Augustan Ideology Research Articles

(Un)Seeing Augustus:Libertas, Divinisation, and theIuvenisof Virgil's FirstEclogue

AbstractThis article argues that Virgil's FirstEcloguenaturalises the power discourse of the future Augustan Principate. Throughout the poem, Virgil not only presents theiuvenisas alibertas-restoring benefactor who is treated as a god by his beneficiaries, but even imagines his elevated status as crucial to maintaining social cohesion and civic stability, and idealises the beneficiaries’ dependence on his efficacious authority. The poem thus produces the grammar of the discourse of authoritarianism, subtly articulating what will eventually become the central tenets of Augustan ideology. I suggest that it is precisely this process of naturalisation which has led readers since antiquity to identify theiuvenisof Virgil's FirstEclogueas the future Augustus. However, in this paper I am interested in transcending this question of individual identification to focus instead on how Virgil's poetic anonymisation is no simple pastoral obfuscation, but rather does the hard graft of ‘soft launching’ a new political system.

AENEAS THEFLAMEN: DOUBLE TOGAS AND TABOOS IN VIRGIL'S CARTHAGE

This is an investigation of an aspect of Virgil'sAeneid—ultimately, of the ways in which the poet guides his reader's response to Aeneas’ stay in Carthage—and, while it touches on Roman religious practice, clothing codes, late antique Virgilian commentary and Augustan ideology, it hinges on a single word inAeneidBook 4 and its implications for Virgil's depiction of his hero in this book. That word islaena, and it features in one of the most celebrated scenes of the poem, when Mercury descends to earth to find Aeneas busily engaged in founding Carthage (Aen.4.259–64):ut primum alatis tetigit magalia plantis,Aenean fundantem arces ac tecta nouantemconspicit. atque illi stellatus iaspide fuluaensis erat Tyrioque ardebat murice laenademissa ex umeris, diues quae munera Didofecerat, et tenui telas discreuerat auro.As soon as Mercury with winged feet touched the Carthaginian huts, he caught sight of Aeneas founding the citadel and raising new buildings: his sword was studded with stars of yellow jasper, and alaena, hanging from/let down from his shoulders, blazed with Tyrian purple, a gift that Dido with her wealth had made, interweaving in the web a subtle cross-thread of gold.Line 4.262 is the only place in theAeneidwhere this word is used, and I shall be suggesting thatlaenarepresents an unusually evocative piece of clothing to put on Aeneas, even aside from the particular character, its decoration and origin, that Virgil attributes to the example Aeneas is wearing at lines 4.262–4. What I offer is a cumulative argument, as a whole (I believe) persuasive but also necessarily speculative given the limited state of our knowledge in various areas from religion to clothing. My essential claim is that Virgil is encouraging his reader at this point in the poem to associate Aeneas with, and judge his behaviour in comparison to, one of the most important members of the Roman priesthood.

Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed

Reviewed by: Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed Helen Rhee David Wheeler-Reed Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians New Haven, CT; London, England: Yale University Press, 2017 Pp. x + 177. $45.00. This book aims to expose that modern conservative American Christians, wanting "to (re)establish so-called Judeo-Christian [family] values in this country," without knowingly doing so, "have codified the imperial discourse of Augustus, with its emphasis on marriage and procreation, instead of early Christian ideology that [End Page 138] won out under the monastics, which emphasized singleness as [superior]" (xx). As a work of exposé of ideologies and "general history" in contrast to "total history" (a study of "overarching principles that govern the development of an epoch," quoted in xv), the author seeks to achieve that goal by "describing differences, transformations, continuities, mutations, and so forth" (xv, 105) of ideologies of marriage and sexuality in relation to power in the Roman imperial period and early Christianity that bear upon contemporary American ideologies and politics of marriage and procreation. The foundational chapter is the first chapter where the author discusses Augustan marriage legislation as Augustus's codification of morality: the lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus and the lex Julia de adulteriis (both in 18 b.c.e.); and the lex Papi Poppaea (9 c.e.). Based on the Roman ideal of harmonia (unity), these laws established marriage as a civic duty incumbent on all Roman male citizens between twenty-five and sixty years of age and on all Roman women between twenty and fifty, penalized singleness and marriage between social unequals such as senators and freed people, and granted ius liberorum to fertile women with at least three children. These laws were not really about "family values," however, but about economic and political purpose by ensuring "population growth for the expansion of the empire" (14). The author then shows how moral philosophers such as Musonius Rufus, a philosopher-physician Galen, and even a romance writer Achilles Tatius all served as propagandists of this "ideological state apparatus"—the "fulfillment of the common good through marriage" and procreation (36). The author rightly drives home the (sinister) significance of the apparently unified Augustan ideology and its seemingly unilateral impact on the empire through culturally ingrained misogyny and despite Augustus's own moral hypocrisy; however, he largely ignores heated internal debates among moral philosophers on marriage and celibacy and complexities surrounding the legislation in terms of its execution, reception, and efficacy both in ancient and modern critical sources. Discussing the sexual ethics of Second Temple Judaism (515 b.c.e.–70 c.e.) in the second chapter, the author highlights its privileging of "the home, marriage, and procreation" and commitment to "heteronormativity and the family," thus upholding "the same hegemonic ideology of empire, reducing a woman's body to the reproductive act" (40, 60). According to the author, "this shows just how widespread certain broader cultural patterns were in the ancient world" (60). Second Temple Jews interpreted Gen 1.28 ("Be fruitful and multiply") and 2.24 ("Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh") as commandments and confined sex into marriage only for procreation (44). Philo in particular was the chief advocate of this "new sexual program of Procreationism" as he linked sexual desire to idolatry (44–48). The Essenes were (the only) notable exception to this in their practice of (permanent) asceticism. The chapter on the New Testament argues that two competing ideologies of marriage and sex, "antifamily" and "profamily," pervade the New Testament as the "impasse" (63–64). Here the author takes the well-trodden paths of scholarly discussions. The "antifamily" ideology shown in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, [End Page 139] Mark, and Matthew chronologically precedes the "profamily" developed in Luke and the disputed letters of Paul, namely Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastorals. The authentic Paul's view of sex and marriage in 1 Thess 4 and 1 Cor 7, which is thoroughly negative as "the prophylaxis against desire" (69), is predicated on his expectation of the imminent parousia...

The Cult Statues of the Pantheon

ABSTRACTThis article reconsiders the possible statuary of the Pantheon in Rome, both in its original Augustan form and in its later phases. It argues that the so-called ‘Algiers Relief’ has wrongly been connected with the Temple of Mars Ultor and is in fact evidence of the association of the Divus Julius with Mars and Venus in the Pantheon of Agrippa, a juxtaposition which reflects the direction of Augustan ideology in the 20sb.c.and the building's celestial purpose. This triple statue group became the focus of the later Pantheon, and its importance is highlighted by the hierarchized system of architectural ornament of the present building.

Did Somebody Say Augustan Totalitarianism? Duncan Kennedy’s ‘Reflections,’ Hannah Arendt’s Origins, and the Continental Divide over Virgil’s Aeneid

The allegedly old-fashioned debate over the pro- or anti- Augustanism of Augustan texts was superseded in 1992 by Duncan Kennedy’s ‘reflections’ over these terms of reference. Since then, the old dichotomy has appeared to be useless in a dialectic which is always bound to hold Augustus as the unavoidable point of reference. And yet scholarship continues to be divided over the interpretation of Augustus’ rule and its visible or invisible effects on the poetry produced under his patronage. The present article revisits Kennedy’s influential essay and its reception, arguing that it offers further reflections on the workings of Augustan ideology than it has so far been assumed. Moreover, while the nature of Augustus’ rule is still a point of heated debate, the present article argues that a combined reading of Kennedy 1992 and Hannah Arendt’s writings over the ideological language of totalitarian systems may open new possibilities for our interpretation the Augustan regime and the anti-Augustanism of the Augustan texts.

The Importance of Numa Pompilius: A Reconsideration of Augustan Coins

During the principate of Augustus Caesar, a series of asses (RIC I2 Augustus 390–396) were minted bearing the image of Augustus on the obverse and Numa Pompilius on the reverse. Discussion of this coin in the context of Augustan ideology has been limited (Evans, 1985; Grant, 1953). Although one aspect of the coin’s message relates to the promotion of the moneyer’s family, a closer analysis of its iconographical and historical context provides important evidence for the early public image of Augustus, particularly in regard to religion. To that end, this article intends to establish the traditional use of kings in Republican coins and the development of religious iconography in early Augustan coinage. Examination of these asses can be divided into two groups of coins which were minted at different times, first in 22 BCE (RIC I2 Augustus 390–393) and then again in 12 BCE (RIC I2 Augustus 394–396).

The mythology of the Ara Pacis Augustae: Iconography and symbolism of the western side

The guiding idea of my article is to see the mythical and political ideology conveyed by the western side of the Ara Pacis Augustae in a (hopefully) new light. The Augustan ideology of power is in the modest opinion of the author intimately intertwined with the myths and legends concerning the Primordia Romae. Augustus strove very hard to be seen by his contemporaries as the Novus Romulus and as the providential leader (fatalis dux, an expression loved by Augustan poetry) under the protection of the traditional Roman gods and especially of Apollo, the Greek god who has been early on adopted (and adapted) by Roman mythology and religion.

‘BLEARY EYES AND DROOPING EARS’: IMAGES OF THE BODY AND SELF-REPRESENTATION IN HORACE SERMONES BOOK ONE

Abstract In this article I consider the literary programme that Horace establishes in Sermones 1 and then discuss in two subsequent sections the implications of this programme for our understanding of various themes, associated with Augustan ideology, that run through this text. By re-evaluating persona theory and evidence for audience reactions to pseudo-biographical writing in the Ancient world, I assimilate the purely ‘textual’ approach with the broader ethical, political and social questions which the text raises, and consider how the symbolic and intertextual properties of images of the body in the text, and issues of self-representation, allow for diverse readings of his work, reconciling the hitherto separated literary Callimachean poet with the quasi-biographical ‘Horace’.

Deifications and Catasterisms in Ovid’s Fasti

The paper examines the passages about deification and catasterism in Ovid’s Fasti. Three groups of figures that acquire divine nature are identified: Greek mythological characters, Roman or romanized mythological characters, and historical figures. It is shown that only figures not related to the Roman world become constellations; that the deification process is normally barely described; and that, on the whole, the Roman or romanized figures are presented in a more varied and complex way than the Greek ones. Special stress is laid on Caesar and Romulus, key figures in Augustan ideology. In fact, it is argued that Ovid follows substantially Augustan ideology, although ambiguities exist, all the more so because deification in the Fasti is part of a literary system, that is to say part of a fictional world.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 15. 418–452: Pythagoras’ Helenus on epic grandeur and epic succession

The placement of Helenus, the Trojan seer, near the end of Pythagoras’ speech in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15, humorously comments on the Augustan projection of Rome’s predestined world conquest. In Metamorphoses 15, the philosopher Pythagoras casts himself in the light of the Vergilian Helenus. Among the various common characteristics Helenus and Pythagoras share outstanding is their metaliterary identity as conveyed in an interfusion of comprehensive knowledge, communication of uncontested truth but also adherence to deception: the Ovidian Pythagoras’ speech is ridden with inaccurate information and chronological fallacies, while Ovid’s Helenus is in fact the Vergilian Helenus, a confused individual who lives in the deceptive contentment of an a-chronic world of ghosts. By means of undermining the infallibility of prophesying through the lack of credibility of the prophet, Ovid undermines the standardization of the literary motif of epic prophecies about Rome’s world conquest, a much advertized theme in the various expressions of Augustan ideology of global conquest.

Roman Imperial Ideology and the Gospel of John. By LANCE BYRON RICHEY.

Scholarly debate about the background to John's Gospel, and the origin and nature of the putative community from which that document arose, has long been in progress, and shows little sign of subsiding. Dr Richey's monograph is a valuable contribution to this discussion, and deserves special recognition. The writer notes that, following a generation of studies preoccupied with the Hellenistic and philosophical settings of the Fourth Gospel, recent Johannine scholarship has seen a pleasing renewal of interest in its Jewish and Palestinian roots. However, in Richey's view, proper attention has rarely been paid to the Roman context in which John's congregations were placed, and in particular the perceived identity and power of the emperors themselves: what the author describes as the ‘Augustan Ideology’. This, Richey seeks to demonstrate, presented a serious challenge to the Johannine community, a major response to which is to be discovered in the message of the Gospel itself, namely, that Christ is superior to Caesar in every way.

Ovid and Augustus: A Political Reading of Ovid's Erotic Poems by P. J. Davis

BOOK REVIEWS 335 Ovidand Augustus:A PoliticalReadingofOvid's EroticPoems.By P.J. DAVIS. London: DuckworthPublishers,2006. Pp. viii + 183. Cloth, $70.00.ISBN 0-7156-3559-X. Few will take exceptionto Davis' (D.) thesisthatOvid's erotic poetryfloutsmanycomponentsofAugustanideology.Indeed,a significant portionof thisbook is not new, but comprisesrevisedversions ofarticlesthathave appeared elsewhere.It is therefore all the moresignificant thatitmakes an originaland insightful contribution to thecrowded discussion ofOvid's relationshipwiththeAugustan regime. Aftera briefopening chapterthat probes Tristia2 forOvid's defenseofhis literary corpus,D. spends two chaptersinvestigating the nature and manifestations of Augustan ideology. In the first, whichis by farthe mostimportantin thebook, D. seeks to undermine Duncan Kennedy's influentialdeconstructionof the terms "Augustan" and "anti-Augustan."' In particular,he adduces passages fromAugustus' Res Gestaeto challenge Kennedy's assertion that "no statement(not even made by Augustus himself)can be categorically'Augustan' or 'anti-Augustan'." The strengthof the argumentlies in D.'s abilityto confront Kennedyon his own terms, adroitlyhandlingthecomplexissues ofreceptionthatformthebasis ofKennedy's argumentthattheideological allegiancesofindividual readerswill determinetheirinterpretation of a work,whateverthe author'sown loyaltiesmayhave been. Withsimilarskill,D. addresses theproblemsofauthorialintent that necessarily accompany his counter-argument that Augustus wrote the Res Gestaeto trumpethis accomplishments.D. concedes thattheRes Gestaecan be read negatively,remindingus ofTacitus' accountof theinterpretive communitiesthatespoused positiveand negative views of the documentwhen it was firstpublished (Ann. 1.9-10);buthe does notallow thatAugustushimselfconceivedofhis workas anything otherthana positiverecordofhisaccomplishments. D.'s disagreementwithKennedymightseem to stemmerelyfroma difference in criticalapproach,but D. ultimately exposes fatalinconsistenciesin Kennedy's subjectivismand proposes a morebalanced approach thataccounts foran intention-bearing authorand the receptionof his textby readerswho may or may not share his ideologicalloyalties . In thebalance ofhis first chapter,D. tacklestheissue oftheliterarypersona ,again rebutting a view held by Kennedy(and Gale and Cairns). Averringthat"thereis no separationbetween authorand persona" in Roman poetry(p. 20), D. remindsus of Ovid's failed 1"'Augustan' and 'Anti-Augustan':Reflectionson Terms of Reference,"in A. Powell,ed.,RomanPoetry andPropaganda intheAgeofAugustus(London, 1992)26-58. 336 BOOK REVIEWS attemptin Tristia2 to base his defenseon just such a division. He concludes witha call for"a betterway ofestablishingwhethera text ispro-oranti-orun-Augustan,"and suggeststhat"thatway involves consideringthe relationshipbetween the textunder investigation and whatwe call 'Augustan' ideology"(p. 22). Unfortunately, D.'s articulation ofhis proposed methodforconsideringthatrelationship lacksthestrength, clarity and organization of his analysis and refutation of Kennedy. Any single chapterthat seeks to redefinethe scholarlyapproach to Augustan ideology is bound to laborunder such ambition.But D. seeks to limitthescope ofhis discussionto theSecular Festivaland theAugustanForumas thenon-literary representatives ofAugustanideologyagainstwhich he will read Ovid's eroticworksin laterchapters.Because oftheextentand interconnectedness ofAugustus' buildingprogram,thediscussionnecessarilyexpands toencompass muchoftherestofRome. Itis accordinglyeasy tobecome distracted by digressionsand superfluousdetails .Nevertheless, D. ultimately succeeds in showinghow theSecularFestivaland theAugustanForumexude Augustanideology ,butat thecostofstraying from histopicofOvid and Augustus. Ovid may make only a cameo appearance in the chapterson Augustus,but he is prominentin the remainingfive.D. devotes a chaptereach to theHeroides, Amores, ArsAmatoria and Remedia Amoris ,and appends an epilogue in whichhe considerstheeroticworks as theyappear in the exile poetry.Althoughit will be obvious to mostreadersthatOvid's Amores and especiallytheArsAmatoria contravenethe morals espoused by the Augustan regime,D.'s subtle readingofthesepoems contributes much to thediscussion,and his observationswill be ofinterest to specialistsin Ovidian poetryand non-specialistsalike fortheirinsightinto thefinerpointsofOvid's criticism ofAugustus. More innovativeand strikingis the chapteron the Heroides, in which D. argues thatOvid "focusesnot on thegloriesofmasculine achievement,but on its cost" (p. 49). Althoughthe women of the Heroides are "committed toa specifically Augustanideal ofmarriage" (p. 50), theyreceivenothingbut griefas a rewardfortheirfidelity. As examples,D. offers the lettersof Deianira, Laodamia and Dido. Deianira lamentstheinfidelity ofherhusband Hercules witha prisonerofwar ;Laodamia bewails theabsenceofProtesilausand encourages her husband in vain to abandon his desire formilitary glory; Dido decries her abandonmentby her unfaithful husband Aeneas, theancestorofAugustus himself.D. concludes thattheHeroides exposes a flawintheflagshipmorallegislationoftheAugustanregime. Strictly speaking,theJulian LawontheSuppression ofAdultery (18 BCE) concerns only female sexualityand social status; its definitionof adulteryhingeson thestandingofthewoman involved.As D. dem- BOOK REVIEWS 337 onstrates,"the law regulatedmale sexualityonly to the extentthat menwere requiredtorefrain fromextramarital sex with'respectable' women ... [butthey]could have sexwith'unrespectable'womenwith impunity" (p. 70).Forthesereasons, however bitterly thewomenin theHeroides might complain oftheir lovers'infidelity, thelawtacitly permits it. Eachchapter endswitha conclusion, butD. has notgivenus a conclusion tothebookas a whole.Rather, hemovesfrom hischapter ontheRemedia Amoris toanepilogue that discusses howOvidrevisits hiserotic poetry intheworks from exile. Thistactic suggests that work remains before anyconclusions canbe...

Lane-switching and Jughandles in Contemporary Interpretations of Roman Poetry

My paper answers two of the conference organizer's questions: the first, what are you working on, by mentioning some difficulties I am having with my current research, the important related question, how does your approach differ from what it was ten years ago, by discussing some problems of interpretation that demonstrate a need to connect formal and textual with historical and material aspects of Roman culture. My six examples feature (1) the need for interdisciplinary discussion, (2) the significance of an intertextuality that is not demonstrably "causative," (3) the importance of taking seriously "literal" indications such as location and (4) architecture, (5 and 6) the use of deictics and numerology as pointers to, respectively, the economy of patronage and the agenda of Augustan ideology.

The Fabrication of Tradition: Horace, Augustus and the Secular Games

Now, at this season when selected girlsAnd the boys who are about to venture upon them,Though still in bud, sing what will please London…(C.H. Sisson, 1974)Rome's first emperor proved remarkably successful in shaping a positive image for himself in his own and subsequent eras. Here was a man who came to power through that most criminal of means, through victory in civil war, and yet managed to persuade his own and succeeding generations of his right to rule. How did the enthusiastic proscriber of the innocent and the brutal destroyer of Perusia transform himself into the sublime Augustus? Here was one of Rome's great militarists, a man who, by one reckoning, doubled the size of the Roman empire. How could this warlord be perceived as a ‘prince of peace’? One answer to these questions is that this transformation of perception, both ancient and modern, was achieved through die emperor's promotion of a complex of ideas designed to accomplish precisely this perceptual shift, a complex of ideas which we variously call ‘Augustan ideology’, ‘Augustan discourse’ or even ‘Augustan cultural thematics’.

Ovid's Amores: A Political Reading

Previous articleNext article No AccessOvid's Amores: A Political ReadingP. J. DavisP. J. Davis Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 94, Number 4Oct., 1999 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/449457 Views: 30Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1999 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Linda Grant Latin Erotic Elegy and the Shaping of Sixteenth-Century English Love Poetry, 16 (Aug 2019).https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108663847Michael Bryson Carpe Diem: Love, Resistance to Authority, and the Necessity of Choice in Andrew Marvell and Elizabeth Cary, Humanities 7, no.22 (Jun 2018): 61.https://doi.org/10.3390/h7020061Elena Giusti Did Somebody Say Augustan Totalitarianism? Duncan Kennedy’s ‘Reflections,’ Hannah Arendt’s Origins, and the Continental Divide over Virgil’s Aeneid, Dictynna , no.1313 (Dec 2016).https://doi.org/10.4000/dictynna.1282Thea S. Thorsen The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy, 7 (Dec 2013).https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781139028288

Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study (review)

Reviewed by: Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study Joseph Farrell Geraldine Herbert-Brown. Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. xiv 1 249 pp. This revised doctoral thesis is a learned and closely argued work that reads Ovid’s Fasti essentially as a historical document. This clarity of purpose is at once the book’s great strength and its principal weakness. To summarize the basic argument: The Fasti is a particularly reliable witness to the development of Augustan ideology. Its form not only attests the regime’s use of the state calendar as a vehicle for propaganda, but is so inherently unpoetic that only under official compulsion can Ovid have accepted the challenge it presented. Passages written at Rome and dealing with Augustus himself and members of his family must closely reflect how the ruling house wished to be portrayed at any given time. The revisions made during Ovid’s relegation to Tomis are pathetic attempts to curry favor on the part of a poet who is no longer in touch, with the result that they should be seen as producing exactly the opposite of their intended effect. Herbert-Brown’s argument is set forth in five chapters—(1) Why Fasti? (2) Augustus, (3) Julius Caesar, (4) Livia, (5) Germanicus—a brief epilogue, and a substantial appendix on omissions in the Fasti, all of which are accompanied by a bibliography, an index of passages cited, and a general index. The book is well organized and produced, despite quite a few annoying typographical errors. There is no question but that the author has a thorough command of the historical evidence that bears on her subject. Her imagination is vivid and detailed, her attempts to reconstruct the ideological forces that shaped Augustus’ Principate and Ovid’s poem always challenging and instructive. In placing the Fasti within this milieu she makes several important advances. Her method of assessing the presence of Julius Caesar in the poem (109–129) is exemplary, and the argument concerning Vesta (66–80) is in a similar class. But the author’s claim “to have revealed how a mythology could be created to transform Republican titles into roles of monarchical stamp” (214) is overstated: that the Augustan regime relied on and worked to promote such a mythology is hardly a revelation. Nevertheless this study does manage to extend our understanding of how the state religion was manipulated so as to suggest that Augustus and his family ruled almost by divine right. The idea that the unfinished, partially revised condition of the poem makes it not a snapshot of, but something like a running commentary on, a developing imperial ideology is a reasonable and promising hypothesis. On the other hand, the author’s insistence on treating the Fasti only in this way seems to me to distort her understanding not only of the poem but to some extent even of the historical forces that shaped it. So intent is she on minimizing the poetic character of the Fasti that she argues, “It is difficult to believe that [Ovid] would choose something as problematic and unwieldy as the Roman calendar to set to verse unless extraneous pressure were being applied. For this reason it is [End Page 641] more feasible that Ovid’s decision to produce a major work as a tribute to Caesar Augustus came first; his decision to versify the calendar was the result” (1). There are of course two glaringly obvious problems with these assumptions. In the first place, Roman poets had for a long time been following their Hellenistic predecessors in taking up challenging and unpoetic topics. The generation that preceded Ovid had produced wonderful poems that masqueraded as farming manuals, treatises of literary theory, astronomical guides, and so forth. Ovid too had already distinguished himself in the mock-didactic tradition; the more serious, but still light-hearted Fasti represents a greater challenge of a not dissimilar kind. In a related vein, Herbert-Brown’s effort to distinguish the Fasti as much as possible from Callimachus’ Aetia strikes me as particularly unfortunate. Differences, of course, there are, but when all is said, the Fasti is the single surviving ancient...

Lucan: spectacle and engagement

The Pharsalia, Lucan's epic on the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, is a document of fundamental importance for students of the history and literature of Rome in the early imperial period. Whether one is a historian of the Republican opposition to Nero, or a literary critic teasing out the ideological implications of intertextuality, it is impossible to ignore this poem. Taking as his guiding theme the unusual prominence of spectacle and spectators in the Pharsalia - the tendency of either the narrator to represent complicity with or apathy towards the action of various charactyers as that of one who watches and does not engage, or of individual characters to celebrate the actions which they undertake by turning them into theatrical displays for others to watch - Dr Leigh demonstrates the importance of this phenomenon for narrative, and intertextual concerns as well as for history and socio-political matters. He shows how Lucan can take devices characteristic of Virgilian narrative and transform them to launch an attack on the Augustan ideology of the Aeneid and produce a savagely Republican anti-Aeneid which represents the civil wars as the death of Rome. By studying the tension between the narrator's impassioned interventions and his characters' often manic zeal to transform civil war into performance, this work discovers a Lucan who is as funny as he is serious, as reflective as he is committed.

The Statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, the Underground Complex, and the Omen of the Gallina Alba

The Statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, the Underground Complex, and the Omen of the Gallina Alba Jane Clark Reeder The new excavations of the villa of Livia at Prima Porta have focused attention on the architecture and art of this imperial villa. The statue of Augustus from Prima Porta and the garden paintings from the underground complex have long been the most famous exemplars of their types. Recently new studies have treated these works of art in relation to their setting. 1 But there is one source of information in particular which has not received the scrutiny in this regard that it might and that is the remarkable omen which gave the villa its name in antiquity, ad Gallinas. Although this omen is sometimes mentioned to explain the odd name, scholars have not examined in any detail the relationship of the omen to the art and architecture of the villa. In fact, the omen of the gallina alba is the foundation augurium of the villa-garden itself. 2 In this essay I intend to examine the ancient literary sources concerning the villa; the only information given by the sources about the villa comes in fact by way of the omen. First the individual components of the omen and the surrounding body of augury and myth will be examined and illustrated where possible in the monuments. Secondly I hope to illuminate the symbolic interrelationships between this augural imagery and the iconography of three features of the art and architecture of the villa-garden: the statue of Augustus, the underground complex, and the laurel grove. This imagery and symbolism played an essential [End Page 89] role not only in the decoration of the villa, but formed an important part of Augustan ideology. The iconographical connections of the statue of Augustus and the underground complex of the villa-garden should be sought first of all in the ideology inherent in the statue itself. 3 Two attributes in particular give this message: the laurel branch in hand and the cuirass. Since one knows how important the laurel was as an age-old symbol of Apollo and as a new emblem of Augustus and since one is aware how pervasive the Apollonian propaganda became in Augustan ideology, 4 it is no wonder that H. Kähler (1959, 12–13; 28; pl. 32) found the laurel integral to the sacral character of the statue’s image and hence restored the laurel branch in the hand of Augustus on the statue from Prima Porta. Kähler is not the only scholar to attach the laurel to the Prima Porta statue of Augustus. 5 E. Simon restored a laurel branch in the left hand of Augustus rather than the right and in a recent summary of Augustan art this view was adopted. 6 There is also numismatic evidence for Augustus holding a laurel branch in connection with the triumph. While the certainty of a particular statue type behind the coin image is more problematic, 7 the coin in fact represents the historical event itself. On the reverse of a denarius from the great Actium series of coins Octavian is [End Page 90] represented as Triumphator and Imperator standing in the quadriga and holding a large laurel branch in his right hand. 8 On the obverse Victory, standing on the ship’s prow, holds a palm in her left hand and in her right the laurel crown which Octavian would have worn in the triumphal procession. Likewise Tiberius in the Augustan tradition stands in the triumphal quadriga and holds a laurel branch in his right hand on an aureus of a.d. 13/14. 9 At least one scholar (Neudecker 1988, 90) believes that the program of the statue of Augustus of Prima Porta is probably to be seen in connection with the triumphal ceremony. If Augustus indeed held a laurel branch in hand, the branch could only have come from the famous laurel grove of the villa of Livia ad Gallinas. The foundation augurium and legend of the Augustan laurel branch and indeed of the villa-garden itself as mentioned above is the omen of the gallina alba from which the villa took its name in antiquity...

Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups

The two silver skyphoi commonly known as the Boscoreale Cups of Augustus and Tiberius are indispensable for providing the documentation of one of the only two cycles of Roman imperial state reliefs to survive from the Julio-Claudian period. This is an examination of these historical treasures. Kuttner studies the Cups not only from the standpoint of art history, but also as they relate to Augustan ideology and politics. When she began work on this book, the whereabouts of the Cups was unknown, and she had to rely on the illustrations in Monuments et Memoires. The rediscovery of the Cups at the Louvre in late 1990 has allowed Kuttner to examine them directly.

Ovid's Orpheus and Augustan Ideology

Ovid's Orpheus and Augustan Ideology