23 Barbara Kellum, ‘Sculptural programs and propaganda in Augustan Rome: the temple of Apollo on the Palatine’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context: An Anthology (Edgewood Cliffs, 1993), p. 83.
24 Zanker, Power of Images, p. 195.
25 Ibid., p. 201. For the ‘Hall of Fame’, see T.J. Luce, ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum’, in K.A. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1990), pp. 123–138.
26 Ibid., p. 194. Augustus regained the standards through diplomacy. See Charles B. Rose, ‘The Parthians in Augustan Rome’, American Journal of Archaeology, 109 (2005), pp. 21–75.
27 See Peter White, ‘Poets in the new milieu: realigning’, in Galinsky, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, pp. 321–339.
28 Alessandro Barchiesi, ‘Learned eyes: poets, viewers, image makers’, in K. Galinsky (ed.), Age of Augustus (Cambridge, 2005), p. 281.
29 J.P. Sullivan, Propertius: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 10–11.
30 On Rome’s perceptions of its early history, see Matthew Fox, Roman Historical Myths: The Regal Period in Augustan Literature (Oxford and New York, 1996).
31 For one view of Virgil’s ‘patriotism’, see Walter R. Johnson, ‘Imaginary Romans: Vergil and the illusion of national identity’, in S. Spence (ed.), Poets and Critics Read Vergil (New Haven and London, 2001), pp. 3–16.
32 Bruno Snell, ‘Arcadia: the discovery of a spiritual landscape’, in The Discovery of the Mind, tr. T.G. Rosenmeyer (Oxford, 1953), pp. 281–310.
33 For a detailed interpretation of Eclogue 10, see Gian Biagio Conte, The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets, tr. C. Segal (Ithaca, 1986), pp. 100–129.
34 See Paul Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy: Love, Poetry, and the West, tr. D. Pellauer (Chicago and London, 1988), pp. 102–104.
35 See, for example, Richard P. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, 1982).
36 For a general introduction to patronage, see Barbara K. Gold, Literary Patronage in Greece and Rome (Chapel Hill and London, 1987).
37 On Maecenas, see G. Williams, ‘Did Maecenas “fall from favor”? Augustan literary patronage’, in Raaflaub and Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire, pp. 258–275.
38 Gold, Literary Patronage, p. 126.
39 White, ‘Poets in the new milieu’, p. 328.
40 Ibid., p. 331.
41 On Augustus’ relationships with the poets, see White, ‘Poets in the new milieu’, pp. 332–337. For Horace’s complex treatment of Augustus, see Michael C.J. Putnam, ‘Horace Carm. 2.9: Augustus and the ambiguities of encomium’, in Raaflaub and Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire, pp. 212–238.
42 Begin with Jasper Griffin, ‘Augustus and the poets: “Caesar qui cogere posset”’, in F. Millar and E. Segal (eds), Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (Oxford and New York, 1984), pp. 189–218. Also D.C. Feeney, ‘Si licet et fas est: Ovid’s Fasti and the problem of free speech under the Principate’, in Anton Powell (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (London, 1992), pp. 1–25. Self-censorship is even more difficult to trace; early in his career, Augustus (then Octavian) made obscene allegations against Asinius Pollio. Pollio, in refusing to respond, explained: ‘It is not a trivial thing to write poems against one who can proscribe you,’ (discussed in Edwards, Politics of Immorality, p. 62).
I. Beginnings and Backgrounds
1 For more on Roman poetry’s audience, see Tony Woodman and Jonathan Powell, Author and Audience in Latin Literature (Cambridge, 1992); also Kenneth Quinn, ‘The poet and his audience in the Augustan Age’, in Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, 2.30.1 (1982), pp. 75–180.
2 For a brief history of the debate over the origins of Roman elegy, see Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History, tr. J.B. Solodow, rev. Don Fowler and Glen W. Most (Baltimore and London, 1994). See also the classic works of Archibald Day, The Origins of Latin Love Elegy (Oxford, 1938; repr. New York, 1972); Georg Luck, The Latin Love Elegy (New York, 1959); and R.O.A.M. Lyne, The Latin Love Poets from Catullus to Horace (Oxford, 1980).
3 For a general introduction to lyric poetry, see Walter R. Johnson, The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982) and Paul Allen Miller, Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness: The Birth of a Genre from Archaic Greece to Augustan Rome (London and New York, 1994).
4 Miller comes to a different conclusion about Sappho 16 in relation to Homer in Lyric Texts, pp. 92–96, namely that Sappho is ultimately ‘reinscribed in that same tradition’ from which she seems to want to distance herself (p. 96).
5 Miller reads this poem as actually affirming Homeric values in Lyric Texts, pp. 19–20, 35.
6 Luck, Latin Love Elegy, pp. 17–18.
7 Day, Origins, pp. 102–110; cf. Luck, Latin Love Elegy, pp. 22–25.
8 For a more detailed account of the erotic themes in Alexandrian epigram, see Auguste Couat, Alexandrian Poetry under the First Three Ptolemies, tr. J. Loeb (Chicago, 1991), pp. 181–188.
9 Callimachus’ corpus, still limited, was nonetheless expanded by important discoveries in the twentieth century; see Frank Nisetich (tr.), The Poems of Callimachus (Oxford, 2001), pp. xxiv–xxxi.
10 Kathryn J. Gutzwiller, Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1998), p. 183; for Gutzwiller’s discussion of the Epigrammata at length, see pp. 183–226.
11 Although the Aetia survives only in fragments, we retain a sense of the overall structure given the summaries of the poem that exist; we also have an especially good understanding of the ‘Lock of Berenice’ since Catullus offers his own version of it in poem 66 (see also Catullus 65.16).
12 Nisetich, Poems of Callimachus, p. 27.
13 Kathleen McNamee, ‘Propertius, poetry, and love’, in Mary DeForest (ed.), Woman’s Power, Man’s Game: Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy K. King (Wauconda, IL, 1993), p. 218.
14 Nisetich, Poems of Callimachus, pp. 62–63.
15 Ibid., p. 63.
16 Ibid.
17 J.P. Sullivan, Propertius: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, 1976), p. 68. See also Peter E. Knox, ‘Catullus and Callimachus’, in Marilyn B. Skinner (ed.), A Companion to Catullus (Malden, 2007), pp. 152–171.
18 Richard Hunter, however, cautions that our understanding of Callimachus’ original poetics is distorted since the Roman poets took only the features of his style that suited their purpose. See Richard Hunter, The Shadow of Callimachus: Studies in the Reception of Hellenistic Poetry at Rome (Cambridge, 2006), p. 2; also James Zetzel, ‘Recreating the canon: Augustan poetry and the Alexandrian past’, Critical Inquiry, 10 (1983), pp. 83–105.
19 John F. Miller, ‘Callimachus and the Augustan aetiological elegy’, in Temporini and Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang, pp. 371–417.
20 On love poetry’s links to comedy, see Sharon L. James, ‘Introduction: constructions of gender and genre in Roman comedy and elegy’, Helios, 25/1 (1998), p. 5.
21 Suggesting he died young, Ovid imagines Catullus in Elysium with ivy on his ‘youthful temples’ in the Amores (3.9.61–62). Jerome records Catullus’ death in the year 58 BCE at the age of thirty (a date that contradicts the presumed date of individual poems), while Cornelius Nepos only affirms that he was dead by 32 BCE (Atticus 12.4). See Marilyn B. Skinner, Catullus in Verona: A Reading of the Elegiac Libellus, Poems 65–116 (Columbus, 2003), p. xx.
22 Ibid., p. xxi.
23 The label ‘Lesbian’ did not have connotations of female homosexuality in this era, although ancient writers clearly recognized Sappho’s love for other women.
24 Modern perceptions of Clodia have invariably been shaped by Cicero’s attacks and Catullus’ corresponding laments about her alleged fickleness, but Skinner h
as provided a more nuanced account of her life in Marilyn B. Skinner, Clodia Metelli: The Tribune’s Sister (Oxford and New York, 2011).
25 See Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) 7.2.1, De Oratore (On the Orator) 161 and Tusculanae Quaestiones (Tusculan Disputations) 3.45; cf. Horace’s attack at Satires 1.10.18–19. Perhaps in response to such scorn, Catullus twice sarcastically calls himself ‘the worst of all poets’ in sending his thanks to Cicero for an unspecified favour in poem 49.
26 For the controversy over the ordering of Catullus’ surviving poems, as well as their potential division into separate works, see Marilyn B. Skinner, ‘Authorial arrangement of the collection: debate past and present’, in Skinner (ed.), Companion to Catullus, pp. 35–53.
27 Luck, Latin Love Elegy, pp. 48–50. See also Paul Allen Miller, ‘Catullus and Roman love elegy’, in Skinner (ed.), Companion to Catullus, pp. 410–413.
28 Conte, Latin Literature, p. 258.
29 The very subject of the line is suggestive, evidently alluding to the river Hypanis, which separates Asia from Europe; see David Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge, 1975), p. 39. Other positive assessments of Gallus include: Michael Putnam, Vergil’s Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues (Princeton, 1970), p. 354 and Friedrich Solmsen, ‘Tibullus as an Augustan poet’, Hermes, 90 (1962), pp. 295–325.
30 The prominent British classicist Ronald Syme, for example, once dismissively observed that ‘C. Cornelius Gallus requires brief introduction or none at all’ in Syme, ‘The origin of Cornelius Gallus’, Classical Quarterly, 32 (1938), p. 39.
31 Florence Verducci, ‘On the sequence of Gallus’ epigrams: molles elegi, vasta triumphi pondera’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, 45 (1984), p. 119–120.
32 The inscription is dated to 15 April 29 BCE, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. III, 14147, 5. For more information on inscriptions concerning Gallus, see Victor Ehrenberg and A.H.M. Jones (eds), Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (2nd edn., Oxford, 1955; repr. 1963).
33 For different views of Gallus’ trespasses, see Richard A. Bauman, The Crimen Maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate (Johannesburg, 1967); Richard A. Bauman, Impietas in Principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century A.D. (Munich, 1974); and G. Barra, ‘Il crimen di Cornelio Gallo’, Vichiana, 5 (1968), pp. 49–58.
34 Franz Skutsch, Gallus und Vergil (Leipzig and Berlin, 1906), pp. 127 ff.
35 See Archibald W. Allen, ‘Sunt qui Propertium malint’, in J.P. Sullivan (ed.), Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric (Cambridge, MA, 1962), pp. 107–148.
36 See J.P. Elder, ‘Tibullus: Tersus atque elegans’, in Sullivan (ed.), Critical Essays, pp. 65–105.
37 Conte, Latin Literature, p. 326.
38 Ibid.
39 Some scholars today continue to speak of Tibullus’ four books, but others adhere to the original three-book division; we shall follow the latter convention throughout this study.
40 Conte, Latin Literature, pp. 326–327.
41 Lawrence Richardson, jr, Propertius: Elegies I–IV (Norman, 1977), p. 6.
42 Ibid.
43 For estimates of the dates for individual books, see ibid., pp. 8–11.
44 Propertius’ use of this event to close Book 1 has often puzzled scholars; see, for example, Paul Allen Miller, Subjecting Verses: Latin Love Elegy and the Emergence of the Real (Princeton, 2004), pp. 70–73; and Nigel Nicholson, ‘Bodies without names, names without bodies: Propertius 1.21–22’, Classical Journal, 94/2 (1998–1999), pp. 143–161.
45 See R.O.A.M. Lyne, ‘Propertius 2.10 and 11 and the structure of books “2A” and “2B”’, Journal of Roman Studies, 88 (1998), pp. 21–36. Lyne reviews previous editorial policies and agrees with some scholars that it was originally two books, focusing attention on possible closure after 2.10 and 2.11.
46 Some scholars argued that the second edition never actually existed but was Ovid’s witty fiction ‘designed to act out an unexpectedly literal form of adherence to the Callimachean poetic principle of “less is more”’. See Joan Booth, ‘The Amores: Ovid making love’, in Peter E. Knox (ed.), A Companion to Ovid (Malden and Oxford, 2009), p. 73; Alessandro Barchiesi, Speaking Volumes: Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin Poets (London, 2001), pp. 159–166. A detailed interpretation of the cohesion of the Amores as a whole is offered by Niklas Holzberg, Ovid: The Poet and His Work (Ithaca, 2002), pp. 46–53.
47 For the historical background, see Francis Cairns, ‘Catullus in and about Bithynia: poems 68, 10, 28 and 47’, in D. Braund and C. Gill (eds), Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome: Studies in Honor of T.P. Wiseman (Exeter, 2003), pp. 165–190.
48 See Ronald Syme, ‘Piso and Veranius in Catullus’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 17 (1956), 129–134.
49 Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge and New York, 1993), p. 27.
50 See William C. Scott, ‘Catullus and Caesar’, Classical Philology, 66/1 (1971), pp. 17–25.
51 See the excellent discussion at Duncan F. Kennedy, ‘“Augustan” and “anti-Augustan”: reflections on terms of reference’, in Anton Powell (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (London, 1992), pp. 26–58.
52 Sullivan, Propertius, p. 58.
53 Miller, Subjecting Verses, p. 130. Later, Miller writes of Propertius’ second book: ‘What we see in book 2 is neither a rebel in Augustus’ camp, nor a collaborator, nor an abstracted aesthete, but the vision of an erotic subject who is placed under more and more tension as he is brought into closer and closer contact with the discourse of the Augustan regime’ (p. 133).
54 Kennedy, ‘“Augustan” and “anti-Augustan”’, p. 26.
55 R.O.A.M. Lyne, ‘The life of love’, in Paul Allen Miller (ed.), Latin Erotic Elegy (London and New York, 2002), p. 348.
56 Ellen Greene, The Erotics of Domination: Male Desire and the Mistress in Latin Love Poetry (Baltimore and London, 1998), p. xiii.
57 Edwards, Politics of Immorality, p. 20.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., p. 25.
60 Ibid., pp. 63–97.
61 Ibid., p. 65.
62 For Antony’s alleged response, begin with Eleanor Huzar, ‘The literary efforts of Mark Antony’, in Temporini and Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang, pp. 639–657. Allusions to Mark Antony, Augustus’ most intimate rival, are significant in Augustan poetry, and Propertius especially seems to identify with Antony on a number of occasions. We shall consider this dynamic in Chapter 5.
63 Fulvia, who helped lead troops against Octavian in Perugia, is a fascinating figure in her own right: see Charles L. Babcock, ‘The early career of Fulvia’, The American Journal of Philology, 86/1 (1965), pp. 1–32; and Diana Delia, ‘Fulvia reconsidered’, in S.B. Pomeroy (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill and London, 1991), pp. 197–217.
64 Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (New York and Oxford, 1999), pp. 147–148.
65 Greene, Erotics of Domination, p. xiii.
66 David Wray, Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood (Cambridge and New York, 2001), p. 58.
67 Monica R. Gale, ‘Propertius 2.7: Militia Amoris and the ironies of elegy’, Journal of Roman Studies, 87 (1997), p. 85.
68 Marilyn B. Skinner, ‘Ego mulier: the construction of male sexuality in Catullus’, in J.P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner (eds), Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997), p. 143.
69 Skinner, ‘Ego mulier’, p. 143; cf. Lyne, ‘The life of love’, p. 359. Hunter H. Gardner, ‘Ariadne’s lament: the semiotic impulse of Catullus 64’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 137/1 (2007), p. 158, also reviews the critical discussion.
70 For a lengthier discussion of the trope in Propertius, see Gale, ‘Propertius 2.7’, pp. 77–91.
71 See Leslie Cahoon, ‘The bed as battlefield: erotic conque
st and military metaphor in Ovid’s Amores’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 118 (1988), pp. 293–307.
72 Gian Biagio Conte, Genres and Readers, tr. G.W. Most (Baltimore, 1994), p. 37.
73 Frank O. Copley, ‘Servitium amoris in the Roman elegists’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 78 (1947), p. 290.
74 R.O.A.M. Lyne, ‘Servitium amoris’, The Classical Quarterly, 29/1 (1979), p. 117. See also Paul Murgatroyd, ‘Servitium amoris and the Roman Elegists’, Latomus, 40/3 (1981), pp. 589–606.
75 As Jonathan Walters explains, slaves were in very real terms ‘under the control of their owner, under orders, most specifically that their bodies belonged to their owner, to do with as he or she wished’; see Jonathan Walters, ‘Invading the Roman body: manliness and impenetrability in Roman thought’, in Hallett and Skinner (eds), Roman Sexualities, p. 39.
Latin Love Poetry Page 24