, / sit Romana potens Itala uirtute propago” (let it be Latium, let the kings be Alban through the centuries, let Roman progeny be powerful from Italian courage). With Jupiter’s assent shortly after these lines, the transfer of uirtus away from the Trojans that began in book 9 is nearly complete: uirtus is from now on Italian. The term has gone from exclusive association with the Trojans in



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the first half of the poem to explicit removal from them in book 12, even if their Roman descendants will build their power on it. This change of who holds uirtus is hammered home in the final appearance of the term in the poem (12.913–14): “sic Turno, quacumque uiam uirtute petiuit, / successum dea dira negat” (thus the dire goddess denies success to Turnus, although he sought the way with courage). This final uirtus belongs to Turnus, not Aeneas, and even though he fought the Trojan with courage, in the end uirtus is not enough to win in the Aeneid. Even though it no longer supports the Trojan cause, it cannot yet prevail on the Italian side either. Only once the two forces become one and transform into (proto) Romans will uirtus regain its power and bring supremacy over the rest of the world. In the Aeneid, uirtus becomes a tool for achieving the teleological destiny of the Romans.85 But the journey it takes to get there is far from simple or direct, beginning as the possession of the Trojans, a defeated group of wanderers and refugees, who depend upon it for maintaining some sense of honor, manliness, and dignity. Once the war half of the Aeneid begins, the characteristic begins to spread out to others who will eventually merge with the Trojans in creating the Roman people. But first, it will move form the doomed Trojans to equally doomed figures, from Pallas, to lightly sketched Latins, Rutulians, and other Italians, to Turnus himself. By the end of the poem, uirtus will briefly belong to Aeneas and Turnus simultaneously as they are locked in their final struggle, before being plucked from the Trojans by Juno’s conditions of surrender and transferred to the Italians from which the Romans will spring and then appearing one last time as part of Turnus’ tragic failure to see the way the winds are blowing. It seems from this close reading that while uirtus is decidedly of the martial kind in Vergil, meaning courage and skill in war, it does not necessarily rest with those who are ethically just or even martially successful. Vergil’s uirtus is a Republican type, more similar to that seen in authors before Cicero. Vergil, as an author who was closely connected to the Augustan regime, may very well be presenting a type of acquiescence in his use of uirtus: it harkens back to Roman “tradition” and ignores the ethical use that characterizes some of the late Republican authors. Yet, at the same time, Vergil’s Aeneid takes this tradition of martial courage and skill and associates it with losers, tragic figures, death, and destruction: Vergil’s acquiescence does not include the renovation of uirtus that we see in Horace. Virtus may even­ tually be the Italian characteristic that underpins Roman power, but Vergil

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brings up a great many questions about how it got there and who suffered in pursuit of it. Conclusion

Outside literature, the personification of Virtus was a deity, with temples in Rome and occasional appearances on coins and reliefs. Sometimes, this diua Virtus also shows up in literature: for example, the first time Livy uses the word in Book 29 is in the context of the dedication of a Temple of Virtus at the Porta Capena in 205 BCE (AUC 29.11). The dedication of a temple had to be approved by the Senate, and so this temple symbolizes establishment approval of the glorification of Virtus. This temple, as well as a later one built by Marius, existed in Augustus’ time but does not seem to have been particularly associated with him.86 Thus, aside from the Clipeus Virtutis, the major monument of uirtus that we know of from the Augustan era is the summi uiri of the Forum Augustum, discussed in the introduction to this volume. The men chosen to be represented in this masterpiece of Augustan architecture almost all suit a definition of uirtus similar to that highlighted by Livy and Vergil, which makes sense given their similarly exemplary and historical natures.87 It seems as though Augustus preferred to present a traditional and military Roman uirtus, but without the complications that we can see in Livy, Vergil, and even Horace. And here is where the idea of uirtus as a sign of acquiescence becomes difficult. Virtus was a virtue that Augustus wished to promote in others and associate with himself. One could even argue that he makes it a central Roman characteristic and something worthy of emulation. But even these most acquiescent-seeming authors do not portray only Augustus’ type of uirtus. In Livy and Vergil, uirtus is attributed to men acting unvirtuously or selfishly and to enemies of Rome, and it is associated with civil unrest and unjust actions. It is not necessarily the possession of the man of uirtus idealized in Horace’s Roman Odes and is often a characteristic that would not sit well with the image that Augustus projected for himself or the behavior that he promoted in others. Even when authors are generally positive or at least neutral toward Augustus, his regime, and what he stands for, they maintain a level of independent Roman-ness that grounds them in a culture and world whose ideals and messes do not always gel with the new world order they were both watching and helping to create.

3 Resistance through Authority

This chapter begins with the assumption that there was contemporary resistance to Augustan values and reforms and that traces of it can still be seen in the literature of the time. The battle to establish this position has already been fought in the “pessimist”-versus-“optimist” controversy of the previous century: many twentieth-century scholars saw evidence for resistance to the Augustan program or even to his rule in the literature of the era, thus theorizing the pessimist position as opposed to the optimist one, which argues for enthusiastic compliance from the authors and the population in general. Although there are some optimistic holdouts, few now would doubt that there are lines, sentences, and even whole poems that are critical of the changing regime and that question the place of elite men in it. Contemporary and later evidence suggests an underlying sense of unease among the elite males of the Augustan period, even those who were officially reconciled to and benefiting from the regime. Despite the welcome relief from civil war and the official restoration of the Republic, a longstanding distaste for monarchy did not disappear overnight, and massive social and political changes did not go unremarked. The major Augustan authors were indebted to the pax Augusta (Augustan Peace) that provided the circumstances under which they could flourish, but they were still capable of criticizing and even opposing some aspects of Augustus’ social and political programs. Resistance to Augustus took a number of forms, some of which have left traces in the literature, but we should not expect to find a coherent “counterculture.” All of the poets and prose authors whose works survived in any substantial amount were part of mainstream culture.1 We can detect 81

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nondominant cultures in the archaeological record or filtered through an elite selection process in written records, but for the most part in literature we are left with the culture of the wealthy and educated. That said, we can trace conflicts and alternative views within this culture. Not every elite male, despite the similarities in background and education of all such men, came to precisely the same conclusion about his society and the place of literature in it or how his own masculinity and that of his contemporaries should play out. A number of sites of resistance are detectable, even in the limited evidence that we possess. This chapter concentrates on one possibility for resistance that builds on the self-fashioning we have seen in Cicero and Catullus: positioning oneself as an alternative source of intellectual and/or moral authority. It is worth noting that Augustus’ reign was unusual, in the context of both his warlord predecessors and his imperial successors, for how little organized political or military resistance he faced after his final true rival, Antony, had been defeated. In the forty-five years between Augustus’ victory at Actium and his death, there are only a few known conspiracies, none of which amounted to much.2 He spent time in the provinces putting out flames of resistance that sprang up during the unrest of the 40s and 30s, but already in the 20s Rome had returned to expansionist military actions rather than reactionary internal conflicts. There is more evidence for literary resistance, which ranges from mostly benign advice to sharp criticism to outright attacks upon the regime. For example, a great deal of elegiac scholarship has looked to these poets for implicit and explicit criticism and rejection of activities and values promoted by Augustus and his supporters.3 Outside elegy, the final lines of the Aeneid have been used as evidence for Vergil’s deep mistrust of Aeneas’ descendant Augustus.4 Even Horace engages in “helpful suggestions” that point out that kings or tyrants are bad for Rome and act as a veiled warning not to go in that direction.5 Recently, Nandini Pandey has thoroughly investigated the integral role of Roman poets in the creation of the symbolism and ideology of Augustan power.6 This chapter draws on this work to examine instances where the authors set themselves up as alternative sources of authority, which allows them to be masculine public presences who are somewhat independent and removed from the overarching power and patronage of the princeps. This alternative authority could take several forms, including intellectual and moral authority. These are areas in which Augustus both was personally



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invested and encouraged the participation of others, a habit that he had inherited from Caesar in particular and any number of Republican magnates in general. The difference, as always with Augustus, was one of scale: for example, in the moral (and intellectual) field of religion, he was quite scrupulous about encouraging what he viewed as traditional religious practices and rejecting anything he saw as nontraditional. Therefore, he held only traditional Roman priesthoods, a standard public role for the elite male, but on an unprecedented scale, exceeding even the number held by Caesar: Augustus was a member of all four of the major priestly colleges.7 Holding so many priesthoods at once was exceptional: before Augustus, it was rare for a single man to hold more than one of the major priesthoods, and no one had held more than two simultaneously.8 It is also telling that, for all his interest in traditional religion, he did not take on a role as a flamen or rex sacrorum (king of sacred rites), both ancient priesthoods that were fettered by rules that limited their ability to fully participate in political or military life. These he allowed other men to hold, and he also increased the numbers of some priesthoods and revived others, thus creating still more opportu­ nities for other elite males to share in religious authority, but in a way that diluted each individual’s personal share.9 We can see in his approach to religion how Augustus both concentrated masculine authority in the role he created for himself and his successors and encouraged a subordinate but still publicly engaged masculinity for other Romans. Augustus also encouraged elite men to follow intellectual pursuits. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill has persuasively argued that the control, possession, and production of knowledge was one of the sources of imperial power vital to the Augustan transformation of Rome.10 By guiding and supporting scholarly or technical work, Augustus was able to increase the knowledge and skill level in Rome and harness it for his interests, while at the same time ensuring that those engaged in such work felt valued and that they had a place as men in the new social order.11 But while Augustus may have encouraged masculine achievement in the area of intellectual mastery, he could not always control who would aim for such mastery or what their approach would be. Here is where there the possibility for resistance lay. A number of modern scholars have observed that some of the Augustan authors set themselves up as alternative sources of authority in intellectual, artistic, and religious matters.12 These actions and words do not have to be a direct assault on the nascent imperial court, but the poets could use them as a kind

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of resistance that expresses masculine authority that critiques or opposes that of Augustus in areas that he himself seems to have valued. This indirect resistance could even be found in men who, like Augustus himself and unlike any of the major poets, had achieved significant successes in areas of traditional Republican masculine endeavors and maintained authority in intellectual and cultural spheres that was separate from that of Augustus and his circle. Since their own literary endeavors are fragmentary, poems written by Horace and Tibullus provide opportunities to examine how these men appeared to their contemporaries. Intellectual and Cultural Authority after Republican Masculinity

Men in the Augustan age had a wide variety of experiences with engaging in public service. Some appeared to engage in exactly the same activities as their Republican counterparts, since many of the structures around those activities continued to function. There were significant changes beneath this surface continuity, however, so that there are differences between this set of men and the politically active men of the Republic. The two most important are their backgrounds, since there was an increase in the relative number of men from nonsenatorial families who were not part of the traditional elite (i.e., noui homines, “new men”), and the source of their power, as throughout the era it became increasingly apparent that the patronage or at least the tacit support of Augustus was necessary for success.13 But some men had careers that bridged the divide between pre- and post-Augustan times, including the very prominent examples looked at here, Asinius Pollio and Messalla. They serve as examples of how prominent men negotiated their way through the changes of the triumviral period and the early principate and what form their resistance to the new order could take if they wished to hold onto their power and position. C. Asinius Pollio: The Historian Takes Risks

C. Asinius Pollio had a distinguished political career built upon successful military service.14 He came from a nonsenatorial provincial family and rose to prominence in Rome in the 50s and 40s BCE, after he became associated with Julius Caesar. His career reached its apex when he obtained the consulship in 40 BCE and celebrated a triumph the following year. He initially sided



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with Antony during the triumviral years, even serving as his representative in the negotiation of the Treaty of Brundisium, which confirmed the alliance known as the Second Triumvirate between Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. Yet by the Battle of Actium, less than ten years later, he had largely withdrawn from public life. He remained neutral in the final showdown between Antony and Octavian, itself an unusual achievement in the highly partisan climate of the time. After his retirement from most aspects of public life, Pollio remained a prominent orator, an activity that T. J. Cornell, in a work dedicated to the fragmentary Roman historians, suggests helped him maintain his high status, a status that was also displayed in his patronage and his family ties.15 Pollio supported literature and the arts and worked to beautify Rome, primarily through founding the city’s first public library as part of his renovation of the Atrium Libertatis (Hall of Liberty). Besides its collections of Greek and Latin writings, the building also featured an art gallery adorned with masterpieces, particularly of Hellenistic art, including the piece now known as the Farnese bull (Plin. Nat. 36.33–34), currently in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Financing public buildings in the capital, a marker of successful Republican manhood, would be monopolized by the imperial family soon enough, but Pollio was able to do so with the booty of his successful campaigns in part because he began before the princeps had fully taken control but also because he was a follower of Caesar, whose idea the library had been. Although Pollio was a prolific author, producing tragedies, speeches, philosophy, and history, very little of his writing has survived to the present day. One of his most prominent works was a history of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, which survives only in fragments. Its fragmentary nature makes it difficult to use as a source for examining Pollio’s experiences as an elite male adjusting to life in the principate. More telling, however, may be Horace’s comments about it in Carm. 2.1, addressed to Pollio and containing a combination of praise of the man’s talent and achievements and warnings about the danger of his subject matter. From the beginning of the poem, we can see Horace’s concern about taking on the recent past in historical writing (Carm. 2.1.1–8): motum ex Metello consule ciuicum bellique causas et uitia et modos ludumque Fortunae grauisque

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principum amicitias et arma nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,

5

periculosae plenum opus aleae, tractas et incedis per ignis suppositos cineri doloso. [You are handling the civil war set in motion in the consulship of Metellus, its causes, faults, and ways and the play of fortune and the weighty friendships of principal men and weapons smeared with gore not yet expiated, an undertaking full of dangerous possibilities, and you are handling and proceeding through fires hidden under deceitful ash.]

Horace, in this prominently placed poem, begins his address to Pollio by characterizing his undertaking as full of both serious matters and hidden peril. Pollio, as an active participant in the wars he wrote about, was fol­ lowing in the footsteps of a number of Republican historians whose works are largely lost to us.16 For a Republican general, writing a history of his own wars was part of a normal process of self-promotion. But the dark warnings of the poem about the lingering stain of these most recent wars and the danger inherent in writing about them suggests that Pollio’s choice of topic, despite the traditional nature of his historical writing, may no longer be a safe one. Writing history had, for Romans, always been a political act, since it could increase the prestige of an author or patron and thus improve his political prospects or the standing of his family. But in this new post-Actium political reality, writing the wars that lay in the background of Octavian’s power, through his adoption by Caesar, might be seen as both a challenge to the princeps and an unwelcome reminder of the less savory deeds of his divine father. So even though Pollio was following precedent stretching back at least to the fifth century BCE Greek historian Thucydides by writing about the wars he had fought in, the risks were different in this new, tendingtoward-monarchy situation. Unlike men of previous generations, he could not count on his own military experiences to serve his power and reputation well. While Pollio took his experience of public service and made it fodder for his writing, history was not the only genre he worked in. Horace suggests that he would be better off turning his talents toward tragedy (Carm. 2.1.9–12):



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paulum seuerae Musa tragoediae desit theatris; mox, ubi publicas res ordinaris, grande munus Cecropio repetes coturno [Let not the Muse of stern tragedy be too long absent from the theaters; soon, when you have set in order public matters, you will seek again the grand stage with Cecropian tragic boot.]

Horace advises Pollio to bring his public life to a successful end and then return to writing tragedies, a high status form of verse second only to epic and thus suited to Pollio’s own high status.17 The very idea of an end of public life shows how different things had become, however: membership in the senate was for life and during the Republic Pollio’s status as a consular would have guaranteed him a senior and respected position. Horace implies that soon he will have no more public business to tend to, and, while literature was a natural leisure activity for the upper classes stretching back at least to Scipio’s day, there is something unsettling about the way that Horace phrases these lines. This is especially so since he nowhere suggests that Augustus, Agrippa, Maecenas, uel sim. will set things in order and then move on to something else: they, especially the princeps, are there to stay and will continue to guide Rome until death (or apotheosis) takes them. But Horace advises Pollio to be careful when it comes to any kind of public engagement, even writing about his own accomplishments. The next stanza makes Pollio’s exemplary credentials clear and shows that he is indeed a glorious holdover from a previous era, one worthy of honor and respect (Carm. 2.1.13–16): insigne maestis praesidium reis et consulenti, Pollio, curiae, cui laurus aeternos honores Delmatico peperit triumpho. [Pollio, distinguished aid to sorrowing defendants and a senate seeking council, to whom the laurel brought eternal glory through your Delmatican triumph.]

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Pollio’s public service is unimpeachable. He has performed the roles expected of a man of his stature by defending his friends and clients in court and contributing to senatorial debates, and he has reached the very heights of a military career. As far as the public sphere is concerned, his masculinity is as secure as can be, especially since he continues to perform it through his writing after his supposed retirement from public life. Many of Pollio’s celebrated actions, however, took place during the civil war; thus, his knowledge of military and political matters centers on those that pertain to civil war, and so will his historical writing. The next five stanzas give an overview of the material for Pollio’s history of the civil war to cover (Carm. 2.1.17–36): iam nunc minaci murmure cornuum perstringis auris, iam litui strepunt, iam fulgor armorum fugacis terret equos equitumque uultus. audire magnos iam uideor duces non indecoro puluere sordidos et cuncta terrarum subacta praeter atrocem animum Catonis. Iuno et deorum quisquis amicior Afris inulta cesserat impotens tellure, uictorum nepotes rettulit inferias Iugurthae. quis non Latino sanguine pinguior campus sepulcris impia proelia testatur auditumque Medis Hesperiae sonitum ruinae? qui gurges aut quae flumina lugubris ignara belli? quod mare Dauniae non decolorauere caedes? quae caret ora cruore nostro?

20

25

30

35

[Already now you touch our ears with the threatening rumbling of the war horns, already the cavalry trumpets resound, already the clash of arms terrifies the fleeing horses and the faces of the cavalry men. I seem to hear now the great leaders not grimy with unsightly dust and all of the lands subdued, but



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not the fierce spirit of Cato. Juno and whoever of the gods is too friendly to the Africans had withdrawn once, powerless, from the unavenged land, but then they brought the grandsons of the victors as funeral offerings to Jugurtha. What land is not fertilized with Latin blood, what land cannot produce tombs as witnesses to impious battles, and is the sound of Hesperian ruin heard by the Medes? What whirlpools and what rivers are ignorant of our grievous war? What sea did the Daunian slaughters not stain? What shore lacks our blood?]

Horace’s description of Pollio’s subject matter begins ominously and only gets darker from there. It culminates with a set of rhetorical questions that imagine Rome’s darkest hour as falling over the entire known world. Pollio was an expert witness for his own work, as a participant in the war on Caesar’s side. The only actor in the war whom Horace names, however, is the austere and unbending Cato the Younger, and, despite Cato’s position as an enemy of Caesar, he and the others who died in Africa are not condemned.18 Indeed, little is said that could be considered complimentary or laudatory for anyone in Caesar’s camp, although the few fragments that exist of Pollio’s actual history offer a rather different impression from what Horace implies. We cannot reconstruct Pollio’s work from this poem, which was written well before the history was completed, but it does give a reasonable point of beginning: the formation of the First Triumvirate, an informal and semiillegal agreement between Caesar, Pompey, and a third prominent Roman, Crassus, in response, in part, to obstructive behavior by Metellus, the consul of 60 BCE, against Pompey and Crassus.19 The history seems to have been in seventeen books, with no surviving fragments containing material that is securely datable beyond 43 BCE. It appears that the main topic was the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, but Pollio began his narrative well before the conflict, covering Caesar’s Gallic campaigns and including other material of a tangential nature, most notably a digression on the Rhine (Cornell F2). Horace offers commentary on the destructive nature of civil conflict, a theme that he visits a number of times in his corpus, but we should not take Horace’s opinion as the equivalent of Pollio’s. Pollio clearly felt the wars’ history was worth holding up and bringing into the light, regardless of the tragic circumstances of Romans killing Romans: he may have even written to justify and explain the choices made by the men he fought with. Still, Horace’s view may have been the more common one: it is likely no coincidence that none of the contemporary accounts of the civil wars survive,

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with the exception of Julius Caesar’s own commentaries, even though there is little evidence for the active suppression of authors or their works under Augustus. Horace placed this anti-civil-war poem in a prominent spot at the beginning of a book, a prominence that is underscored, rather than diminished, when he declares at the end that its subject matter is unsuitable for his genre (Carm. 2.1.37–40): sed ne relictis, Musa procax, iocis Ceae retractes munera Neniae, mecum Dionaeo sub antro quaere modos leuiore plectro. [But lest you withdraw the gifts of Cea’s song since I have left light topics behind, impudent Muse, seek out verses with me for a gentler lyre under the Dionaean cave.]

Pollio may have to deal with civil war, but Horace does not: he prefers to move on from the horror, lessons learned, perhaps, but looking forward to brighter days ahead, and he advises Pollio to do the same. Pollio’s character is a complex one, and it is difficult, with the information available to us, to ascribe attitudes or beliefs to him without qualifi­ cation. It is certain that he joined the Caesarian cause. It is certain that he sided with Antony. It is certain that he remained a respected member of the elite at Rome after Actium. Pinning down anything else is likely impossible. For example, some have argued that he withdrew from public life out of “strong Republican principles.”20 This seems unlikely, given his allegiance to Caesar and then Antony. It is possible he may have acted out of pique or bitterness, given that his side lost, but he had left Antony’s cause before the end and was honored by Augustus. This implies that he was not a diehard partisan of Antony, either. Instead, Pollio was simply a man out of his time: a veteran of the late Republican hypercompetitive world, who had survived the wars with enough dignity intact to opt out of a game he knew he could no longer win. He had also withdrawn from the game early enough that Octavian/Augustus was willing to believe he was no threat and indeed was able to use him as an example of his clementia. Pollio was a living example of how reasonable the winner of the wars was, a fact that Pollio himself was well aware of, as we can deduce from the statement attributed to him



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preserved among a number of contemporary witticisms and jokes by the fifth-century CE commentator Macrobius (Sat.2.4.21): “at ego taceo. non est enim facile in eum scribere qui potest proscribere” (But I am silent. For it is not easy to write against one who can proscribe you). Pollio, a consular and triumphator, was also a valuable person to point to if questioned about the restoration of the Republic. If an honored Republican politician not only lived out his life but also continued to perform elite roles, including speaking in the courts and in the senate and patronizing literature, then surely Rome had indeed returned to normal. Pollio could be harnessed by Augustus to suggest that Roman men were still able to perform in all the ways they had in the past and that nothing had changed. Yet Pollio’s retirement from active involvement in politics, which had come when he was still in his thirties, challenges this. And the subject matter of his historical writing could very well also have undermined the position of the princeps, even though it seems that Pollio restricted himself to the wars of Caesar and Pompey. Certainly the dire overtones of Horace’s description of Pollio’s subject matter cause one to wonder what his history was like. Pollio represents both a model of a vanishing type of masculinity and a threatening/threatened figure under the principate. He maintained some independence and authority but was aware of the risks of doing so. M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus: The Last Independent Patron

Another prominent patron of the arts and successful man of action who maintained a public profile during the principate is M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus.21 Messalla, born into a distinguished consular family, was proscribed by the triumvirs as a young man. He escaped this danger by joining Brutus and Cassius and fought on their side at Philippi. After their defeat, he joined Antony and then later transferred his allegiance a final time, to Octavian. Messalla, who was appointed as consul in 31 BCE and fought at Actium, was more active than Pollio in his support of Octavian. His active support may be why he celebrated a triumph in 27 BCE, one of the last men outside the imperial family to do so, held the post of praefectus urbanus (urban prefect) in 25 BCE, and received, along with Agrippa, the house on the Palatine that had belonged to Mark Antony. In 2 BCE, he moved in the senate that Augustus should be named Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) and overall seems to have enjoyed the favor and patronage of the princeps. There is another side, however: Messalla, like Pollio, allegedly had

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strong Republican principles but avoided openly expressing them so as not to offend the princeps. Significantly, he is said to have resigned from the position of praefectus urbanus after only six days because the post conflicted with these principles.22 It seems that he, like Pollio, wrote a historical account of civil wars, although his work focused on the ones he knew best, those following the death of Caesar. His historical writing is entirely lost and known only from references to it in other authors. But even if his own writing is lost, Messalla, like Pollio and Maecenas, supported other authors as a literary patron. The most famous poets of his circle were Tibullus; Sulpicia, who was Messalla’s niece; and Ovid, who credits Messalla as the first supporter of his talent (Pont. 2.3.77–78). He knew Horace as well, and there seems to have been friendly relations and perhaps competition between the circles of Messalla and Maecenas. Messalla is mentioned by several of “his” poets, including in a poem about his triumph in 27 BCE over Gallia Aquitania (Tib. 1.7). Tibullus names other conquered peoples as well, thus referencing the wide scope of Messalla’s military career in the 30s BCE and beyond: unlike Pollio, he had not withdrawn from public life. The poem begins with an invocation of the glory that led to his triumph (Tib. 1.7.1–8): hunc cecinere diem Parcae fatalia nentes stamina, non ulli dissoluenda deo, hunc fore, Aquitanas posset qui fundere gentes, quem tremeret forti milite uictus Atax. euenere: nouos pubes Romana triumphos

5

uidit et euinctos bracchia capta duces; at te uictrices lauros, Messalla, gerentem portabat nitidis currus eburnus equis. [The Fates have sung of this day while spinning the threads of destiny which cannot be unraveled by any god, sung that this day would be the one which could put the Aquitanian tribes to flight, which Atax, conquered by a brave soldier, would tremble at. This day has come to pass: the young men of Rome have seen new triumphs and leaders with their captive limbs bound and an ivory chariot with shining white horses was carrying you, Messalla, as you bore your laurels of victory.]



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This is a standard piece of praise: the reason for the triumph is made clear (3–4), and the procession itself is evoked with the imagery of the captive foreign leaders and Messalla in his triumphal chariot (5–8). The language is hyperbolic, claiming that Messalla was fulfilling a destiny set out by the Fates, but not outside the normal range for panegyric. Indeed, there is nothing here to indicate that Messalla’s deeds and career are different from those of generals in the late Republic, let alone that he would be one of the last such triumphing generals. The unusual phrase “pubes Romana” (young men of Rome) at line 5, however, draws attention: it occurs only two other times, both in the order Romana pubes, in the literature of the second half of the first century BCE. First, at Livy 1.9, it is used of the rejected “suitors” in the leadup to the rape of the Sabines; second, it appears at Hor. Carm. 4.4.46, a poem addressed to Drusus and the glories of his Claudian ancestors, in which the “Romana pubes creuit” (the Roman youth rises/increases in size/flourishes) after the defeat of Hasdrubal and the end of the Second Punic War. These uses suggest a certain archaic feel, and the word pubes in general is unusual in classical Latin, poetry or prose.23 Tibullus favors it more than most, using it three other times, including a second instance in 1.7, at line 27–28 as the pubes barbara wonder at Osiris and the bounty of the Nile. At 1.1.23, it is modified with rustica, and the rustic youths celebrate a country sacrifice to Ceres (goddess of grain), Priapus (rustic god who protects fields and gardens), and the Lares (guardians of households). The word then reappears in the second book, in a poem commemorating the admission of Messalla’s son Messallinus to the priestly college of the quindecemuiri sacris facundis, who were in charge of the Sibylline books of prophecy. In this poem, at 2.5.95, the pubes are rustics celebrating a country festival, like those of 1.1, except, unlike the impoverished rustica pubes of the earlier poem, these relax in confident prosperity under the Sybil and Apollo, whose words are entrusted to Messallinus. The other three uses of the word therefore all have something in common: they refer to youths in an agricultural setting, whether Italian or Egyptian, who are engaged in acts of praise, wonder, or supplication of gods who represent natural bounty and fertility. The odd one out, then, is 1.7.5, with the pubes Romana in an urban setting viewing a military triumph. The triumph has, however, been set up as the natural result of fate, so that the Romana pubes are actually engaged just as much in an act of wonder at nature as these other youths. This ultimate expression of Messalla’s uirtus

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(military courage) is thus connected to fate, nature, and the admiration of the young. Near the end of the poem, Tibullus returns to praise of Messalla and his deeds, first with reference to the fulfillment of the most significant private masculine role, fatherhood (Tib. 1.7.55–6): “at tibi succrescat proles, quae facta parentis / augeat et circa stet ueneranda senem” (And may a child grow up to match you, who augments the deeds of his parent and may he stand by his old father respectfully). Messalla fathered at least three children, a daughter who married a senator and consul under Augustus and two sons who both attained the consulship, the elder of whom is the son praised in Tibullus 2.5. Not only did Messalla produce the requisite minimum of three children, but they are an exemplary batch who reached the highest available positions and were successful in the new order. The final achievement that Tibullus’ poem commemorates is Messalla’s restoration of the Via Latina (1.7.57–60): nec taceat monumenta uiae, quem Tuscula tellus candidaque antiquo detinet Alba Lare. namque opibus congesta tuis hic glarea dura sternitur, hic apta iungitur arte silex. [Let he whom Tusculan land and shining Alba detain with ancient Lar not be silent about the monument of your road. For here hard gravel, piled up by your wealth, is strewn, here the flint is joined with suitable skill.]

Road construction may seem a rather incongruent thing to commemorate in poetry, at least to the modern mind, but to the Roman it was a laudable, if not particularly glamorous, public service. It was also a service that Augustus encouraged, along with aqueduct building and maintenance; Messalla himself would be appointed as curator aquaram (curator of the water supply) after the death of Agrippa, the first to hold the office.24 Building new roads and aqueducts was expensive and challenging work but could lead to a longterm memorial for one’s family name, as they were sometimes named after their builders, but maintenance was more thankless, as the project would still bear the original name. Indeed, the elite of this era were so unwilling to take on such tasks that by the time of Tiberius they had become the province solely of the imperial family.25 Unlike many things that the house of Caesar



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took over, it seems as though this was one that they would have preferred to continue sharing with the aristocracy. Thus, Messalla had undertaken public works of great importance and also of a type certain to earn the favor and gratitude of the princeps. The last lines of the poem pair more praise about the roadbuilding project with a final couplet celebrating Messalla (Tib. 1.7.61–64): te canit agricola, a magna cum uenerit urbe serus inoffensum rettuleritque pedem. at tu, Natalis multos celebrande per annos, candidior semper candidiorque ueni. [A farmer sings of you, when he comes home late from the big city and returns without stumbling. But you, birthday that must be celebrated for many years, come always brighter and brighter.]

The project is of practical use for the archetype of Roman citizenship, the small-scale farmer who returns to the land after a day spent seeing to business or civic responsibilities in Rome.26 This point also circles back to the pubes in other Tibullan poems: the agricola is father of the pubes rustica. Messalla’s roadwork will allow agricolae to carry out their duties more effectively, so this triumphing general improves the men and virtue of Rome as a whole. One thing that is noticeably lacking in this poem is any mention of Augustus. If we compare this poem to two near-contemporary poems addressed to Maecenas by Horace and Propertius, the difference is striking: Epodes 1 is addressed to Maecenas but names Augustus first, in line 3, before Maecenas in line 4; Propertius 2.1, although addressed to Maecenas, concentrates far more on the actions and achievements of Augustus and uses the name of Caesar more (three times, lines 25, 26, and 42) than that of Maecenas (twice, lines 17 and 73). This suggests that while Maecenas was identified strongly with the princeps, Messalla was not. Messalla retained an independent position outside the inner circle of Augustus, which does not have to indicate opposition but can imply that Messalla maintained a more Republi­ can attitude toward patronage and competition. This attitude was then passed on to the poets he patronized, with Tibullus appearing indifferent to the princeps in comparison to those in the circle of Maecenas.

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Horace: Resistance as Support

Horace, as we have seen, was in a general sense a supporter of Augustus. Despite his youthful service with the army of Brutus, by the winter of 38/37 BCE he had sought and obtained the patronage of Maecenas and then spent the rest of his career writing poetry that never openly opposes Augustus’ growing hegemony. Apart from his poetry, his biography is that of a man who declined to take on the Augustus-approved activities for men of privilege: he did not marry, had no children, and, after his first military service and his postmilitary time as a scriba quaestorius, took no part in the military or civil service. All of these issues, however, are more about disengagement than resistance and are thus treated in the next chapter. In this chapter, instead, I look at how he uses his authority as a poet to warn about the dangers within Rome and suggest that Augustus could be a solution to these dangers, while still maintaining a theoretically independent stance. In some poems, Horace’s persona authoritatively comments upon Augustus or Rome. Although such statements do not have to indicate resistance, they do imply that Horace is staking a claim to an intellectual authority that gives him the right to advise and even criticize the princeps on public policy. For this argument, I focus on the Carmina, rather than the earlier Sermones or Epodes, for the sake of clarity: the earlier poems do not always specify to whom they refer, and there is a larger number of possible targets in the triumviral period. The writing and publication date of the Carmina situate them firmly in the time of Augustus’ dominion. Selections from three different poems exemplify how Horace used his work to speak to power, specifically Augustus, even if he is not always named. I begin with a brief examination of Carmina 1.2, which contains a dire prediction of future civil war but ends with an optimistic appeal to Caesar’s heir. Next, I narrow in on lines in 3.4 that warn about the importance of tempering power with wisdom and good advice. Third, I argue that 4.15 is a response to the worries presented in 1.2, suggesting that as long as Augustus is Rome’s custos (guardian), civil war will not come again. Carmina 1.2 is generally dated to the early 20s, so post-Actium, but with the triumviral period still in recent memory. Many Romans would not yet have been convinced that the peace they were experiencing would last: after all, the decades of civil conflict they had lived through had been punctuated by periods of relative calm, but the turmoil had always started up again. The poem begins in this atmosphere, with a metaphorical storm that caused



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destruction and sowed fear among the Romans, before moving to a pessimistic view of Rome’s future at lines 21–24:27 audiet ciuis acuisse ferrum, quo graues Persae melius perirent, audiet pugnas uitio parentum rara iuuentus. [The citizen will hear that the sword was sharpened, by which the troublesome Persians would better perish, the youths, few because of the vice of their parents, will hear battles.]

In this poem, Horace does not hold out much hope for the short term. The storm is a portent of further self-destruction by the Roman ciues (citizens) when their state has not yet recovered from the previous wars. He predicts that what few youths there are will fight again, not against the next great external foe, Persia, but against each other. These lines point to the Romans’ failure at both public and private masculine roles: their military skill, central to their political role as citizens, is turned inward, twisted even in its excellence, and they have not produced sufficient children for the next generation to flourish. The next lines offer a list of gods who could save Rome from itself, including Apollo, Venus Erycina, and Mars, before settling on Mercury, who Horace suggests is already present in the guise of Augustus (41–52): siue mutata iuuenem figura ales in terris imitaris, almae filius Maiae, patiens uocari Caesaris ultor. serus in caelum redeas diuque laetus intersis populo Quirini, neue te nostris uitiis iniquum ocior aura tollat; hic magnos potius triumphos, hic ames dici pater atque princeps, neu sinas Medos equitare inultos te duce, Caesar.

45

50

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[Or may you, winged son of kindly Maia, with your shape changed imitate a young man on earth, allowing yourself to be called the avenger of Caesar. May you return late to the sky and linger happily among the people of Quirinus, and let not the wind swiftly raise you up, impatient with our faults: rather, here may you love great triumphs, here may you love to be called father and first citizen, and not allow the Medes to ride unavenged, with you as leader, O Caesar.]

Lines 49–52 are on the one hand a direct response to the poet’s fearful vision of the future from lines 21–24: in military terms, triumphs (49) can be had only over the defeat of external foes, and the Medes (51) are effectively synonymous with the Persae (22); in political terms, Octavian’s status as princeps (50) represents the civil manifestation of his military leadership and responds to ciuis in line 21. Furthermore, as one who loves to be called “pater” (50), he applies the private role that so many Romans have failed at (23) to the entire populus Romanus. On the other hand, the fact that the verbs in those lines are all subjunctives should give us pause: unlike lines 21–24, which use the future indicative, here we enter the less certain world of the jussive or optative subjunctive, with suggestions, wishes, even orders, but not statements. The poet is providing advice to the princeps on how to carry out his roles as a leading man of Rome, following a warning of what will happen if the advice is not followed.28 The poet presents himself as an authority on public and private masculine roles, even if that authority is couched in gentle suggestions and divine flattery. Similar is the section of Carmina 3.4 under consideration here. This poem, one of the Roman Odes, begins with an invocation of the muse Calliope and a meditation on the value of poetry and the role of the poet.29 Thus, these final twenty lines that treat the idea of force tempered by advice are part of Horace’s reflection on how his work can contribute to the greatness of Augustus and Rome (65–80): uis consili expers mole ruit sua; uim temperatam di quoque prouehunt in maius; idem odere uires omne nefas animo mouentis. testis mearum centimanus gigas

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sententiarum, notus et integrae

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temptator Orion Dianae, uirginea domitus sagitta. iniecta monstris Terra dolet suis maeretque partus fulmine luridum missos ad Orcum; nec peredit

75

impositam celer ignis Aetnen, incontinentis nec Tityi iecur reliquit ales, nequitiae additus custos; amatorem trecentae Pirithoum cohibent catenae.

80

[Force that does not share in good counsel tumbles down from its own bulk; the gods too advance to greater things the force that is temperate; the same gods hate shows of force that set every crime in motion with their spirit. The hundred handed giant is a witness of my claims, and Orion, the notorious assailant of untouchable Diana, brought down by the virgin’s arrow. The Earth, possessed by her own monsters, sorrows and she grieves her offspring who were sent to ghastly Orcus by the thunderbolt; and the swift fire does not consume Etna that was set upon them, and the bird, an additional guard of his misdoing, does not release the liver of immoderate Tityus; three hundred chains confine Pirithous, the would-be lover.]

The first stanza of this section is strongly marked with the term uis, appearing at the beginning of lines 65 and 66 and in the plural in line 67. In legal terms, uis has a sense similar to that of the modern term “assault”: unlawful force that aims at harming individuals or groups.30 In essence, the very idea of a “uis temperata” (tempered or temperate force) is something of an oxymoron. Moreover, Horace chooses to use the word in the context of a warning about abuse of power in this poem, one of a sequence praising Rome and in particular Augustus’ Rome. The mythological exempla that follow illustrate uis that led to nefas (crime, especially that considered unnatural or offensive to the gods) and all feature those who used or attempted to use force against the gods and were punished for it. These malefactors likely allude to those that Augustus vanquished, but the mythological criminals were all divine or semidivine and descended from gods, just like Augustus; Horace inserts a

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gentle reminder to avoid their negative example and to continue to take the advice of others as he uses his immense power.31 But even if, as is likely, the princeps is meant to be among the gods who punish uis, Horace still provides the very consilium that is needed to ensure that uis remains on the side of justice and divine approval. In doing so, he also suggests a valuable role for the poet that allows him a level of authority and control over the princeps and maintains his libertas, especially in the sense of freedom to speak.32 Themes similar to those in 1.2 and 3.4 are repeated in this final selection from Horace, a stanza from Carmina 4.15, the final poem of the fourth book. The fourth book was published in 13 BCE, about ten years after the first three, and the elapsed time may be seen in the change of atmosphere. For this poem as a whole is celebratory, painting a picture of a Rome that has calmed, prospered, and returned to its long-lost external strength and internal prosperity.33 But one stanza in particular returns to themes familiar from 1.2, civil war, and 3.4, uis, yet with a far more confidant outlook (16–20): custode rerum Caesare non furor ciuilis aut uis exiget otium, non ira, quae procudit enses et miseras inimicat urbes. [With Caesar as guardian of our affairs neither civil rage nor violence will expel our leisure and peace, nor will anger, which forges swords and sets the wretched cities against each other.]

Gone are the hesitant subjunctives of 1.2: here are indicatives assuring the reader that under Caesar’s guardianship the rage and violence of civil war will not disturb the Romans. Here uis is tied to civil war as things that have no place in this Rome, a striking difference from the carefully worded warning of 3.4. In these three connected passages, Horace first uses subjunctive and future verbs along with religious and mythological imagery to urge and advise the correct direction and role that Augustus Caesar should follow. He implies that if his advice is taken, the princeps can use his power to prevent the recurrence of civil war and to lead Rome in a new-old direction, a prediction that is borne out in 4.15. Augustus, according to Horace’s poems, can use his own successful achievement of military and political mastery as well as fatherly wisdom to be a pater to all the pubes Romana and eventually



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succeed in returning them to a peace that is never disrupted by rage and self-destructive weapons. Augustus would not have found it hard to swallow Horace’s advice, as it fully accorded with his general goals. Thus, Horace’s attempts in poems such as these to set himself up as an adviser and authority do not represent serious resistance: his authority is one that helps the regime, and his advice is that the princeps keep to the path he is already on. His warnings are still important, in that history and mythology were full of men who had entered positions of power with good intentions, only to find themselves corrupted or led astray. But he does not present any serious suggestions that Augustus was likely to be one of those men. Horace’s “resistance” is mild, a quiet reminder to Augustus to stay on track. If Horace ever differed from Augustus in terms of vision of how Rome should be or a Roman man should act, he did not show this difference in explicit written resistance. Propertius: Resisting Epic, Resisting Militia

Propertius’ engagement with the political-military world was a far more resistant one than Horace’s. In effect, Propertius frames the world of public service as anti-Roman and a prime contributor to destruction and decline. In a number of poems, he sets himself up as an alternative source of authority in intellectual and moral matters. His earliest poems in this vein are those that challenge either the supremacy of epic as poetry or the value of military service over servitude to amor (love), both themes that continue throughout his poetry. Propertius elevates nontraditional activities in literature and public life, often unapologetically and almost always by using the values and terminology of traditional activities against them. In his first book of elegies, Propertius makes two characters foils against whom he creates an alternate authority in his lover-poet: Ponticus, the epic poet, and Tullus, the young Roman who follows a traditional elite career path. He also uses them as points of comparison for his lover-poet and the elegiac life and career in order to challenge the types of masculinity prioritized by Augustus and his regime. Propertius’ engagement with the genre of epic is central to his resistance to the values of Roman elite culture. When the lover-poet mentions epic poetry, it is usually for one of two related reasons: to explain why he cannot or will not write it or to talk about another poet who does write it. Elegy 1.7 combines these scenarios. It is addressed to the lover-poet’s friend Ponticus, who is established as an epic poet in the first four lines: he sings of Thebes

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(1) and is comparable to Homer (3).34 The next ten lines move to Propertius’ practice of love elegy (1.7.5–14): nos, ut consuemus, nostros agitamus amores atque aliquid duram quaerimus in dominam; nec tantum ingenio quantum seruire dolori cogor et aetatis tempora dura queri. hic mihi conteritur uitae modus, haec mea fama est, hinc cupio nomen carminis ire mei. me laudent doctae solum placuisse puellae, Pontice, et iniustas saepe tulisse minas; me legat assidue post haec neglectus amator et prosint illi cognita nostra mala.

5

10

[I, as is my custom, set my love poems in motion, and search for something to use against my harsh mistress; and I am compelled to serve not so much my talent as my sorrow and to bewail the harsh times of my youth. This path of life is marked out for me, this is my glory, from this I desire the reputation of my poetry to venture forth. May the learned girls alone have been pleasing to me, Ponticus, and may I have often borne unjust threats; may the scorned lover read me carefully ever after and may my sufferings carry on, known to him.]

In this section, Propertius describes his mistress as “dura” and his time of life, spent in composing elegy, as “tempora dura.” Durus (hard) is normally associated with the genre of epic, while elegy is characterized as mollis (soft), but here the lover-poet reverses the traditional pairings to apply the adjective durus to his elegiac lifestyle and poetic practice.35 The poet also says that he serves his sorrow, not his talent, implying that he has the talent to write epic but chooses not to.36 His confidence in his own abilities contrasts sharply with what he says about Ponticus (1.7.15–20): te quoque si certo puer hic concusserit arcu, † quod nollim nostros euiolasse † deos, longe castra tibi, longe miser agmina septem flebis in aeterno surda iacere situ; et frustra cupies mollem componere uersum nec tibi subiciet carmina serus Amor.

15

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[If this boy should strike you as well with his unerring bow, although I would not want to violate our gods,37 you will weep for your long-lost camps, wretchedly, your long-lost seven bands lying deaf in their eternal site; and in vain you will desire to compose gentle verse and Love-come-late will not supply songs for you.]

The epic poet, despite his durus genre, is just as susceptible to conquest by the puer Amor as the elegist is. But Ponticus does not have the talent to write elegy; the mollem uersum (gentle verse) eludes him, and so he will learn to rank the elegist above all. In this subtle treatment of the two genres, the lover-poet rejects the writing of epic but anticipates praise (11) and fama (9) for his poetry, although those are the traditional rewards of epic heroes and, by implication, epic poets. Nor does he fully embrace the role of elegist, however, at least in the sense of it as a role that is soft or effeminate and therefore of less value than epic. Propertius’ elegist is capable of writing epic but does not. He imbues his elegiac poetry with the hardness of epic, in the form of the dura puella (harsh girlfriend) and the dura tempora (harsh times) of his life. He predicts that not only will he be famous in his lifetime and beyond because of his elegiac poetry but also even the epic poet will learn to value him and his poetry above all others. He presents himself as an authoritative literary figure who excels in his own genre and can pass judgment on the work of others. Propertius thus creates a role in which the elegiac poet is engaged in serious, difficult work that will bring lasting fame, as the final three couplets of the poem declare (1.7.21–26): tum me non humilem mirabere saepe poetam, tunc ego Romanis praeferar ingeniis; nec poterunt iuuenes nostro reticere sepulcro “ardoris nostri magne poeta iaces.” tu caue nostra tuo contemnas carmina fastu: saepe uenit magno faenore tardus Amor.

25

[Then you will often be amazed that I turned out not to be a humble poet, then I will be preferred by Roman talents; the young men could not be silent at our grave, “Here lies the great poet of our passion.” You be wary of condemning our poems with your contempt: often late-coming Love comes due with high interest.]

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The lover-poet flips from comparing Ponticus with Homer and denigrating his own poetry to predicting that Ponticus himself will one day admire (21: “mirabere”) him and that he will be ranked higher than other Roman men of genius (22).38 He identifies young lovers as those who will most admire him (23–24), but since he has already shown that anyone, even an epic poet, can be struck by love, it seems as though fame among lovers is fame tout court. This suggestion that love can take hold of anyone is reinforced by the warning in the final couplet to respect love poetry or expect to pay interest to the love god himself. Ponticus reappears in 1.9, where the warning that the lover-poet gave him about the worthlessness of epic verse in elegiac situations has come true (1.9.9–16): quid tibi nunc misero prodest graue dicere carmen aut Amphioniae moenia flere lyrae? plus in amore ualet Mimnermi uersus Homero: carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor. i quaeso et tristis istos compone libellos, et cane quod quaeuis nosse puella uelit! quid si non esset facilis tibi copia? nunc tu insanus medio flumine quaeris aquam.

10

15

[What use is it for you in your current misery to sing serious songs or to weep for the walls of Amphion’s lyre? The verses of Mimnermus are stronger in matters of love than those of Homer: a tame love looks for gentle verses. Go, I ask you, and compose those sad little poems, and sing what a girl would want, even if you don’t want to! And if there isn’t an easy supply for you? Now you, insane man, are seeking water while in the middle of a river.]

When the lover-poet compares love poetry to epic, the latter comes up lacking.39 Here in Book 1, the lover-poet depicts epic poetry as a useless enterprise in the world of elegy, the truly durus genre, especially since by associating epic themes with weeping (10: “flere”), usually an elegiac action, he muddles the boundaries of the genres.40 Considering the attitude toward epic poetry that the lover-poet holds, it is not surprising that he refuses to write it himself: the lover-poet’s statement about the uselessness of epic in amatory situations act as a mini-recusatio (refusal poem). The effect of this professed



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reluctance to write epic is twofold: first, the lover-poet elevates love and love poetry above epic and the martial or public exploits that it celebrates; and second, the lover-poet, in his refusal to write the kind of poetry that supports the state, may imply criticism of Augustus and his regime, without outright denunciation. Analyis of Propertius’ Tullus poems builds on the discussion of the Ponticus poems to create a sense of a coherent and related critique of epic and service to the state. Propertius elevates militia amoris (service in love’s army) above service to the state, beginning as early as 1.6, in which the lover-poet declines an offer to accompany his friend Tullus on provincial service. The lover-poet first denies that fear is the cause of his refusal, therefore dismissing any suggestion that he is cowardly or less of a man than his friend (1.6.1): “non ego nunc Hadriae uereor mare noscere tecum” (Now, I am not afraid to get to know the Adriatic Sea with you). The lover-poet explains that his puella’s laments have convinced him to stay in Rome (5–18). This appears at first to be a straightforward example of emasculation caused by love,41 but in fact it is part of the lover-poet’s opening salvo against the values of the Roman elite culture and the moral rectitude of imperial service. Elegy 1.6 articulates a challenge to the values of empire in the lover-poet’s rejection of travel, a symbol both of service to Rome and of the rewards of imperialism (1.6.13–18):42 an mihi sit tanti doctas cognoscere Athenas atque Asiae ueteres cernere diuitias, ut mihi deducta faciat conuicia puppi Cynthia et insanis ora notet manibus, osculaque opposito dicat sibi debita uento, et nihil infido durius esse uiro?

15

[But is it worth so much to me to get to know learned Athens or to see the ancient wealth of Asia, that Cynthia should wail once my ship has been led away and, driven mad, mark her face with her hands, and say that my kisses were owed to her, if the wind was opposed, and that nothing is harsher than a faithless man?]

By asking whether seeing Athens and Asia would be worth the price of upsetting Cynthia, the lover-poet places love above these significant sources

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of wealth and Greek cultural products for the Roman elite.43 Moreover, Cynthia’s charge that nothing is harsher/harder (18: “durius”) than a faithless man brings important elegiac concepts into play along with epic and Roman values. Durus, as we have seen, is usually used either of the mistress herself or of epic poetry, in contrast to the effeminate (leuis) lover-poet and his frivolous (leuis) elegiac poetry, respectively. Cynthia suggests that his betrayal will transform the lover-poet into something that he is not, a durus infidus uir, that is, into the type of man who acts out the values of the dominant culture with respect to love and unmarriageable women.44 A durus uir, the opposite of a leuis lover-poet, would believe the wealth and political advancement to be found in provincial service in Asia and Athens a worthwhile reason to upset a puella (cf. 3.7). The lover-poet equates foreign travel with acceptance of the masculine roles valued by Augustan culture. My reading of the poem so far could support the idea that Propertius’ portrayal of his lover-poet obliquely upholds the dominant culture by making him unappealingly emasculated.45 Indeed, in the next lines, the loverpoet predicts success for his friend and contrasts the imperial service of Tullus and his family with his own elegiac lifestyle (1.6.19–24): tu patrui meritas conare anteire securis et uetera oblitis iura refer sociis. nam tua non aetas umquam cessauit amori, semper at armatae cura fuit patriae; et tibi non umquam nostros puer iste labores afferat et lacrimis omnia nota meis!

20

[You try to surpass the well-deserved symbolic axes of your ancestors and bring again the ancient laws to the forgetful allies. For your youth has not ever loitered in love, and always your concern has been for patriotic arms; but that darn boy has never imposed upon you our type of labor and everything known to my tears!]

Unlike the lover-poet, Tullus has devoted his youth to martial and political pursuits, not even indulging in the casual love affairs that were acceptable for young men. Tullus has behaved like an exemplary young man by training for the military role on which political careers were usually based and fulfilling the expectations of his family and traditional Roman society.46 This



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contrast, emphasized by the polyptoton tu (19), tua (21), tibi (23) at or near the beginning of each couplet, further differentiates Tullus’ career from that of the lover-poet: regardless of what his training and education and the expectations of his family may have prepared him for, the lover-poet has refused the very roles in which Tullus excels. The next three couplets, however, show an ambivalence in the loverpoet’s relationship to the masculine role of provincial service (1.6.25–30): me sine, quem semper uoluit Fortuna iacere, hanc animam extremae reddere nequitiae. multi longinquo periere in amore libenter, in quorum numero me quoque terra tegat. non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus armis: hanc me militiam fata subire uolunt.

25

30

[Permit me, who Fortune has always wanted to lie prostrate, to return this mind to the ends of worthlessness. Many men have perished willingly in extensive love, in whose number let the earth also cover me. I am not worthy of praise, I was not born fit for weapons: the fates want me to undergo this military service.]

The language of these lines includes the significant terms “nequitia” (26), “laus” (29), and “militia” (30). The first couplet, with its declaration that the lover-poet is fated to spend his life in nequitia (worthlessness), seems at first to fit with the interpretation that he is a negative exemplum who buttresses traditional and Augustan Roman values.47 The following couplet, however, with the statement that many men have willingly engaged in such behavior, suggests that the lover-poet is not unique in his nequitia. But in the final couplet of this sequence the lover-poet begins to rehabilitate nequitia and constructs a positive identity that resists the privileging of military service. He claims to be unfit by nature for glory (laus) or arms (29). Rather, he is fated to forgo such pursuits and undergo a different sort of militia. Here he disavows laus and arma, yet embraces militia. Propertius associates nequi­ tia with militia amoris, which he will use as a tool to rehabilitate the negative identity of lover-poet into one of masculine authority.48 Throughout the corpus, Propertius will present a version of militia amoris that is both more moral and more manly than conventional militia.49

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Propertius will return to the superiority of militia amoris over traditional martial militia in later poems, but even at the end of this elegy he begins to undermine the value of normative masculine pursuits (1.6.31–36): at tu seu mollis qua tendit Ionia, seu qua Lydia Pactoli tingit arata liquor; seu pedibus terras seu pontum carpere remis ibis, et accepti pars eris imperii. tum tibi si qua mei ueniet non immemor hora, uiuere me duro sidere certus eris.

35

[But you, whether you go where soft Ionia stretches out or where the ploughed lands of Lydia touch the water of the Pactolus, whether you go to seize the land by foot or the sea by oars, and you will be part of the rule they have accepted. Then if any hour not forgetful of me comes to you, you will be sure that I live under a harsh star.]

At first sight, these lines seem to emphasize once again the difference between Tullus and the lover-poet, with Tullus fulfilling his masculine duty and taking up his pars imperii. The specific sites of Tullus’ duty, however, are troubling. Ionia and Lydia are places associated with the feminized and feminizing Greek east, which the lover-poet emphasizes when he calls Ionia mollis.50 The implication is that Tullus himself is enthralled by eastern luxury, women, and pleasure. In contrast, the lover-poet claims “uiuere . . . duro sidere” ([he] lives under a harsh star), thereby suggesting that it is his amatory service that is durus and masculine. As in his treatment of epic poetry in the Ponticus poems, Propertius inverts the adjectives suitable to traditional militia and militia amoris, and the ambiguity caused by this inversion is intensified in 1.14, the companion poem to 1.6 in which Tullus is once again the addressee. Elegy 1.14 contrasts the luxury that Tullus enjoys as a result of his successful trip to the east with the love that the lover-poet values.51 The poem is filled with words suggesting opulence and foreign luxuries that have come to Rome as the spoils of empire (1.14.1–6): tu licet abiectus Tiberina molliter unda Lesbia Mentoreo uina bibas opere et modo tam celeres mireris currere lintres



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et modo tam tardas funibus ire ratis; et nemus omne satas intendat uertice siluas, urgetur quantis Caucasus arboribus;

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[It is permitted for you, having set down gently on Tiber’s shores, to drink Lesbian wine from cups crafted by Mentor and you may wonder at how the boats run so swiftly now and then how the rafts go so slowly when they are pulled by ropes: and the whole grove lays out trees sufficient for the summit, with as many trees as the Caucasus is burdened; ]

The adverbial form of mollis appears in the first line of this poem, thus continuing the inversion of mollitia and duritia from 1.6. Tullus is in Rome, a pleasure garden on the banks of the Tiber (1).52 Despite his return to Rome, Tullus is no longer engaging in the masculine pursuits that char­ acterized him in elegy 1.6, and the garden is itself a non-Roman addition to the city: the intrusion of eastern luxury into this Roman setting is emphasized by the wine from Lesbos in cups made by Mentor (2).53 In casting the dutiful Tullus as a Roman who has succumbed to eastern luxury, luxury that has come to Rome as a direct result of supposedly durus military pursuits, the lover-poet opens a space for representing his own militia amoris as a more taxing undertaking than Tullus’ provincial service. The lines that follow compare the joys of love with the enjoyment of wealth and luxury (7–16), before the poem returns to a realm that more explicitly addresses militia amoris (17–22):54 illa [sc. mea puella] potest magnas heroum infringere uires, illa etiam duris mentibus esse dolor: illa neque Arabium metuit transcendere limen nec timet ostrino, Tulle, subire toro et miserum toto iuuenem uersare cubili: quid releuant uariis serica textilibus?

20

[My girlfriend can diminish the great strength of heroes, she can be a source of sorrow for even strong minds: she wasn’t afraid to cross over an Arabian threshold and is not afraid, Tullus, to mount a purple bed and to spin a wretched young man around the whole bedroom: what does silk in many colors do for you?]

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These lines open with a couplet that emphasizes the difficulty of love’s service. The lover-poet claims in epic language and in the epic hexameter that his puella can break heroes, while in the pentameter he adds that she causes elegiac pain (“dolor”) to hard (“duris”) hearts.55 These lines make the woman of the supposedly mollis world of elegy stronger than the durus epic hero, which in turn suggests that service to the elegiac puella is harder than anything the heroes of epic (or of contemporary imperial Rome) have overcome. Since the lover-poet has claimed that he sometimes succeeds in gaining her affection (9–10: “nam siue optatam mecum trahit illa quietem, / seu facili totum ducit amore diem”), he has had some success in her service. In the following couplets, Propertius’ language again invokes foreign luxury (19: “Arabium limen”; 20: “ostrino toro”; 22: “uariis serica textilibus”) and thereby suggests his puella’s dominance over Roman empire-builders as well as epic heroes. These lines continue to pair Tullus, who is named for the first time in this poem at 20, with foreign luxury: “Arabium limen” (19) and “ostrinus torus” (20). By associating the man who fulfills his masculine duty with effeminate luxuries, the lover-poet blurs Tullus’ gender identifi­ cation and undermines his martial prowess. At the same time, he suggests that the performance of militia and service to Rome are both carried out in order to gain such luxuries.56 Tullus’ passive enjoyment of luxury contrasts with the lover-poet’s strenuous service under the most difficult of regimes, that of the puella. Propertius uses the poet’s moral authority to undermine the morality of the man who participates in imperial service. In the couplet that follows, the statement that the lover-poet scorns regna and munera holds at least two meanings (23–24): “quae mihi dum placata aderit, non ulla uerebor / regna uel Alcinoi munera despicere” (while she, pleased, comes to me, I do not fear any kingdom or to look down upon the gifts of Alcinous). First, it is yet another claim that the lover-poet rejects the spoils of empire that provincial service brings. But it also suggests that the lover-poet has gained the puella’s favor without giving her gifts. This second point connects with the larger theme of rejecting imperial militia. Propertius dissociates his lover-poet and his elegiac love affair from the mercenary world of courtesans who demand gifts and are themselves part of the spoils of empire.57 The lover-poet’s rhetorical strategy in elegy 1.14 thus works to decouple masculine virtues from the performance of traditionally masculine duties and redescribe activities generally branded effeminate, such as service to a mistress, as arduous and worthy.



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Tullus’ last appearance in book 1 comes in the last poem, 1.22, where he is the addressee of a poem that identifies the lover-poet as Italian in origin, from a family that suffered in the civil wars. After that, Tullus disappears from the corpus until near the end of the third book, elegy 3.22. This poem returns to the topic of travel to the east, although now the lover-poet concentrates on mythologically and historically significant sights and places, rather than luxury, thus drawing on yet another source of authority, which we will see Ovid pick up in the next section. These allusions encompass a number of epic tales and include the stories of the mythological heroes Perseus, Hercules, and Jason and the Argonauts, the settings of which the lover-poet claims are less marvelous than Rome. Although elegy 3.22 does not engage with elegiac love or militia amoris, it does provide a sense that Tullus’ choice to fulfill his masculine duty and take up provincial service in the east has ultimately been unsatisfying.58 The lover-poet urges him to return home to Rome to enjoy true success (3.22.39–42): haec tibi, Tulle, parens, haec est pulcherrima sedes, hic tibi pro digna gente petendus honos, hic tibi ad eloquium ciues, hic ampla nepotum spes et uenturae coniugis aptus amor. [This is your parent, Tullus, this your most beautiful home, here honor you must seek, for the sake of your worthy clan, here are the citizens for your eloquence, here the ample hope of descendants and love suitable for your wife-yet-to-come.]

The lover-poet predicts that Tullus will succeed on public and private levels if he returns to Rome, which, earlier in the poem (19–22), the lover-poet associates with war, fame, power, and victory. Yet back in 1.6 Rome was the place where the lover-poet stayed, avoiding public service, while the east, vaguely denigrated in 3.22, was the place where Tullus would undertake suitable public duties. The final poem in the Tullus series thus implicitly reinforces the thematic tensions of the Tullus poems in book 1, to suggest that the east is not a place for true success and to associate the lover-poet and his elegiac world in Rome with the public glory that is ostensibly alien to him. In Propertius’ hands, the location and definition of fame and success shift and slide. Propertius has his lover-poet reject the provincial service that

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brings wealth into Rome, which he idealizes as the setting of elegiac love. This rejection goes beyond simply a refusal to participate in such service himself; he portrays it as a corrupting force. This interest in exposing and condemning corruption aligns the lover-poet with the moralizing tradition at Rome that saw outside, especially eastern, influences as likely to undermine traditional Roman values and masculinity.59 Moreover, he problematizes the role of provincial service in creating and reinforcing elite masculine identity by associating such service with mollitia,60 as opposed to the durum officium he offers to his mistress and his genre, elegy. It may seem odd, when writing about Propertius as creating a persona of authority, to look primarily at poems from book 1, whose poems are concerned principally with the more private world of love and love poetry, rather than book 4, where the poet states outright that he is turning to grander, public themes and more than half of the poems engage with Roman religions, monuments, and legendary figures. But Propertius builds on the persona he has created in the earlier books to make claims to religious and antiquarian authority in his fourth book. In that book, he takes a number of ideologically important sites, events, and figures and recreates them in his elegiac aetiology. But book 4 is not a radical change from the first three books: from the beginning of his published work, Propertius questions received ideas about gender, power, and the appropriate way to display masculinity. He overturns the values of military and elegiac life by allying the latter with Roman traditions of service, austerity, and hard work and the former with luxury, idleness, and dissipation. His move in his final book, written well into the principate, to promote himself as a real authority on Roman tradition is consistent with his earlier work and the challenges it presents. Ovid: Resistance Later in the Principate

Ovid’s love elegy is not the subject of this section, even though he wrote poems in the persona of a praeceptor amoris, an authority on love. Instead, I consider poems in which he creates a cultural-intellectual-religious authority: the Metamorphoses, an epic poem loosely based around the theme of changes of form, and the Fasti, an elegiac poem inspired by the Roman calendar with a book for each month. Both these poems take inspiration from Propertius: the older poet showed the direction that an elegiac poet could take his work and worldview.61 Ovid went further by venturing out of elegy and into epic verse but dragged his elegiac insouciance with him,



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imbuing the serious verse that Propertius rejected with the gender and generic mixing that he reveled in. Ovid’s construction of his own authority is most apparent in the Fasti. In the first lines of Book 2, on the month of February, Ovid states his intention to give up frivolous love poetry for serious work on rituals and sacred days. One line in particular, Fasti 2.7, suggests that Ovid sees himself as picking up the project of Propertius in book 4: “idem sacra cano signataque tempora fastis” (likewise, I sing of rituals and the times marked out by the calendar). This line is striking in its similarity to Prop. 4.1.69: “sacra diesque canam et cognomina prisca locorum” (I will sing of rituals and days and the ancient names of places). Even its first word, “idem,” although in context it represents the change from love elegy to the subject matter of the Fasti, can suggest that Ovid sees himself as joining Propertius’ project: “likewise, or similarly, I sing.” Two lines later, Ovid makes another intertextual connection to Propertius, when he says “haec mea militia est” (2.9: this is my military service) to refer to his current poetic project. Prop. 1.6.30 begins with almost the same three words, though Ovid alters the accusatives to nominatives and the personal pronoun to possessive adjective (1.6.29–30): “non ego sum laudi, non natus idoneus armis: / hanc me militiam fata subire uolunt” (I am not worthy of glory nor born suited to arms: the fates want me to submit to this military service) For Propertius, however, these words are part of his rejection of epic poetry for elegiac love. By combining allusions to two Propertian elegies, one aetiological and one erotic, one from near the end and the other from near the beginning of his work, Ovid creates a strong intertextual link.62 These allusions also allow him to draw on a very important aspect of Propertius’ work: its allegiance to erotic elegy and its rejection of public service and interrogation of Augustus’ authority and the choices it urges. Thus, when Ovid promises (15–16) “at tua prosequimur studioso pectore, Caesar, nomina, per titulos ingredimurque tuos” (But we honor/ pursue your names with a careful heart, Caesar, and we advance through your titles) the reader and Caesar should wonder exactly how Ovid means to approach these topics and whether he intends “prosequimur” to have a supportive or aggressive meaning.63 Turning to the contemporary Metamorphoses, we can see a different element of poetic authority, the mythological allusion, used to similar effect. In Met. 3, starting at line 528, Ovid portrays the reaction of Pentheus, king of Thebes and chief doubter of his cousin Dionysus’ godhood, to the crowd

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of Thebans who have accepted Dionysus’ divinity and sacred rites. His speech contains some curious vocabulary choices and allusions, especially in lines 531–42 and 553–58. The first of these sections addresses the people of Thebes and reminds them of their ancestry (531–42): “quis furor, anguigenae, proles Mauortia, uestras attonuit mentes?” Pentheus ait “aerane tantum aere repulsa ualent et adunco tibia cornu et magicae fraudes, ut quos non bellicus ensis, non tuba terruerit, non strictis agmina telis, femineae uoces et mota insania uino obscenique greges et inania tympana uincant? uosne, senes, mirer, qui longa per aequora uecti hac Tyron, hac profugos posuistis sede Penates, nunc sinitis sine Marte capi? uosne, acrior aetas, o iuuenes, propiorque meae, quos arma tenere, non thyrsos, galeaque tegi, non fronde decebat?”

535

540

[“What madness, snake-born, children of Mars, has stunned your minds?” Pentheus says, “Are the sounds of bronze struck against bronze so strong, and the flutes made from bent horn, and magic tricks, that although neither the warlike sword nor the war-horn frightened you, nor battlelines with weapons drawn, women’s voices and movements made insane by wine and obscene mobs and meaningless drums overcome you? Are you, old men, I wonder, the ones who were carried by a long sea voyage and who established here Tyron, here your exiled Penates, yet now you allow yourselves to be captured without Mars? And you as well, o young men of a keener age nearer to mine, you to whom arms are suited, not the thyrsus, and who ought to be crowned by helmets, not garlands?”]

Pentheus addresses the people as “anguigenae” (snake-born), an epithet unique to Thebes, but also as “proles Mauortia” (children of Mars), which makes the reader pause. For the Romans are also children of Mars, the father of the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, and Ovid is far from the only Roman to see a connection between the Thebans and Romans, both inclined to fratricide and self-destruction.64 So while the internal addressee is the Thebans, the Romans are the external. The “furor” (madness) that is



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the second word of this speech suits both the speaker and the circumstance: from Pentheus’ point of view, an enraged madness has seized his people, although from another angle it is Pentheus who suffers from furor. But furor is also an emotion with ties to the Aeneid: it has been argued that furor is as central to that epic and its hero’s motivations as pietas.65 Moreover, the refer­ ence to exiled Penates (539: profugos penates) draws the mind not to Thebes but to Aeneas, who as an exile (Ver. Aen. 1.2) took his penates (household or ancestral gods) to Italy (e.g., Ver. Aen.1.378–79). The references in this passage that relate only to Thebes are mixed in with references that would readily, especially in a post-Vergil and post-Livy world, be seen as references to Rome and its two foundational stories. After ten more lines on the Theban foundation story and Pentheus’ hopes and fears for his city, we return to a section that resonates for the Romans of Ovid’s day (553–58): at nunc a puero Thebae capientur inermi, quem neque bella iuuant nec tela nec usus equorum, sed madidus murra crinis mollesque coronae purpuraque et pictis intextum uestibus aurum; quem quidem ego actutum (modo uos absistite) cogam adsumptumque patrem commentaque sacra fateri.

555

[But now Thebes will be taken by an unarmed boy, whom neither wars nor weapons nor the use of horses assists, but hair streaming with myrrh and delicate garlands and purple and gold woven into his patterned clothes, whom indeed I (you now stand aside!) will immediately compel to confess his father is falsely claimed and his religious rites are invented.]

These lines contain a far more radical critique of Augustus once the idea of Rome is activated by the allusions in the lines analyzed earlier.66 For, in Rome’s case, it could easily be argued that the “puer inermis” (unarmed boy) refers to Octavian, who, although he did initially come to Rome after Caesar’s death at the head of an army, was arguably still a boy at the time, being only nineteen years old, and, having a number of times failed to participate in key battles, was unarmed.67 Most notorious of these absences was Philippi, which was really Antony’s victory, not Octavian’s, since illness kept him in his tent. One could imagine Antony reciting these lines of Pentheus’

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speech, especially when we move to the next accusation, about the puer’s attire. This is not unlike what we hear of Antony’s critique of Octavian, who along with his friends had dressed as the gods for a fancy-dress banquet during a time of famine in Rome, famine that was caused by Octavian’s inability to defeat Sextus Pompey’s blockading naval force.68 But the final two lines are the most difficult of all, referring to a divine father and sacred rites. In the context of Pentheus’ speech, the lines are part of his insistence that Dionysus is lying when he claims Jupiter as his father and divinity for himself as well, but in the net of possible allusions to Rome and Octavian, they remind us that Octavian’s early power rested almost solely on his position as the son of the deified Caesar. It seems that Octavian strongly supported the grassroots cult of Diuus Iulius, which sprang up when the Roman people set up a shrine on the site of Julius Caesar’s cremation, and its legitimization as part of state religion.69 Antony, despite his position as flamen (priest) of Diuus Iulius, was far more reluctant to get on the side of the spontaneous religious fervor of the Roman people, therefore in this case aligning himself with the forces that tried to stamp it out.70 These lines of Pentheus’ speech insert a critique of the early power base of Octavian as “diui filius” (son of the divine one), reminding us of the manipulation of religion at the beginning of Augustus’ rise to power and the questionable foundation of these claims. Both in the text and the subtext, the critiques are those of the losers, Pentheus and Antony. But the fact that Ovid inserts them anyway is telling: he does not let the reader, even decades later, forget that there was opposition and that the winner was not necessarily in the right. Like the Antony of pro-Octavian propaganda, Pentheus in the end is overcome by madness and his unwillingness to follow civic tradition and the wisdom of his elders (564–67): hunc auus, hunc Athamas, hunc cetera turba suorum corripiunt dictis frustraque inhibere laborant. acrior admonitu est inritaturque retenta et crescit rabies remoraminaque ipsa nocebant. [His grandfather, Athamas, and the rest of the crowd of his friends and advisers grab hold of him with their words and work in vain to hold him back, but he is made harsher by their warning and his rage is provoked when held back and grows and the delays themselves were doing harm.]



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Pentheus’ objections may be logical and reasonable, but his rabies (rage) overcomes any good point he may have had. In the context of the story, this rabies was inflicted upon him by Dionysus, who controls madness and fury, however, and so even the overwhelming hubristic rage of Pentheus and of Antony was provoked in them by their opponent. Dionysus was a troubling god for the Romans, as evidenced by the repeated attempts to control his worship.71 In the triumviral period, he was associated with Antony, although more when he was in the east than in Rome, where he traded on his alleged familial descent from Anton, son of Hercules.72 The Bacchanalian reputation that Antony gained in the east did him no good in Rome itself, where it made him seem an out-of-control, self-indulgent, luxury-loving drunken fool whose power was dangerous, not appealing.73 Thus, it is surprising that the allusions in Met. 3 make Octavian, not Antony, the Dionysus figure. By the publication date of Ovid’s epic, Augustus had long since shed the less pleasant attributes of his younger self and become a symbol of restrained dignity. But Ovid reminds the readers that he was not always so and, by referring to the furor of one and the rabies of the other, implies there was no real difference between Pentheus-Antony and Dionysus-Octavian. History may have been written by the winner, but that does not have to mean that the winner was a better or even a measurably different man. Ovid uses his authority as a poet to manipulate mythology that subtly challenges the moral rectitude of Augustus. Moreover, the identification of Octavian and Dionysus undermines Octavian’s masculinity. Dionysus is marked by gender bending, a characteristic that Pentheus objects to in his speech and elsewhere in this episode of the Metamorphoses. The references to the myrrh-soaked hair and the embroidered purple and gold clothing are typical of the language of luxury used to critique men who do not live up to the austere standards of traditional Roman masculinity, as we can see in these examples from the Aeneid.74 First, Iarbas, king of Numidia and a rejected suitor of Dido, when praying to Jupiter after he hears about Dido and Aeneas, says (Aen. 4.215–17): “et nunc ille Paris cum semiuiro comitatu, / Maeonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem/ subnexus, rapto potitur” (And now that Paris with his band of half-man companions, a Maeonian bonnet tied under his chin and on his hair dripping with perfume, possesses what he’s stolen). Later, as he prepares for combat with Aeneas, Turnus also uses the words “semiuir” (half-man) and “crinis madens” (dripping hair) (Aen. 12.97–100):

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da sternere corpus loricamque manu ualida lacerare reuulsam semiuiri Phrygis et foedare in puluere crinis uibratos calido ferro murraque madentis. [Grant that I may lay out the body and mangle the torn armor of the Phrygian half-man with my strong hand and dirty his hair in the dust, hair curled with a hot iron and dripping with myrrh.]

Both antagonists seek to emasculate Aeneas by calling him (or his companions) semiuir and mocking his hair.75 Octavian and various Augustan poets used similar critiques to undermine Antony, especially during his years with Cleopatra. Octavian, too, however, was subjected to rumors about his masculinity or lack thereof, in particular the attacks on his sexual behavior reported by Suetonius (Aug. 68–69). But Ovid is also drawing out something that lies latent in Vergil: if Aeneas is at least in part an Augustus figure, then already in the Aeneid there are openings for questioning the masculinity of the princeps. In many ways, all of this is a standard style of Roman rhetorical attack that accuses men of presenting themselves in non-Roman and nonmasculine ways.76 But if we return to line 556, we can trace a still stronger connection between these lines, Rome, and Octavian/Augustus: “purpuraque et pictis intextum uestibus aurum” (and the purple and gold woven in the embroidered garments). These words could equally describe the toga and tunic worn by a general in his triumph, garments that Augustus was given the right to wear even when not triumphing. The triumphing general took on the semblance and sanctity of Jupiter for a day, thus connecting back to the alleged father of Dionysus in line 558 but also to the controversial banquet in which Octavian took on the guise of a god. Furthermore, since the Metamorphoses will end with predictions of Augustus himself taking his place in the heavens (15.868–70), the apotheosizing elements of this section wind back around to the princeps again, surrounding him with allusions that create a figure of madness, questionable masculinity, and disruption to a sober state. While the story of Dionysus and Pentheus has connections to Rome, Janus, the twofaced god of beginnings, endings, and transitions, is a god who is far more at home there. He appears most frequently in the Fasti,



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especially in the passage for January 1, one of his sacred days.77 In that section, Janus is the first deity to offer Ovid divine authority, making him a central figure in the poem’s project. Janus in the Fasti is a god with a great deal to say, much of which contradicts itself.78 The Fasti passages are not my primary interest here, but rather the brief references to the god in two episodes of Met. 14, the Picus story (320–96) and the Sabine attack on Rome (772–804). These other appearances in Ovid show how his unreliable, multifaceted self infects any poem that he enters and allows Ovid to deconstruct the very idea of authority. Janus is mentioned twice in the Picus story, as “anceps Ianus” at line 334 and as part of the compound adjective “Ianigena” at 381. He is not really a character in the story: Janus and Venilia, who is a minor sea goddess or nymph, are the parents of Canens, wife of Picus, who is a son of the god Saturn and himself a native Italian god. At Aen. 10.76, Venilia is identified as also the mother of Turnus (and Juturna), by the mortal king Daunus. Servius (ad Aen. 6.90) adds that Venilia is the sister of Queen Amata of Latium. So here we have the mother of Turnus inserted into a story that makes her the mother-in-law of Picus, who is the grandfather of Latinus in the Aeneid. But Canens is only a half-sister of Turnus, who is absent along with his father, and Canens is also the unwitting rival of Circe. All of this is a convoluted way of making a rather odd sideways connection to the Aeneid and its epic world and of playing with mythological genealogy. Canens was born on the Palatine (Met. 14.333–34), so in addition to her genealogical connection to the mythology of Rome’s origins she also has a geographical one. Indeed, the Picus story in general is markedly grounded in the space of Rome and Latium, since the line naming the Palatine is the culmination of a list of places, underlined in the excerpt (Met. 14.326–34): ille suos dryadas Latiis in montibus ortas uerterat in uultus, illum fontana petebant numina, Naiades, quas Albula, quasque Numici, quas Anienis aquae cursuque breuissimus Almo Narue tulit praeceps et opacae Farfarus umbrae, quaeque colunt Scythicae stagnum nemorale Dianae finitimosque lacus. spretis tamen omnibus unam ille colit nymphen, quam quondam in colle Palati dicitur ancipiti peperisse Venilia Iano;

330

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[Picus had turned the heads of the dryads born in the mountains of Latium, the guardians of the fountains were seeking him out, the naiads which the Albula and the waters of Numicius and Anio and the Almo, very short in its course, and rushing Nar and Farfar of deep shadow bore, and those who dwell in the grove and pool of Scythian Diana and the neighboring lakes; but he courts only one nymph, having spurned the rest; it is said that once upon a time Venilia bore her to twofaced Janus on the Palatine hill.]

These places all cluster around Rome itself, but in the end it is the Palatine nymph and daughter of Janus who wins the love of the son of Saturn/grandfather of Latinus. Adding another layer of connection, every one of these places is in Aeneid 7, although the name Albula for the Tiber appears only in book 8: Albula: (as Tiber) Aen. 7.715, (as Albula) Aen. 8.332; Numicius: Aen. 7.150, 242, 797;79 Anio: Aen. 7.683; Almo: Aen. 7.532 and 575, although here not the river but a fallen Italian, son of Tyrrhus, one of the first casu­ alties of the war; Nar: tributary of the Tiber, Aen. 7.517; Farfarus: also called Fabaris, as at Aen. 7. 715; Scythicae stagnum nemorale Dianae: Aen. 7.761 and following has the Hippolytus story, which culminates in his transfer to Nemi. One of our few Ovidian references to Janus outside the Fasti is in a passage that is heavily marked with place names in and around Rome, all of which also appear in the Aeneid and many of which are rivers named in book 7. Ovid has overactivated his rivalry with the Aeneid in this passage, setting himself up as a mythological and geographical authority over Roman stories, history, and places. Later in Met. 14, in the story of the Sabine invasion after Rome had forcibly abducted the Sabine women, Janus is again named twice, both times effectively as a place name, a connection back to the flood of place names that mark his earlier appearance. He is not an active agent in this tale either, in which Venus inspires a group of nymphs to block the Sabines’ path by flooding it with boiling spring water. In the Metamorphoses the story is told by the poet-narrator, but the same incident is also told by Janus in the Fasti. In that version, however, there is no Venus and no nymphs: Janus is the hero who unbars the spring, heats the water, and stops the Sabine advance (Fasti 1.263–72). In the Fasti version, then, Janus centers himself, which fits with his general self-presentation in Fasti 1: he talks himself up as the beginning of all things, older than the other gods, and as the one who has ultimate control of everyone’s actions, even Jupiter’s, because he controls beginnings.



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The Metamorphoses version, however, sidelines Janus: the action happens near his shrine, but he does not participate. Yet, as with the Picus and Canens story, the tale of the flooded path is filled with echoes of Vergil and also Livy. It begins with a brief run-through of stories told in detail elsewhere (14.772–77): proximus Ausonias iniusti miles Amuli rexit opes, Numitorque senex amissa nepotis munere regna capit, festisque Palilibus urbis moenia conduntur, Tatiusque patresque Sabini bella gerunt, arcisque uia Tarpeia reclusa dignam animam poena congestis exuit armis.

775

[Next the soldiery of unjust Amulius ruled the Ausonian wealth, and old Numitor regains his lost kingdom through his grandson’s gift, and the walls of the City are founded on the feast day of Pales; And Tatius and the Sabine fathers wage war, and Tarpeia revealed the way to the citadel and was deprived of life, deservedly, by the shields piled on her.]

Lines 775–77 summarize the story of Tatius and the Sabines, told in Livy 1.11 and 12, but really act as an introduction to the main story of the flood, which is adjacent to but not included in Livy’s history. This is a common practice for Ovid, who frequently includes a story that is close to but not part of a famous one or selects a detail for its metamorphic possibilities. But there are also many Vergilian echoes in this tale. The most obvious one is marked by the significant difference between the two Ovidian versions, since only the Metamorphoses highlights the antagonism between the goddesses Juno and Venus (Met. 14.781–92): unam tamen ipsa reclusit nec strepitum uerso Saturnia cardine fecit; sola Venus portae cecidisse repagula sensit et clausura fuit, nisi quod rescindere numquam dis licet acta deum. Iano loca iuncta tenebant Naides Ausoniae gelido rorantia fonte; has rogat auxilium, nec nymphae iusta petentem sustinuere deam uenasque et flumina fontis

785

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elicuere sui. nondum tamen inuia Iani ora patentis erant, neque iter praecluserat unda; lurida supponunt fecundo sulphura fonti incenduntque cauas fumante bitumine uenas.

790

[But Juno herself unclosed one and made not a sound with its turning hinge; only Venus knew the bolts of the gate had fallen and she would have closed it, except that it is never permitted for the gods to undo the acts of other gods. The Ausonian naiads were in possession of this spot, joined to Janus and bedewed by a chilly spring: Venus asks these naiads for help, and the nymphs did not hinder the goddess seeking justice and they called forth the watercourses and streams of their own spring. But not yet was the precinct of Janus, which stood open, impassable, and the water had not yet made the route inaccessible: they put pale sulfur under the gushing font and they heated the hollow watercourses with smoking bitumen.]

In the Metamorphoses, this event is a continuation of the hostilities between Venus and Juno, hostilities that are familiar from the Aeneid.80 Juno aids the Sabines in their assault on Rome, while Venus wishes to stop her but cannot oppose her directly. Thus, she enlists the help of other, lesser deities, as both goddesses do in the Aeneid. Juno may have agreed at the end of the Aeneid (12.807–42) to cease hostilities toward Rome, but in Ovid’s epic she has taken them up again, and Venus has returned to the fray to stop her. Under Ovid’s authority, Rome’s legendary past does not see a cessation of conflict, and there is no resolution to the divine hostilities: he resists the teleological bend toward peace and prosperity that we saw earlier in Horace. The section ends with a further allusion to Vergil and to the unpleasant more recent past (Met. 14.801–2 and Aen. 6.830–31): generique cruorem sanguine cum soceri permiscuit impius ensis [and the impious sword mixed the blood and gore of son-in-law and father-in-law] aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci descendens, gener aduersis instructus Eois!



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[The father-in-law descending from the Alpine heights and the citadel of Monoecus, the son-in-law drawn up for battle in the hostile East!]

We are pulled into civil war and an “impius ensis” (impious sword) that brings father-in-law and son-in-law into conflict, a reminder that Rome’s beginnings are mirrored in recent history, which saw a father-in-law, Julius Caesar, go into battle against his son-in-law, Pompey. But still it is unclear why Ovid tells this story twice, once with Janus at its heart and once with the god barely present. Partly the reason is purely geographical: this story, regardless of who is running the action, does take place near the shrine of Janus. But also there is the nature of Janus: he is twofaced, and he is tricky. He builds himself up as powerful and important, but you also cannot quite trust what he says. He looks backward and forward, but he always keeps himself at the center. Yet when we get someone else’s view of a situation, as with this twice-told story, it turns out Janus’ view is not the only or the most reliable one.81 Ovid uses this unreliable narrator to undermine the reliability of all Rome’s narrators, including himself, Vergil, and Livy. At the same time as he stakes a place for himself in the world of authorial, historical, and religious authority, he makes his readers question the use of any authority. Unlike Horace or Propertius, he does not appear to have a clear goal, which may itself suggest that the position of independence and the possibility of building a masculinity outside imperial control had changed in the decades between the older poet’s work in the 20s and Ovid’s later career. Ovid’s first ventures into authority, as the praeceptor amoris (teacher of love) of the Ars Amato­ ria, likely contributed to his downfall. But his more serious works were not really any better suited to a good relationship with the princeps and his Rome. Conclusion

The types of resistance that we encounter in the authors of the Augustan period align with the acts of resistance that we hear of in the historical record. Massive, organized conspiracies of the type that brought down emperors like Caligula, Domitian, and Commodus are largely absent, as is smashthe-state-style rhetoric in the literature. Compared to the verbal assaults of Cicero, Catullus, and their contemporaries, Augustan critique is mild and reasoned. After the killing of Caesar and the final push of the civil wars, most Romans were tired of the kind of hypercompetitive, inflammatory words and actions that had characterized Rome since at least the time of

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Sulla and Marius. This does not mean that Romans had stopped caring about their government or that they unquestioningly accepted every reform or law backed by it or every honor heaped upon the man at the head of it. But they were far more willing to advise and remind than to attack and revolt, even when they set up alternative centers of authority, whether moral, religious, or intellectual, which might be advisory but might also challenge the princeps and his circle. Many of the loci of real resistance were gone, whether dead in the civil wars, resigned to the new order, or enthusiastic participants in it. By looking at the remaining men of the Republic like Pollio and Messala and what the poets say about them, we can see what such resignation could look like: both men had reached the heights of the public career available to them and both had, at times, actively opposed Octavian. But neither suffered overtly: they kept their wealth and their prominence during the principate and even sheltered and encouraged others. And yet, their writings are almost lost and what little we do hear of their words and actions suggests a certain uneasiness with the world in which they found themselves. In Horace’s poem to Pollio, there is a sense that he would do better to rein in his literary ambitions lest he be a little too open about how Rome had come to its present circumstances. In Tibullus’ poems to Messala, a different tactic is taken: the poet essentially ignores the change in regime and praises the great man in terms that would not have been unfamiliar to a Republican magnate, yet that just happen to align with the kinds of activities that Augustus most favored in a man like Messala. Finally, we see that both Pollio and Messala turned their activity away from official life, one before Actium and one only a few years after, and instead looked for other areas in which to exercise patronage and glorify their city and their names. On a smaller scale, that is also what the poets do. They set themselves up as authorities whose poetic inspiration grants them the power to advise, to make moral judgments, to write and rewrite the history and mythology of Rome and the world, and to rework such basic structures as gender and power. Resistance, therefore, does not look like violent, direct attacks against the state, the man at its head, or the policies and procedures he had put in place, sponsored, or encouraged. Instead, it resists an unthinking, uncritical acceptance of this man and his actions and reforms, encouraging elite Roman men to maintain their investment in the construction of their world.82 It is therefore a resistance that in the end, even if it is critical, supports the principate and lends it legitimacy.

4 Disengagement through the Recusatio

One strategy feasible for some of the Roman elite was disengagement from the public world. This is especially true for men of the classes below the senatorial elite: the equites, the decuriones, and the provincial aristocracy. Traditionally, men of these classes might attempt to enter a public career, but they did not feel the pressure that fell on the sons and grandsons of senators. Not all Roman men wanted to participate in the competitive arena of the capitol or the smaller-scale version in the provincial towns.1 We know that even during the Republic, when the stakes were high and the rewards were great, some men who had the means and the ability to engage in public performance of their masculinity through political careers chose not to. During Augustus’ principate, a deliberate performance of disengagement from public and private responsibilities was a strategy for grappling with the crisis of masculinity. In some ways, it is the most radical of the strategies considered in this book, requiring a man to reject the values of his culture and find meaning and a secure gender identity in some other way. But at the same time, it is the strategy most restricted to privileged men who had the resources and security to opt out. First, we must define what disengagement was in this context and for whom the idea of engagement versus disengagement in public life was even relevant. For example, during the Republic and for most of Augustus’ life, all male Roman citizens technically had the right to engage in public life at some level, at least by voting in the tribes and centuries.2 And many citizens, especially those living in Rome, were able to collectively express their approval or disapproval through actions such as booing or cheering speeches, 125

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appearances of public officials at performances or games, or even lines in plays. People might also express their political feelings through graffiti, such as the later well-known examples from Pompeii endorsing or attacking politi­ cal candidates. It is also possible to see agreement with general ideas, such as the emphasis on marriage and children, in funerary monuments stressing the family unit.3 But, for the most part, these types of political engagement are not what is of concern here, for several reasons. First, it is difficult to say precisely how many citizens participated in this type of collective action. Second, many of these actions are impossible to attribute to known individuals, because of their nature as collective acts. Third, the actions that are more individual, such as graffiti or funerary monuments, are largely dated to time periods beyond the scope of this study. For men of the higher census classes, political engagement is easier to see and attach to individuals. The period is relatively well documented, although unfortunately the books of Livy that might have provided us with more extensive lists of elected officials are lost. Still, there are lists of consuls and references to numerous other officeholders in inscriptions and literature. In the provincial towns, we begin to know more names of elected officials and priests, although not as many as we have for the following centuries.4 It has been noted elsewhere that new men from the equestrian class or lower had more opportunities to enter the cursus honorum and that a path to public life developed for freedmen and their sons.5 Augustus himself encouraged these classes toward a broader participation in public life for a variety of reasons.6 On the more innocuous side, there may simply have been too few men of the senatorial class to fill all the positions in Rome, especially the many minor posts in the courts or military that young men tended to hold before seeking the quaestorship. Decades of civil war and proscriptions had created a vacuum to be filled by encouraging equestrians and the provincial Italian aristocracy to step up. On the more sinister side, however, there were also more opportunities because there were far more positions that needed filling, both elected offices and unelected civil and religious administrative posts. The increased number of positions meant that the power and prestige of each individual was now spread more thinly, especially since the princeps or his intimates held the leadership roles. Positions still provided some personal prestige, but real power was limited, and even prestige was decreased since the patronage system placed all officeholders in Augustus’ debt.7 One piece of evidence for disengagement is the difficulty



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finding candidates for the lower offices on the cursus honorum and less prestigious or glamorous administrative positions. While there was never a lack of candidates for the consulship, that preeminent mark of success and favor, there was difficulty in finding enough men for quaestor, aedile, or tribune of the plebs, with a consequent difficulty in filling the senate and eventually in having enough men with sufficient experience for the higher offices.8 There must have been a significant number of eligible young men who opted out of the political careers that their ancestors would have had or that their families might have expected of them. Indeed, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, and Vergil, all young men of the provincial elite, seem to have opted out of political careers, as did Horace, although he was not of their class and his early allegiance to the losing side at Philippi may have derailed any ambitions he had as a youth. But public engagement for the upper classes, as for the populus Romanus in general, was not limited to participation in the formal political system. Just as the people were able to express their will with more than just their votes, so the aristocracy was able to express its preferences with more than just their own votes or candidacies. Thus, another example of “disengagement” is the supposed reluctance of the upper classes to marry and have children.9 There is very little actual evidence for a decreased birthrate in the upper classes at this time: some families did indeed die out, but it is unknowable whether this was due to celibacy or some other cause, including the civil wars.10 But it was clearly an issue that Augustus believed needed to be addressed by legislation, even as the upper classes at which the laws were aimed continued to resist and find loopholes, to the point that Augustus himself attempted to shame them in their protests by displaying his own young family members.11 Refusal to comply with the marriage laws could be seen as political disengagement, if not outright defiance. And given that the penalties related mostly to inheritance and office holding, disengagement from public life could be entangled with refusal to marry and procreate, as they reinforced each other.12 For the poets, disengagement is evident in more than just their failure to advance in the cursus honorum: almost all of them also opted out of marriage and family. The one exception is Ovid, who mentions three wives and a daughter. While the rejection of marriage and family makes a certain amount of sense for an elegiac poet like Propertius, it is striking that neither Vergil nor Horace, despite their closer identification with the Augustan regime, followed the directives of the princeps and his

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marriage laws. This is especially so for Horace, given that he praises them in his Carmen Saeculare!13 Although older than the elegists, both men were still well within the marriageable range when they came under Maecenas’ patronage: the provisions encouraging marriage in the Lex Papia Poppaea applied to men up to the age of sixty, and neither Horace nor Vergil lived to that age. The marriage laws may postdate these years, but it is likely that Augustus had been pressing and urging marriage among the upper class in the years before the promulgation of the laws.14 Yet neither of “his” poets set a good example. All the poets, including Ovid, at some point wrote in defense or even praise of their preference for a life of lettered leisure that did not include the public or private roles that were most valued for elite Roman men. Granted, a number of them took on alternative roles, writing poetry supporting, advising, or praising Augustus, but not all. But they are unusual in being the first generation of authors at Rome who saw their literary output as incompatible with other types of public service. The Poets and Public Life

Many of the poets have a great deal to say about their own, or their per­ sona’s, public service. At least one man in the Augustan period is known to have made a political career as a result of his literary achievements, the poet C. Valgius Rufus, who is addressed as a writer of elegies by Horace in Carm. 2.9. He was suffect consul in 8 BCE: clearly writing poetry, even elegiac poetry, did not automatically disqualify a man from a senatorial career.15 Tibullus could be an example of the early stages of this dual career: he refers to military or provincial service in several poems and in the last poem of his second book his lover-poet claims that he is giving up the life of love in order to serve on the staff of his patron, Messalla. His military service and the value that he grants public life, not just in the portrait of his lover-poet but also in his praise of the public successes of Messalla (especially 1.7) and his son Messalinus (2.5), suggest his ultimate acceptance of the ideology of the dominant elite culture that placed a high value on public service. Even the epitaph that Tibullus provides for his lover-poet early in the corpus portrays him as a military associate of his patron Messala, not an elegiac lover (1.3.55–56): “hic iacet inmiti consumptus morte Tibullus, / Messallam terra dum sequiturque mari.”16 For Tibullus, love and love poetry can provide only a temporary distraction from his efforts to fulfill his masculine duty, though he died young and so any ambitions he had in public life were unfulfilled.17



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For Ovid, on the other hand, fulfilling his masculine duty seems to have been just a temporary distraction from love and love poetry. Ovid refers to his judicial service in his late poetry, Fasti (4.383–84) and Tristia (2.93–96, 4.10.33–34), rather than in his strictly amatory works:18 his lover-poet and praeceptor amoris personae do not engage in public service.19 Ovid’s description of his career includes minor judicial posts in which an eques who hoped eventually to climb the cursus honorum would start his public career.20 Ovid, however, did not go any further on this career path. Another interesting failure to launch can be seen in his account of his early poetic aspirations. He claims that he began composing an epic poem before being tricked by Amor into writing elegy (Am. 1.1), which is the literary version of a failed public career; I come back to this claim in the last section of this chapter. Ovid claims to have abandoned his attempts at a career in public-serving poetry and his more conventional judicial career at about the same time. Overall, most of the Latin love poets of the Augustan period embarked upon careers typical of sons of the nonsenatorial Italian aristocracy, even if they later abandoned them. There is one exception: Propertius. The Propertii eventually became senatorial: the career of Propertius’ cousin Postumus, the addressee of elegy 3.12 (and Hor. Carm. 2.14), can even be traced in the epigraphic record.21 Thus, Propertius’ refusal to make a start on a public career is atypical for poets and for his own family. He had evidently been educated for one and managed to make contacts that would have facilitated his rise, yet the closest Propertius’ lover-poet gets to any area of public service is his rejection of it.22 Propertius’ lover-poet even declines to fulfill his masculine duty on the private level of marriage and fatherhood. This refusal is expressed most explicitly in elegy 2.7, where the lover-poet declares he will not provide sons for Rome’s triumphs (13–14: “unde mihi patriis natos praebere triumphis? / nullus de nostro sanguine miles erit”) and that he values Cynthia more than fatherhood (19–20: “tu mihi sola places: placeam tibi, Cynthia, solus: / hic erit et patrio nomine pluris amor”). But though Propertius is more disengaged than any of the others, even his disengagement is not complete, given his dedications to Maecenas and his turn to Roman aetiology in the programmatic elegy 4.1. What, then, does disengagement mean in terms of Augustan Rome and Augustan masculinity? One element is key for this study: refusal, generally in a recusatio (a refusal poem), to write poetry that either praises the state

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or is serious and high status. But this type of disengagement is intimately connected to the successful public actions of others and does not have to represent resistance to Augustus or interest in providing a model of an alternative lifestyle. Finally, disengagement anticipates my concluding chapter, which looks ahead to ways of being a Roman uir in the imperial period, when we see elite competition move away from the cursus honorum and become broadly more “private” or provincial. But there are also ways in which this kind of disengagement simply dries up: marriage and fatherhood become, if anything, more important for both the elite groups emerging from the provincial aristocracy and the families of freed slaves, and poetry, even in the lighter genres, becomes more public facing. The bulk of this chapter analyzes the recusationes of Horace, Propertius, and Ovid. All of these poets refuse to write certain types of poetry, usually epic, or, if the genre is not specified, they refuse serious or historical topics. Each poet claims that he is unable to write in such an elevated genre or on serious topics or that he is unworthy of doing so; he may also cite a divine intervention that urged him to stick to lighter genres and topics. The significance of these recusationes is contested and relates back to the discussion of patronage in chapter 3.23 It has been convincingly argued that neither Augustus nor Maecenas truly wanted every poet to produce a martial epic like the Aeneid.24 Instead, Maecenas sought the most talented poets of every genre and encouraged them to excel in their chosen form.25 Yet the existence of Horace’s fourth book of Carmina and his Carmen Saeculare suggests that a certain amount of persuasion might be brought to bear on poets to create poetry that aligned with the goals and values of Augustus’ regime.26 Equally suggestive is the story that Augustus himself intervened to stop Vergil’s executors from carrying out his dying wish that the unfinished Aeneid be destroyed.27 Although it seems unlikely that there was any direct and explicit pressure on Horace, Propertius, or Ovid to produce a Roman epic, there may well have been an unofficial policy of encouraging poets not to produce work in conflict with the goals of the regime. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that a feeling of pressure was the sole or even the most important reason for these recusationes. Examples from these three poets, each with a different relationship with Augustus and his government and different experiences of Roman public life, display the varied forms of disengagement that these poems can represent.



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Horace: The Disengagement of the Vates

Horace, although he is generally viewed as a supporter of the Augustan project, was also one of the most prolific writers of recusationes.28 Almost all of them address Maecenas or Augustus, naturally enough, as the sources of pressure or guilt over dereliction of duty. These poems and passages are scattered throughout his works and claim that he, his talent, or his Muse is unfit for serious topics. A number of them also act to forestall his enthusiasm for these very topics, perhaps most notably in Carmina 3.3, when he revisits Juno’s speech on Troy and Rome from Aeneid 12 before abruptly stopping himself in the final stanza. The multiple sides of Horace’s poetic persona come into play in his refusals as well: his uates (holy bard) side may wish to stretch his talent toward more overtly political and public verse, but his wastrel side urges him to stay in his lyric lane.29 In these refusals, Horace is working through his ongoing concerns about his relationship to power and the men who wield it and producing a persona that comments on power without being beholden to it. I begin with Carmina 1.6, which has all the elements of a recusatio that were set out in the previous paragraph, as well as showcasing another common feature: it does what it claims to be unable to do. The poem begins with four lines suggesting that the topic at hand, Agrippa’s military successes, should really be taken up in epic by Varius, a poet who is now best known for being one of Vergil’s literary executors. To Varius is attributed (1.6.2) “Maeonii carminis” (Maeonian song): Maeonian refers to the supposed birthplace of Homer. The second and third stanzas contain the recu­ satio proper (Carm. 1.6.5–12): nos, Agrippa, neque haec dicere nec grauem

5

Pelidae stomachum cedere nescii, nec cursus duplicis per mare Vlixei nec saeuam Pelopis domum conamur, tenues grandia, dum pudor inbellisque lyrae Musa potens uetat laudes egregii Caesaris et tuas culpa deterere ingeni.

10

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[Agrippa, I don’t try to recite this sort of thing, the anger of Achilles who doesn’t know how to yield or the journey of twofaced Ulysses through the sea or the cruel house of Pelops, I am slight in grandeur, while shame and the powerful Muse of the unwarlike lyre forbids me to detract from the praises of outstanding Caesar and from your own with my faulty talent.]

The poem makes a strong declaration that Horace’s lyric talent is not suitable for praising Agrippa’s and Augustus’ accomplishments.30 The poet decrees that his Muse specifically forbids him from taking on such work and sullying it with his “culpa ingeni” (faulty talent), standard claims for a recusatio, as we will also see in those of Propertius in this chapter. The description of the Muse as “potens” (powerful) over the “inbellis” (unwarlike) lyre emphasizes her power over the poet’s genre but also over the poet himself, as unwarlike as his lyre.31 The power in this interaction lies ultimately with the goddess, who informs the poet of what he can and cannot do.32 Horace portrays his poet persona as powerless and unmanly as he refuses to take on the most masculine of topics: war. But when we examine more closely the list of epic topics that Horace will not and cannot take on, it seems as though he may actually be arguing against topics that are unworthy of a Roman poet. These topics are Achilles’ anger, Ulysses’ journey, and the house of Pelops. The first two refer to the Iliad and the Odyssey, sensibly enough after a Homeric resonance was activated in the first stanza.33 Horace, however, emphasizes the negative in these topics: in the context of his anger, Achilles’ inability to yield means that his stubbornness causes the deaths of many of his fellow Greeks, including his beloved Patroclus. The Odyssey is the story of a journey, but the epithet given to Odysseus, duplex, means deceitful or false in one’s speech. Epic is full of examples of Odysseus lying or tricking others for his own benefit. He is not always the protagonist of these stories, especially when we take into account Rome’s claim to Trojan heritage: in the Aeneid, Odysseus’ tricks are the direct cause of the sack of Troy. The final topic in the list continues the negative approach to epic characters. The house of Pelops is one of the pillars of the Homeric world: as the father of Atreus, he is the grandfather of the brothers Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks at Troy, and Menelaus, the husband of Helen. But Pelops himself is not a natural third to Achilles and Ulysses. The house of Pelops features in myths that go back to an earlier



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age than the Trojan War, including those of Tantalus and Thyestes, both of whom were implicated in mythological acts of cannibalism, with Pelops himself the youthful victim of the former, sacrificed for the gods’ banquet and then later brought back to life. This family is second only to the house of Thebes when it comes to multigenerational horror, which Horace alludes to when calling it “saeuam” (cruel). In these lines, Horace rejects poems not only about epic heroes but also specifically about the aspects of their nature that bring harm upon their fellows because of their focus on their own individual desires, emotions, and interests.34 Horace, as we saw in chapter 2, highlights a uirtus that benefits Rome and is guided by deference to the good judgment and leadership of Augustus. In this, Horace shows an attitude toward “heroism” that is similar to that displayed in the character Aeneas, a hero who, instead of prioritizing his own glory, like Achilles, or desires, like Odysseus, subsumes his personal wishes to the needs of the group and to the requirements of fate and the gods. After a stanza in which Horace further insists that he is not capable of writing about Mars or two Greek heroes of the Trojan War, Meriones and Diomedes, both great in their own right but, like Agrippa, subordinate to the central characters, Horace concludes the poem with topics that are suitable for his talent (1.6.17–20): nos conuiuia, nos proelia uirginum sectis in iuuenes unguibus acrium cantamus, uacui siue quid urimur non praeter solitum leues. [Let me sing of banquets, of the battles of brave maidens, with their nails slicing into young men, care free, as is customary for me whether I burn with passion or am lighthearted.]

Horace rejects writing about epic characters whose destructive violence is not suited to the Roman world, and in Carmen 2.11 he suggests that modern martial topics are equally inappropriate for his talent. This poem is a recusatio, but, instead of the poet refusing a request or stating what his talent is useful for, it is structured quite differently. It opens with a list of unsuitable topics, like we saw in 1.6, but they are current rather than mythological (Carm. 2.11.1–5):

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quid bellicosus Cantaber et Scythes, Hirpine Quincti, cogitet Hadria diuisus obiecto, remittas quaerere nec trepides in usum poscentis aeui pauca [Hirpinus Quinctius, cease asking what the warlike Cantaber and the Scythians, divided by the Adriatic that lies between, are thinking and don’t be nervous about enjoying your mature age, which asks for little.]

Rather than outright rejecting these as topics for poetry, Horace frames them as unwanted topics of discussion that will only disrupt the harmony of one’s life and the calm of one’s mind. The rest of the poem is in the carpe diem (seize the day) mode, warning that pleasure and life itself are fleeting and advising his friend to drink and relax while he still can.35 After the initial lines pushing serious topics aside, the rest of the poem works as the part of a recusatio that explains what the poet is suited to, in this case a life of camaraderie, leisure, and the pleasures of wine, women, and song. The elegists tend to suggest that the time for leisure is youth, but for the lyric Horace, it is preferable to the world of war and empire at any time: at line 15, he refers to their “canos capillos” (white hair).36 Horace rejects that world even in adulthood, when men were meant to rank carefree leisure behind the serious business of the Roman state, but in book 3 he shows facility with serious topics even as he rejects them. In book 3, we find the largest number of poems presenting an outright refusal of “serious topics” or preference for leisure and all that it entails. First, this occurs twice in the Roman Odes, in 3.3 and 3.4.37 The Roman Odes as a whole are something of a manifesto of what Horace envisions for Rome.38 Yet even here he places limits on his abilities. Carmina 3.3 is a long poem that addresses a number of topics, including the firmness of purpose that a man of virtue ought to show. This leads to a comparison of such a man to a number of divinities. But the majority of the poem, fifty-two out of seventytwo lines, is taken up by a lengthy speech by Juno in which she agrees to lay aside her enmity to the Trojan ancestors of the Romans as long as they do not try to rebuild Troy itself. This speech is similar to that near the end of the Aeneid, which, although still unfinished at the time of Horace’s writing,



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was in the works: Propertius alludes to it in elegy 2.34, written well before the Aeneid assumed its final form with Vergil’s death.39 Here, however, we are concerned not with the speech itself but with the final four lines of Horace’s poem, which return to the voice of the poet (Carm. 3.3.69–72): non hoc iocosae conueniet lyrae; quo, Musa, tendis? desine peruicax

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referre sermones deorum et magna modis tenuare paruis. [This is not suitable for the playful lyre: where do you think you are exerting yourself, Muse? Stop, stubborn one, bringing in the speeches of the gods and making great things into trifles with our puny measures.]

Horace begins these lines by chastising his Muse in terms not unlike those he uses to upbraid Quinctius Hirpinus in 2.11, directly addressing her in the vocative with a question. His question to the Muse does not contain anything like the listing of specific topics at the beginning of 2.11, but it does not have to, since he has varied the trope by putting it at the end of the poem: we already know what the poet refers to. Yet this very fact of position gives the lie to the recusatio: Horace has just given us sixty-eight lines, mostly in the voice of the queen of the gods. Clearly his measures are fully capable of these great things, if he chooses, which means he has deliberately chosen both to display his abilities and to claim his distaste for them in the same poem. The following ode, 3.4, expands on the conversation with the Muse begun at the end of 3.3. Here, however, rather than upbraiding her, Horace invites Calliope, muse of epic poetry, into his poem (3.4.1–8): descende caelo et dic age tibia regina longum Calliope melos, seu uoce nunc mauis acuta seu fidibus citharaue Phoebi. auditis? an me ludit amabilis insania? audire et uideor pios errare per lucos, amoenae quos et aquae subeunt et aurae.

5

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[Come down from the sky and come play a long melody on the flute, Queen Calliope, either with your fine voice if you wish or on the lyre or Phoebus’ cithara. Do you hear? Or is an appealing insanity playing with me? I seem indeed to hear you wandering through the sacred groves, which pleasant waters and winds slip into.]

This poem, coming immediately after his chastisement of the muse, creates the sense that Horace is inconsistent: he rejects but then invites epic. Horace’s recusationes veer between a lack of interest in the genre deemed suitable for serious topics and a desire to write those very topics in lyric style. He provides a model of serious, masculine poetry that differs from the poetry of the past and takes on the topics that are important to him. Horace then describes a childhood incident when he came under the protection of the Muses and the dangers and adventures he could brave with them at his side, before explaining their relevance to Augustus at line 37. He suggests that, rather than supporting him through danger and daring as they do with Horace, the Muses’ role in Augustus’ life is to provide him with leisure and peace (Carm. 3.4.37–42): uos Caesarem altum, militia simul fessas cohortes abdidit oppidis, finire quaerentem labores Pierio recreatis antro;

40

uos lene consilium et datis et dato gaudetis, almae. [You reinvigorate lofty Caesar in your Pierian cave, when he has withdrawn the cohorts, weary from their military service, to the towns, when he seeks to finish his labors; you, gentle ones, both give gentle advice and rejoice in what is given.]

It seems clear that the Muses’ place is not in battle since they aid Augustus only once he has paused his military endeavors.40 But they are not completely removed from war: their role is to refresh and advise him as he seeks to finish (39: “finire quaerentem”), not to let him relax after he has finished. The following verses make clear that they aid him in what is only a pause in the



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action, not a withdrawal into otium. They reference the legendary attacks of the Titans (42–48) and Giants (49–58) upon the Olympian gods, with whom Augustus is aligned, and then the gods who stand against them: Minerva, Vulcan, Juno, and Apollo (57–64). In this martial context, it is somewhat odd to see Juno referred to as “matrona” (matron or married woman, 59), but this both identifies her with the Roman matronae, the mortal leader of whom was Livia, a Juno on earth as Augustus was a Jupiter, and acts as a strong callback to 3.3, where her speech was eventually declared unsuitable for Horace’s art.41 Yet she and even more epic themes such as the wars between the immortals return with the Muses’ blessings in 3.4. Moreover, as we have seen in the discussion of lines 65–80 in chapter 3, it seems as though the contribution of Horace and his Muses to the public world is essential. Horace may wish to avoid serious topics and the public world, but he ultimately cannot because that conflicts with his role as uates: he may prefer lyric measures and lighter topics, but he, like Augustus, has been called to more serious matters. His advice and his Muse are necessary to keep the sheer violent rushing of unchecked force from destroying all, and so Calliope and great deeds must have a place in Horace’s verse, and that is what these Roman Odes are all about. But Horace never stops denying his interest in or suitability for public engagement or encouraging others to join him in leisure and private life: he never fully commits to a service that would require sustained commitment to Augustus’ endeavors. In Carmina 3.8, Horace invites Maecenas to celebrate with him a very personal thanksgiving: the anniversary of when he was not killed by a falling tree, an incident he also references in Carmina 3.4.42 This day, the Kalends of March, was also the festival of the Matronalia, another connection to 3.4 with its naming of Juno Matrona. Horace refers to the festival in the first lines in response to an interlocutor who wonders why he, a bachelor, is celebrating on a day dedicated to Juno Lucina, patron of childbirth and motherhood. Horace reminds the reader that he has not personally heeded the princeps’ encouragement that all men marry and father children. Horace flaunts his failure at private masculine duties in this poem where he hijacks a significant public festival day to celebrate a very personal vow and entices a man whose interests also straddle the public and private to join him.43 He says to Maecenas (Carm. 3.8.17–28):

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mitte ciuilis super urbe curas. occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen, Medus infestus sibi luctuosis dissidet armis, seruit Hispanae uetus hostis orae Cantaber sera domitus catena, iam Scythae laxo meditantur arcu cedere campis. neglegens ne qua populus laboret, parce priuatus nimium cauere dona praesentis cape laetus horae, linque seuera.

20

25

[Leave your civic concerns behind in the city. The army of Dacian Cotiso is dead, the unquiet Medes disagree among themselves with their weapons that cause sorrow, an old enemy of the Spanish shore, the Cantabri, are slaves, tamed by the chains that were a long time coming, now the Scythians are considering ceding their plains with their bows unstrung. Leave off caring so much if the people are troubling over something, as a private citizen stop being so cautions, joyfully take up the gifts of the present hour, leave serious matters behind.]

Much as in Carmina 2.11, Horace inserts current military events into his poem about otium; indeed, two of the named enemies, the Cantabri and the Scythians, are the same. But now these two, as well as the Dacians and the Medes, are all subdued or distracted for the present, making Horace’s insistence that Maecenas relax more acceptable: he can forget the larger world for a while because all is well and the military calm that Augustus was hoping for in 3.4 has arrived. Horace urges Maecenas to leave the public world and join him in one that is suitable for his art, where they will drink and celebrate Horace’s escape from death. But once again and as always, the very act of pushing the military sphere away leads to inviting it into the poem. Horace performs a kind of recusatio, suggesting that Maecenas leave martial concerns behind to join Horace in the lyric idyll but at the same time shows his familiarity with such matters. Horace also implies that it is possible to temporarily opt out of the public world, as Maecenas will do if he visits him. Maecenas was the most prom­ inent example of a man who combined a nonmasculine self-presentation



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with opting out of the cursus honorum yet was unquestionably deeply involved in the public life of Rome and its empire.44 His well-known success in civic administration and diplomacy shows an alternate path to masculine achievement for those who could not or would not follow the traditional one, albeit one that was only really possible with the favor of the princeps. He shares some similarities with Cicero’s friend Atticus in his wealth and proximity to power despite his technical status as a private citizen. But he also provides a model for the public engagement that Horace, the elegiac poets, and even Vergil undertake: involved, interested, but without official rank or role and without being tied to the structure, requirements, and scrutiny of a career on the cursus honorum. Carmina 3.25, addressed to Bacchus, who has filled the poet with inspiration, provides an example of this type of public enagement. The poet opens by asking what Bacchus’ plans for him are (Carm. 3.25.1–8): quo me, Bacche, rapis tui plenum? quae nemora aut quos agor in specus uelox mente noua? quibus antris egregii Caesaris audiar aeternum meditans decus stellis inserere et consilio Iouis? dicam insigne recens adhuc indictum ore alio.

5

[Where are you forcing me to go, Bacchus, while I am full of you? Into what groves or caves am I being driven, moving quickly due to my strange state of mind? In what grottoes will I be heard to consider setting the eternal glory of Caesar among the stars and the council of Jupiter? I will tell something remarkable and fresh, to this point unsaid by another mouth.]

The poet is moved by Bacchus, not a Muse, to sing of Augustus and his acts, topics which he has repeatedly claimed are too much for him: perhaps the loosening of tongue and mind provided by the god and his wine is to blame.45 The language of the first lines is that of compulsion, rather darkly expressed in a verb that is rarely translated literally from the Latin: the verb rapio, with Bacchus as its subject and the poet the object (1: “me . . . rapis”), suggests violence and kidnapping, often sexual assault. The passive voice in

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the verb agor (2), although less violent than rapio, still means compulsion: I am driven, I am led, I am compelled. This god, who oversees wine, something Horace has frequently associated with his wastrel life of banquets and leisure, has turned on the poet and is now forcing him into work that he has repeatedly claimed he cannot do. The promise of something “recens” (7: recent) suggests that even here, however, Horace will avoid retreading the paths of epic poets, tragic playwrights, or historians. Whatever it is he is compelled to write, it will be something fitted specifically and originally to his talent. The central lines of the poem contain a simile comparing the poet to a Bacchant who walks dazed through the mountains, followed by another address to Bacchus that includes a promise of inspired poetry (Carm. 3.25.14–20): o Naiadum potens Baccharumque ualentium proceras manibus uertere fraxinos, nil paruum aut humili modo, nil mortale loquar. dulce periculum est, o Lenaee, sequi deum cingentem uiridi tempora pampino.

15

20

[O one who holds power over the Naiads and the Bacchants who have the strength to upturn the lofty ash trees with their hands, I will say nothing puny or in a humble measure, nothing mortal. It is a sweet danger, O Lenaeus, to follow a god girding my temples with green vine leaves.]

These lines have at least two possible meanings: first, he may be claiming that he will leave lyric poetry behind when he writes that he will not speak in a humble measure (17: “humili modo”). Given that Bacchus is often associated with drama, this could be a promise to write tragedy, except that there are ways of stating that more clearly, as can be seen in the discussion of Ovid later in this chapter. There is also no other evidence that Horace contemplated writing tragedy. He consistently wrote satire, lyric, and epistolary poetry and never in his long career strayed into drama. Nor does an address to Bacchus require such a change in genre, as we can see in Epistles 2.2.77–78 where he says that all writers follow Bacchus: “scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbem, / rite cliens Bacchi somno gaudentis



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et umbra” (All the chorus of writers loves the woods and flees the city, cere­ monially the client of Bacchus who rejoices in sleep and shadow). The second interpretation, and one that accords with the poet’s actual practice throughout his work, is that his chosen meters are not in fact either humble or unsuited to serious topics. Rather, they are the best for rendering nothing puny (17: “nil paruum”) and nothing mortal (18: “nil mortale”). On this reading, Horace, drunk on the inspiration of Bacchus and perhaps freed from the constraints Apollo and the Muses put on poets, reveals his real power and ambition without the apologies and claims of incapacity that came before. With this in mind, the final Horace poem in the four books of Carmina, 4.15, takes up a familiar claim (Carm. 4.15.1–4): Phoebus uolentem proelia me loqui uictas et urbes increpuit lyra, ne parua Tyrrhenum per aequor uela darem. [Apollo reproached me as I wanted to speak of battles and conquered cities on my lyre, lest I should try my puny sails on the Tyrrhenian sea.]

Horace, it seems, is in trouble. Once again, Apollo himself puts limits on what the poet can do and stops him from singing of the military and imperial conquests.46 However, we also know that Horace has in fact taken on similar topics repeatedly, even if only to claim they are not for him or would better be treated by another poet. Apollo has repeatedly failed at restraining him and will again: the entire rest of this poem is praise of Augustus’ public actions, including those related to war. It is interesting, however, that the poet flaunts Apollo’s failure here: given Augustus’ common identification with Apollo, this could be read as Horace claiming independence from divine and human control of his poetry. He engages with the public world on his own terms, even as he claims to disengage.47 He creates a role for himself that allows him to maintain a sense of freedom and control over himself; ultimately, his disengagement looks a great deal like his resistance (chapter 3), and both entail creating spaces for performance of a masculinity that is simultaneously engaged in public life and one step removed from it. Horace’s repeated refusals are embedded within poetry that takes on the very topics to which he claims to be unsuited. Despite these assertions and

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the many other poems that return to themes such as the pursuit of leisure and the glorification of a conviviality removed to the Italian countryside from the cares of the city, Horace is never actually disengaged from the public world.48 In his own life, he avoided most of the obligations of the Roman man: he never married or had children and publicly reveled in his bachelor lifestyle; he openly discussed his early time in the military on the wrong side of (Augustan) history and his cowardice in throwing away his shield, and he never attempted to rejoin the fight on any side; and he held a minor clerical post only until he could afford to live without its income and refused all later attempts to get him to join in the Augustan administration in any way, including the non-cursus position of secretary to Augustus.49 I am hardly the first person to uncover the contradictions in these poems but add that Horace uses these self-contradictory recusationes to find his way to a public role that allows him to act out a new kind of masculinity, suited to a Roman living under a de facto monarchy or, at the very least, a single dominant strongman. He pays lip service to the idea that he is withdrawn and disengaged from the public world while simultaneously demonstrating repeatedly his deep interest in it. These claims of disengagement allow him a semblance of independence: he cannot be a mere propagandist or yes man for the princeps if he keeps saying that he is unable, even forbidden by the gods, to take on subjects that would be most relevant for such sycophancy. At the same time, his excuses that he is bound by higher powers keep him from seeming ungrateful or rebellious. Horace was deeply engaged in issues of public interest in his poetry. For every poem extolling the glory of wine and women, there is one praising the achievements of Augustus, Agrippa, Maecenas, et al., His pose of incapacity allows him to take on such topics when and how he wishes and to present himself as a divinely inspired uates who can advise and admonish. Horace’s recusationes are part of his construction of a disinterested masculine subject who can maintain his independence while still commenting on and attempting to influence the public world at Rome.50 In this, Horace provided a model that some later imperial authors took up for their own self-fashioning. Propertius: Disengagement from Roman Masculinity

Like Horace, Propertius repeatedly refuses to write on certain topics and gives as his excuses both the inadequacy of his poetic talent and the commands of deities. Considering the attitude toward epic that the Propertian



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lover-poet holds in the poems analyzed in chapter 3, it is not surprising that he refuses to write it himself. His most notable statements on this subject come in the form of multiple recusationes. These recusationes, unlike those of Horace, serve to undermine the type of elite masculinity encouraged by the princeps and his entourage and thereby lend support to Propertius’ project to rehabilitate the socially marginal figure of the lover-poet. The first of Propertius’ recusationes, elegy 2.1, is programmatically situated at the opening of the second book, which he wrote after becoming asso­ ciated with Maecenas. The poem begins with an explanation for the loverpoet’s composition of elegy, but starting at line 17 the poem modulates into a priamel declaring the lover-poet’s refusal to write epic. The relevant section, addressed to Maecenas, whose own engagement with normative masculinity is discussed later, begins with a denial of the lover-poet’s fitness for epic but then quickly moves into a list of potential epic topics (2.1.17–25): quod mihi si tantum, Maecenas, fata dedissent, ut possem heroas ducere in arma manus, non ego Titanas canerem, non Ossan Olympo impositam, ut caeli Pelion esset iter, nec ueteres Thebas nec Pergama, nomen Homeri, Xersis et imperio bina coisse uada, regnaue prima Remi aut animos Carthaginis altae Cimbrorumque minas et bene facta Mari: bellaque resque tui memorarem Caesaris et tu Caesare sub magno cura secunda fores.

20

25

[But if the fates had given so much to me, Maecenas, that I could write about heroic bands in arms, I would not sing of the Titans, nor of Ossa piled on Olympus, so that Pelion would be a route to the sky, nor of ancient Thebes or Pergamum, made famous by Homer, or Xerxes bringing the twin waters under his power, or of the first kingdoms of Remus or the spirits of lofty Carthage and the threats of the Cimbri and the good deeds of Marius: I would commemorate the wars and deeds of your Caesar and my care for you would be second to that for great Caesar.]

A number of the exemplary themes of epic verse Propertius lists suggest fratricide or some sort of civil conflict. Although they are standard epic themes,

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the Gigantomachy and the Theban cycle both include such resonances, and the trend becomes particularly marked at line 23 with the mention of the early reign of Remus, rather than Romulus.51 Similarly, although the reference is to the bene facta of Marius, the name of that general would have suggested the civil wars of the early part of the century as much as his external victories.52 It is true, however, that there are external conflicts in this list that balance the internal ones, so that when the lover-poet adds the wars of Caesar (25–26) at the end, it is possible to see it as a balanced and not necessarily negative list. When he lists those wars of Caesar, however, the focus is strictly on internal conflicts (2.1.27–36): nam quotiens Mutinam aut, ciuilia busta, Philippos aut canerem Siculae classica bella fugae euersosque focos antiquae gentis Etruscae et Ptolemaeei litora capta Phari, aut canerem Aegyptum et Nilum, cum attractus in urbem septem captiuis debilis ibat aquis, aut regum auratis circumdata colla catenis, Actiaque in Sacra currere rostra Via; te mea Musa illis semper contexeret armis, et sumpta et posita pace fidele caput:

30

35

[For how often would I sing of Mutina or Philippi, that tomb of civil war, or the naval battles of runaway Sicily or the overturned hearths of the ancient Etruscan people and the captive shores of Ptolemy’s Pharos, or Egypt and the Nile, dragged into the city, its seven captive streams flowing, or the necks of kings bound in golden chains, and the beaks of the ships from Actium running down the Sacred Way; for you my Muse would always weave songs of those conflicts and the head that is faithful when peace is both taken up and put away.]

Propertius emphasizes the internal nature all of these victories of Octavian over Roman forces by placing ciuilia busta in the first line of this section (27), even if the last, at Actium, was widely portrayed as a victory over Egypt.53 He names Mutina, the site of the first battle in which Antony and Octavian fought against each other, and Sicily, the stronghold of Sextus Pompey,



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thereby referencing the preeminent civil conflicts of the early years of Octavian’s career. Of particular concern to Propertius may have been the events of line 29, which are thought to allude to the siege of Perusia in 41–40 BCE, mentioned in elegy 1.21 in connection with the lover-poet’s ancestry and birthplace.54 Taken together, these conflicts about which the lover-poet would write epic verse, if only he could, are of a sort to make Augustus happy that the poem would never be written. Elegy 2.1 taints epic poetry with the stain of civil war. Propertius thereby refutes an equation of epic poetry and the deeds the genre celebrates with social virtue. By alluding to the controversial side of Augustus’ military victories, even while claiming to celebrate them, Pro­ pertius makes it difficult to read his work as straightforwardly positive about the princeps. By showing his victories as internally destructive, he calls into question the military values of Roman masculinity and buttresses his assertions that militia amoris is morally superior to actual militia. But elegy 2.1 is not Propertius’ only recusatio, and many of the themes and issues in it reappear in his later recusationes. Each poem takes a different approach to the same group of topics, which is especially clear when examining the three in the third book: 3.1, 3.3, and 3.9. This includes two of the poems from the cycle of “Roman Elegies” (3.1–5), so-called because of their intertextual links to Horace’s Roman Odes.55 The Roman Elegies as a whole act as an extended rejection of both militarism and epic. His recusatio in 3.1, programmatically placed at the opening of a book, is a strong statement of generic commitment, in which the lover-poet rejects epic in favor of elegy (3.1.7): “a ualeat, Phoebum quicumque moratur in armis!” (Ah, let him be strong, whoever delays Apollo from taking up arms).56 In this elegy, the loverpoet neither apologizes nor wishes that he could write epic (3.1.15–20): multi, Roma, tuas laudes annalibus addent, qui finem imperii Bactra futura canent: sed, quod pace legas, opus hoc de monte Sororum detulit intacta pagina nostra uia. mollia, Pegasides, date uestro serta poetae: non faciet capiti dura corona meo.

15

20

[Many men will add your praises to the annals, Rome, and will sing that Bactria will be the limit of your power: but my page brings this work down from the Sisters’ Mountain on an untouched road, a work you may read in peace

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time. Muses, give delicate garlands to your poet: a heavy crown does not suit my head.]

The lover-poet conventionally attributes the adjectives mollis and durus to elegy (19) and epic (20), respectively, but puts them into the wrong lines of the couplet, reversing the epic associations of the hexameter and the elegiac of the pentameter. Immediately after disavowing the dura corona (heavy crown) of epic, the lover-poet contemplates the fame that he will earn, particularly after his death. These couplets affirm the inherent worth of elegy (3.1.21–24): at mihi quod uiuo detraxerit inuida turba, post obitum duplici faenore reddet Honos; omnia post obitum fingit maiora uetustas: maius ab exsequiis nomen in ora uenit. [But that which the hateful crowd will withhold from me while I live, after my death Honor will pay back with double interest, after my death posterity will make all things greater: a greater name comes to the lips from the dead.]

The duplici faenore . . . Honos of line 22 is reminiscent, both in wording and in placement in the line, of 1.7.26 magno faenore . . . Amor and recalls the lover-poet’s claim in the earlier poem that he would be worshipped by lovesick youths after his death (1.7.23–24), admired by Ponticus the epic poet (1.7.21), and ranked above other Roman talents (1.7.22).57 Propertius makes his chosen genre one that will provide him with lasting honor, fame, and respect from the audience that matters to him. This recusatio does not cast the poet as incapable or unworthy of serious themes and poetry: it rejects the value placed on those and transfers it to his genre and talent. A further development of the elegist’s relationship to the divine comes in elegy 3.3, in the lover-poet’s dream that he was dissuaded from writing epic by Apollo and Calliope.58 Calliope’s instructions concerning the genre in which he should write contrast the martial world of epic with that of elegy (3.3.39–46): contentus niueis semper uectabere cycnis, nec te fortis equi ducet ad arma sonus. nil tibi sit rauco praeconia classica cornu

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flare, nec Aonium tingere Marte nemus; aut quibus in campis Mariano proelia signo stent et Teutonicas Roma refringat opes, barbarus aut Sueuo perfusus sanguine Rhenus saucia maerenti corpora uectet aqua.

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[You will always be happy while conveyed by the snowy swans and the sound of the brave horse will not lead you to arms. There is nothing for you in blowing the rallying call on a war horn, nor in staining the Aonian grove with war or in the field where the armies stand at the banner of Marius or Rome checks the German forces, or the barbarian Rhine flowing with Suebian blood carries the wounded corpses in its sorrowful water.]

This recusatio goes beyond his earlier refusals and depicts a lover-poet forbidden by a power higher than any earthly patron from writing epic, so that the decision is taken out of his hands, just as happens to Horace.59 Calliope does her duty as muse of epic by keeping an unsuitable poet away from the topics under her care and directs the lover-poet back to love poetry by telling him to ride swans, a bird associated with Venus. The Muse forbids the lover-poet from taking up Roman epic (43–46) but mentions none of the usual non-Roman epic topics, such as the Trojan or Theban cycle. The wars are for the most part foreign ones, against Germanic peoples: the Teutones, whose conquest was the source of Marius’ fame, and the Suebi, who clashed with Julius Caesar and continued resisting Rome into the reign of Augustus. Calliope forefronts the blood and carnage of these wars, rather than the glory and victory, which underlines how inappropriate they are for a love poet. This poem reinforces the association of epic and its wars with suf­ fering. Moreover, by naming people whose conquest was instrumental for the rise of not only Marius but also Caesar, it reminds the reader of the civil wars in which both men eventually participated, especially given Marius’ presence in the list of civil conflicts in elegy 2.1.60 The lover-poet reacts against the military glory that elite males traditionally sought out in order to elevate themselves, their families, and Rome. He uses the events of the recent civil war to reject this glorification of military service and its part in creating and affirming elite masculinity. Further, by refusing to write epic, he rejects not only the actual service but even the literary genre that venerates militarism.

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Elegy 3.9 returns to this rejection of epic, especially Roman epic. It is also a highly political poem, since it is addressed to Maecenas (1), and names not only Augustus but also Antony, who, although alluded to elsewhere (2.16.37–40; 3.11.31), is named only here (3.9.56): “Antonique grauis in sua fata manus” (the hands of Antony, heavy with his own fate). The address to Maecenas, while not in itself unusual, is part of Propertius’ engagement with the contemporary construction of elite Roman masculinity (3.9.21–32):61 at tua, Maecenas, uitae praecepta recepi, cogor et exemplis te superare tuis. cum tibi Romano dominas in honore securis et liceat medio ponere iura foro, uel tibi Medorum pugnacis ire per hastas atque onerare tuam fixa per arma domum, et tibi ad effectum uires det Caesar et omni tempore tam faciles insinuentur opes, parcis et in tenuis humilem te colligis umbras: uelorum plenos subtrahis ipse sinus. crede mihi, magnos aequabunt ista Camillos iudicia, et uenies tu quoque in ora uirum

25

30

[But, Maecenas, I have taken up your instructions for life and I am compelled to best you with your own example; though it is permitted to you to set up the axes as a holder of Roman honors and make judgments in the middle of the forum or to go through the fierce spears of the Medes and to burden your home with arms hung up and Caesar grants you the power to achieve and wealth so easily slides in at all times, you are sparing and you draw yourself back humbly into the thin shadows: you yourself remove your full sails from the wind. Believe me, those judgments will make you the equal of great Camilli, and you will also advance onto the mouths of men]

The lover-poet reminds Maecenas that although he has the ability to serve the state in a public and traditional fashion, he does not. More important, Maecenas’ loyalty wins the approval of Augustus and will be praised by posterity. The lover-poet points to Maecenas as an example for him to follow in his refusal of the roles and duties associated with conventional masculinity: Maecenas challenged the precepts of traditional Roman masculinity in his



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own self-fashioning but at the same time was a close friend and loyal supporter of Augustus. Maecenas opted out of a conventional career. He had a number of unofficial or temporary posts that he won through his friendship with Octavian/ Augustus, but he did not follow the cursus honorum or join the senate. The lover-poet uses Maecenas’ actions as a justification for his own refusal to write state-supporting epic in elegy 3.9. But Maecenas was not disengaged from all participation in public life, as is evidenced by his willingness to act in unofficial capacities, notably as an envoy for Octavian in the negotiations that resulted in the pacts of Brundisium in 40 BCE and Tarentum in 37 BCE. Maecenas later acted as Octavian’s surrogate in control of Rome from 36–33 BCE, when the latter was campaigning in the west, and 31–29 BCE, when he was fighting Antony and Cleopatra in the east. His disengagement from an official political career did not mean that he was indifferent to or absent from the public sphere, so when Propertius holds him up as a model, he suggests that the lover-poet also has some level of interest in the public sphere. On the private level, Maecenas’ engagement with Roman masculinity seems to have been equally ambivalent. Although he fulfilled the most basic duty, marriage, he was widely considered to be somewhat effeminate, a characterization that he seems to have cultivated consciously.62 He was rumored to have had numerous love affairs and was overfond of luxurious living, both of which contributed to this reputation.63 Even his marriage was not necessarily a mark of his masculinity. His wife was rumored to have had an affair with Augustus,64 which, if true and sanctioned by Maecenas (as was also alleged), could have called his masculinity even further into question, as he had failed to exert proper control over his wife’s sexual behavior.65 Maecenas’ private life shows an indifference to the public face of masculine control that was expected of Roman men. In his poetry, too, Maecenas appears to have promoted this picture of himself as a devoté of luxury. He wrote in the style of Catullus and the Neoterics, poets who had challenged traditional masculine values in the pre­ vious generation.66 What little of Maecenas’ poetry survives displays his interest in the Neoteric style and Hellenistic luxury, as can be seen in a pair of poems addressed to Horace (Maecenas fr. 185 Hollis = 2 Courtney): lucentes, mea uita, nec smaragdos, beryllos mihi, Flacce, nec nitentes,

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percandida margarita quaero, nec quos Thynia lima perpoliuit anellos, nec iaspios lapillus [I am not seeking shining emeralds, my life, or sparkling beryls, Flaccus, or gleaming pearls, nor those little rings a Bithynian file polished up, nor little jasper stones]

and (Maecenas fr. 186 Hollis = 3 Courtney): ni te uisceribus meis, Horati, plus iam diligo, tu tuum sodalem hinnulo uideas strigosiorem. [If I do not value you more than my own insides, Horace, may you see your companion be scrawnier than a young mule.]

Both of these poems are in hendecasyllables, Catullus’ favorite meter, and Catullan influence is especially clear in the second poem’s allusions, while the list of jewels in the first shows a careful attention to the details of expensive jewelry.67 In the context of how the Propertian corpus puts pressure on the precepts of elite manhood, his emphasis on Maecenas’ reluctance to participate in normative masculine endeavors and behavior validates the lover-poet’s similar refusals. Enjoying Maecenas’ patronage and even alluding to his private way of life or fondness for luxury were not unique to Propertius: after all, it is Horace, not Propertius, who is named in these two poems, which survived by being quoted in Suetonius’ Life of Horace. Still, Propertius’ engagement with the Maecenas figure is different in that he makes the more powerful man a role-model for himself. Maecenas, like the loverpoet but on a much grander scale, can opt out of socially approved roles because of the wealth and status he was born to and his closeness to the princeps. Despite his apparent lack of conformity to the goals of the Augustan regime, Maecenas was still an integral and supportive member of it, so that the connection between Maecenas and the lover-poet works to elevate the status of the lover-poet and to legitimate his literary pursuits. But the connection moves both ways, so that it also implicates Maecenas in the lover-poet’s critique of normative elite masculinity and of the regime that encourages it.



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Allegedly, Maecenas fell from favor sometime after 23 BCE, possibly because he told his wife that a conspiracy against Augustus and involving her brother had been discovered (Suet. Aug. 66) or even because of his wife’s affair with Augustus (D.C. 54.19).68 Whether or not any of this is true, he had a less public role in the period in which Propertius wrote book 4, which may have made him a less attractive figure to use in questioning the more public aspects of normative masculinity on which book 4 concentrates. The lover-poet instead begins the book with the greatness of Rome (4.1.1) and, after the multiple recusationes of the earlier books, appears to change his attitude toward poetry that praises the state and its apparatus when the loverpoet promises to write aetiological elegy (4.1.69–70): “sacra diesque canam et cognomina prisca locorum: / has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus” (I will sing of rites and days and the ancient names of places: it suits my horse to sweat toward these posts). This promise, however, is soon undermined by the speaker of the second half of the poem, an astrologer called Horos, who reminds the lover-poet of his true vocation (4.1.135–36): “at tu finge elegos, fallax opus (haec tua castra!), / scribat ut exemplo cetera turba tuo” (But you create elegies, a deceitful task (this is your camp!), so that another crowd may write from your example). The dual nature of the opening poem of book 4 is reflected in the rest of the poems in the book.69 A few of them fall into the category of erotic elegy (4.3, 4.5, 4.7, and 4.8), but even these contain at least some mention of Roman places and/or religious rites. More problematically, however, the aetiological poems almost all have some element of erotic elegy (4.10 is the only real exception), so that there is no real separation of the two subgenres, erotic and aetiological elegy, but a blurring of the boundaries between the two. Most problematic of all, however, are the doubts sown throughout the final collection, even in the most aetiological elegies (4.6 and 4.10), about the moral rectitude of Rome and of Augustus. Propertius’ disengagement from the public world and from public poetry is never complete and nearly always critical. Ovid: Mixing Genres and Genders in the Recusatio

Ovid famously begins his collection of poetry called the Amores (Loves) with a recusatio.70 Like Horace and Propertius before him, he is prevented from composing epic by the intervention of a god, but in his case by the god of love (Ov. Am. 1.1.1–4):

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arma graui numero uiolentaque bella parabam edere, materia conueniente modis. par erat inferior uersus; risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem. [I was preparing to bring forth arms and violent wars in a serious meter, with my material suited to my measures, the second line was equal to the first; Cupid is said to have laughed and stolen away one foot.]

From the very beginning of his amatory poetry, Ovid takes up this idea of recusatio, of elegy versus epic, and of the gods interfering in the lofty intentions of mortal poets. But he also makes the whole routine a joke, with Cupid himself laughing, unlike the serious and chastising Apollo or Muses who tell Horace and Propertius what they should and should not do.71 And by starting not with a refusal to write epic but with a thwarted intention, he brings a fresh twist to the recusatio. After the opening two couplets, Ovid chastises Cupid, addressed as “saeue puer” (vicious boy), for overstepping his sphere of influence by interfering in poetry, rightfully the realm of the Muses. He makes this action equivalent to overturning the realms of the gods, comparing it to switching the roles of Venus and Minerva, Ceres and Diana, and finally Apollo and Mars. With respect to Augustus and masculinity, this last comparison is significant (Ov. Am. 1.1.11–16): crinibus insignem quis acuta cuspide Phoebum instruat, Aoniam Marte mouente lyram? sunt tibi magna, puer, nimiumque potentia regna; cur opus adfectas, ambitiose, nouum? an, quod ubique, tuum est? tua sunt Heliconia tempe? uix etiam Phoebo iam lyra tuta sua est?

15

[Who prepares Phoebus, notable for his curls, for a sharp spear, while Mars plays the Aonian lyre? Your spheres of influence are great and far too powerful, boy: why do you lay claim to a new task, ambitious one? Or is everything yours? Is Heliconian Tempe yours? Is even his own lyre scarcely safe for Phoebus now?]

The pairing of Mars and Apollo brings to mind two of the most notable of Augustus’ temple foundations, Apollo Palatinus and Mars Ultor, both of



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which had been vowed by the date of this poem, although only Apollo Palatinus was complete.72 It is also well known that Augustus had a strong affinity for Apollo at around the time Ovid was writing these lines. Thus, both gods are associated with the princeps, which helps to explain why Ovid makes them a pair. After all, while Venus and Minerva may be natural opposites, due to their status as goddess of sex and a virgin goddess,73 as are Ceres and Diana, respectively in control of the cultivated land and the wilderness, Apollo and Mars are not such obvious opposites. While the quality of Apollo that Ovid chooses to emphasize, his mastery of music and poetry, can oppose Mars’ military weapons, Apollo is a multifaceted god and not only a god of peace: as an archer and god of war, Apollo stood on Octavian’s side at Actium. Still, the opposition does work with the iconography of the two gods as presented at Augustus’ two temples at Rome. The cult statues of Apollo, already on display on the Palatine when Ovid wrote, both depicted him as a musician, and it would not have been difficult to predict that Mars Ultor would appear as a warrior. But it is not only the physical artistic images of Apollo that we should concern ourselves with. Ovid is writing poetry, and elegiac poetry at that. And in elegy, Apollo’s physical appearance is described numerous times, including in Propertius 3.3 and 4.6. First, in the recusatio discussed earlier, he is a god of poetry, leaning on his lyre (14) and gesturing with his ivory plectrum (25) as he chastises the elegiac poet for considering composing epic verse. In Propertius 4.6, the Actium poem that is the center of the fourth book, Apollo initially appears in a form that rejects the music and poetry loving god of 3.3 (4.6.31–36): non ille attulerat crinis in colla solutos aut testudineae carmen inerme lyrae, sed quali aspexit Pelopeum Agamemnona uultu, egessitque auidis Dorica castra rogis, aut qualis flexos soluit Pythona per orbis serpentem, imbelles quem timuere lyrae.

35

[He did not bear hair loose on his neck or bring the unwarlike song of the tortoise shell lyre, but with such an expression as he looked upon Pelopean Agamemnon, and dragged the Doric camps to the hungry pyres, or as when he released the Pythian serpent from its flexed orbs into death, the serpent whom the unwarlike lyres/Muses feared.]

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This Apollo is emphatically warlike, the god of the Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. The lines are overdetermined when it comes to their insistence that this version is the one who stood at Octavian’s side and deserved the temple dedicated at Actium. But at the beginning of a poets’ banquet that makes up the final section of the poem, Apollo reverses his stance (Prop. 4.6.69–70): “bella satis cecini: citharam iam poscit Apollo / uictor et ad placidos exuit arma choros” (I have sung enough of wars: now victorious Apollo asks for the cithara and puts aside his weapons for the peaceful choral dances). This reversal is marked metrically by Apollo asking for his musical instrument in the epic hexameter and the delay of his epithet “uictor” (victorious) to the elegiac pentameter.74 But, more important, Apollo can put on and remove both his warrior aspect and his poet aspect simply by changing what he holds: in this way, he is like the mutable Vertumnus discussed in chapter 5, who changes identities and gender with his outward appearance. This last point brings me back to Ovid’s opposition of Apollo and Mars. The first two lines of the passage quoted earlier bear repeating to illustrate my next argument (Ov. Am. 1.1.11–12): “crinibus insignem quis acuta cuspide Phoebum / instruat, Aoniam Marte mouente lyram?” (Who prepares Phoebus, notable for his curls, for a sharp spear, while Mars plays the Aonian lyre?). Line 11 draws attention to the god’s hair, as does the first line (31) of Apollo’s appearance at Actium in Prop. 4.6. In Prop. 4.6 his hair is an accessory, like his lyre, which he brings to some situations, but not to battle. This fits with Propertius’ general sense of how the god changes attributes as he moves from one sphere of influence to the next: he doesn’t leave his hair down when he goes to war. But for Ovid, the god is notable for his curls.75 The word “insignis” suggests a personal quality, a distinguishing physical or moral attribute, rather than a prop or article of clothing. It is therefore not something that could be taken off when inconvenient but rather is a part of the one who possesses it and says something about them. In Roman culture and literature, men, at least those who live up to normative standards of masculinity, are not generally crinibus insignis. When a male’s hair is mentioned, the context is usually a description of a male who is, or is accused of being, sexually active in nonnormative ways. For example, Ovid’s advice to men on grooming in the Ars Amatoria (1.505–8) is first to not use a curling iron, which is best left to the castrated priests of Cybele, and then (1.523–24) that anything beyond basic grooming and hygiene should be left to girls “et siquis male uir quaerit habere uirum” (and any man who



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seeks to attract a man). We can also see this attitude in the aspersions, quoted in chapter 3, cast upon Aeneas and the Trojans by Iarbas at Aeneid 4.215–17, which refers to his “crinem madentem” (216: perfumed hair), and by Turnus at Aeneid 12.97–100, which expands the earlier description to “crinis / uibratos calido ferro murraque madentis” (99–100: hair curled with a hot iron and dripping with myrrh). In these examples and those from the Ars, any notice taken of a male’s hairstyle comes with the implication that the male is less than fully masculine: indeed, both Vergilian examples use the term “semiuir” (half-man). Apollo often appears as a beautiful youth, especially but not only in his aspect of god of music and poetry, and therefore this god can lack adult masculinity.76 In the context of Amores 1.1, this gendering comes into play when he is contrasted to the warlike and therefore masculine Mars, who is as incongruous to the lyre as Apollo is to the spear.77 But Mars, unlike Apollo, does not get an attribute that marks him in any particular way: he is qualified only by the participle mouente, a relatively generic verb that can suit a martial context but can also suggest dancing or even inspiration. Indeed, Mars is relegated to the elegiac pentameter without anything directly attached to him to spell out his martialness or his manliness, while the spear is in the hexameter where it belongs, but with Apollo.78 The varied construction of the two clauses, however, makes each god match his true possession in terms of case: Apollo (called Phoebus) and the lyre are both accusative, while Mars and the spear are both ablative. Ovid uses attributes, grammatical cases, meter, and word choices to mix up and blur the contrast between the two gods and their spheres. Furthermore, Apollo is not the only or even the most obvious opposition for Mars: Bacchus is less warlike than the archer god, and Vulcan or Mercury could work as well. The choice of Apollo is obvious only because of his association with Augustus. Ovid makes them the final pair of his list and then immediately moves into rhetorical questions to Cupid, all of which underline how he is more powerful than Apollo: the god of the poet outranks the god of the princeps in this programmatic recusatio. Apollo and Mars are already both mixed into one and demasculinized, and then they are completely overmastered by a child god who controls erotic love: for two gods that were important to the religious building program of Augustus, this is a strong statement that the princeps does not have ultimate control over everything: the poet and his patron god are more powerful.

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Ovid, unlike the other Augustan elegists, wrote poems in the high-status genres of epic and tragedy later in his career, but both of these receive recu­ sationes in the Amores. Amores 1 begins with Cupid’s reaction to the poet’s attempts to write epic, and a similar vignette about tragedy comes near the end of book 2. This poem, Am. 2.18, begins with an address to Macer, another poet (2.18.1–4): carmen ad iratum dum tu perducis Achillen primaque iuratis induis arma uiris, nos, Macer, ignaua Veneris cessamus in umbra, et tener ausuros grandia frangit Amor. [While you are bringing your song over to angry Achilles and first put armaments on your heroes, bound by oath, I, Macer, loiter in the idle shade of Venus, and tender Love breaks me if I venture grander things.]

Macer, an epic poet writing on the stereotypical theme of angry Achilles, is contrasted to the elegist who is both idle and a victim of Love.79 So far this is a retread of Am. 1.1, as far as the Ovidian lover-poet is concerned, but the specific actions Macer takes are intriguing. Perduco has a range of meaning, some of which are fairly neutral: “lead through,” “guide,” or “continue.” But in an erotic context it has a more specific meaning: to bring a woman to accept a lover. This meaning is attested in contemporary poetry, including in the works of Ovid (Am. 3.12) and Horace (Sat. 2.5), which provide context for the word’s use in 2.18. Amores 3.12 begins as a lament that the lover-poet has been harmed by the very success of his poetry, as it has brought too much attention to his beloved Corinna, but then by the end of the poem he chides the readers for believing his poetry was literally true.80 As part of his lament, the loverpoet at Am. 3.12.11 uses the perfect passive participle perductus to describe a lover who is led to a woman (3.12.11–12): “me lenone placet, duce me perductus amator, / ianua per nostras est adaperta manus” (It pleases me to be a pimp, the rival lover has me as a guide, the door was opened wide by my hands). The word is used in a very metaliterary context: the “amator” (lover) of these lines is a reader who is led into the fiction of the poem as well as a lover led to a woman. The scenario for Horace’s Satire 2.5 is that Ulysses (Odysseus), having come home to a bankrupted kingdom, is looking for a



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way to restore his fortunes and is advised to cozy up to wealthy old men in hopes of being named their heir. One piece of advice is that if the old man is a “scortator” (75: lecher, sex-fiend), Ulysses should hand over Penelope to him. In Ulysses’ response we find perduco referring to the action of a woman being led to a lover (76–78): “putasne / perduci poterit tam frugi tamque pudica, / quam nequiere proci recto depellere cursu?” (Do you think she can be led to him, she so virtuous and so chaste, whom the suitors were unable to turn aside from the straight course?). Thus, in Horace as well, the word is used in a self-consciously literary context, as he uses epic characters to comment wryly on an activity observed in his own time. In Amores 2.18, the epic poet leads his song to Achilles like a go-between leads a woman to her lover. The epic world is contaminated with action that is elegiac and sordid, even as Ovid casts it as the opposite of the enforced idleness of elegy. It is not only Amor but also his puella who keeps the lover-poet from grandia: the next three couplets act out his thwarted ambitions (2.18.5–12): saepe meae “tandem” dixi “discede” puellae— in gremio sedit protinus illa meo. saepe “pudet!” dixi—lacrimis uix illa retentis “me miseram! iam te” dixit “amare pudet?” inplicuitque suos circum mea colla lacertos et, quae me perdunt, oscula mille dedit. uincor, et ingenium sumptis reuocatur ab armis, resque domi gestas et mea bella cano.

5

10

[Often I have said “Get lost!” to my girl—immediately she sits on my lap. Often I have said “I am ashamed!”—she, tears barely held back, said, “Oh wretched me! Now it shames you to love me?” She twined her arms around my neck and gave me a thousand kisses, which drive me to ruin. I am conquered, and my talent is called back from the arms it had taken up and I sing things done at home and my own wars.]

What Ovid presents here is an attempted recusatio, but of elegy. The girl, in place of poetry, uses all the tricks of her character type, including shame, love, kisses, embraces, tears, and pathetic exclamations, to hinder the poet’s alleged desire to move on as efficiently as any violence from Amor can. To emphasize this, the next line after the puella’s kisses begins with “uincor”

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(I am conquered) and enters into a brief flirtation with militia amoris, as the lover-poet is recalled from actual martial matters to the wars of love and, interestingly, “res domi gestae” (things done at home), which suggests domestic public life as the opposite of military matters.81 Ovid places his loverpoet and his elegiac endeavors into the world of politics and civic/domestic service, thus allowing the public world to slip into the elegiac as he had let the erotic world into epic. It turns out, however, that the poet is not done his complicated weaving of refusing and taking up genres, and in the next six lines he says he wrote tragedy before being pulled away from it as well (Am. 2.18.13–18): sceptra tamen sumpsi, curaque tragoedia nostra creuit, et huic operi quamlibet aptus eram. risit Amor pallamque meam pictosque cothurnos

15

sceptraque priuata tam cito sumpta manu. hinc quoque me dominae numen deduxit iniquae, deque cothurnato uate triumphat Amor. [Nevertheless, I had taken up the scepter and a tragedy grew from my care, and I was as suited as you like to this work. Love laughed at my cloak and painted boots, costume of tragedy, and the tragic scepter was removed from my hand as quickly as taken up. From here the divine power of my unfair mistress drew me back as well and Love triumphs over the bard in tragic boots.]

These lines replay Cupid’s victory over the poet’s epic aspirations in Amores 1.1: in both poems the lover-poet claims to have ambitions beyond elegy but is quickly sidetracked by love. In 1.1, famously, the lover-poet claims to not yet even have a mistress, but by this point in the collection he has addressed numerous poems to Corinna and the mistress is the subject of the early lines of this poem, not for herself but rather as a stand-in for elegy. She joins with Amor to ensure that the lover-poet’s attempts at other genres will fail. The poem’s speaker than enumerates the topics he is permitted to write on, first looking forward to his Ars Amatoria (Am. 2.18.19–20): “quod licet, aut artes teneri profitemur Amoris / ei mihi, praeceptis urgeor ipse meis!” (what is allowed, either I profess the arts of tender love—ah me, I myself am driven by my own precepts) and then back to the Heroides as he says he



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writes the heroines of mythology (21–34), a topic that also involves generic mixing. He ends the poem by returning to Macer, at line 35, addressing him directly for the remaining lines (35–40): Nec tibi, qua tutum uati, Macer, arma canenti

35

aureus in medio Marte tacetur Amor. Et Paris est illic et adultera, nobile crimen, et comes extincto Laodamia uiro. Si bene te noui, non bella libentius istis dicis, et a uestris in mea castra uenis.

40

[Golden Love is not silent for you, as much as is safe for a bard, Macer, as you sing of arms in the midst of war. Both Paris and the adulteress are there, a noble crime, and Laodamia, companion to her husband even when dead. If I know you well, you speak not more willingly of wars than these things, and you are coming from your camp to mine.]

The poem ends as it begins, but now amatory themes are not just implied in epic but are central to it, even the Iliad and Odyssey. The epic poet inevitably takes inspiration from elegy and the battles of love, much as Propertius had predicted for Ponticus,82 and Love triumphs not only over Ovid, but over all. The elegiac image of love triumphing (18: “triumphat Amor”), was far from a dead metaphor in Augustan Rome, where we can imagine Love parading the lover-poet as spoils in his victory procession.83 This victory, however, is only temporary, since at the end of Amores 3 Ovid will leave love elegy behind for good: unlike Propertius, who makes similar claims at the end of his third book, Ovid will move on. He fulfills his thwarted intention of taking up epic when he writes the Metamorphoses and ventures into tragedy with the lost Medea. He simply had to work through what another god insisted he do first. Moreover, for Ovid, there is no need to give up elegiac themes when taking up other genres: his Metamorphoses is full of them, a generic mixing that he begins in his earliest works. Rather than using his recusationes to disengage from public themes and epic poetry, he continues the blurring of boundaries that begins in his lyric and elegiac predecessors and takes them to a point where there is no genre that cannot be infected by

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another, no topic that cannot be taken on and melded with its opposite, no gender role that cannot be played with. Ovid rejects the very idea of fixed categories, yet as a result sees no serious need to disengage with or reject any of them. His recusatio goes beyond disengagement to a place where there is no “standard” to disengage from and so differs from both the independent support of Horace and the critical rejection of Propertius. Conclusion

The strategy of disengagement from the public world at Rome was one that was ultimately adopted by some of the elite in the Julio-Claudian period and beyond, but it was a difficult one. The rules for the performance of masculinity in the Republic had made the public and private elements intertwined, and disentangling them was a time-consuming, treacherous, and often impossible task. We can see these attempts at disentangling working out in the recusationes of the Augustan poets. Some have argued that the elegiac poets and, to a lesser extent, the lyric poet Horace “disengage” from the public world and from “real” life.84 This alleged disengagement allows readers to view their work as escapist and unrelated to its cultural context: as essentially taking place in a fantasy world that has little to do with contemporary Rome. But, as should be clear from the readings of the recusationes presented here, it is never as simple as that. The recusatio is a standard feature of Augustan poetry: the poet states what he will not write. Usually, the poet declares that he would like to write poetry in a high-status genre, usually epic but sometimes tragedy, but begs off, saying that his talents are too slight for such work. Many, but not all, recusationes also include a list of themes that the poet would treat if he felt he could do them justice. For Horace, the recusatio is a statement of independence that allows him to justify his interest in the public world yet keeps him at a remove from the role of panegyrist or propagandist. He sets up epic and praise of military victories as out of his reach, beyond his talent, or forbidden by the gods. He uses the poems on one level as a way to tell important men that he has no intention of flattering them or simply agreeing with their every action, which has the effect as well of showing that he is not a sycophant, not an emasculated yes man of a client, praising his superiors in order to earn his supper. But even as he claims that he is incapable of addressing serious and important matters, he actually does so: as he explains what he cannot write about, he writes about it. He uses the refusals



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to engage in the way that he wishes, as an independent commentator, so that they are a part of his intellectual independence. Propertius, similarly, denies that he is able to write epic and claims that he is forbidden by Apollo and the Muses to attempt serious topics or genres. Propertius, unlike Horace, does not use his refusals primarily as a way of showing his actual capability to address exactly what he claims he cannot. He instead elevates his own choice of genre and his own interests and topics, making them equal to or better than engagement with the public world, which is not a place to find the kind of masculine identity that he values. He builds on the opposition and resistance that I outlined in chapter 3 and creates a kind of masculine identity that does not simply resist but also disengages from the values of the Republic, those that Augustan ideology encourages and even those that elegy flaunts. Moreover, he draws Maecenas, his “patron” and a close companion and trusted adviser of Augustus, into his construction of identity, showing that Maecenas’ nonnormative career and public and private character can inspire and justify a reworking of masculinity and identity. Finally, Ovid both builds on and alters the disengagement as independence and as alternative identity building of his older contemporaries. Like Horace and Propertius, he presents a persona prevented by a god from writing in the higher-status genres, in his case both epic and tragedy. Unlike Horace and Propertius, however, he did eventually write in exactly the genres he disclaims in his earlier work. Even his refusals are different: in each case, he is not responding to requests from others or answering questions as to why he has not taken on more serious work. Rather, his poet persona claims to have actually started an epic (Am. 1.1) or tragedy (Am. 2.18) and in both cases to have been stopped by the intervention of Amor, who is personified as a mischievous and powerful figure. In both of these poems, however, more expansive and intriguing ideas and incidents appear in connection to the poet’s thwarted ambitions. In 1.1, he uses the opportunity of a list of paired gods to draw in Apollo and Mars, associated with the princeps’ religious program and feats of pietas and uirtus, and to muddle their characters and their genders. In 2.18, he continues his habit of mixing up that which ought in theory to be separate, as this poem provides a prime example of generic mixing, where the amatory infects epic and vice versa. Ovid’s disengagement is more playful and less serious than that of his predecessors, in a way, but also less sincere, in the sense that we know that he will take

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on high-status poetry that even praises the princeps and his family, in the Metamorphoses and the Fasti and even, from a different angle, in the exile poetry. He also represents a transition to the type of “engaged disengagement” of the empire, when not only poets but also elite men in general try to balance their status and their safety, their desire for public life and the limits to both participation in and disengagement from it.

5 Speaking through the Gods

Up to this point, I have largely analyzed poems that speak in the voice of the poetic ego, especially in elegy and lyric, but also the authorial or omniscient voice in epic and, outside poetry, in oratory and history. In this chapter, however, I consider four poems that feature gods as authoritative speakers. These are not the gods of epic, however, or the bulwarks of the Roman state religion. They are instead three gods who are on the margins of both the divine realm and the physical space of Rome: Priapus (Tibullus 1.5 and Horace Satires 1.8), Vertumnus (Propertius 4.2), and Hercules (Propertius 4.9). They are also gods who have intriguing relationships with gender, with Priapus and Hercules operating at the extreme of hypermasculinity and Vertumnus performing a radical instability of gender and status. Like their authors, these characters are both insiders and outsiders and create spaces to explore contradictions, fault lines, and possibilities. The poems analyzed in this chapter exemplify the intertwining of the different strategies of acquiescence, resistance, and disengagement that are the subjects of the previous three chapters. Augustus was deeply invested in controlling, restoring, and honoring traditional religious practices.1 When a poet takes on the persona of any god, he engages with Augustus’ own religious concerns but also challenges Augustus’ mastery in divine matters, especially in speeches like Jupiter’s in Aeneid 1 or Metamorphoses 15 or Apollo’s in Propertius 4.6. Propertius’ Apollo is featured in chapter 4 and does not need revisiting here, and I intentionally exclude the epic divine speeches. While speeches by deities appear more commonly in epic, they are a far less striking break from its 163

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norm, being one of the tropes of the genre. Such speeches are not, however, a requirement for elegy or satire, so we should take notice when they appear in these genres. Indeed, we should pay careful attention anytime the speaking voice of elegy or satire changes from the “authorial.” The choice of these three gods is equally deliberate. Priapus, Hercules, and Vertumnus hold liminal positions in the Roman pantheon. Priapus, as a traditional deity of the Italian countryside, lacked a formal temple or festival in Rome itself and had no role in the state religion.2 His few appearances in Roman mythology cast him as an outsider as well: see the similar tales of his embarrassment by Silenus’ ass at Fasti 1.391–440 and Fasti 6.319– 46. As a guardian deity who threatens trespassers, he also has a literal association with liminal space, particularly the boundaries of gardens. Vertumnus too had his beginnings as a rustic garden god: see for example the aetiological myth explaining his association with Pomona, goddess of fruit, and first fruits at Metamorphoses 14.623–771.3 Furthermore, he is of foreign origin, brought to Rome by euocatio from the Etruscan city Volsinii.4 As well as this movement over civic boundaries, his ability to shapeshift positions him on metaphorical boundaries between forms and identities. Finally, Hercules, with his origins in the Greek world, is even more of an outsider. His presence in Rome, both in the poem and in other mythological sources, is explained by his role as a traveler who crosses boundaries and exists in liminal space between places. Despite their outsider status, however, each of these gods is linked to a location significant to Augustus or his associates, and thus these poems present a challenge to the Augustan regime’s control over the space of the city as well as the religious realm. The precise location of Tibullus’ Priapus is not stated, but Horace situates the god on the property of Maecenas on the Esquiline, grounds that had previously been used for burial but had been reclaimed as pleasure gardens. This space had been liminal in at least two ways, being both just outside the Servian Walls and a place where the dead and the living meet. But as the property of Maecenas, it belonged to a central figure of the Augustan regime and was a place of entertainment, relaxation, and cultured leisure for some of the most important and powerful of Horace’s contemporaries.5 Vertumnus identifies himself as the statue that stands in the road known as the Vicus Tuscus, which places him at the very edge of the Forum Romanum. The Vicus Tuscus, named for the Etruscans, led away from the heart of Rome toward Etruria across the Tiber.6 The



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statue is thus near, if not quite in, the symbolic center of the city with its many structures associated with the Republic and also with the new Augustan regime: the Vicus Tuscus exits the Forum between the Basilica Julia and the Temple of Castor and Pollux, a short distance from the Temple of Divine Julius and a possible Arch of Augustus. Hercules did not have a temple inside the pomerium (the formal and ceremonial boundary of the city) in the age of Augustus but was probably the longest established foreign deity in Rome outside the pomerium. His temple in the Forum Boarium may have existed since regal times and Propertius’ poem discusses the founding of the Ara Maxima (Greatest Altar) there, at which Augustus sacrificed on the day before his triple triumph began in 29 BCE. In addition, in the poem Hercules invades a sanctuary of the goddess Bona Dea on the Aventine, a site that Livia restored.7 All three deities featured in this chapter, then, are simultaneously outsiders and placed in locations of importance, which are themselves both liminal and centrally located. This connects them to their poets, all of whom are both Roman and not-Roman, both near power and not quite in possession of it themselves. These gods are made to speak by Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius as part of their own interactions with the challenges and changes of their times, starting with Horace’s Priapus poem, Satires 1.8, written around 35 BCE, in the triumviral period, and Tibullus’, dating to the years immediately post-Actium. Priapus

Priapus, as the anthropomorphic manifestation of the power of the phallus, embodies a specific type of male power and identity in a way that no other Roman god can match. The most famous representation of him is the fresco from the House of the Vettii in Pompeii, but he has a written presence just as striking. The two poems under discussion here, Horace Satires 1.8 and Tibullus 1.4, both present him as a speaking statue. Such statues may have been a common sight in the Italian countryside, but Horace and Tibullus also draw upon a written version of the god found in the Priapea, poems featuring or dedicated to this deity.8 These poems are notoriously difficult to date, with arguments plausibly offered for any time from the Augustan period to that of Martial.9 Attribution of authorship is also challenging: many of the surviving examples are classified as “sub-literary,” but some show enough poetic merit that at least one (poem 3) is frequently, if most likely erroneously, ascribed to Ovid.10 Regardless of date and authorship, it

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seems clear that the extant examples are part of an established tradition that had a surge in popularity in Augustus’ time. Priapus poems were part of the mainstream literature of the period, a point that is exemplified by the god’s appearance as a speaker in the corpora of two of the most prominent poets of the second half of the first century BCE. Because of the difficulties in dating the Priapea, it is not possible to assert that Horace or Tibullus knew and was imitating a specific poem, or vice versa. But in the Priapean corpus as a whole, themes, language, and imagery repeat over and over again from poem to poem. Thus, one may not be able to claim that Horace knew and was referring to one specific surviving poem about a wooden Priapus standing in a garden, but it seems plausible that he knew a poem about a wooden Priapus standing in a garden. As such, I ground my comparisons in the themes and imagery pervading the corpus and use specific poems as examples of these. Horace and Tibullus’ poems have intertextual relationships with the tradition of the Priapea as a whole even if the specific preserved examples postdate them. The most obvious motif in the Priapic corpus is the aggressive, indeed “priapic,” sexuality on display in a majority of the poems. This sexuality is expressed through obscene language that is unusual in Augustan poetry, although not unlike that in the invective of the previous generation, of which Catullus is our best surviving example.11 At first glance, it is somewhat shocking to see this god appear in the more refined and sophisticated poetry of Horace and especially Tibullus: the crude and explicit sexuality of Priapus is not entirely foreign to Horace’s work but is alien to love elegy. This disconnect between genre, tone, vocabulary, and subject matter is a necessary factor in the analysis of the Augustan poets’ use of the god, and the persona of the god is transformed by his transference to Horace’s satire and Tibullus’ elegy. Although there are some similarities between the Priapi of these two different poems, ultimately Tibullus and Horace use the same deity for different ends. Tibullus’ Priapus demonstrates the failure and toxicity of some elements of traditional (hyper)masculinity, whereas Horace’s version of the god both maintains his inherent and very Roman masculinity and is tamed to support the projects of Octavian the triumvir and his circle. The malleability of this god’s image suits the relatively early dates of these poems: in the thirties and even into the early twenties the “Augustan program” was still in its nascent and experimental stage, and thus any acquiescence or



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resistance to it must also have been ad hoc and, in retrospect, may seem incoherent. Satire 1.8

In Satire 1.8, Horace harnesses the priapic tradition of Roman masculinity, one that is innate and based in the physical possession of the phallus, rather than the more dominant performative model. Under a priapic model, masculinity is a natural state rooted in the possession of male genitals.12 This conception of an innate masculinity circumvents any crisis of masculinity that Romans may have been feeling as the Republic came to end. Priapus can be used to detach masculinity from cultural and ideological factors as a way to deny that any such crisis could happen or that the triumviral struggle for supremacy was in any way negatively impacting the core identity of the men of Rome. It also helps to mitigate some of the concerns reported much later by Cassius Dio (46.32.1), to the effect that, regardless of who triumphed in the struggle between Antony and Octavian, the rest of the Roman elite would be slaves in submission to the victor. Masculinity and freedom were intertwined in Roman thought, but Priapus offers a simpler way of defining one’s manhood, and one that can endure regardless of the political situation. Satire 1.8 is a monologue delivered by a wooden statue of Priapus standing in Maecenas’ gardens on the Esquiline hill. He predates the gardens: early in the poem he describes his current surroundings and their transformation from a burial ground for impoverished free and enslaved people (8–16): huc prius angustis eiecta cadauera cellis conseruus uili portanda locabat in arca; hoc miserae plebi stabat commune sepulcrum; Pantolabo scurrae Nomentanoque nepoti mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum hic dabat, heredes monumentum ne sequeretur. nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus atque aggere in aprico spatiari, quo modo tristes albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum

10

15

[In former times, slaves used to lay their fellows’ bodies here, bodies thrown out of their narrow cells to be brought here in a cheap coffin; this was the common grave of the wretched plebs, Pantolabus the buffoon and Nomentanus

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the spendthrift. Here a stake used to grant a thousand feet in front, three hundred into the field, a monument that does not pass to the heirs. Now you may dwell on a healthful Esquiline and stroll on a sunny mound, where just now it seems the sorrowful were gazing at a field disfigured by white bones.]

The space may have been transformed, but the sinister atmosphere remains: witches have invaded his garden and use it for nocturnal rites. But Priapus watches them more or less passively, without the active threats he usually makes against intruders, even though he says they worry him more than thieves (17). It seems then that the rehabilitation of the space extends to the god: in general, the poems of the Priapic corpus present a boastful, threatening, ithyphallic deity, but that is not Horace’s Priapus. He does eventually drive the witches off, but with a fart that sends them running off in disarray, breaks the eerie mood of the poem, and turns it toward comedy. Analyzing the similarities and differences between Satires 1.8 and the Priapea is an instructive first step for approaching the significant features and themes of this poem,13 beginning with the description of the statue in the first lines of the satire (Hor. Sat. 1.8.1–7): olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, maluit esse deum. deus inde ego, furum auiumque maxima formido; nam fures dextra coercet obscaenoque ruber porrectus ab inguine palus, ast inportunas uolucres in uertice harundo terret fixa uetatque nouis considere in hortis.

5

[Once I was a fig-tree trunk, useless wood, when the carpenter, uncertain whether he should make a stool or a Priapus, preferred me to be a god. From that point I was a god, the greatest terror of thieves and birds; for my right hand restrains thieves, and the red stake stretched out from my obscene groin, but the reed fixed on my head frightens troublesome birds and forbids them to settle in the new gardens.]

Horace’s Priapus is made of wood, threatens thieves with violence, particularly of a sexual nature, frightens birds away with the sound from a hollow reed, and is situated in a garden. All of these are traditional characteristics



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for this god. Indeed, one of the first poems in the Priapea begins on a similar note by describing a god made of wood. It, however, quickly veers into far more explicit and obscene territory than Horace’s poem (Priapea 6): quod sum ligneus, ut uides, Priapus et falx lignea ligneusque penis, prendam te tamen et tenebo prensum totamque hanc sine fraude, quantacumque est, tormento citaeraque tensiorem ad costam tibi septimam recondam. [And I am a wooden Priapus, as you see, and my scythe is wooden and my penis is wooden, yet I will seize you and I will hold you once you’re seized and I will thrust this whole thing, without deception, however big it is and stretched tauter than a catapult or a lyre, up to your seventh rib.]

While Horace (Sat. 1.8.5) alludes to the god’s most prominent feature, his ruber palus, and reminds the reader of its role in keeping the garden safe from thieves, the Priapic poem is far clearer about how punishment will be meted out and in its threats of sexual violence. The differences between Horace’s Priapus and that of the Priapea may partially be explained by the change in genre but not entirely, given that Horace includes obscenities in other poems.14 Thus, the question remains: why is Horace’s wooden Priapus so comparatively subtle and restrained? His location in Maecenas’ gardens may provide a partial answer. The god has been tamed and reined in to serve this prominent friend of the triumvir, just as the landscape itself has been refurbished from wasteland and burial grounds around the long since obsolete Servian walls to a suburban space for sophisticated art and leisure. Priapus had long been associated with the protection of gardens from the intrusions of those who dwell outside the margins of “respectable” society, in Horace’s poem represented by the witches Canidia and Sagana.15 For example, the god of the traditional poems frequently threatens would-be thieves with sexual violence, as in this brief example (Priapea 13): “percidere puer, moneo, futuere puella. / barbatum furem tertia poena manet” (I warn you, I pierce the boy through, I fuck the girl. A third punishment remains for the bearded thief). Horace’s Priapus does not face thieves, but his reference to them suggests he has

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easily frightened them off in the past. Horace maintains the general association of Priapus with guarding property from those who would despoil it. But this version of the god does not even threaten to employ his usual penalties, and this significant difference both is related to the generic change and presages the concern for morality and masculinity that will coalesce under Augustus. Priapus had always been associated with harnessing unbridled masculine sexuality for more or less legitimate means: the targets of his threats or desire are thieves (Priapea 11, 15, 28, 52), cinaedi (45, 51, 64), and unvirtuous women (8, 18, 32, 39, 43), none of whom is protected by Roman custom from unlawful penetration.16 Horace, however, has removed the overt threat of penetration: indeed, instead of his phallus serving as a weapon, his buttocks do, inverting the usual roles of those body parts in the Priapea (Hor. Sat.1.8.46–47): “nam, displosa sonat quantum uesica, pepedi / diffissa nate ficus; at illae currere in urbem” (For, I, though a fig-tree, farted from my split buttocks, how loud do my exploding insides sound! And then those women ran to the city).17 Horace’s Priapus is a wooden statue and makes threats against social undesirables, as in Priapea 6, but omits the sexual violence of many Priapus poems. The social control and defense of property that motivate that violence are still there, but the violence itself has been tamed, much like the wastelands of the Esquiline by Maecenas and the satirical genre by Horace.18 And thus, Horace’s Priapus and the priapic model of violent and phallic masculinity are brought into the service of Maecenas and, by association, Octavian, and his threats are both moderated and directed against appropriate objects.19 Yet, by invoking Priapus and his particular type of physical and threatening maleness, Horace also invites in aspects of the god that could be problematic for his absorption into the ideology of the future princeps. Priapea 25, which, like Satires 1.8 and Priapea 6, features a wooden god, exemplifies the ideologically ambiguous aspects of Priapus. The poem ends with priapic violence against a thief, but only after five lines that present the god as an object of desire: hoc sceptrum, quod ab arbore est recisum, nulla iam poterit uirere fronde, sceptrum, quod pathicae petunt puellae, quod quidam cupiunt tenere reges,



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cui dant oscula nobiles cinaedi, intra uiscera furis ibit usque ad pubem capulumque coleorum. [This scepter, which was lopped away from a tree, which now cannot be green with leaf, the scepter, which the pathic girls seek, which certain kings desire to hold, to which noble cinaedi give kisses, it will go inside the guts of a thief all the way up to the pubic hair and the hilt of my balls.]

Rather than threatening the socially marginal, this Priapus is sought out by three separate categories of them: “pathicae puellae,” “reges,” and “cinaedi.” The description of girls as “pathicae” is unusual, or at least redundant, as women were assumed to have the passive attributes associated with the usually male pathicus. In this poem, it is likely intended to underline the lasciviousness of these puellae: they are not respectable matronae or uirgines. The second group is a curious one: it is possible that the quidam reges are specific historical figures whose identity has been lost to time, although the Roman dislike of kings may be at play here as well. The third category mentioned, the cinaedi, are a threat to the idea of innate masculinity, since they willingly give up their right to masculine dominance. In sum, Priapus is desired by those of dubious moral standing, but the poem does not suggest that any of them will be punished: although the poem ends with the sexual assault of a thief, he does not appear to belong to any of the three previous categories. If we return to the comic “assault” on the witches in Satires 1.8, the lack of real violence against them, despite their deprivations, may remind us and the poem’s Augustan readers that Priapus not only punishes the socially and morally marginal: he can also be one of them. With this in mind, we return briefly to Maecenas and his gardens. For these gardens are themselves not an uncomplicated site: setting the poem in them simultaneously makes the poem inherently political and brings their own marginality to the fore, given that they featured in criticism of Maecenas during and shortly after his lifetime.20 They are in the liminal space between city and country and also in a metaphorical liminal space where upstanding members of Roman society take their otium in a luxurious setting, at least occasionally accompanied or amused by socially marginal members of the entertainment and sex work industries.

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Tibullus 1.4

Priapus’ identification with the socially marginal is a common theme of the Priapea. Indeed, in some poems it is the only topic, as in Priapea 14: nos uappae sumus et pusilla culti ruris numina, nos pudore pulso stamus sub Ioue coleis apertis. ergo quilibet huc licebit intret nigra fornicis oblitus fauilla. [We are good-for-nothings and petty deities of the rural cult, we stand with shame repelled, with balls uncovered under Jupiter. Therefore whoever wishes is permitted to enter here, even stained by the black ashes of the brothel.]

This poem’s coupling of shamelessness in the face of societal norms and sexual misadventure brings us near the world of love elegy, in which we find Priapus again, in the Marathus sequence of the first book of Tibullus. Tibullus 1.4 begins with the lover-poet’s prayer to Priapus for aid in seducing male youths and ends with his despair that any of the god’s advice will work for him. In between these framing passages, the majority of the poem is taken up by the god’s direct speech, filled with detailed advice. The lover-poet’s initial address to the god makes it clear that, like Horace’s Priapus, he is a statue. It also provides a description of the statue’s location (1.4.1–8): ‘sic umbrosa tibi contingant tecta, Priape, ne capiti soles, ne noceantque niues: quae tua formosos cepit sollertia? certe non tibi barba nitet, non tibi culta coma est, nudus et hibernae producis frigora brumae,

5

nudus et aestiui tempora sicca Canis.’ sic ego; tum Bacchi respondit rustica proles armatus curua sic mihi falce deus: [The shady roof protects you so, Priapus, that neither sun nor snow harms your head: What cleverness of yours has captured the beautiful boys? Certainly



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your beard does not gleam, nor is your hair styled, and naked you endure the winter cold, and naked you endure the dry times of the dog days of summer.” So spoke I; then the rustic child of Bacchus replied to me in this way, the god armed with a curved sickle.]

Priapus is introduced to us as a figure seemingly alien to elegy: he does not take care of his appearance and he lives happily outdoors. Yet, despite these deficiencies, like the Priapus of Priapea 25, he gains the attention of desirable sexual objects in Roman love poetry, in this case beautiful boys. Moreover, Priapus is successful even without the wealth or status of the stereotypical elegiac rival, thus excluding him from that category as well. Priapus is a nonelegiac character who somehow achieves elegiac success. The outdoor setting of Tibullus 1.4 is standard for Priapus but, like the god himself, seems alien to elegy.21 He is likely in a garden, as in Horace’s poem, but more specifically comparable to that in Priapea 63.1–6: parum est, quod hic cum fixerunt mihi sedem, agente terra per caniculam rimas siticulosam sustinemus aestatem? parum, quod hiemis perfluunt sinus imbres, et in capillos grandines cadunt nostros rigetque duro barba uincta crystallo? [Is it enough that they fixed a spot for me here, that I endure when the earth makes cracks because of the parched dog star? Is it enough, that winter rains flow through my clothes, and hail falls onto my hair and my beard freezes, conquered by harsh ice?]

Priapea 63 and Tibullus 1.4 both describe a statue in an outdoor shrine and use similar language to describe the god’s experience of extremes of heat and cold and the condition of his hair and beard. His nudity is emphasized, with the word nudus appearing at the beginning of lines 5 and 6, but, as in Priapea 63, his phallus is otherwise passed over, and there is no suggestion of threatening behavior, not even the relatively sedate threats of Horace’s Priapus.22 Tibullus 1.4’s beginning seems influenced by a poem like Priapea 63, which is itself likely influenced by the location and appearance of actual statues and shrines to the god.

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Horace’s Priapus, although tamed and with his humorous side emphasized, still polices property and behavior, but Tibullus’ Priapus is rather different. Rather than encouraging proper behavior and ejecting evildoers, he advises on the successful pursuit of beautiful boys.23 This is not in itself problematic, as the desire of adult males for teenage boys was acceptable to Roman sexual mores as long as the boys were not freeborn Romans. It is also in keeping with the Priapic corpus, which contains examples of Priapus’ desire for boys, such as Priapea 5: quam puero legem fertur dixisse Priapus uersibus his infra scripta duobus erit; quod meus hortus habet, sumas impune licebit, si dederis nobis, quod tuus hortus habet. [That law which Priapus, so they say, gave to the boy, will be written in these two verses below: what my garden has, you may take with impunity, if you will give to me what your garden has.]

The boys in the Priapea are usually transgressors, however: thieves and trespassers to whom Priapus will dole out punishment. In Tibullus 1.4, in contrast, they are pueri delicati, pretty boys whose favors the elegiac lover wishes to win. Moreover, the boys Priapus advises on engage in activities that are characteristic of young citizens (Tib. 1.4.11–12): “hic placet, angustis quod equum conpescit habenis, / hic placidam niueo pectore pellit aquam” (this one pleases, because he curbs a horse with tight reins, this one because he drives through the calm water with a snowy chest). Riding and swimming are activities associated with free youths: recall, for instance, Clodia’s infamous riverside gardens, from which Cicero (Pro Caelio 15) alleges she looked for new lovers among the swimmers in the Tiber, and Horace’s Car­ mina 1.8, addressed to a girl who is distracting a once-promising youth from a variety of manly and aristocratic activities, including riding and swimming. While these activities were not restricted to freeborn Roman youths, they were commonly practiced by them. These initial hints are strengthened later in the poem. Priapus advises his interlocutor to act with the patient service characteristic of the elegiac lover in order to succeed with his chosen boy. He suggests participating in



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activities associated with the leisure and education of aristocratic youths, including hunting and wrestling (Tib. 1.4.39–54):24 tu, puero quodcumque tuo temptare libebit, cedas: obsequio plurima uincet amor.

40

neu comes ire neges, quamuis uia longa paretur et Canis arenti torreat arua siti, quamuis praetexens25 picta ferrugine caelum uenturam anticipet imbrifer arcus aquam. uel si caeruleas puppi uolet ire per undas,

45

ipse leuem remo per freta pelle ratem. nec te paeniteat duros subiisse labores aut opera insuetas adteruisse manus, nec, uelit insidiis altas si claudere ualles, dum placeas, umeri retia ferre negent.

50

si uolet arma, leui temptabis ludere dextra: saepe dabis nudum, uincat ut ille, latus. tum tibi mitis erit, rapias tum cara licebit oscula: pugnabit, sed tamen apta dabit. [You should agree to whatever your boy wants to try: love will conquer most things with compliance. You will not refuse to go with him as a companion, although a long road is prepared, and the dog star bakes the ploughed lands with burning drought, although the rain-bringing bow fringing the sky with its rusty hue foresees the water to come. Or if he wants to go by boat through the sky-blue waves, yourself propel the light craft through the waters with an oar. And don’t be ashamed to have submitted to hard labors or to have worn out your hands, unaccustomed to work, if he wants to enclose deep valleys with traps, so long as you please him, let your shoulders not refuse to bear the nets. If he wants weapons, try to deceive him with a light right hand: often you will give a naked flank, as he conquers. Then he will be yielding to you, then it will be permitted to you to seize dear kisses: he will fight, but nevertheless he will give them willingly.]

These lines are typical of the advice to lovers that would be codified later in the Ars Amatoria: the lover must do what the beloved wants, but if he

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endures everything he will eventually be rewarded. The specifics of the advice differ when targeting boys rather than girls or women: a desired woman tends to engage in less physically strenuous activities, such as watching spectacles and attending conuiuia (dinner and drinking parties), while the boy beloveds in this poem are interested in active, athletic pursuits. But the principle is the same: the adult male lover should subordinate his agency, interests, and even physical comfort to those of his beloved, but his ultimate goal is the beloved’s submission to him. The elegiac lover thereby appears to give up some of his masculine privilege, but only temporarily and with a definite end in mind.26 Like Priapus, the elegiac lover is essentially selfish in his desires, yet priapic masculinity still seems very different from elegiac masculinity. The latter is rather fluid, as it ebbs and flows according to the needs of the lover-poet and the genre, as opposed to the innate, aggressive, and unchanging masculinity of Priapus. It is thus difficult to see why Tibullus would use Priapus as a praeceptor amoris (teacher of love), but an answer to this question lies within the Priapea. In some poems, Priapus has distinctly “elegiac” characteristics and experiences, even though he claims more erotic success than the average amator. Priapea 26, for example, contains a number of words and phrases that activate an intertextual relationship with love elegy and its antecedents: porro (nam quis erit modus?), Quirites, aut praecidite seminale membrum, quod totis mihi noctibus fatigant uicinae sine fine prurientes uernis passeribus salaciores, aut rumpar, nec habebitis Priapum. ipsi cernitis, effututus ut sim confectusque macerque pallidusque qui quondam ruber et ualens solebam fures caedere quamlibet ualentes. defecit latus et periculosam cum tussi miser expuo saliuam.

5

10

[Go on (for what limit will there be?), Quirites, either cut off my seedy member, because the itching neighbor women tire me every night without limit, women more lustful than spring sparrows, or I will burst, and you will not



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have a Priapus. You yourselves discern, that I am fucked out and exhausted and thin and pale, I, who once, red and hearty, was accustomed to cut down thieves however strong they were. Now my side hurts and I, wretched, spit pestilent saliva when I cough.]

Pallidus (8: pale) is an adjective commonly used to describe an elegiac lover, as for example at Prop.3.8.28: “semper in irata pallidus esse uelim.” Along with being pale, the elegiac lover is often exhausted and thin, although the programmatic terms tenuis and angustus are usually preferred to macer to describe elegiac thinness.27 Elegiac lovers, however, are exhausted, thin, and pale from the nights they spend weeping, sleepless, and alone, in contrast to Priapus, who is worn out by his erotic successes. So, although the language Priapus uses to describe himself is reminiscent of Latin love elegy, the dramatic scenario of the poem is more akin to the lyric Catullus poem c. 6. In c. 6, Catullus mocks his friend using the same term that Priapus uses at line 7, “effututus.”28 Moreover, Catullus assumes that whoever has been exhausting him must be an inexpensive and low-status sex worker rather than a highstatus and sophisticated woman on the model of Lesbia or even the later elegiac puella.29 Thus, the language and imagery of Priapea 26 mixes elegy with decidedly unelegiac erotic success with unelegiac women, all of which further complicates Priapus’ appearance in Tibullus 1.4. But Priapus’ generic affinity to elegy is increased by the fact that his boasts about his sexual activities are often empty. He threatens rape and claims that he could have sexual conquests if he wanted to, yet is frequently curiously impotent when it comes to actually performing any acts with his spectacular phallus.30 His erotic failures, much more than his successes, thus align him with the elegiac lover, as, for example at Priapea 33: Naidas antiqui Dryadasque habuere Priapi, et quo tenta dei uena subiret erat. nunc adeo nihil est, adeo mea plena libido est, ut nymphas omnis interiisse putem. turpe quidem factu, sed ne tentigine rumpar. falce mihi posita fiet amica manus. [The Priapi of old had Naiads and Dryads, where the taut member of the god might approach. Now there is nothing, to the point that my lust is full, so that

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I think all the nymphs have perished. Indeed, although it is foul to do, lest I burst from leacherousness, my hand with my tool placed in it becomes my girlfriend.]

Like an elegiac lover, he is unable to find release with his chosen partner. Priapus simultaneously begins to seem more suited to elegy and less suited to giving anyone advice on how to be erotically successful: even his initial attempts to lure women to him are not always successful (Priapea 73): obliquis quid me, pathicae, spectatis ocellis? non stat in inguinibus mentula tenta meis. quae tamen exanimis nunc est et inutile lignum, utilis haec, aram si dederitis erit. [Why do you look askance at me, lewd girls? My dick is not standing erect on my groin. But it is not lifeless now and useless wood, this will be useful, if you give it an altar.]

His failures, as befits his nature, are more graphic and explicit than those of the elegiac lover but still fit him into the elegiac setting: his type of masculinity may seem at first antithetical to the ineffectual brooding of the elegiac lover, but in fact he can be just as unsuccessful.31 Thus, when Tibullus introduces priapic masculinity into his poetry, he underscores its weaknesses and undermines its power, a power that was part of traditional Roman masculinity. Tibullus’ Priapus has the opposite effect of Horace’s earlier version of the god. Tibullus subverts the aggressive masculine sexuality of the Priapea in favor of the persuasive longing of the elegiac lover. At the same time, he draws attention to the erotic failure that characterizes elegy and the Priapean corpus.32 Priapus, although he frequently threatens sexual assault and boasts about his conquests, is rarely, if ever, shown actually achieving his goals, much like the elegiac lover.33 In elegy, this lack of success combined with an overvaluing of private pleasure is part of the rejection of the values of normative masculinity. This rejection is itself a symptom of the Augustan crisis of masculinity, a symptom particularly on display in elegy but also apparent in, for example, Seneca the Elder’s opinion of the young men of the time (Con. 1. pr.8–9). Tibullus takes over the voice of this god to draw attention



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to cracks in his culture, and, it must be stressed, he does so after Horace has elevated the god into the literary world: Tibullus’ Priapus is, among other things, a reception of and reaction to Horace’s. But one way that Tibullus 1.4 diverts from Horace’s Priapus is in an element briefly touched on earlier: Priapus teaches the Tibullan lover to seduce freeborn boys. This is a pastime that is far more transgressive than the usual elegiac activity, which maintains at least the possibility that the beloved’s status allows for legitimate pursuit. It was probably illegal for adult men to engage in sexual relationships with freeborn youths, as doing so would fall under the category of stuprum as much as if a man seduced a freeborn unmarried girl or married woman.34 For girls, this protects their marriageability, but for boys the reason is more complex. Masculinity in Rome was associated with physical impenetrability, a state that may have been legally enforced by the controversial Lex Scantinia, which seems to remove certain rights from men who have willingly allowed another man to penetrate them sexually, even when they were underage.35 Thus, it is possible that Tibullus’ Priapus, as a praeceptor amoris, is encouraging the lover-poet (and his readers) to literally endanger the masculinity of the coming generation of Roman males. This line of interpretation makes Tibullus’ poem a significantly greater challenge to hegemonic masculinity than has previously been suspected. A man who followed Priapus’ advice could be colluding with younger males to “opt them out” of public life before they were even eligible to begin it. Horace and Tibullus use Priapus to show different ways of grappling with the same societal issue: how to be a man in post-Republican Rome. Horace’s Priapus is tamed but still polices behavior and property, his traditional spheres of influence. His innate masculinity helps cover over any crisis but is also faintly ridiculous. Tibullus is far less interested in the threatening and boundary checking aspects of Priapus than in the amatory and sexual possibilities of the Priapic corpus. He looks beyond the boasting and sexual threats to the god’s elegiac longing and failures. But, at the same time, he also introduces a menace to the future manhood of the youth of Rome. By engaging with a character who is part of traditional and rustic Roman religious practice, the poets cannot help but intersect with Augustus’ own interests, with Horace appearing more acquiescent and Tibullus more resistant but neither supporting or opposing him in an explicit or uncomplicated manner.

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Propertius 4

Propertius book 4 is widely recognized as engaging with the religious and antiquarian interests of the Augustan period.36 Completed no earlier than 16 BCE, this book breaks with the norms of Augustan elegy that were established by Tibullus and Propertius’ earlier books, since it is made up of relatively long poems engaging with themes of Roman history, religion, and military successes.37 It also contains a large number of speeches by characters other than the lover-poet. The majority of these speeches are by historical, elegiac, or legendary females (4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.7, 4.8, 4.11) but there are also several speaking gods: Vertumnus (4.2), Apollo (4.6), and Hercules (4.9).38 All of these gods have complex relationships with gender and thus are “good to think with” when analyzing Roman masculinity. Hercules, like Priapus, is hypermasculine, itself a vexed state that can easily shift into an area where its very excess undermines itself and becomes effeminate. Propertius exploits these tensions between masculine and feminine in his treatment of Hercules. But Propertius’ first speaking god is Vertumnus, an Etruscan god of transformation. Like Priapus, Vertumnus is a speaking statue, one that is specifically identified as the statue of the god that stood in the Vicus Tuscus, near the Forum Romanum. If Priapus, as a god that affirms innate masculinity, stands at one end of a spectrum, Vertumnus is at the other, with a gender that is malleable and highly dependent on outward appearances. Vertumnus: Propertius 4.2

Elegy 4.2 acts as a secondary programmatic poem for the entire book, and, like Vertumnus, the speaking voice of book 4 takes on many forms. Propertius 4 is unique in the variety of female voices that it brings to elegy, but it is also interesting for the multifaceted view of masculinity that it provides, beginning with Vertumnus. Only one of Vertumnus’ many forms is feminine, but he introduces a wide variety of masculine roles spanning class, social status, occupation, and the gap between human and divine. Propertius’ fourth book begins with a promise: (4.1.69): “sacra diesque canam et cognomina prisca locorum” (I will sing of rites and days and the ancient names of places). The second poem in the book immediately works to fulfill that promise when it introduces the statue of the god Vertumnus that stands in the Vicus Tuscus and presents a series of etymologies for the god’s name. But first the poem introduces who he is, where he comes from, how he got to Rome, and where he stands (4.2.1–6):



Speaking through the Gods

quid mirare meas tot in uno corpore formas, accipe Vertumni signa paterna dei. Tuscus ego Tuscis orior, nec paenitet inter proelia Volsinios deseruisse focos. haec me turba iuuat, nec templo laetor eburno: Romanum satis est posse uidere Forum.

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[Why do you wonder at my many forms in a single body? Take them as the ancestral signs of the god Vertumnus. I, a Tuscan, was born from Tuscans, and I am not ashamed to have abandoned the hearths of Volsinii in battle. This crowd pleases me, although I do not rejoice in an ivory temple: it is sufficient that I can see the Roman Forum.]39

The first line of the poem introduces the idea of shapeshifting, which Vertumnus says is his paterna signa. In the midst of the etymologizing, twenty lines (27–46) of the poem describe a series of transformations that showcase the god’s abilities and introduce an array of different forms. Vertumnus is the first of many characters in Propertius’ fourth book to challenge gender roles and lay bare their constructed and contingent nature. His shapeshifting makes every aspect of his identity fluid: gender is only the beginning (4.2.21–24): opportuna mea est cunctis natura figuris: in quamcumque uoles uerte, decorus ero. indue me Cois, fiam non dura puella: meque uirum sumpta quis neget esse toga? [My nature is suited to all forms: turn me into whatever you want, I will be seemly. Dress me in Coan silk, I will become a not-hard/harsh girl: and who will deny that I am a man, once I’ve put a toga on?]

The god’s first two transformations, into a puella and then a uir, mark gender as purely an external characteristic, since a silk dress is all it takes to make a female and a toga to make a male. Although Vertumnus is a male deity, it seems as though this statue, at least, has no essential gendered state: gender is purely a performance. The god also claims that regardless of what form he takes, he will be “decorus” (seemly). The primary meaning of that

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word refers to physical appearance, but its secondary meanings suggest moral rightness and honor. Propertius’ general practice is to take words with moral and social weight and apply them to situations to which they would not traditionally be suited;40 thus, the secondary meanings must be taken into consideration despite the primary focus of this poem on physical appearance. Vertumnus claims that his changes of gender are both visually convincing and morally correct and honorable. But gender is only one of the unstable factors of his identity: after his initial transformation into a “puella” (girl), Vertumnus’ other transformations are all into male figures, but these range through a wide variety of occupations, some suitable for the togate man of his second transformation but others decidedly not. Therefore, after beginning his transformations with a challenge to gender essentialism, Vertumnus moves on to challenge the separation between classes, one as important and central as gender roles for the ordering of society. This challenge develops slowly, however, as we can see beginning with lines 4.2.25–30: da falcem et torto frontem mihi comprime faeno:

25

iurabis nostra gramina secta manu. arma tuli quondam et, memini, laudabar in illis: corbis et imposito pondere messor eram. sobrius ad lites: at cum est imposta corona, clamabis capiti uina subisse meo.

30

[Give me a sickle and bind my forehead with twisted hay: you will swear that grass was cut by my hand. Once I bore arms and, I remember, I was praised in them: and I was a reaper with the heavy weight of a basket. Sober, I go to the law courts: and when a garland is placed on me, you will shout that the wine has gone to my head.]

The first two occupations, farmer and soldier, are the traditional roles of the Roman, regardless of class. Elite men rarely engaged in actual farm labor, but agriculture maintained its place as the most honorable and stable source of wealth throughout antiquity. Martial deeds had always been the core of Roman men’s identity as men and remained idealized as the source of true uirtus.41 Vertumnus’ next form suits the toga-wearing uir of line 24, since it



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showcases his civil role in the law courts. Even the next form, a garlanded reveler, is still within the realm of suitable roles for a Roman man: Romans, even conservative and traditionbound ones, ascribed value to relaxation.42 While some would doubtless argue that the otium of a mature man was perhaps better spent in the study of philosophy or history, festive occasions were plentiful in the Roman calendar, and celebrating them was part of one’s duties to the gods.43 In these three couplets, Propertius has used the figure of Vertumnus to highlight a variety of roles suitable for the Roman elite male in his daily life. The drunken reveler provides a convenient bridge to the god’s next change, into Bacchus, followed in quick succession in the same couplet by a change into Apollo (4.2.31–32): “cinge caput mitra, speciem furabor Iacchi; / furabor Phoebi, si modo plectra dabis” (Bind my head with an exotic hat, I will steal the appearance of Bacchus; if only you give me his lyre, I will steal the look of Apollo). Bacchus and Apollo are both undeniably powerful gods, but also gods whose grasp on masculinity can be tenuous. Bacchus is almost proverbially effeminate, a quality alluded to by the particular piece of clothing that induces Vertumnus’ transformation into the wine god, the mitra. The mitra is a headdress associated with eastern peoples and was used as shorthand for the decadence and effeminacy that the Roman imagination ascribed to them.44 Vertumnus makes his changes by putting on different pieces of clothing, but the associations of this particular piece of clothing imply that it may make him a male, but not a masculine one. The transformation into Phoebus is a subtler exploration of masculinity. Apollo is a god of many interests, some of which suit the martial manhood valued in Roman society, but here he appears in the guise of the divine musician. Both Bacchus and Apollo are associated with poetry and with the conuiuia (dinner and drinking party), an occasion both for composing poetry and for engaging in elegiac love affairs.45 Neither of these was inherently nonmasculine, but both had the potential to lead to less than manly behavior. Traditional convivial poetry celebrated the deeds of Roman ancestors, but elegiac poetry could subvert masculine characteristics and actions. Love affairs were tolerated among the young, but only if they did not distract them from their duties; elegiac love affairs do not generally follow these guidelines. That Apollo was associated with Augustus by the time Propertius wrote this poem does not change the subversive potential of the

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god. If anything, it emphasizes it, since Vertumnus does not transform into the warrior god of Actium, a version of the god seen later on in book 4, as we have seen in chapter 4. Vertumnus’ remaining transformations take the god through activities that could be suitable for elite leisure to those that are decidedly subelite or even servile (4.2.33–40): cassibus impositis uenor: sed harundine sumpta fautor plumoso sum deus aucupio. est etiam aurigae species Vertumnus et eius traicit alterno qui leue pondus equo. suppetat hic, piscis calamo praedabor, et ibo mundus demissis institor in tunicis. pastorem ad baculum possum curuare uel idem sirpiculis medio puluere ferre rosam.

35

40

[When the nets are given to me, I hunt: but when I pick up a fowler’s reed, I am the patron god of feathery fowling. With a whip, Vertumnus even looks like a charioteer, and like a man who crosses his light body from horse to horse. Let this be at hand, and I will carry off fish with my rod, and I will go clothed as a peddler in a loose tunic. I can bend to the shepherd’s crook or carry roses in baskets in the middle of the dust.]

Of the activities in these lines, elite men might engage in hunting and fowling as part of their leisure time at their villas, as well as fishing.46 Thus, these transformations could be seen as a return to the exploration of suitable activities for a Roman man. However, given that these three are interwoven with a number of roles that are definitely not suitable for the elite (charioteer/ trick rider; peddler; shepherd), it is equally possible that we should see them as identities rather than activities. They are not professions that an elite male would have engaged in, and many of them are primarily servile by the Augustan period.47 Indeed, as we saw in the discussion of Tibullus 1.8, net carrying is one of the services the lover-poet is instructed to carry out in his seruitium amoris! The majority of Vertumnus’ transformations are between men of different statuses, rather than between men and women, and the poem as a whole is a meditation on manhood.48 Once the god has transformed into a uir, he spends the rest of the transformation section testing the boundaries of what



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a uir could be and do. Ultimately, he suggests these boundaries are purely artificial and that the potential for all these identities, from god to man, from the orator in the forum to the shepherd in the hills, lies in a single individual. This is a radical statement in the context of the mid-Augustan period, since Augustus had introduced a variety of measures meant to delineate the lines between different categories of male.49 Propertius uses this god to expose the artificial nature of this kind of social control. Hercules: Propertius 4.9

Elegy 4.9 tells the story of Hercules’ visit to the future site of Rome. The opening lines briefly summarize the conflict with the monstrous giant Cacus recounted by Evander in Aeneid 8.184–305; given the date of Propertius’ fourth book, it is safe to assume that the elegist expected his audience to be familiar with the Aeneid. Much as Ovid would later do in the Meta­ morphoses, Propertius mentions the more famous epic tale but then concentrates on a related incident that better suits his own purposes. He devotes the majority of the poem to the aftermath of Evander’s story and to a minor and un-epic detail: Hercules, parched from his exertions, goes looking for a drink of water. He locates a spring sacred to the Bona Dea (Good Goddess), attempts to persuade its priestess to allow him to drink, is refused, and then forces his way in anyway. This story suits Propertius’ program in two ways: he uses it as an aetiology for the Ara Maxima (Greatest Altar), instituted by Hercules himself, and he makes Hercules an epic parody of an “exclusus amator” (locked-out lover), thus combining aetiological and amatory elegy in this poem adjacent to the epic world. The poem is based on a standard elegiac scenario, with a persuasive lover, a forbidden object of desire, and a blocking character, but all the details are wrong. The central conflict is between Hercules and an elderly priestess, who is cast in the role of the obstructive “lena” (female pimp) to Hercules’ exclusus amator. Hercules was drawn by the sound of inclusas puellas (enclosed girls), but they are not the objects of his desire: he wants access to the spring where they are performing rites to the Bona Dea. The sacred space is forbidden to men under any circumstance, and so the priestess denies him entry. Hercules attempts to persuade her by claiming that he can put on femaleness with a garment (4.9.45–50): sin aliquem uultusque meus saetaeque leonis terrent et Libyco sole perusta coma,

45

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idem ego Sidonia feci seruilia palla officia et Lydo pensa diurna colo, mollis et hirsutum cepit mihi fascia pectus, et manibus duris apta puella fui.

50

[But if my expression or that of the lion’s mane and my hair bleached out by the Libyan sun frightens anyone, I am the same man who carried out servile duties in a Sidonian dress and worked my daily allotment of wool with a Lydian distaff, and a soft girdle seized my hairy chest and I was a suitable girl, even with hard hands.]

To achieve his goal, he attempts to use the logic of Vertumnus, by which clothes make the man (or woman, in this case) but is unsuccessful, and reasonably so. Vertumnus’ changes of clothes seem to lead to an actual change of form, whereas Hercules’ do not. Hercules may have performed feminine tasks (seruilia; Lydo pensa diurna colo) and put on feminine garments (Sido­ nia palla and mollis fascia), but he was still visibly masculine (with his hir­ sutum pectus and manus durae), despite his claim apta puella fui. Hercules, like Priapus, is a god of essential and innate masculinity, and, despite his own protestations, a simple change of clothes cannot change who he is. Hercules’ epic manliness is not as unsuited to elegy as it may first appear, though, and this is not his first entrance into Propertius’ poetry. The story of Hercules’ service to Omphale also features in Propertius 3.11, a poem that uses exemplary figures from history and myth to justify the lover-poet’s unmasculine submission to his puella. Hercules gets a single couplet in elegy 3.11 (19–20): “ut, qui pacato statuisset in orbe columnas / tam dura traheret mollia pensa manu” (so that he, who had stood columns on the world he pacified, spins his soft daily ration of wool with such a hard hand). The first line sets out his masculine and heroic acts of establishing boundaries for a world that he controls, but the second shows him engaging in wool-working, a quintessentially feminine activity.50 The very form of the elegiac couplet adds to the sense that Hercules contains opposing identities: in the hex­ ameter he is unquestionably the epic hero, but in the pentameter he works wool, an activity of the women of epic and elegy.51 Finally, 3.11.20 uses the same juxtaposition of a soft textile (“mollia pensa” in 3.11 and “mollis fascia” in 4.9) and Hercules’ “dura manus” to underline this epic and elegiac joining of oppositions.



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At 4.9.47, Hercules refers to the seruilia he performed for Omphale, referring to the actual servile tasks of weaving among the queen’s slaves, tasks that are also featured at 3.11.20. The mythological tradition, however, includes a love affair between Hercules and Omphale, and in that context the word seruilia activates the elegiac trope of seruitium amoris. Hercules is thus a seruus amoris as well as an exclusus amator.52 The masculinity of a seruus amoris is problematic, given that he willingly undertakes servitude and compares himself to an enslaved man, one who lacks the ability to achieve full adult manhood. Although the seruus amoris is not a real slave, by choosing to identify himself with an abjected category, he is also volunteering himself out of his own fully realized manhood. The portrayal of Hercules in 3.11 and 4.9 puts Hercules into a rather unsettling position, with the epic hero pushed to the most nonepic aspects of his mythology. And yet this incoherence is not entirely unexpected for Hercules: his very masculinity can lead to excess and make him the butt of ridicule. Roman society prized moderation in men, especially the elite, but Hercules’ mythic cycle is filled with stories of excess.53 His excess can take the positive form of extreme strength and heroism and the deeds that they allow him to perform, but it can also lead to extreme appetites for food, women, and destructive acts. These appetites and, more important, Hercules’ disinclination or inability to control them, mark him as defective in his masculinity and also make him a ridiculous figure in a way that is similar to Priapus.54 And in Propertius 4.9, Hercules appears in a role suited to comedy, as he begs the priestess of Bona Dea for admission on the basis that he had in the past worn women’s clothes. His pleas are unsuccessful, but he forces entrance to the grove nonetheless through heroically masculine violence (4.9.61–64): sic anus: ille umeris postis concussit opacos, nec tulit iratam ianua clausa sitim. at postquam exhausto iam flumine uicerat aestum, ponit uix siccis tristia iura labris: [So said the old woman: but he beat down the shady door with his shoulders, and the closed door could not withstand his angry thirst. But after he had conquered his personal drought by draining the stream dry, with his lips barely dry he establishes a serious law.]

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Unlike the elegiac lover, Hercules will not let a woman’s refusal stop him from gaining his desires. After temporarily feminizing himself in pursuit of his goal, he reclaims his masculinity through brute physical force. And yet, even in this moment of triumph, his excess keeps him from being a true model of manhood. The thirst (“sitim”) of line 62 becomes an exaggerated summer-drought (“aestum”) in 63. He can overcome this extreme appetite for water only by draining an entire stream dry, an action that reminds the reader of his excessive behavior in the mythic cycle. The target of his violence is also problematic, as he uses his power to transgress the boundaries meant to keep him out of an exclusively female cultic space. The sacred grove is not a brothel or the home of a courtesan, and the priestess is not a lena: Romans punished men who intruded into the rites of the Bona Dea. Hercules never acknowledges his transgression, however, but continues to insist that he is the wronged party. Rather than making restitution or submitting to punishment, he instead follows up this forceful violation with the creation of male sacred space (4.9.65–70): “angulus hic mundi nunc me mea fata trahentem accipit: haec fesso uix mihi terra patet. Maxima quae gregibus deuota est Ara repertis, ara per has” inquit “maxima facta manus, haec nullis umquam pateat ueneranda puellis, Herculis aeternum nec sit inulta sitis.”

65

70

[“This corner of the world now receives me as I drag out my fate: this land is scarcely open to weary me. The Ara Maxima, which is dedicated to the recovery of my herds,” he said, “the altar made the greatest by these hands, let this be open for veneration to no girls ever, so that the thirst of Hercules may not be unavenged.”]

Poem 4.9, as the reader learns near the very end of the poem, explains the origin not only of the Ara Maxima but also of the prohibition of women from its rites, in addition to positing an early existence of the shrine to the Bona Dea on the Aventine Hill and the prohibition of men from it.55 Thus, the elegy fits in with the stated goal of book 4 to explain rituals and places (4.1.69). The aetiological aspect of this poem sets up strictly gendered space and practices, looking to myth and the “words” of Hercules to explain them,



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but this attempt at binarism is undermined throughout the poem by the gendered play both inherent in the figure of Hercules and situational in his temporary identification with the feminine and with the exclusus amator.56 In addition, both of the sacred spaces in the poem have a strong association with the imperial family.57 And so Propertius has not only created an extremely problematic divine origin story for the Ara Maxima but also taken control of the meaning of these spaces away from their imperial patrons. Augustus may have rehabilitated Hercules after the defeat of Antony, but Propertius reminds us that Hercules is a figure of excess, who transgresses gender boundaries, the norms of Roman society, and the need to control one’s appetites. Propertius’ Hercules is Antonian, not Augustan. Conclusion

The gods examined in this chapter all have something in common: they express the anxieties around and challenges to masculinity that mortal men were experiencing after the end of the Republic. Priapus, Vertumnus, and Hercules expose the difficulties of successfully performing masculinity. Priapus and Hercules on the surface are unquestionably masculine figures, but their very hypermasculinity contains the seeds of its undoing in its excess. Priapus, through his phallus, and Hercules, through his enormous appetites, both invite situations where they exceed the acceptable limits of moderation and self-control that were essential to the performance of adult citizen maleness. These two gods thus betray transgressive possibilities, but Vertumnus alone explicitly displays the instability of gender, not only with respect to the boundaries between male and female but even between different types of male. Vertumnus has the ability to take on any role or form with a simple change of clothing or accessory. He takes the performativity of Roman masculinity and applies it to a performance of instability. There is no goal or end toward which this god strives, only impermanence and change. These gods are more than a tool to meditate on abstract concepts, however. They also represent a poetic challenge to the Augustan regime’s control over religion and over the physical space of the city. Horace’s Priapus is expressly located in space transformed by Maecenas from waste ground to a setting for cultured leisure for the aristocrat and his friends. Vertumnus emphasizes his position in the liminal space at the edge of the Forum Romanum on a road that begins near Augustan projects. Hercules violates a sacred space that Livia later renovated, and outside the poem the god was

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featured among the politically significant decorations of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. The poets ventriloquize these gods that they have explicitly situated in ritually, politically, and socially significant places. Yet, using a god’s voice, rather than the poet’s own, distances the poet from the commentary. It can impart a larger amount of authority, particularly if masculinity is in some way the god’s sphere of influence. But it can also be a safe way to comment on or even criticize actions carried out or encouraged by the princeps. The poets harness the divine for a variety of reasons, some aligning with the policies and values of Augustus, some opposing, some ignoring, but all of them present at least an implicit challenge to the princeps’ mastery over religious matters simply by using the gods for their own reasons. Horace is the least problematic of the three poets, since his Priapus largely lines up with Octavian/Augustus’ approaches to both masculinity and the reworking of traditional elements of Roman religion to line up with his goals of order and stability. On the other hand, Vertumnus and Hercules are just two elements of an entire book that sets up Propertius as a voice of authority on Rome’s past and who rivals others, including Augustus. Propertius tells stories and highlights details that sometimes, but not always, cohere with the emphases of the dominant ideology. Finally, Tibullus’ Priapus, even though at first he seems to have the least direct connection with contem­ porary political and religious matters, may be the most revolutionary and resistant of these gods. Tibullus ignores altogether the interventions of the princeps and his circle and instead takes over this rustic and traditional god and has him speak for the elegiac lifestyle and, perhaps, for the undermining of masculine decorum at the source, through the seduction of Roman youths. The poems and gods analyzed in this chapter emphasize how there was no single reaction to the crisis of masculinity furthered by Augustus’ monopolization of power, not even in the work of an individual poet or even in a single poem. Just as the princeps himself experimented with different ways of gaining, holding, and using power, so the authors experiment with multi­ple strategies for reacting to Augustus and for shaping his reaction to them.

Conclusion After Augustan Masculinity

Tiberius, Augustus’ stepson and heir, was no Augustus.1 Tiberius, as everyone knew, had not been Augustus’ first, second, or even third choice, and, as it turned out, Augustus was likely right to pass him over for as long as he could. Tiberius’ reign was much less benign than that of his stepfather and he lacked his predecessor’s vision and determination. This concluding chapter summarizes what we can say about what kind of man he was and what kind of masculinities we see among the Roman men he led and ruled. Constructing Tiberius’ Masculinity

Tiberius, like Augustus, had many accomplishments that his ancestors in the Republic would have valued. He began his military career in his teens, serving as a military tribune in wars in Spain in the 20s BCE, and was a successful commander for decades. His achievements included leading military campaigns against Illyricum, a Roman province on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, when it revolted against Roman rule (14–10 BCE) and into Germany after Varus’ legions were wiped out (8–7 BCE). He was voted a triumph for his success in the Illyrian campaigns, although he delayed cele­ brating it until after the German campaign.2 Unlike Augustus, he did not see active service again after taking up the principate, but he was significantly older than Augustus had been at the beginning of his rule and had already won a strong military reputation. Tiberius built a political career along with a military one, as had his father and grandfathers before him.3 He proceeded up the cursus honorum, reaching the office of consul, which he held twice during Augustus’ lifetime and three times after. But, like Augustus, he 191

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began his political career far younger than average, holding the quaestorship in 23 BCE at the age of nineteen and his first consulship, in 13 BCE, at twentynine. Generations earlier, Sulla had set the minimum age for the quaestorship at thirty and the consulship at forty-two; even if these laws were no longer active, Tiberius was certainly unusually young to hold the offices. Public euergetism was equally important for the Republican magnate, and Tiberius excelled here as well. Before his principate, he contributed to beautifying the city by using the spoils of his campaign in Germany to restore and rededicate two temples, those of Concordia and of Castor and Pollux.4 He dedicated these temples in both his name and that of his deceased brother Drusus, demonstrating familial harmony and pietas at the same time as public beneficence. As part of his triumphal celebration for the same campaign, he sponsored a public banquet and distributed monetary gifts to the people of Rome.5 Temple restoration and distribution of the spoils to the people were standard and popular actions for victorious generals. In his public life, Tiberius, like Augustus, followed the pattern set by and for elite men in the Roman Republic. But, like those of Augustus, Tiberius’ accomplishments were very different in scale, having become imperial, not Republican. First, the source of his successes was more monarchical than that of Augustus. Augustus’ early entrance into the military and political spheres was certainly based on the influence and power of his great-uncle and, later, adoptive father, Julius Caesar, but Caesar’s death cut short his direct manipulation. His nineteenyear-old heir was left to exploit opportunities and build alliances without Caesar’s direct assistance, though with the invaluable aid of his reputation, wealth, and loyal legions. Had Octavian not been himself clever, oppor­ tunistic, and forward thinking, he might not have made anything of these resources: certainly some later emperors, with all this and more, failed spectacularly. In contrast, Tiberius benefited from the direct intervention of his stepfather and, later, adoptive father well into middle age. Augustus systematically promoted the members of his extended family to high-ranking and high-powered positions in Rome’s military and political spheres: for example, his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus and his grandsons and adoptive sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar took up positions of martial and political authority at conspicuously young ages.6 His stepsons, Tiberius and his brother Drusus, lagged somewhat behind these blood relations but advanced far more quickly than was traditional for Roman aristocrats. And even as a

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recipient of Augustus’ patronage Tiberius differed from his aristocratic contemporaries. Receiving patronage from the princeps was not an affront to Tiberius’ masculinity, because it came from his mother’s husband. It was customary to benefit from connections formed by familial and marital relationships and for younger men to be helped along by their older relatives.7 Thus, Tiberius was one of a very few Roman aristocrats who would not be put in a difficult position by Augustus’ assistance. Tiberius’ masculine performance is grounded in contradictions that make him different from most of his contemporaries. On one hand, Tiberius, born at the beginning of the triumviral period, conforms to Republican elite standards with his triumphs, offices, and public beneficence. These achievements are tied to his family and enhance its reputation, which is also traditional: competition during the Republic was between families as much as between individuals, as we can see from various examples of relatives, especially brothers, working together for their mutual success.8 On the other hand, the massive amount of power and authority concentrated in the hands of his stepfather and the favors that came with it made it impossible for Tiberius to take part in open aristocratic competition in masculine endeavors. Once Augustus died, Tiberius took over the spot at the top of the hierarchy, but always with the lingering doubt as to whether he had truly earned it. His apparent hostility to his mother, through whom the connection to and favor of Augustus had come, may be a reflection of this insecurity: as long as she lived, he had to remember that he was indebted to another.9 But, we also have to consider the source of our information for this hostility: it is largely from Tacitus, who is notoriously hostile to the women of the imperial family, especially those who were able to both access and use the power of the men around them.10 In contrast, Suetonius includes Tiberius’ hatred of his mother within a larger section detailing his hatred and persecution of his family members, in which Tiberius is generally presented as the one in the wrong.11 Tiberius, according to some sources, failed in his own role as paterfamilias by letting jealousy and paranoia stop him from providing his family with the support and opportunities that he should have. Yet in public Tiberius honored his mother in traditional ways and blocked honors only if he considered them unsuitable for a woman.12 Even his retreat to Capri, which Tacitus (Ann. 4.57) suggests may have been done to escape Livia, need not be related to his mother; after all, Tiberius had retired from public life before, when he spent eight years on Rhodes while Augustus was

194 Conclusion

still alive, and remained in retirement for years after Livia’s death. He may have genuinely believed that the senate would learn to be more independent and to pull back from excessive servility toward him if he were not easily accessible in Rome. His family life was not the only element of Tiberius’ behavior that gave rise to scandal: Suetonius preserves rumors about Tiberius’ sexual activities, especially when out of Rome.13 Tiberius’ appetites are presented as beyond the pale, not even excluding infants and small boys, to the extent that Suetonius says (44): “uix ut referri audiriue, nedum credi fas sit” (it is scarcely right that they be reported or heard, let alone believed). It is difficult to judge how much credence to lend these stories, particularly since Suetonius often passes on historically dubious information. If they are true, they both enhance and detract from Tiberius’ masculinity. On one hand, Tiberius used his masculine prerogative against those who are less powerful or of lower status, which in an imperial context, is a category that effectively includes everyone. On the other hand, he showed a distinct lack of selfcontrol by using his power against inappropriate targets and in inappro­ priate ways. Even the most powerful of Roman men was expected to show restraint and to respect the status of those society deemed either impenetrable, such as Roman citizen boys, or penetrable only by their husbands or future husbands, such as matronae (high-status married women), Roman citizen girls, or widows.14 In his private life, then, the written sources present Tiberius as a poor exemplum for other Roman men, while in his public life he, like Augustus, is only an exemplum for future emperors. Constructing Tiberian Masculinity

When it comes to the masculinity Tiberius encouraged in others, overall his prescriptions were like those of Augustus. He continued to urge other Roman aristocrats to serve in the military and to hold posts on the cursus honorum. But, by the time of his death, if not earlier, elections had ceased, and imperial approval was effectively the only way of getting a leadership position, even if he sometimes delegated the selection to the senate. There are a number of references in the sources to Tiberius’ frustration with the senate, in particular with its obsequiousness, bred of more than forty years of Augustan dominance.15 He seems to have resented its excessive agreeableness and attempted to give it greater independence and to encourage individual senators to express their opinions and lead initiatives. In this

Conclusion 195

way, Tiberius was encouraging men of the highest class to reclaim their freedom and power over their own actions in the paramount public masculine role left to them.16 In the military sphere, however, he maintained his role as supreme head of Rome’s military forces: he knew that allowing senatorial commanders the authority and prestige that generals in the late Republic had enjoyed could expose his own position and the stability of the empire to serious risks. Tiberius experimented with encouraging senators to return to some Republican ways but not all, which may explain his ultimate failure: his power was always greater and the other senators knew it. For Tiberius actively brought about the subordination of men who a few generations earlier would have been his equals. His reign was notorious for informers, who were eager to gain his favor, monetary or otherwise, by tattling on others.17 This meant a continuing invasion of the private life of Romans, especially highly placed ones. In following up their reports, Tiberius acted as a punitive and paranoid paterfamilias of the entire state, in addition to his own household, with power of life and death, even if he generally allowed the pretense of a trial. But the very trials helped to reinforce his status as head of Rome-as-familia: after all, traditionally a paterfamilias would rely upon an informal council of family and friends when making serious decisions. The senate now took that role, but, as with the father of old, the final decision rested with Tiberius. Much like the marriage laws of Augustus, the informers operating under Tiberius inserted the state, in the form of the emperor, into private actions, words, and even thoughts. The melding of the state and the father in the person of the emperor made every other Roman a dependent child. In an actual family, the position of dependent son did not have to undermine masculinity: many adult men were technically still in the power of their fathers and Roman society did not see that as an embarrassment. Each individual paterfamilias had control over many aspects of his family’s life and each dependent son could look forward to taking up such a position upon his emancipation or the death of his father. Even the title pater patriae (father of the fatherland), which both Augustus and Tiberius held, was not a new development in the Augustan period: Livy (5.49) reports that Camillus was proclaimed a second Romulus and parens patriae (parent of the fatherland) in the aftermath of the Gallic Sack in the fourth century BCE, and more recently Cicero was decreed pater patriae by the Senate for his role in suppressing the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 BCE.18 But the difference, as always, is competition. Being

196 Conclusion

named parens/pater patriae in the Republic was in theory a possibility for any man. In the empire, however, it was an honor only for the emperor. Symbolically, fatherhood itself became the prerogative of one man alone, who, if he chose, could undermine or negate the power and status of any other man’s fatherhood. Thus, even the formerly independent paterfamilias loses his power to the overarching power of the pater patriae. In all areas, Tiberius innovated very little. He followed in Augustus’ footsteps almost without deviation, especially at first. But Tiberius seemed more autocratic than Augustus for several reasons. He lacked Augustus’ personal charm and charisma, which made him both less well liked and less capable of making others think he was on their side. He was also more concerned about money than Augustus had been, especially if we compare their early years in power. Like Augustus, he did not want others to fund major building projects in the city of Rome itself, but unlike Augustus he carried out few of his own, whether because his predecessor had made them unnecessary or because he was concerned about finances.19 His relative stinginess made his way rougher than the more liberal first princeps’ had been. In addition, he had clearly not had to earn his way to power. He took over smoothly on the death of Augustus, when Tiberius was himself in his fifties. He had been in the public eye for some time, which meant that any misstep or period of unpopularity was well known and much harder to blame on others, whereas Augustus had managed to shift the blame for many of his misdeeds onto Antony, Lepidus, or even Sextus Pompey. And Tiberius had blatantly inherited his position: Roman aristocrats in the age of Augustus could pretend they still had their independence and a chance in the competitive world of Roman politics. They could choose to see the long run of power for Augustus and those closest to him as no different from the shorter regimes of men like Sulla or Julius Caesar, and no more permanent. But when Tiberius took the reins of power, with the rubberstamp approval of a complaisant senate, the charade was over, and it was hard to continue pretending. One of the results is that, starting in Tiberius’ reign, we see which strategies of masculine performance were ultimately successful in the solidified imperial order. The Outcome of the Crisis of Masculinity

The Augustan authors were trying to create space within or outside the Augustan hegemony and mainstream power politics, but they could not completely ignore them. Their various strategies had different fates under

Conclusion 197

Tiberius and later emperors. One strategy is full acquiescence to the imperial regime. Some elite men simply accepted their place as subordinate to the father-emperor as permanent sons at best, but often as something like clients, inferior amici, or servants.20 They varied in their actual activities and personal approaches to their acquiescence. Some found the relative independence of a filius familias (son of the household) or military legate, carrying out successful military campaigns and provincial governance with imperial approval and limited personal honor.21 All of this came from the emperor and did not involve open competition with other men of their class, beyond the contest for imperial favor. The most talented of these men tended to thrive under emperors who were themselves secure both personally and politically and to run into difficulties under rulers who distrusted or feared competence in others.22 But some senators were simple toadies, agreeing unquestioningly and enthusiastically with all the emperor wished for. These men were less likely to advance to positions of serious responsibility, especially under stronger emperors. Many men fell somewhere in between, maintaining independence in some areas but seeking imperial approval in others, negotiating a position between threatening potential rival and spineless yesman. Perhaps the most prominent of this group now is Agricola, as presented by his son-in-law Tacitus.23 At best, in the right reign, a man might be able to see himself as akin to Horace: loyal and supportive but still an independent voice. But a shift in power could lead to such a man being branded as a traitor: any amount of independence and libertas (freedom) was contingent on the indulgence of the princeps and those around him. Very few members of the Roman elite directly resisted the emperor, his regime, and his powers. Some conspiracies were led by aristocrats as attempts to assert their freedom, but as many if not more were palace coups aiming at replacing the emperor with a new candidate. Despite the fantasies of some later authors, most notably Robert Graves in his influential I, Claudius, there is virtually no evidence that an aristocratic resistance seriously attempted to restore the Republic. And it is notable that authors rarely give a critical view of the emperor under whom they are currently living: Tacitus did not start his historical writing until after the death of Domitian, an emperor who distrusted the senate, and even under the “good” emperors Nerva and Trajan he refrained from covering contemporary affairs. This is quite different from the shared construction of a new order that we see the authors of chapter 2 striving for.

198 Conclusion

The resistance that we see is aimed at individual “bad” holders of the imperial power, as with Caligula and Nero, or comes from rival claimants to that power, as in the struggle for supremacy after Nero’s death. In this way, resistance in the imperial period builds on the kinds of resistance that were prominent during the Augustan period: it is a resistance toward individual malfeasance rather than a fight for systemic change, a critique of the current system without any viable plan for an alternative. And the types of resistance examined in chapter 3, which focused on alternative ways of expressing cultural and intellectual authority, are largely drafted into imperial service, which is not surprising given that Augustus had begun the process.24 These positions of authority allowed some men to feel a certain amount of independence from the power of the emperor and often existed outside the traditional areas of elite masculine action that were more obviously under imperial control. The response that has received the most study and that seems to have been quite prevalent is disengagement.25 In chapter 4, I considered the recu­ satio as a statement of disengagement for Augustan authors but one that actually showed their continued investment in and concern about public affairs: their disengagement was a way of being engaged without the danger and pressure of actively participating in public life. I purposefully did not look at the kinds of elegiac or lyric disengagement that other scholars have already tracked. Under the emperors, disengagement builds on both of these types, with some men disengaging from public life on the scale of the empire as a whole but still engaging in their local communities and some retreating into personal concerns and self-improvement. In the imperial period there is increased withdrawal to local places and politics by many elite Romans and a concurrent withdrawal from the danger and effort of public life in Rome itself. Wealthy men could face considerable pressure to enter the senate and take on duties that were often costly to them and might have far fewer rewards than in the past. Yet there was always prestige to be had, even if without power, and large numbers of elite Romans still participated in the remaining competition on the larger stage. One area of public engagement that was not available in the capital was euergetism, effectively impossible in the city of Rome for anyone outside the imperial family. This way of demonstrating masculinity retreated to the smaller centers, where it also became open to new types of people, including freedpeople and their descendants and wealthy women such as the

Conclusion 199

well-known example of Eumachia in Pompeii.26 Connected to this was the role of freedmen in the imperial cult, since the officials called Augustales were exclusively taken from their ranks. Public service, especially outside the city of Rome, drew from a broader range of people than it had under the Republic, perhaps a continuation of Augustus’ efforts to spread prestige, if not power, more widely.27 Some men withdrew into private areas of masculine performance, focusing on the care of their lands, the amassing of wealth, and the ornamentation of their private property, especially villas, since ostentatious building in Rome was unwise and could even attract the predation of some emperors.28 Proper husbandry and hands-on management of landed property had a long and respectable history in the Roman world, with no less an authority than Cato the Elder lending it moral rectitude. Some local landowners whose wealth met the property qualifications made the step to national politics and joined the Roman senate as a result of the wealth and prestige that came from their careful attention to their lands. However, we also hear of senatorial Romans who effectively withdrew to their country seats and opted out of public life. Even some who were nominally active in the senate informally retired to the country: as early as the reign of Augustus, there were difficulties in making quorum due to senatorial absenteeism.29 But the capi­ tal was not the only place with offices to hold, and many of these men preferred to be big fish in their small ponds. As a result of the “epigraphic habit” that sees far more inscriptions surviving all over the Roman world in the imperial period than in the Republic, we can trace the careers of many of these men.30 Such inquiries are even more fruitful in Pompeii and the surrounding communities, where we have not only a large number of inscriptions but also a mass of public monuments, tombs, and more ephemeral painted material, wax tablets, and graffiti, including electioneering signs. We can trace families as they entered into, succeeded in, or fell out of the public life of Pompeii in a way that is impossible for other provincial towns. We can see the ways in which these careers emulated but also differed from those at the national level and how these men (and some women) were connected into the empire-wide systems of patronage that led ultimately to the emperor, so that even far from Rome they were not entirely disengaged. Another area of disengagement, well known thanks to Foucault and those who followed, reacted to, and corrected him, is “the care of the self.”31 This refers to an inward-looking masculinity that is concerned with one’s mental

200 Conclusion

state and philosophical work on the soul or mind. Stoicism, thanks to Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, is probably the most well-documented subsection, but other philosophical schools and religious movements are related as well. All of these represent a search for value and ways of being a man that are not dependent on external factors that a person cannot control. They may be in part a development from the elegiac stance that we see especially in Propertius, but the details of what type of life is valued are generally very different from those in Propertian elegy. For Propertius, value comes from a life outside either Roman duty or elegiac worthlessness, as he builds a world in which loyalty to a beloved and a life built around the romantic relationship makes a new type of masculine identity based on fides. This particular experiment seems to have died with Propertius. One place where we find instead a very traditional set of values around private life is in tomb monuments, both those of freeborn and, notably, those of freed people. Freedmen, although barred from full participation in public life, appear to have relished displaying their status on their tombstones, which were often carved while they were still alive. Common images include a man in a toga, indicating that he is a Roman citizen, accompanied by his wife, usually also a freed slave, dressed in an old-fashioned garment called a stola and veiled or depicted in the act of modestly drawing her drapery closer. Some of these monuments also include one or more children, most often a single son wearing the toga praetexta (a type of toga worn by Roman children) and bulla (a protective amulet worn by Roman boys), with nomenclature that shows he was freeborn. These tombstones use a combination of visual and verbal cues to display the family’s Roman-ness.32 It was undoubtedly far easier for someone like the elegists, whose right to such things as marriage, fatherhood, and citizenship had never been taken away, to willingly give it up. But for the freedpeople who had experienced life as stateless and family-less and whose rights to personhood and control over their own bodies had been denied, asserting their right to participation in these basic and fundamental institutions that were included with their freedom was clearly important and meaningful. Ultimately, not all the strategies for contending with the challenge to masculinity posed by the monarchical Augustan regime were successful or lasting. Even indirect criticism of the emperor and his projects became more dangerous, at least while each emperor lived, and critical literature either sticks to the past or is very general or very allegorical. The various

Conclusion 201

challenges posed by elegy, for instance, were largely unsuccessful in the long run, and this may be the reason for the death of the genre shortly after the death of Augustus himself. The final strategy considered in this book, ventriloquism, also does not seem to have survived into the following period. The early empire is a time in which masculinity turns increasingly inward, toward the self and the family, and outward, away from Rome. Elite masculinity either focuses on competing in areas that are nonthreatening to the imperial order in the capital or turns to small-scale posturing and compe­ tition for local honors. Republican masculinity lives on in some form in the person of the emperor, but for everyone else a range of masculinities emerges from the Augustan crisis that provides individual choices for some, but accompanied by less access to power and authority and a subsumation of even the little that remains to the ultimate power and authority of the emperor.

NOTES

Introduction 1. E.g., Gleason 1995; Gunderson 2000; Masterson 2016; and McDonnell 2006. 2. McDonnell (2006, 384) sums up the change: “With the Principate, military glory and martial uirtus were monopolized by the emperors, while the emasculated Roman nobility was left to cultivate a private, Hellenic type of uirtus. The failure of both is the subject of Tacitus’ Annals.” Cf. Alston (2011, 206, 215), who notes that the meaning of uir as someone “legally, financially, and personally autonomous” had to undergo some adjustment for the aristocracy under the empire, when only the emperor held true autonomy in a Republican sense. 3. Edwards 1993, 81; Gleason 1995, xxvi; 1999, 75; Gunderson 2000. 4. Butler 2003, 2. 5. Butler 2003, 10. 6. Butler 1999, 179. 7. Goldberg (2021) provides excellent arguments for how consensus and collaboration with and recognition from other Roman men was as essential to successful Roman masculinity as competition, both in the Republic and during the Empire. 8. Two examples of such qualifications are the minimum property qualifications for candidates in elections, which were far out of reach of the average citizen, and the provisions that granted citizenship to freed slaves, but in a form that restricted their access to political careers. It is possible, and even likely, that subelite men had other ways of performing their masculinity, which may have included some overlap with the values of the elite but could not have been entirely the same. 9. Chapter 1 includes a more detailed discussion, with examples, of Republican masculinity: see Cicero and Catullus: Success and the City. 10. The political maneuvering around who was and was not granted a triumph reinforced the importance of the public face in Rome. This was particularly evident in cases such as when Cato effectively blocked Caesar’s triumph in 60 BCE. 203

204

Notes to Pages 5–9

11. Prominent examples in the early books of Livy include the sons of Brutus (2.5), Coriolanus (2.40), and Spurius Maelius (4.13–15). 12. The governing structures of the Republic had no real safeguards against manipulation of its competitive structures by individuals seeking selfish glory or gain (Galinsky 1996, 59, 84). 13. Marius: a provincial Roman who gained fame through successful military actions against peoples on the edges of the empire, in Africa and Germany, and was elected consul seven times, dying in his final consulship. Sulla: born into an impoverished patrician family, he had leading roles in military campaigns in the area of modern Turkey and in the Social War, a conflict between Rome and its Italian allies: the Latin word for ally is socius. Much of the last years of Marius’ life was spent embroiled in civil war with Sulla, who outlived him and held a dictatorship during which he reformed Rome’s civic structures. Sulla died in retirement. Pompey: in his early career, he was a supporter of Sulla but gained glory and wealth through his own successes in wars against Pontus, a territory in modern Turkey, as well as through his settlement of various military and civic matters in Rome’s eastern possessions, before going on to eradicate piracy from the Mediterranean. Late in his life, he led the anti-Caesar faction in the civil war of the early 40s BCE. 14. Dio Cassius (46.32.1) reports that as early as 43 BCE senators feared they would become slaves to the winner of the civil war. 15. For example: villas and private homes (for which see Platts 2011 and WallaceHadrill 1994, 29), one’s own body (Alston 2011, 215), Stoic philosophy (for which see Roller 2001). For more discussion, see Conclusion. 16. One of the key elements of theorizing performativity is that there does not need to be a “man behind the curtain” intentionally setting out and reinforcing norms (Butler 2003, 225). In Augustus’ case, he does seem to have tried such deliberate interventions, but, as we will see, they were often less than successful. 17. Lowrie (2009, 279) comments on the princeps’ astute use of various media to display and perform his auctoritas and power. 18. Connell 1995 is the foundational work theorizing this concept. 19. It is thus one of the few lengthy texts from antiquity that does not rely on a manuscript tradition. 20. See the introduction to Cooley 2009 for an overview of the text and its history. 21. The Romans often referred to years by using the names of the two consuls elected that year; for example, something that happened in 63 BCE was “in the consulship of M. Tullius and C. Antonius” (consulibus M. Tullio et C. Antonio). 22. Text and translation from Cooley 2009. 23. Cooley 2009, 105. Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal, a Carthaginian general who had rampaged through Italy for years, and ended the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE). For Pompey, see note 13. 24. I disagree with Witschel (2008, 244), who argues that Augustus wished to be an exemplum for Roman youth.



Notes to Pages 9–14

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25. Augustus had only one biological child who survived to adulthood—his daughter, Julia. Marcellus and Tiberius were at different times married to her, and Gaius and Lucius Caesar were her sons. All of Augustus’ attempts at finding an heir hinged on his daughter. 26. See for example Brunt 1984, which demonstrates how closely Tiberius modeled his actions and policies on those of Augustus. 27. For a different interpretation of the meaning of this section of the RGDA and the actions it describes, as well as what it leaves out, see Wiseman 2019, 13. 28. A formulaic phrase included in decrees similar in scope to declarations of martial law, it literally means “so that nothing detrimental shall take hold of the state.” Sall. Hist. 1.77.22M; Cooley 2009, 107. 29. Hinted at by Suetonius at Aug. 12, which seems to refer to the events described in Cic. Fam. 11.20.1. 30. For which see Cooley 2009, 113. The consulship was usually restricted to men age forty-two or older. 31. Lowrie (2009, 306) points out that although Augustus could assume that much of his original audience could fill in the gaps, at the same time he could take advantage of this by omitting details he would rather not be preserved. Galinsky (1996, 43) states that it is as important to consider what was left out of the Res Gestae as what was included. 32. Plut. Ant. 22. 33. Gowing 1992, 255–59. 34. McDonnell 2006, 346. 35. The example to which he refers is that of Pompey, who had made Armenia a client kingdom in 66 BCE (Bedoukian 1968, 44–45; Chaumont 1976, 71–72). 36. Cooley (2009, 24–25) notes the use of the first person possessive in this text to both generalize and particularize. 37. Lowrie (2009, 304) sees Augustus as a connection between past and future, who lives up to previous exempla and provides future ones. Yet no one, even future emperors, would be able to live up to his example. 38. Farell and Nelis, in the introduction to their 2013 edited collection, suggest that “‘Augustanism’ was a thing with no essence other than an almost infinite capacity to represent itself as the logical conclusion of all historical movements” (14). 39. Augustus is the first Roman recorded to have held all four major priesthoods at once. Before him, it was extremely unusual for one man to hold even two. 40. Witschel 2008, 245. Roller (2015, 17) sees the imperial senate as a body whose primary duty is to ratify the decisions of the emperor, a circumstance that has its roots in Augustus’ principate. 41. Lepidus is called “conlegae mei” (my colleague) and “qui ciuilis tumultus occasione occupauerat” (the man who had taken the opportunity of civil unrest to appropriate it).

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Notes to Pages 14–19

42. I omit the final section, dealing with precise amounts of money, from the discussion, as it is generally agreed that this was not composed by Augustus as part of the original text: Cooley 2009, 19. 43. At 24.1, Antony is referred to only as “is cum quo bellum gesseram” (He with whom I had made war); Sextus Pompey is reduced to a pirate (25.1). 44. Their absence from this public record may in itself be exemplary, as it shows Augustus’ family as ordered, with women having no formal place or power in political or military life (Severy 2003, 59). 45. Zanker (1988, 101) argues that the public imagery in Augustan-era Rome reflects the Augustan order but that there was no master plan for propaganda. 46. Pollini 2012, 210. 47. Hannestad 1988, 69. For harmony, see also the shrine of Concordia dedicated by Livia (Flory 1984). 48. The specific identity of the individuals in the frieze has been a topic of significant and heated debate: see for example Billows 1993; Kleiner 1978; and Pollini 1986. 49. That these laws are aimed at the upper classes is apparent in the penalties and rewards on offer, many of which deal with officeholding and inheritance. These very laws also inserted Augustus into the private sphere of the family and removed a certain amount of real control over even this aspect of life from the Roman elite (Severy 2003, 56). 50. Lape 2003. 51. Heslin (2019, 69) points out that Augustus’ presence in the midst of other elite priests helps shore up his official role as “first among equals.” 52. Zanker 1988, 129. 53. Severy (2003, 99) argues that after he becomes Pontifex Maximus, Augustus represents himself, including on the Ara Pacis, as having sole responsibility for the religious welfare of the state. 54. Hannestad 1988, 83. 55. See Shaya 2013 for the summi uiri’s connection to its audience and its role in the life of the city and populace. 56. Kleiner (2007, 66) compares this forum to an atrium full of ancestral portraits. 57. According to Anderson (1984, 83) there are twenty-eight names known for the sculptural program (in Degrassi 1937): Aeneas, Romulus, L. Albinius, Ap. Claudius Caecus, Fabricius Luscinus, C. Duilius, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, Scipio Asiaticus, M.’ Valerius Maximus, Cornelius Cethegus, Q. Fabius Maximus, M. Furius Camillus, L. Aemilius Paullus, Papirius Cursor, Caecilius Metellus, C. Marius, L. Cornelius Sulla, L. Licinius Lucullus, Scipio Aemilianus, M. Valerius Corvus, Aeneas Silvius, Alba Silvius, a “son of Silvius,” Proca Silvius, Julius Caesar Strabo, C. Julius Caesar (father of Diuus Iulius). 58. These are the virtues of the Clipeus Virtutis, a ceremonial shield dedicated to Augustus by the senate in 27 BCE. It is clear that Augustus himself was pleased with the dedication: besides the original, which was placed in the senate house at Rome, it



Notes to Pages 19–24

207

was portrayed on coins and copies, such as the one found in Arles, France, were distributed to other major centres in the empire. See Galinsky 1996, 80–82, who argues that these virtues of Augustus are unique to him, not canonical as a model for later emperors. 59. Anderson 1984, 84. 60. Stewart (2003, 130) argues that they were a monument to collective uirtus, rather than individual competition. Such a focus on the uirtus of the Romans as a whole, under the watchful eye of the princeps, makes sense for an Augustan monument. 61. Gardner 2013, 38. 62. Anderson 1984, 95. 63. Anderson 1984, 69; Gardner 2013, 40. 64. Severy 2003, 82–84. Roller (2001, 100–101) provides a useful summary of what military roles and honors were available to aristocratic Romans under the emperors. 65. Anderson 1984, 89, 93; Phillips 2011, 372; Severy 2003, 175. 66. Nelis 2010, 169. 67. For an overview of the temple, see Gurval 1995, ch. 2. 68. The most notable of the contemporary descriptions is the ekphrasis that takes up most of Prop. 2.31. 69. Carettoni 1983, 8. 70. Prop. 2.31.4 mentions statues of the Danaids and 2.31.7–8 cows by the sculptor Myron. A number of Danaids and at least one cow have been excavated in the area identified as the temple; the Danaids can be seen in the Palatine Antiquarium in Rome. Excavations of the site were carried out in the 1960s under Gianfilippo Carettoni, for which see his 1967 article and 1983 monograph. Chapter 1. Catullus and Cicero 1. Or, in the case of Catullus, at least inactive socially and politically at Rome; see Wiseman (1985, ch. 6) for discussion of his date of death. 2. For the centrality of the performance of masculinity to all public actions by Roman men, see Wray 2001, 206. 3. Despite their Roman citizenship, such men, because of their provincial origin, could face charges of being non-Roman (Dugan 2005, 34), or it could, alternatively, provide the opportunity for greater freedom in their identity-building (Skinner 2007, 103). 4. Skinner 2003, 23. 5. See Stroup 2010, 5, for the relationship between Cicero and Catullus; also Krostenko 2001. 6. See Stroup 2010 for further discussion and bibliography. 7. Q. Cic. Pet. 1: “ciuitas quae sit cogita, quid petas, qui sis. prope cotidie tibi hoc ad forum descendenti meditandum est ‘nouus sum, consulatum peto, Roma est’” (Consider what state this is, what you seek, who you are. Almost daily you must medi­ tate on this fact as you descend to the forum ‘I am a new man, I seek the consulship,

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Notes to Pages 24–26

this is Rome). Cf. Dugan 2005, 10–12. But see Wiseman 1971 and Brunt 1982 for the relative openness of the Roman elite. Note that the authenticity of Q. Cicero’s authorship is debatable (for discussion, see Morstein-Marx 1998), but the sentiment remains valid. 8. For this attitude, see, e.g., Lyne 1980, 19–20. 9. Dugan (2005, 3) notes that Cicero and other Roman authors were well aware that the self presented to others was a product of “deliberate strategies of fashioning,” so that it is not an anachronistic imposition to talk about the Romans engaging in self-fashioning. Also see Krostenko 2001, 19; Skinner 2007, 95. Wray (2001, 58) calls Catullus’ poetry a “multifaceted and complex performance” of Roman masculinity. 10. For the seminal work on homosociality, see Sedgwick 1992. For Catullus’ engagement in a homosocial world, see Wray 2001, 105; for Cicero’s, see Stroup 2010, 122. Cicero (Orat. 33) uses language similar to that in Catullus 50 to describe his feelings about Brutus (Dugan 2005, 266). 11. For Catullus’ probable education, see Wiseman 1985, ch. 6. 12. Later members of the family, however, did reach consular rank, for the first time in 31 CE under Tiberius: CIL XIV 2466 (Skinner 2003, xxii). Catullus’ lack of political participation may have been voluntary (Stroup 2010, 23). 13. Catullus’ death at the age of thirty is first attested in the late fourth-century CE Chronicle of St. Jerome. A generation after Catullus, Ovid (Am. 3.9.61–62) makes a vague reference to the dead Catullus as wearing a garland of ivy on his “youthful temples” (iuuenalia tempora), but the definition of a “young” man (iuuenis) in Roman terms could include all those up to forty-five. 14. Cael. 42–43; Cf. Fear (2005, 15–16), who argues that a certain amount of selfindulgence was expected in elite youth, a period of libertas that Gardner (2013) argues was discouraged under Augustus. For the problematic relationship between youth and virtue on display in this speech, see McDonnell 2006, 171. Cicero associates uirtus with giving up leisure and pleasure in order to serve the state at Rep. 1.1.1. 15. The minimum age for the first office of the cursus honorum, the quaestorship, was set at thirty by the Lex Villia of 180 BCE. Cf. Astin 1958. 16. Skinner 2007, 105. 17. Gibson 1995, 62. 18. Prop. 2.7.14: “nullus de nostro sanguine miles erit” (There will be no soldier from my blood) and 20: “hic erit et patrio nomine pluris amor” (This love will be more than the name of father). 19. E.g., Cic. Brut. 305, 308–10; Tusc. 2.9; also Plu. Cic. 2.2. Mitchell 1979. 20. Plu. Cic. 3.3. 21. He served briefly as a junior officer during the Social War (Beard and Crawford 1985, 64). 22. McDonnell 2006, 346. 23. McDonnell 2006. 24. For Cicero’s time in Cilicia, see Cic. Fam. 15; Plu. Cic. 36. Cicero’s reluctance stemmed from his experience in Sicily as a proquaestor, which suggested to him that



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posts held outside Rome were unhelpful for political success in Rome (note his joking reference to this phenomenon at Planc. 65). 25. For Cicero’s proconsulship, see Wistrand 1979. 26. Our primary evidence for most of these rumors is much later (Publilia and Caerellia: D. C. 46.18.3–4; Tullia: D. C. 46.18.6; see Treggiari 2007, 159), but claims to be reporting contemporary sources (Dio Cassius gives the speech containing the accusations to Quintus Fufius Calenus, a Caesarian senator, allegedly responding directly to Cicero in defense of Antony; Plutarch (Cic. 41.6) writes that Mark Antony had criticized Cicero’s divorce of Terentia in his response to the Philippics). For Cicero’s allegedly excessive grief after Tullia’s death, we do have a contemporary source, a letter to Cicero from Servius Sulpicius Rufus (Fam. 4.5). 27. There may have been some contest over the proper sphere of action for aristocrats in the late second and early first centuries BCE, with some arguing for a return to traditional military values and others interested in a supposedly Greek-influenced uirtus (McDonnell 2006, ch. 8). See Wray 2001, 207 for the continuing validity of this split in the time of Catullus. Yet even those aristocrats, like M. Claudius Marcellus or Scipio Africanus, who adapted oratory or cultural capital to (part of) their selffashioning still generally sought military excellence as well. This public dispute over the meaning of manliness paved the way for its redefinition in the late Republic; see Edwards 1993, ch. 2; Krostenko 2001; Wray 2001; McDonnell 2006, 346. 28. See later discussion. 29. Cicero’s exile was a result of the failure of his auctoritas (Dugan 2005, 24), and his postexilic speeches are an attempt to regain it. 30. Dugan 2005, 5. 31. Cicero’s speeches were in general designed to leave a flattering portrait of himself in the Roman mind and the literary record (Dugan 2005, 23). Cf. Steel 2001, 162. 32. Throughout this volume, italics are used in quotations to indicate emphasis. 33. Steel 2001, 187–88. 34. Edwards 1993. 35. As Catiline did, e.g., Sal. Cat. 5. 36. Even Cicero’s friend Brutus complained about Cicero’s boastfulness (Fam. 1.17.1); cf. Dugan 2005, 340. 37. For his proconsular provincial service, see Fam. 15. Cicero sought a triumph for his successful military action in Cilicia (described in a letter to Cato the Younger, Fam. 15.4), actions that suggest that he was not completely lacking in military talent, rather in the desire to achieve things in that sphere. Cato the Younger opposed his request for a triumph, and he was instead granted a supplicatio. 38. Military metaphors are common in Roman literature, regardless of genre, but Cicero’s particular use of them, combined with what we know of his biography, is significant. 39. Beard and Crawford 1985, 54.

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Notes to Pages 30–41

40. Cicero’s reliance on oratory for his public success means that every time he spoke in public, he was drawing attention to the basis of his success (Steel 2001, 162). 41. Steel 2001, 167. 42. See André 1966 for otium in Roman culture. 43. See Stroup 2010, ch. 1 on otium as time for writing. Also Catullus 50, although see Miller 1998, 179 for the contradictory nature of otium in Catullus 50 and 51, for which also see Stroup 2010, 56; see Krostenko 2001, 8 for the importance of context in determining the meaning and usage of a word. 44. Dugan 2005, 13: “Eschewing usual Roman notions of manliness, Cicero constructed a distinctly aestheticized identity.” In this, he is not unlike Catullus. 45. E.g., Off. 1.77 46. It seems that this claim opened Cicero up to accusations of excessive pride from his enemies (Dugan 2005, 64). 47. E.g., Att. 3.2, 3, 5 and 10 and Fam. 14.1, 2, 3, and 4. 48. Kennedy (1993, 33–34) argues that elegy destroys this opposition between mollis and durus. 49. Plutarch (Cic. 35.4) criticizes Cicero for a lack of courage in general, not just in military matters. 50. For the specific circumstances of men in exile, see the so-called Laudatio Turiae (CIL VI 1527). For Cicero’s exile, Hemelrijk 2004, 190–91. Cf. Gunderson (2007) on Cicero’s exile and its effect on gender roles. 51. Dugan (2005, 42) argues that Cicero critiques the military standard for measuring uirtus by expanding its usage into literary, oratorical, and aesthetic realms. 52. For Priapic masculinity and Catullus, see Richlin 1983, especially ch. 6, and Williams 1999, especially 86–95. 53. Wray 2001, 147. 54. Wray 2001, 208. 55. Regardless of whether we identify the characters in the poems with historical figures, Juventius is a Roman-sounding name, and Lesbia is identified as the sister of a man called Lesbius (c.79) who is reasonably identified by the poem’s internal evidence as Clodius Pulcher and as a wife who comes to Catullus uiri gremio (ca. 68.146). Skinner (2003, 107) suggests that the revelation of Lesbia’s identity in poem 79 would cause the reader to rethink the earlier Lesbia poems and their connection to politics. 56. Skinner 2005, 199; Williams 1999, ch. 3. 57. For the use of this image in later love elegy, see Tib. 1.2; Prop. 1.5; Prop. 2.25; Prop. 3.20. 58. Williams (1999, 193–5) discusses the possible legal disabilities for adult men who were passive partners in same-sex activities, esp. the lex Scantinia. 59. E.g., ca. 15, 29, 33, 56, and 80. Krostenko 2001, 18. 60. Adams 1990, 162. 61. Quinn (2003, 236) in his commentary notes the similarity between Catullus’ poems and the opening of letters from Cicero to Atticus (Att. 9.10.1) and Trebatius (Fam. 7.22).



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62. Gunderson 1997. 63. Hollis 2007, 15–19, 58. Cf. Catul. 53 for Calvus’ public career. 64. E.g., Pucci 1961 (the poem as literary manifesto), Scott 1969, 171 (“Catullus has altered the effect of incensus so that it connotes a strong intellectual, rather than erotic, friendship”). 65. Skinner (2003, xxxvi) states that Catullus’ text can give contrasting readings at the same time to different (or even to the same) readers. This echoes the Catullan theme of ambiguity in interpersonal relationships. 66. E.g., ca. 15 (Aurelius, ironically), 30 (criticizing the false friendship of Alfenus), 38 (a request for a sickbed visit from Cornificius), 65 (a promised poem sent to Hortalus, despite the poet’s grief), 68 (thanks to Allius/Mallius), 73 (a complaint about a false friend), 77 (a complaint about a betrayal). Skinner 2003, 61; Wiseman 1985, 105. 67. Krostenko 2001; Manwell 2007; and Wray 2001. For the generation of internal contradiction in Catullus, see Selden 1992, 475. 68. Such values as these were among the “building blocks of manhood” (Manwell 2007, 113). Cf. Skinner 2003, 69–75 for the political implications of these terms in Catullus. See Oliensis 1997 and Caston 2000 on terms of amicitia or other social relations used in love poetry. 69. Wiseman 1985, ch. 6. 70. Stroup (2010, 3) notes that despite Catullus being “outside the forum” he is intimately familiar with the world of Roman politics. See Skinner 2007, 75–77 on the political engagement of Catullus’ poetry. 71. For Catullus’ attempt at entering public life as corrupting his virtue, see McMaster 2010, 376. 72. A discussion of the word “irrumator” follows. 73. For instance, in Catullus, c. 80. Cf. Clarke 1998, 220–205 and Williams 1999, 197–203 for the idea of oral intercourse as polluting the mouth. 74. Catullus’ experience of public service anticipates that of the Roman aristocracy in the Augustan principate, when Augustus becomes everyone’s Memmius. 75. See Konstan 1995 for the difficulty of precisely defining the role and duties of a client, although this article concentrates on the difference between clients and friends; also see Saller 1989 for a more general treatment of the question of what patronage was in the late Republic and the Empire. 76. For this reading of Catullus, see Krostenko 2001, 13–18 and McMaster 2010, 356. 77. McMaster 2010. 78. Wray 2001, 58. 79. But note Wray 2001. 80. Miller 1998, 186. Also see Janan 1994. 81. Edwards 1993, ch. 2; Greene 2005b, 76; Wyke 2002, 168. For the difficulty of maintaining the opposition between mollis and durus when durus does not mean male, see Miller 1998, 181. Manwell (2007, 119) argues that for Catullus mollitia is not necessarily a vice but can be used as a tool for questioning the value system of the late Republic.

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Notes to Pages 45–50

82. For Catullus as a builder of contradictory masculine identities, see Wray 2001, 209 and Manwell 2007, 126. 83. Both noted as significant by Foucault (1988), cf. Miller 1998. For “Augustus” as a focus for discourse rather than an individual, see Kennedy 1993, 37. Chapter 2. Virtus under the Principate 1. More recently, Balmaceda (2017, 25) has added to this discussion by arguing that uirtus was always more expansive in definition than arete or andreia (manliness, courage) because it was able to encompass the meanings of both words. 2. McDonnell (2006, 319) argues that the last generation of Republican aristocrats, influenced by Marius’ “anti-hellenism,” were already returning to the martial meaning of the word, regardless of the work of men like Cicero, which looms larger in hindsight than it likely did at the time. 3. Bowditch 1994; Gold 1987; Oliensis 1998; White 1993. 4. See Tarrant 2007, 73 for the contradictory and elusive nature of Horace’s and Vergil’s engagement with political themes. 5. Introduction. 6. Griffin (1993, 19) notes that while Horace praises the marriage laws, he does not follow them. Galinsky (1996, 129) argues that people with a serious and public commitment to “social and moral responsibility” could be exceptions to the marriage laws, but it is unclear how that commitment would be measured and there is no evidence for the ius trium liberorum (right of three children) being granted to either man, a detail that might be expected to appear in their biographies by Suetonius if it had happened. 7. Kennedy 1992. 8. For an anti- or ambiguous attitude toward Augustus, see Miller 2004, Moles 2009, Thomas 2001, Welch 2005. For a pro-Augustan stance, see Cairns 2006; Liebeschuetz 2009; and Williams 1990, 263. For a summary of the arguments for Livy as propagandist and as critic, see Luce 2009a, 47. 9. Cairns (2006, 37), for example, denies that Propertius could ever have genuinely criticized Augustus because he was the princeps’ client. See in contrast Galinsky (1996, 71), who asserts that anything short of calling for the removal of Augustus from power was tolerated. 10. Appian (4.51) tells a story of a certain Publius, quaestor of Brutus and proscribed by Antony, who was later a friend of Octavian, who praised him for displaying images of Brutus. 11. Feeney (1993) discusses Augustus’ tolerance and its limits. 12. Pandey 2018, 24, with additional bibliography in n. 85. 13. For a summary of Gallus’ life and career, see Anderson et al. 1979. 14. For Ovid’s error, see Green 1982 and Hutchinson 2017. 15. For Livy’s dates, see Luce 2009a.



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16. When referencing events before 27 BCE, Augustus is generally referred to as Octavian. For the Catullan features of Octavian’s anti-Fulvia poem, see Hollis 2007, 284. 17. Muecke 2007; Watson 2007, 103. 18. Although not necessarily because of Augustus’ actions: Timagenes is reported to have burned his books about Augustus out of spite (Sen. Ira. 3.23.6; Luce 2009a, 27). 19. Konstan (1995, 328) defines the patron–client relationship as inherently asymmetrical and potentially exploitative. 20. Williams (2012, 53) explains the difference between cliens and amicus: “the term cliens suggests a relation of dependence and the very fact of using it places a man in a hierarchical constellation, while amicus suggests a voluntarily established relationship between men on more or less equal footing, and underscores the goodwill at least ideally uniting them.” The necessity of dependence and subordination for a cliens underscores how unusual it would be for a young man of equestrian status, like most of the Augustan authors, to accept such a role. 21. Gold 1987; Konstan 1995. 22. Gold (1987, 175) argues that someone like Maecenas would not have expected or required direct, immediate return for his patronage. 23. Murray 1993, 97. 24. Dixon (1993, 451) notes that in the higher classes, gifts and even loans were characterized with the language of friendship, not patronage and (453) that the receiver of a gift had a duty to praise the giver but that Romans avoided being obliged to those they distrusted or disapproved of (458). Cf. Williams (2012, 46) on the difficulty of distinguishing between clientela and friendship. 25. Roller (2001, 211) suggests that patronage is a dialogue of individual transactions, with each individual’s standing shifting and changing through the course of the relationship, thus showing how patronage is instrumental and, like friendship and unlike clientela, does not require the permanent subordination of one person to another. 26. “neque enim si tu superbus amicitiam nostram spreuisti, ideo nos quoque anthuperephanoumen” (For if you in your pride spurned my friendship, I do not also disdain you in return). Cf. Williams 2012, 41. Horace generally presents himself as a friend when referring to elite males, regardless of their status relative to his (White 2007, 196). 27. See Rauk 1997 for a study of the relationship between Catullus and Nepos. 28. Wiseman 1985. Cf. Stroup 2010, 17. 29. See Gold 1987, 144–49 for a summary of the relationship and its resemblance (or not) to patronage. 30. These are especially prevalent in his first book: Bassus (1.4), Gallus (1.5, 1.10, 1.13, 1.20), Ponticus (1.7, 1.9). The multiple addressees raises a further point, which is that for Roman poets and “patrons,” the relationship did not have to be exclusive (Murray 1993, 100). 31. White 2007, 199.

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Notes to Pages 54–59

32. The unusual social mobility presented by the civil wars may have seemed to the young Horace to be a way to rise quickly in social status. Griffin (1993, 11–13) suggests that Horace shows real anger in the Epodes at the way that this rise had been thwarted by the fall of Brutus, an anger that dissipates only after he was taken up by Maecenas and provided with a new way of improving his status. 33. White (2007, 198) places Horace’s status, while in his position as a clerk, as one step below an eques. 34. Lowrie (2009, 11) suggests that Horace’s occasionally expressed desire to study philosophy is indicative of his wish to escape the social obligations of clientage. 35. See Seager 1993, 34 on Epist. 1.7 as a statement of independence from Maecenas even as he articulates their relationship. Also Epod. 1.18, Carm. 2.18. 36. Gold 1987, 112 and cf. White 1993, esp. ch. 5. Hollis (2007, 5) notes that although many poets promised a work on Augustus, as far as we know only “lesser poets” actually wrote them. 37. Lowrie 2007, 89. See also Lowrie 2009, 114 on how the “outsider” status of the poets affords them freedom to evaluate the public world. 38. Balmaceda (2017, 35) also notes this pattern, although her work is focused on the historians. This is a situation where the usage is similar in poetry and prose. 39. Although Horace mentions girls, there is little in these poems that is truly addressed to them, unless we move beyond the Roman Odes to the immediately following Astartie and Gyges ode. Oliensis (2007, 227) notes that the Roman Odes provide detailed positive masculine role models for boys but little in a similar vein for girls. 40. The locus classicus is Cato the Elder (e.g., Festus p. 350 L. = ORF (4) no. 8, 128). 41. Rudd 1993, 84. 42. Seager (1993) assesses how Horace’s and Augustus’ views are similar and different. Nisbet (2007, 13) believes that Horace’s “political” poems in the Odes show an increasing closeness to the Augustan regime. 43. It also connects them to the populus Romanus of the late Republic, as, according to Wiseman (2009, 52), they disapproved of private luxury. 44. Severy 2003, 82–84. Rudd (1993, 75) sees Augustan ideology as strengthening Roman uirtus. 45. Gardner 2013, 41. 46. For example, uirtus is associated with the self-sacrifice of Curtius at AUC 7.6: “tum M. Curtium, iuuenem bello egregium, castigasse ferunt dubitantes an ullum magis Romanum bonum quam arma uirtusque esset, et silentio facto templa deorum immortalium, quae foro imminent, Capitoliumque intuentem et manus nunc in caelum, nunc in patentes terrae hiatus ad deos manes porrigentem, se deuouisse” (Then they say that Marcus Curtius, a young man outstanding in war, scolded those doubting whether any Roman thing was better than their arms and courage, and with silence having fallen he gazed at the temples of the immortal gods, which loom over the Forum, and the Capitolium, and stretching out his hands now to the sky, now into the opening of the earth toward the gods below, he devoted himself).



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But death itself is not the point: service to Rome is the point. Shumate (2005) sees this poem, along with 3.5 and 3.6, as connecting idealized, allegedly traditional gender roles with a nationalistic program of Roman renewal, including a return to military conquest. 47. Elsewhere (Carm. 1.2.41–44), Horace equates Mercury and Augustus, for which see chapter 3. 48. The abandoned shield also famously allies Horace with Archilochus (5W), a poet whom he claims as a model at Epist. 1.19.23–31; cf. Hawkins 2014; Watson 2007; Zimmermann Damer 2016. 49. This foreshadows Augustus’ practice in the Res Gestae, in which he leaves out the names of those he fought against, including Brutus. However, in 3.4 Horace brings up Philippi again (26) in a list of things that did not kill him, since the Muses were watching over him. This second reminder of Horace’s former allegiances in a set of poems that ostensibly praise Augustus and his regime (Hutchinson 2007, 45) should give us pause: at the very least, Horace is asserting a certain amount of independence and free will in his choices. 50. On one hand, this dissociates uirtus from many of the destructive actors of the late Republic, especially with the phrase “arbitrio popularis aurae.” (Cf. Seager 1993, 29 for how the competitive politics and attendant social mobility of the late Republic were “out of fashion.”) The term popularis referred specifically to those powerful men who championed the needs of the populus, the nonelite people of Rome. In the view of their enemies, the optimates, the populares were not champions so much as panderers to the whims of the common people with the ultimate goal of setting up a tyranny founded on satisfying the basest desires of the mob. Thus, Horace inserts a critique of this style of government and a subtle warning against it. On the other hand, Julius Caesar was unquestionably a popularis politician, and many of the triumvirates’ actions had a popularis bent to them, including those carried out by Octavian. In Livy 6.11, M. Manlius Capitolinus is named the first popularis politician (“primus omnium ex patribus popularis factus”) and is described as driven by popular favor rather than good judgment (“aura non consilio ferri famaeque magnae malle quam bonae esse”). 51. In the end, Augustus welcomed back Crassus’ soldiers with honor and included them in his public representations of the Parthian “victory” (Hannestad 1988, 55). 52. See Introduction. 53. Regulus has been analyzed as a figure with philosophical connotations (Harrison 1986), including an argument for Horace’s carpe diem approach (Arietti 1990). 54. Nisbet (2007, 13) lists this poem among a number of others that he says suggest Horace’s growing closeness to Augustus and his regime in the early 20s. 55. Severy (2003, 37) argues that Octavian and the other survivors saw the moral failings of the commanders as the real cause of the civil wars. 56. Livy expresses similar sentiments at 9.19, which he ties to Rome’s future military success: “mille acies grauiores quam Macedonum atque Alexandri auertit auertetque, modo sit perpetuus huius qua uiuimus pacis amor et ciuilis cura concordiae”

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Notes to Pages 65–69

(The Roman soldier has and will put to flight a thousand threats more severe than the armies of the Macedonians and Alexander, if only the love of this peace in which we live and concern for civil harmony should be everlasting); Luce (2009a, 39) points out that this passage could be rather unflattering to Augustus and his ability to maintain order, depending on the date of composition. Galinsky (1996, 70) summarizes the attitude not only of these authors but also of Romans in general at this time: no one wanted the civil wars to return. Cf. Rudd 1993, 75. 57. Balmaceda 2017, 108; Lipovsky 1981. 58. This statement is complicated slightly by the fragmentary nature of books 41 and 43–45, but the ratio is virtually unaffected if one excludes those books. 59. McDonnell 2006, 385 n.2. My translation of uirtutum in the passage immediately preceding reflects the difficulty of translating the term in the plural, where it could refer to multiple acts of martial courage or to “virtues” in the modern sense. Given the general usage in Livy, I believe that the former is more likely, but the latter cannot be entirely discounted. Balmaceda (2017, 92) says that three-quarters of the time Livy uses the word to mean “bravery” and notes the rarity of the word in the plural (102). 60. Book 1: 9; 2: 14; 3: 19; 4: 17; 5: 14; 6: 12; 7: 26; 8: 12; 9: 14; 10: 8. 61. I exclude the epitomes, judging that it is too difficult to make claims about relative frequency of word use based on summaries. 62. For example, Livy himself (39.6) gives 187 BCE as the date when “foreign luxury” first traveled from Asia to Rome. 63. Balmaceda (2017, 83) suggests that Livy wrote about past uirtus to construct and stabilize Rome’s memory of its identity in times of change. 64. Similarly, in book 2 fully half of instances of the word (seven out of fourteen) appear in 2.12–13, in two stories, first, unusually, that of the young woman Cloelia, who as a hostage to Lars Porsenna first led an escape from his camp and then returned to take the place of those she had freed. She is paired with Gaius Mucius, the youth who went to Porsenna’s camp intending to assassinate him and burned his own hand to show his courage. McInerney (2003) examines how times of crisis can lead to women’s participation and even central importance in areas that they would not normally have access to. 65. This is a reference to the recent opening of the consulship to plebeians as well as patricians, which means that officeholders are drawn from a wider pool of Romans and no longer restricted to a hereditary class. 66. Indeed, the final seven appearances of the word in Book 7 are related to Romans who fight the Samnites (7.34, 35, 36, 36, and 40). And later, in Book 9, the word occurs four times in the Caudine Forks episode (9.4, 6, and twice in 14), and each time it belongs to the Romans, perhaps acting as a signal, unheeded by the Samnites, that Roman courage and military power are not actually broken. And as it happens, after a digression on Alexander the Great, uirtus returns, underpinning the ability of Romans to escape defeat in another Samnite ambush (9.31 and 32), including one uirtus that is



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specifically uirtus Romana when the consul, Junius, asks (9.31.13): “sed quem esse iam uirtuti Romanae inexpugnabilem locum?” (But what place was there now that was unconquerable by Roman military might?). See Balmaceda 2017, 92, who makes uirtus uniquely central to Roman identity, although she is less clear about what it means when this Roman characteristic is held by non-Romans, and sees Livy’s war narratives as a location for that centrality to truly shine. 67. Adler 2011 examines this feature in the Roman historians. 68. In this point, I strongly disagree with the view of Balmaceda (2017, 17) that “courage had to be always publicly oriented.” In Livy and likely elsewhere as well, courage (uirtus) can be selfish and disobedient and not serve the public good. 69. Note that pietas is one of the virtues listed with uirtus on the Clipeus Virtutis, which is evidence for the fact that uirtus by itself was not sufficient evidence to prove an honorable character. 70. Shortly after though, at 8.36, the dictator has uirtus as the Samnites have surrendered to him, so that it is not entirely clear that Livy sides with one man or the other, at least so far as courage is concerned. 71. For a recent review and reappraisal of what is known about the Volsci, see Di Fazio 2014 and Gnade 2014. 72. This section of the book, dealing with the disastrous Roman defeat at Allia, attributes it to the moral and religious faults of all classes of Romans (Luce 2009b, 155), a feature that is bolstered by the attribution of uirtus to their enemies. 73. On this specific incident in the Struggle of the Orders, see Pellam 2014. On speeches in Livy’s narrative of the Struggle of the Orders in general, see Smith 2010. 74. The remaining two are in Eclogue 4; it does not appear in the Georgics. 75. An interesting piece of scholarship on the connections between Livy and Vergil reads the Shield of Aeneas as a critique of Livy’s first pentad (Woodman 1989). 76. Quint (2010) makes the argument that even the wanderings of the first half of the Aeneid are a foreshadowing of Roman conquests of the very areas that Aeneas visits, projecting Rome’s martial future into the Odysseyan past of those books. Whitehorne (2005) sees the first half as allowing Aeneas to make the transition from the alien and threatening east to Italy, a transition that is seen in the way that uirtus moves from the defeated Trojans to the soon-to-be Italian/Trojan union that will make Rome. 77. The only exceptions to this are both aimed at either generic or potential groups of people, never specific other groups that exist at the same time as the Trojan exiles. The first is at 6.130 (129–30): “pauci, quos aequus amauit / Iuppiter aut ardens euexit ad aethera uirtus” (a few whom fair-minded Jupiter loved or flame-burning uirtus brought forth to the skies), where the uirtus belongs to unnamed heroes who descended to the underworld while still living and successfully returned and the second at 6.806 (806–7): “et dubitamus adhuc uirtutem extendere factis, / aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?” (and should we hesitate to extend our uirtus from here with deeds

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or should fear prohibit us from halting in the Ausonian land), where the shade of Aeneas’ father, Anchises, is narrating a parade of future Romans. The uirtus at 806 is perhaps more logically a possession of the Romans, but Anchises is presenting them as the descendants of the Trojans, so that it also belongs to them. 78. The first uirtus we see occurs as Latinus, king of the Italian territory Aeneas wishes to settle in, imagines the descendants of a marriage between his daughter and heir, Lavinia, and Aeneas (7.257–58): “huic progeniem uirtute futuram/ egregiam” (from this man will be a progeny outstanding in uirtus). Readers know these descendants will be the very Romans whom Anchises introduced in the underworld. 79. Rabel (1978) has argued that the major martial actions of book 9, of Turnus, Nisus and Euryalus, and Turnus again, represent a critical look at heroic glory, which is emphasized by the reference to Achilles, both an archetype of glory and a locus for its problematic implications. 80. On animal similes and moral judgments in the Aeneid, see Hartigan 1973, who notes that the lion simile is reserved for Turnus and adds to a sense of similarity between his rage and that which eventually overcomes Aeneas. 81. At 11.27, uirtus will again be attributed to the now-dead Pallas by Aeneas. 82. Jones 1977. 83. For analysis of this speech, see Fantham 1999 and Pagán 2010. 84. Wright (1997) assesses Turnus and Aeneas under the framework of “righteous anger” in the Aristotelian sense and argues that ira and furor can, in this poem, be “survival mechanisms” (179) for individuals and groups. In terms of individuals, anger drives Turnus to destruction and Aeneas to destroy him; although the end result is the survival of both of their groups, this is effected only when the rage of Juno subsides and the rage of Turnus and Aeneas has reached its end. 85. Evans (2003) states that one of the overarching themes of the Aeneid is the assimilation of everything to Rome’s imperial destiny: uirtus should be included as one of these assimilated things. 86. There was also a shrine to Virtus in Pompey’s theater, cf. McDonnell 2006, 295. Augustus restored parts of Pompey’s complex (RG 20; Suet. Aug. 31.5). 87. Pandey (2018, 159) argues for a more oppositional relationship playing out in the Forum of Augustus, which she views as a response to and correction of Vergil’s parade of Romans. Hardie (1993, 94) points out that Horace seems to refer to the elogia of the statues at Carm. 4.8.13–15: non incisa notis marmora publicis, per quae spiritus et uita redit bonis post mortem ducibus [Not marble, inscribed with public marks of recognition, through which the spirit and life returns to good leaders after death] But he contrasts these with poetry and makes them less valuable as a gift and incapable of providing lasting fame.



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Chapter 3. Resistance through Authority 1. An earlier generation of scholars sought signs of a counterculture in Roman elegy, but this view has largely been superseded, even by those who originated it. See Hallett 1973 and Hallett and Fabre-Serris 2018: the latter references Hallett 1973 but places it in the more nuanced context that has developed since its publication. 2. Levick (2010, 173) gives an overview of conspiracies and anti-Augustus sentiment during his lifetime. 3. This is especially true for Propertius, for which see Commager 1974; Miller 2004; Stahl 1985; Sullivan 1976; Welch 2005. 4. E.g., Bradley 2017; Rebeggiani 2016; Stahl 1990, 5. As early as Jacobsen 1968. 6. Pandey 2018. 7. He became a pontiff in 47 BCE, augur in 41 BCE, quindecimuir sacris facundis in 37 BCE, and septemuir epulones by 16 BCE, as well as being a fetial priest, a role that he revived to grant divine approval to his war against Cleopatra and Antony. 8. In the obituary for Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator at 30.26, Livy underlines the unusual fact that he held two priesthoods by interjecting “nam duo sacerdotia habuit” (for he held two priesthoods) into a sentence explaining who had succeeded him in each. Even Caesar had held only one major priesthood at a time, since although he was the flamen dialis for a time in his youth, he had been stripped of that priesthood by Sulla long before he became pontifex maximus in 63 BCE. Cf. Ridley 2005, 295. 9. See Scheid 2005 for an informative overview of Augustus’ religious activities throughout his lifetime. 10. Wallace-Hadrill 2005; 2008, 236. 11. Padilla Peralta (2019) traces the professionalization and centralization of knowledge and access to knowledge under Augustus. See Chrol’s 2006 dissertation (193) where he argues for expert specialization as a way of redefining masculine success, albeit a success that was “in the shadow of the totalizing manhood of the princeps” (200). 12. Edwards (1996, 7) argues that Horace and Propertius both set up their written Romes as equal to or better than Augustus’ built Rome; Green (2008) discusses Ovid as “expert” even in exile; Pandey (2018) examines how poets could maintain a position of independence and invite their readers to do the same, at least in their minds, while building and influencing systems of power. 13. Wallace-Hadrill 2005, 57. 14. See Cornell 2014, 430–45 for a thorough biographical sketch and introduction to Pollio. 15. Cornell 2014, 434. His family connections to Augustus entangled his private life with the imperial circle: his son married Vipsania, a daughter of Agrippa’s first marriage and the ex-wife of Tiberius. Thus, Pollio’s daughter-in-law was the half-sister of Augustus’ grandchildren and the mother of Drusus Caesar.

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16. For example, Cato the Elder; L. Cincius Alimentus, who wrote about being held captive by the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War; Q. Fabius Pictor, whose work included his own experience of the Second Punic War; Sempronius Asellio, a participant in and writer about the Third Punic War; and, most famously, Julius Caesar himself, though his work is not strictly history. See Cornell 2014 for the fragmentary authors. 17. He was not the only elite Roman man of his era to try his hand at tragedy; see Boyle 2006, chs. 5 and 6 for an overview of tragedy at the end of the Republic and during the Augustan principate. 18. Johnson (2009, 318) argues that Horace avoids naming the generals in order to make the history seem more mythic and impersonal. 19. For discussion of what time frame the history most likely covered, see Cornell 2014, 437–39. 20. See Morgan 2000, 66 for the difficulty in assigning or rejecting such principles in the case of Pollio or his contemporaries, which he sees as a result of their struggle to redefine a role for themselves in the changing circumstances. 21. See Cornell 2014, 463–71 for a biographical sketch and introduction to Messalla; Syme (1985, 200–216) collects and discusses sources on his life. 22. Fusco 1998; Syme 1985, 211–12. 23. On the significance and usage of this word, see Benveniste 1955. 24. According to Frontinus De Aquis 99. 25. Kissel (2002) provides an overview of various issues around building and maintaining Roman roads. 26. Such as that idealized by Varro at the beginning of book 2 of the De Re Rustica. 27. For the connection between the storm and Augustus, see Saylor 1979 and Clark 2010. 28. My argument builds on that of Sloan (2019), who argues that this poem expresses a certain reservation toward too much unconditional praise of Octavian but also a hope that he will live up to the wishes expressed and lead Rome to prosperity. 29. Much of the scholarship that treats this poem has examined issues of poetics and intertextuality (e.g., Hardie 2008; Holoka 1976; Miller 2002). 30. Cicero’s Pro Milone is an excellent example of how uis was bound up with turmoil and civil disturbance, e.g., 9: “atqui si tempus est ullum iure hominis necandi, quae multa sunt, certe illud est non modo iustum, uerum etiam necessarium, cum ui uis inlata defenditur” (and if there is any time for killing a person by law, and there are many, certainly that is not only just, but also necessary, when uis is inflected that it be defended by uis); 13: “quia nulla uis umquam est in libera ciuitate suscepta inter ciuis non contra rem publicam” (because there is never any uis taken up in a free state among citizens that is not against the Republic); 30: “ui uicta uis (uis was conquered by uis); cf. Querzoli 2004. On the other hand, Cicero himself does occasionally use the term in a positive or at least neutral way, as at Tusc. Disp. 3.17.36: “magna uis est in uirtutibus” (there is great strength in virtues).



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31. Elsewhere, Horace attributes to Augustus the ability to keep away fear of death per uim (Carm. 3.14.15). Ep. 7.13 posits acrior uis as one of the causes of civil war. 32. Lowrie (2009, 103, 114, 121) discusses at length how the “outsider status” of the poet allows him a certain amount of freedom and even power. Horace, on this reading, does not want to be at center stage, as that would restrain his ability to comment on and observe the empire and its politics. 33. See Breed 2004 for this poem’s engagement with the idea of an “age of Augustus.” 34. Ov. Tr. 4.10.47 also mentions Ponticus; nothing is known about him beyond what Propertius and Ovid tell us; cf. Hollis 2007, 426. 35. On the use of durus and mollis in Propertius, see Miller 2004, 68 and Wyke 2002, 168. See Dupont and Éloi 2001, 91 for the opposition between mollis/mollitia and the status of being a uir. 36. Fedeli (1981, 229) argues that the theme of 1.7 is the triumph of elegy over epic. 37. The difficulty with the text of this line makes translation uncertain. 38. Stahl (1985, 58) argues that Propertius, not Ponticus, is the real rival to Homer in this poem. 39. See James 2001, 235 on the usefulness of the two genres when trying to attract puellae. 40. Fedeli 1981, 230. 41. As in Hor. Carm. 1.8. 42. Keith 2008, 143. 43. Wealth and Greek culture, however, are both problematic for traditional Roman values, as I discuss later. 44. Edwards 1993, 200. 45. Notably Cairns (2006, 43 and 326), which, although about 2.7, makes a similar claim about the antisocial nature of the attack on traditional values undermining the speaker’s credibility and therefore the seriousness of Propertius’ motives. 46. For the traditional importance of martial training for aristocratic Roman youths, see McDonnell 2006, 181–85. 47. On Propertian nequitia, see Cairns 2006, 94; Courtney 1970, 51; Keith 2008, ch. 6; Stahl 1985, 93; Wyke 2002, 175. Stahl (92) argues that Propertius uses this terminology “in order to make his own dissent understood to the other person.” 48. On self-fashioning that rehabilitates abjected identities, see Butler 2003, 223. 49. Walthers (1997, 40–42), discussing the connection between manliness and the impenetrable body in Roman thought, notes that the soldier is a source of anxiety, central to Roman manliness yet subject to physical discipline by his superiors and wounding by his enemies. 50. Keith 2008, 128–29. Moreover, Lydia is a common woman’s name attested in the epigraphical record and in Horace’s erotic poetry. For Lydia as an historical woman’s name see CIL 27711, and for the much more common Lyde see CIL 18520, 33453, and 4268; cf. Solin 2003, 661, and in Horace see Carm. 1.8, where she is a woman who is ruining a young man; Carm. 1.13, where she is a woman who praises another man

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and arouses the jealousy of the speaker; Carm. 1.25, where she is an aging courtesan; and Carm. 3.9, where she is one of the two speakers on old and new loves. Ionia is also attested as a woman’s name in the epigraphic record: CIL XV 5980, cf. Solin 2003, 628. 51. Bowditch 2006, 318. 52. Like Clodia’s gardens in the Pro Caelio (36); cf. Skinner 2011, 116–20 on Clodia’s gardens. 53. Keith 2008, 145. 54. Although lines 7–16 still interact with militia, since the Pactoli liquores (11), referencing a Lydian river famous in antiquity for the gold in its sands (according to myth, this happened after Midas washed away the golden touch in this river, Ov. Met. 11.140–44), and Rubris gemma sub aequoribus (12) both suggest the luxuries gained from conquest (Keith 2008, 145). 55. Morgan (2010, ch.4) argues that breaking the normal association of hexameter with elevated material, as Propertius does here, is a way for the poet to draw attention to the incongruity of the epic meter in nonepic settings. 56. For Propertius, empire, and luxury, see Bowditch 2003, 2006, 2009. 57. For a reading of the “greedy girl,” see James 2003, ch. 3. For Cynthia as one of the spoils of empire, see Keith 2008, 146. 58. Nethercut 1970, 402–5. 59. As discussed in Edwards (1993, 177) and especially McDonnell (2006, 55), who covers the opinions of Cato the Elder about the enervating effects of luxury on Roman manliness, e.g., as reported in Cato ORF 8.17 (= Gell. 16.1.1) and Plu. Cat. Ma. 4.22.5. 60. Dupont and Éloi (2001, 89) argue that mollitia is emblematic of the failure of social masculinity. By this definition, the elegists could be seen as intentionally disqualifying themselves from participation in the performance of elite masculinity and as doing the same to anyone they associate with the term. 61. Nelis-Clément and Nelis (2013, 336) suggest that Ovid inserts numerous allusions to the epigraphic record of Augustus’ name into his poetry, which has the effect of making the poem deeply in dialogue with the publication of the princeps’ deeds and titles. 62. Following Gale (2000, 17), I agree that once an intertextual relationship has been opened, it continues to be in effect throughout the poem(s), even if other intertextual resonances are more oblique. 63. Bartlett (2013, 295) argues that even if the Ars Amatoria is the most obvious candidate for the carmen that drew Augustus’ ire, a poem about Rome’s calendar and called the Fasti would undoubtedly have drawn attention to Ovid, possibly negative. 64. The most extended example of which will come at the end of the first century CE when Statius writes his Thebaid. 65. Farron 1977; Rebeggiani 2016; Skinner 2013. 66. Recent scholarship on these lines has looked at Pentheus’ speech in the context of narratology (McNamara 2010) and compared his death at the end of the episode to the death of Turnus at the end of the Aeneid (Maciver 2017).



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67. Suetonius (Aug. 12) even reports that one of Octavian’s reasons for going over to Antony and Lepidus was that some senators had called him puer. 68. Antony’s criticism is related by Suetonius (Aug. 70), who also quotes several anonymous verses on the subject. 69. Pandey 2018, 47–49. 70. Pandey (2018, 49) suggests that Octavian used imagery of Caesar’s comet to implicitly criticize Antony’s neglect of his duties as flamen and general defection from Rome. 71. The most well-known is the aftermath of the Bacchanalian scandal of 186 BCE, as told in Livy (39.8–19) and documented by the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus (CIL. I 2.581). 72. Antony and Dionysus: Mac Góráin 2013; Antony and Hercules: Courtney 2010. 73. Most memorably in Cicero’s Philippics. 74. See chapter 2. 75. Pandey (2018, 58) also points to similar insults in Aeneid 9, where the Italians mock the Trojans as twice conquered and as women, not men, and suggest they came to Italy due to madness, not divine will. 76. Langlands 2006, 287. 77. Janus appears in Fasti 1, January 1; 3, March 30; 5, May 9; and 6, June 1. 78. For example, in Fasti 1.121–23 and 279–82 he makes contradictory statements about the Gates of War, for which see Green 2000 and DeBrohun 2007. 79. According to Livy (1.2) Aeneas is buried on its banks, and Met. 14 (596–604) makes the Numicius the means of transforming Aeneas from mortal to divine. 80. Petrochilos 1979; Bednarowski 2015. 81. For Janus as unreliable, see Green 2000, 309 and DeBrohun 2007, 272. 82. The focus really is on elite Roman men alone: none of these authors shows serious interest in improving the status of people from groups other than his own. Chapter 4. Disengagement through the Recusatio 1. Wiseman 1971, 92. 2. Although the comitia tributa, comitia centuriata, and concilium plebis technically still existed under Augustus, Tiberius, and possibly until the end of the first century CE, their powers were absorbed by the emperor, senate, or both early in Augustus’ principate. 3. Koortbojian (1996, 220) connects the emergence of this type of monument to Augustan social reforms. 4. For the “epigraphic habit” of the first three centuries CE, see recently Lloris 2014. Galinsky (1996, 67) notes that public building in provincial towns and the empire at large, although often sponsored by members of the senatorial class or the provinical nobility as a way of enhancing their status, also dovetailed with the “Augustan vision” of how cities and towns should look and what amenities they should have.

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5. Wiseman (1971, 11) argues that Augustus’ senate was a victory for the Italian noui homines over the old nobiles. Gardner (2013, 41) suggests that Augustus may have been more interested in civic roles for equestrians than for senators. 6. Seager (1993, 34): “Augustus tried hard to convince the old aristocracy that, despite all it had lost, what remained—essentially dignity without power—was still worth having.” Also see Galinsky 1996, 8. 7. See Roller 2001, ch. 3 on how the emperors managed social debt. 8. Suet. Aug. 40.1 states that Augustus would appoint tribunes of equestrian rank if there were insufficient candidates of senatorial rank. 9. For the Romans, especially in the upper classes, a seemingly “private” act like marriage or fatherhood still had significant public aspects. This can be seen even in the marriage laws themselves, which give public rewards for private commitments to marriage and family. For the difficulty of separating public and private, see Dupont and Éloi 2001, 85. 10. For an evaluation of the evidence, see Hin 2011. 11. Suet. Aug. 34. Tacitus (Ann. 3.25–28) sees the marriage laws as a particularly egregious attack on personal freedom. Severy (2003, 56) argues that the laws on marriage and adultery negated the boundary between family and state and inserted Augustus into the family. Cf. Gardner 2013, 33–34. 12. Gardner (2013, 43) notes that the age that the marriage laws applied and the age of active service in the Senate were roughly the same, suggesting a connection between the two roles. 13. Lines 17–20. Griffin 1993, 19 and Lowrie 2007, 86. 14. Badian 1985 attempts to uncover an early marriage law that may have instigated the declaration against legally enforced marriage in Prop. 2.7. 15. Hollis (2007, 287–99) collects six fragments (165–70) of his poetry, from elegiac, epic, and bucolic works. See Wiseman 1971, 178–79, who says Rufus’ “sole claim to repute was in the literary field,” for a discussion of how his artistic success led to a political career. 16. Kennedy 1993, 17. 17. Cf. Fear 2005. 18. See Kenney 1969 for Ovid’s legal career. Ovid does include men in public positions in the love poetry, such as when he pictures an orator giving in to love in the courts at Ars 1.79–88, but his lover-poet persona does not hold any public positions. 19. Ovid’s praeceptor amoris does, however, list the fora among the places to look for love and the consultus (and patronus) as susceptible to love (Ars 1.79–88). Cf. Bablitz 2007, 44–45. 20. See Bablitz 2007, 98–99 and 112 for the posts held by Ovid and for his turn away from a senatorial career (103). Cf. Wiseman 1971, ch. 6. 21. His funerary inscription survives (CIL IV 1501) and tells us that he reached the rank of proconsul. Cf. Wiseman 1971, 180; Cairns 2006, 14–24; and Keith 2008, 5. 22. For Propertius’ education, see Keith 2008, 19–44.



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23. Gardner (2013, 117) summarizes the possibilities: the recusatio can be a humble acknowledgment of Caesar’s greatness, a formal protest against Augustan ideology, or both. 24. Gold 1987, 112 and cf. White 1993, esp. ch. 5. 25. Cairns 2006, 41. 26. White 1993, 123–33. Cf. Thomas 2011, 4–5. 27. Suet. Vita Ver.39. 28. For Horace’s engagement with Hellenistic poetry to create his recusationes, see Thomas 2011. 29. See Harrison 2007a, 34 for Horace’s multiple strategies of self-representation. 30. Rutherford (2007, 252) argues that, for Horace, lyric poems are inappropriate for epic themes and would mar them with language of the wrong register. Voisin (2002) sees the recusatio of this poem as a refusal of the supremacy of epic and tragedy and defense of lyric verse, rather than as having any political meaning. 31. Fowler (2002, 149) suggests that poetic inspiration can be feminizing for the poet, as he is penetrated by a force that is beyond his control. 32. The poet is also referred to as tenues (slight or slender), a term that is frequently used to describe elegiac poetry and poets to contrast them with epic strength and power. Horace’s first three books of Carmina were published in 23 BCE, around the same time as Propertius 3, and the poets were in the same poetic circle in the 20s. There are significant overlaps in terms of vocabulary, style, contents, and examples between the two poets’ recusationes. 33. Ahern (1991) sees the Homeric references as parody that simultaneously demonstrates Horace’s unfitness and mocks the “new Homers” writing epic. While this is a possible reading of the poem, it does not entirely explain the dire tone of the references. 34. Seager 1993, 26. 35. Cody 1973/74. 36. For the connection of youth and elegy, see Gardner 2013, 35–36. 37. Thom (1998) argues that Horace uses the recusatio in the Roman Odes to explore a tension between his preferred private, lyric world and the political world. 38. Refer to chapter 2. 39. For Propertius’ pre-publication access to the Aeneid, see Cairns 2003. 40. Holoka (1976) sees the poem as Horace’s attempt to define his own role as a poet and his place in the world. 41. See Barber 2018 on how Horace uses addresses to the gods in his poetry. 42. 3.4.27: “deuota non extinxit arbor” (the damned tree did not kill me). Cf. Putnam 1996. 43. Rudd (1993, 81) notes that for Horace public celebrations are often combined with private ones, yet another example of the difficulty of separating the public from the private for Roman men. 44. See later in this chapter for discussion of Maecenas’ career and public and private image.

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45. Harrison (2007b, 245) sees this poem as a harnessing of Bacchic wildness for civic purposes, a reading that I consider not impossible but not the only possible one. 46. These are similar limits to what Propertius claims are set on him by the same god in elegy 3.3. 47. Lowrie (2007, 89) notes that Horace’s independence actually makes any praise he does give more valuable. 48. Murray (1993, 97) says that Horace (and other Roman poets) make a greater contrast between public and leisure than the Greek sympotic poets, but I would argue that it is not as disconnected as it may seem on the surface. 49. Suet. Hor. 50. Seager (1993, 35) suggests that Epist. 1.19 provides a way for literature to contribute to the good of the state when politics becomes unworkable. 51. For Thebes as a site for civil war in the Roman imagination, see Braund 2006. See Welch 2005, 101–2 for discussion of another occasion when Propertius brings up Remus to similar ends, in 4.6. 52. Gurval 1995, 174. 53. Res Gestae 25 and 27. Cf. Gurval 1995, 16. 54. Cairns 2006, 46–47. 55. Nethercut 1970. 56. See DeBrohun 2003, 220–34 on the opposing values contained within the figure of Apollo. 57. See chapter 3. 58. This dream also alludes to a famous Callimachean set piece, Aet. fr. 3–7 M. 59. Weinlich 2010, 135. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 6.3–5, modeled on Call. Aet. Fr. 1 M. 60. 2.1.24. 61. Maecenas was a patron of numerous poets, and programmatic addresses to him can also be found in every book of Vergil’s Georgics (1.2; 2.41; 3.41; and 4.2) and in Horace Epod. 1.4, Carm. 1.1.1, S. 1.1.1, Ep. 1.1.3. 62. He does not seem to have fathered children, though, at least not ones that survived long enough to enter the historical record. He made Augustus heir to his vast wealth. Sen. Ep. 114.4–11 discusses Maecenas’ well-known (4: notius) public performance of effeminacy. 63. Plin. Nat. 8.170 on Maecenas and gourmet dishes; Tac. Ann. 1.54 on his scandalous love affair with the actor Bathyllus; Sen. Ep. 114.4–11 on his luxurious lifestyle and effeminate self-presentation. 64. D. C. 54.19.3. 65. Under Augustus’ marriage legislation, Maecenas could even have been charged with acting as a pimp if he failed to divorce his wife after learning of her adultery. 66. See chapter 1. 67. See Morgan 2010, 63–73 and 76–78 on the lasting association of hendecasyllables with Catullus. For Catullan allusions (Catul. 14.1, 30.2, 45.3–7, 92.2–4) in fr. 186, see Hollis 2007, 318–22. Maecenas was a collector of jewels, as indicated by a fragmentary



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letter from Augustus, preserved at Macr. 2.4.12; cf. Keith 2008, 156. On the association of jewel collections with Hellenistic luxury, see Bing 2004 and Hunter 2004. 68. Williams (1990) argues that Maecenas did not fall from favor but rather that Maecenas cooperated in the movement of the poets from his patronage to that of Augustus. 69. Welch 2005, 34. 70. Technically the beginning is the short introductory epigram, but the collection proper begins with the recusatio of 1.1. 71. Weinlich (2010) traces the connections between Ovid’s recusationes and Propertius 3.3. 72. Vitruvius, in his discussion of the correct locations for temples (1.7.1), suggests suitable places for the temples of various gods, many of which contradict their actual spots in Rome! For example, Venus should be near the gate with the reasoning “uti non insuescat in urbe adulescentibus, seu matribus familiarum ueneria libido” (so that carnal desire should not in the city habituate itself to the youth or the mothers of households). He places the correct location of temples of Mars “extra urbem sed ad campum” (outside the city but on the fields nearby), explaining shortly thereafter the reasoning: “Martis uero diuinitas cum sit extra moenia dedicata, non erit inter ciues armigera dissensio, sed ab hostibus ea defensa a belli periculo conseruabit” (Indeed, when the divinity of Mars is also consecrated outside the city, there will be no armed strife among the citizens, but he will guard that which he defends from the enemy from the danger of war). This implies that at least two major temples built or completed by Augustus were positioned in a way that threatened to endanger and corrupt the populus: those to Venus Genetrix, in the middle of the city, in the Forum Julius, and, near it, Mars Ultor, in the Forum Augustum. 73. Although Varro (Rust. 1.1.6) pairs them as protectors of olive groves and gardens. 74. Morgan 2010, 370–72. 75. For an overview of the meaning of hair in Ovid’s work, see Hälikkä 2001. 76. An excellent example that is dated to the Augustan era is the statue of Apollo playing a lyre (MV 2274.0.0) in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican Museums. 77. Gurval (1995, 129–30) notes that both Horace and Propertius tend to emphasize Apollo’s lyre and peaceful pursuits when referring to him in relation to Augustus, making Ovid’s pairing of the god with Mars even more striking. 78. Morgan (2010, 348–54) on Ovid’s use of the elegiac couplet to play with epic and elegy. 79. The exact identity of this Macer is unclear. Possibilities include Aemilius Macer, a didactic poet mentioned by Ovid in Tr. 4.10.43–44, and Pompeius Macer, who wrote Greek epigrams and tragedy and held official posts under Augustus. Recently, Kronenberg (2018) has argued for Macer, meaning “the lean lover,” as a pseudonym for Valgius Rufus, poet and suffect consul of 12 BCE. 80. For the shadowy nature of Corinna, see Buchan 1995.

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81. As paired with res militiae in, e.g., Cic. Leg. Man. 48: “itaque non sum praedicaturus quantas ille res domi militiae, terra marique, quantaque felicitate gesserit” (and so I will not go on to mention how much that man has accomplished in matters at home and abroad, on the land and on the sea, and with how much satisfaction). 82. See chapter 3. 83. For Ovid’s use of love’s triumph, see Athanasaki 1992 and Miller 1995, both of which discuss the extended use of the metaphor in Am. 1.2. 84. Davis 1977; Papanghelis 1987; Veyne 1988. Chapter 5. Speaking through the Gods 1. See introduction, page 18. 2. His origins may be in Lampsacus, in modern Turkey; if so, he was later brought to Italy through the colonization of Magna Graecia. He likely fused organically with indigenous deities and gained a deeply rooted importance in the Italian countryside even before the increasing Hellenization of the third and second centuries BCE. 3. Gentilcore 1995; Lindheim 1998; Myers 1994. 4. Rome’s war with the Volsinii in 280 BCE is attested by Livy Periochae XI and the Fasti Triumphales. For the ritual of the euocatio, in which a Roman commander invited an enemy’s patron deity to abandon his side and join the Roman’s side, see Livy 5.21 on the euocatio of Juno Regina from Veii by Camillus in 396 BCE. 5. Pagán (2006, 4) notes that gardens are a place of “transgressions and transformations” in Roman literature. 6. Varro Ling. 5.46 confirms the location of the statue. O’Neill (2000, 261) suggests that the location on the Vicus Tuscus may also symbolize the boundary between amatory and aetiological elegy. 7. See Welch 2005, 114–21 for an overview of the historical significance of both sacred sites in general and their association with the imperial couple in particular. 8. I ground my analysis purely in the Latin Priapea rather than the Greek, which have significant differences in tone and subject matter, for discussion of which see Parker 1988, 2–12. 9. Parker 1988, 32, 36. 10. Richlin 1983, 141–43. 11. This overlap is not surprising, since Catullus has been identified as performing, at times, a Priapic masculinity: see Richlin’s groundbreaking 1983 volume, especially ch. 6, and Williams 1999, 86–95. 12. Williams (1999, 18, 21–22) provides an overview of the concept and examples from Roman literature. 13. Parker (1988, 15) and Edmunds (2009, 125) note the similarities between Horace’s Priapus and those in the Priapea. 14. Including elsewhere in the Satires, notably 1.2; see also Ep. 8 and 12. 15. Pagán (2006, 44) notes that the witches, as profane females, serve as the direct opposite of the divine and hypermasculine Priapus. Maecenas’ gardens are thus a site where oppositions meet and the “correct” side prevails.



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16. For a detailed examination of Roman cinaedi, who were gender nonconforming males, see Sapsford 2022. 17. Hallett 1981, 342. 18. Pagán (2006, 42) argues that Maecenas performed a public service to Rome when he transformed the Esquiline. For Horace as tamer of satire, see Muecke 2007. 19. Edmunds (2009, 130) connects Priapus and generic issues: “An antique, fissured Priapus, one losing his physical integrity, a Priapus physically recontextualized in new horti in which he abandons his traditional functions—he would be the perfect image for loss of poetic–generic identity. In his new role Priapus is post-generic in this sense too. He makes fun of himself as a Priapus. He is not speaking, after lines 1–7, to a reader imagined as reading Priapic verses posted in a shrine of Priapus or near a Priapus statue. He no longer conveys his characteristic phallic threats. He has forgotten the metres of the Priapea.” 20. Seneca Ben. 4.13.1 makes gardens a location for the Epicureans he criticizes; he also cites a line of Maecenas’ poetry that refers to gardens in his critique of the man at Ep. 114.4–9. Cf. Boatwright 1998, 81 and Pagán 2006, 52–53. 21. Nikoloutsos (2007, 64–65), however, sees Priapus’ inherently conflicted nature as suited to love elegy, a point returned to later. 22. Sinus can be a euphemism, but generally for female, rather than male, genitalia, including at Tibullus 1.8.36 and Ovid Fasti 5.256 (Adams 1990, 90–91); regardless, it seems difficult to understand as such here, at least overtly. 23. Richlin (1983, 126) argues that Priapus in Tibullus is “a shadow of himself.” 24. Williams (1999, 188) argues that the boys of Tibullus 1.8 “act like aristocratic young Romans, engaging in the traditional exercises of horsemanship and swimming in the Tiber (11–12), eager to travel on both land and sea (41–46) or to amuse themselves by hunting or fencing (49–52). These are not the pastimes of slaves.” Many of these activities are also in Carm. 1.8. Nikoloutsos (2007, 66–67) argues that these boys cannot be slaves but are also not meant to evoke any “real” boys: he sees them as purely literary creations. 25. Although praetexens technically modifies the rainbow, it could allude obliquely to the boys’ status as free-born youths who wear the toga praetexta. 26. For a full articulation of this idea, see, among others, Greene 2005a, 211; James 2005, 294–99; and Miller 2004, 137. 27. Tenuis appears forty-one times in Latin love elegy (Ovid: 26, Propertius: 8, Tibullus: 7, Sulpicia: 0) and angustus ten times (Ovid: 3, Propertius: 5, Tibullus: 2, Sulpicia: 0), as opposed to once for macer, in a decidedly nonamatory context at Propertius 4.1.22, describing the scrawny cows that sufficed as a sacrifice to Vesta in the Rome of old. 28. The sparrows in this poem, famously associated with Lesbia (Cat. 2 and 3), could point to Catullan intertext, although they are also the bird of Venus. 29. For the difficulty of determining the social status of the elegiac puella, see Miller 2004, 62; Sharrock 1991, 46.

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30. Parker 1988, 42. 31. One could read Priapus’ laments as querelae (complaints), one of the fundamental features of elegy, for which see Saylor 1967. 32. Nikoloutsos 2007, 63–64. 33. Parker 1988, 42. 34. Williams (1999, ch. 3) covers the concept of and laws around stuprum, including numerous citations from literature and legal texts ranging over the Republican and imperial periods. Perhaps the most well-known is the third-century jurist Modestinus’ (Dig. 48.5.35.1) explanation of the distinction between adultery and stuprum, which states: “stuprum in uidua uel uirgine uel puero committitur” (Stuprum is committed against a widow or an unmarried girl or a boy). 35. For the elusive Lex Scantinia, see Cic. Fam. 8.12, 14; cf. Williams 1999, 120 n. 98 for bibliography. 36. See for instance DeBrohun 2003 and Welch 2005, although whether Propertius is an accomplice or a rival is up for debate. 37. Although how much of a departure the subject matter actually is from the rest of the Propertian corpus is in fact open to discussion, as Wallis (2018) has shown most recently and I have argued in ch. 4. 38. Propertius’ Apollo poems appear in chapter 4 as sites of tension between acquiescence and resistance. 39. There was a temple to Vertumnus on the Aventine, but Propertius ignores it (O’Neill 2000, 263). O’Neill argues that the Vicus Tuscus was associated with sex work and was effectively a “red-light district” (263–73). 40. Boucher 1980, 92; Freyburger 1980, 111. 41. See chapter 2. 42. For example, discussion of Cicero Pro Sestio 98 in chapter 1. 43. See Stroup 2010, ch.1 for a discussion of elite otium in the late Republic. 44. It is one of the accoutrements of Aeneas in Iarbas’ disdainful description of him at Aen. 4.215–17, discussed in chapter 2. It is also part of the exsequiae (funeral objects) of the lena Acanthis at Prop. 4.5.72; cf. Zimmermann Damer 2019, 220–22. 45. See DeBrohun 2003, 220–34 on the opposing values contained within the figure of Apollo. 46. Varro (Rust. 23.6) lists a wood for fowling (aucupere) among the amenities of a working villa and refers to a villa having an enclosure for animals kept for hunting (3.3.5: “quae macerie ad uillam uenationis causa cluduntur”). 3.3.17 provides a number of anecdotes about fish and fishing. Although written a century later, Pliny’s letters include lively scenes of villa life, including hunting in 1.6. Hunting scenes are also common on mosaic pavements at villa sites. 47. Joshel 2010, 206 notes that “slaves and free persons acted as institores, but often both in law and in literature the institor was a slave.” For slave pastores, see Bradley 1994, 86–87. For charioteers, Meijer (2010, 82), speaking about tombstones, states that “more than half of all the inscriptions state explicitly that the driver was a seruus (slave) or libertus (freedman).”



Notes to Pages 184–191

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48. Ovid’s Vertumnus also takes up the question of what masculinity is but, according to Lindheim (1998), with a very different conclusion (36): “While Propertius, through his Vertumnus, can imagine the total breakdown of essential gender identity, Ovid grants it a somewhat different, yet no less illusive, nature. The Ovidian text reveals masculinity as entirely fictional, yet simultaneously regulatory and necessary.” 49. Some examples: The Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus enforced class distinctions for marriage purposes, he removed from the senate those he considered as unworthy of its dignity, he imposed new wealth requirements for the senatorial and equestrian classes, he tried to restrict the number of slaves being manumitted into Roman citizenship, and he required audience members to sit separated by class and gender at the theater. 50. The placement of the masculine actions in the hexameter and the feminine in the pentameter suggests that the form of the couplet itself underlines Hercules’ propensity to transgress gender norms. Cf. Morgan 2010, who makes a number of observations and arguments about the use of the form of the elegiac couplet to emphasize contrasts and contradictions (esp. 18–22, 347, 362). 51. This order is inverted in 4.9, which places the mollis fascia in the hexameter and the durae manus in the pentameter. 52. In this way, Propertius characterizes Hercules as he had Achilles in 2.8.29–40, or, by allusion to Danaë, Jupiter in 2.20.9–12, changing a heroic figure into an elegiac lover. For Hercules in 4.9 as an exclusus amator, see Welch 2005, 122. 53. Loraux 1990. 54. It seems that Octavian used Hercules’ “instability and irrationality” against Antony: see Spencer 2001, 262. 55. For this shrine, see Fest. 278; Macrob. Sat. 1.12.25–26; Ov. Fast. 5.155–56. 56. Spencer 2001, 280. 57. Spencer (2001, 275) posits a connection between Hercules’ actions and Clodius Pulcher’s profaning of the rites of Bona Dea in 62 BCE. Given that Clodius violated rites that were held at Julius Caesar’s home, Propertius may be obliquely suggesting a connection between the princeps and his father as well as between Hercules and Clodius. Conclusion 1. Known, it seems, even to Augustus himself, as suggested by the reports in Suet. Tib. 21.2: “scio uulgo persuasum quasi egresso post secretum sermonem Tiberio uox Augusti per cubicularios excepta sit: ‘miserum populum Romanum, qui sub tam lentis maxillis erit.’ ne illud quidem ignoro aliquos tradidisse, Augustum palam nec dissimulanter morum eius diritatem adeo improbasse, ut nonnumquam remissiores hilarioresque sermones superueniente eo abrumperet; sed expugnatum precibus uxoris adoptionem non abnuisse, uel etiam ambitione tractum, ut tali successore desiderabilior ipse quandoque fieret” (I know that the common crowd is persuaded that as Tiberius was leaving after a secret conversation, the voice of Augustus was caught by the slaves of the bedchamber saying: “Poor Roman people, who will be under such

232

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slow-moving jaws.” I am not unaware either that some people have reported that Augustus openly and without hiding it disapproved of the harshness of Tiberius’ manners, so that he sometimes broke off his more relaxed and cheerful conversations if that man came up to him; but because he was overcome by the pleas of his wife, he did not refuse the adoption, or else he was led by desire for popularity, since with such a successor he would be more longed for some day). 2. Suet. Tib. 16–19. On Tiberius’ pacification of Illyricum, see Sordi 2004; on his German campaign, Kehne 2008. 3. His biological father, who began as a quaestor under Caesar, made it as far as the praetorship before his relatively early death (Suet. Tib. 4). Both of his grandfathers reached at least the praetorship. 4. Concordia: D.C. 45.8.2; Ov. Fast. 1.640, 643–648; Suet. Tib. 20.; cf. Farrell 2013, 76. Castor and Pollux: Suet. Tib. 20; D.C. 55.27.4; Ov. Fast. 1.707–708.; cf. Pollini 2012, 425. 5. Suet. Tib. 20. 6. As Augustus himself says at RGDA 14, regarding Gaius and Lucius: “filios meos, quos iuuenes mihi eripuit fortuna, Gaium et Lucium Caesares honoris mei causa senatus populusque Romanus annum quintum et decimum agentis consules designauit, ut eum magistratum inirent post quinquennium” (The senate and people of Rome, because of my honor, designated as consuls at the age of fourteen my sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, who fortune stole from me when they were youths, so that they might enter that magistracy five years later). As is generally true of the RGDA, Augustus gives credit to the senate and people for many actions that were cleary taken on his behalf (honoris mei causa), if not at his express command. 7. Roman aristocratic women like Livia had probably always acted as important connections in networks of patronage and behind-the-scenes political dealing: Dixon 1983, Wikander 1991. 8. Armstrong 2013; Bannon 1997. 9. It seems that her role in the transfer of power was even commemorated in statues: Flory 1996. 10. Barrett 2001; L’hoir 1994. 11. Suet. Tib. 50–54, with Livia addressed in 50–51. 12. Including those proposed after her death: Kleiner 1990. 13. Suet. Tib. 43–45. 14. Gladhill (2018) argues that Suetonius constructs a Tiberius whose sexuality tests, challenges, and distorts the norms of Roman sexual culture, while Hallett (2015) considers how the implication of erectile dysfunction and sexual impotence in Suetonius challenges Tiberius’ ability to be a “real” man. 15. Suet. Tib. 27; cf. Newbold 1998 on how Tiberius’ communication style created a feedback loop that forced senators to extremes of servile hypocrisy or disrespectful antagonism. 16. Suet. Tib. 30–32 provides a number of examples of his encouragement of senatorial authority, although the first sentence foreshadows difficulties to come: “quin etiam speciem libertatis quandam induxit conseruatis senatui ac magistratibus et



Notes to Pages 195–200

233

maiestate pristina et potestate” (indeed he even introduced a certain appearance of liberty, since he kept up the former dignity and power of the senate and magistrates). It was not libertas (liberty) but species libertatis (the appearance of liberty) that Tiberius offered, and, as it was his gift, he could (and did) take it away. 17. Suet. Tib. 61, Tac. Ann. 1.74 credits one Caepio Crispinus as a pioneer informer: “qui formam uitae iniit, quam postea celebrem miseriae temporum et audaciae hominum fecerunt” (one who entered a way of life which afterwards the wretchedness of the times and the shamelessness of the people made popular); Lintott 2001–3. 18. See Stevenson (2000) for analysis of Livy’s use of the term parens/pater patriae and its resonance in his work. 19. An excerpt from Suet. Tib. 47 summarizes this point: “princeps neque opera ulla magnifica fecit . . . neque spectacula omnino edidit” (as princeps he undertook no major projects of any magnificence and he gave no public spectacles at all). 20. Roller (2001, 213, 236–38) argues that the father-son paradigm could ease the tension of the emperor-aristocrat relationship. His entire volume examines how the emperor-elite relationship was established and reworked during the early empire and should be consulted for further reading. 21. Roller (2001, 100–1) lists military honors known to have been held by JulioClaudian aristocrats. 22. Cf. Goldberg 2021, chs. 4 and 5. 23. Goldberg (2021, 122–3) reads Tacitus’ Agricola as an example of how a modest Roman uir could gain such honors while avoiding imperial ire. 24. Wallace-Hadrill 2005. 25. E.g., Breed 2010; Drinkwater 2013; Gale 2012; Gardner 2013; Lowrie 2009. 26. Women like Eumachia benefited from Augustan-era experimentation with women’s public roles (Cooley 2013). 27. Levick 2010, 159–61. 28. Tacitus (Ann. 3.55) claims that, before extravagance went out of fashion, “dites olim familiae nobilium aut claritudine insignes studio magnificentiae prolabebantur” (Noble families once wealthy or distinguished by reputation fell from zeal for splendor) (Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 3). A notable example of the danger of extravagant building near Rome from the second century CE is that of the Quintilii brothers, killed by Commodus because he wanted to confiscate their suburban villa, the ruins of which are still visible in the Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica in Rome. Cf. D.C. 73.5.3. 29. Suet. Aug. 35 lays out some measures Augustus put in place to ensure better senate attendance. They are framed as intended to make attending more convenient but in effect allow for limiting the number of times any given senator would have to attend. 30. The flip side of the epigraphic habit is that the increased number of inscriptions undoubtedly makes some things seem like innovations when they are actually continuations of Republican practices. 31. Foxhall 1998; Ormand 2014. 32. See recently Wellebrouck 2018 for this phenomenon.

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INDEX

Achilles, 132, 156 acquiescence, 48, 197 Actium, Battle of, 85, 90, 144, 153–54 adultery, 42, 50, 149, 156–57, 159 advice to Augustus, 98, 100–101 Aeneas, 74, 77, 117–18 Aeneid, 115, 117, 119–20, 122 aetiology, 113, 185 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius, 17, 131–32 amicitia, 24–25, 42, 53–54, 211n66, 213n20 Amor (the god), 152, 155, 158 anger/rage, 78, 117, 132, 193, 218n84 anti versus pro Augustus debate, 48–49, 52, 81 Antonius, Marcus, 10–12, 85, 116–17, 148– 49, 189 Apollo, 21, 141, 146, 152–55, 183 Apollo Palatinus, Temple of, 20–21, 190 apotheosis, 118 Ara Maxima, 185, 188 Ara Pacis, 16–18, 21, 22 arrogance, 73 artworks, 85, 165 Asia, Roman province of, 105 Athens, 17, 105

Atticus, Titus Pomponius, 35–37 Augustan program, 81, 129, 190; criticism of, 190 Augustus, 46, 51, 64–65, 136, 191, 196; author of Res Gestae Diui Augusti, 6–8, 12, 15; addressed by poets, 96, 101, 132, 148; criticism of, 105; as Mercury, 97–98; monumental building work of, 16, 19, 20–22; and religion, 83, 163–65, 189; and uirtus, 80. See also Octavian authority, 98, 117, 119–20, 123; alternative forms of, 82–83, 96, 101, 112, 124, 141, 198; auctoritas, 14 beneficia, 33, 52–53 Bona Dea, 185, 188 Brutus, Marcus Junius, 7, 11, 56, 60, 91 Butler, Judith, 4 Caesar, Gaius and Lucius, 9, 20 Calvus, Gaius Licinius, 41 Capitoline Hill, 19 Cassius Longinus, Gaius, 7, 11, 91 Cato the Younger, 89 Catullus, 31, 39–46, 50, 177; background of, 23–26; death of, 208n13; and

253

254 Index Catullus (continued) patronage, 53; policing masculinity, 23, 44 Caudine Forks, Battle of, 65 censorship, 49 Cicero, 23–39 cinaedus, 171 civil unrest, 14, 25, 38, 65, 82; during the Struggle of the Orders, 69, 71–72 clementia, 19, 90 Clipeus Virtutis, 80, 206n58, 217n69 Clodius Pulcher, Publius, 27, 29, 33, 34, 210n55, 231n57 competition, among Roman aristocrats 5, 6, 15, 16, 22, 130, 193 Cornell, T. J., 85 counterculture, 81 cowardice, 60 Crassus, Marcus Licinius, 62 crisis of masculinity, 3–5, 125, 178 Curia, 20 cursus honorum, 5, 25, 42, 126, 191, 208n15; failure to embark upon, 129 death, 59 deceit, 132 dedications, literary, 52 dignitas, 32 Dionysus/Bacchus, 113–18, 139, 140, 183 disciplina, 70 disengagement, 198 disobedience, 70 durus (and cognates), 37, 44, 102–5, 108, 110, 146, 210n48, 211n81, 221n35 education, 5, 25, 175 effeminate/effeminacy, 39, 44, 117, 183 elegiac, 102, 104, 106, 110, 178, 183; language, 177, 229n27; nequitia, 107, poverty, 54; puella; 157; scenario, 185 elegy (genre), 103, 146, 152–53, 158, 186

emasculation, 43, 105, 106 empire, 105, 110, 141 enemies of Rome: Sabines, 120, 121; Samnites, 68–69; Volsci, 70–71 epic (genre), 143, 152–53, 156–59, 186–87; inferiority to elegy, 101–4, 146; and civil war, 132, 145–48 equites, 59, 125, 126, 224n5, 224n8 Esquiline Hill, 164, 167 euergetism, 14–15, 192, 198 exclusus amator, 185 exempla, 38, 57, 62, 63; Augustus as exemplum, 7, 13 exile, 27–28, 34–38, 50 family, 35 farmer, 95, 182 fatherhood, 17, 22, 94, 195–96, 200; rejection of, 127, 129 fertility, 17, 93 fides, 42 First Augustan Settlement, 14 fortuna, 71, 78 Forum Augustum, 11, 18–20, 22, 80 Forum Iulium, 18 Forum Romanum, 18, 164 freed slaves, 52, 199, 200 Gallus, Gaius Cornelius, 50 gardens, 164, 169, 171 gender fluidity, 117, 181, 186, 231n50 Greek culture, 106, 111 hair, male, 118, 154–55 happiness, 35 hegemony, 7, 179, 196 Hercules, 21, 164, 180, 185–89 heroism, 133 history (genre), 85, 86, 92 homosociality, 24, 44 Horace, 96–101, 128, 166, 167–71, 179, 190; and Asinius Pollio, 85–90; as

Index 255 uates, 131–42; and Maecenas, 95; and patronage, 54; and uirtus, 55–65, 80 horror, 133 hypermasculine excess, 187–89 imperial family, 17 invective, 42, 43, 51 iustitia, 19 Janus, 118–23 Julius Caesar, Gaius, 11, 14, 84–85, 90, 219n8; as Diuus Iulius, 116; and civil war, 123, 147 Juno, 121–22 Jupiter, 20, 116 Kennedy, Duncan, 49 knowledge, 83 Krostenko, Brian, 24 Lape, Susan, 17 lawcourts, 88, 129, 183 leisure, 87, 134, 136, 184 Lepidus, Marcus Aemilius, 11, 12, 14 libertas, 100, 167, 197 liminality, 163–64 Livia, 16, 189, 193 Livy, 48, 65–73, 80, 121 love, 38, 44, 78, 103–5, 155, 159 ludi, 15 luxury, 222n54; corrupting power of 57, 108–10, 222n59; and Maecenas 149–50 lyric (genre), 132, 136–38, 140 madness, 78, 114–17 Maecenas, Gaius, 95, 138–39, 143, 148–51; Esquiline property of, 164, 169, 170– 71; as patron, 96; poetry of, 54, 149–50 Manwell, Elizabeth, 24 Marcellus, Marcus Claudius, 9

Marius, Gaius, 6, 30, 144, 147 marriage, 17, 22, 26, 35, 149, 200, 224n9; rejection of, 127, 129 marriage laws, 17, 127, 224n14 Mars, 114, 152, 155 Mars Ultor, Temple of, 11, 18–20 masculine fragility, 63 matronae, 40, 137 Mausoleum of Augustus, 7 McDonnell, Myles, 30, 47, 203n2 Messalla Corvinus, Marcus Valerius, 91–95, 128 military service, 5, 19–20, 56–59, 65, 106, 197; as corrupting force, 110; of Augustus, 12; of Cicero, 26, 30; of Tiberius, 191 militia amoris, 105, 107–9, 112, 145, 158 moderatio, 28–29, 189 mollis (and cognates), 37, 44, 102–3, 108–9, 146, 210n48, 211n81, 221n35, 222n60 mos maiorum, 13 muses, 135–37, 147; Calliope, 135, 137, 146 nefas, 99 New Comedy, 17 nouus homo, 24, 26, 30, 84, 224n5 obscenity, 166 Octavian, 6–12, 21, 115–18. See also Augustus old age, 134 optimates, 31–32 oratory, 30–31 otium, 31–32, 138, 154, 171, 183, 210n43 outsiders, 23, 163–64, 221n32 Ovid, 50, 112–23, 129, 151–60 Palatine Hill, 21, 119 Parthia, 62 pater patriae, 195

256 Index patronage, 49, 51–55, 213n20, 213n24, 213n25; and Augustus, 6, 16, 130, 193; and Maecenas, 95, 130, 150; and Messalla, 92, 95 Pentheus, 113–18 performativity, 4, 24, 28, 38, 44, 57, 189; performance of masculinity; 181, 196 Philippi, Battle of, 60, 91, 115, 144 pietas, 11, 19, 22, 70, 192 pleasure, 134 poetics, 41, 231n50 Pollio, Gaius Asinius, 84–91 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), 6, 9, 39, 123 Pompey, Sextus, 7, 21 popularis, 215n50 power, 101, 131, 178, 193; abuse of, 99, 188 Priapea, Carmina, 165–66 priapic masculinity, 39, 166–67, 178 Priapus, 164, 165–79, 180 priesthoods, 18, 83, 219n8 private life, 40, 94, 137, 160, 199 Propertius, 95, 113, 129, 180–89, 190; elegy versus epic, 101–12; and patronage, 53–54; recusationes, 142–51 proscriptions, 91 provincial aristocracy, 23, 54, 84, 110, 125, 207n3 provincial service, 25–26, 43, 105–8, 197 public life, 5, 57, 84, 111, 125–29, 160, 194, 198–99; and Horace, 137; of Augustus, 7, 13, 22; of Cicero, 26, 30, 32, 34, 38; of Maecenas, 149; of Messalla, 94–95; of Ovid, 129; of Pollio, 87–88; of Tiberius, 191; retirement from, 87–88, 90, 193 recusatio, 104, 129–62, 225n23 religion, 17, 22, 83, 113, 163, 188 Republican masculinity, 23, 26, 33, 44, 64, 84, 93, 191–92; and Augustus, 7, 13,

16, 22; traditional masculinity, 55, 56, 106, 182 resistance, 197–98 Roman Odes, 48, 55–59, 61–64, 134, 145; “Roman Elegies,” 145 Roman people, the, 3, 7, 9, 10, 13 Roman values, rejection of, 43, 82, 101, 110, 112–13, 125, 143, 148–49 same-sex desire, 40–41, 154, 172–74 satire, 51 Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius, 9, 209n27 Second Triumvirate, 8, 10–11, 50, 85, 149 self-fashioning, 23–24, 27–28, 39, 42, 44, 46, 82, 208n9 self-promotion, 29 Roman Senate, the, 7, 10, 13, 20, 194 seruitium amoris, 174–76, 184, 187 sex: illicit, 40, 41, 194; sexual abuse, 43, 72, 194; stuprum, 179, 230n34 shame, 36, 60, 78 slavery, 63 Skinner, Marilyn, 24 sorrow, 33–37, 44 status, 52, 174, 184–85, 231n49 Stroup, Sarah, 24 subelite men, 82, 126, 203n8 Suetonius, 193 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 6 Tacitus, 193 Thebes, 114, 226n51 Tiberius, 3, 9, 22, 191–96 Tibullus, 92–95, 128, 166, 172–79, 190 tragedy (genre), 86, 140, 158 travel, 111 triumph: literal, 12, 13, 20, 91–93, 118, 203n10, 209n37; metaphorical 118, 159 Tullus, 53, 105–12 Turnus, 74–79 tyranny, 82

Index 257 uates, 131, 137 uirtus, 19, 24, 39, 47–80, 209n27; martial, 58–59, 61, 66–68, 72–75, 79; ethical, 61, 66–67; martial versus ethical, 56 Ulysses, 132, 157 Valgius Rufus, Gaius, 128 Venus, 120–22 Vergil, 48, 73–80, 128 Vertumnus, 154, 164, 180–85 Via Latina, 94 Vicus Tuscus, 164 violence, 133, 140, 168, 170, 187–88; sexual, 169; uis, 99–100, 220n30 Virtus, Temple of, 80

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 83 war, civil, 17, 97, 101, 143–45; Antony and Octavian, 85, 144–45; Caesar and Pompey, 86, 88–91, 147; Marius and Sulla, 31, 144, 147 war, foreign, 132, 141, 144, 147, 154; and uirtus in Livy, 68–69, 70–71; and uirtus in the Aeneid, 75–76 witches, 168, 171 women, 8, 16, 177, 199, 200, 232n7, 233n26 Wray, David, 24 youths, 25, 93, 106, 155, 208n14, 229n24; education and training of, 19–20, 22, 77, 175; objects of desire, 40, 174, 179; of the imperial family, 9, 15

INDEX LOCORUM

Appian 4.51, 212n10 Carmina Priapea 5, 174 6, 169 13, 169 14, 172 25, 170 26, 176 33, 177 63, 173 73, 178 Catullus 5, 7 6, 177 7, 39–40 8, 44–45 10, 42–43 15, 40, 211n66 16, 39–40 28, 42–43 30, 211n66 38, 211n66 48, 39–40 50, 40, 41, 208n10, 210n43 51, 31, 210n43 65, 211n66

68, 42, 210n55, 211n66 73, 211n66 77, 211n66 79, 210n55 80, 211n66 91, 42 100, 42 Cicero Ad Atticum, 210n47 3.10, 36 Ad Familiares, 210n49 4.5, 209n26 14.3, 35 15, 208n24, 209n37 Brutus, 208n19 De Domo Sua 92, 29 97, 36, 37 De Haruspicum Responsis 4, 34 17, 29 De Officiis, 210n45 1.15, 1.20, 1.28, 1.55, 1.69, 28 1.48, 33 1.74–76, 77, 32 De Prouinciis Consularibus 23, 38 259

260

Index Locorum

Cicero (continued) Orator 3.3, 208n10 Post Reditum in Quirites 20, 30 21, 29 Post Reditum in Senatu 1, 24, 35 23, 29 Pro Caelio 15, 174 42–43, 208n14 Pro Milone 9, 13, 30, 220n30 Pro Plancio, 209n24 Pro Sestio 2, 33 14, 28 45, 33 47, 34 98, 31 101, 38 Tusculanae Disputationes, 208n19 3.17, 220n30 Cicero, Quintus 1, 207n7 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI.1527, 210n50 Dio Cassius 45.8, 232n4 46.18, 209n26 55.27, 232n4 73.5, 233n28 Horace Carmina 1.2, 96–98 1.6, 131–34 1.8, 174 2.1, 85–90 3.1, 57 3.2, 58, 61 3.3, 134–35

3.4, 98–100, 135–37 3.5, 61–64 3.8, 137–39 3.14, 221n31 3.25, 139–41 3.30, 57 4.4, 93 4.8, 218n87 4.15, 100–101, 141 Epodes 1, 95 7, 221n31 Satires 1.8, 167–71 2.5, 156–57 Livy 1.2, 223n79 1.34, 67–68 1.7, 1.25, 1.42, 68 1.9, 93 2.9, 80 3.12, 3.19, 3.26, 3.44, 3.58, 72 4.28, 70–71 4.37, 71 5.34, 71 5.49, 195 6.35–41, 73 7.6, 68–69, 214n46 7.10, 68–69 7.18, 69 8.7, 8.31, 70 9.16, 65 9.19, 215n56 9.31, 216n66 9.34, 73 30.26, 219n8 Macrobius Saturnalia 2.4, 91 Maecenas fr. 185 (Hollis), 149–50 fr. 186 (Hollis), 150

Ovid Amores 1.1, 151–55 2.18, 156–59 3.9, 208n13 3.12, 156 Epistulae ex Ponto 2.3, 92 Fasti 1.121–23, 1.279–82, 223n78 1.391–440, 164 1.640, 1.643, 48 1.707–08, 232n4 2.7, 2.9, 2.15–16, 113 5.563–66, 19 6.319–46, 164 Metamorphoses 3.528–67, 113–18 14.320–96, 119–20 14.596–604, 223n79 14.772–804, 120–23 15.868–70, 118 Tristia 2, 50 Plutarch Cato Maior 17, 40 Cicero 3, 208n20 36, 208n24 41, 209n26 Propertius 1.6, 105–8, 113 1.7, 101–4, 146 1.9, 104 1.14, 108–10 1.22, 111 2.1, 95, 143–45 2.7, 208n18 2.31, 207n70 3.1, 145–46 3.3, 146–47, 153

Index Locorum

261

3.9, 148 3.11, 186 3.22, 111 4.1, 113, 151 4.2, 180–85 4.6, 153–54 4.9, 185–89 Res Gestae Diui Augusti 1, 8–11 2, 11–12 3, 12 4, 12–13 5, 13 6, 13, 16, 22 7, 13 14, 232n6 15, 13 20, 13 22–23, 15 27, 12 Sallust Bellum Catilinae 5, 209n35 Seneca Maior Controuersiae 1 pr.8–9, 178 Seneca Minor De Beneficiis 4.13, 229n28 Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium 114.9, 229.28 Suetonius Diuus Augustus 12, 223n67 31, 18 34, 224n11 35, 233n29 40, 224n8 70, 223n68 Diuus Iulius 73, 50 Tiberius 4, 232n3 16–19, 232n2 20, 232n4

262 Suetonius (continued) 21, 231n1 27, 232n15 30–32, 232n10 43–45, 232n13 47, 233n19 50–54, 232n11 61, 233n17 Tacitus Annales 1.2, 3 1.74, 233n17 3.25–28, 224n11 3.55, 233n28 4.34, 49 4.57, 193 Tibullus 1.1, 93 1.4, 172–79 1.7, 92–95 2.5, 93 Varro De Lingua Latina 5.40, 228n6

Index Locorum Vergil Aeneid 1.2, 1.378–79, 115 4.215–17, 117, 155 5.754, 76 6, 217n77 6.830–31, 122 7, 120, 218n78 8.184–305, 185 9.741–42, 9.794–95, 74 10.712, 10.752, 75–76 11.386–87, 76 11.441, 11.444, 75 12.19–21, 76 12.97, 100 12.117–18, 155 12.224–26, 12.435–36, 12.666–68, 77 12.713–14, 12.826–27, 78 12.913–14, 79 Vitruvius 1.7, 227n72