The 12th Annual Montreal Classics Colloquium - Le 12e Colloque d'Études Classiques de Montréal

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The 12th Annual Montreal Classics Colloquium Le 12e Colloque d'Études Classiques de Montréal

The Montreal Inter-University Classics Colloquium was started in 2008 as a collaborative effort between students of the ancient world from some of the city’s prominent postsecondary institutions: McGill, Concordia, and the Université de Montréal. Since then, the annual event has been an opportunity for students to present research on the ancient world in both English and French, socialize with fellow classics students in the city, and learn from a renowned scholar’s keynote address.

In 2020, the 12th annual colloquium was canceled in an effort to take precautionary measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. This journal preserves the hard work of the presenters and organizers of the event for posterity, and allows us to share our research while staying remote and keeping our communities safe. This journal is not copyrighted. It is designed as a written record of would-be oral presentations and the contents of these papers may have been published elsewhere.

Le Colloque interuniversitaire de Montréal sur les classiques a été lancé en 2008 comme un effort de collaboration entre des étudiants du monde antique des universités de Montréal: McGill, Concordia et l'Université de Montréal. Depuis lors, l’événement annuel a été l’occasion pour les étudiants de présenter des recherches sur le monde antique en anglais et en français, de socialiser avec des collègues étudiants classiques et d’apprendre grâce au discours liminaire d’un professeur renommé.

En 2020, la conférence a été annulée dans le but de prendre des mesures de précaution contre la pandémie COVID-19. Ce journal préserve le travail des présentateurs et organisateurs de l'événement pour la postérité et nous permet de partager nos recherches tout en restant éloignés et en assurant la sécurité de nos communautés. Ce journal n'est pas protégé par le droit d'auteur. Il est conçu comme un compte rendu écrit de présentations orales potentielles et le contenu de ces articles peut avoir été publié ailleurs.

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The Organizers Les Organisateurs

McGill Neha Rahman Meghan O'Donnell Taryn Power Daisy Bonsall Avery Warkentin Lexie White & The McGill Classics Students Association

UdeM Isabelle Gagnon Émile Caron Christophe Turcotte Richard Arthur Jubinville

Concordia Aidan Crowe Shaun Sederoff Solomon Leo Jennifer Gagné Jose Benjamin Castro-Benitez Marc-Olivier Dubé

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Table of Contents Table des Matières

A note from Professor Pierre Boncherre / Une remarque de Professeur Pierre Boncherre………………....5-6

Foreword from UdeM/ Le message de UdeM..........................................................................................7

Foreword from McGill / Le message de McGill......................................................................................8

Foreword from Concordia / Le message de Concordia .............................................................................9

Compulsions to Commemorate: Slave Children in the Funerary Landscape of Ancient Rome.

Daisy Bonsall, McGill ..............................................................................................................10-29

Glory in the Roman Britain Campaign.

Michael Gobeil, Concordia ...............,,,....................................................................................30-47

Thucydide le croyant et ses commentateurs athées.

Arthur Jubinville, UdeM ...........................................................................................................48-60

Junon colérique : quelle action dans l'Énéide?

Romane Auger, UdeM .................................................................................................................61-70

The Changed Form of Poetry: Dante's Interaction with Ovid in the Divine Comedy.

Taryn Power, McGill ................................................................................................................71-80

New Kids on the Block: Depictions of Hostage Children on the Ara Pacis Augustae and Provincial Relationships in Augustus’s Early Principate.

Neha Rahman, McGill .............................................................................................................81- 99

Legitima Potestas: la représentation de pouvoir dans le monnayage de L. C. Sylla Christophe Turcotte Richard, UdeM .............................................................................100-109

Tyranny and the Ring of Gyges: Justice and Freedom in Plato's Political Thought Lexie White, McGill .............................................................................................................110-130

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A Bit of a Fixer-Upper: A Platonic Re-evaluation of Disney and Childhood Education Sasha Boghosian, McGill ......................................................................................................131-140

Torturous Love Magic: Simaetha's Love Spell as Medicine Meghan O'Donnell, McGill ..................................................................................................141-148

Les restaurations du Colisée en Antiquité tardive: épigraphie et évergétisme Maxime Guenette, UdeM .....................................................................................................149-175

Analyse d'une hydrie sur l'interprétation d'un bain prénuptial Lucie Guillemin, UdeM ....................................................................................................... 176-185

Reframing Egyptian Mummy Portraits: (De)Constructing Identity in Freedmen Funerary Portraiture Avery Warkentin, McGill ......................................................................................................186-205

N.B.

Some presenters elected to not include their work in this journal, but their research is nevertheless acknowledged and their contribution appreciated. Missing from this collection are the presentations of Émile Caron (UdeM), Christophe Groulx (UdeM), and Niharika Russell (Concordia).

Some pieces featured in this journal were also published by Hirundo: The McGill Journal of Classical Studies Vol XVIII. Specifically, the articles by Taryn Power (McGill), Meghan O’Donnell (McGill), Avery Warkentin (McGill), and Romane Auger (UdeM). This issue can be found online here: https://issuu.com/hirundo.mcgill/docs/hirundo_xviii_final. The organizers of the colloquium extend our thanks to Emma Davidson, editor-in-chief of Hirundo for granting us permission to reproduce these papers in our record of the colloquium.

Quelques présentateurs ont choisi de ne pas inclure leur travail dans cette revue, mais leur recherche est toujours reconnue et leur contribution appréciée. Il manque dans cette collection les présentations d'Émile Caron (UdeM), Christophe Groulx (UdeM) et Niharika Russell (Concordia).

Quelques pièces présentées dans ce journal ont également été publiées par Hirundo: The McGill Journal of Classical Studies Vol XVIII. en particulier les articles de Taryn Power (McGill), Meghan O'Donnell (McGill), Avery Warkentin (McGill) et Romane Auger (UdeM). Nous avons reproduit l’article disponible à l’adresse suivante, https://issuu.com/hirundo.mcgill/docs/hirundo_xviii_final. Les organisateurs remercient Emma Davidson, éditrice en chef d’Hirundo pour avoir donné la autorisé la publication des articles dans les actes du colloque.

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Décédé en 2014, Gabriel García Márquez, Prix Nobel de Littérature en 1985, aurait trouvé l’an 2020 à son goût. En six mois, nous avons vécu « Cent ans de confinement », « L’amour au temps du Coronavirus » et « Chronique d’une mort annoncée ». Le tout avec option de renouvellement gratuit, humour noir oblige en ces tristes moments…

La pandémie, même si elle n’est pas à classer parmi les plus dangereuses de l’histoire, a profondément changé l’univers des sciences humaines. Comment en effet entreprendre une maîtrise, un doctorat ou une recherche de pointe quand les bibliothèques sont inaccessibles? Il faut donc, pour suivre une formule très tendance, « se réinventer ». Heureusement, la réinvention n’est pas hors de portée, même si elle présente des risques évidents.

Nous avons la chance de vivre à l’ère du numérique. Les sciences de l’Antiquité, qu’on aurait pu croire condamnées à ne jamais s’adapter à l’univers du Web, ont surpris tout le monde, et en 20 ans seulement ont réussi leur reconversion. Nous disposons actuellement, à peu de choses près, de toutes les sources littéraires en ligne, d’une bonne partie des inscriptions et des papyrus. L’Etymologicon Gudianum, les inscriptions d’Éphèse, la Berichtigungsliste der Griechischen Papyrusurkunden aus Ägypten, publications jadis introuvables sur les rayons de bien des bibliothèques, ne sont plus aujourd’hui qu’à un clic de souris. Bien entendu, ces éditions électroniques ont leurs faiblesses, comme l’absence d’un apparat critique essentiel à la compréhension de l’établissement du texte, mais elles permettent néanmoins de travailler en attendant la réouverture des bibliothèques. Même chose pour les sites en ligne des musées, qui mettent désormais à notre disposition des milliers d’objets autrefois seulement édités dans des revues obscures du XIXe siècle. Au plan des ressources bibliographiques, les articles scientifiques des revues sont davantage disponibles que jamais, grâce à des sites comme JStor, qui donnent accès à presque toutes les revues importantes, rendant la recherche plus facile et plus rapide qu’autrefois. Pour les monographies, c’est autre chose : le prêt entre bibliothèques est vital, et il est toujours en danger de suspension par ces temps de Covid. Il faut donc en profiter au maximum quand il est accessible. Même les articles parus dans les ouvrages collectifs et les actes de colloques peuvent ainsi être obtenus, et il reste la possibilité de compléter rapidement son information en consultant des sites comme Academia, même s’ils sont de plus en plus commerciaux, ou des moteurs de recherches en bibliothéconomie, comme Zotéro et autres. Au demeurant, à Montréal et au Canada, la nouvelle gestion des bibliothèques, étranglées par l’augmentation astronomique des prix pratiqués par quelques grands groupes d’édition, a abouti à un désabonnement massif des « packages » proposés par ceux-ci et à l’intensification d’un usage collectif des ressources : en dépit des craintes initiales des usagers, la situation s’est grandement améliorée, rendant leur travail moins pénible, même si nous ne bénéficions pas d’une bibliothèque qui possède tout et où tout serait accessible en accès direct. Grâce à ces ressources, qui sont miraculeuses si on les compare à celles dont bénéficiaient les professeurs d’aujourd’hui quand ils étaient étudiants, le pire peut être évité. Les ressources sont là, le moyen de les trouver aussi, via L’Année philologique, en ligne elle aussi.

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Paradoxalement, le Coronavirus offre des avantages dans la recherche. Il a ralenti le rythme de vie, forcé à plus de calme, réduit le nombre d’activités, obligé à rester chez soi devant son écran, « ce cloître moderne » pour citer un de mes anciens étudiants. Il a donc été, et est encore, favorable à une meilleure réflexion. Un des dangers de notre monde trépidant et fascinant est qu’il laisse de moins en moins de place à l’approfondissement, à la quête de l’exhaustivité (tant pour les sources anciennes que pour les travaux modernes), à la maturation des questions et des réponses. Or réfléchir sur les textes, ou sur les images, est primordial. C’est alors que naissent les nouvelles idées, les nouvelles associations, les nouvelles pistes de réflexion.

On ne dira jamais assez combien le face-à-face avec les documents est capital, et ce tête-à-tête avec les gens du passé est plus facile quand on lui laisse le temps de se développer. C’est une façon de compenser l’approche purement théorique qui est très en vogue aujourd’hui, parce qu’elle permet des résultats en apparence plus brillants et plus rapides : il suffit de se conformer à un moule de pensée, puis d’appliquer sur le schéma tout fait, et balisé par d’autres (souvent en phase avec les idéologies du moment), ce qu’on trouve dans les documents. Cela donne lieu à des écoles de pensée où souvent la défense de la théorie de base (par ex. les idées de Michel Foucault) devient plus importante que ce que disent les documents (par ex., les textes mal utilisés par Foucault), dans un dérapage qui nous éloigne de la science proprement dite et nous rapproche malheureusement des problèmes liés aux sciences de la communication. Un dérapage qui n’est pas sans lien non plus avec le dogme des vérités alternatives et des révisions historiques développé, entre autres, par les milieux d’extrême droite.

C’est donc avec admiration que je préface ce volume, publié par les étudiants unis de trois universités montréalaises, alors que toutes leurs activités réelles ont dû faire place au virtuel.

Mais là encore, notre monde virtuel est encore le meilleur atout pour faire face à la diminution de contacts sociaux et à ses difficultés.

Pierre Bonnechere Professeur titulaire, Université de Montréal

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Très chers collègues,

Le trimestre de l'hiver 2020 aura certainement marqué la communauté universitaire à l’échelle mondiale. L’annulation des nombreux séminaires, colloques et activités de nature académique a intensifié une fin de session déjà bien chargée. Dans la foulée de ces événements, notre colloque interuniversitaire d'études classiques a dû être annulé également. Cependant, grâce à la collaboration extraordinaire des associations étudiantes d'études classiques de l’Université McGill, de l’Université Concordia et de l’Université de Montréal, j’ai le privilège de vous présenter la première version papier du Colloque interuniversitaire d'études classiques de Montréal. Dans ces pages, vous retrouverez les travaux étudiants qui devaient initialement être présentés lors du colloque en mars 2020. La mise en place de ce journal ne fut pas de tout repos: faire un appel de soumission parmi les conférenciers étudiants, se rencontrer entre associations étudiantes, créer un comité d’édition, tout cela en navigant à travers les différentes contraintes de la pandémie. Je tiens donc à remercier les conférenciers étudiants du colloque, – qui sont passé de la présentation orale au papier dans un court laps de temps – ainsi que les délégués aux affaires académiques et VPA, qui ont investi des heures innombrables dans la mise en place de cette publication. Sur une note plus personnelle, je remercie Isabelle Gagnon, présidente de l'Association étudiante du Centre d'études classiques de l'Université de Montréal, qui a joué le rôle de phare pour moi durant toutes ces démarches. Il s’agissait de l’organisation de mon premier colloque en tant que délégué aux affaires académiques, et je n’aurais pu demander une meilleure équipe pour la transition depuis le projet initial vers ce résultat final. Un rare effet positif au milieu d'une situation nettement tragique, la pandémie de 2020 aura poussé les études classiques montréalaises à se transformer et à se renouveler pour continuer à mettre en valeur la passion en recherche de ses étudiants et de ses étudiantes.

Émile Caron

Délégué aux affaires académiques de l’AÉCÉCUM

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One of the earliest sacrifices made to the pandemic was the 12th annual Montreal Classics Colloquium, slated to take place only days after Quebec’s social distancing mandates went into effect. It is an understatement to say that we were disappointed to cancel this event after months of hard work. Regardless, as responsible members of our community, we knew it was the right thing to do.

This journal intends to preserve some of the presentations that would have taken place, and showcase the great intellectual labour that goes into this event year after year. The colloquium is often the crowning achievement of our year, bringing together students from all over the city to convene and talk about the things that we love. We have always boasted an incredibly inter-disciplinary panel of speakers, and this year would have been no different. With topics ranging from Roman history to Greek philosophy to Medieval reception to material culture and archaeology, the colloquium demonstrates the great diversity of not only our students but our range of interests. It has always represented to me the beauty of studying classics as an undergraduate or early graduate student— our interests are ever changing and developing.

On a personal note, the colloquium has defined my undergraduate experience. I have taken part in organizing or assisting or presenting every single year of my time at McGill, and to witness such an amazing community come together and pull off this event has been my proudest achievement. As my own cohort and I move on to the larger world of academia or anything else that may come to greet us, I know that the communities we’ve built with events like the colloquium will always be there to support us and cheer us on. It is always a pleasure to come together with the amazing classics students of Concordia and UdeM. Our collaboration works to make classics less insular, and more community-focused. I cannot wait to see where else our efforts will lead and the new creative forms this event will take.

I wish this year’s students the best of luck with the 2021 colloquium, in whatever form it may take to accommodate our unique circumstances and our new normal. I know that they will be well equipped and supported not only by each other, but also by the amazing professors and graduate students. I would like to extend special thanks to McGill’s Director of Classical Studies Professor Lynn Kozak for their constant encouragement and availability with resources. I would also like to thank my colleague Emma Davidson, the editor of Hirundo: McGill’s Classical Studies Journal, for graciously allowing papers which were already published in the journal’s 18th volume to appear here as well.

With all this said, I hope you enjoy a selection of what 2020’s colloquium would have been, and marvel with me at the stellar research produced by this year’s speakers.

Neha Rahman President of the McGill Classics Students’ Association, 2018-2020

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With the annual Inter-University Colloquium fast approaching, the Concordia Classics Student Association was excited to co-host this grandiose event alongside our colleagues from McGill University and the Université de Montréal, however, due to the closing of our universities caused by COVID-19, we were left with no other choice than to cancel our long-awaited annual conferences. To make sure the efforts of all our applicants and colleagues were not in vain, a Colloquium Journal was proposed with the intent of allowing applicants to share their research, despite the COVID-19 situation. We hope that you enjoy the first ever Colloquium Journal and we hope to see you at the next annual Colloquium.

-- The Concordia Classics Students Association

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Compulsions to Commemorate: Slave Children in the Funerary Landscape of Ancient Rome

Daisy Bonsall, McGill

It is difficult to find evidence of the presence of slave children in ancient Rome. One of the places they do appear, albeit sparsely, is in the funerary context. Commemoration of slave children in funerary monuments offers insight into the roles they played in the context of the family group, both the slave family and in the wider context of a master’s familia, particularly for slaves in the domestic sphere who would have had closer contact with the master’s familia.

Evidence from funerary monuments of slave children from Roman Italy between the first and third century CE sheds light on the experience of slave children in family relationships and the ways those relationships might have affected the children’s commemoration. The variation in the relationships depicted in slave children’s funerary monuments demonstrates the social fluidity of the slave child, someone who could form different kinds of familial bonds with both an immediate slave family and the wider kin group of the master’s familia. Within these different relationship contexts, people used the commemoration of slave children to engage in acts of self-representation.

To begin to understand what these relationships might have looked like, it is necessary to examine who could or did commemorate slave children in funerary monuments and why they might have done so within the broader context of death and Roman funerary practices. Another key contextualisation is the study of children and the family, which, like the understanding of Roman society’s ideas of death and the rituals surrounding funerary commemoration, offers an important framework for the analysis of slave children’s funerary monuments.

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The funerary monuments of slave children are part of the material culture of death in ancient Rome. Understanding how Romans interacted with the experience of death helps put the funerary monuments into context, in turn allowing for a more substantiated and useful analysis.

Valerie Hope’s Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome offers an overview of the concept of death in ancient Rome. Hope stresses the fact that Romans of all social levels placed importance on remembering the dead in a process of mourning that “collectively and 1

individually, was a duty.” She argues that this duty was a lasting one that affected the living long after the initial mourning and funeral ended. It was the responsibility of the living to remember the dead, a task Hope argues was aided by “literature, inscriptions, buildings, statues and tombs” 2

that served as constant reminders of those who had died. This responsibility on the part of the living is important to the discussion of slave children’s funerary monuments and their meaning because it provides the context in which these monuments were created. The idea that slave children’s funerary monuments were commissioned within an environment where part of the purpose they served was to be a constant reminder of the child’s life suggests a conscious desire to remember these children in perpetuum. Their commemoration could imply a level of sentimentality or a desire to commemorate a specific relationship dynamic on the part of the monument’s dedicator — both important realities to consider when trying to understand the types of relationships slave children had with the people who commemorated them.

The way Romans treated the death of children sheds light on the particularities of commemorations of slave children, as opposed to the general realities of commemorations of slaves of all ages. Maureen Carroll examines the commemoration of free newborns and children under the age of one in Roman Italy. She challenges Roman attitudes towards infant death

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Valerie M Hope, Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009), 185.

2 Hope, Roman Death, 185.

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presented in literary sources such as the writings of Cicero and Plutarch, which imply that Romans cared little for children who died so young. Carroll argues that despite a lack of evidence for public ceremonies commemorating the deaths of babies, Roman families could still have 3

mourned in private, indicating an attachment to the young children.

To this notion of private mourning, Carroll adds the idea of private commemorations such as the burial of infants in living areas rather than in cemeteries. She notes that this kind of burial could indicate that “perhaps in some places children who died so young were kept close to the community of the living as a sign of being special, or perhaps the parents simply chose this more private way of burying their children rather than the public act of interring them in a 4

communal cemetery.” Carroll’s insight into private commemoration contrasts with Hope’s idea of the purpose of public funerary commemoration as an important reminder of the dead. This contrast is indicative of the different forms that funerary commemoration could take in ancient Rome and of the overarching importance of commemoration practices both in private and in public. Carroll’s focus on young children is also important because it stresses the fact that the culture of Roman funerary practice, as Hope discusses, was ideologically pervasive — in that some kind of commemoration was always important — but that it could be adapted to suit the needs of particular kinds of commemoration such as the private burials of young children.

Although Carroll’s article focuses on free children, it nevertheless indicates the existence of a kind of family bond that could motivate child commemoration. Carroll’s arguments offer valuable context for the examination of slave children’s funerary commemorations by enriching the understanding of possible relationships slave children were involved in that could have led to their funerary commemoration.

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Maureen Carroll, “‘No Part in Earthly Things.’ The Death, Burial and Commemoration of Newborn Children and Infants in Roman Italy,” in Families in the Roman and Late Antique World, eds. Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, 41–63 (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012), 41, 46–47.

4 Carroll, “‘No Part in Earthly Things,’” 45.

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The study of the Roman family is another important frame for understanding what those relationships might have been. Richard Saller and Brent Shaw’s study of the topic draws on trends in dedicator-dedicatee relationships from Roman funerary inscriptions, noting that “in dedications from civilian populations across the western empire, relationships within the 5

immediate family greatly outnumber every other type.” From this evidence, they conclude that the nuclear family was the most important kin unit of Roman society and thus the most likely to commemorate each other. Suzanne Dixon’s study of the slave family adds another dimension to Saller and Shaw’s conclusion by shedding light on how slave children could have fit into family networks in ancient Rome. Dixon acknowledges the importance of the nuclear family, as Saller and Shaw emphasize, but stresses that Roman law prioritized the rights of the master over those of the slave. As a result, slave families had no real protection of their relationships under the law 6

— though she notes that in practice, slaves certainly formed familial bonds.

Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death, a comparative study about slavery in a global, transtemporal context, also examines the possibility of family bonds among slaves. He posits that slavery necessitates a natal alienation, a “loss of ties of birth in both ascending and descending 7

generations.” Patterson also argues that all slaves underwent a social death wherein the slave 8

“had no social existence outside of his master.” Neither of these arguments leave room for the maintenance of family bonds between slaves, suggesting that slaves were forcibly excluded by their status from the unit that Saller and Shaw deem the essential building block of Roman society. It seems unlikely that such a complete removal from family connections would always be possible, especially in the domestic context in Rome, where slaves lived in close proximity to

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Richard P. Saller and Brent D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves,” The Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), 145.

6 Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 54.

7 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), 7.

8 Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 38.

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each other and to their master’s familia, sometimes related to members of both groups. Dixon’s theory seems more plausible: although slave families had no rights under Roman law, they still formed unstable familial bonds outside that structure of protection.

Specifically dealing with the Roman context, Henrik Mouritsen’s analysis of epitaphs of freedpeople at Pompeii and Ostia also stresses the lack of familial bonds available to slaves by emphasizing how that changed upon manumission. He posits that freedpeople took up the practice of putting up funerary inscriptions as part of a common culture born from the shared experience of manumission, which “was above all a personal transformation, whose main tangible benefit for most freedmen would have been gaining control over their own bodies, and with that also the right to form recognized and secure unions whose offspring were protected 9

under law, in other words having a family.” For Mouritsen, this transformative experience encouraged a common culture among freedmen as well as a sentimental motivation to commemorate the family unit that had been previously unavailable to these people when they were still enslaved. Mouritsen’s and Dixon’s emphasis on the unprotected, potentially transient nature of bonds within slave families prompts the question of how these uncertain slave family networks affected slave children.

One possible answer to this question is that despite the lack of protection under the law, slave families managed to form some kind of lasting bonds within a nuclear family unit, or at least something similar to it. Susan Treggiari argues that in some cases, a master would have supported a slave union, a contubernium — a union but not a recognized, legal marriage — “both 10

for the sake of morale in his household and for the sake of slave-breeding.” Treggiari cites the example of an enslaved man named Spendo, who set up a memorial to commemorate himself 9

Henrik Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy,” Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005), 60.

10 Susan Treggiari, “Family Life among the Staff of the Volusii,” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014) 105 (1975), 396.

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and his two wives — the relationships are described on the monument as contubernales — Panope, who died aged 22, and Phoebe, who died aged 37 (CIL VI 7297). This shows that it could have been possible for a slave child to have grown up with a sense of a familial bond with their own parents, despite such a bond’s lack of legal support, which Dixon stresses as a divider of enslaved families. This possibility seems likely given the evidence of commemoration of slave 11

children by their parents such as in the case of the stela of Facundus (CIL V 2625).

The stela of Facundus features a half-figure portrait of the boy, set in a niche, wearing a toga and holding a ball in his hand. Around the portrait, the stela is decorated with carvings of Corinthian-style columns and a band of regular, geometric architectural features with rosette corners. Overall, the impression given by the stela does not, at first glance, suggest the commemoration of a slave child. In particular, the toga, which, as Jason Mander notes, 12

symbolizes Roman citizenship, is slightly confusing. However, the inscription makes the boy’s status clear: 13

Facundus, slave of Domitius, of 10 years, Fuscus and Chia, parents (did this).

The inscription is fairly simple, noting both Facundus’s servile status and his connection to his parents. These are the two vectors that define him, first as a slave, then as a son. The presence of a parent-child connection challenges the idea that slaves did not have access to the structure of the nuclear family. The presentation of Facundus is also interesting given that the toga he is wearing “must be wholly artificial,” an aspirational detail that “may show an attempt to correct 14

the inequalities experienced in life and achieve a new status and comfort level in death.” The symbolism of the toga is curious because even though it seems to represent a hope that

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Appendix: Figure 1 Jason Mander, Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 51.

13 Appendix: Figure 1 14 Mander, Portraits, 52.

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Facundus might be perceived as of a higher status than he actually was, the first vector of his identity mentioned is his status as a slave, with the name of his master. This draws out a level of tension between the desire of Facundus’s parents to present him to posterity in a certain light and the reality of his day-to-day existence as a slave.

The motivation for the creation of this monument seems largely sentimental on the part of Facundus’s parents. Fuscus and Chia’s desire to commemorate their son in this idealized form is in line with Hope’s conception of the function of Roman funerary monuments as a marker of a person’s life and a public reminder to remember them, because Facundus’s parents are presenting him to posterity in the most positive way they are able. Their commemoration of their son challenges Patterson’s theories of natal alienation and social death because it demonstrates a clear desire to secure for posterity an image not only of their son but also of their family connection through their sponsorship of the monuments as his parents. The stela marks a reality of slave lives that differs from what the legal protections for families proscribed. As Dixon posits, the realities of interpersonal and family relationships were not necessarily reflective of the protection those bonds had under Roman law.

Monuments such as Facundus’s also complicate Mouritsen’s model of the common class shared by freedpeople as a source of sentimentality that drove the creation of funerary monuments. It challenges the implication that only upon manumission, which brought the legal protection of family ties, did those bonds become something people desired to commemorate.

The case of Facundus is perhaps indicative of a moment when a desire to commemorate a familial bond between slaves was strengthened by the very nature of the bond’s potential impermanence. In erecting a stela for their son that commemorated him in an idealized mode, coded with a false implication of Roman citizenship conveyed by his dress in the toga, Facundus’s parents were also creating a monument to the bonds of their family. Through their

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son’s commemoration, they created a monument to their relationship with each other as well as the child they shared. Acknowledging their family unit alongside Facundus’s status as a slave speaks to the possibility of slaves creating family units within a system that could easily make those bonds difficult to maintain, since masters were ultimately in control of their slaves’ autonomy. Through the funerary commemoration of their child, Fuscus and Chia were able to represent themselves and their family bond in a permanent theatre that existed outside the uncertainty of the lives of slaves.

The analysis of Facundus’s stela is complicated by the lack of knowledge available about the status of his parents as the dedicators of his monument. It is possible that they were freed and thus had more autonomy to commission the monument and to define their son’s image in an idealized visual language. However, their identification each by a single nomina is usually indicative 15

of slave status. In addition, the lack of any of the usual markers of freedperson status, including 16

an acknowledgement of that status, also points to the parents being slaves. Regardless of the parents’ status, the monument still demonstrates a maintenance of family ties that transgress the total control of the slave system over the bodies of slaves, given that Facundus was definitely enslaved when he died.

It is also important to note that the commemoration of slaves by other slaves was not unheard of, and thus Fuscus and Chia’s monument for their child, while not necessarily the norm, was not an impossibility within their social context. Such commemoration was more accessible to slaves whose masters were part of the highest echelons of society, such as slaves of the imperial house, and therefore had access to more resources that would allow them to finance such monuments. For example, the epitaph of Alexander, a slave of two Augusti, which

15 16

Mander, Portraits, 71.

Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions,” 41.

17

Alexander himself had made to commemorate himself and his son, Marcus, demonstrates such 17

an ability (CIL 6 08987). The layout of the text on Alexander’s monument highlights his role as an imperial slave; the first two lines of text, which are larger than the rest, contain his name, his status as an imperial slave, and the fact that he himself had the monument made. This focus on his position alongside the declaration that he was able to create the monument is perhaps indicative of a level of pride in his position as a slave to the highest-status family in the empire, a position that helped him erect the monument.. Such an example of an intra-slave funerary commemoration is helpful for situating Facundus’s monument within an environment where, even though slaves were legally the property of their masters, they were able to exert levels of agency in certain contexts, especially if their masters were of high status.

However, the opposite reality, in which slave children did not maintain ties to their family, and were thus not commemorated by them, is also demonstrated in funerary monuments to slave children. These cases fall more easily into Dixon’s and Mouritsen’s conceptions of family separation brought about by slavery and could be read as a case for Patterson’s natal alienation argument and his conception of social death as a reorientation of the slave’s entire social existence to be about their master. What is interesting about these cases of slave children’s commemorations is the identity of the dedicators, in these examples the masters, who essentially fulfill the same function as Facundus’s parents. These commemorations are suggestive of alternative types of bonds slave children might form within the wider context of their master’s familia if they were denied the chance to maintain their connection to their nuclear family unit.

The funeral stela of the slave child Pudens is remarkably similar to Facundus’s. The monument contains a bust of Pudens, who is dressed in what appears to be a toga, set in a niche.

The inscription and the bust are framed in a geometric border, and Pudens is flanked by detailed

17

Appendix: Figure 2.

18

18

carvings of trees and a bird. However, unlike in the case of Facundus, the monument is dedicated by Pudens’s master, Iulia Corintias: To the departed spirits of Pudens, who lived for 6 years and 3 months. Iulia Corintias set 19 this up to her sweetest household slave (CIL VI 25203).

This type of slave commemoration suggests that the relationship between master and slave was more complex than a simple exchange between an owner and their human property. The complication of the master-slave dynamic introduces the idea that a level of sentimentality or care might motivate such a commemoration. Iulia’s commemoration of Pudens could indicate that their relationship was informed by something similar to a parent-child bond. Pudens is described as a verna, a term generally used to denote a house-born slave and that Beryl Rawson argues could result in these slaves “enjoying some of the better circumstances of foster-children — some affection, some expectation of family inheritance, some responsibility for carrying on 20

the family name.” Though Pudens does not carry Iulia’s name, the use of the word verna is nevertheless charged with a certain type of pseudo-familial bond. As in the case of Facundus and his parents, it seems that Pudens’s epitaph was created with sentimental motivation, to serve as a reminder for Iulia of her slave child.

Hanne Nielsen discusses a similar type of bond in his examination of delicium as a term of endearment used to describe children, usually slaves who were involved in “a relation [with their 21

masters] that seems frequently to have had almost a parent/child-like character.” Nielsen examines the epitaphs of the Corpus Inscriptonium Latinarum Volumen VI and notes that there are 22

125 delicia commemorated of which “the majority were probably slaves.” He also analyzes a

18

Appendix: Figure 3.

Appendix: Figure 3.

20 Beryl Rawson, “Children in the Roman Familia,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed.

Beryl Rawson (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986), 196.

21 Hanne Sigismund Nielsen, “Delicia in Roman Literature and in the Urban Inscriptions,” Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 19 (1990), 79.

22 Nielsen, “Delicia,” 83.

19

19

poem by Statius, written in commemoration of his own dead delicium, to argue that these children 23

could sometimes fill the role of a surrogate child. Statius’s delicium had been manumitted before death because of this relationship. Though Pudens evidently died a slave, the type of sentimental bond that Nielsen argues helped motivate Statius to free, and then commemorate in a poem, his delicium, might be similar to the bond Iulia and Pudens shared. It is impossible to know if Iulia intended to ever free Pudens but comparing Iulia and Pudens to Statius and his delicium suggests the possibility of a pseudo-familial bond between master and child. Thus, a level of sentimentality is a plausible motivation in Iulia’s commemoration of her slave.

However, despite this possibility of a sentimental motivation to commemorate, the dynamic of ownership must also be considered when analyzing Pudens’s epitaph. The inscription emphasizes Iulia’s status as the slave master by using her relationship with Pudens as the only identifiable vector of the slave’s identity. Thus, the monument serves to reflect Iulia’s status as a slave-owning woman, making its erection an expression of her own agency. All the descriptors of Pudens — vernae, dulcissimae, and even the name Pudens, which means shame or modesty — define the slave in relation to Iulia and highlight the power she has to dictate the child’s identity.

Her control is solidified by Pudens’s epitaph, which establishes this identity even after the slave’s death on the stage of the public process of Roman funerary commemoration. Just as Facundus’s stela served as a way for his parents to display their family ties, so does Pudens’s stela reflect a purpose beyond simply commemorating the child.

The cippus of Nerantus is another example of a slave child commemorated in relation to their master. Though the inscription does not explicitly state that Nerantus’s master arranged the commemoration, he is the only other person mentioned on the monument, which suggests his involvement in the process:

23

Nielsen, “Delicia,” 81.

20

24

Nerantus, slave of M. Arrius, of 3 years (EDCS 10700199).

Like Facundus and Pudens, Nerantus is dressed in a toga, a presentation of the slave child visually coded to look like a citizen. Nerantus’s cippus is ornate, featuring a bust of the boy, set in a niche, framed by two columns. The top of the monument features a decorative palmette. At the foot of the inscription a dog is carved in relief, and Nerantus holds a bird in his hand. As with the stelae of Facundus and Pudens, the detail on the cippus of Nerantus reflects a high level of care and planning that went into the creation of the monument. As with Pudens’s stela, Nerantus’s cippus presents the slave boy’s identity only in relation to his master. In these cases, it is possible that the presence of the toga is intended to further solidify the connection between the citizen master and the slave child as a symbol of the master’s own status. This possibility offers an explanation for the toga that differs from Mander’s hypothesis about Facundus’s toga as an aspirational detail. However, this contrast makes sense given the different ways the monuments were used by either the parents or the masters of the slave children to both commemorate their relationships and engage in self-presentation . The cippus, with its detail and quality, reflects Arrius’s ability to finance such an intricate commemoration, thus bolstering his own status through the commemoration of Nerantus.

In the cases of Pudens and Nerantus, the masters’ presentations of their slave children on detailed funerary monuments provided them a chance to engage in a world of public commemoration that Roman elites were increasingly separate from, especially after the transition from Republic to Empire. As Mouritsen notes: “when looking at élite burials, one is struck by 25

the relative rarity of self-commemoration.” He argues that most elite burials reflected a more restrained, private practice of funerary commemoration. This argument suggests another reason

24 25

Appendix: Figure 4.

Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions,” 46.

21

slave children’s funerary commemorations could be a useful tool for their masters.

Commemorating slave children allowed Roman elites to engage in the public practice of funerary commemoration that Hope outlines in Roman Death. Importantly though, the members of the elite did not have to directly involve themselves or members of their immediate family units in a 26

mode of funerary commemoration that was increasingly becoming a stage for freedmen. The commemoration of a slave child who was close to the master’s familia provided Roman elites with a pseudo-familial connection they could use to engage with a specific funerary dialogue and to open a new avenue of self-presentation. Stelae such as those of Pudens and Nerantus highlight this possibility in their identification of the slave children completely by their relationships to their masters.

The similarities between Pudens’s, Nerantus’s and Facundus’s funerary monuments indicate a specific language used in this type of commemoration. The simplicity of the inscriptions, which always include the child’s age, the depiction of the children in togas set in niches, and the decorative — and therefore costly — nature of the monuments reflect a level of consistency in the practice. This consistency suggests that the commemorators of these young slaves were making use of a certain type of commemorative language that provided a frame for both the inscription and the visual character of the monument used in the process of commemoration. The detail and quality of the monuments, as well as the distinctive addition of the toga to each slave, suggests a consistency not only in the practice of these commemorations but also in their intended meanings. It is unreasonable to argue that these monuments exist completely devoid of sentimental motivation; the plausibility of this view is grounded in Carroll’s argument about the desire to commemorate infants despite their perceived lack of importance and Nielsen’s examination of masters’ relationships with their delicia. However, it is equally

26

Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions,” 52.

22

unreasonable to interpret these monuments as solely motivated by that sentimentality when they are all employing a language of commemoration that allows the dedicators to engage in acts of self-representation — Facundus’s parents recognizing their status as a family, and the masters of Nerantus and Pudens recognizing their status as wealthy slave-owners. In each case, the detail and quality of the monuments also reflects the agency and affluence of the dedicators, factors that would have been necessary to create such commemorations.

The types of family bonds that slave children were involved in during their lives shaped the way their identities were commemorated in death. The varied nature of the roles they played as members of familial and pseudo-familial bonds is revealed through the variation in the status of the dedicators of the children’s funerary monuments. Thus, examining the epitaphs of slave children in Roman Italy reveals just as much, if not more, about the dedicators of the epitaphs, especially when the dedicators were the children’s masters, as it does about the slave children themselves. Particularly revealing are the similarities in the visual program of epitaphs erected by slave parents and those erected by the masters of slave children. In both cases, there appears to be an emphasis on presenting an idealized, very Roman version of the child that suggests a link to citizenship, as demonstrated by their appearing in togas. In both the cases of the masters as commemorators and that of the parents as commemorators, the creation of the idealized image of the dead slave child became an avenue for self-expression on the part of the dedicators.

Although it seems unlikely that such commemorations were completely void of sentimental motivation, it should not be discounted that these commemorations also served practical purposes for the dedicators. The children were, at the same time, people to be commemorated and tools through which the dedicators of their commemorations could represent their own identities. In the case of Facundus, his epitaph provided his parents with a place to create solid evidence of their family bond. This bond was emphasized not only by naming themselves on the

23

monument, but also through the actual process of having their son, the physical embodiment of their coupling, commemorated on the Roman funerary stage. For the masters of Pudens and Nerantus, commemoration of their slaves provided them access to a theatre of self-presentation that they, as elites, were not directly involved in. The implications of these funerary epitaphs put into stark relief the simple yet encompassing ways identities of slave children could be shaped by those who held power over them, even in death.

24

Appendix

Figure 1. “Stela of Facundus.” In Jason Mander, Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, Catalogue #225, (CIL V 2625).

- Dates from first century CE - Findspot: Verona - Size: 81 cm x 40 cm x 18 cm

Inscription: - FACUNDO / DOMITI AN X / FUSCUS ET / CHIA PARE Translation: - Facundus, slave of Domitius, of 10 years, Fuscus and Chia, parents (did this)

Image:

25

Figure 2. “Epitaph to a Young Page of the Emperors.” In C Noviello. “VIII, 30. Un paggio imperial,” In Terme di Diocleziano : la collezione epigrafica, edited by R. Friggeri, M.G. Granino Cecere, G.L. Gregori, 516–517. Florence: Electa, 2012, (CIL 6 08987).

- Findspot: Cemetery of Sant’Ermete on the via Salaria Vetus, Rome - Size: 32.5 cm x 30 cm x 3 cm Inscription: - ALEXANDER AUGG SER(VUS) FECIT SE BIVO MARCO FILIO DULCISSIMO CAPUT-AFRICENSI QUI DEPUTA-BATUR INTER BESTITO-RES QUI VIXIT ANNIS MENSIBU(S) VIIII DIEBU(S) V PETO A BOBIS FRATRES BONI PER UNUM DEUM NE QUIS (H)UN(C) TITELO MOLESTET POS(T) MORT[EM MEAM] Translation : - Alexander, slave of the two Augusti, made for himself an and also for Marcus, the most sweet son, graduate of the school of pages, who was esteemed among the vestitores, who lived 18 years, nine months and five days. I ask of you all, good brothers, through the one god, not to let anyone disturb this tomb after my death Image:

26

Figure 3. “Slave Child’s Funerary Epitaph” From the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, (CIL VI 25203).

- Thought to date from second or third century CE - Findspot: likely Rome - Size: 56 cm x 37.5 cm x 6.8 cm

Inscription: - D(IS) M(ANIBUS) / PUDENTIS · VIX(IT) · AN(NIS) · VI / MENSIBUS · III / IULIA · CORINTIAS / VERNAE · DULCISSIM(AE) / FECIT Translation: - To the departed spirits of Pudens, who lived for 6 years and 3 months. Iulia Corintias set this up to her sweetest household slave.

Image:

27

Figure 4. “Cippus of Nerantus.” In Jason Mander. Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, Catalogue #220, (EDCS 10700199).

- Dates from first century CE - Findspot: Este - Size: 92 cm x 46 cm x 26 cm

Inscription: - NERANT[U]S / M ARRI / ANN III Translation: - Nerantus, slave of M. Arrius, of 3 years

Image:

28

Bibliography

Carroll, Maureen. “‘No Part in Earthly Things.’ The Death, Burial and Commemoration of Newborn Children and Infants in Roman Italy.” In Families in the Roman and Late Antique World, edited by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, 41–63. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012.

Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Hope, Valerie M. Roman Death: The Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009.

Mander, Jason. Portraits of Children on Roman Funerary Monuments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Mouritsen, Henrik. “Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy.”

Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005): 38–63.

Nielsen, Hanne Sigismund. “Delicia in Roman Literature and in the Urban Inscriptions.” In Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 19 (1990): 79–88.

Noviello, C. “VIII, 30. Un paggio imperiale.” In Terme di Diocleziano : la collezione epigrafica, edited

by R. Friggeri, M.G. Granino Cecere, G.L. Gregori, 516–517. Florence: Electa, 2012.

Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1982.

Rawson, Beryl. “Children in the Roman Familia.” In The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, edited by Beryl Rawson, 170–200. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Saller, Richard P. and Brent D. Shaw. “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves.” The Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 124–56.

Treggiari, Susan. “Family Life among the Staff of the Volusii.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014) 105 (1975): 393–401.

29

Glory in the Roman Conquest of Britain Michael Gobeil, Concordia

Abstract This essay is intended as an analysis of the Roman Conquest of Britain, initiated by Julius Caesar in 55-54 BCE, and continued by the emperors Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian, as well as the general Agricola. The broad strokes of the Roman Conquest of Britain, as well as early Roman contact with Ireland, will be discussed herein. This article will examine the question of whether the purpose of the Roman emperors of the period was to seek glory through their campaigns, or to maintain control over their province in the British Isles. The term ‘glory’ is used here in the sense of creating a reputation among the Roman people, that is, the reputation of an important figure in the Roman consciousness. Ultimately, the true purpose of the Roman campaigns in Britain varied according to the reigning emperor, as each had their own ambitions and objectives. Many of the emperors involved in the campaigns held personal goals of glory, which they hoped to demonstrate through their ability to maintain control over the British Isles.

Further, this article proposes that Roman success in Britain was significantly dependent upon the relative ambition of the reigning emperor.

Introduction The Roman Empire was well known for campaigning on its frontiers and expanding its control outside of Italy. One such example is the Roman Conquest of Britain, initiated by Julius Caesar in 55 BCE and continued by Claudius beginning in 43 CE. After Claudius, a series of Roman emperors inherited an obligation to advance the Britain campaign,

30

with the end result being a newly established Roman province in the British Isles. This article proposes that the Roman Conquest of Britain can be seen as geopolitical expansion used as a means for Roman emperors to gain glory. The original intention of the conquest of Britain was to pursue the Gauls taking refuge in the British Isles, as well as to prevent the Britons from aiding the Gauls during Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Later generations of Roman emperors, for example Claudius and Domitian, had more varied objectives in mind for the conquest of Britain. For them, the campaign was primarily a means of seeking accolades, achievements, and glory through the expansion of Roman influence to the British and Celtic peoples. The events and accomplishments of each emperor will be examined and discussed, beginning with Julius Caesar’s initial invasion of the British Isles, followed by Claudius’ renewal of the campaign, then its continuation by Nero, Vespasian, and finally Domitian, along with the aid of the general Agricola. Each individual will be examined in terms of their contributions and accomplishments relevant to the Roman Conquest of Britain. In addition, an attempt will be made to reconstruct each individual’s intentions and goals in regard to the campaign, and to evaluate their respective successes and failures toward such goals.

Caesar’s Initial Invasions of the British Isles After the partial subjugation of Gaul, desiring to achieve more fame and prestige, Julius 27

Caesar began a campaign in Britain to further extend his action in the field. Caesar had information that Gaulish nobles were in exile in Britain as guests of their allies, the Druids, 28

providing him with a strong motivation to mount a campaign against Britain. Britain was seen as a new world by the Romans, and therefore its exploration and conquest had the potential to

27

Barri Jones, David Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain: The Conquest and Garrisoning of Britain (Oxbow Books 1990): 64.

28 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64.

31

29

bring glory to the Roman Empire. Another idea was that the invasions carried out by Caesar were not primarily intended as a means to earn glory, but to help persuade the Romans to 30

perceive the Britons as a common enemy, possibly reducing class strife in Rome.

Caesar first sent scouts to search for a landing zone, and after a failed a diplomatic 31

mission, his landing forces met resistance from the Britons. After the Romans had established a foothold in Britain, it was recorded that some local British tribes paid tribute to the Romans as 32

punishment for their initial resistance against Caesar. Despite this early success, an equinoctial gale destroyed most of Caesar’s ships, giving the Britons an opportunity to renew their assault on 33

the Romans. The Romans managed to initially defend against the Britons, but fled back to Gaul 34

as soon as the opportunity became available.

In his second campaign, Caesar returned with a larger army, and this time his landing 35

forces met no resistance from the Britons. A battle took place later, possibly near the River Stour near Canterbury, at the eastern tip of County Kent (Fig. 1), about 19 km away from the 36

landing site. The Romans were victorious over the Britons and laid siege to a nearby hillfort, likely Bigbury Fort in County Kent (Fig 1.), but were forced to delay their pursuit in order to 37

repair their fleet, which had once again suffered significant storm damage. Once repairs were finished, Caesar met King Cassivellaunus in a two-day skirmish and pitched battle, resulting in 38

the defeat of the Britons in the field. The Britons were then pursued across the River Thames 39

just west of London (Fig. 1), where the Romans encountered the renegade British kings. Caesar 29

P.C.N. Stewart, “Inventing Britain: The Roman Creation and Adaptation of an Image” (Britannia, Vol. 26 (1995)): 6.

Stewart, “Inventing Britain”, 6.

31 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64.

32 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64.

33 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64.

34 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64.

35 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

36 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

37 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

38 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

39 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

30

32

was assaulted by the four Kings of Kent, and managed to successfully defend against them.

However, the depletion of his soldiers forced him to depart the islands once again, concluding 40

his campaign in Britain.

Renewal of the Conquest of Britain by Emperor Claudius It was not until 43 CE that the next invasion of Britain would take place. While Emperor Claudius’ immediate predecessors had contact with Britain, it was mostly through trade 41

and communications. Claudius’ motives for reinitiating the conquest of Britain were varied. He may have begun the campaign to gain political glory, while also reinforcing his military 42

reputation. Another possibility is that he reinitiated the campaign due to the growing power of King Cunobelinus of the Catuvellauni/Trinovantes tribal federation, who was a relative of British 43

princes in exile in Rome. Claudius may have wished to reinstate pro-Roman client kings in the 44

hope of increasing Roman influence in the British Isles. After arriving in Britain at the beachhead of Chichester, northeast of the Isle of Wight (Fig 1.), divisions of Claudius’ forces fought a resistance group at the Battle of Medway, pursuing the enemy to the banks of the River 45

Thames, west of London. With little to no resistance left from the Britons, the coalition of 46

eleven kings surrendered to Claudius, who received their submission at Colchester (Fig. 1).

40

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 64-65.

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 65.

42 Raoul McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland: Rethinking the Campaign by Gnaeus Julius Agricola (AD 77-83)” (Classics Ireland, Vol. 21-22 (2014-2015): 119.

43 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 65.

44 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 65.

45 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 65-66.

46 J.G.F. Hind, “Claudius’ ‘Durbar’ in Britain, AD-43-Roman Chelmsford?” (Greece & Rome, Vol. 21, No 1 (April 1974): 68-9; Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66.

41

33

Figure 1: [Map of British Isles used in the context of Roman positions and movements.]

(Rimmer, Sandra. “Maps of Britain and Ireland’s Ancient Tribes, Kingdoms and DNA”.

Abroadintheyard.com (2019))

34

With the eleven British kings in submission, Claudius ordered the conquest of the rest of 47

the British Isles. Roman control of the British Isles fluctuated as territory was gained and lost, with British tribes breaking away from Roman influence and being pacified in a consistent cycle.

Before his replacement, Aulus Platius, governor of the new province, was ordered to limit the 48

area of expansion in the British province and establish a frontier. By 47 CE, Ostorius Scapula 49

had taken Platius’ place as governor. The campaign against the Decangi/Deceangli of North Wales had begun, yet was interrupted by an attack from the Brigantes. Scapula pierced through the Cheshire Plain south of Lancashire (Fig.1), east of Chester, and into South and Central Wales.

This led to a conflict with Caratacus, in which the British king was defeated. Caratacus’ revolt against Scapula was most likely caused by the betrayal of Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes, as she had not only attended Claudius’ triumph in Rome, but, according to Tacitus, surrendered Caratacus to the Romans in order to increase the wealth and power of her own regime (Tac., 50

Hist. 3.45.1, 3). Scapula’s garrisons in South Wales came under pressure of attack, leading to the 51

construction of defenses. By 52 CE, Scapula had perished, and was replaced by Didius Gallus.

Gallus had intended to go on the offensive, but this was prevented due to Queen Cartimandua’s request for aid against her husband, Venutius, who planned to attack her regime. Roman forces 52

were sent twice to protect her, but the offensive never began. In 54 CE, Claudius was 53

murdered.

47

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66.

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66.

49 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66.

50 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66.

51 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 66-67.

52 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 67-68.

53 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 68.

48

35

Claudius’ Contribution to the Conquest of Britain During his campaign in Britain, Claudius managed to assert Roman influence and dominance over the Britons, despite the attempts of the Britons to resist the Roman conquest and the romanization of British territory. Through the submission of the British kings, Claudius had added to his stature as an emperor of the Roman Empire, since the Britons were considered to be a culture that did not falter easily. Chelmsford, located north of London in County Essex (Fig 1.), was known in Roman times as Caesaromagus, a reference to the Caesarian lineage and 54

specifically to Claudius. There were now lands in Britain that were named after the line of Caesars, suggesting that the Roman emperors who dominated this foreign province desired recognition and glory, as well as territorial gains. Another way that Claudius managed to obtain 55

glory was through the minting of coins, for example didrachms. Since coins were an integral tool of economic exchange during the period, having one’s name on the currency was a great display of power in Rome and elsewhere. Inscriptions were displayed on these didrachms, detailing the methods by which Claudius managed to subjugate the people of Britain, a people thought to 56

have never before been conquered. From this, it seems clear that Claudius’ domination and subjugation of the British people was part of a narrative meant to establish him as a ruler of 57

unprecedented accomplishment.

Adoption of the Campaign by Nero After Claudius’ death in 54 CE, his adopted son, Nero, took his place as emperor.

54

Hind, “Claudius’ ‘Durbar’ in Britain, AD-43-Roman Chelmsford?”, 69.

Stewart, “Inventing Britain”, 8.

56 Stewart, “Inventing Britain”, 8-9.

57 Stewart, “Inventing Britain”, 9.

55

36

At first, Nero did not want to continue the campaign in Britain, but eventually decided to do so out of the desire to avoid sullying his father’s work (Suet., Ner. 18.1). Nero ordered the expansion 58

of Roman rule in Britain, instating Suetonius Paullinus as the latest governor of Britain.

Paullinus had completed two previous campaigns in North and South Wales (Fig 1.), a sea invasion of the Island of Anglesey at the northernmost point in Wales , and was in the process of setting forth on a campaign into Snowdonia from his base at Rhyn Park, southwest of Chester, 59

near Chirk. However, the Snowdonia campaign was pushed aside as the Boudican Revolt broke out after the victory at Anglesey. When Paullinus learnt of the Boudican Revolt, he chose to respond by marching through enemy territory into London (Fig 1.) and Verulamium (St. Albans), establishing bases in those territories (Tac., Ann. 14.33.1, 3). Paullinus’ forces consisted of the 14th Legion and part of the 20th Legion, along with auxiliaries, totaling 10,000 men (Tac., Ann. 14.34.1). In preparations for the anticipated conflict against Boudicca, Paullinus chose an open field in order to avoid difficult terrain and any possibilities of an ambush (Tac., Ann. 14.34.1).

With both sides having given their speeches for inspiration before the battle, the forces of Paullinus and Boudicca met on the field. The Romans fired a barrage of projectiles while assaulting the Britons using a wedge formation of defiles, auxiliaries, and cavalry (Tac., Ann. 14.37.1-2). The Britons lost 80,000 men, while the Romans reported only 400 casualties (Tac., Ann. 14.37.2). Boudicca committed suicide by poison after suffering the loss of her failed revolt (Tac., Ann. 14.37.3).

This victory surely brought glory to the Romans. After the victory against Boudicca, pacification measures were established and the process of quelling revolts and subduing the

58 59

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 68-69.

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 69.

37

60

British people began anew; their integration into the Roman routine had begun. Still seeking accolades, Nero would replace Gallus with Petronius Turpilianus as governor of Britain in order 61

to introduce an expansionist policy. With Turpilianus and M. Trebellius Maximus in Britain, the 62

Roman expansion began with the establishment of forts. However, due to a lack of campaigning as a result of the fort building, as well as Nero’s shift of resources to the Caucasus region, the campaign and the expansion of Roman influence deteriorated. By 68 CE, Nero had committed suicide.

Nero’s Contribution to the Conquest of Britain While unsure at first, Nero had continued one of his late adoptive father’s goals, managing to bring glory to both himself and the Roman Empire through his campaigns in the British Isles, especially in regard to the Roman victory against Boudicca and the Iceni rebels. In fact, when Paullinus was recalled to Rome to celebrate this victory in a formal triumph, Nero participating in the event in the place of honour as if the emperor himself had won the victory 63

and brought glory to Rome. By replacing Classicianus with Paullinus in Britain, Nero brought 64

tolerance rather than violence to Britain, generating an increase in Roman cultural influence. By replacing Classicianus with Turpilianus, Nero returned to a campaign of military domination, establishing new forts that allowed for further control of the British Isles. By hand-picking two successful governors of Britain, each with polarized missions and methods, Nero succeeded in gaining the glory and accolades that he had intended. However, Nero showed little preference as to the means chosen to achieve his desire to gain a glorious reputation, whether it be through

60

Gil Gambush, “To Rule a Ferocious Province: Roman Policy and the Aftermath of the Boudican Revolt” (Britannia, Vol. 43 (2012): 7; Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 71.

61 Gambush, “To Rule a Ferocious Province”, 10.

62 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 71.

63 Gambush, “To Rule a Ferocious Province”, 6.

64 Gambush, “To Rule a Ferocious Province”, 6.

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war or cultural influence. This serves as a demonstration of the way in which the Roman Conquest of Britain was used as a means for Roman emperors to gain personal glory, and not just a means to increase Roman territory.

Vespasian Continues the Conquest of Britain After Galba, Otho, and Vitellius reigned as emperors of Rome, Vespasian was next in line, having completed his military service. Compared to the emperors discussed thus far, Vespasian's campaign in Britain does not appear to have been heavily motivated by a desire for glory, but rather by a desire to fix issues caused by the previous three emperors, as well as to 65

combat the ongoing Brigantian incursion. Due to the power struggle in Rome, Roman control of Britain had decreased. During this period, Venutius had managed to usurp power from Queen Cartimandua. After attempting to help her regain the throne, the Romans had found that they lacked the strength to remove Venutius from power. When Vespasian became emperor, he promptly dispatched Leg. II Adiutrix, and within fifteen years the conquest of Britain had been 66

completed. Alongside the general Agricola, the new governor, Petillius Cerialis, managed to successfully subjugate the Brigantian Kingdom, operating from the North Midlands (Fig 1.), and into South and East Yorkshire, possibly crossing the Strainmore Pass in the area of Cumberland 67

68

and Northwest Carlisle. The next governor, Julius Frontinus, took all of Wales. Vespasian also 69

received Cogidubnus as a client kingdom during this period. Through his campaigns, Vespasian secured England and Wales under Roman control.

65

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 71.

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 71-72.

67 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 72.

68 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 72.

69 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 72.

66

39

The Influence of Agricola During the Conquest of Britain After gaining military experience in Britain and serving under Cerialis as legate, Agricola would be appointed the next governor of Britain by Vespasian. During his time as governor, Agricola managed to earn glory in the name of the Roman Empire through his many accomplishments. At the end of his first summer season, Agricola had sent detachments of multiple legions and small forces of auxiliaries to prepare against the Ordovices (Tac., Agr. 18.1-2). The Ordovices refused to leave the hills, which forced Agricola to order his forces to storm through their defenses and nearly destroy the tribe, though some managed to escape to the Island of Mona at Anglesey (Fig 1.). Without any ships, Agricola managed to pursue them across the water by constructing a bridge and sending auxiliary units who were adept swimmers.

Taking notice of Agricola’s determination and competence, the Ordovices surrendered the island (Tac., Agr. 18.2-3). With the Ordovices subdued, Agricola began to establish a Roman way of life among the Britons. He introduced the Ordivices and Britons to the Roman liberal arts, constructed marketplaces, temples, and houses, and propagated the teaching of Latin (Tac., Agr. 21). Agricola essentially gave Roman civilization to the Britons.

After taking steps to introduce Roman influence in local British culture, Agricola moved on to the estuaries of Forth-and-Clyde. He constructed a 64 km border along the isthmus, cordoning off an entire section of Britain and effectively separating Caledonia from Britannia (Fig. 2). This was seen as an expression of power, a statement to the Britons to not provoke 70

violence with the Romans. Agricola then marched south of the new Forth-Clyde Line, towards Galloway (Fig 2.), encountering the Novantae tribe and adding further forts to the Forth-Clyde Line. Agricola and his forces then reached the Antrim Coast (Fig 1.), a shortcut to Ireland of

70

McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 127.

40

71

only 19 nautical miles, an approximate three-hour sea journey. Agricola’s plan was likely to send troops to the Island of Mull in Western Ireland (Fig 2.), as the island projects westward and faces Ireland, allowing for excellent surveillance of the Irish Sea. Besides surveying the sea, these troops had the potential to be used as a conquering force in Ireland, or to defend against 72

attackers from either side travelling between Ireland and the British Isles. However, this plan did not come to fruition due to the sudden death of Emperor Titus in 81 CE, and also due to 73

the pressure caused by the incoming Caledonians encroaching on the Forth-Clyde Line.

Agricola had sent his naval force to Girvan (Fig 2.), north of Wigtown, and his invasion force to 74

the northern Highlands. This prevented the Caledonians from reaching the Forth-Clyde Line, leaving them cornered. Surrounded by waves and rocks, the Caledonians had no possible escape 75

route. Agricola had split his army into three groups, and at nightfall the Caledonians attacked the weakest of these three (Tac., Agr. 25.2, 26). However, Agricola’s scouts were able to alert the other two armies, who initiated a flanking maneuver against the Caledonians’ side and rear (ibid.

26). The Caledonians were broken, with only a few escaping (Tac., Agr. 25.2, 26). The Caledonians gathered more troops, totaling 30,000 soldiers (Tac., Agr. 29.2). They attacked the Romans at Mon Graupius, between Iverness and Aberdeen (Fig 1.), but were repelled by 76

Agricola and his army (Tac., Agr. 37.3-4, 38). Twenty-thousand Caledonians managed to escape.

In 84 CE, Agricola was recalled to Rome by Domitian and praised (Tac., Agr. 40.3, 42).

Agricola perished in 93 CE (Tac., Agr. 44). It would seem that all the work he had done in the field as governor of Britain was considered to be the accomplishment of Domitian, since the archives which held the reports and accounts of Agricola’s work were destroyed in a process of

71

McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 127.

McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 131-132.

73 McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 132.

74 McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 133.

75 McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 133.

76 McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 136.

72

41

historical erasure known as damnatio memoriae, carried out by the Roman Senate against Domitian after the emperor’s death.

77

Figure 2: [Map of the British Isles during Roman conquest.] (McLaughlin 2014, 120.)

77

McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 136.

42

Agricola’s Contribution to the Conquest of Britain With the accomplishments achieved by Agricola during his time as governor of Britain under Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, he successfully increased Roman influence within the British Isles, and partly into Ireland. However, Agricola’s motivation to achieve such success does not seem to have been fueled by ambitions of glory for himself, but rather for the Roman Empire, and possibly for Vespasian, Titus, and his family (Tac., Agr. 44.3). The Roman historian Tacitus describes Agricola as a humble and virtuous man, and elaborates how the spirit of Agricola belonged in the place where virtuous spirits rest: “If there is a place for virtuous spirits; if, as the wise are pleased to say, great minds are not extinguished with the body, rest in peace, and recall us, your family, from childish longing and womanish lament to the contemplation of your virtues,…” (Tac., Agr. 46.1). Agricola’s humble and virtuous demeanor was expressed during the times of peace between the Romans and the Britons, something not many other Roman governors had achieved, as they were usually on the offensive (Tac., Agr. 21).

Through these acts, Agricola managed to display Roman culture to the Britons, and established many Romanized cultural institutions (Tac., Agr. 21). In this accomplishment, Agricola brought glory to Rome and not to himself, but brought glory nonetheless. Agricola’s peaceful actions in Britain were likely not the orders of the reigning Roman emperor, since the emperors did not have a tight reign over Agricola during his governorship, allowed the governor and general to 78

resolve issues as he saw fit. Overall, his actions during his governorship were intended to bring glory to his Empire, to successfully complete his campaign, and to resolve issues left behind by previous governors in Britain. However, the chief source of this account is the historian Tacitus, his own son-in-law, and given the relation, the facts of Agricola’s true personality, goals, and

78

Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 74.

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reputation may have been subordinated to familial worship and aggrandizement. It must be noted that this record of Agricola’s benevolent behaviour was likely manipulated in order to suit Tacitus’ desire to portray his father-in-law in the best possible light.

Emperor Domitian’s Contribution to the Britain Campaign In the case of Emperor Domitian, the most well-known accomplishment that he managed to achieve was taking credit for Agricola’s work after recalling the governor to Rome.

Having grown jealous of his achievements, Domitian stole credit from Agricola and denied him a governor’s salary (Tac., Agr. 39.2, 42). After Agricola returned to Rome, Domitian sent a replacement governor, forcing Agricola to retire and preventing the governor from outshining the emperor. Domitian had pursued the Britain campaign with the desire for glory, but only achieved it through theft. Such actions resulted in the dishonorable removal of Domitian’s legacy from history through a process known as damnatio memoriae, where archives, records, mounments, 79

and artwork associated with that individual were defaced, removed and or destroyed.

The Mismanagement of the Britain Campaign The key to the success of an emperor’s participation in the conquest of Britain was their resource management. In the case of Nero, detachments of Roman forces were recalled from Britain in order to divert them to the Caspian Gates to combat the Albani, thus weakening Roman strength and influence over the Britons (Tac., Hist. 1.6.2). In another example, Domitian had postponed his campaign in the British Isles due to the need to focus his resources on

79

McLaughlin, “The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland”, 136.

44

80

campaigns in Gaul. This is also seen with later emperors, for example Hadrian establishing his 81

fortified wall between Northumberland and Carlisle (Fig 1.), in order to protect the border. The Antonine Wall, in Sterling (Fig 1.), was constructed to glorify Emperor Antoninus and serve as another border. However, due to a lack of resources and military strength, the Romans eventually 82

lost control of the Antonine Wall. Though they managed to retake it, control did not last, and 83

they were forced to fall back to Hadrian’s Wall. The management of resources of each emperors’ campaign was a vital factor determining whether they were able to accomplish their ambitions for glory.

Conclusion The Roman Conquest of Britain, initiated by Julius Caesar after his successes in Gaul, eventually became a legacy of shifting territorial control, spreading Roman influence to Britain and Ireland. Britain had been targeted after offering refuge to the Gauls, and eventually became a sustained source of conflict and glory for Roman emperors of the period. The original intent of the campaign in Britain was to subdue the Gauls and remove their safe haven in the British Isles, along with the threat of the Britons themselves. One view of the Emperor Claudius’ attitude toward the endeavor is that he continued the campaign in Britain out of an interest to earn political glory. Another possibility is that Claudius continued the campaign to secure established communication and trade networks in the area, to which the Britons had become a threat.

Whatever his true motivation, during his campaign in Britain, Claudius managed to find ways to obtain glory that were not initially anticipated. Emperor Nero, while unsure at first, decided to

80

Michael Fulford, “Territorial Expansion and the Roman Empire” (World Archaeology, Vol. 23, No 3, Archaeology of Empires (February 1992): 302.

81 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 109.

82 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 120-121, 126.

83 Jones, Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain, 126.

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continue his father’s campaign, but eventually saw it as a way to earn glory for his own reign.

Emperor Vespasian, after dealing with political issues left behind by Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, did not intentionally seek glory in Britain but received it through his British governor Agricola, who distinguished himself among other governors by bringing glory to the Roman Empire.

Among the previously mentioned emperors, Julius Caesar, Vespasian, and the governor Agricola appeared to be individuals who did not seek glory in Britain, while it is clear that Claudius, Nero, and Domitian exploited Britain as a means to gain political and military accolades, achievements, and glory during their reign.

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Bibliography Frere, Sheppard, & Fulford, Michael. "The Roman Invasion of A. D. 43." Britannia 32 (2001): 45-55.

Fulford, Michael. "Territorial Expansion and the Roman Empire." World Archaeology 23, no. 3 (1992): 294-305.

Gambish, Gil. "To Rule a Ferocious Province: Roman Policy and the Aftermath of the Boudican Revolt." Britannia 43 (2012): 1-15.

Hind, J. G. F. "Claudius's 'Durbar' in Britain, A. D. 43-Roman Chelmsford?" Greece & Rome 21, no. 1 (1974): 68-70.

Jones, Barri & Mattingly, David. 1990. “The Conquest and Garrisoning of Britain.” in An Atlas of Roman Britain: The Conquest and Garrisoning of Britain. Oxbow Books 1990.

Kagan, Kimberly. "Redefining Roman Grand Strategy." The Journal of Military History 70, no. 2 (2006): 333-62.

McLaughlin, Raoul. "The Roman Plan to Conquer Ireland: Rethinking the Campaign by Gnaeus Julius Agricola (AD 77-83)." Classics Ireland 21-22 (2014): 119-37.

Stewart, P. C. N. "Inventing Britain: The Roman Creation and Adaptation of an Image." Britannia 26 (1995): 1-10.

Ancient Sources

Suetonius. Life of Nero. Translated by A. S. Kline. Middlesex: A. S. Kline, 2010

Tacitus. Life of Agricola. Translated by A. S. Kline. Middlesex: A. S. Kline, 2015

Tacitus. The Annals. Book XIV. Translated by A. S. Kline. Middlesex: A. S. Kline, 2017

Tacitus. The Histories. Books I, IV. Translated by A. S. Kline. Middlesex: A. S. Kline, 2016

47

Thucydide le croyant

Arthur Jubinville, Université de Montréal

Abstract Après plus d'un siècle d'une historiographie ayant érigée Thucydide en figure de l'historien obéissant aux seules lois de la raison, il est d'une utilité primordiale de démentir cette épithète dont on l'affuble, celle d'être atheos. En effet, depuis la biographie de Thucydide réalisée par un certain Marcellinus au cinquième siècle avant notre ère et qui fut collationnée à celle de l'historien, les historiens modernes eurent la voie libre pour le qualifier de toutes sortes de choses. De l'agnostique à l'athée, en passant par le rationaliste pur et le sceptique chevronné, tous les historiens modernes ont tenté de voir dans sa méthode, après celle jugée d'ethnographique chez Hérodote, les premiers pas de l'affranchissement du cadre théologique dont devrait témoigner tout bon historien. Afin d'accomplir une critique de ses commentateurs modernes digne de réfuter leurs mauvaises conceptions des croyances de l'auteur, quelques mots sur la divination sont requis. Nous retenons les remarques suivantes : (i) lorsqu'une consultation oraculaire a lieu, il y a questionnement précis sur un sujet l'est tout autant ainsi qu'une réponse d'une égale netteté (ii) la question posée est presque toujours d'ordre privé : demander conseil à la divinité en vue de partir en guerre est un topos littéraire. La réception de La Guerre du Péloponnèse ne va pas sans analyser les passages où Thucydide s'adresse au lecteur en définissant sa

48

méthodologie. Ainsi, chacun des extraits ayant pu servir à justifier sa position face au divin devra être scruté à l'aune de ce qui a été écrit dans l'incipit afin de saisir en quoi les arguments des commentateurs modernes sont erronés. Il sera proposé de se pencher sur cinq types de passages où il est question des oracles : les oracles historiques, quasi-historiques et légendaires, ainsi que ceux où la divinité est décrite comme garante d'un certain ordre cosmique et ceux où il y a des « diseurs d'oracles ».

Introduction Thucydide aurait eu un regard sceptique face aux oracles et aux prémonitions rendues par ceux-ci, au point de rejeter leurs prophéties comme forme de superstition intolérable à 84

l'égard de toute la décente rationalité dont doit être pourvu un historien . Cela est difficilement concevable dès que l'on se penche sur ce qui en était de la pratique divinatoire oraculaire dans les textes littéraires et dans la mentalité des Grecs de l'époque.

Sur la divination Tout d'abord, la divination par les oracles mérite de se voir donner une définition plus juste que celle simplifiée, réductrice et biaisée qui est communément admise. Elle ne consiste pas qu'en une prescience absolue des évènements futurs : il s'agit pour les Grecs de l'époque de poser une question précise à un oracle afin d'obtenir une réponse tout aussi précise aiguillant une décision, généralement de l'ordre du privé et plus rarement de l'ordre du politique. Lorsqu'il s'agit 84

Cf. Nanno Marinatos, « Thucydides and Oracles », The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Londre, London University, Vol. 101, 1981, pp. 138, note 2 pour un recensement des ouvrages dans lesquels se trouve cette conception. Certainement que dès l'instant où il est proposé de le comparer à son prédécesseur historiographe, Hérodote, duquel l'oeuvre regorge d'oracles et de prédictions en tout genre, Thucydide ne peut que paraître moins investi de ferventes croyances.

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de questions politiques, si l'on met de côté les exemples issus de la littérature et que l'on observe le matériel archéologique, par exemple, du site de Dodone, l'oracle n'est jamais consulté afin de savoir si une guerre doit être menée ou comment elle doit être menée.

85

En revanche, dans les sources littéraires, ce type de questions est abondant : il relève en fait d'un topos ayant plusieurs aboutissants, dont une progression narrative où l'accord divin est fourni aux acteurs du récit. Dans la littérature, la plupart du temps, en plus de répondre à une question dont nous n'avons aucune indication qu’elle ait été réellement posée, une réponse 86

énigmatique, pleine d'ambiguïtés, donnera à coup sûr lieu à interprétation et à débat ce qui, 87

encore une fois, peut servir un objectif littéraire .

Les visées de l'œuvre telles qu'énoncées par l'auteur La vie de Thucydide se dévoile à nous dans deux œuvres douteuses quant à leur contenu 88

, qu'il vaut mieux ignorer afin de conserver ce qu'il nous est possible de savoir en lisant l'Histoire

de la guerre du Péloponnèse. Il est possible d'imputer la paternité de cette fausse conception de l'athéisme de Thucydide à la biographie écrite par Marcellinos. Ce dernier serait né entre 460 et 89

454 av. n. è. , ayant au début du conflit en 431 l'âge de la maturité (I.1.1 et V.26.5) et l'âge d'être

85

Pierre Bonnechere, « Divination », dans Daniel Ogden (dir.), A companion to Greek religion, Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publications, 2007, p. 147-150 : l'ambiguïté des oracles provient du fait qu'il y a toujours une part d'interprétation et qu'en tant qu'humain, l'interprétation ne saurait s'affranchir de toute possibilité d'erreurs.

86 Puisque les dieux ne mentent pas, leurs ruses ne sont pas fourbes, mais toujours des stratagèmes afin de contrer les fourbes voulant les berner.

87 Pierre Amandry, « Oracles, littérature et politique », Revue des Études Anciennes, Bordeaux, France, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Tome 61, 1959, n°3-4, pp. 400-401.

88 Une biographie anonyme ainsi qu'une autre signée « Marcellinos » nous sont parvenues. Pour une étude des problèmes que pose l'établissement de la biographie de l'auteur : Luciano Canfora, « Biographical Obscurities and Problems of Composition », In Brill's Companion to Thucydides, 2006, p. 1-31.

89 Par économie d'espace les prochaines dates mentionnées ne seront plus suivies de av. n. è., à moins que la date soit ap. n. è.

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90

stratège en 424 (IV.104.4) . Il baigna donc probablement dans l'effervescence rationaliste 91

d'Athènes , où la politique occupait une place de premier rang avec ce qu'elle implique de débats 92

et d'argumentations . Parmi les traits marquant un attachement à la quête de la raison que Thucydide présente dans son écrit, il est à noter son souci de trouver les causes réelles des évènements rapportés (I.1.1 à I.23.4), de suivre une rigoureuse chronologie.

Nombreux sont les passages dans l'œuvre de Thucydide où il est fait mention d'une consultation oraculaire ou de prophéties. Il peut s'agir d'une consultation qu'il est possible de qualifier d'historique (I.25.1, 28.2-3, 118.3; II.47-54; III.92.5; V.16.2, 32.1), de quasi historique (I.103.2, 126.4, 134.3; II.17.1), de légendaire (II.102.5; III.96). Il y a aussi les passages où il est fait mention du divin comme garant d'un certain ordre (I.132.2; III.82; V.18.1; VI.3.1.). Dans d'autres cas, lorsqu'il s'agit de croyances populaires, de rumeurs ou de presciences sans émetteur d'autorité, l'auteur les juge plus sévèrement (II.8.2, 21.3, 54.2, 77.6; V.26.3-4; VIII.1.1.).

Deux passages sur sa méthode sont particulièrement révélateurs. En I.22.4, il dit vouloir écarter les témoignages contenant du merveilleux, parce qu'ainsi il est possible « de voir clair dans les évènements passés » : ce dépouillement de la réalité permet au lecteur d'y voir des similitudes et des analogies avec d'autres moments de l'histoire. Il y a chez l'auteur un désir de faire en sorte que son écriture puisse être lue par n'importe quel type de public - contrairement à

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Jacqueline de Romilly, Histoire et raison chez Thucydide, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, Coll. « Études anciennes », 1956, p. VII. 91 Pierre Ponchon, dans Thucydide philosophe : la raison tragique dans l'histoire, élabore sur cette rationalité. Il évite les écueils où plusieurs tombent : jamais il ne définit cette raison comme comparable à celle que l'on connait aujourd'hui; elle ne s'oppose pas, à l'époque, au sentiment religieux.

92 Périclès aurait été formé par Anaxagore (Plutarque, Vie de Périclès, 6; 35.) ce qui l'aurait rendu apte à voir, au contraire de ses contemporains les moins éduqués, dans une éclipse ou un animal mal formé, un acte de la nature seule et non un signe divin. Alors que dans le même temps, Hippocrate de Cos faisait connaître sa médecine basée sur l'empirisme par l'observation des phénomènes et l'élaborations de celles-ci de lois naturelles.

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93

Hérodote qui écrivait probablement en vue de lectures publiques à Athènes . En 3.82, l'auteur ouvre une parenthèse sur la cruauté de la guerre. Dans celle-ci, il dit que l'humain répète les atrocités qu'il vit en temps de guerre et qu'il se rend responsable du cercle vicieux de son propre malheur. À partir de ce passage, on ne peut se permettre de dire qu'il fait manque de croyance envers le divin : il est à interpréter comme l'exemplification de la méthode qu'il a mentionnée dans le passage plus haut. De plus, il mentionne que la guerre écarte les hommes de leurs devoirs envers les étrangers, de leurs engagements mutuels entre citoyens, et érode même les liens de parenté. Ces trois traditions font partie de ce qui fait d'un Grec un Grec, qui le distingue d'un barbare. Ces façons de faire ancestrales sont héritées des dieux et le jugement que pose Thucydide est une critique de leur piété, puisque ne pas respecter les us et coutumes chers aux dieux relève d'un manque de respect envers eux.

Analyse des oracles 94

95

Le premier oracle figurant dans le texte concerne les gens d'Épidame qui ne pouvant 96

trouver de protection auprès de Corcyre demandèrent à l'Apollon de Delphes : « s'ils devaient remettre leur ville aux mains des Corinthiens, tenus pour fondateurs, et s'efforcer d'obtenir leur aide ». Ceci survient après qu'ils aient tenté par la diplomatie de se voir offrir du soutien de Corcyre, leur métropole immédiate. Thucydide rapporte strictement la situation, sans ambages : «

93

Hérodote, Histoires, texte établi et traduit par Philippe Ernest Legrand, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, Coll. « universités de France », tome « Introduction », 2018 [1966], p. 25 sq.

94 Fontenrose, The Delphic oracle, 1978, p. 246, H4.

95 I.25.1-2. L'affaire d'Épidamne (débutant à I.24 fait partie aux yeux de l'auteur de trois causes menant à la guerre avec celle de Potidée et de Mégare.

96 Arnold Wycombe Gomme, A historical commentary on Thucydides, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1966, p.

159, analyse « o d'autois aneile paradounai » comme l'expression de l'implication de l'oracle dans le déclenchement de la guerre. Le premier volume de Simon Hornblower, A commentary on Thucydides, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2008 [1991] est manquant en bibliothèque, disparu inexplicablement. Les chercheurs qualifiant habituellement Thucydide de non-croyant ne semble pas discuter ce passage. En effet, il est difficile de voir comment ils le pourraient mais rien n'est impossible pour eux, en ce qu'ils discutent, comme nous le verrons plus loin, des passages où rien ne confirme l'impiété de l'historien.

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97

La réponse fut de le faire et de prendre ceux-ci pour chefs » . Plus loin, il donne les causes de ce choix pour les Corinthiens en disant qu'ils le font en vertu du droit et de leur hostilité envers Corcyre. En effet, selon Thucydide et son analyse des griefs, ces derniers ne rendaient pas l'honneur d'assister aux fêtes communes aux colonies de la métropole et de pratiquer les prémices du sacrifice, parce qu'ils se sentaient supérieurs grâce à leur économie bien portante qui leur assurait une grande puissance militaire et navale. Cet oracle est très fort probablement historique : il s'agit de questionner la divinité afin qu'elle sanctionne une décision ayant une double alternative, question que le style indirect de l'auteur ne donne pas mot-à-mot, mais dont il est possible de croire qu'elle débutait par « Est-il meilleur et plus avantageux pour nous de ... ».

La question ainsi que la réponse sont des plus claires, sans aucune imprécision. Le sujet de leur requête est la relation entre leur cité et une autre : nous voyons un cas similaire sur l'échantillon des lamelles de plomb du sanctuaire de Dodone où une des questions concerne une possible 98

synpoliteia avec les Molosses . De plus, Thucydide était en âge de raison au moment des évènements. Il peut y avoir eu des témoignages qu'il aurait jugé si fiables qu'il n'aurait pas adjoint à ses phrases de syntagmes rappelant qu'il n'avait pas été témoin lui-même.

99

100

Le second passage oraculaire de l'œuvre, I.103.2 , jugé quasi historique par Fontenrose

, va comme suit : « Il y avait, du reste, un oracle pythique, connu à Sparte auparavant, et qui disait de laisser aller le suppliant de Zeus de l'Ithome ». Thucydide le mentionne après avoir énoncé les

97

Plus loin au livre premier 28.2, il est de nouveau question dans cette affaire de consulter l'oracle de Delphes, ce qui est présenté comme une alternative que l'on considère afin de mettre un terme au litige. Il ne sera pas consulté de nouveau.

98 Lhôte Éric, Les lamelles oraculaires de Dodone, Genève, Droz, 2006, 454 p.

99 Le même oracle se retrouve chez Pausanias 3.11.8 et 4.24.7. Selon lui, le prophète Theisamenos a avertit les Spartiates de les laisser partir indemnes. Il n'aurait fait que répéter un ancien oracle dont il avait connaissance.

Chez Pausanias les négociations et la difficulté à prendre ce mont par la force sont des facteurs dissuasifs pour les Spartiates qui viennent avant la mention de l'oracle.

100 Op. cit., p. 375, Q175.

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résultats des négociations entre les Spartiates et les gens de l'Ithome : ils devaient quitter et ne plus jamais remettre les pieds dans le Péloponnèse sous peine d'asservissement.

Le troisième oracle (I.118.3) est encore un facteur menant à la guerre. En effet, il prend place au moment du récit où les Athéniens firent le pas de trop en s'attaquant à des alliés de Spartes et que cette dernière craignait la montée en puissance de son ennemie. Cet oracle est jugé 101

par Fontenrose comme historique . La traduction de Jacqueline de Romilly ne rend pas compte ici du plein sens du passage. Se substituera à la sienne celle de Richard Crawley.

And though the Lacedaemonians had made up their own minds on the fact of the breach of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet they sent to Delphi and inquired of the god whether it would be well with 102 them if they went to war; and, as it is reported , received from him the answer that if they put their whole strength into the war, victory would be theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them, whether invoked or uninvoked.

La question, même si elle garde une formulation attestée par l'épigraphie en commençant par « est-il plus avantageux pour nous de ... », n'a que peu de chances d'avoir été réellement posée, puisqu’un oracle à propos de la guerre n’est jamais sorti des lamelles de plomb de Dodone 103

. Il serait plus prudent de le considérer comme un oracle quasi historique, même si Thucydide

fut contemporain des faits. De plus, que le dieu prenne parti dans le conflit semble improbable, 104

la réponse qu'il donne étant vague. L'énigmatique du segment final de sa réponse où il dit qu'il

101

Op. cit., p. 246, H5.

Stewart Irvin Oost, « Thucydides and the Irrational : Sundry Passages », Classical Philology, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, Vol. 70, Nᵒ. 3, 1975, pp. 188, interprète ce « ôs legetai » comme une forme de scepticisme de la part de l'auteur quant à la véracité de l'oracle rendu.

103 Lhôte, Éric. Les lamelles oraculaires de Dodone. Genève: Droz, 2006.

104 À ce propos, Gomme, op. cit., p. 413, précise qu'Athènes à cette époque avait perdu son influence sur Delphes (I.112.5) après la défaite de Coronée en 447 av. n. è. il interprète le « ôs legetai » comme une note de Thucydide marquant qu'il s'agit ici de la version de l'oracle telle que donnée par les Spartiates.

102

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donnera son aide qu'il soit invoqué ou non est sans précédent dans l'épigraphie. Il s'agirait ici d'un topos littéraire.

105

Le quatrième oracle (I.126.4) est lui aussi un topos littéraire. Il intervient dans l'histoire de Cylon, histoire qui a pour but de montrer comment cet ancêtre de la famille Alcméonide, par son sacrilège, a entaché toute sa lignée. La question n'est pas donnée, il n'y a que la réponse de l'oracle qui est une énigme comme on peut en retrouver chez Hérodote : Cylon doit occuper l'acropole d'Athènes pendant la fête la plus importante existant en l'honneur de Zeus. Son intention est de prendre la tyrannie, d'où son échec à bien interpréter l'oracle comme cela se déroule à chaque fois que quelqu'un dans un texte littéraire approche d'un oracle avec de mauvaises intentions. Il discute l'interprétation de Cylon, puisqu'elle s'avérera fausse; il périra, lui 106

et ses complices .

107

Le cinquième oracle (I.134.3-4) concerne les dispositions à prendre en ce qui a trait à la mort de Pausanias. La souillure endossée par les Lacédémoniens en le tuant dans le sanctuaire doit être lavée, dit l'oracle, en donnant une sépulture à proximité et en offrant deux corps en contrepartie de celui du mort, ce qui résultera par l'édification de deux statues de bronze.

L'auteur ne montre par aucun signe qu'il n'y croit pas.

105

Gomme ne le commente pas. Il se trouve chez Fontenrose, op. cit., p. 68 et 289, Q64. Malgré le rapprochement qu'il fait entre cet oracle et les contes et les légendes, il tient à le considérer comme quasi-historique.

106 Nanno Marinatos, « Thucydides and Oracles », The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Londre, London University, Vol. 101, 1981, pp. 139, note 7 et 8 sur l'opinion d'autres historiens.

107 Fontenrose, op. cit., p. 325, Q174, considère cet oracle comme quasi-historique parce qu'il n'y a pas de question posée, seulement un ordre rendu par la divinité et qu'il fut rendu avant la naissance de Thucydide, ce qui en ferait un oracle post-eventum. L'auteur donne une analyse de cet évènement en comparant les mots de Thucydide à ceux d'autres auteurs concernant la tombe de Pausanias à la page 129-131. Il y dit aussi que les historiens modernes ne débattent pas de son athéisme en se référent à ce passage.

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Sur le langage employé Sur sa façon de traiter les oracles, quand il s'agit d'un véritable oracle qu'il soit historique ou légendaire, il rapporte ses paroles en usant toujours de ces mots : « es Delphous ton theon epèronto 108

ei ... » . Il dit toujours que c'est le dieu qui s'adresse par l'entremise de l'oracle, comme la croyance le veut. En revanche, dans les passages employés pour faire valoir sa supposée impiété, il n'emploie pas les mêmes termes.

Lorsque les historiens modernes disent qu'il remet en doute un oracle, il traite en fait de chresmoi ou chresmologoi. Ces mots, selon le Bailly, peuvent avoir le sens de « déclaration certaine » et « qui interprète des oracles ». Puisque dans les passages où ils sont employés, les verbes introduisant les déclaration de ces diseurs d'oracles sont aidô et ischuridzomai qui peuvent signifier au delà de leurs sens premiers « chanter comme un refrain, avoir toujours à la bouche » et « soutenir une opinion, prétendre quelque chose, avoir de l'assurance ». Il faut comprendre que Thucydide critique les simples hommes et les devins qui en temps de guerre trouvent par le chaos ambiant un public effrayé voulant bien entendre les ritournelles qu'ils ont à la bouche.

109

Ainsi, nous avons (II.8.2) un passage où l'auteur mentionne qu'« il y avait bien des prédictions (logia) répétées, bien des oracles (chrèsmologoi) rendus (èdon), soit dans les villes qui allaient entrer en guerre, soit dans les autres. » Il enchaine avec le tremblement de terre à Delos

108

En I.103.2, il use de chrèstèrion qui désigne l'oracle ou le lieu où réside l'oracle. Ce mot ne peut pas avoir la connotation négative qu'il donne à chrèsmoi et chrèsmologoi. Il est un parfait synonyme de manteion.

109 Anton Powell, « Thucydides and divination », Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Londre, University of London Press, Vol. XXVI, 1979, pp. 45, dit que Thucydide aurait entendu tellement d'oracle ne se réalisant pas qu'il en serait venu à ne plus croire en la divination. Pourtant, le passage sur la peste (II.54) nous prouve le contraire en ce que l'auteur fait un parallèle entre la peste et l'oracle rendu aux Spartiates (I.25). De plus, il fait mention à la toute fin du passage que la peste n'a jamais pénétré dans le Péloponnèse.

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qui « ne s'était jamais vu de mémoire grecque ». Bien qu'il critique ici le fait que les hommes cherchent à voir dans des signes naturels les reflets de leur perdition ou d'une colère divine, il n'y a pas d'impiété, que ceux qui prétendent se faire l'écho d'une sanction divine sont même plus impies, ce qui voudrait dire que Thucydide est plus « orthodoxe » que ceux qu'il critique. Il y a le même phénomène en II.21.3 lorsqu'il dit « des devins (chrèsmologoi) émettaient des oracles divers (chrèsmous pantoious), que chacun brûlait d'entendre ».

Un autre passage servant à défendre la croyance selon laquelle Thucydide fut athée : en II.77.6, à la suite de l'incendie de Platée, un orage éclate et éteint le brasier. Thucydide, en précisant que ce qu'il rapporte est « d'après les récits », aura laissé croire aux historiens modernes qu'il fut impie, alors qu'il ne faisait que préciser qu'il s'agissait de faits rapportés, dont il ne fut pas le témoin oculaire. Lorsque Jacqueline de Romilly a l'audace de commenter : « Thucydide semble trouver cette aide du ciel un peu trop belle pour être vrai. », elle manque de rigueur. À ce moment de son récit, il avait déjà été dit qu'il souhaitait écarter les témoignages merveilleux : même si l'on peut sous toute réserve croire qu'il trouvait cela « un peu trop beau pour être vrai », il le rapporte néanmoins. Il faudrait conclure que l'auteur incluait un fait lorsqu'il recevait suffisamment de témoignages corroborant un fait.

Conclusions En somme, s'il faut hors de tout doute affirmer quelle était l'attitude de Thucydide à l'égard des dieux, lui attribuer absolument une étiquette, passons en revue les différents mots qui ont été employés pour décrire son sentiment face au divin.

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110

111

Certains comme Dover le disent athée . Bien que ce terme existe depuis l'antiquité, il a aujourd'hui un sens courant différent. Marcellinos dans sa biographie de Thucydide, considérée par tous les chercheurs de bon entendement comme peu digne de foi, fut le premier à dire de ce dernier qu'il était athée. On retrouve le terme chez Platon (Les lois, 908cs-909c, 967c; Phèdre, 229c) afin de désigner des personnes faisant preuve, de manière générale, d'impiété ou ne croyant pas aux dieux reconnus. Il est dit de ces personnes, qui sont des présocratiques, qu'elles furent taxées d'athéisme par les plus fervents de leurs contemporains en raison de leurs méthodes qui cherchaient à expliquer la nature par des causes naturelles plutôt que divines. Parmi ces personnes figure Anaxagore qui, nous dit Macellinos (Vie de Thucydide, 22), fut l'enseignant de Thucydide. Le terme chez Platon est critiqué indirectement par le propos qui souligne que les personnes désignées par ce terme ne faisaient pas preuve d'impiété et, malgré leur méthode, plaçaient leur foi sur l'Olympe.

112

113

D'autres, comme Oost , le disent agnostique . Celui-ci, en disant que Thucydide « enquête sur les signes divins afin de déterminer s'ils sont véridiques ou non » pour prouver son agnosticisme, explicite une méthode que l'on peut qualifier de sceptique. Le scepticisme pourrait conditionner les croyances de Thucydide, mais seulement ses croyances envers les hommes. En

110

Cf. tous les passages de son œuvre concernant Thucydide.

Le mot n'a pas fondamentalement changé de sens, mais les contextes et les connotations ont changé, surtout depuis le recul des croyances au XIXe s. En prenant le sens littéral, on voit mal comment Thucydide pourrait faire preuve d'un « refus des croyances religieuses, par cécité de l'intelligence relativement à l'existence de Dieu ». Selon le sens sociologique, politique, il ne nie pas non plus « Dieu dans la pratique de l'action sociale ou politique ».

112 Cf. Stewart Irvin Oost, op. cit., 1975, pp. 195.

113 Ici, en se penchant sur la définition du mot, la tentative ne paraît que folie « doctrine ou attitude philosophique qui considère l'absolu inaccessible à l'intelligence humaine ». Même, comme nous l'avons vu, en analysant la quasi-totalité des passages de son œuvre qui mentionne la divination, donc une branche de « ce que les hommes font à l'égard des dieux » critiquée plus tard par Cicéron dans De la divination sans que cela lui vaille d'être taxé de non-croyant, pas une fois l'auteur ne passe près de prononcer une phrase pouvant mener à cette conclusion. De plus, ce terme a vu le jour chez Saint-Paul qui désignait l'autel des dieux inconnus à Athènes. Même s'il s'agit d'un terme antique, il n'a jamais eu la définition qu'Oost lui prête.

111

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effet, il n'émet pas de réserves quant au divin, il doute de ce que les hommes lui rapportent de prime abord, disant lui-même se soucier d'obtenir les témoignages les plus fiables.

Thucydide, comme les présocratiques, Hippocrates de Cos ou d'autres penseurs de son temps, n'était pas moins croyant qu'un autre du fait que sa méthode consistait à user de la raison - raison qu'il faut désigner par la périphrase « eis alegchon tinos logous didômi » ou par le mot mis en italique afin de ne pas entacher la perception que nous avons de lui avec tout le sens moderne qui englobe le terme.

Dans ce que l'on considère comme la seconde œuvre d'histoire, il y a plus de passages parlant des dieux, de la divination, du merveilleux et des oracles que de recréations de discours historiques. Même si le divin intervient considérablement moins que chez Hérodote et que sa méthode est plus proche de celle des historiens modernes que celle qu'avait son prédécesseur, Thucydide n'est pas un moderne : il croyait probablement aux dieux comme ses contemporains.

Sa méthode est raisonnable, mais en aucun cas une méthode raisonnable ne donne quelque indice sur les croyances : aujourd'hui un physicien explorant les confins de la galaxie, aussi raisonnable soit-il, peut croire en Dieu. Ainsi, qu'est-ce que cela apporte à la compréhension de son œuvre et de l'histoire de conclure qu'il est athée? Rien. Cette conclusion des historiens modernes ne sert aucun postulat : elle sert plutôt à essentialiser l'évolution de la pensée humaine et elle offre une vision tronquée du passé.

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Bibliographie

Amandry, Pierre. “Oracles, Littérature Et Politique.” Revue des Études Anciennes 61, no. 3 (1959): 400–413.

Bowden, Hugh. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Bruzzone, Rachel. “Polemos, Pathemata, and Plague: Thucydides' Narrative and the Tradition of Upheaval” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, no. 57 (2017): 882-889.

Canfora, Luciano. "Biographical Obscurities and Problems of Composition" In Brill's Companion to Thucydides, edited by Rengakos, Antonios, and Antonis Tsakmakis, 1-34. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Delcourt, Marie. L'oracle de Delphe. Paris: Payot, 1955.

Dover, Kenneth. James. The Greeks and Their Legacy: Collected Papers. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.

Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy. The Delphic Oracle, Its Responses and Operations, with a Catalogue of Responses.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Forsdyke, Sara, Edith Foster, and Ryan Balot. The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides. Corby: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Gomme, Arnold W., Antony Andrewes, K. J. Dover, and Thucydides. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

Herodotus. Historiae. Translated by Ph.-E. Legrand. Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1966.

Hornblower, Simon. A Commentary on Thucydides. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Jevons, F. B. A History of Greek Literature: from the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1910.

Jordan, Borimir. “Religion in Thucydides.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 116 (1986): 119.

Lhôte, Éric. Les lamelles oraculaires de Dodone. Genève: Droz, 2006.

Marinatos, Nanno. “Thucydides and Oracles.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 101 (1981): 138–40.

Ogden, Daniel. A Companion to Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

Oost, Stewart Irvin. “Thucydides and the Irrational: Sundry Passages.” Classical Philology 70, no. 3 (1975): 186–96.

Parker, Robert. "Greek States and Greek Oracles" History of political thought 6, no. 1, (1985): 298-326.

Plutarch. Vies. Translated by É. Chambry. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1964.

Ponchon, Pierre. Thucydide Philosophe. La Raison Tragique Dans L'histoire. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon Editions, 2017.

Powell, Anton. “Thucydides And Divination.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 26, no. 1 (1979): 45–50.

Romilly, Jacqueline de., and Thucydides. Histoire Et Raison Chez Thucydide. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967.

Thucydide. La guerre du Péloponèse. Translated by Jacqueline de Romilly, Louis Bodin and Raymond Weil. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 4 volumes, 1953.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre. Divination et Rationalité. Paris: Seuil, 1974.

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Junon colérique : quelle action dans l’Énéide ?

Romane F. Auger, Université de Montréal

Abstract Dès le proème de l’Enéide, Virgile présente la colère de Junon comme la source des malheurs d’Enée (« saeuae memorem Iunonis ob iram », Aen. I.4). Ainsi la déesse apparaît-elle comme le double virgilien du Poséidon de l’Odyssée ; dramatis persona de premier plan, elle est la puissance divine dont l’action se situe à l’origine des événements et autres actions du récit (Della Corte : 1980). Cependant, bien que le premier chant de l’Enéide se rapproche fortement de l’Odyssée (Williams : 1963), il ne faut pas se contenter de voir en Junon la simple héritière de la colère et du rôle de Poséidon. L’évocation minutieuse et plus nuancée qu’il n’y paraît de la colère de la déesse par le poète latin amène notre étude à s’interroger sur ce qu’elle nous apprend des modalités de l’action de Junon. C’est en particulier le monologue que Virgile lui prête – non sans modèle homérique en tête, au début du récit qui permet de mieux comprendre dans quelle mesure Junon et sa colère agissent dans le récit. L’examen de l’Enéide, principalement du premier chant, ainsi que des modèles homériques d’Héra dans l’Iliade et de Poséidon dans l’Odyssée, révèle une dimension proprement virgilienne à la figure de Junon : la frustration d’une vengeance que, malgré sa puissance, elle ne peut assouvir elle-même. Comment alors résoudre le paradoxe d’une déesse si active et pourtant si dénuée d’efficacité propre au point qu’elle apparaîtrait, à certains égards, passive ? Notre étude se propose de montrer que, malgré l’apparente importance de sa colère, la puissance de Junon est celle

61

d’une figure d’auctoritas, ce qui la rapproche finalement plus d’Héra que de Poséidon, et que son action à proprement parler se situe en réalité dans ses mots.

From the beginning of the Aeneid, Virgil stages the wrath of Juno as the source of Aeneas’ misfortune (“saeuae memorem Iunonis ob iram” Aen. I.4). As a matter of fact, the goddess appears as the virgilian duplicate of the Odyssey’s Poseidon and as a leading dramatis persona, that is to say the divine power whose action is the cause of the main event and actions in the narrative (Della Corte: 1980). However, even though the first book of the Aeneid contains many similarities with the Odyssey (Williams: 1963), Juno should not be seen as a mere heir of Poseidon’s wrath and narrative role. The precise – and more subtle than it first appears–, depiction of Juno’s rage by the Latin poet actually interrogates the goddess’ forms of action. This study shall focus on Juno’s monologue in the first book of the Aeneid’s first book to understand, with the Homeric example in mind, how Juno and her wrath operate in the narrative. Therefore, through the analysis of the first book and the two Homeric models of Iliad’s Hera and Odyssey’s Poseidon, this essay shall uncover Juno’s Virgilian dimension: the sense of frustration from a revenge that, despite all her power, she cannot satisfy by herself. How, then, can Juno be so proactive in the narration and all the same be unable to act by herself to the extent that she could almost be considered as a passive character in the text? This study argues that, in spite of the importance of her wrath, Juno’s power derives from her being a figure of auctoritas. Eventually closer to Hera’s Homeric example than that of Poseidon, her own action takes place in and through her word.

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NDLR : Cette conférence devait porter sur un article publié pour la première fois dans le journal des études classiques de l’Université McGill, Hirundo. Nous avons reproduit l’article disponible à l’adresse suivante, Auger, Romane. « Junon colérique, quelle action dans l’Enéide ? ». Hirundo, Journal of Classical Studies, volume XVIII, McGill University : Montréal (avril 2020) : 127-134. https://issuu.com/hirundo.mcgill/docs/hirundo_xviii_final L’auteur remercie Emma Davidson de l’Université McGill, éditrice en chef d’Hirundo, pour avoir autorisé la publication de l’article dans les actes du colloque.

Le proème de l’Énéide présente la tenace colère d’une cruelle Junon comme la source des malheurs d’Énée (« saeuae memorem Iunonis ob iram » Aen.I.4). Ainsi la déesse apparaît-elle comme le double virgilien du Poséidon de l’Odyssée, c’est-à-dire comme une dramatis persona dont l’action 114

est à l’origine des autres actions du récit. Cependant, malgré les ressemblances frappantes entre le premier chant de l’Énéide et l’Odyssée, le modèle de Poséidon ne suffit pas à saisir toute la 115

nuance de la colère de Junon. Cette dernière se caractérise, chez Virgile plus encore que chez Homère par une frustration certaine : Junon, si puissante et si outragée, ne peut assouvir par elle-même sa vengeance. Comment comprendre alors ce paradoxe d’une figure si active dans le récit et pourtant incapable d’agir véritablement ? Qu’est-ce qui fait de Junon une déesse effectivement puissante si ce n’est pas sa colère ? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, il faut d’abord étudier comment Virgile exploite la tradition et la critique homérique pour faire de Junon une figure de la colère divine ainsi que de la frustration. Dans un second temps, l’examen

Francesco Della Corte, “L’action de Junon dans l’Énéide,” in Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé 1, n°1 (1980), 56.

115 Robert D. Williams, “Virgil and the Odyssey,” in Phoenix 17, n°4 (1963), 266-74.

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du monologue de la déesse permettra de comprendre, avec le modèle de l’Héra de l’Iliade en tête, comment Junon, tout aussi manipulative que colérique, se révèle être une figure d’auctoritas et d’une puissance en paroles plus qu’en actes.

I. Junon, entre colère et frustration.

Pour F. Della Corte, « si l’Iliade est le poème de la colère d’Achille, l’Énéide est celui de la colère de 116

Junon ». L’assimilation de Junon à la colère est d’autant plus aisée que depuis l’époque hellénistique la prononciation du nom grec Ἥρα devient similaire au latin ira du fait d’un phénomène phonétique bien connu, l’iotacisme. La colère de la reine des dieux est présente dès le proème (« saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram » Aen. I.4) et en colore le passage (« tantaene animis caelestibus irae » Aen. I.11 ; « causae irarum saevique dolores » Aen. I.25). De plus, parmi toutes les mentions du mot ira dans le poème, celles d’entre elles qui concernent les divinités sont liées à 117

Junon, ce qui en fait une figure dominante de la colère parmi les dieux. Enfin, les premiers mots de Junon forment un jeu de mot bilingue pour lui attribuer la colère d’Achille du premier vers de l’Iliade. Dans un jeu de paronomase renforcé par l’élision du mot, « mene incepto » au vers 118

37 fait entendre « μῆνιν ». La colère de Junon peut être qualifiée de « memorem » justement parce qu’elle poursuit celle d’Héra dans l’Iliade. Rappeler – et Virgile délègue cette tâche à la déesse (« memor Saturnia » Aen. I.23) – le jugement de Pâris et l’enlèvement de Ganymède (« iudicium Paridis » ; « rapti Ganymedis honores » Aen. I.26-27) offre de la profondeur à la fois à la colère et au personnage qui ne se comprend pas seulement à la lumière de l’opposition politique entre Rome et Carthage du fait de son statut de gardienne tutélaire de la ville punique.

Paradoxalement, les affronts de Junon, ses douleurs et ses rejets, sont de ceux que l’on ne devrait 116

Della Corte, 53.

Jeanne Dion, Les passions dans l’œuvre de Virgile: poétique et philosophie (Nancy : Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1993), 69.

118 James J. O’Hara, True names: Vergil and the Alexandrian tradition of etymological wordplay (Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1996), 115.

117

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119

pas dire. Dans ce portrait très humanisant de la déesse se joue en réalité un dialogue avec Homère et sa tradition critique qui reproche justement à l’aède de prêter aux dieux des passions 120

humaines et même de les laisser en venir aux mains les uns avec les autres. En concentrant ces passions en Junon, Virgile épargne aux autres dieux cette critique et justifie cette concession par 121

le fait que l’origine de Rome « ne saurait dépendre de caprices seulement humains ».

Assumée comme telle, cette colère homérique peut éclater dans le premier discours du 122

texte, le monologue de Junon elle-même qui contribue à la caractériser en tant que personnage.

En effet, le choix d’un monologue n’est pas dénué de sens puisqu’il rentre dans la catégorie aristotélicienne de la mimesis. C’est-à-dire qu’en déléguant la parole à son personnage, le narrateur permet une meilleure représentation de ce dernier pour le lecteur et crée ainsi « sans doute très 123

efficacement une ethopoiia fortement dramatique ». On retrouve ce procédé chez Homère, ce qu’Aristote ne manque pas d’apprécier, et en particulier dans le cas de Poséidon au chant 5 de 124

l’Odyssée qui ne manque pas d’inspirer le monologue de Junon. Face au départ d’Ulysse de l’île de Calypso, Poséidon redouble de colère (« ἐχώσατο κηρόθι μᾶλλον » Od. V.284) et adresse des paroles à son cœur (« μυθήσατο θυμόν » Od. V.285). Junon quant à elle, couve encore sa colère dans sa poitrine (« aeternum servans sub pectore volnus » Aen. I.36). Les deux monologues commencent sur un fort ton dramatique, qu’il s’agisse de l’exclamation de Poséidon (« Ὢ πόποι » Od. V.286) ou des infinitifs employés par Junon (« desistere » et « posse » Aen. I.37-38) redoublés par une double interrogative négative (« mene » et « nec » Aen. I.37-38). Le fond du discours se colore également de pathos avec la mention des destins., « αἶσα » (Od. V.288) et « fatis » (Aen. I.39) sont

119

Sarah Spence, Rhetorics of reason and desire: Vergil, Augustine, and the troubadours, (Ithaca, N.Y : Cornell University Press, 1988), 24.

120 Platon, République, II, 377e-378e.

121 Dion, Les passions dans l’œuvre de Virgile, 70.

122 Della Corte, “L’action de Junon dans l’Énéide,” 53.

123 Della Corte, “L’action de Junon dans l’Énéide,” 54.

124 Aristote, Poétique, 24, 1460a, 9.

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vus comme des obstacles aux volontés des dieux présents. Mais c’est finalement Junon qui l’emporte dans cette frustration en concluant son discours par la remise en cause de son propre numen (« et quisquam numen Iunonis adoret ? » Aen. I.48), mot qui sous-entend sa volonté, sa divinité et sa puissance tout à la fois. Difficile de ne pas y voir non plus un commentaire de Virgile lui-même qui, en juxtaposant « numen » et « Iunonis », souligne le paradoxe de la situation par un rapprochement étymologique possible des deux mots.

Ce double portrait, assumé à la fois par le poète et son personnage, présente donc une colère profonde de Junon qui tire son origine de la source littéraire et historique du récit de Virgile, l’Iliade. Et pourtant, il ne ressort de cette antique colère qu’une sourde frustration et le poète lui-même en pose le paradoxe : la colère de Junon est puissante, mais elle-même ne semble pas pouvoir en tirer son action.

II. Le paradoxe de la puissance de Junon.

Dans son développement, le discours de Junon révèle bien cette caractéristique proprement virgilienne de sa colère : elle ne peut pas y satisfaire par sa propre action. Dans l’Odyssée, Protée rapporte à Ménélas comment Ajax est noyé par Poséidon après ses paroles d’ὕβρις qui refusent de reconnaître l’aide du dieu qui venait de le sauver de la colère d’Athéna (Od. IV.499-511). Virgile reprend l’épisode et le place dans la bouche de Junon à son tour pour mettre en évidence sa frustration : il s’agit justement d’un exemple de vengeance assouvie. Si le dieu vengeur, Poséidon, s’efface au profit de Pallas qui devient l’unique bourreau d’Ajax, c’est pour jouer sur la rivalité entre les deux déesses car la fille de Jupiter s’en prend à la flotte des Argiens, peuple chéri par Junon (juste après le récit de la mort d’Ajax, Protée rappelle qu’Agamemnon, roi d’Argos, était sous la protection d’Héra : « σάωσε δὲ πότνια Ἥρη » Od. V.513). Remplacer le frère du roi des dieux par sa fille permet aussi de renforcer la colère de la

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reine et sœur de Jupiter qui ne peut pas agir directement contre Énée malgré son statut (« ast ego, quae divum incedo regina Iovisque et soror et conjunx. » Aen. I.46-47). La différence dans l’action des trois dieux est notable. En effet, tandis que Pallas agit (elle brûle, « exurere », elle noie, « summergere », elle lance en personne le feu de Jupiter, « ipsa iaculata ignem » Aen. I.39-40 et 42), Junon s’interroge justement sur sa propre puissance mais est incapable de provoquer elle-même la tempête (« et quisquam numen Iunonis adoret ? » Aen. I.48). Poséidon quant à lui est doté d’une parole presque performative, son action suit et correspond à ses mots : il annonce son geste (« Ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι μέν μίν φημι ἅδην ἐλάαν κακότητος. » Od. V.290) puis l’accomplit aussitôt (« ὥς εἰπὼν σύναγεν νεφέλας » Od. V.291) et l’emploi du participe accentue cette simultanéité. Neptune suit le même modèle, bien que son rôle soit inversé, et calme la tempête plus rapidement encore qu’il ne le dit (« Sic ait, et dicto citius tumida aequora placat » Aen. I.142). À défaut d’un trident pour déchaîner les eaux, c’est d’une parole persuasive dont Junon est dotée et qu’elle utilise pour réaliser ses desseins grâce à des intermédiaires. Ainsi fait-elle sa requête auprès d’Éole comme Héra auprès d’Hypnos lorsqu’elle souhaite plonger Zeus dans le sommeil pour se venger des Troyens. Le discours d’Héra commence par une captatio benevolentiae qui évoque la puissance du Sommeil, maître de tous les dieux et de tous les hommes (« ἄναξ πάντων τε θεῶν πάντων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων » Il. XIV.234) que les scholiastes nuancent en rappelant qu’ailleurs, si le Sommeil tient bien les dieux et les hommes il n’a pas d’emprise sur Zeus (« Δία δ᾽ οὐκ ἔχε » Il. II.2). Aussi Virgile ajuste-t-il les paroles de Junon et applique la même formule à Jupiter (« divum pater atque hominum rex » Aen. I.65) à l’ouverture de son discours pour rappeler la puissance accordée par le roi des dieux au roi des vents. Vient ensuite la requête à proprement parler dans les deux discours et surtout la promesse d’une récompense. Or, la récompense promise par Junon à Éole reprend celle qu’Héra fait dans un second temps à Hypnos réticent.

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En tant que déesse présidant aux unions matrimoniales (et J. J. O’Hara ne manque de rapporter les liens qui ont été fait entre le nom de la déesse et le vocabulaire de l’union – jungam, jungo, 125

conjunx), elle promet le mariage de l’une de ses Nymphes ou Grâces chez Homère. Mais Junon comme Héra s’en tient dans son action à une promesse, c’est-à-dire une parole. C’est la manipulation par le discours qui devient le propre de la déesse dans ce passage et qui nous semble être l’une de ses caractéristiques. L’Héra de l’Iliade joue à ce point de la puissance de sa parole qu’elle est la seule à jurer par le Styx, qu’elle décrit elle-même comme le plus grand et le plus terrible serment pour les dieux bienheureux. Virgile ne fait pas jurer Junon, il fait de ses paroles des ordres suffisamment puissants pour qu’ils soient reconnus d’Éole (« mihi iussa capessere fas est » Aen. I.77) tout comme ils le seront d’Alecto au livre 7 et de Juturne au livre 12. C’est pourquoi la triple épithète virgilienne que la déesse rappelle et brandit dans sa colère (« Ast ego, quae diuom incedo regina, Iouisque / et soror et coniunx » Aen. I.46-47) n’est pas une coquetterie : c’est la justification, par l’énumération de ses titres, de son auctoritas, auquel elle fait elle-même appelle face à Juturne (« auctor ego » Aen. XII. 159).

En définitive, les portraits que Virgile donne de sa Junon colérique dans le premier chant de l’Énéide problématisent à la fois son utilisation de la source homérique et de sa tradition critique et l’aspect proprement nouveau qu’il confère à son personnage. En effet, la figure de Junon s’inscrit dans un dialogue avec Homère qui associe le modèle de Poséidon dans l’Odyssée mais aussi celui d’Héra dans l’Iliade pour jouer sur l’ambivalence d’une colère qui n’a eu cesse de couver et d’enfler en la déesse sans jamais parvenir à s’assouvir. Ainsi en proie à ses passions, Junon met en question sa propre capacité d’action au moment même où elle est l’élément déclencheur de la première péripétie du chant, la tempête. Le portrait est paradoxalement celui d’un patient plutôt qu’un agent. C’est en comprenant autrement la puissance de Junon que la 125

O’Hara, True names, 116.

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résolution apparaît. Ce sont dans les mots eux-mêmes de la déesse, non de sa colère, qu’il faut voir la source de sa puissance. Ainsi Junon se définit-elle comme une figure d’auctoritas, une figure du discours, et c’est bien lui qui est le lieu de son action.

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Bibliographie Éditions de référence des passages cités Homère. Iliade (chants I-IV). Sous la direction de Paul Mazon. Vol. I. 4 vol. Collection des universités de France - Budé. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1955.

Homère. Iliade (chants XIII-XVIII). Sous la direction de Paul Mazon. Vol. III. 4 vol.

Collection des universités de France - Budé. Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 1956.

Homère. L’Odyssée « poésie homérique » (chants I-VII). Sous la direction de Victor Bérard. 5e éd.

Vol. I. 3 vol. Collection des universités de France - Budé. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1955.

Virgile. Œuvres complètes. Sous la direction de Jeanne Dion, Philippe Heuzé, et Alain Michel.

Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 603. Paris: Gallimard, 2015.

Sources anciennes Aristote. Poétique. Sous la direction de J. Hardy. 2e éd. Collection des universités de France. Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 2008.

Platon. Œuvres complètes, Tome VI : La République, Livres I-III. Sous la direction d’Emile Chambry. Vol. VI. Collection des universités de France - Budé. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959.

Travaux modernes Della Corte, Francesco. « L’action de Junon dans l’Énéide ». Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé 1, 1 (1980): 49-58.

Dion, Jeanne. Les passions dans l’œuvre de Virgile: poétique et philosophie. Travaux et mémoires. Études anciennes. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1993.

O’Hara, James J. True names: Vergil and the Alexandrian tradition of etymological wordplay. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.

Spence, Sarah. Rhetorics of reason and desire: Vergil, Augustine, and the troubadours. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Williams, R. D. « Virgil and the Odyssey ». Phoenix 17, 4 (1963): 266-74.

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The Changed Form of Poetry: Dante’s Interaction with Ovid in the Divine Comedy.

Taryn Power, McGill

Ovid refuses to be left in Hell, or perhaps Dante refuses to leave him there. He first enters the Comedy’s stage as Dante enters limbo: he is third of the five great pagan poets who invite Dante to join their number and whom Dante must abandon to continue his journey. Ovid is mentioned by name only one more time, and then only for Dante to bid him “Taccia” as Dante’s poetics of transformation outmatch his own. However silenced Dante may bid him be, Ovid’s words find their way into Dante’s verse throughout his climb up Mount Purgatory and into the earthly Paradise, which appears as a ghostly reflection of Ovid’s Golden Age. At the outset of the final cantica, as Dante — both as the pilgrim within the story and as the poet who tells it — prepares to step into Paradise, he performs two metamorphoses, very much in the Ovidian mode. To express the transhumanization of the pilgrim, Dante uses Ovid’s Glaucus; to express the apotheosis of the poet, he turns to the tale of Marsyas. These two allusions within the Paradiso’s first canto provide a starting point for examining Dante’s relationship to Ovid as one which goes beyond mere allusion, but one in which he is actively engaged in competition and in subversion of the pagan poet’s work. Through his interactions with the Ovidian themes of metamorphosis, exile, and the nature of poetry, Dante presents his vision for an evolved poetic tradition, which itself becomes a means of Christian apotheosis.

Dante’s transformation of the theme of changing forms is perfectly exemplified by the story’s crowning moment of transformation: Dante the pilgrim’s ascent into heaven. After the Purgatorio, whose theme is essentially “spiritual metamorphoses” and which, fittingly, uses the

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126

Metamorphoses as its “key pagan subtext,”

this ultimate transformation is both unsurprisingly

Ovidian and surprisingly subtle. Dante uses the story of Glaucus from the thirteenth book of the Metamorphoses: a fisherman who “changed, tasting the herb that made / Him a companion of the 127

other sea gods,”

to explain the transformation that he experiences, ascending into heaven after

looking into Beatrice’s eyes. Here, an Ovidian metamorphosis is reinterpreted as a Christian spiritual ascent — a moment of “passing beyond the human”, as Mandelbaum translates Dante’s 128

term “trasumanar.”

129

Dante himself invents this term for a process which “cannot be worded.”

Not only does this use of Ovid’s work recontextualize and Christianize the metamorphosis, it reinforces an idea Dante has already introduced in the Inferno. There, he boldly complains that he “do[es] not envy” the pagan master of mutata forma, for Dante, unlike Ovid, can “transmute two 130

natures, face to face, so that both forms were ready to exchange their matter.”

Though the

allusion to “two natures” might seem to be an assertion of a strictly Christian understanding through allusion to the doctrine of Hypostatic union, this passage, as Hawkins points out, is followed by one which is entirely “descriptive (that is, Ovidian)” in its treatment of a multitude 131

of gruesome transformations.

It is a poetic challenge to Ovid, but, as the poem is still trapped

in Hell, it only goes so far as to prove Dante’s ability to compete within Ovid’s poetic tradition; the Paradiso’s metamorphosis, though lacking the direct claim of superiority, is much more bold in its implication. Here, Dante challenges Ovid and the pagan poetic tradition he represents. He creates a new form of — and even a new term for — transformation, which Ovid could never

126

Maristella Lorch and Lavinia Lorch, “Metaphor and Metamorphosis: Purgatorio 27 and Metamorphoses 4,” in Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, ed. Madison U. Sowell (New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), 100.

127 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso, I:68-9, trans. Allen Mandelbaum, (New York: Columbia University Libraries). All passages from Dante are taken from this version, unless otherwise stated.

128 Paradiso, I:70.

129 Paradiso, I:70-1.

130 Inferno, XXV:100-2.

131 Peter S. Hawkins, “The Metamorphosis of Ovid,” in Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, ed. Madison U. Sowell (New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991,) 22.

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achieve. This concept of spiritual ascent is a foreign concept to pagan poetry, as it cannot truly 132

be understood “until grace grant you the experience.”

Dante uses Ovid’s narrative as a sort of

earthly example of a higher form of metamorphosis that neither he nor the other pagan poets of limbo could hope to describe.

While the story of Glaucus portrays Dante the pilgrim’s transformation, an earlier Ovidian allusion presents a transformation of the poet himself. In the middle of his invocation of Apollo at the beginning of the canto, Dante recalls the story of Marsyas: Enter into my breast; within me breathe the very power you made manifest 133 when you drew [traesti] Marsyas out from his limbs’ sheath.

If the reader is familiar with this myth, its presence within the Paradiso must strike them as odd.

Ovid’s version of the story in the Metamorphoses, which Dante’s word choice reveals as the most likely source, is one which would appear to be more consistent with the horrors of Inferno. Upon being defeated in a musical competition by Apollo, the satyr Marsyas is skinned alive: His skin is stripped off the surface of his body, and he is all one wound: blood flows down on every side, the sinews lie bare, his veins throb and quiver with no skin to cover them: you could count the entrails as they palpitate, and the vitals showing clearly in his 134 breast.

Ovid writes that Marsyas screams all the while, asking, “Quid me mihi detrahis?” — “Why do you 135

tear me from myself ?”

It is this line which Dante quotes most directly, his verb traesti being a

more or less direct translation of the Latin detrahis. It is on this line that the comparison of these two narratives balances. The immediate difference is that, in Ovid, Marsyas’ torture separates him entirely from himself. Marsyas is reduced to “one wound”; as his body is pulled apart, his self is entirely destroyed. The metamorphosis Ovid depicts is that of Marsyas’ blood and his 136

mourners’ tears which become a river;

Marsyas himself does not persist in any form, although

132

Paradiso, I:72.

Paradiso, I:19-21.

134 Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI:387-90, trans. Frank Justus Miller, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916).

135 Metamorphoses, VI:386.

136 Metamorphoses, VI:395-400.

133

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many of the victims in the Metamorphoses are granted a form of continued life, even if it is perverse or tragic. This transformation is not present in Dante’s reading. Rather, he imagines a different transformation altogether. Marsyas is not torn from himself but merely from his “limb’s sheath.” Marsyas remains whole as he is pulled from his body, in a version of his death which mirrors the explanation Statius gives in the previous cantica: when the soul “quits the flesh” it continues “all of itself ” to either the shore of the Archeron or Tiber

137

— this is to say, the soul

simply disposes of the unnecessary flesh yet remains whole as it passes onto the next life. As Levenstein explains, he “transforms Marsyas’ literal disembodiment” into “spiritual 138

embodiment.”

Marsyas becomes a martyr figure who witnesses divine power: he suffers, but

ultimately, just as in the Glaucus story, his transformation is reimagined as one of spiritual ascent.

Marsyas, however, does not parallel the Dante who is a character within the poem but Dante the poet. This Dante desires the same fate as Marsyas: he asks Apollo: “entra nel petto mio, e 139

spira tue”

140

141

— a passage rendered in English varyingly as begging for Apollo’s power, music,

or simply his breath,

142

but always asking for him to act “sì come quando Marsïa traesti.”

143

In light

of Ovid’s text, Dante’s choice of the losing side in the Marsyas story seems to reject obvious explanation. Levenstein points out that in Ovid, poetic competitions are deliberate moments of 144

“heightened poetic self reflection.”

The competition between the Pierides and Calliope, an

allusion to which Dante himself uses at the outset of the previous cantica, is a perfect example of such a meta-poetical moment. In the story of Marsyas, however, Ovid himself does not seem to

137

Purgatorio, XXV:79-85.

Jessica Levenstein, “The Re-Formation of Marsyas in Paradiso 1,” in Dante for the New Millenium, ed.

Teadolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 413.

139 Paradiso, I:19.

140 Paradiso, I:19, trans. Allen Mandelbaum.

141 Paradiso, I:19, trans. Dorothy Sayers, 1949.

142 Paradiso I:19, trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1867.

143 Paradiso, I:20.

144 Jessica Levenstein, “Resurrecting Ovid's Pierides: Dante's Invocation to Calliope in "Purgatorio" 1.7-2,” in Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, 126 (2008): 2.

138

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engage in the same degree of self-reflection. Beyond writing that Marsyas is “conquered in a 145

contest on Pallas’ reed”

by Apollo, he offers no account of the competition at all, focusing

instead on the punishment in all its brutality which forwards a theme of artistic hubris and its heavy consequences. Brian Reynolds reads the incorporation of this myth in the Paradiso as an effort on the part of Dante to present the same warning, begging for humility as he strives to 146

represent the celestial realm of Paradise.

Dante, however, while invoking Marsyas as an example, claims that “here I shall take as 147

crown the leaves / of which my theme and you [Apollo] shall make me worthy” : he is clearly competing in a contest he expects to win. This, as well as his reorientation of the myth as an example of divine inspiration, of the sort Dante himself desires, resists Reynolds’ reading. Rather, this passage is, to use Hawkins’ description, a “violent act of poetic revision” that Dante commits against Ovid.

148

He subverts Ovid’s narrative of hubris into one of vision: Dante

becomes the instrument of Apollo, who breathes through him as if he were a flute. This form of divine inspiration allows him to “show the shadow of the blessed realm” of which any one else 149

who has seen it “can not speak.”

Dante reimagines the story of Marsyas not as a competition

between Apollo and Marsyas but as a competition between himself and every other poet, especially Ovid, whose story he actively corrects. In preemptively claiming the laurel wreath for himself, he announces to the reader that he will succeed where no poet has before.

This is not to say, however, that, by entering into competition with him, Dante is striving towards the same goal as Ovid. Stepping away from the Paradiso for the moment, it is necessary to examine Dante also as a poet of exile in order to understand the context and, thus, the

145

Metamorphoses VI:384.

Brian Reynolds, “Morphing Mary: Pride, Humility, and Transformation in Dante’s Rewriting of Ovid,” in Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, 126 (2008): 24.

147 Paradiso, I:26-7.

148 Hawkins, “The Metamorphosis of Ovid”, 33.

149 Paradiso, I:6, 24.

146

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implications of the Commedia for the poet. Janet Smarr points out that even in Dante’s immediate reception, as far back as the early works of Boccaccio, “the poet in exile, struggling to redeem 150

himself ’ is a theme which joins Ovid and Dante in the literary tradition (Smarr, 140).

The

Commedia certainly tells a tale of exile; reading it as an Ovidian tale is both tempting and, in part supported by the poem: the frozen lake in the lowest pit of Hell borrows its description, Picone notes, from the literary trope of the frozen sea which Ovid invents to describe the winter 151

landscape of Tomis, his place of exile.

Dante alludes to Phaethon and Icarus, both used in

Ovid’s Tristia as parallel narratives to his own exile, in order to express the fear he feels on 152

descending into the Circles of Fraud.

Dante, however, through conscious subversion of Ovid’s

narrative and re-orienting of the Exile’s longing for homecoming, seems to encourage a reading of his work in contrast to, rather than in harmony with Ovid.

One such contrast is their differing perspectives on the city from which they are exiled.

This contrast is proof of Dante’s correction of Ovid’s exile narrative into one of Christian exile, pilgrimage and, ultimately, homecoming. Ovid begins his Tristia by instructing his book to return to Rome where its “master is not allowed to go”

153

and his addresses to the book show his clear

154

longing for the “loved places” of this “great” city.

His idealization of Rome could not be more

strikingly different from Dante’s denunciation of Florence in the Inferno: “Florence, rejoice, [...] all the deep Hell rings with thy name.”

155

Herein lies the fundamental difference in the narratives

of the two poets: Ovid’s treats his physical exile from Rome as a sort of poetic death, while Dante’s narrative, though the poet himself is in physical exile, focuses on the spiritual exile of the

150

Janet Levarie Smarr, “Poets of Love and Exile,” in Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, ed. Madison U. Sowell (New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991,) 140.

151 Michelangelo Picone, “Ovid and the Exul Inmeritus,” in Dante for the New Millenium, ed. Teadolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), 399.

152 Tristia, I.i:80-83; Inferno, XVII:106-110.

153 Tristia, I.i:2.

154 Tristia, I.i:15.

155 Inferno, XXVII:1-3.

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Christian pilgrim from his true home in Paradise. Ovid, in telling his narrative of exile in the Tristia, hopes to be allowed to return to the earthly city of Rome; Dante the poet, in narrating Dante the pilgrim’s journey in the Commedia, hopes to win himself a heavenly homecoming to the celestial realm of Paradise, hinted at by his longing for the pseudo-martyrdom he gives to Marsyas. Dante’s engagement with the pagan poet of exile, then, functions as a correction of the pagan narrative of exile, wherein the goal of the exile poem becomes an ascent to heaven not a return to his city of birth.

Beyond correcting the desired role of poetry in changing its author’s fate, Dante envisions a new role for poetry itself. Returning again to the first canto of the Paradiso, which through its lengthy invocation of Apollo for artistic inspiration, functions as a declaration par excellence of Dante’s poetic ability and achievements. The final book of the Metamorphoses closes with a similar passage, where Ovid summarizes the ultimate goals of this work — and of his poetic corpus as a whole. He writes: And now my work is done, which neither the wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor sword, nor the gnawing tooth of time shall ever be able to undo. [...] Still in my better part I shall be borne immortal far beyond the lofty stars and I shall have an undying name. Wherever Rome’s power extends over the conquered world, I shall have mention on men’s lips, and, 156 if the prophecies of bards have any truth, through all the ages shall I live in fame.

To Ovid, poetry is a means of achieving actual immortality for himself. He claims, “I shall be borne immortal” and “I shall live in fame.” His work does not continue separate from him, but as his “better half.” As Reynolds rightly points out, no parallel assertion exists in the Commedia,

157

even in the aforementioned first canto of Paradiso. What Dante claims as his goal is no more than to record faithfully the nature of paradise: it is his “theme” as well as divine inspiration, as allegorized through the story of Marsyas, which will win him the laurel crown. There is no

156 157

Metamorphoses, XV: 871-879.

Reynolds, “Morphing Mary,” 22.

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158

mention in this passage of Dante’s own “high genius,”

which he invokes at the outset of the

Inferno, nor does he make any mention of his eternal fame, as Ovid does, he simply hopes that his poetry might inspire “better voices” as “Great fire can follow a small spark”

159

— a new,

Christian poetic tradition which transcends the limits of the earlier pagan tradition as exemplified

by Ovid. This is the only hint of any desire to “live in fame” in the Ovidian sense. In short, he desires to raise his verse to the contemplation of the divine, to transform poetry into a means of 160

vision. This is what Levenstein calls “the most sublime of all metamorphoses” : an apotheosis of the Poet and poetry itself.

Active engagement with Ovid, the great pagan poet of myth and exile, allows Dante’s Divine Comedy to appear as a transformed vision of metamorphosis, exile, and of poetry itself. At the outset of the Paradiso, Dante’s invocation of poetic inspiration provides a perfect example of this apotheosis, showing Dante’s corrected vision of metamorphosis as spiritual ascent or even martyrdom, which is also echoed in Dante’s re-interpretation of Ovid’s narrative of exile as pilgrimage and eventual spiritual homecoming. Using the language of Ovidian artistic competition, Dante enters his Commedia into competition with the pagan poetry exemplified by Ovid, and claims his victory. Ultimately, the goal of Paradiso’s first canto is one which pervades the entire work: the transhumanization of poetry, which allows it to carry the poet and the reader into paradise. Poetry must pass beyond the earthly realm in which even the most revered poets of antiquity are trapped. The Comedy is a self-conscious act of creating a new form of poetry, both in a new language and for a new, Christian world. This transformation is just as imperative for the poet Dante as the embrace of divine wisdom over earthly reason is for his pilgrim counterpart within the poem. However, unlike reason, poetry in its new form can, must, and will

158

Inferno, II:27.

Paradiso, I:35.

160 Levenstein, “The Re-Formation of Marsyas,” 112.

159

78

carry the poet all the way up to the Empyrean heaven: Dante the poet requires it; thus, he makes it so.

79

Bibliography

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Columbia University Libraries, 1994. https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/.

Hawkins, Peter S. “The Metamorphosis of Ovid.” In Dante and Ovid: Essays in

Intertextuality, edited by Madison U. Sowell, 18-34. New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.

Levenstein, Jessica. “The Re-Formation of Marsyas in Paradiso 1.” In Dante for the New

Millenium, edited by Teadolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey, 408-421. New York:

Fordham University Press, 2003.

Levenstein, Jessica. “Resurrecting Ovid's Pierides: Dante's Invocation to Calliope in "Purgatorio" 1.7-2.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 126 (2008):1-19.

Lorch, Maristella and Lavinia Lorch. “Metaphor and Metamorphosis: Purgatorio 27 and Metamorphoses 4.” In Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, edited by Madison U. Sowell, 100-121. New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.

Ovid. Tristia: Ex Ponto. Translated by Arthur Leslie Wheeler. Revised by G.P. Goold. Loeb

Classical Library 151. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. 2 vols.

Loeb Classical Library 42. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916.

Picone, Michelangelo. “Ovid and the Exul Inmeritus.” In Dante for the New Millenium, edited by Teadolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey, 489-407. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003.

Reynolds, Brian. “Morphing Mary: Pride, Humility, and Transformation in Dante's Rewriting of Ovid.” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 26(2008):21-55

Smarr, Janet Levarie. “Poets of Love and Exile.” In Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, edited by Madison U. Sowell, 139-151. New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.

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New Kids on the Block: Depictions of Hostage Children on the Ara Pacis Augustae and Provincial Relationships in Augustus’s Early Principate.

Neha Rahman, McGill

A key tenet of Rome’s lasting and peaceful relationships to the provinces in the Imperial period is codified in images of young hostages on Augustus’s monument to an age of peace.

Kathleen Lamp proposes that in the ancient world, rhetoric and political propaganda were embedded into the built environment, and she cites art historian Diane Favro who argues that “learned Romans were predisposed to look for an underlying, coherent narrative,” within the many monuments that the wealthy and powerful constructed.161 The Ara Pacis is no different. In particular, this monument has much to say about the unique and manifold roles of young people in Rome’s early principate. In Augustus’s Res Gestae, he tells us that in 13 BCE, the Senate ordered that an altar to the deity “peace” be built in honour of the princeps’ return from successful missions in Spain and Gaul.162 Around the same time, his trusted advisor and fellow general Agrippa would have returned from campaigns in the East, particularly Bosporus and Pontus.163 In 9 BCE, three years after Agrippa’s death, the temple was officially “dedicated” with a sacrifice.164 Though Agrippa could not have been at the official procession that inaugurated the temple, he is still prominently displayed in its image program. This indicates both that the images for the Ara Pacis were likely planned and drawn up before Agrippa’s death, and that regardless of his literal absence, the art on the Ara Pacis meant to emphasize the people closest to the

161

Lamp, 4.

Lamp, 2.

163 Rose, 455.

164 Ryberg, 84.

162

81

emperor. This paper focuses on the north and south friezes of the Ara Pacis where the emperor’s family and close friends are displayed. These are also known as the “processional friezes,” as they show likely two frames of the same occasion of sacrifice.165 This event, critical to the functioning of Roman religion, normally mandated that participants dress a certain way. For kids, this generally meant wearing the toga as well as the bulla, a talisman of protection that free-born and especially wealthy children wore until around the age of fifteen.166 However, on the south frieze, there is an image of a boy wearing a diadem who tugs on the toga of a figure identified as Agrippa.167 Above him is a woman who also wears a diadem, thought to be his mother.168 Though he has been identified as Gaius Caesar, Augustus’s grandson, Charles Rose disagrees and cites this Eastern headgear, as well as his shoes,169 as the reason this boy is better interpreted as a hostage from one of the Eastern provinces. On the north frieze, there is a young boy in particularly Gaulish dress, with his buttocks exposed and a torque (type of Celtic wire necklace).

170

Previously identified as another grandson of Augustus’s, Lucius Caesar, Rose also argues that

his distinctive costuming, totally inappropriate for a Roman in an occasion such as a sacrifice, demonstrates that these children rather symbolize hostages, and say more about imperial foreign policy than dynasty and succession.

Evidence for the practice of friendly hostage-taking also exists from the time of the Roman Republic, when prisoners of war would often become the guests of wealthy and prominent Roman families.171 An example of such a hostage is the Roman writer Polybius, taken during the Third Macedonian War (171-168 BCE), who went on to be a tutor to the Scipio

165

Ryberg, 81.

Kleiner and Buxton, 32.

167 Rose, 455.

168 Rose, 455.

169 Rose, 456.

170 Rose, 459-460.

171 Roselaar, 191.

166

82

family, and to write a pro-Roman work of history.172 Polybius represents the ideal outcome for a Roman hostage: that they be inundated with positive ideas about the Roman Empire, and that they be empowered to share those ideas. This method was especially effective when applied to elite children, who could be molded in the image of an ideal Roman citizen as they grew up,173 and could eventually be sent back to their land of origin to rule as automatically friendly clients to Rome.174 Examples of such child hostages include Juba II of Numidia, who was captured by Julius Caesar and paraded in his triumph over Africa.175 Augustus made him king of Numidia and Mauretania once he had come of age, raised among the imperial children.176 He was also married to Cleopatra Selene, another child hostage, the daughter of Cleopatra VII and Marc Antony who was paraded in Augustus’s triumph following the Battle of Actium.177 Notably, both of these children were featured in parades, just as the potential hostage children shown on the Ara Pacis.

The altar’s processional friezes are very clearly related to a sacrifice, scholars have evoked triumphal processions in analyzing these images, as triumphs gradually became less common in the imperial period.178 Their resonance, especially for the induction of foreign parties into Rome, still manifests in the image program of the altar of peace. Apart from the spectacle of hostage taking, the tangible success of this system made it one invaluable to Roman imperialism, particularly its soft-power tactics. Emma Dench uses this political science term in understanding Roman interactions with the provinces: Imperial relationships were brokered in part through traditional, ostensibly voluntary networks that maintained connection and ordered power and proximity in the Mediterranean world, including friendship, gift-exchange and ‘kinship diplomacy.’179

172

Roselaar, 191.

Kleiner and Buxton, 68.

174 Isayev, 253.

175 Kleiner and Buxton, 26.

176 Kleiner and Buxton, 26.

177 Kleiner and Buxton, 26.

178 Kleiner and Buxton, 28.

179 Dench, 23.

173

83

The use of this kind of diplomacy to forge relationships with the provinces, alongside Rome’s reliance on violence, was one of the ways Rome’s empire was able to grow to be so large and so long-lasting. Augustus, as the princeps, claiming to lead Rome’s empire into a great period of peace and prosperity, also understands that his actions are making Rome more cosmopolitan.

Unlike famous figures of the Republic like Cato the Elder who balked at the influx of foreign influence, Augustus had to acquiesce to it in some ways, in order to rule as successfully as he did.

180

As his empire grew the impetus was to keep the chances of revolt as low as possible, and the

tactics which he used to do so were thus enshrined in the monumentalized rhetoric he established all around Rome.

The Ara Pacis Augustae profers a version of peace in line with Augustus’ policy of fostering lasting relationships with local provincial elites through the taking of young hostages.

As these hostages would be raised in elite Roman households, they would adopt pro-Roman ideologies and take these favourable ideas back to their localities, thus creating a soft power tactic of lasting Roman imperial influence. This paper emphasizes the interpretive possibility of the young kids in foreign dress as hostages, and the overall monumentalization of Augustus’ imperial policy. It conducts a close reading of the “Eastern” hostage on the south frieze and the “Western” hostage on the north frieze, bringing in the context of campaigns in those respective provinces at the time and what their monumentalization meant for Rome’s broader relationship with its empire.

The first image we will discuss is of a young boy on the south processional Frieze (see figure 1 in appendix), who could be anywhere from five to ten years old. At this age, a Roman boy would be expected to wear the bulla, a protective talisman that indicated their freeborn status

180

Kleiner and Buxton, 77.

84

and that they were to remain unaccosted as young slave children often were.181 However, this young boy does not appear to be wearing this charm, that is visible on other children on the Ara Pacis such as the young boy identified as Drusus, the son of Tiberius (fig. 2). Instead, he wears a diadem on his forehead, a marker of Eastern royalty.182 His hair is also dissimilar to the other more clearly Roman children on the Ara Pacis as it is shoulder-length, in “corkscrew” shaped curls.183 Such a style was favoured among young boys in the Greek East, and even held particular exotic sexual appeal in Rome.184 This might be further evidence that this boy is indeed non-Roman, as there was a slight taboo within Rome’s own pederastic culture of attraction towards fellow Roman citizens,185 thus the way one kept one’s hair was an important visual tool to reaffirm Roman citizenship, and discourage sexual interest.186 Apart from the hair, diadem, and shoes, this boy’s clothes evoke the costume of the Phrygian deity Attis instead of a toga praetexta, and he also wears a torque necklace around his neck.187 Rose notes that altogether the style of this young boy’s portrait is “paralleled in [those] of Eastern kings, specifically those of the Bosporus and Parthia.”188 There is thus a compelling amount of evidence from just a visual analysis that this young boy is not Gaius Caesar, the grandson of Augustus with whom he has commonly been identified, but rather that this image evokes a hostage from the Eastern provinces, prominently displayed in procession with the royal family. This image evokes the way such hostages would be paraded in triumphal processions and yet transplants them into an intimate familial context. The artistic technique evokes the political one. This immersion into Roman culture was the goal of

181

Glancy, 12.

Rose, 456.

183 Rose, 456.

184 Bartman, 267.

185 Olson, 188-189.

186 Olson, 188-189.

187 Rose, 456.

188 Rose, 456.

182

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hostage-taking. Also notable in this section of the frieze is that a woman who stands above the young boy, at whom he gazes up, is also wearing this familiar diadem. Though her toga and head-covering are far more appropriate for the Roman religious occasion, the diadem that links them both suggests not only a family connection but also a fellow foreign guest within the Imperial family. To understand this Eastern child and his potential mother, it is crucial also to put the Ara Pacis into context with Agrippa’s campaigns in the Eastern provinces of the Roman empire at this time. Agrippa was not only Augustus’s lieutenant and consul of Rome three times (in 37 BCE, 28 BCE, and 27 BCE) but also Augustus’s son in law.189 In 13 BCE, Agrippa had just returned from a campaign in the Upper Danube region, which became the Roman province of Pannonia,190 and the year before that he had conducted campaigns in Pontus and the Bosporus.191 Rose focuses on these latter campaigns and theorizes that the woman is meant to represent Queen Dynamis from Pontus and Bosporus and her son. Though it was not common for mothers and sons to be taken in as hostages at once, Isayev shows that women could play the same role as children, perceived as vulnerable and amenable to changing loyalties by the fundamentally patriarchal Roman political modus operandi.192 The presence of this maybe-Dynamis does not quite challenge the overall interpretation of this figure as an eastern hostage, but it does connect the presence of this hostage more closely to Agrippa, as an identifiable figure from one of his most recent campaigns. Since this boy also happens to be clutching the toga of the figure on the processional frieze identified as Agrippa, much scholarship has found that associating this boy with Gaius Caesar and establishing a father-son link is the most straightforward explanation.193 However, once again, understanding the boy as a

189

Kleiner and Buxton, 68.

Ryberg 87-88.

191 Rose, 458-459.

192 Isayev, 257-258.

193 Rose, 455.

190

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result of Agrippa’s foray into the provinces, their proximity and intimacy is also legible as a promise of Pontus and Bosporus’s loyalties in the future. The child represents a new generation and a chance for long-lasting peace and friendship with the province. Embedded within the altar of Peace, the child’s presence distracts from the war it directly references, the violence it took for that child to get there. Augustus’s foreign policy is thus monumentalized. A promise of future friendly relationships with the provinces changes the focus from the enmity that preceded it and ultimately promotes Augustus’s image as a singularly clement and peace-loving emperor.

The second image we will discuss is on the north processional frieze. This child appears significantly younger than the one on the south frieze, about toddler age (fig.3). In the past, scholars have identified this boy as Lucius, another grandson of Augustus.194 However, his foreign dress is even more obvious and remarkable than the previous example. Once again, his hair is long, loose, and curly, and again, he does not wear a toga praetexta. These features do not appear in any other depiction of Lucius Caesar, immediately disassociating the two.195 This boy wears a small shift and faces away from the spectator in such a way that exposes his buttocks.

Rose notes that “such a presentation of a member of the imperial family is unprecedented at any time during the Roman Imperial period.”196 Another unique feature of this young boy is that he wears no shoes, and is the only figure on either procession to lack footwear.197 Finally, the boy also wears a torque necklace, similar to the boy on the south procession, but it is in a slightly different style, a little plainer, as if, Rose argues, “the designers wanted to indicate that these children were associated with two different regions in which torques formed part of the traditional costume.”198 Another famous sculpture on which the torque is featured, and is slightly

194

Rose, 459-460.

Rose, 459-460.

196 Rose, 459-460.

197 Rose, 459-460.

198 Rose, 459-460.

195

87

easier to see, is the Dying Gaul, displayed in Rome’s Capitoline Museum (fig. 5). In Roman sculpture the accessory is a key visual symbol to immediately associate with foreignness, specifically foreigners from the Western Provinces.

Once again, the initial visual analysis reveals the emphatic foreignness of this young boy.

Looking closer and bringing in some comparative evidence however, there is even more hidden significance in the way the boy is positioned. He looks up at the closest adult near him, as if for guidance from a parent. Again, it establishes a family connection, it is a very natural position for a child, as if seeking comfort from a parent when faced with the cacophony of public religious performance typical of this kind of procession. However, Rose identifies this specific pose as a sort of sculptural quotation, a reference to a very similar scene found on “the so-called Boscoreale cups,” (fig. 6) a set of ornately decorated silver cups found in Boscoreale, near Vesuvius.199 In this image, several Celtic chiefs seem to offer their young sons as hostages to the seated emperor Augustus.200 One of these boys being offered as a hostage is in the exact same position as the young boy on the north processional frieze. Though these cups are dated to 79 CE, long after the construction of the Ara Pacis, they embed this same young boy in a more direct scenario of hostage taking, an image of what happens before these kids get to Rome. This scene of offering one’s child as hostage is once again referenced in coinage from 8 BCE found in Lugdunum, Gaul (fig.7), where a man holds out an infant to a seated emperor. Rose identifies both of these examples as indications that the boy on the Ara Pacis was the result of this “expression of loyalty”201 on the part of their fathers who offered them to get a Roman education and come back to rule in their home provinces with “pro-Roman policy.”202 With these two examples, it is clearly impossible to read this image without the context of Augustus’s 199

Kuttner, 6.

Rose, 460.

201 Rose, 460.

202 Rose, 460.

200

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recent return from the Western provinces, particularly Gaul and Spain, that prompted the very commissioning of the Ara Pacis by the Senate.203 Much like the child on the southern frieze emphasizes Agrippa’s military victory, this young boy is the parallel representation of Augustus’s provincial campaigns. Rather than Gaius and Lucius, the grandsons and heirs, in this early part of his rule, the presence of hostages on the Ara Pacis seems to emphasize these growing and strengthening provincial relationships over the imperial concerns for an heir. Kleiner and Buxton quote Severy who argues that “the monument is about dynasty only in a vague generalized way,” 204

generally invoking intergenerational glory with the presence of child images throughout as

well as a focus on the family. However, we might then find interpretive space for more pointed allusions to current imperial foreign policy if we are to understand these young kids on the north and south processional friezes as hostages from the provinces. Augustus thus invokes the future of Rome and the future of his family in a way that is entirely embedded in the way the new empire would deal with its provinces. The presence of hostage children on the Ara Pacis promises a simultaneously linear (intergenerational) and lateral (international) dissemination of Roman values. This is a powerful promise for peace that is rooted in a careful understanding of Rome’s history of dealing with foreigners, as hostage-taking was a popular and time-tested tradition dating back to the Republic. Keeping in mind that the senate commissioned this altar in honour of Augustus, we can also read into this monument a tacit approval of his rule which keeps some of the key tenets of the Republic that were particularly effective. In the end, Augustus emerges looking like an establishment-approved and traditional ruler, even when he was fundamentally changing Rome’s mode of governance.

203 204

Lamp, 2.

Kleiner and Buxton, 69.

89

In reading the young boys on the north and south processional friezes as hostages, we have seen how the Ara Pacis monumentalized a practice that stretched back into the Republican period, officially recognizing it as an invaluable tool of soft-power for creating lasting Roman alliances. Much of the purpose of the repeated depictions of children on this monument is to emphasize, from every corner that one views it, that Augustus’s peace would be long-lasting, and intergenerational. The presence of hostage children emphasizes that this “peace” extends well past Rome and into the provinces. Though we know from Tacitus that this peace was “bloodstained,”205 the Ara Pacis was one of the many manifestations of Augustus’s rhetoric to justify this violence.206

205 206

Lamp, 13.

Lamp, 13.

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Appendix

Figure 1 - South Processional Frieze, detail. Boy and Mother wearing Eastern Diadem.

91

Figure 2 - Young boy identified as Drusus, wearing toga praetexta and bulla.

92

Figure 3 - North Processional Frieze, detail. Toddler in Gallic costume.Â

93Â

Figure 4 - North frieze of the Ara Pacis, for context.

94

Figure 5 - The Dying Gaul in the Capitoline Museum, another example of a “torque” or “torc” necklace.

95

Figure 6 - Boscoreale cup, child in a similar pose to the north processional frieze of Ara Pacis.

96Â

Figure 7 - coin from Lugdunum in Gaul showing chief offering son to emperor.

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Bibliography Baratte, F, photographer. “Augustus, Drusus, and the Princelings of Gallia Comata. Drusus and the Gallic chieftains with their infants.” Photograph. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. From: Kuttner, Ann L. Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft309nb1mw/

Bartman, Elizabeth. “Eros’ Flame Images of Sexy Boys in Roman Ideal Sculpture in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome.” Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 1, The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity. Edited by Elaine K. Gazda, 249–71. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Dench, Emma. Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2003. doi: 10.1093/0195136098.001.0001.

Isayev, Elena. Migration, Mobility and Place in Ancient Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Kleiner, Diana E. E., and Bridget Buxton. “Pledges of Empire: The Ara Pacis and the Donations of Rome.” American Journal of Archaeology 112, no. 1 (2008): 57-89.

Kuttner, Ann L. Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft309nb1mw/

Lamp, Kathleen. “The Ara Pacis Augustae: Visual Rhetoric in Augustus' Principate.”

Rhetoric Society Quarterly 39, no. 1 (2009): 1-24.

McManus, Barbara F, photographer. “Agrippa and imperial family from the south frieze of Ara Pacis, 13-9 BCE” Photograph. Rome, Ara Pacis Museum. 2007. From the personal website of Barbara McManus: Index of Images Part XV. http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/index15.html

— “Antonia Minor and Drusus from the south frieze of Ara Pacis, 13-9 BCE” Photograph. Rome, Ara Pacis Museum. 2007. From the personal website of Barbara McManus: Index of Images Part XV. http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/index15.htm

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— “toddler in short tunic and torque from north frieze of Ara Pacis, 13-9 BCE” Photograph. Rome, Ara Pacis Museum. 2007. From the personal website of Barbara McManus: Index of Images Part XV. http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/index15.html

— “north frieze of Ara Pacis, eastern end, 13-9 BCE” Photograph. Rome, Ara Pacis Museum. 2007. From the personal website of Barbara McManus: Index of Images Part XV. http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/index15.html

Olson, Kelly. “Masculinity, Appearance, and Sexuality: Dandies in Roman Antiquity.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 23, no. 2. (2014): 182-205.

Rabax63, photographer. “Dying Gaul (Head)” Photograph. Capitoline Museum. Rome.

Wikimedia Commons, 2017. From Wikipedia: Torc https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64965675

Rose, Charles Brian. “"Princes" and Barbarians on the Ara Pacis.” American Journal of Archaeology 94, no. 3 (1990): 453-67.

Roselaar, Saskia T. “Roman State Prisoners in Latin and Italian Cities.” The Classical Quarterly 62, no. 1 (2012): 189-200.

Ryberg, Inez Scott. “The Procession of the Ara Pacis.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 19 (1949): 77-101.

Syme, Ronald. “Neglected Children on the Ara Pacis.” American Journal of Archaeology 88, no. 4 (1984): 583-89.

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Les symboles traditionnels et la propagande monétaire de Cornelius L. Sylla « Felix »

Christophe Turcotte Richard, Université de Montréal

Introduction 207

Ayant à peine revêtu les offices de son septième consulat, Marius meurt en 86 208

pouvoir politique de la République romaine.

à la tête du

Cinna prendra, à sa suite, le contrôle de Rome

tandis que son adversaire L. Cornelius Sylla, nommé ennemi public, enchaîne les victoires en 209

Grèce au nom de cette même Rome 210

continuant à agir en proconsul – comme si de rien n'était.

Sylla envoya, en 84 av. J.-C. la liste de ses actes accomplis au bénéfice du peuple romain en 211

guise de pièce justificative; de la guerre contre Jugurtha aux récents succès contre Mithridate.

En tant qu'outil d'autopromotion politique, cette missive assura à Sylla une certaine visibilité à Rome. C'est dans ce contexte qu'il frappa en 84-83 et en 82 deux monnayages (RRC 359/1 et 212

RRC 367/4); réalisée dans un contexte de lutte entre son « parti » et celui de Cinna.

Le 1er

siècle av. J.-C. est le théâtre de nombreux changements au sein des structures républicaines romaines et le monnayage n'y fait pas défaut. S'inscrivant dans une période de redéfinition du champ politique romain, Sylla ancrera son action dans la tradition des Optimates; au-delà des représentations iconographiques typiques de sa « faction », il produira sa monnaie à fins Frank Burr Marsh. A History of the Roman World, from 146 to 30 B.C., Macmillan, New York, 1939, p.104 208 Appien, ΕΜΦΥΛΙΩΝ Α', LXXI, 331 209 Ibid. LXXVI, 347 « En moins de trois ans, il anéantit cent soixante mille ennemis ; il replaça sous l'autorité de Rome la Grèce, la Macédoine, l'Ionie, l'Asie...»

210 F. Hinard, Sylla, Fayard, 1985, p.154 211 App. op. cit. LXXVII, 350 212 A. Keaveney, Sylla : The last Republican, Croon Helm, London, 1982, p.118 207

100

promotionnelles, d'où le choix de certains symboles et leur utilisation. L'étude des pièces de Sylla ne peut se faire sans cibler les objectifs politiques visés derrière leur émission; la révolution typologique qu'introduisit la monnaie Sylla, à l'image de sa révolution politique, se fit par la réutilisation de symboles majoritairement traditionnels, et cela, de manière résolument innovatrice. Le présent article aura accessoirement comme but de démontrer les limitations, mais également l'utilité de la numismatique dans un contexte de reconstruction historique.

Optimates et Populares L'entrée de Sylla dans le monde politique romain s'effectue dans un contexte de recomposition du champ politique romain. Dans leur tentative de réforme agraire, Tiberius et 213

Caius Gracchus ébranlèrent la légitimité du pouvoir sénatorial.

Marius incarnait alors cette lutte non seulement par ses origines modestes, mais également par ses actes; le novus homo; ayant réussi là où un Metellus avait échoué (c.f. App. ΕΜΦΥΛΙΩΝ XXIX-XXXII).

214

L'historiographie tend à identifier cette reconfiguration par l'utilisation du

terme « parti » sans toutefois s'accorder sur son implication réelle. Le XXe siècle fut fortement influencé par les théories opposées de Fr. Münzer et de M. Gelzer au sujet des factiones romaines; 215

selon Ronald Syme : « The political life of the Roman Republic was stamped and swayed, not by parties

and programmes of a modern and parliamentary character, not by the ostensible opposition between Senate and 216

People, Optimate and Populares, nobiles and novi homines, but by the strife of power, wealth and glory (C.f. Sall. Cat. XXXVIII). En relevant que le consensus scientifique rejette généralement l'idée

Salluste, Jughurta, 36. « Vrbem venalem et mature perituram si emprotem inuenerit ! » (c.f. Sall. Cat. X) 214 Burr Marsh, op. cit. p. 77 215 Jean-Louis Ferrary, Optimates et populares. Le problème du rôle de l'idéologie dans la politique, École Française de Rome, 1997, p.222 216 R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, Oxford University press, London, 1952, p. 11 213

101

d'un « programme » – y préférant celle d'une collaboration libre de candidats – Jean-Louis Ferrary relève toutefois l’émergence de courants « idéologiques ». La lutte des mariens contre les 217

Metelli,

218

alors maîtres de Rome, est constitutive d'une période de fortes divisions

219

et

introduit une nouvelle manière de pratiquer la politique qui se reflétera dans la typologie monétaire. Michel Amandry écrit, après avoir décrit les typologies monétaires qu'il identifie comme « publiques » : « Au second siècle, un événement inhabituel intervint avec l'introduction de types multiples spécifiques [...]. On peut appeler ces types des types « privés » puisqu'ils se réfèrent à un individu plutôt qu'à l'État romain ».

220

Ce monnayage privé d'un nouveau type présente des illustrations d'exploits

commis par les ancêtres de l'émetteur. La frappe commencera peu à peu à passer de cette façon 221

messages politiques clairs et orientés.

« Leur force d'expression et par conséquent leur valeur de 222

propagande était d'autant plus grande que leur signification était univoque », Zehnacker.

La pièce

cataloguée RRC242/1 frappée par C. Augurinus représente une pièce typique de la monnaie gentilice. Le revers introduit l'érection d'un bâtiment particulier, la Columna Minucia; étant selon 223

Meadow & Williams, symbole du succès d'une politique frumentaire.

Il atteste ainsi être

présence d'une pièce à la fois gentilice, par l'évocation du caractère historique et familial de l'acte, 224

et du type popularis.

L'émetteur, L. Caecilius Metellus, y évoque alors la victoire d'un de ses ancêtres contre les Carthaginois à Panormus, en 250 av. J.-C. par un triomphe en éléphant.

225

Bien que

App. XXIX, 129 Velleius, 2, 11 « A cette époque [la guerre de Jughurta], en effet, en moins de douze ans, plus de douze Métellus obtinrent soit le consulat, soit la censure, soit le triomphe. On voit bien là que, tout comme les villes et les empires, les familles voient leur fortune fleurir, vieillir et disparaître. » 219 F. Burr Marsh, p. 89 220 M. Amandry (dir.), La monnaie antique, Ellipses, Paris, 2017, p. 138 221 Amandry, op. cit. p. 143 222 Hubert Zehnacker, Moneta, École française de Rome, Rome, 1973, p. 544 223 Andrew Meadows and Jonathan Williams, Moneta and the Monuments: Coinage and Politics in Republican, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 91 (2001), pp. 43 224 Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge university press, Cambridge, p. 273 225 Ibid. p. 287 217 218

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contemporaines, ces deux monnaies affichent des thématiques bien particulières qui peuvent compter parmi les stratégies de promotion politique d'une ou l'autre des factiones romaines.

Zehnacker n'est toutefois pas sans rappeler que les genres typologiques sont flexibles : « il subsiste une équivoque révélatrice, puisque la mention EX S.C., [...] paraît se rapporter ici à l'expression ad frumentum emundum, et attribue donc aux Patres les mérites d'une politique frumentaire sainement conçue 226

». Surtout en ce qui a trait aux triomphes, la typologie fut utilisée par les deux partis; au sujet d'émissions des Metelli et de Marius, toujours Zehnacker : « Il est frappant de constater que ces deux triomphes concernent, à quelques années d'intervalle [...] les nobilitas et les populares. >> Une pièce retiendra ici notre attention; émise par P. Licinius Nerva, et cataloguée RRC292/1 et sur laquelle figure une scène de vote. Une ambiguïté soit présente quant à l'affiliation de cette scène; soit à C. L. Crassus, tribun en 145 ou à Marius. Elle pourrait vraisemblablement, selon Zenacker, correspondre avec une réforme électorale datant du consulat de Marius, au moyen de laquelle il rétrécit les pontes sur lesquels passaient les citoyens votant « empêchant ainsi les custodes de faire 227

pression sur les électeurs [...] ou même de contrôler leur vote. »(Cic., De leg. III, 38).

Cette pièce démontre

de manière claire l'affiliation au clan popular de Marius, à la faction duquel appartenait l'autorité émettrice, auquel s'opposera alors Sylla. À son élection à titre de consul, Sylla épouse une Metellus. Cette alliance avec l'influente famille sénatoriale – à la tête du mouvement optimate – marque définitivement l'appartenance de 228

Sylla à la factio des optimates

et scelle son destin politique.

226 227 228

Zehnacker, op. cit. p. 552 Ibid. p. 555 Keaveny, op. cit. p. 56-57

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Jugum et Lituus Fort de ses victoires en Orient, Sylla prépare minutieusement son arrivée en Italie.

François Hinard écrit à ce propos : « Il lui était indispensable de se donner une plus exacte connaissance de la réalité politique romaine afin d'organiser sa propagande; il savait bien que la victoire ne se gagnerait pas seulement, ou pas durablement, sur les champs de bataille, mais qu'il lui fallait aussi convaincre le sénat, la 229

noblesse, le peuple de Rome et toute l'Italie ».

230

et complète de sa charge de proconsul.

Ce dernier se jugeait encore investi de manière légitime C'est dans cette position qu'il frappa monnaie au 231

printemps, afin de légitimer son imperium à l'aide de symboles évocateurs et univoques.

La

première des pièces de ce programme monétaire, émise en 84 et en 83, est celle identifiée RRC359/1. Sur son avers figure la tête de Vénus portant un diadème et flanquée d'un cupidon brandissant une branche de palmier; son revers affiche quant à lui un Jugum et un Litus qu'encerclent deux « trophés ». Les inscriptions comportent son nom à l'avers (L-SVLLA) et au revers (IMPER ITERVM).

232

À ce propos, Roberta Steward, donne une interprétation raisonnée

et contextuelle de l'utilisation de la cruche et de la crosse. Ces symboles religieux sont associés de manière traditionnelle aux augures. Pour cette raison, certains contestèrent la date de Crawford afin de faire correspondre la pièce à l'augurat de Sylla en 82. Steward nie toutefois cette relecture 233

et donne aux symboles auguraux une signification plus précise,

en accord avec un argument

qu'évoque notamment Keaveney lorsqu'il qui écrit : « If the Cinnans thought Sulla a public enemy, the gods were evidently of a different mind, for they saw in him the legitimate defender of Rome, sent him hood signs 234

and blessed his campaigns. » La tête de Vénus représentée sur l'avers, protectrice du peuple romain

François Hinard, op. cit. p. 158 App. LXXVII, 351 231 Keaveney, op. cit. p. 118 232 Crawford, op. cit. p. 373 233 Roberta Steward, The Jud and Litus on Roman Republican Types : Ritual Symbols and Political Power, Classical Association of Canada, Vol. 51, No. 2, 1997, p. 170 234 Keaveney, op. cit. p. 118 229 230

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et divinité tutélaire de Sylla, victoire au proconsul,

236

235

est honorée sur son monnayage comme celle ayant accordé la 237

afin que ce dernier puisse servir Rome.

Cet assentiment divin est non

seulement légitime par les succès militaires, mais l'implication des symboles auguraux réfère aussi aux cérémonies précédant le revêtement de l'imperium. Steward écrit à ce propos que la cruche réfère au sacrifice que président les pontifes ainsi qu'à l'auspice conduit lors des cérémonies publiques. Ces deux cérémonies auxquelles on procédait nécessairement pour chaque investiture romaine servaient alors à garantir l'assentiment divin à l'endroit du candidat élu, affirmant de 238

manière rituelle la légitimité de la fonction et l'autorité dont est alors revêtue l'office.

Si le

gouvernement marien de Carbo le nomme ennemi public et le destitue de son proconsulat, le suffrage des dieux l'accompagne donc toujours en vertu du caractère religieux des institutions politiques romaines. C'est justement pour évoquer la présence continuelle de cet assentiment divin, tout au long de sa campagne, que Sylla flanque les symboles auguraux de deux « trophés » 239

en référence à ses victoires. Crawford évoque leur origine : « The two trophies are presumably those 240

erected after Chaeronea; they made a deep impression of antiquity ».

241

mot ce qu'expliquent les symboles; IMPER

La légende ne sert qu'à mettre en

et ITERVM; qu'il ne s'agit pas de sa première

campagne couronnée de succès. Ces documents numismatiques peuvent donc se lire en 242

complément à la missive adressée au sénat que rapporte Appien.

Malgré l'ancienneté de ces

symboles dans la pratique cultuelle romaine, leur présence sur le numéraire n'est pas attestée

Hinard, op. cit. p. 237-238 Il s'agit de la Vénus Victrix du temple d'Aphrodisias.

236 Ibid.

237 Ibid. p. 83 « Like Ma-Ballona and Appolloo himself, Venus was to become one of Sulla's patron deities who would watch over hus career and cause it to prosper. [...] The man who was waging this war, on their behalf, was Rome's chosen proconsul, Sulla, and, in consequence, Venus aided him and blessed his entreprise because he was the champion of her people. » 238 Roberta Steward, op. cit. p. 174 239 Hinard, op. cit. p. 107-108 « Sur ces trophées il grava le nom de Mars, de la victoire et de Vénus.»

240 Crawford, op. cit. p. 373 241 Steward, p. 171 242 Keaveney, p. 118 235

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243

avant Sylla.

Cette typologie, bien que nouvelle, sert toutefois à donner une allure traditionnelle

à l'image publique de Sylla. De plus, le revêtement d'un imperium garanti par la divinité peut compter parmi les déclinaisons des propagandes monétaires propres à la faction des Optimates.

Sylla effectue une coupure avec le type gentilice, alors en vogue, en réintroduisant des types publics qu'il s'approprie toutefois. De plus, les exploits représentés ne sont plus ceux d'un ancêtre, mais les siens.

Triomphe et personnalité Comme l'avait noté Amandry, Ier siècle voit apparaître des typologies personnelles; Sylla en sera l'instigateur. Zehnacker écrit : « Sylla est le premier homme politique romain qui ait systématiquement orchestré sa propagande sur le monnaies, en vue de l'exercice du pouvoir personnel. [...] Mais à la différence de César, qui réussit à imposer cette innovation capitale qu'était la présence de son propre portrait sur les monnaies, Sylla n'usa jamais que d'une iconographie de type ancien, se contentant de lui donner un sens 244

nouveau. ».

À ce propos, il évoque les pièces cataloguées RRC367/4 (Figure 5) et 381/1b

(Figure 6) à titre d'exemple. La première d'entre elle, frappée lors de sa campagne en Italie, semble présenter des symboles tout sauf révolutionnaires; une tête casquée de Rome à l'avers et un triomphe au revers. Il y eut des frappes de plusieurs valeurs de ce modèle, mais la présence d'aurei démontre l'opulence de ses moyens. Crawford semble associer ce retour à un style plus traditionnel, sur l'avers, à une identification de Sylla avec la cause républicaine et son intention de présider à sa restauration.

245

La victoire affichée au revers ne représente désormais plus celles

qu'il fit en orient, mais préfigure littéralement son triomphe à Rome, lorsqu'il aura vaincu la faction marienne. Bien que Sylla restitue des types traditionnels de monnayage, l'utilisation qui en

Crawford, op. cit. « The two trophies with lituus and jug between them form, I believe, a type personal to Sulla. » 244 Zehnacker, op. cit. p. 573 245 Crawford, p. 387 243

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est faite est toute autre; à ce sujet, Crawford est en accord avec Zehnacker : « Is is difficult not to see in all this traces of a new, individualistic attitude towards the res publica, an attitude which is inompatible with the collective ideology of oligarchic rule and which eventually finds expression in autocracy. »

246

La seconde

pièce, frappée à Rome au moment de sa dictature, – qui à première vue, ne semblerait présenter qu'une scène de triomphe – trouve son explication dans un passage d'Appien qui raconte l'érection d'une statue de bronze à l'effigie de Sylla, sur laquelle fut justement gravé qu'elle 247

représentait l'Imperator Cornelius Sylla Felix.

Comme pour son triomphe, la statue de bronze

représente le portrait indirect du dictateur. Sylla, à ce titre, est la première personne dont le portrait fut en quelque sorte frappé de son vivant sur une monnaie romaine;

248

cette étonnante

introduction typologique est toutefois sous couvert d'iconographie archaïsante et de réintroduction de la Rome casquée propre au monnayage républicain classique.

Conclusion Ces monnaies émises sous l'autorité de Sylla présentent à la fois un retour à une typologie traditionnelle – dans un contexte de frappe gentilice et personnelle – mais introduisent aussi une nouvelle manière d'utiliser le numéraire en tant qu'outil de promotion publique au moyen duquel l'émetteur se représente lui-même directement. L'étude de ses monnaies, plus particulièrement de RRC381/1b – et des monnaies contemporaines de sa dictature – laisse alors à voir la frappe 249

monétaire césarienne et impériale

par son contexte d'émission; Appien écrit à ce sujet : « Sylla

était pratiquement roi ou tyran, sans avoir été élu, mais par l'effet de sa puissance et l'usage de sa force. Mais

Ibid. p. 732 App. XCVII, 451.

248 Hinard, p. 169 249 Zehnacker, op. cit. p. 573 246 247

107

250

[...][avait] sans doute besoin de donner aussi à l'opinion l'illusion qu'il était élu. »

C'est dans se contexte

que la frappe acquiert une tout autre utilité: ne servant plus à se publiciser en vue d'une élection, elle deviendra un outil d'autopromotion personnelle servant à la légitimité de l'autocrate. Sylla accapare nombreuses prérogatives par la restitution d'une ancienne pratique : la dictature. Il est à se demander s'il considérait alors la dictature comme une charge à remplir et une étape nécessaire en vue de reconstituer la république ou alors se servit-il de cette magistrature extraordinaire pour 251

son propre compte.

Bien que les thèmes de sa propagande fussent majoritairement orientés

devers sa légitimité à titre de proconsul, ce n'est pas pour cette raison, selon Keaveney, que l'arme lui fut fidèle même lorsqu'il la mena vers Rome. La fidélité inconditionnelle de ses troupes fut 252

réalisée sous le coup de la nécessité et changea à jamais le cours de l'histoire romaine. Alors champion des Optimates, Sylla démontre que la mise en place d'un programme politique nécessitait un pouvoir personnel fort et c'est à ce titre que suivront Pompée, César, Marc-Antoine et Auguste. Malgré son alliance avec les Metelli et son appartenance patricienne, Sylla réduira l'importance du sénat au profit d'une magistrature permettant d'en garantir 253

l'intégrité. En effet, lorsque Sylla abdiqué, il sait que d'autres suivront.

App. XCVIII, 456.

Keaveney, op. cit. p. 163 252 Keaveney, op. cit. p. 62-63 253 App. CIV, 486 250 251

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Bibliographie AMANDRY, Michel (dir.), La monnaie antique, Ellipses, Paris, 2017, 299p.

APPIEN, Histoire Romaine, Livre XIII, ΕΜΦΥΛΙΩΝ livre 1. trad. P. Goukowsky, Collection des Universités de France (Paris, Les belles lettres), 2008, 211p.

BURR-MARSH, Frank. A History of the Roman World, from 146 to 30 B.C., Macmillan, New York, 1939, 427p.

CRAWFORD, Michael H., Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge university press, Cambridge, 919p.

FERRARY, Jean-Louis, Optimates et populares. Le problème du rôle de l'idéologie dans la politique, Die späte römische Repiublic. La fin de la République romaine. Un débat franco-allemand d'histoire et d'historiographie. Rome : École Française de Rome, 1997, pp.221-231 HINARD, François, Sylla, Fayard, 1985, 326p.

KEAVENEY, Arthur, Sylla : The last Republican, Croon Helm, London, 1982, 243p.

MEADOWS, Andrew and WILLIAMS, Jonathan. Moneta and the Monuments: Coinage and Politics in Republican, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 91 (2001), pp. 27-49 SALLUSTE, Catilina, Jugurtha, Fragment des histoires, trad. Alfred Ernout, Collection des Universités de France (Paris, Les belles lettres), 1964, 313p.

STEWARD, Roberta. The Jud and Litus on Roman Republican Types : Ritual Symbols and Political Power, Classical Association of Canada, Vol. 51, No. 2, 1997, pp. 170-189 SYME, Ronald, The Roman Revolution, Oxford University press, London, 1952, p. 326 VELLEIUS, Histoire romaine. Tome II, livre II. trad. J. Hellegouarc'h, Collection des Universités de France (Paris, Les belles lettres), 1982, 448p.

ZEHNACKER, Hubert. Moneta : Recherches sur l'organisation et l'art des émissions monétaires de la République romaine (289 - 31 av. J.-C.), École française de Rome, Rome, 1973, tome 1, 627p.

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The Centrality of Glaucon’s Myth of the Ring for the Intrinsic Worth of Justice Alexa Lynn White, McGill Glaucon’s story of the ring of Gyges is the pivotal thematic myth in the Republic. As I hope to show, the story of the ring narratively establishes the central question that the Republic aims to answer, namely the question of whether justice is intrinsically valuable, while simultaneously establishing the overarching theme of tyranny and slavery. In addition, Socrates’ myth of Er functions as the philosophical counterargument to Glaucon’s account of justice exhibited in the ring of Gyges, indicating the general prevalence of Thrasymachus’ contractual conception of justice as merely instrumental and Plato’s attempt to subvert this sophistic theory.

There are three kinds of evidence for the philosophical importance of the story of the Gygean ring. First, Glaucon’s story of the ring stands in a symmetrical relation to Socrates’ myth of Er, since both instantiate varying representations of the most important theme of the dialogue, namely the exhortation to justice and its internal rewards, and share the generic form of the Greek katabasis. Secondly, the myth of the ring of Gyges is central to the argument that tyranny and slavery are inseparable from the unjust and unhappy life. Third, evidence for its importance can be found in Plato’s overlapping use of visual language in Glaucon’s ‘thought experiment’ (τῇ διανοίᾳ), the visual language of ‘looking’ upon the form of the Good as an analogue of philosophical contemplation, and the visual themes of the myth of Er. The myth of the ring of Gyges is introduced in the Republic in order to elaborate on the instrumental definition of justice advanced by Thrasymachus at the beginning of the dialogue.

110

254

Thrasymachus argues that justice is “the advantage of the stronger,” and that the only reason that people act justly is due to their inability to act unjustly. As such, Thrasymachus argues that acting unjustly and self-interestedly is more beneficial than acting justly. Glaucon and Adeimantus take on the role of devil’s advocate to reformulate the definition of justice postulated in Book I and insist that Socrates come to the defense of justice’s intrinsic worth. Glaucon invites Socrates and the reader to consider a ‘thought experiment’ (dianoia) to demonstrate the force of the argument for justice’s instrumentality because “we would perceive [αἰσθοίμεθα] most clearly that those who practice justice do it unwillingly and because they lack the power to do injustice, if in our thoughts [ποιήσαιμεν τῇ διανοίᾳ] we grant to a just and an unjust person 255

the freedom to do whatever they like [ποιεῖν ὅτι ἂν βούληται].” He proceeds to tell a vivid story about a Lydian shepherd who acquired “the power they say the ancestor of Gyges of Lydia 256

possessed,” namely a ring that has the ability to turn the wearer invisible. After the lowly shepherd acquires this ring, he uses it to “[seduce] the king’s wife, [attack] the king with her help, [kill] him, and [take] over the kingdom.”4

The myth of Gyges’ ring in the Republic illustrates that every human being would act unjustly and self-interestedly if they could escape detection for their crimes and thereby avoid punishment and the appearance of being unjust. As such, the myth illustrates that justice is only useful for its extrinsic benefits, such as a good reputation and the avoidance of punishment. On Glaucon’s argumentation, the best possible scenario is to appear just to one’s peers while secretly

254

Plato, “The Republic,” trans. G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve, in The Complete Works of Plato, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), I. 338e5-339a3.

255 Plato, “The Republic,” II.359b6-7, slightly modified.

256 Plato, “The Republic,” II.359c10. 4 Plato, “The Republic,” II.360a10-b1.

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being unjust and reaping the rewards of self-interested gain. While this is the more obvious function of Glaucon’s thought experiment, I would like to argue that the myth of Gyges’ ring does more than narratively illustrate Thrasymachus’ instrumental definition of justice, but also suggests that adhering to an instrumental definition of justice transforms one into a tyrant, who is proven to be the ultimate slave due to his enslavement to the inferior parts of his soul and as such lives the most wretched life. The myth of the ring of Gyges is thus more important to the overall philosophical argument than has been previously acknowledged.

The primary evidence pointing to the centrality of the myth of the ring is due to its relation to Socrates’ myth of Er in Book X. Rachel Barney’s article “Platonic Ring Composition in Plato and Republic 10” argues that the myth of the ring stands in ring relation to Socrates’ myth of Er and that “ring composition expresses a conception of philosophical method common to 257

Plato and Aristotle.” One reason to argue that the myth of the ring and the myth of Er are in ring relation is because both the story of the ring and the myth of Er share the generic form of the katabasis. The katabasis was a familiar trope in the Greek literary tradition at the time of Plato’s intellectual flourishing. The katabasis of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey is paradigmatic of the structure and form that later katabases would share. According to Stamatia Dova, the katabasis of Odysseus “allows us to sketch a basic outline of the requirements for this unique experience: the hero descends with divine assistance to the underworld where he performs an important task, has significant encounters with ghosts, and comes back alive to proceed 258

successfully with the rest of his endeavours.” In the Odyssean katabasis, the titular character embarks on a journey into the underworld to receive instructions from the deceased prophet,

257

Rachel Barney, “Platonic Ring-Composition and Republic 10,” in Plato’s Republic: A Critical Guide, ed. M. McPherran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 37.

258 Stamatia Dova, Greek Heroes in and out of Hades (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2012), 1.

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Tiresias, and in the process meets with the shades of several of his deceased companions, most notably Achilles, and is told what he must do in order to successfully return to his homeland of Ithaca. The katabasis was a significant feature of Greek mythology, as it depicted a hero’s descent into an unknown and inhospitable realm but nevertheless often granted him prizes or secret knowledge. Nevertheless, the katabasis signified more than a mere literary motif. A staple segment of numerous important Greek myths, Radcliffe G. Edmonds III argued that before finding a definition of katabasis, one must first understand and define ‘myth’.

The term has been notoriously difficult for modern scholars to pin down, since the word muthos as used by the Ancient Greeks did not denote a fixed or stable notion, but rather represented a fluidity of meanings which varied with context. Edmonds’ proposed definition of “myth as an agonistic form of cultural discourse, a traditional language for the communication of 259

ideas from the author to his audience, in which the competing stories vie for authority,” however, sheds light on the way in which Plato’s katabasis can be understood. According to Edmonds,

“[t]he idea of a journey to the realm of the dead brings out this contrast between the worlds […] The stories people tell about the journey to the other world, the realm of the dead, thus reveal their implicit assumptions about the world in which they, as the living, 260 dwell. These stories act as a kind of mirror that reflects the picture of their world.”

The description of an unknown such as the afterlife is never divorced from a culture’s implicit beliefs about their understanding of life. If Edmonds is right in suggesting that myth in Ancient Greece was agonistic, competing for authority and repute with other versions or

259

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5.

260 Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey, 3.

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accounts, then the dominantly accepted myths would constitute and reflect accepted cultural ideologies. If on the one hand the most popular underworld myth represents mythical heroes lamenting the loss of life, preferring to “labor on earth in service to another, to a man who is landless, with little to live on, than be king over all the dead” (Odyssey xi. 489-91 quoted in Republic III.386c), as famously asserted by Achilles in Odysseus’ katabasis, one might suppose that a culture favouring that myth would be ‘life-affirming’ and fearful of death. Indeed, this very quote is utilized by Socrates in Republic III to discredit the usefulness and acceptability of Homeric epic, as it causes soldiers to fear death more than slavery, since even Achilles, arguably the greatest warrior in Ancient Greek mythology and the champion of Greek aretē, would prefer to be a slave than to be a shade in Hades.

It is therefore perhaps not surprising, given Edmonds’ definition of mythology as agonistic discourse which reflects a culture’s beliefs, that Plato utilizes mythic discourse despite his constant condemnation of it. The myths that he constructs in his own dialogues compete with the myths dominantly held by both aristocrats and the hoi polloi alike, and therefore Plato’s eschatological myths, and in particular the katabasis of Er, represent an inversion of traditional Greek concepts of the afterlife. Instead of becoming a mindless, gibbering shadow of one’s former self, “a mere phantasm, with its wits completely gone” (Iliad xxiii.103-4, quoted in Republic III.386d), Plato’s version of the afterlife is a mere transition between one’s previous life and the next, reincarnated life. Each soul in the underworld still possesses their mind, memories, and reasoning ability, and as such choose their next life based on “the character of their former life” (X.620a). According to Socrates, so long as an individual devoted herself to the pursuit of philosophy and the Good in her former life, she will be able to recognize what a truly good life

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looks like in the underworld. The character of a person’s afterlife is not the same for all, but rather depends upon the moral integrity of the person in question.

The myth of Er is therefore a rival myth to those being perpetuated by Homeric epic and Hesiodic verse, and Plato clearly understood the power of myth to codify cultural practices and beliefs. He therefore supposed that replacing stories of the underworld in Homer with his own mythology would encourage people to act morally and righteously in life, rather than do anything to avoid death. It has the rather elegant twofold effect of on the one hand proving that death is not a horrible thing, abolishing any fear of death in life, and on the other, giving people a powerful reason to act morally and justly in their life so as to procure for themselves a pleasant afterlife and subsequent reincarnation. The Myth of Er in the Republic thus acts as a competitor to the versions of the underworld presented by Homer and Hesiod. The katabasis of Er also competes with Glaucon’s myth of the Lydian shepherd, which shares the generic form of the katabasis and portrays the life of injustice as the best, ultimately disproving it by demonstrating the blessed afterlife of just and philosophical souls. Plato’s version of the katabasis and portrayal of the afterlife are thus not mere poetic ornamentations, but serve the philosophical thrust of the dialogue as a whole, by acting as an inversion of the traditional, Homeric-style katabasis, as well as the counter-argument to the ‘katabasis’ of the Lydian shepherd narrated by Glaucon in Book III. It might be objected that the story of the ring of Gyges is not a katabasis per se, since the shepherd does not explicitly travel into the underworld and the story lacks certain other structural elements of the katabasis, such as the tripartite construction that Radcliffe G. 261

Edmonds identified as the presence of “obstacles […] solutions […] and results.” Whatever

261

Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey, 22.

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features of the katabasis that Glaucon’s story seems to lack in terms of specific motifs and plot structure, however, one can allow given its overall thematic parallels with the traditional katabasis.

Some superficial elements of Glaucon’s story liken it to a katabasis, such as the fact that katabases almost exclusively take place via a descent or an ascent into another realm, and the Lydian shepherd descends into the chasm in the earth, as well as the fact that the shepherd encounters a corpse (νεκρόν) “of more than human size” (II.359d), establishing a connection to death and an otherworldly, unhuman realm. Additionally, the language which Glaucon employs in the description of the shepherd’s descent likens it to a katabasis. After watching the chasm emerge in the earth, the verb that Plato employs to describe the shepherd’s descent into the chasm is the verb καταβαίνω, ‘to go down’. This is where the word katabasis comes from, which means the exact thing, only in the noun form – literally a ‘going down.’

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But perhaps most importantly, the story mirrors what some scholars have identified as the essential symbolic meaning of the Greek katabasis, namely, that “the peculiar pattern of a person’s departure from the land of the living and journey to the realm of the dead […] entails 262

the death of the old self and rebirth into the new mature personality,” constituting a “replacement of the old self with the new.”11 This underlying interpretation of the symbolic meaning of the katabasis is exhibited in the shepherd’s descent and acquisition of the ring. In the beginning of the story he is a lowly shepherd, whereas after undergoing his own ‘katabasis’ he emerges as an entirely new person, that of a lawless tyrant who commits great crimes with the newfound power he received via the katabasis, namely the ring. The notion of the katabasis symbolically representing a fundamental rebirth or change in a person’s character is literalized in the myth of Er, in which souls are literally reincarnated into a new life, based on the memories of their past – hence, Orpheus chooses “a swan’s life, because he hated the female sex because of his death at their hands”, Ajax the life of a lion “because he remembered the judgement about the armor”, Atalanta the life of “a male athlete,” and Odysseus the life of “a private individual who did his own work” (X.620a-d). The katabasis is completed after each soul drinks from the water of the Lethe, and subsequently ascends “up to their births like shooting stars” (X.621b). If the rebirth of the Lydian shepherd or Odysseus in their respective katabases appears symbolic, Plato’s katabasis brought this metaphor into the realm of the literal. Indeed, Plato ending the Republic with a katabasis holds further significance. The reader, as a passive observer (much like Er) effectively has her own katabasis, with Plato intending that she will emerge from the dialogue itself reborn and with a newfound conviction in the intrinsic goodness of justice, the

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Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey, 18.

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philosophical aim of the entire dialogue, and hence “both in this life and on the thousand-year journey […] do well and be happy” (X.621d). Further support for this argument is found in the fact that the first word of the Republic is the verb καταβαίνω, used in the first-person aorist form

by Socrates to describe his ‘going down’ to the Piraeus to see the festival of Bendis. The dialogue as a whole is therefore a kind of katabasis, with the reader descending, like Er, into the text itself as an observer of Socrates’ discussions as Socrates himself (deceased at the time in which Plato was writing this, as well) transitions from the ‘early dialogue’ elenctic and intellectually numbing questioner of all claims to knowledge, into the paradigmatic teacher of a positive conception of justice that becomes the Socrates of Plato’s ‘later period’ dialogues. That Plato’s eschatological myths often occur at the end of his dialogues (e.g. Phaedo and Gorgias) may in fact indicate that, throughout the course of reading and engaging with the arguments of the dialogue, Plato hopes that the reader will be reborn with respect to her philosophical and ethical views.

While the Republic ends with the Errian katabasis, it is arguably the case that the main bulk of the text, and Plato’s complex argument for the intrinsic worth of justice, begins with the Lydian shepherd’s katabasis. The two stories therefore mirror each other in interesting ways, and Rachel Barney has pointed out that “the ‘choice of lives’ depicted in the Myth of Er […] clearly stands in a ring-relation to Glaucon’s Book II speech and the myth of Gyges’ ring in particular” in that “both passages are images of ‘context free choice’, the selection of a destiny in a magical 263

absence of social constraints and moral convention.” While the Lydian shepherd chooses the life of a lawless tyrant, the just soul in the myth of Er chooses the life that may not initially

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Barney, “Ring-Composition,” 40.

13

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appear to be glamorous and fulfilling, but based on her philosophical training and knowledge is able to see beyond the superficially attractive life and instead chooses the life of a just, modest individual. Barney argued that the story of the Lydian shepherd is thus a representation of the choice of the “unreflective person,”13 who immediately gravitates towards the life of the tyrant, mistakenly believing it will allow him to do whatever he desires however he pleases. Ironically enough, the absolute notion of freedom that is apparently granted to the tyrant however turns out to be the worst possible slavery according to Plato’s argument.

As such, both the myth of Er and the story of the ring of Gyges exemplify the political theme of tyranny, slavery, and freedom. Of the individuals in the underworld who had led an unjust life, “pretty well all […] were tyrants” (X.615d). According to Er, the first individual to come up from his thousand-year torment below the earth, and who could be a reference to Glaucon’s Lydian shepherd, when choosing his subsequent life “chose the greatest tyranny. In his folly and greed he chose it without adequate examination” (X.619c). On the other hand, Glaucon explains that once the shepherd of the Lydian king finds the ring, he goes on immediately to seduce the queen and take over the kingdom of Lydia and is therefore paradigmatic of a Greek tyrant. The myth of Er is therefore an inversion of Glaucon’s story, as it condemns the tyrant and shows him to be the unhappiest of all the souls in the underworld, for they must suffer the worst punishments for sometimes indefinite amounts of time. As Rachel Barney pointed out, “the Myth of Er serves to (among other things) correct the Ring of Gyges story, showing that it only depicts human nature in its uneducated state and thus misrepresents the powers of justice.”14 The Myth of Er is, in a sense, Socrates’ counterargument in the same format as Glaucon’s, creating a thematic and literary ‘ring’ – funnily enough, the structure of the dialogue mimics the very object

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which the shepherd uses to perform unjust actions, the daktulion. But worst of all, the unreflective and unjust person who chooses the life of the tyrant lives is the most wretched not merely in her death, but even in her waking life. This is because the unjust tyrant has a fundamentally corrupt understanding of freedom, thinking that true freedom and happiness is found in one’s ability to do whatever one wants (ποιεῖν ὅτι ἂν βούληται) with no social or civic restraints (as was the prerogative of the actual ancient tyrant) when in fact Plato proves through his definition of justice that the life of the unjust person, exemplified in the tyrant, is the life of greatest enslavement.

There is, however, another important thematic connection between the myth of the ring and the myth of Er, namely the theme of spectacle and the predominance of visual language.

Many scholars have pointed out that the myth of the Gygean ring is remarkably fabulous.

Glaucon does not merely present the Lydian shepherd and the magic ring, but rather describes specific and seemingly decorative details of the protagonist’s acquisition of it. Glaucon describes that “an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm […and that] seeing [ἰδόντα] this, [the shepherd] was filled with amazement [θαυμάσαντα] and went down [καταβῆναι] into it. And there, in addition to many other wonders of which we’re told [ἰδεῖν ἄλλα τε δὴ ἃ μυθολογοῦσιν], he saw a hollow bronze horse [… and] a corpse, which seemed to be of more than human size, 264

wearing nothing but a gold ring [χρυσοῦν δακτύλιον] on its finger” (Republic., II.359d-e).

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Plato, “The Republic,” 359d-e.

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As Andrew Laird points out, “Glaucon’s narrative […] contains a great deal of descriptive detail, 265

apparently superfluous for the ends to which the story is told.” These details do not serve any specific philosophical purpose on the face of it, and indeed are unnecessary to establish the overall point of the thought experiment, namely that human beings are predisposed to self-interested injustice if they are able to get away with it. The literary and fantastic qualities of Glaucon’s dianoia have been partly ignored or written off as one of Plato’s mythopoetic flourishes, which do not necessarily play any significant role in the overall philosophical argument. The language and narrative details of the myth of the ring, however, serve an important philosophical role in the Republic by establishing the themes of vision and spectacle and setting up the contrast between the liberating intellectual sight of the philosopher on the one hand, and the enslaving sensible sight of the tyrant or non-philosopher on the other.

Visual language is highly prominent in the Republic. In setting out the argument that justice is intrinsically worthy of choice, Socrates proposes that, in trying to understand what justice is, it would be easier to ‘see’ it if it were displayed on a larger scale, such as in a collective polis rather than an individual soul. He uses an analogy of larger and smaller letters, and since the pursuit of understanding justice “is not easy but requires keen eyesight [οὐ φαῦλον ἀλλ᾽ ὀξὺ βλέποντος]” (Rep., II.368c, slightly modified), they ought to try to “read the larger ones first and then […] examine [ἐπισκοπεῖν] the smaller ones” (Rep., II.368c). In addition, when Socrates and his interlocutors have constructed Kallipolis, Socrates instructs them to ‘look’ into the city in order to see where justice is. At first, Socrates is remiss, until with a joyful ‘iou, iou!’ he “[catches] sight of something [καὶ ἐγὼ κατιδών]” (IV.432d), namely, that justice is the ‘minding of one’s own business’ exhibited between the various classes. Socrates constantly uses visual imagery in trying

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Andrew Laird, “Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s Republic,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001): 19.

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to grasp the nature of justice. The metaphor of seeing as understanding or contemplating is continued when describing the philosophical process and the education of the philosopher kings.

In both the simile of the sun in Book VI and the allegory of the cave in Book VII, the philosopher figuratively looks upon the form of the Good, symbolized in both myths as the sun.

Plato uses the sun as an analogy for the form of the Good, which he calls “the offspring of the good, which the good begot as its analogue. What the good itself is in the intelligible realm, in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the sun is in the visible realm, in relation to sight and visible things” (VI.508b-c). Plato argues that the sun, an entity which illuminates and “makes the things we see visible” (VI.509b) is as an analogue to the Good, which similarly possesses a property which illuminates or makes intelligible forms and noetic concepts. Just as the sun produces light which enables one to see her surroundings by means of her eyes, so too the Good enables noetic concepts beyond the sensible world to be grasped by the human mind.

The allegory of the cave continues the analogy of philosophical enlightenment and grasping of the forms with the language of vision and sight. When Socrates describes the allegory of the cave, he exhorts Glaucon to “consider, then, what being released from their bonds and cured of their ignorance would naturally be like” (VII.514c), with ‘consider’ translating skopei, meaning literally ‘look’ or ‘examine’. Later, Socrates says that if a philosopher manages to break free from the cave, and “[looks] up toward the light, [πρὸς τὸ φῶς ἀναβλέπειν] he’d be pained and dazzled and unable to see [ἀδυνατοῖ καθορᾶν] the things whose shadows he’d seen [ἑώρα] before” (VII.514c-d). It is only after the philosopher has adjusted to the brightness of the outside world that she will finally “be able to see the sun itself, in its own place, and be able to study it [δύναιτ᾽ ἂν κατιδεῖν καὶ θεάσασθαι οἷός ἐστιν]” (VII.516b). ‘Study’ translates theaomai,

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which denotes gazing and beholding in general in addition to studying. Interestingly, theaomai also appears to have the same etymological root as theoria, the act of ‘looking at, viewing, beholding’, and even ‘sightseeing’, from which we derive our English word ‘theory’.

The allegory of the cave functions as a metaphor for philosophical enlightenment, and Plato takes great pains throughout the Republic and elsewhere in his corpus to remind his readers that the forms, or noetic concepts, are not grasped by sense organs, but by the mind itself. The language of sight works as a proxy for the intellectual activity of Platonic contemplation and comes across as a puzzling metaphor given Plato’s seemingly rational (as opposed to empirical) epistemology. One might expect that, given Plato’s rejection of the sensible realm as inherently unknowable and imperfect, he would attempt to distance his epistemological arguments from such language rather than actively employ it. Plato constantly reminds his readers that information derived from the sensible realm is inconstant and unreliable and can only be counted as ‘opinion’ rather than knowledge proper. On his view it is impossible to truly know anything by means of the senses, because every sensible object is itself an imperfect image of something more real, namely the abstract and noetic form of which it is an instantiation. Why, then, does he use the language of sight when describing the philosopher’s understanding and recognition of the forms? It seems odd to advocate for a rational epistemology and at the same time linguistically suggest that sight is imperative to true philosophical understanding.

One reason that I would like to offer as to why Plato used visual language when allegorizing the process of intellection may be as an ironic critique of Greek empiricists and naturalists emerging during the Greek pre-Socratic intellectual ‘enlightenment’, as well as colloquial Greek vernacular in general. Scholars of the Greek language have often pointed to the highly sensory nature of Ancient Greek, perhaps most notably with words such as the verb οἶδα, ‘to know’, which is the

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past perfective form of the verb ὁράω, to see – οἶδα in its original and literal translation merely means ‘to have seen’. In the Greek context, the notion of having seen something in the past becomes equated with knowing something in the present moment. Plato, rejecting the notion that one can have true knowledge from mere sense perception alone, as he reveals for example in the divided line analogy in the Republic (VI.510a, 511c-e), may have utilized the language of vision in connection to contemplative activity as a means of usurping its original meaning, as an empirical activity, into something rational and a priori, not involving sense organs or having as its objects sensible things. Indeed, after Socrates has elucidated the analogy of the cave, he states that “education isn’t what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes” (VII.517b-c). Rather, education is the process of ‘turning’ the soul’s ‘eye’ away from the changing and illusory realm of sensible objects to the stable, permanent, and divine realm of the Forms, namely, “where it ought to look” (VII.518d).

The “vicious and clever” individuals Plato alludes to next, who have “keen vision” nevertheless direct this vision towards objects which it shouldn’t be directed to, the changing and illusory realm of becoming, and as such “[are] forced to serve evil ends” (VII. 519a) rather than the divine ends grasped by the philosopher’s ‘vision.’ These vicious and clever individuals are likely the ‘counterfeit philosophers,’ or, on Plato’s reckoning, the sophists and natural philosophers, who do not look beyond the realm of the changing and inconstant, directing their intellectual gaze instead to the world of becoming. Plato’s exhortation is therefore to turn our own eyes and attentions away from the inferior realm and fixate instead on entities existing beyond the realm of sense perception.

Plato’s use of visual language in the Republic is an attempt to recontextualize the notion of ‘sight’, specifically to shift the connotations of seeing away from the realm of the material and

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ephemeral, which had been customary for Greek Presocratics, historiographers, playwrights, and even everyday Ancient Greek people, towards the abstract and intellectual sight of the unchanging, eternal, and divine Forms. In a way, Plato was pioneering his own technical notion of the concept of seeing. This perhaps should not be seen as radical or surprising of Plato.

Indeed, there seems to be an important connection between the unqualified and radical freedom to ‘do whatever one wants’ and sight in both the Republic and the Laws. André Laks points to “the famous description of ‘the excessive development of the free way of life’ […] in Athens, beginning with disrespect for rules governing music, followed by unchecked democracy, and 266

ending in the return to our ‘Titanic nature’ (701c) through ‘theatrocracy’ (700a-701b)” as the passage which “makes abundantly clear […] that essential to Plato’s admission of freedom as a goal is the question of its scope.”18 The kind of freedom which the Athenians pursued led to a θεατροκρατία, literally rule of the spectator or theatre, and is mythologized by Plato in the allegory of the cave, with the prisoners representing spectators in a theatre and the cave wall being the theatre itself. The Athenian in the Laws suggests that “music proved to be the starting point of everyone’s conviction that he was an authority on everything, and of a general disregard for the law […] The conviction that they knew made them unafraid, and assurance engendered 267

effrontery.” The imprisoned spectators in the cave similarly believe that they know and understand the objects of which they only see shadows, even though they are actually ignorant of the true nature of these objects. It is only the philosopher who redirects her sight to look upon the objects themselves, and eventually the Forms themselves, and thus gains true knowledge

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André Laks, “Freedom, Liberality, and Liberty,” in Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy, eds. David Keyt and Fred D. Miller Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 142. 18 Laks, “Freedom,” 143.

267 Plato, “Laws,” trans. Trevor J. Saunders, in The Complete Works of Plato, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), III.701a8-b1.

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rather than mere opinion. This suggests that Plato believed that the radical and unqualified freedom of the Athenian government led to an enslavement to sights and spectacles because they directed their gaze at the wrong objects. The Lydian shepherd in Glaucon’s myth similarly directs his sights towards the spectacles in the chasm, and because of the magic ring is able to ‘do whatever he wants,’ leading him to become an unjust tyrant. The philosopher on the other hand, freed from the cave, looks at the right objects and in doing so becomes truly free. The subversive effect of the Republic is achieved in the very language, to which he assigns new semantic meaning.

Visual language is heavily employed in both the myth of Gyges and the myth of Er in addition to the allegory of the cave, representing Plato’s attempt to reorient the connotations of sight away from the transitory world of the senses, and by extension one’s own self-interest, to the intellectual realm of philosophy and the Forms. When the chasm in the earth opens up, the Lydian shepherd, “seeing [ἰδόντα] this […] was filled with amazement.” In addition, he “[sees, ἰδεῖν] a hollow bronze horse,” is described as “peeping in [ἐγκύψαντα],” and “[sees, ἰδεῖν] a corpse” (359d-e). The seemingly decorative details of the Lydian shepherd’s journey into the chasm are all punctuated with the language of vision. And indeed, the power of the ring is that it allows him to be unseen by all when he puts it on. Thus, it could be argued that the shepherd was only able to see his own self-interest and advantage. The theme of spectacle and freedom/slavery is artfully established from the very beginning of the dialogue in the story of Gyges and thus foreshadows Plato’s subsequent philosophical arguments for the intrinsic worth of justice.

In addition, Socrates’ myth of Er contains a great deal of visual language. Glaucon’s story of the Lydian shepherd and the myth of Er share an overlapping connection to the visual themes of the Republic as a whole. In the eschatological myth, the just souls who have come from below the earth “recalled all they had suffered and seen [ἴδοιεν]” (X.615a) whereas the souls who had

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come down from heaven explain to Er “the inconceivably fine and beautiful sights they had seen [εὐπαθείας διηγεῖσθαι καὶ θέας ἀμηχάνους τὸ κάλλος]” (X.615a). These “inconceivably fine and beautiful sights” seem to be a reference to the Platonic forms, which again are described metaphorically as being ‘seen’ just as they were in the allegory of the cave and the simile of the sun. In the Phaedrus as well, discarnate souls are described by Socrates as catching glimpses of the forms, some getting a better look and others a worse one, which affects the life they lead once they become embodied (Phaedrus, 247c-d, 248b-d). The souls who get a better look at the forms in their discarnate state have a greater memory of the forms in embodied life, and therefore become philosophers, or are more disposed to do so, thereby living a more blessed life. Socrates therefore uses the myth of Er to disprove the supposed happiness of the possessor of the ring, if she chose to use it for evil and self-serving ends rather than just ends. Whereas the Lydian shepherd figuratively reveals himself to be an unjust person through his ability to remain unseen by his peers, the philosopher in contrast becomes just and virtuous due to her visual/intellectual acquaintance with the forms, with Plato’s conclusion being that the latter live happier lives both while alive and in death. The spectacles that the Lydian shepherd sees while exploring the chasm in the earth – the ring, the corpse, the wooden horse, etc. – are all juxtaposed to the beautiful sights, namely the forms, one of which might be the form of Justice itself, that both Er and the just souls witness in the underworld. While the possessor of the ring becomes a tyrant, seemingly gaining everything he wanted such as power, wealth, and sexual gratification, the myth of Er ultimately reveals that tyrants fare the worst in the underworld, suffering for many years and choosing lives that are clearly miserable and wretched. The sight of the Lydian shepherd, so frequently alluded to in the language of the thought experiment, is thus comparable to the sight of the vicious and clever counterfeit philosophers, who are “forced to serve evil ends” (VII.

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519a). On the other hand, the sight of the just soul is directed toward the unchanging and eternal realm of the forms, the very sight of which allows her to become just by imitating their orderly patterns and thus lead a blessed afterlife.

In addition, in Book IX when Socrates and Glaucon are determining which of the lives they have described in the previous books is the most pleasant, Socrates cautions his interlocutors to “not be dazzled [μὴ ἐκπληττώμεθα] looking at one man – a tyrant – [πρὸς τὸν τύραννον ἕνα ὄντα βλέποντες] […] since it is essential to go into the city and study [θεάσασθαι] the whole of it, […and] not give [ἀποφαινώμεθα, literally ‘cause to appear out’] our opinion, till we’ve gone down and looked [ἰδόντες] into every corner” (IX.576d-e). This is a remarkable passage for two reasons. First, due to the clear visual language Plato once again employs in seeking the nature of justice (and in this case, its intrinsic worth particularly, as it is connected to the judgement that the just life is the most pleasant). Second, Socrates’ advice not to look solely at the tyrant because he is one man (ἕνα ὄντα), suggests that one kind of seeing involves the seeing of particulars or individuals (recall the Symposian staircase, wherein admiring particular beautiful things is the lowest step towards the contemplation of the Form itself), whereas the other involves looking into “every corner” (εἰς ἅπασαν) of the “whole” city (ὅλην τὴν πόλιν). The thematic force is captured not only in the fact that it echoes Socrates’ earlier defence against Glaucon that a legislator ought to aim at the benefit of the entire city, and not merely one individual or social class, but also insofar as the forms themselves encapsulate all of their particular instantiations and are thus in some sense “whole”. By looking into the ‘whole city’ rather than at one individual within it, Socrates and his interlocutors seem to be examining the Form of justice itself, and not an individual instantiation of justice (or the lack thereof). The contrast between the visual spectacles of the just souls in the myth of Er with the spectacles of the Lydian shepherd in Glaucon’s thought experiment serves to solidify and bolster the final

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verdict of the Republic, namely that the just individual is supremely happy, and consequently that choosing to be just is always beneficial for its own sake. While the philosopher turns her gaze at that which is stable and knowable, i.e. the forms, and as a result is able to order her life in a patterned and harmonious way, the unjust shepherd on the other hand directs his gaze at riches, power, and wealth, and consequently becomes a tyrant. Both the myth of the ring and the myth of Er connect the themes of justice, spectacle, and freedom/tyranny, and reveal that the philosopher is the only person able to see true justice, whereas the Lydian shepherd only sees his own gain.

Glaucon’s myth of the ring of Gyges contains more fundamental philosophical importance to Plato’s argument for the intrinsic worth of justice than has been previously recognized. The story of Gyges’ ring represents the dominant political views of the ancient Athenians in Plato’s time that justice is instrumentally valuable and that the life of the tyrant who is able to do whatever he wants is the greatest mortal existence. Plato uses Glaucon’s myth to represent this false view of justice and demonstrate the opposite view, namely that justice is intrinsically valuable, by showing that the tyrant is the most wretched individual both in his life and his death due to his enslavement to spectacles, self-interest, and appetite. On the other hand, the truly blessed life is awarded to the just philosopher who orients her life around the divine forms, liberating herself from the material, sensible realm, and in doing so achieves true Platonic freedom.

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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Plato. “Laws.” Translated by Trevor J. Saunders. In The Complete Works of Plato, edited by John M. Cooper, 1318-1616. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.

Plato. “The Republic.” Translated by G.M.A. Grube and C.D.C. Reeve. In The Complete Works of Plato, edited by John M. Cooper, 971-1223. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.

Secondary Sources Barney, Rachel. “Platonic Ring-Composition and Republic 10.” In Plato’s Republic: A Critical Guide, ed. M. McPherran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Dova, Stamatia. Greek Heroes in and out of Hades. Maryland: Lexington Books, 2012.

Edmonds, Radcliffe G. III. Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Laird, Andrew. “Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s Republic.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001): 12-29.

Laks, André. “Freedom, Liberality, and Liberty.” In Freedom, Reason, and the Polis: Essays in Ancient Greek Political Philosophy, edited by David Keyt and Fred D. Miller Jr., 130-152. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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A Bit of a Fixer-Upper: a Platonic Re-evaluation of Disney and Childhood Education

Sasha Boghosian, McGill As a child, some of my favorite movies were the Disney Princess movies. I loved the songs, the beauty and grace of the princesses and the magical storylines. Many children similarly grew up watching Disney movies and admiring the characters they saw on screen, and in turn, much scholarship has been done regarding the impact of movies such as Snow White, Cinderella and Frozen on children’s behavior and development. Are these movies inherently bad? What values do they transmit? These are some of the important questions that researchers have sought to answer since the popularity of Disney boomed in the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, these are questions that have been surfacing since the ancient world. In The Republic, Plato details his thoughts regarding the education of children through athletics, but most importantly through song and storytelling. By first examining Plato’s view on early childhood education, I aim to examine its relevance in our modern day through an analysis of Disney films in order to determine the ways in which they might transmit values and expectations onto children. To do so, modern theory on children’s education and understanding of television will be consulted, followed by an examination of the different kinds of stereotypes, beliefs, attitudes and values Disney films might perpetuate. To conclude, the evidence reveals that Plato’s contemplations in The Republic are indeed still relevant.

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Plato on education: The Republic, Book 2 Plato’s Republic envisions the creation of a perfect city through a series of philosophical musings regarding the most essential parts of city-building. As the future generation of archons, judicial officers and citizens, children and their education are incredibly crucial parts of the city-planning process. Children must be educated in a way that will ensure that they are prepared to take on the roles of their mothers and fathers, as well as to make changes and maintain traditions that reflect the values and beliefs of the society in question. Plato first introduces the subject of children’s education with a rhetorical question: οὐκοῦν οἶσθʼ ὅτι ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον, ἄλλως τε δὴ καὶ νέῳ καὶ ἁπαλῷ ὁτῳοῦν; μάλιστα γὰρ δὴ τότε πλάττεται, καὶ ἐνδύεται τύπος ὃν ἄν τις βούληται ἐνσημήνασθαι ἑκάστῳ (The Republic 377a12-b3).

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He explains that

children are incredibly impressionable, especially at an early age: “Therefore do you not know that the beginning of every work is the greatest, especially for those [that are] young and tender?

For then they are most easily moulded, and take on any impression which one wishes to stamp on each” (The Republic 377a12-b3).

This then sets up his argument that the stories told to children must be vetted in order to ensure that they will grow up to hold the right values in adulthood: ἆρʼ οὖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτω παρήσομεν τοὺς ἐπιτυχόντας ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων μύθους πλασθέντας ἀκούειν τοὺς παῖδας καὶ λαμβάνειν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἐναντίας δόξας ἐκείναις ἅς, ἐπειδὰν τελεωθῶσιν, ἔχειν οἰησόμεθα δεῖν αὐτούς (The Republic 377b5-9). After all, “[shall] we not then carelessly allow the children to listen to any stories made up by anyone and to allow them to seize in their minds the

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Murray,, 51.

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many values opposite to ours, until they should grow up and we will think that it is necessary [for them] to hold these values” (The Republic 377b5-9)?

The responsibility of relaying the correct stories is delegated to mothers and nurses, the primary caretakers of children: τοὺς δʼ ἐγκριθέντας πείσομεν τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας λέγειν τοῖς παισίν, καὶ πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τοῖς μύθοις πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσίν· ὧν δὲ νῦν λέγουσι τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐκβλητέον (The Republic 377c2-5). In this passage, Plato writes that “[we] will persuade the nurses and the mothers to tell the children the admitted stories, and to mould their own minds with stories much more than to mould their bodies with hands. Many of the stories they tell must now be cast out” (The Republic 377c2-5). According to Plato, stories, which tended to be transmitted through song, should only be approved if they would mould children in the right way. The right way to mould children highly depended on the beliefs and values of the society in which these children were being raised. Does our North American society today agree and follow Plato’s point of view regarding the education of children through storytelling?

The effects of television on children It may come of no surprise that children can be greatly influenced by the various media they consume in our modern day. Besides books, television and movies are some of the most popular forms of storytelling encountered by children. There is a plethora of programming designed to capture children’s attention and teach them various subjects. The extent of the influence of television and movies on children’s development has been widely researched, but

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not yet fully understood. In spite of this, there have been many advancements made in the field regarding children’s ability to follow, understand and learn from television and movies.

Amongst those multiple studies, one in particular examined children aged three to five years old by placing them in a room for three hours with snacks, toys and various television programming playing in the background. They were then observed to see what aspects of the programming would catch and maintain their attention. The results showed that sound effects were most effective in regaining children’s attention while they were distracted, and an interesting 269

visual landscape was enough to maintain it.

In addition, children have also been tested for their

memory and understanding of plots. It has been determined that as children get older, they are increasingly able to understand the main plot, remember other information peripherally to the main story, and identify the emotions portrayed by an actor as well as the causes which led to the 270

events.

As they grow older, from the ages of about three to twelve, children also become better 271

at differentiating television content that is real and fictional.

It is clear, then, that children’s

ability to pay attention, memorize, understand and follow plots and characters increases with age.

Another important question asked by scholars is whether children select role models to follow from television programming and modify their behavior accordingly. A study conducted on nursery-school children found that after watching an adult character on the television be affectionate towards a toy clown, children tended to follow suit. More specifically, it was found that boys were most likely to follow this character’s lead if the character was male, but a female character performing the same action was shown not to have the same effect. This suggests that even at such an early age, children might already be selecting role models for themselves Gunter and Gunter, 38.

Gunter and Gunter, 43-44.

271 Gunter and Gunter, 48.

269 270

134

272

according to certain similar characteristics such as sex.

Besides behavior, children might also

gain certain values, beliefs and attitudes from characters they perceive as role models.

273

Multiple

viewings of various films and television shows are likely to make an even bigger impact on 274

children’s behaviors, attitudes and world view . Whilst there are many blank spaces in this research, it is possible to see that the types of characters shown in television and movies can indeed have an effect on children’s behavior.

Disney and its impact It’s a tale nearly as old as time: fairy tales have been written and rewritten for centuries, each version edited and re-edited to remove the old and include the new.

275

Today, one of the

most successful producers of both new and reimagined fairy tales is the Walt Disney company.

As one of the primary producers of children’s movies, Walt Disney has managed to create an 276

incredibly far-reaching empire which offers pleasure and fantasy as one of its main attractions.

Walt Disney was perhaps one of the first to understand that entertainment such as movies could 277

be an excellent platform for the promotion of certain values and practices to children.

Thus he

created movies that reflected American culture at the time of their creation and release. This is especially obvious when investigating different aspects of the Disney Princess movies.

Gunter and Gunter, 118.

Gunter and Gunter, 69.

274 Fouts et al, 16.

275 Taber, 120.

276 Giroux and Pollock, 97.

277 Giroux and Pollock, 18.

272 273

135

The Disney Princess films are riddled with love stories, most of which have a happy ending. These love stories, especially earlier ones such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, promote 278

the idea of love at first sight.

Throughout the movie, the relationship is pursued through the 279

persistence of the male character, who often must save the damsel in distress.

The male

character’s role as the pursuer still dominates Disney films, but mostly because the films now 280

tend to move away entirely from romance in order to display other forms of love.

Frozen is a

good example: in a moment of danger both to her own and to her sister Elsa’s well-being, Anna chooses to defend Elsa against the villain rather than to run to Kristoff, who might help her survive her frozen heart. Later, Elsa’s love for her sister cures Anna’s frozen heart and thaws her back to life. This warm display of sisterly love was something entirely new for Disney. It played on expectations that were set by Disney’s preceding movies, in which the prince would surely have cured Anna’s frozen heart. More recent movies such as Frozen and Princess and the Frog clearly demonstrate Disney’s response to a changing socio-cultural context which values a portrayal of 281

more diverse and realistic forms of love.

This change could have a more positive impact on the

young viewers of these films regarding romantic relationships, though it might not be enough to counter the possible impact made by the older films which continue to be popular.

Traditional gender roles and stereotypes are also rampant in the Disney Princess films.

The role of damsel in distress is especially pronounced in the older era of Disney movies, notably those dating from 1937 to the 1980s. The main characteristics associated with these princesses were passiveness, obedience and quietness, as well as being seen as dutiful, self-sacrificing and

Hefner et al, 512.

Hefner et al, 529.

280 Hefner et al, 529.

281 Hefner et al, 527-528.

278 279

136

subservient to males.

282

The princesses from films dating from the 1990s to the early 2000s such

as Belle, Mulan and Pocahontas were also seen as being dutiful, self-sacrificing and subservient to males, but slowly began to break from the traditional gender roles through displays of strength 283

and independence.

Finally, in the most recent era, the princesses seem to be completely free of 284

these gender roles and no longer defined by their relationships to men.

This shows an

ever-increasing complexity in the portrayal of gender, but is it enough? Once again, the ever-present popularity of the older movies must be considered, since they will continue to affect children’s development as long as they are being watched.

285

Girls especially have been found to

emulate certain behaviors based on their perception of the Disney Princesses, which shows that these movies can indeed contribute to a culture of “girly” behavior.

286

When playing as

princesses, girls as young as five years old have been found to make comments regarding especially their own or another’s physical appearance, one girl noting that she looked as “pretty as 287

Cinderella.”

Girls have also been found to spend a significant amount of time putting on

dresses and various accessories in order to look more like princesses, whilst also making certain 288

poses which they believed to be the appropriate mannerisms for the princesses to make.

What Would Plato Do? Several parallels can therefore be seen between Plato’s views on children’s education and our modern reality. Plato’s belief that children can be moulded by the stories they grow up Hefner et al, 513.

Hefner et al, 513.

284 Hefner et al, 513.

285 Coyne et al, 1910..

286 Coyne et al, 1921.

287 Golden and Jacoby, 305-306.

288 Golden and Jacoby, 306-307.

282 283

137

hearing has proven to be true, though only to a certain extent. Though perhaps unable to follow, remember or understand stories at a young age, children have been found to emulate behaviors seen in characters with whom they identify on the basis of characteristics such as sex.

Additionally, it is clear that as one of the most popular producers of children’s entertainment, Disney movies can indeed impress upon children certain values and stereotypes. Disney movies have been found to perpetuate stereotypes regarding gender roles as well as idealized notions of romantic relationships. When studied, children behaved and spoke in ways which showed that they had been moulded by some of the stereotypes seen within the viewed films. Due to this impact, many have suggested that parents and teachers should help foster a learning environment around the films by discussing their content with children. In addition, they can 289

minimize any possibly negative impact by limiting the viewing of certain films.

By encouraging

parents and teachers to discuss and perhaps choose to show only those films which are appropriate for their children, scholars are at least somewhat in accord with Plato’s call to only tell children the stories which reflect the right values and which will impress upon them the correct beliefs. Since the ancient world, children’s fairy tales and stories have been reworked, 290

censored, approved, read and retold.

It is only recently, with the advent of scientific,

sociological and psychological studies, that we are able to ascertain the benefits and the shortcomings in doing so.

289 290

Giroux and Pollock, 128.

Bacchilega, 3.

138

Conclusion To conclude, based on much newly published research, it is clear that Disney movies, like any other stories, can and do transmit certain values, stereotypes, beliefs and attitudes to children.

The complexity of romantic relationships as well as the role of women within these films has evolved over time according to the socio-cultural context within which the films were produced.

Still, the old Disney movies remain incredibly popular with children and may transmit outdated and immoral beliefs, especially surrounding gender. A suggestion to limit or have a discussion with children after viewing these films has been proposed by numerous scholars as a way to try to amend this disparity in thought. These results show that Plato’s philosophical musings regarding the education of children in The Republic are still incredibly relevant and are actively being approved by various scholars, though perhaps unknowingly.

139

Bibliography

Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Project Muse.

Coyne, Sarah M., Jennifer Ruh Linder, Eric E. Rasmussen, David A. Nelson and Victoria Birkbeck, “Pretty as a Princess: Longitudinal Effects of Engagement With Disney Princesses on Gender Stereotypes, Body Esteem, and Prosocial Behavior in Children,” Child Development 87, n. 6 (2016): 1909-1925, Academic Search Complete.

Fouts, Gregory, Mitchell Callan, Kelly Piasentin and Andrea Lawson. “Demonizing in Children’s Television Cartoons and Disney Animated Films,” Child Psychiatry and Human Development 37, n. 1 (June 2006): 15-23, Springer Complete Journals.

Giroux, Henry A. and Grace Pollock. The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.

Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Golden, Julia C. and Jennifer Wallace Jacoby. “Playing Princess: Preschool Girls’ Interpretations of Gender Stereotypes in Disney Princess Media,” Sex Roles 79, n. 1 (2018): 299-313, Springer Link.

Gunter, Barrie and Jill Gunter. Children and Television. London: Routledge, 2019. Francis & Group.

Hefner, Veronica, Rachel-Jean Firchau, Katie Norton and Gabriella Shevel. “Happily Ever After?

A Content Analysis of Romantic Ideals in Disney Princess Films,” Communication Studies 68, n. 5 (2017): 511-532, Taylor and Francis Group.

Murray, Penelope. ed., Plato on Poetry, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Tuber, Nancy. “Pedagogies of Gender in a Disney Mash-Up.” In Popular Culture as Pedagogy, edited

by K Jubas, Nancy Taber and T. Brown, 119-133. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2015.

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Torturous Love Magic: Simaetha’s Love Spell as Medicine Meghan O’Donnell, McGill

Eros is treated as a disease in ancient Greek literature and medical thought, and love magic was one way in which those suffering from this disease were able to find relief by a kind of psychological transfer of symptoms onto the target of the spell. Simaetha’s spell in Theocritus’ Idyll 2 is one such example of erotic magic, and is specifically an agōgē spell, intended to “lead” or “draw” (from the verb ἄγω) the target, in this case Delphis, to the performer of the spell. I argue that although this is a literary spell, the use of the iunx links it to contemporary agōgē spells, and acts as a medicine, a pharmakon, for the disease of eros. Greek identity is intertwined with love and its pains, and the search for a cure to a ‘disease’ which can only be healed by time.

Ancient Greek poets and medical writers alike treat eros as a disease. Faraone argues that the popular image program of Eros violently attacking his victims with whips or torches is best understood within the general context of beliefs about the etiology of diseases like epilepsy, quartan fever, and other illnesses that manifest themselves in violent agitations, shivering, or 291

feverish outbursts.

292

mind.

It is also conceptualized as a mental disease which attacks the heart or

The ferocity with which the author of the Hippocratic treatise On the Sacred Disease

attacks those who claim that diseases like epilepsy are caused by the gods underscores the popularity of this belief. Sappho famously describes the symptoms of love as such: “For when I look at you for a moment, then it is no longer possible for me to speak; my tongue has snapped,

291

Christopher A. Faraone, “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion (Eros),” in Ancient Greek Love Magic, 41-95 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 46-7.

292 Ibid., 44.

141

at once a subtle fire has stolen beneath my flesh, I see nothing with my eyes, my ears hum, sweat pours from me, a trembling seizes me all over, I am greener than grass, and it seems to me that I 293

am little short of dying.”

This description of love as a disease which incites burning, trembling,

and other symptoms characteristic of fever or even madness is found throughout Greek literature.

In regard to the treatment for eros, Faraone writes: “If the ancient Greeks, then, understood erotic seizure to be an unwanted affliction similar in its symptoms and divine causes to a violent disease like epilepsy, it should occasion little surpirse that the extant spells for indicing eros are quite similar in both form and content to traditional Greek cursing techniques.

Or to put it the other way around: if erotic passion is an accursed state, it stand to reason that 294

techniques of cursing can be used to instill such a passion in another person.”

Erotic magic

typically included the destruction of wax effigies or other materials in fire so as to project the 295

sufferings of the performer onto the target of the spell.

This is at the very heart of the ritual found in Theocritus’ Idyll 2, which takes place at night under the moon as two women, Simaetha and her slave Thestylis, perform love magic to win back Simaetha’s lover Delphis who has been seeing other lovers. Simaetha vows to “bind him with fire spells,” and calls upon Hecate to aid her magic.

296

The ἴυγξ, iunx, is then introduced

to the poem, with repeated lines instructing the bird-wheel to “draw that man to my house” breaking up the stanzas. This bird-wheel, the iunx, is identified with the wryneck, a bird whose

293

Sappho, Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus, trans. David A. Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982; Loeb Classical Library 142), 31.7-16.

294 Faraone, “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion,” 49.

295 Ibid., 50.

296 Theocritus, Theocritus. Moschus. Bion., trans. Neil Hopkinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015; Loeb Classical Library 28), 2.10-16.

142

writhing neck movements to attract mates is probably the reason for its use in magic.

297

The bird

was attached to a wheel with its wings spread out, whereupon the wheel was turned in an 298

attempt to draw the target of the spell toward its performer.

The word is also used, as it is

here, to refer to a magic wheel with no bird attached to it but with the same function. As the iunx motif is repeated, Simaetha works her fire magic. She instructs her slave to burn sacrificial barley 299

and bran and say “I scatter the bones of Delphis,” 300

because of the distress he has caused her.

and to burn laurel “against Delphis”

Hecate arrives, as indicated by the barking of dogs,

and the first part of the spell is complete, the goal of which is identified by Graf as making the 301

love, the fire, come back into Delphis’ body.

302

with love,”

304

libations.

Next, she melts wax so that “Delphis melt at once 303

turns a rhombus, an instrument for attracting like the iunx,

and pours three

She asks that Delphis “come to this house from the glossy wrestling school, like a 305

man made mad.”

She throws a piece of Delphis’ coat into the fire, pleading to Eros: “Ah, cruel

Love, why, like a leech from the marsh, have you fastened on me and drunk all the black blood 306

from my body?”

Finally, Simaetha instructs Thestylis to take a drink to Delphis that she will 307

made from a crushed lizard and to rub herbs on his threshold.

When the ritual is done, Simaetha follows it by recounting the story of how she became afflicted by eros in the first place, detailing her first encounter with Delphis. She describes her

297

A. S. F. Gow, “ΙΥΓΞ, ΡΟΜΒΟΣ, Rhombus, Turbo,” 1-13 in Journal of Hellenic Studies, no. 54 (1934), 3.

Ibid., 3.

299 Theocritus, Theocritus. Moschus. Bion., 2.18-21; 2.33.

300 Ibid., 2.23-6.

301 Fritz Graf, “Literary Representation of Magic,” in Magic in the Ancient World, 175–204 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 177.

302 Theocritus, Theocritus. Moschus. Bion., 2.28-9.

303 Gow, “ΙΥΓΞ, ΡΟΜΒΟΣ, Rhombus, Turbo,” 5.

304 Theocritus, Theocritus. Moschus. Bion., 2.30-1.

305 Ibid., 2.50-1.

306 Ibid., 2.53-6.

307 Ibid., 2.58-62.

298

143

reaction to seeing Delphis and his friend Eudamippus: “And when I saw them I was seized with madness, and my wretched heart was caught with fire, and my beauty wasted away. I no longer took notice of that procession, and I had no idea how I got home again, but a burning fever 308

shook me, and I lay on my bed ten days and ten nights.”

Eros is clearly identified here with the

burning, physical disease described by Sappho. The fire magic Simaetha works is analogous to the blazing love she suffers from, and in performing this spell she seeks to both incite this same fire in Delphis and draw him to her. Spells of attraction are known as agōgē spells, many of which 309

make use of fire to offer fumigations, much like Simaetha’s.

This, however, is a literary spell, not a real one. Simaetha’s spell does not match material evidence for love magic. The ingredients she uses invoke rites of sacrifice rather than actual 310

magic, and the iunx and rhombus do not appear in the papyri detailing erotic spells.

They do,

however, appear on fifth century Athenian vase paintings and a pair of fourth century gold earrings, and Graf argues that Theocritus draws on the real magical tradition to create a sort of 311

“superritual capable of activating in its readers all sorts of associations connected with magic.”

The use of the iunx, however, connects this purely literary spell to contemporary agōgē spells.

Aphrodite invented the first agōgē spell and taught it to Jason so that he could win over Medea, as described by Pindar: And the queen of sharpest arrows, Cyprogeneia, brought down from Olympus the dappled iunx bird pinned to the four spokes of an inescapable wheel,

308

Ibid., 2.82-6.

Graf, “Literary Representation of Magic,” 178.

310 Ibid., 179-80.

311 Ibid., 184.

309

144

a mad bird, to mankind for the first time, and she taught Jason to be skillful in prayers and charms, in order that he might strip Medea of reverence for her parents, and that desire for Greece might shake her 312

with the whip of Persuasion as she was burning in her heart.

Faraone argues that Pindar uses this myth about Aphrodite and the iunx to explain why contemporary men used the iunx to drive women from their homes, and that his poem “clearly reflects both the language of torture and the goals that repeatedly appear in Greek incantations 313

of the agōgē type.”

The torments inflicted on the target of an agōgē spell are the same torments

that eros was thought to inflict on a lover - sleeplessness, a burning feeling, inability to eat or 314

drink, inability to be with anyone else except the performer of the spell, and madness.

The use

of fire in the agōgai has obvious symbolism with the burning felt in the hearts of those afflicted with eros, and the setting of Simaetha’s spell at night under the moon is consistent with the agōgai described on papyri. The key to the idea of an agōgē spell, and thereby Simaetha’s spell, as a form of healing is that the disease vanishes as soon as the target of the spell, the beloved, returns.

While Greek curses torture their victims with fever or pain until they die, erotic spells do so only 315

until they yield.

The idea that the beloved is the cure for the disease of eros is found again in

Sappho: “You came, and I was longing for you; you cooled my heart which was burning with 316

desire.”

The violence inflicted on the target of an agōgē spell is inflicted only until its aim is

312

Pindar, Pythian 4.213-219, trans. Faraone, ““Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion,” 56.

Faraone, “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion,” 57-8.

314 Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered: Love Charms and Erotic Curses,” in Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World, 91-115 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 104.

315 Faraone, “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion (Eros),” 55.

316 Sappho, Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus, 48.

313

145

accomplished and he or she is drawn to the home of the spell’s performer. So too do the symptoms of eros only last until the beloved is returned to the arms of the lover, whereupon the burning and madness are relieved.

The other healing aspect of agōgē spells is the psychological transfer of the symptoms of eros onto the victim. Simaetha does this in the first part of her spell, where she burns barley, laurel, and bran with her incantation in order to instill fire, love, in Delphis. Winkler argues that some of the violence of language and gesture in the agōgai is due to “the projected intensity of the 317

performer’s own sense of victimization by a power he is helpless to control.”

Here again we

see the futileness of other pharmaka in healing the symptoms of eros. The act of burning the spell’s ingredients, recitation or singing of the incantation, and binding the target act as cathartic mechanisms in transferring the sufferer’s symptoms onto the target, a replication of the performer’s experiences in the hopes that the target will submit to eros. Winkler also points out that the reality of the situation is that the target of the spell is probably peacefully asleep at home 318

while the performer is supposedly exercising control over the other.

The rite assigns a

tormented state to the target, probably simply asleep, and a sense of calm and control to the sufferer, the performer of the incantation, in an act of transference and displacement.

The material evidence for agōgē spells indicates that the vast majority of them were performed by men, with women as the intended targets. The iunx, the bird tortured on a wheel, the whips and goads in the imagery of Eros attacking his victims, and the violent language of the 319

agōgai are “obvious markers that distinguish the social categories of the free and subjugated.”

317

John J. Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, 214-43 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991), 216.

318 Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” 225.

319 Faraone, “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion (Eros),” 68.

146

As Faraone points out, this element of subjugation is unsurprising in a patriarchal culture where 320

the autonomy and agency of women was largely limited to the domestic sphere.

This stands in

contrast to characters in ancient Greek literature, where it is primarily women who work their dreadful magic and resort to such means to win over lovers. Theocritus’ Simaetha is, according to Gow, in a social position like that of several young women in New Comedy, and her lover seems 321

to be somewhat higher on the social scale than her.

Theocritus seems to be not only playing

with conceptions of gender but also of class: Simaetha’s position in society is like that of many characters in the literature of the Hellenistic age; she is an ordinary woman, of no prominent social standing. Delphis is a man of a somewhat higher social class than her, and thus Theocritus has reversed the dynamics usually present in an agōgē spell: the lower class woman here ‘subjugates’ the man of a higher social rank.

The bucolic genre lends itself well to an incantation: its repeated phrases interrupting the stanzas enhance the repetitive effect of the spell, adding a further dimension of realism to an activity which, although embellished for literary purposes, was an ordinary one. Both the character and genre of Theocritus’ Idyll 2 allow us insight into the woes, anxieties and hardships of a woman in the Hellenistic world who is suffering from the disease of eros. The iunx motif links this literary spell to contemporary agōgē spells, which allowed their performers some relief from the symptoms of eros through the psychological transference of symptoms onto the beloved, thus acting as a pharmakon.

320 321

Ibid.

A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus: Volume II (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 33.

147

Bibliography Edmonds, Radcliffe G. “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered: Love Charms and Erotic Curses.” In Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World, 91–115. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

Faraone, Christopher A. “Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion (Eros).” In Ancient Greek Love Magic, 41–95. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Gow, A. S. F. “ΙΥΓΞ, ΡΟΜΒΟΣ, Rhombus, Turbo.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 54 (1934): 1–13.

Gow, A. S. F. Theocritus: Volume II. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Graf, Fritz. “Literary Representation of Magic.” In Magic in the Ancient World, 175–204.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Sappho, Alcaeus. Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Loeb Classical Library 142. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.

Theocritus, Moschus, Bion. Theocritus. Moschus. Bion. Edited and translated by Neil Hopkinson.

Loeb Classical Library 28. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Winkler, John J. “The Constraints of Eros.” In Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic & Religion, edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink, 214–43. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991.

148

Les restaurations du Colisée en Antiquité tardive: épigraphie et évergétisme

Maxime Guénette, Université de Montréal

Abstract

L’étude des rénovations et restaurations du Colisée de l’époque de Constantin à celle de Théodoric le Grand reste à ce jour un sujet fortement débattu par les spécialistes.

L’Amphithéâtre flavien, figure emblématique de la Rome antique, a en effet subi plusieurs dommages pendant cette période, et ce, principalement à cause de nombreux tremblements de terre au Ve siècle (dont l’abominandus de 484 ou 508, la date est encore sujet à débat) et des trois sacs que Rome a subis. Les empereurs, les rois « barbares » ainsi que certains des grands fonctionnaires de Rome (souvent le préfet urbain) vont alors puiser dans leur richesse pour remédier aux divers dommages du Colisée, que ce soit le système d’égouts, l’arène, le podium, etc. Ces nombreuses restaurations, pour qu’elles soient commémorées de façon publique, sont inscrites dans le marbre du Colisée à la vue de tous. Plusieurs éléments de cette série d’inscriptions restent toutefois encore flous à ce jour, puisque celles-ci restent parfois très fragmentaires ou encore illisibles, la datation des inscriptions est souvent incertaine. De plus, l’identification des préfets ayant mené les travaux reste encore nébuleuse, due à la ressemblance des tria nomina romains. Ces restaurations étaient toutefois bien représentatives de leur époque : les installations restaurées étaient celles qui étaient toujours utilisées, c’est donc pourquoi

149

certaines infrastructures, comme les sous-sols, utilisées pour les combats de gladiateurs, qui ont été abolis à l’époque de Valentinien III, n’ont pas été toujours prises en considération lors des restaurations. Ces restaurations pour un monument qui d’année en année perd de son importance due aux grandes critiques des jeux du cirque par les chrétiens sont un bel exemple du phénomène d’évergétisme omniprésent dans la société romaine en Antiquité tardive.

Le Colisée, figure emblématique de Rome, a subi plusieurs changements architecturaux au cours de son existence. L’unique amphithéâtre de Rome, situé entre l’Esquilin et le Caelius, pouvait accueillir entre 50 000 et 80 000 personnes (les estimations plus anciennes de 70 000-80 000 étant 322

toutefois un peu exagérées) et était l’établissement par excellence pour accueillir les nombreux jeux et spectacles donnés par les empereurs et sénateurs romains. Monument imposant, il demeure un élément crucial du célèbre adage : « du pain et des jeux » pendant près de 500 ans. Le surnom du « Colisée » aurait deux origines possibles : soit par rapport à la taille colossale de l’amphithéâtre, ou bien, plus probablement, soit que ce surnom découlerait de l’ancienne statue 323

du colosse de bronze (colossus) érigé auparavant par Néron près de la Domus Aurea et ensuite déplacé proche de l’Amphithéâtre flavien. Cependant, comme il est possible de s’en douter, le Colisée a beaucoup changé à travers les époques, notamment à cause de nombreux dommages causés par des sacs (le premier par les Visigoths d’Alaric, le deuxième par les Vandales de Genséric, et le troisième par les barbares de Ricimer), des incendies ou encore des tremblements de terre. Les diverses restaurations de l’Amphithéâtre flavien sont sujettes à leur époque, et celles-ci seront en fonction de l’utilisation du Colisée pendant cette période. C’est pour cette raison que l’on constate par exemple une immense réfection de la structure au IIIe siècle pour

322 323

Lesley Adkins, Roy Adkins, An Introduction to the Romans, New York, Chartwell Books, 2002, p. 71.

Roger Dunkle, Gladiators: Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome, New York, Routledge, 2008, p. 257.

150

une utilisation complète, puis plusieurs restaurations de moins grande envergure au Ve siècle pour une utilisation plus modeste. Les sources anciennes d’un tel monument devraient être nombreuses, et bien que nous ayons plusieurs mentions de l’histoire de l’Amphithéâtre flavien dans les sources littéraires, celles-ci sont peu utiles pour suivre l’évolution architecturale et l’historique de ses réfections. Cependant, il se trouve que les sources les plus importantes sont des données épigraphiques, mais celles-ci restent encore à ce jour souvent problématiques. Ainsi, pour cette étude, nous nous attarderons dans un premier temps à brièvement décrire l’histoire du Colisée jusqu’au IVe siècle, puis ses dernières restaurations du Ve-VIe siècle, leurs natures, quelles en sont les traces, et par qui elles ont été menées. Dans un deuxième temps, il est aussi justifié de s’intéresser aux raisons pour lesquelles les sénateurs et les empereurs de cette époque ont voulu restaurer plusieurs fois le Colisée, alors même qu’il est devenu, au Ve siècle, un 324

monument désuet en raison de la grande chute de population à Rome .

Brève histoire du Colisée : de l’inauguration au IVe siècle Tout d’abord, il convient de se rappeler brièvement l’histoire du Colisée avant d’entamer l’étude de ses restaurations en Antiquité tardive. La construction du nouvel amphithéâtre de Rome est amorcée en 70-72 par l’empereur Vespasien, et est terminée par son fils Titus en 80 apr. J.-C. La nouvelle dynastie flavienne, après la mort de Néron, désirait redonner cette portion du territoire de Rome au peuple romain, car Néron avait auparavant évincé toute personne vivant à cet endroit pour y construire sa résidence, la Domus Aurea. C’est notamment grâce aux richesses de la campagne de Vespasien contre la rébellion des Juifs, qui éclate dès 66 apr. J.-C., que celui-ci

324

Bien que l’événement soit considérablement postérieur à l’époque qui nous intéresse, Totila, lors du siège de Rome de 546, dit n’avoir trouvé que 500 habitants ; voir Procope, Hist. Goth., III, 20, 19.

151

peut redonner l’espace de la Domus Aurea au peuple en y construisant un monument à leur intention, et ainsi démontrer que les richesses des campagnes militaires flaviennes étaient aussi 325

destinées aux Romains . C’est donc sous la volonté des Flaviens que l’inauguration du Colisée 326

dura cent jours au cours desquels furent tués plus de 5000 fauves .

Les premiers dommages enregistrés résultent d’un grand feu qui éclate durant le règne d’Antonin le Pieux (138-161), mais les auteurs anciens commémorent beaucoup plus l’immense 327

brasier causé par la foudre de 217 . Bien que le Colisée soit de nouveau fonctionnel dès 222 lors 328

du règne d’Alexandre Sévère , les restaurations prennent plus de deux décennies à être complétées (Gordien III émet une monnaie pour commémorer cet événement). Par la suite, 329

selon certaines sources , le Colisée aurait encore été endommagé par le feu soit sous le règne de Dèce (249-251) ou encore sous Trébonien Galle (251-253). Les derniers dommages que nous mentionnerons ici et qui ne sont pas survenus au Ve-VIe siècle sont ceux causés par la foudre en 320 sous le règne de Constantin. Le Code Théodosien ne spécifie pas les dommages en 330

particulier , mais on peut supposer que ceux-ci étaient assez légers. Ainsi, les dégâts causés jusqu’au Ve siècle étaient principalement dus au feu puisqu’une grande quantité de bois était utilisée pour le sol de l’arène, ainsi que pour les sièges les plus élevés de l’Amphithéâtre flavien. À cause de sa forme, la cavea (gradin pour le public autour de l’arène) agit comme une cheminée,

325

Mary Beard, Keith Hopkins, The Colosseum, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 31-32.

Ada Gabucci, Guide de la Rome antique, Milan, Electa, 2000, p. 8.

327 Dion Cassius, Hist. Rom., 79, 25, 2-4 328 Voir l’article de référence à ce sujet de Lynne Lancaster, « Reconstructing the Restorations of the Colosseum after the Fire of 217 », dans Journal of Roman Archaeology, 11, 1998, pp. 67-125.

329 Isidore de Séville, Chronicon, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 6, 463; Saint Jerome, Chronicon, 218.

330 Code Théo., 16, 10.

326

152

331

attirant les flammes vers les gradins en bois des niveaux supérieurs . Même si le marbre et le travertin résistent au feu, la chaleur des multiples brasiers provoque la rupture de la pierre.

C’est aussi à partir de l’époque de Constantin que le déclin du Colisée commence, puisque la fondation de Constantinople et son Hippodrome provoquera rapidement la chute de 332

Rome comme ville centrale de l’Empire .Toutefois, selon un compte rendu d’Ammien 333

Marcellin , Constance II lors de sa visite à Rome en 357 se trouve émerveillé par le Colisée qui est à l’époque en excellente condition. Son déclin est donc lent, mais inéluctable .

Périodes troubles au Ve siècle Nous pouvons maintenant nous concentrer sur la période qui nous intéresse, c’est-à-dire les restaurations du Colisée au Ve-VIe siècle. Rome, durant ces deux siècles, vit plusieurs épisodes traumatisants, dont la déposition du dernier empereur romain, trois sièges de la ville, et plusieurs tremblements de terre. Le siège de Rome par les Goths d’Alaric en 410 est probablement l’un des événements clés de ces traumatismes, puisqu’un grand pillage s’ensuit après la prise de la ville. Le passage au Colisée par les Visigoths semblait obligatoire, et même 334

privilégié par ceux-ci puisque ils visaient plusieurs monuments importants de Rome . Ce sac cause l’exode d’un bon nombre de Romains de l’ancienne capitale, et, par le fait même, une

331

Peter Connolly, op. cit., p. 154.

Peter Connolly, Colosseum: Rome’s Arena of Death, London, BBC Books, 2003, p. 157.

333 Ammien Marcellin, 16, 10, 4.

334 Sur l’importance de prendre possession des monuments liés à l’image et à la renommée de Rome, voir L. de Lachenal, Spolia. Uso e reimpiego dell’antico dal III al XIV secolo, Milano, Longanesi, 1995, p. 44-45.

332

153

importante chute de la population, qui passe de près d’un million d’habitants vers la fin du IVe 335

siècle à environ 100 000 à la fin du Ve siècle . La Vallée du Colisée, après le sac d’Alaric, devient 336

alors un gigantesque cimetière pour accueillir les victimes des Visigoths .

Quant au Colisée en soi, entre la fin du IVe/début Ve siècle, plusieurs de ses matériaux qui n’étaient plus fonctionnel ont été démantelés pour être réutilisés ailleurs. En effet, le sens pratique des Romains refait ici surface : le passé est au service du présent, et la demande pressante de matières premières n’y échappe pas, c’est pourquoi plusieurs bâtiments publics comme le Colisée se feront « piller » de façon légale due aux divers besoins du moment. C’est par exemple ainsi que les tuyaux d’adduction de plomb et les fontaines de marbre ont été démontés, 337

causant une interruption du système d’eau et des salles de bain .

Première restauration documentée : entre 417 et 423 Ceci nous amène donc à notre première restauration documentée du Ve siècle. Après le sac des Goths en 410, l’Amphithéâtre flavien est inutilisable à cause des dégâts du pillage et des 338

destructions . Il faudra attendre l’arrivée du préfet de Rome Iunius Valerius Bellicius pour que des réparations soient faites entre 417 et 423 apr. J.-C. sous le règne conjoint d’Honorius et 339

340

Théodose II . L’inscription qui nous renseigne sur cette première restauration était située à l’intérieur du Colisée et s’étendait tout autour de l’amphithéâtre en une seule ligne, et était 335

Filippo Coarelli et al., The Colosseum, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000, p. 180.

Voir à ce sujet l’article de Rossella Rea, « Roma : l’uso funerario della valle del Colosseo tra tardo antico e alto medioevo » , dans Archeologica Medievale, 20, 1993, pp. 645-656.

337 Filippo Coarelli et al., p. 179-180 338 Ibid., p. 180.

339 A. Chastagnol préfère placer sa magistrature entre 421 et 423 (André Chastagnol, « Trente ans après : les préfets de la ville de Rome (290-423 après J.-C.) », Science de l’Antiquité, 6-7, 1992-1993, pp. 495-496.), qui semble d’ailleurs plus probable, tandis que S. Mazzarino le plaçait en 417 dans son Stilicone. La Crisi Imperiale dopo Teodosio, Roma, Angelo Signorelli, 1942, p. 361.

340 CIL, VI, 32085.

336

154

341

répétée, selon les rapports de fouilles, en deux exemplaires . Il est intéressant de souligner que le préfet urbain Iunius Valerius Bellicius a amorcé des travaux à la fois sur le Colisée, mais aussi sur les bâtiments aux alentours qui lui sont rattachés et qui ont été endommagés pendant le sac 342

d’Alaric . Ces restaurations sont toutefois vagues : on sait notamment que Bellicius aurait restauré l’arène puisque les canalisations de l’Amphithéâtre flavien ont été obstruées en 410 et ont inondé l’hypogée. De plus, une partie de la terrasse supérieure s’était effondrée dans la cavea, ce à quoi Bellicius va remédier en la reconstruisant.

Deuxième restauration : entre 425 et 437 Une autre inscription à notre disposition, mais qui n’est généralement que survolée par les spécialistes en raison de sa nature trop fragmentaire, fait aussi état de restaurations effectuées 343

par le préfet urbain Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus sous Théodose II et Valentinien III .

L’inscription restant incomplète (nous ne pouvons reconstituer que cet extrait : [Sal]vis dd. [nn.

Theodosio et Placi]do Va[lentiniano Augg., Anici]us Aci[lius Glabrio Faustus, v. c., praef. urb…), il nous est encore impossible de savoir quelles parties du Colisée ont subi des restaurations. A. Chastagnol, en ce qui a trait à la datation, semble pencher vers la troisième préfecture de Faustus (entre 425 et 437 apr. J.-C.). Ceci coïnciderait environ avec le tremblement de terre de 429, car la première 344

préfecture de Faustus est antérieure à la mort d’Honorius en 423 et la deuxième daterait de 425

341

Surtout par rapport aux rapports rédigés par A. Pellegrini lors des fouilles du sous-sol en 1874-1875, rapports disponibles aux Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Direzione Generale Antichità et Belle Arti, I versamento, 1860-1890, busta 101 fasc. 134, anno 1874, e busta 103, fasc. 135, anno 1875.

342 CIL, VI, 37144, 40803.

343 CIL, VI, 32090.

344 André Chastagnol, Le Sénat romain sous le règne d’Odoacre. Recherche sur l’épigraphie du Colisée au Ve siècle, Bonn, R. Habelt, 1966, p. 5-6.

155

. La seule certitude est que cette restauration date d’avant 437. Les restaurations menées par 345

Faustus n’auraient eu, selon A. Chastagnol, qu’un rôle préliminaire .

Troisième restauration : entre 425 et 450 Par après, l’inscription de Bellicius, commémorant la première grande restauration du Colisée au Ve siècle, ne fait toutefois pas long feu : quelques années plus tard, celle-ci est effacée 346

pour faire place à une nouvelle inscription faisant état d’une restauration postérieure . Cette 347

348

inscription, reconstituée par André Chastagnol qui s’appuie sur ses prédécesseurs , se trouve aujourd’hui au nombre de cent douze fragments situés au rez-de-chaussée du Colisée. Tout comme celle de Bellicius, cette inscription est écrite en deux exemplaires et faisait le tour de l’arène en demi-cercle. La structure du nouveau texte ainsi que sa technique d’exécution laissent envisager que c’est le même lapicide, ou du moins le même groupe de lapicide, qui a gravé à la 349

fois cette inscription ainsi que celle de Bellicius . Elle fait état de travaux durant le règne conjoint de Théodose II et Valentinien III, ce qui date donc l’inscription entre 425 et 450 apr.

J.-C. Le nom de la personne responsable de ces travaux n’est en revanche pas complet, mais Chastagnol semble l’identifier, grâce à l’ampleur des travaux qui nous laissent supposer que ceux-ci ont été postérieurs au premier grand séisme de 429 et grâce aux limites chronologiques données par l’inscription, à un préfet de la ville du nom de Flavius Paulus. Un tel préfet est

345

Ibid., p. 19.

CIL, VI, 32086-32087.

347 Ibid., p. 10.

348 Voir entre autres Rodolfo Lanciani, "Iscrizioni dell'Anfiteatro Flavio," Bulletino Communale 8 (1880), pp.

228-229; P.E. Vigneaux, Essai sur l’histoire de la Praefectura urbis, Paris, Thorin et fils, 1896, p. 325; Hülsen, ad. CIL, VI, 32086-88 349 Silvia Orlandi, « Il Colosseo nel V secolo », dans The Transformations of Vrbs Roma in Late Antiquity, 33 (1999), p. 254.

346

156

justement attesté en décembre 438 lors de la séance sénatoriale de la publication du Code 350

Théodosien .

S. Orlandi, qui insiste sur l’absence du terme latin iterum (pour la seconde fois) jusqu’alors présent dans la plupart des reconstitutions de cette inscription, affirme donc que le préfet urbain 351

en était à sa première investiture, et non à sa deuxième , ce qui nous mènerait donc en 438.

Cette datation permettrait d’associer cette restauration à un événement politique majeur dans l’empire, l’atteinte de la majorité de l’empereur Valentinien III, qui, dès 437, n’est plus sous la 352

régence de sa mère, Galla Placidia . Ainsi, l’entrée à l’âge adulte du souverain aurait peut-être porté le préfet urbain de 438 à restaurer et réinaugurer le Colisée, qui n’était plus en fonction depuis 429. Quelle que soit la nature de ces restaurations, celles-ci sont certainement en relation 353

avec le tremblement de terre de 429 qui est identifiable dans les chroniques Consularia Italica , mais antérieure au grand séisme de 443 dont nous parlerons plus en détail sous peu.

Cette inscription, au nombre de cent douze fragments situés au rez-de-chaussée du Colisée, est reconstituée par André Chastagnol de la façon suivante : « [Pro] felicitate dd. nn.

T[heodos]ii et Placidi Valentiniani perpetuorum invictis[s]imorum principum, Flavius Pa[ul]us, vir clarissimus, praefectus urbi [iteru]m vice s[acra j]udicans, [amph]ith[e]a[tri p]odium et i……. m ca[v]ea[mq.] quae ante non fuerant …………. Ad majorem gratiam voluptatemq. [populi] romani s………..s instauravit ac de[dicavit]» 354

. Chastagnol précise toutefois qu’il serait imprudent d’essayer d’apporter plus de précision à la

350

Gesta senatus, éd. et trad Mommsen du Code Théo., I, 2e partie, p. 1.

Grâce en autre aux fragments CIL VI 32087p et 32087m 352 Sur l’importance que revêt l’entrée à l’âge adulte chez les Romains, voir G. Zecchini, "Filostorgio," Metodologie della ricerca sulla tarda antichità, Napoli, 1989, 590.

353 Consularia Italica, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 9, 300.

354 André Chastagnol, op. cit., p. 10.

351

157

reconstruction, dû à la nature beaucoup trop fragmentaire de l’inscription ainsi qu’à la fragilité de sa reconstitution.

Quelques faits intrigants ressortent de cette épigraphe. Il est certes possible de déceler un intervalle de neuf ans entre le tremblement de terre de 429 et la restauration de Flavius Paulus.

On peut toutefois penser que certains travaux mineurs aient déjà été effectués durant ce délai, notamment les restaurations préliminaires menées par Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, précédemment mentionné. De plus, l’inscription insiste justement sur le fait que les diverses structures du Colisée rénovées par Flavius Paulus ont été quelque temps inutilisées ou étaient encore délabrées (quae ante non fuerant). D’autres détails intéressants découlent plutôt du choix des mots dans l’inscription. En ce qui concerne l’inscription de Flavius Paulus, ce qui est nouveau est la mention explicite du but pour lequel le préfet urbain a fait ces restaurations. En effet, Ad majorem gratiam voluptatemq[ue]. [populi] romani désigne l’intention de Flavius Paulus de recevoir l’appréciation ainsi que les faveurs du public. S. Orlandi note notamment l’utilisation du mot voluptas qui, dans ce contexte, prend la valeur d’un terme indiquant clairement le plaisir que le 355

public ressentait en assistant aux spectacles dans le Colisée .

L’emploi du terme populi Romani, public visé par cette inscription est un concept qui prend une valeur particulièrement positive pour l’idéologie politique du Ve siècle, comme il est 356

notamment possible de voir dans d’autres textes de l’époque . En effet, à partir de l’époque d’Honorius, le thème de la centralité de Rome revient comme centre d’actualité. Le rôle de la population de Rome est alors idéalisé en accord avec la classe sénatoriale, puis synthétisé par le

355 356

Silvia Orlandi, op. cit., p. 255-256.

Notamment Symm., Ep.,I, 4.8.

158

357

binôme du Sénat et du peuple de Rome . L’utilisation de ce terme dans un contexte dans lequel l’amour civique prend la forme du désir de satisfaire les faveurs du peuple de Rome n’est donc pas surprenante, puisque le préfet urbain comble ainsi le besoin d’avoir une infrastructure pour 358

accueillir des spectacles .

Ainsi, au final, il est possible de tirer beaucoup d’éléments très utiles à cette reconstitution, tels que la nature des travaux ainsi que la personne qui les a commandités. Il s’agit en effet d’une remise en état du podium et de la cavea, et possiblement l’entrée principale qui regarde au Sud si on reconstruit l’inscription avec [amph]ith[e]a[tri p]odium et i[ngressu]m ca[v]ea[mq] 359

. Il est aussi théoriquement possible, selon R. Rea, qui confirme la thèse de A. Chastagnol, de

pouvoir remanier les fragments à notre disposition pour former les mots podium, cavea, porticus, 360

ingressum (entrée) . T. Mommsen, quant à lui, avance que ces travaux auraient aussi porté sur le 361

système de drainage d’eau, thèse qui est reprise par S. Priuli . Quoi qu’il en soit, la longueur de l’inscription suffit à témoigner de l’importance des travaux qui s’y sont passés, et ceux-ci auraient été les plus importants du Ve siècle.

Quatrième restauration : entre 443 et 450

357

Pour approfondir l’utilisation du populus romanus comme population urbaine et avant tout dans le contexte des spectacles de cirque, ainsi que du sens particulier qu’il prend à partir de la fin du IVe siècle, voir V. Neri, « Le populus romanus dans l’Historia Augusta », dans G. Bonamente et G. Paci (éd.), Historiae Augustae Colloquium Maceratense, Bari, Edipuglia, 1995, p. 252-253 et 265-267.

358 Le concept d’amour civique est grandement étudié dans A. Giardina, « Amor civicus. Forme e immagini dell’evergetismo romano nella tradizione epigrafica », dans La terza età dell’epigrafica, Faenza, 1988, 69; M. Heinzelmann, « Pater populi. Langage familial et détention de pouvoir public (Antiquité tardive et très Haut Moyen Age) », dans Aux sources de la puissance : sociabilité et parenté. Actes du Colloque, Rouen, 1987, 49.

359 André Chastagnol, op. cit., p. 12.

360 Rossella Rea, “The Colosseum through the Centuries”, dans Filippo Coarelli et al., op. cit., p. 187.

361 Filippo Coarelli et al., op. cit., p. 187.

159

En poursuivant, il se trouve que nous possédons une autre inscription tout à fait intéressante qui provient du bloc de marbre qui portait initialement l’inscription inauguratrice du Colisée en lettres de bronze par Vespasien et Titus. Ces lettres de bronze ont été enlevées pour faire place à une inscription au sujet de restaurations datant du règne conjoint de Valentinien III 362

et de Théodose II , donc entre 425 et 450 apr. J.-C, mais vu l’ampleur des dégâts, on estime que 363

ces travaux se situent après le tremblement de terre de 443 surnommé « abominandus » aussi 364

présent dans les Consularia Italica . Ce tremblement de terre, bien plus dévastateur que celui de 365

429, aurait fait écrouler plusieurs bâtiments et monuments de Rome , d’où la nécessité pour le préfet urbain Rufius Caecina Felix Lampadius (en fonction tout juste après l’abominandus et 366

apparenté à Flavius Paulus) de rebâtir plusieurs parties du Colisée .

Ainsi, probablement de sa poche, comme l’inscription semble l’insinuer (Salvis dd. nn.

Theodosio et Placido V[alen]tinia[n]o Augg., /Rufus Caecina Felix Lampadius, v. c. et inl. praef. urbi, 367

/harenam amphit(h)eatri a novo una cum podio et portis/posticis sed et reparatis spectaculi gradibus restituit.) , Lampadius va entreprendre de reconstruire les marches où les spectateurs étaient assis (spectaculi gradus), reconstruire complètement (ex novo) l’arène centrale, ainsi que d’autres parties de l’amphithéâtre qui restent encore à ce jour nébuleuses à cause de la nature fragmentaire de l’inscription. Les spécialistes pensent toutefois que le podium aurait été restauré, incluant les

362

CIL, VI, 32089.

Les sources ainsi que la bibliographie sur l’abominandus sont rassemblées dans E. Guidoboni (éd), I terremoti prima del Mille in Italia e nell’area mediterranea, Bologna, SGA, 1989, p. 608-609.

364 Consularia Italica, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 9, 301.

365 Paulus Diaconus, Historia Romana, 13, 16.

366 L’inscription en général ne porte pas de problème majeur, la seule difficulté se trouve dans l’extension incertaine à la fin de chaque ligne. Voir à ce sujet les diverses propositions dans Ch. Hülsen, CIL VI 32089; G. Alföldy, “Eine Bauinschrift aus dem Colosseum”, dans Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 109 (1995), pp. 195-226.; S. Priuli, « L’epigrafe », dans Bull. Comm., 91 (1986), 326-328.

367 Les ajouts du XIXe siècle ont été enfin recensés dans R. Rea, T. Dinca, R. Morelli et S. Priuli, « Anfiteatro Flavio. Epigrafe di Rufus Caecina Felix Lampadius », dans Bull. Comm., 91 (1986), pp. 318-339.

363

160

trappes entourant les murs de l’arène (portis/posticis) servant pour les fauves à déboucher dans 368

l’arène lors des venationes, même si ce dernier élément reste à ce jour débattu . Chastagnol avance aussi qu’ entre autres en raison de l’inscription de Flavius Paulus précédemment mentionnée, les restaurations menées par Lampadius pourraient être les mêmes que celles de Paulus, et qu’il ne serait que le successeur immédiat de ce dernier vers 439-440 qui aurait achevé les travaux. Néanmoins, il est plus probable que les restaurations de Flavius Paulus n’aient pas tenu le coup avec l’abominandus de 443, et que Lampadius ait seulement dû refaire les travaux 369

entrepris par son prédécesseur , ayant un rôle donc plutôt complémentaire.

Cinquième restauration : entre 444 et 445 370

Aussi de façon complémentaire, une nouvelle inscription jugée auparavant trop fragmentaire pour être prise en compte est dorénavant plus claire et complète grâce à S. Orlandi qui a eu accès à de nouveaux fragments jusqu’alors inédits. Probablement quasi contemporaine à 371

l’inscription de Lampadius, et taillée par le même groupe de lapicide , elle comporte plusieurs éléments qui intriguent beaucoup les spécialistes. Nous avons à ce jour comme reconstitution : « d(ominus) n(oster) [Pla]cidus Vale[nti]nianus perenn/is Aug[us]tu[s e]t princeps [Invi]ctissi[mus // pr]op[ter

368

Voir le résumé de ce débat dans Filippo Coarelli et al., op cit., p. 188., ; les principales recherches actuelles se trouvent toutefois dans Géza Alfödy, « Eine Bauinschrift aus dem Colosseum », dans Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 109, 1995, pp. 195-226.; Rossella Rea, Morelli, A., Priuli, S., “Anfiteatro Flavio. Epigrafe di Rufus Caecina Felix Lampadius”, dans Bulletino della Comissione Archeologica Comunale, 91, 1986, pp.

318-339.

369 André Chastagnol, op. cit., p. 13-14.

370 CIL VI 32088, en plus de rajouter les fragments de A. Chastagnol, 1966, p. 65, nos. 1-18.

371 S. Orlandi, op. cit., p. 257; André Chastagnol, op. cit., p. 15

161

impe]rii vicen[nalia // ]sim[ //]s ann[ // ]moco[ // ]es[ // ]ni[ // ]oc[ // ]oin[ // ]om[ // ]op[ // ]si[ // ]si[ // ]V[ ». Nous pouvons tout de suite identifier l’empereur Valentinien III, qui est ici qualifié de perennis Augustus et de princeps Invictissimus, sans toutefois mentionner Théodose II, selon les fragments à notre disposition. Les autres éléments restent par contre très incertains, ce 372

qui, selon S. Orlandi, présente des caractéristiques inhabituelles pour une inscription de ce type

. Certains fragments isolés présentent toutefois un intérêt certain, dont le « POP » publié par A. 373

Chastagnol , mais qui restent encore trop incertains pour être insérés dans l’inscription. Une autre solution serait de mettre en comparaison cette inscription avec un des rares textes épigraphiques où seul le nom de Valentinien III apparait : l’inscription relative à la construction des remparts de Naples, dans laquelle la ville est décrite comme étant « nulla securitate gaudentem » 374

. S. Orlandi affirme que même l’inscription du Colisée rappelle une intervention en faveur de la 375

securitas, thème récurrent durant le règne de Valentinien III .

Encore plus intéressante comme proposition est celle remontant à Hülsen qui combine 376

trois fragments isolés pour former RII VICEN , à intégrer à l’imperii vicennalibus de Valentinien 377

III du 23 octobre 444, ou mieux, à l’ob imperii vicennalia . Cette date pourrait constituer un point de référence chronologique d’importance tant pour cette inscription que pour les autres concernant les restaurations du Colisée à la même période. Le fait qu’une inscription commémorant des restaurations pour les vicennales de Valentinien III ait été gravée n’est

372

S. Orlandi, op. cit., p. 257.

André Chastagnol, op. cit., p. 65, no 9.

374 Selon l’introduction de T. Mommsen dans CIL X 1485.

375 S. Orlandi, op. cit., p. 257.

376 CIL VI 320881 377 D’après les inscriptions placées à l’occasion des anniversaires impériaux, voir André Chastagnol, « Les inscriptions de monuments inaugurés lors des fêtes impériales », Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 100 (1998), pp. 19-26.

373

162

nullement surprenant, puisqu’il était de coutume pour les vingt ans de règne des empereurs d’organiser des jeux et des spectacles, en plus d’inaugurer des statues, de frapper monnaie, ou 378

encore d’inaugurer des monuments publics d’importance toute particulière . Si cette inscription est en effet pour les vicennales de Valentinien III, cela pourrait possiblement expliquer que seul son nom soit mentionné, et que des travaux de restauration aient été effectués et terminés à temps pour la fête impériale, constituant ainsi le terminus ante quem des inscriptions mentionnées 379

jusqu’à présent .

Néanmoins, la contiguïté des fragments rend la confirmation dans l’inscription incertaine, et leur poids ainsi que leur emplacement dans l’Amphithéâtre flavien empêche encore à ce jour toute confirmation définitive. D’autres lectures pourraient donc être faites pour le fragment RII 380

VICEN , S. Orlandi proposant même d’y voir une indication chronologique du type anno imperii 381

vicesimo , permettant de trouver des places plausibles à des fragments qui seraient sinon 382

inutilisés. Suivant les spécialistes , il se pourrait donc que l’inscription ne fasse pas état des vicennales de Valentinien III en 444, mais plutôt de la prise du consulat (occasion de donner des jeux à la population) pour la cinquième fois par l’empereur en 445, qui coïncide d’ailleurs avec un 383

long séjour de ce dernier à Rome .

378

Pour approfondir le sujet, voir André Chastagnol, « Aspects concrets et cadre topographique des fêtes décennales des empereurs à Rome », dans L’urbs. Espace urbain et histoire, CollEFR 98 (1987), 497-499; Pierre Salama, « Anniversaires impériaux constantino-liciniens à Djemila », dans Institutions, société et vie politique dans l’empire romaine au IVe siècle ap. J.-C., CollEFR 159 (1992), 156-157 379 Silvia Orlandi, op. cit., p. 258.

380 André Chastagnol, Le Sénat romain sous le règne d’Odoacre. Recherche sur l’épigraphie du Colisée au Ve siècle, p. 15, propose, non sans de multiples doutes [praefectus praeto]rii vice [sacra indicatisi, ou encore [praefectorum praeto]rii vice[s agens].

381 Silvia Orlandi, op. cit., p. 258.

382 Bibliographie résumée dans Silvia Orlandi, op. cit., p. 258-259.

383 Comme le démontre Otto Seeck, Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311 bis 476 n. Chr : Vorarbeit zu einer Prosopographie der christlichen Kaiserzeit, Frankfurt, Minerva, 1984, p. 374-378.

163

Sixième restauration : en 470 Toutes les restaurations nécessaires après l’abominandus n’ont toutefois pas été menées par Lampadius, c’est pourquoi vingt ans plus tard, d’autres travaux sont entamés au Colisée. Six 384

fragments de l’inscription commémorant ces restaurations ont été retrouvés à ce jour et nous donnent l’occasion de reconstruire et d’en identifier plusieurs éléments. Elle daterait de l’époque du règne conjoint de Léon Ier et d’Anthémius, entre 467 et 472 apr. J.-C., et serait le fruit du sénateur Messius Phoebus Severus, comme le mentionne explicitement l’inscription « [Sa]lvis dd(ominis) n[n(ostris) L]eone et Anthemio p(er)p(etui)s Augg(ustis) Messius Phoe[bus Severus] / [v(ir) c(larissimus)] et inl(ustris) [p(raefectus)] u(rbi) patric(iu)s co[nsul ordin(arius) hare]nam(?) amphitheatri longi temp[oris 3] / [3 restitutam 3]TIE[3 fu]isset extinctum pro beatitudin[e] saeculi . Celui-ci serait décrit dans l’inscription comme un sénateur de haut rang, un préfet urbain, un patricien, et qui tient le titre de consul ordinarius. Ces titres nous permettent de dater avec plus de précision l’inscription, soit en 385

470, année où Severus est consul et sûrement préfet urbain . La nature même des restaurations reste toutefois un peu floue, l’inscription incomplète ne nous permettant seulement d’identifier qu’une partie du Colisée qui n’était plus utilisée depuis longtemps (hare]nam(?) amphitheatri longi temp[oris3] / [3 restitutam).

Ainsi, tout comme pour l’inscription de Lampadius, il est aussi possible de créer un lien entre cette restauration et une époque particulièrement significative de l’histoire de l’Empire, restauration qui constitue en soi un choix politique précis. En effet, l’utilisation du verbe extinguere fait possiblement référence comme terme technique associé à l’idée de la défaite des

384 385

CIL, VI, 32091-32092.

Filippo Coarelli et al., op. cit., p. 189.

164

386

tyrans, c’est-à-dire d’usurpateurs de la dignité impériale . On découvre en 470 un complot fomenté contre l’empereur Anthémius par le patricius Romano, magister officiorum et ami de Ricimer. L’événement, quoique relativement insignifiant, se situe tout de même dans un contexte de tensions politiques entre Ricimer et l’empereur d’Occident, Messius Phoebus Severus, fidèle 387

partisan du régime d’Anthémius , désirait alors peut-être honorer la victoire de l’empereur.

Septième restauration : entre 484 et 508 L’une des dernières restaurations de l’Antiquité tardive est commémorée dans une inscription établie sur trois bases de marbre, dont une est aujourd’hui perdue. Les trois blocs présentent le même texte, quoiqu’organisé de façon différente sur chacun d'entre eux, et font état de travaux par Decius Macius Venantius Basilius avec l’inscription suivante : « Decius Marius Venantius / Basilius v(ir) c(larissimus) et inl(ustris) praef(ectus) / urb(i) patricius consul / ordinarius arenam et / podium 388

qu(ae) abomi/nandi terrae mo/tus ruina pros/travit sum(p)tu pro/prio restituit » . Ce dernier est un sénateur de très haut rang, un préfet urbain, un patricien, qui a été consul ordinarius. Il aurait notamment restauré à ses frais l’arène et le podium qui, selon l’inscription, auraient été endommagés par un tremblement de terre « abominable », nous laissant donc supposer que ces dommages datent de l’abominandus de 449. Concrètement, le travail de Basilius porte à détruire la dernière colonnade debout pour mettre les restes dans les sous terrain de l’arène et y enterrer le tout. Le problème de la datation de cette inscription persiste toutefois à ce jour puisque plusieurs

386

Pour l’utilisation du terme tyrannus pour désigner un usurpateur à la fin de l’époque impériale, voir R. MacMullen "The Roman concept of robber-pretender," RivIntDrAnt 10 (1963) 221-22; V. Neri, "L'usurpatore come tiranno nel lessico politico della tarda antichità," dans F. Paschoud et J. Szidat, Usurpationen in der Sptitantike (Historia Einzelschriften Stuttgart, 111 (1997)) 71-86.

387 Voir notamment L. Vassili, "La cultura di Antemio," Athenaeum, 16 (1938) 40-42; J. M. O'Flynn, Generalissimos of the western Roman empire, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 1983, p. 127.

388 CIL, VI, 32094b.

165

sénateurs après 449 ont porté des noms similaires à celui de Basilius. On attribue généralement 389

cette inscription au consul de 484, mais les récentes études archéologiques semblent plutôt pointer vers la moitié du règne de Théodoric le Grand (493-526), soit vers 508 apr. J.-C., lorsque 390

le fils de Basilius, Basilius iunior, était consul . Il semble curieux de noter dans l’inscription l’absence du souverain de l’époque, normalement partie intégrante des inscriptions du Colisée et de l’Empire tardif.

Huitième restauration : entre 493 et 529 Bien que tardive, la toute dernière restauration qui nous est connue est une élévation du sol de l’arène. Elle survient quelques années après les travaux de Basilius, mais pas plus tard que 391

la troisième décennie du VIe siècle . Comme l’inscription l’indique (Salvo [d(omino) n(ostro) 3 princ]ipe Anas/tasiu[s v(ir) c(larissimus) et inl(ustris)] patr[icius] / [3]um[ // ] v(ir) c(larissimus?) et [3] / [3]S[), ces travaux auraient été menés par le sénateur Anastasius et ne nous sont connus que par d’anciennes archives. Tout comme l’inscription de Basilius (ou bien est-ce dû à la nature trop fragmentaire de l’inscription), le souverain de l’époque, Théodoric le Grand, n’est pas non plus mentionné.

L’évergétisme romain et son apport au Colisée Maintenant que nous avons amplement expliqué où en sont les études des nombreux fragments relatant les diverses réfections du Colisée au Ve siècle, et notamment les nombreuses difficultés que présentent ces études, attardons-nous plutôt au pourquoi de la chose. En effet,

389

Voir les conclusions dans Peter Connolly, op. cit., p. 170-184.

Arnold H.M. Jones, John R. Martindale, John Morris, “Decius Marius Venantius Basilius 13”, dans The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, vol. 2, p. 218.

391 Filippo Coarelli et al., op. cit., p. 190.

390

166

plusieurs restaurations du Colisée semblent belles sur papier, mais il est normal de douter que ces travaux aient pu atteindre des coûts faramineux. Il est donc justifié de se demander pourquoi l’Amphithéâtre flavien, monument très coûteux à entretenir et devenu vétuste en raison de sa taille beaucoup trop importante pour la population romaine du Ve siècle, reçoit encore autant d’attention monétaire de la part des empereurs et des sénateurs de Rome. Si l’on se questionne un peu, une des principales caractéristiques de la société romaine en Antiquité tardive vient rapidement en tête : c’est l’évergétisme.

392

Néologisme dû principalement à André Boulanger et Henri-Irénée Marrou , puis 393

popularisé par Paul Veyne , l’évergétisme est connu en Grèce dès l’époque hellénistique. Selon Paul Veyne, « l’évergétisme est le fait que les collectivités attendaient des riches qu’ils 394

contribuassent de leurs deniers aux dépenses publiques ». Ces dépenses liées à l’évergétisme étaient surtout associées aux spectacles du cirque et de l’arène, mais finançaient aussi des banquets et la construction d’édifices publics. Elles étaient versées soit sans obligation définie, soit à cause d’une élection à une magistrature publique (ob honorem). Une dualité persistera entre ces deux types d’évergésies : certains notable vont ainsi multiplier les contributions faites à la société pour y laisser une empreinte indélébile de leur bienfaisance, tandis que d’autres seront 395

pressés et obligés par le peuple de contribuer à la société

en vertu de leur titre.

C’est ainsi qu’à Rome, à l’Antiquité tardive, le principe d’évergétisme sera plus présent que jamais. En effet, restaurer des monuments publics d’importance était un choix stratégique

392

Voir André Boulanger, Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d’Asie, Paris, De Boccard, 1923, p.

25 ; Henri-Irénée Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’Antiquité, Paris, Seuil, 1948, p. 405.

393 Notamment Paul Veyne, Le pain et le cirque, Paris, Seuil, 1976, 800 p.

394 Paul Veyne, op. cit., p. 20.

395 Idem, p. 21.

167

pour maintenir la mémoire de la magnificence d’antan tout en reléguant aux oubliettes les 396

moments les plus sombres de son histoire . Plusieurs questions se posent toutefois quant à cet évergétisme : était-ce dans un but pratique ou idéologique? Le peuple voyait-il ces monuments restaurés comme un souvenir honorant un passé glorieux et lui redonnant vie?

Bien que la réponse du public aux projets de restauration soit difficile à mesurer, nous savons que les sénateurs de l’Antiquité tardive désiraient revendiquer leur capital culturel par le biais des réseaux sociaux qu'ils avaient créés avec leurs ancêtres; au moyen de ces restaurations, ils 397

désiraient réaffirmer les hiérarchies du passé . On peut donc trouver à Rome, particulièrement après le IIIe siècle, une grande quantité d’inscriptions portant le mot restituere, terme latin 398

signifiant ici : remettre quelque chose dans son ancien état , et qui se retrouve sur plusieurs des inscriptions mentionnées précédemment. Depuis 331, la responsabilité de maintenir les 399

bâtiments publics à Rome appartient au préfet urbain, le président du Sénat , ce sont donc des sénateurs qui effectueront les nombreuses restaurations à Rome, dont celles du Colisée. En ce qui concerne l’Amphithéâtre flavien, la décision de travaux ne revient qu’au préfet urbain ; ceux-ci avaient l’obligation d’inscrire le nom des empereurs de l’époque et de leur rendre gloire, 400

sans quoi le restaurateur sera accusé de haute trahison .

396

Gregor Kalas, “Writing and Restorations in Rome: Inscriptions, Statues, and the Late Antique Preservation of Buildings”, in Caroline Goodson, Anne E. Lester, Carol Symes, Cities, Texts, and Social Networks, 400-1500, Burlington, Ashgate, 2010, p. 21.

397 Ibid., p. 23.

398 Étude complète sur le terme restituere en Antiquité tardive dans Edmund Thomas, Christian Witschel, “Constructing Reconstruction: Claim and Reality of Roman Rebuilding Inscriptions from the Latin West”, in Papers of the British School at Rome, 60 (1992), pp. 135-177.

399 André Chastagnol, La préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le Bas-Empire, Paris, Presses universitaires de la France, 1960, p. 43-63 et 335-339; Bryan Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages:Urban Public Buildings in Northern and Central Italy, AD 300-850, Oxford, Oxford University Press 1984, p. 38-48.

400 Code Théo., XV, 1, 31 : « Si qui iudices perfecto operi suum potius nomen quam nostrae perennitatis scribserint, maiestatis teneantur obnoxii.

168

Toutefois, des rapports récents nous permettent de penser que les sénateurs usaient de l’ambiguïté de « travaux complétés » pour attacher leur nom, et donc celui de l’aristocratie locale, 401

plutôt que ceux des empereurs . Ainsi, un avantage implicite de la restauration, en particulier si elle était entreprise sans les fonds alloués par la cour impériale, était que le nom de l’empereur semblait pouvoir être limité dans son importance. En outre, les sénateurs avaient le loisir d'agir en tant que restaurateurs, même si cela ne signifie pas qu'ils pouvaient présumer être les 402

fondateurs de nouveaux bâtiments . Ammien Marcellin nous donne d’ailleurs une anecdote concernant un préfet urbain qui a restauré autour vers 360 sans donner de façon appropriée un 403

hommage et le crédit aux empereurs régnant .

C’est ainsi que C. Ceionius Rufius Volusianus, avec l’argent de la famille impériale, rénove plusieurs bâtiments de Rome et inscrit son nom, non pas en tant que restaurateur, mais bien comme bâtisseur original. En dédaignant ainsi de rendre hommage aux ancêtres et en ne créditant pas les empereurs, le préfet urbain va s’attirer les foudres du peuple de Rome puisque celui-ci ne donnera pas de spectacles et n’offrira rien de plus à la population. Une émeute explose donc et ce dernier est obligé de fuir momentanément Rome, nous laissant supposer dans quelle mesure les noms et insignes gravés dans la pierre devaient correspondre à des actes généreux 404

bénéficiant au public . Cette anecdote nous donne un aperçu de la façon dont un sénateur peut

401

Gregor Kalas, op. cit., p. 30.

L’édit de 364 du Code Théo., XV, 1, 11, est compris comme donnant l’autorisation aux sénateurs et aux préfets urbains de prendre sous leur aile les restaurations comme une responsabilité locale, tandis que les empereurs s’occupaient de construire de nouveaux bâtiments; voir à ce sujet Heike Niquet, ”Die valentinianische Dynastie und Rom: das Selbstverstandnis der Kaiser und ihre Haltung zur Senatsaristokratie im Licht van Bau- und Ehreninschriften””, in Geza Alfoldy and Silvio Panciera (eds), Inschriftliche Denkmäler als Medien der Selbstdarstellung in der römischen Welt, Stuttgart, Steiner, 2001, p. 143-4.

403 Amm. Marce., XXVII, 3, 7“Per omnia enim civitatis membra, quae diversorum principum exornarunt impensae, nomen proprium inscribebat, non ut veterum instaurator, sed conditor” 404 Gregor Kalas, op. cit., p. 31.

402

169

faire raviver la popularité de la vieille aristocratie, à condition toutefois que certains critères attendus par le peuple soient remplis.

Preuve écrite de l’évergétisme romain à l’Antiquité tardive, cette anecdote nous en apprend beaucoup sur les attentes que le peuple a à l’endroit des sénateurs. En ce qui concerne le Colisée, celui-ci n’est pas épargné par ce phénomène dont les racines sont profondément ancrées dans la société romaine. En effet, pourquoi les préfets urbains voudraient-ils restaurer ce gigantesque monument qui donne lieu à de grandes dépenses d’entretien tandis que l’économie est plus que chancelante ? Plusieurs hypothèses sont possibles : on peut supposer que les sénateurs voulaient, de façon pratique, avoir un lieu où donner les différents jeux et spectacles que le peuple réclamait vigoureusement, comme le laisse penser l’épisode de 360 susmentionné.

On peut aussi penser que les sénateurs désiraient, en plus de réinstituer des activités culturelles, effacer douloureux le passé immédiat pour ne rappeler que des événements conférant de 405

l’honneur à l’élite locale .

Conclusion Ainsi, vers la fin du Ve siècle, le Colisée n’est plus que l’ombre de lui-même,de sa grandeur d’antan : l’Amphithéâtre flavien devient une carrière où le pillage est autorisé par 406

Théodoric le Grand qui détestait les spectacles, les décrivant comme exécrables et misérables .

C’est donc à partir de cette époque que le Colisée, figure emblématique de Rome, voit sa ruine précipitée. Nous avons pu constater que plusieurs restaurations furent réalisées sur l’amphithéâtre dès le IIIe siècle, mais que la plupart des travaux furent menés au Ve siècle,

405 406

Gregor Kalas, op. cit., p. 43.

Cassiodore, Variae 5, 42.

170

notamment à cause des grands tremblements de terre. Ces restaurations nous sont parvenues sous la forme d’inscriptions sur des blocs de marbre et de travertin du Colisée. Bien que celles-ci soient pour la plupart assez fragmentaires et difficiles à reconstituer, il est possible d’en tirer plusieurs informations capitales pour notre compréhension de ces nombreux travaux. Plusieurs points restent encore nébuleux, notamment la datation, les personnes qui ont dirigé les travaux et la nature même de ces restaurations. Heureusement, des fouilles archéologiques sont toujours en cours pour tenter de répondre à ces questions, puisque les diverses inscriptions peuvent encore être reconstituées de façon précise. Il faut aussi voir dans les nombreuses restaurations faites sur le Colisée lors du Ve siècle un moyen d’organiser des jeux et des cérémonies pour le peuple romain. Ce dernier, depuis la disparition ou la diminution des assemblés civiques assurant une participation active des citoyens à la vie politique de la ville, est quelque peu déconnecté des sénateurs et de l’empereur. Ces sénateurs, pratiquant un évergétisme évident – d’ailleurs attendu par la population, profitent donc de ces restaurations pour mettre sur un piédestal l’aristocratie locale qui tentait de regagner de l’influence dans le contexte de confusion politique du Ve siècle.

171

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Zecchini, Giuseppe. 1987. "Filostorgio," dans Metodologie della ricerca sulla tarda antichità. Sous la direction de Antonio Garzya, 579-598. Napoli: D’Auria M.

Primary Sources Ammien Marcellin, 16, 10, 4, trad. par Édouard Galletier. 2002. Paris : Les Belles Lettres.

Cassiodore, Variae 5, 42, éd. et trad. par S. J. B. Barnish, 1992. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

CIL, VI, 32085-87, 32089-94, 37144, 40803, éd et trad. par Giuseppe Lugli. 1946. Rome: Bardi.

Code Théo., 16, 10, éd et trad. par Theodor Mommsen. 2002. Paris : Éditions du Cerf.

Dion Cassius, Hist. Rom., 79, 25, 2-4, éd. et trad. par Valérie Fromentin et al. 2016. Bordeaux : Ausonius.

Gesta senatus, éd. et trad Theodor Mommsen du Code Théo., I, 2e partie, p. 1.

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Isidore de Séville, Chronicon, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 6, 463, éd et trad. par Kenneth B. Wolf. 2008. Claremont : Pomonia College « Medieval Texts in Translation ».

Isidore de Séville, Consularia Italica, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 9, 300, éd et trad. par Kenneth B. Wolf. 2008. Claremont : Pomonia College « Medieval Texts in Translation ».

Paul Diacre, Historia Romana, 13, 16, éd et trad. par Amedeo Crivellucci. 1914. Rome : del Senato.

Procope, Hist. Goth., III, 20, 19, éd. et trad par Janick Auberger et Denis Roques. 2015. Paris : Les Belles Lettres.

Saint Jerome, Chronicon, 218, éd. et trad par Malcolm D. Donalson. 1996. Lewiston : Edwin Mellen.

Symm., Ep., I, 4.8., éd. et trad. par Jean-Pierre Callu. 1972. Paris : Les Belles Lettres.

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Évolution de l’analyse iconographique d’une hydrie du Peintre de Leningrad

Lucie Guillemin, Université de Montréal

Introduction L’analyse iconographique est une grande facette du travail des céramologues, variant d’un chercheur à l’autre. Une seule image se retrouve donc avec différentes interprétations guidées par les approches de celui qui l’étudie. Les archéologues contemporains se doivent donc de prendre en compte chacune de ces interprétations pour présenter les problèmes et les points forts de chacune de leurs recherches.

Le but de cet article est donc de présenter les problèmes d’interprétation possible d’une image. Le vase qui sera étudié est le numéro 206567 du corpus de Beazley.. Il semble qu’aujourd’hui il y ait un consensus, en effet, ce qu’il s’agisse d’une représentation du bain prénuptial. La scène représentée sur l’épaule du vase est, cependant, passée par un long cheminement d’études.

Il y aura donc un constat de ce qui a été fait en éclairant les grandes lignes de chacune des thèses émises jusqu’à présent. L’étude commencera par une description littérale détaillée de l’œuvre du peintre de Leningrad pour voir tous les éléments présents pour ensuite comprendre les points forts et faibles de chacune des approches de l’études. Par la suite, chacune des théories sera présentée avec les auteurs qui les utilisent ainsi qu’une critique de la méthode et de leur

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pensée. Tout au long de l’étude, il y aura de nombreuses comparaisons avec des vases portant sur des sujets similaires afin de renforcer l’argumentation.

Développement Présentation de l’objet avec courte description de l’image 407

L’analyse de la figure 10-13 dans Oakley et Sinos a été quelquefois étudiée, principalement dans des catalogues de collections de musées, dans des recherches iconographiques mais aussi dans des livres sur la religion ou le mariage. C’est une hydrie à figures rouges datant de la période archaïque (-525/-475) qui a été attribuée au peintre de Leningrad. Il fait partie du groupe de peintres nommé les maniéristes, il s’agit d’un des seuls courants à figures rouges archaïques qui nous est parvenu. Ceux-ci développent leur technique durant le Ve siècle av. J.-C. Ce sont des apprentis qui recopient les techniques de leurs maîtres. Le peintre de 408

Leningrad serait pour certains auteurs celui qui aurait la technique la plus élaborée au niveau 409

des détails. L’hydrie est conservée au Musée National de Varsovie .

Dans le décor de ce vase, on retrouve des frises similaires dans la partie supérieure et inférieure représentant des boutons de lotus. Ce motif est très présent dans la figure noire de 410

l’époque archaïque . Il y a de chaque côté deux colonnes décorées de points reliés par des lignes 411

sinueuses. Ensuite, à l'extrême droite se trouve un bassin ou un refroidisseur, dans lequel se trouve un loutrophore. Entre les deux femmes complètement à droite, il y a une petite oenochoé sur un

407

J.H. Oakley et R. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison, 1994, p.15.

Jonh Boardman. Les Vases athéniens à figures rouges : La période archaïque, Thames Hudson, 1997.

408

409

Attic Vase Inscription, 7995 R.S Folsom, Handbook of greek pottery, London : Faber and Faber 1967, p.66.

411 Suit la théorie de shape and use of vase 410

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412

support qui fait penser à un petit foyer . La scène est composée de 5 femmes et un homme. En partant de la gauche, la première femme a les cheveux noués en queue de cheval basse avec un élastique au niveau des pointes. Elle porte dans sa main droite une torche. Sur son visage, on constate un petit sourire archaïque comme pour tous les autres personnages. Elle a un simple bandeau dans ses cheveux. Son habillement est composé d’un chiton parsemé de points noirs et 413

d’un himation . Elle ne porte pas de chaussures, comme aucun des autres personnages de la scène.

Elle a de petites boucles d’oreilles. La deuxième femme tient deux torches une qui pointe vers le bas dans la main droite et l’autre qui pointe vers le ciel dans sa main gauche. Elle a les cheveux ramassés en chignon bas. Elle porte aussi un bandeau avec une pierre sur le front (à déterminer puisque c’est un cercle rouge sur son front). Elle est aussi vêtue d’un chiton décoré de lignes cette 414

fois-ci et d’un himation. La troisième femme tend un plémochoé décoré vers le ciel. Ces cheveux sont retenus en queue de cheval. Elle porte un bandeau de couleur rouge foncé ainsi qu’un voile qui couvre ses cheveux. Elle porte aussi un chiton (décorée par des points noirs en groupement de trois avec deux bandes noires au centre) et d’un himation dont les manches sont décorées de bandes noires La quatrième femme a le bras droit levé vers le ciel et le gauche levé au niveau de la tête. Elle porte aussi une queue de cheval. Elle porte un chiton décoré par deux lignes sur l’ourlet et un himation. Elle porte un bandeau dans lequel il y a un voile qui couvre seulement la queue de cheval et le dessus du front. La sixième femme tient dans sa main droite, une phiale qui est décorée 415

. Ses cheveux sont agencés en queue de cheval. Elle porte un diadème et des boucles d’oreilles.

412

R.S Folsom, 1967, op. cit.

On trouve dans le bas un appendice qui pourrait rappeler à un pompon. Il aurait été possible de déduire que la présence d’un pompon rapporte à un costume traditionnel de mariage et aurait pu justifier la théorie du bain prénuptial. Cette théorie est infondée faute d’études à ce sujet. Il pourrait aussi s’agir de poids pour tenir le manteau en place.

414 R.S Folsom, 1967, op. cit.

415 R.S Folsom, 1967, op. cit.

413

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Son chiton est décoré de points noirs et de fines lignes le long des ourlets et elle porte un himation.

Le jeune homme nu est accroupi avec le genou droit qui repose sur le sol. Il a des cheveux courts, il est imberbe. Son pied gauche est difforme et parsemé de points noirs. Il porte une couronne d’olivier qui fait souvent partie d’un rituel de purification car c’est synonyme d’élévation. Son pied droit repose dans une vase en forme de grande assiette. Il est l’élément central de l’image puisque toutes les femmes sont tournées vers lui.

Présentation des théories élaborées À l’aide de la sélection d’articles de Beazley, quatre analyses ont été présentées jusqu’à maintenant.

La première est celle du bain d’un jeune. Cependant, les auteurs qui suivent cet ordre d’idées n'expliquent pas pourquoi ils pensent ainsi. Beazley, le Attic Vase Inscription(AVI) et le LIMC (Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae) suivent cette théorie. Cependant, il est difficile de croire qu’il en est ainsi. Dans la scène peinte sur l’hydrie étudiée, il n’y a ni de bain, ni de strigile, ni d’aryballe qui sont représentés. Ces éléments sont traditionnellement présents dans 416

des scènes de bains . Une amphore attribuée au peintre de Priam qui date d’environ de la même époque présente un groupe de jeunes filles prenant un bain. La baignoire est représentée ainsi que les strigiles et les aryballes (Beazley, 351080) De plus, le jeune semble assez mature, il est certes difficile de déterminer son âge réel mais il est fort douteux qu’il ait besoin de cinq femmes pour le laver. Ces femmes auraient pu être des esclaves mais leurs vêtements et leurs parures rejettent complètement cette hypothèse.

416

Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty, Michèle Bimbenet-Privat, Philippe Walter. Le bain et le miroir: soins du corps et cosmétique de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance, Gallimard, 2009, p. 92-94.

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La deuxième théorie est celle d’une représentation du rituel de purification appelé 417

l’expiation de Thésée . Ce rite est fait lorsque quelqu’un commet un crime impliquant du sang.

La purification dans certains cas se ferait par le sang. J. De Witte est particulièrement friand de cette théorie, de laquelle il a écrit deux articles au courant du XIXe siècle. Il n’explique pas très clairement pourquoi il pense ainsi et n’offre aucune comparaison avec d’autres vases pour justifier sa théorie. Cependant, il base sa théorie sur la présence de la toison d’or dans l’image, 418

représenté par l’élément picoté qui se trouve au niveau du pied gauche du jeune homme . Cet artefact fait partie du mythe des Argonautiques. Thésée n’est pas présent dans ce récit. De plus, la représentation de la toison d’or dans l’iconographie grecque est toujours représentée avec la tête du bélier (Beazley, 250910). C’est une preuve de la faiblesse de l’argument amené par J. de Witte. Le Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (CVA) suit aussi cette théorie sans donner plus 419

d’explication. Cette théorie est la plus ancienne trouvée jusqu’à maintenant . Elle est un peu douteuse, mais moins que la dernière puisque l’implication d’une couronne végétale ainsi que la présence de l’eau ramène à un rituel de purification. Cependant, la présence de femmes n’est pas traditionnelle à moins qu’elles ne soient des prêtresses, mais il n’y a pas la présence de dieux comme on le voit dans une coupe attique à figures noires (Beazley, 11106). Le sujet du vase n’est pas le même puisque dans le cas de cette figure, on assiste à une procession en vue d’un sacrifice pour Athéna. Cependant, on retrouve une jeune femme qui se trouve au côté de la déesse et elle est considérée comme une prêtresse.À la lecture de ce vase, on peut tenter de créer une relation entre la présence divine reliée à la présence de prêtresse ce qui n’est pas le cas dans le vase du

417

J. de Witte. L’expiation ou la purification de Thésée, Gazette archéologique: 1884, p.351-353.

J. de Witte. 1884, op. cit.

419 Les capacités linguistiques de l’auteur se réduisent au français. Les documents plus anciens en anglais lui sont inaccessibles.

418

180

peintre de Leningrad. De plus, la présence du loutrophore pose aussi un problème puisque c’est un vase seulement présent dans les scènes de mariage. Les vases 214899 et 214884 du catalogue de 420

Beazley en sont l’exemple. En ordre, il y a une procession et un habillement de la mariée . Pour ajouter à l'argument peu détaillé par J. de Witte, il est possible de comparer l’image avec un autre vase représentant le rituel de purification de Thésée (Figure 8) selon le ThesCRA (Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum). Dans cette scène, le jeune Thésée est représenté semi-nu sur un autel. Il est entouré de nombreuses divinités qui sont présentes dans son mythe notemment Athéna, Poséidon, Hercule… Il porte une couronne végétale certes mais la scène ne ressemble en rien à l’oeuvre du peintre de Leningrad.

La troisième théorie est celle du bain prénuptial. Ce rituel de purification a lieu le premier des trois jours du mariage. Il a pour but de préparer les mariés pour la transition de la vie de famille à la future vie commune. Il y avait une source d’eau dans les villes spécialement réservée pour aller chercher l’eau nécessaire à ce rituel et il y avait une procession pour aller la puiser avant 421

le bain . J.H Oakley et R. Sinos sont particulièrement friands de cette théorie. Ils affirment que la présence du loutrophore justifie que cette scène soit un bain prénuptial. L. Bodiou et V. Mehl, sans décrire le vase, assument d’office que celui-ci représente un rite de purification associé au 422

mariage. Elles affirment d’ailleurs que c’est la seule représentation de ce rite . L’AVI n’écarte pas la possibilité mais ne donne aucun argument. Tout en restant quelque peu douteuse, cette théorie est la moins bancale. En effet, comme expliqué plus haut, la présence de l’eau et d’une couronne ne laisse aucun doute à l’idée d’une purification. De plus, la présence du loutrophore fait en effet

420

J.H. Oakley et R. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison, 1994, p.15 Idem. C’est d’ailleurs cette scène du rituel du bain prénuptial qui est la plus représentée dans l’iconographie.

422 Lydie Bodiou. et Véronique Mehl . (eds.), La religion des femmes en Grèce ancienne, Mythes, cultes et société, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009, p.183-184.

421

181

423

penser à une scène reliée au mariage . L’habillement et l’ornement des femmes est aussi un indicateur, puisque celles-ci sont décorées de manière élégante laissant supposer qu’une cérémonie importante devrait se dérouler. La pyxide de la figure 20 dans J.H Oakley et R.Sinos (Beazley, 44750) est la comparaison parfaite démontrant le même rituel. En effet, il y a une femme accroupie qui se fait verser de l'eau sur la tête par un éros. La scène est très similaire à celle de l’hydrie étudiée. Sur cette pyxide, il est clair que c’est une scène de mariage puisqu’elle est accompagnée d’autres scènes qui font parties des rites qui ont lieu avant la cérémonie. De plus, la 424

présence de plusieurs éros confirme le caractère nuptial de la scène .

Ce vase a été analysé pour une quatrième fois dans une tout autre optique par Tsingarida.

La forme biconique qui tient le loutrophore l’a intéressée. Laissant de côté la signification de la scène dans son ensemble, l’auteure s'est attardée sur la pièce en stipulant que celle-ci est un bassin. L’image n’était alors analysée que pour justifier son argumentation quant à la 425

représentation des bassins dans l’art grec .

Le problème dans les théories présentées jusqu’à maintenant est qu’elles sont très peu justifiées. Le manque de méthodologie laisse douter n’importe quel chercheur qui se penchera sur l’analyse de ce vase. Le processus de réflexion est peu ou n’est pas présenté menant à une prise pour acquis direct de la théorie. Il peut s’avérer très frustrant pour un chercheur contemporain de se pencher sur ce vase. Cependant, la théorie la plus utilisée et la plus plausible est certainement celle du bain prénuptial qui aurait été élaborée par Rumph. La présence d’une

423

J.H. Oakley et R. Sinos, 1994, Op. cit.

Idem.

425 Athena Tsingarida (ed.), Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th-4th centuries B.C.), Bruxelles, CReA-patrimoine, 2009, 382 p 424

182

couronne, la présence du loutrophore, le parfum dans le plomechoe et l’habillement des jeunes femmes sont des indicateurs d’une représentation du bain prénuptial.

Conclusion À la lumière de ce qui précède, de nombreuses théories qui sont ressorties à propos de l’image de l’hydrie composé de 5 femmes habillées richement et d’un homme accroupi nu accompagnés d’un loutrophore, d’une couronne, d’un plémochoé. La première élaborée par Beazley est le lavage d’un jeune homme, mais cette théorie n’est pas convaincante. En effet, il manque des éléments que l’on retrouve habituellement dans les scènes de bains et de lavage comme les aryballes et les strigiles. La deuxième des théories élaborée par J. de Witte est celle du rituel de l’expiation de Thésée qui s'appuie sur la présence de la « toison d’or » au pied du jeune homme.

Elle est très contestable vu le manque de méthodologie de l’auteur, mais aussi par le manque d’explication quant à la présence du loutrophore et l’interprétation rapide des éléments représentant 426

le sacré de l’image. La troisième théorie – la plus solide – est celle du bain prénuptial , un rituel qui se déroule lors du premier jour du mariage. Tous les éléments du vase sont pris en compte pour justifier la cérémonie représentée : le loutrophore, l’habillement, la présence de l’eau et du parfum, et la couronne. De plus, la similitude avec un autre vase représentant la même scène réaffirme l’argumentation. De plus, le vase a servi d'argument afin de présenter les représentations des bassins dans l’art grec par Tsingarida dans Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th-4th centuries B.C.). Il ne faut pas oublier qu’il y a un certain manque de méthodologie quant à l’étude de ce vase ce qui est un obstacle frustrant pour les chercheurs contemporains.

426

Rumph, 1928

183

Un élément qui semble avoir échappé à de nombreux auteurs est l’étude du cadre de la scène, c’est-à-dire les deux colonnes et les frises en boutons de lotus. Il serait pertinent de rechercher si les deux colonnes représentent l’intérieur d’une maison ou bien qu’elles soient purement décoratives exprimant un caractère stylistique associé au peintre de Leningrad. De plus, les frises en boutons de lotus sont des éléments retrouvés sur de nombreux vases. Il serait pertinent de chercher à comprendre si ce motif à une signification quelconque ou s’il est placé à titre purement décoratif.

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Bibliographie

Manuels Brian A. Sparkes. Greek pottery an introduction, Manchester, New York, Manchester University Press, 1991, 186 p.

R.S Folsom. Handbook of greek pottery, London : Faber and Faber 1967, 213 p.

Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos. A companion to Greek art, Malden, MA, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 Monographies

Athena Tsingarida (ed.), Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th-4th centuries B.C.), Bruxelles, CReA-patrimoine, 2009, 382 p.

Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty, Michèle Bimbenet-Privat, Philippe Walter. Le bain et le miroir: soins du corps et cosmétique de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance, Gallimard, 2009, p. 92-94.

J.H. Oakley et R. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens, Madison, 1994.

John Boardman. Les Vases athéniens à figures rouges : La période archaïque, Thames Hudson, 1997.

Lydie Bodiou. et Véronique Mehl . (eds.), La religion des femmes en Grèce ancienne, Mythes, cultes et société, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009, p.183-184.

Articles

J. de Witte. L’expiation ou la purification de Thésée, Gazette archéologique: 1884, p.351-353.

Catalogues

Attic Vases Inscriptions, AVI, 7995

Digit LIMC, 50048

Goluchow, Musée Czartoryski, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, 23-24, PL.(032) 32.3A.3B

J. de Witte. Description des collections d'Antiquités conservées à l'Hôtel Lambert, Paris, 1886, p.68-70.

Fondation pour le LIMC, ThesCRA, 2004, vol. 1,2.

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Reframing Egyptian Mummy Portraits: (De)Constructing Identity in Freedmen Funerary Portraiture

Avery Warkentin, McGill

Fayum or mummy portraits are a well-defined category of portraiture which includes around one thousand painted funerary images that come to us from different locales all over Egypt and are dated most commonly between the early first and mid-third centuries CE. The majority of the scholarship on these paintings has typically focused on art-historical questions; academics have been interested in dating via clothing and hairstyles, in isolating specific artists and schools, and in the function of the portraits within contemporary cultic and religious 427

practice.

As such, much work remains to be done to socially situate these portraits or to

understand their function as products of the complex and malleable landscape of imperial Egypt.

Focusing initially on two case studies, that of the freedman Eutyches and the grammarian Hermione respectively, this paper will examine mummy portraits as an extension of freedman art which sought to communicate social and cultural capital after death. After a brief overview and history of the portraits themselves, Egyptian mummy portraiture will then be situated as an example of funerary monumentalization that performed the role of identity-construction.

Beginning from the portraits of the freedman Eutyches and the Egyptian woman Hermione, I will argue that Egyptian mummy portraits provided a unique and vital means of self-representation for Egyptian freedmen and their descendants. This paper will use Ward Goodenough’s theory of social personae and Chris Fowler’s concept of mortuary transformation

427

Dominic Montserrat, “The Representation of Young Males in ‘Fayum Portraits’,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 79 (1993): 215.

186

to resituate Egyptian mummy portraits within a longer tradition of mortuary idealization. The analogous complexity of legal status in Roman Egypt will be used as a foundation to demonstrate the need for individuals to affirm their status, wealth, or ethnicity in a constantly changing landscape of legislation. This “flagrant divorce between social reality and juridical 428

categories”

in Roman Egypt thus encouraged individual self-definition. As such, Egyptian

mummy portraits provided an essential opportunity for freedmen to self-assert their identity through the process of funerary transformation in a region that was in constant ethnic and legal flux.

Before discussing the mummy portraits themselves, it is pertinent to situate my analysis within the theoretical framework of mortuary practices. Early archaeological analyses used cemeteries, burial mounds, funerary monumentality, and, when present, grave goods to construct cultural, social, or historical interpretations of the deceased individuals. In the 1960s and 1970s however, there was a shift in focus which sought to examine the theoretical bases and analytical methods that informed previous archaeological interpretations. In turn, various subdisciplines of ‘Mortuary Archaeology’ arose in academic communities, thus shifting the discipline of archaeology from a processual belief in the objective materiality of archaeological remains 429

towards a post-processual, subjective analysis.

In my own analysis of artistic funerary practices

in Roman Egypt, it is important to emphasize the deeply contextual nature of archaeological inquiry as well as the inherent subjectivity of the individuals who are commemorated. As Chris Fowler explains, “identities are negotiated relationally and contextually,” yet there remains the

428

Susan Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” in Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt. Ed. Susan Walker (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), 28.

429 Robert Chapman, “Death, Burial, and Social Representation” in Liv Nilsson and Sarah Tarlow (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1.

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issue of how one defines identity, or what aspects of identity one chooses to include in an academic analysis; ethnicity, age, sex, gender, personhood, kinship, wealth, prestige, and rank are all intrinsic to the social identity of an individual.

430

The term “social identity” was coined by the

sociologist Ward Goodenough to refer to aspects of identity that depended on social relations 431

with others, relations that came with duties and rights.

In examining the social and relational

nature of identity creation, Goodenough acknowledged that each person has numerous social identities, or “social personae,” which are “[t]he composite of several activities selected as 432

appropriate to a given interaction.”

The fact that these personae must express an intelligible

biographical reality and must fit conventional social roles means that archaeological inquiries have often approached mortuary materials and processes as reflecting and affirming social identities constructed in life. However, as Fowler astutely argues, to view mortuary rites as purely affirming pre-existing identities fixed at the point of death is to ignore how social relations and, by extension, the social person are negotiated and transformed repeatedly through mortuary practices and the mortuary process.

433

As such, “the meanings assigned to such materials and

phenomena are ultimately culturally determined” and thus cannot be understood as self-evidently 434

descriptive.

Fowler’s thesis reinforces this point as he argues that “mortuary transformations 435

are often important in achieving an idealized form of existence after death.”

430

This theoretical

Chris Fowler, “Identities in Transformation” in Liv Nilsson and Sarah Tarlow (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1.

431 Ward Goodenough, “Rethinking ‘Status’ and ‘Role’: Towards a General Model of the Cultural Organization of Social Relationships” in M. Blanton (ed.) The Relevance of Models to Social Anthropology (London: Tavistock, 1965), 7.

432 Goodenough, “Rethinking ‘Status’ and ‘Role’,” 7.

433 Fowler, “Identities in Transformation,” 3.

434 Susan Kus, “Death and the Cultural Entanglements of the Experienced, the Learned, the Expressed, the Contested, and the Imagined” in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial. Ed, Liv Nilsson and Sarah Tarlow, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9.

435 Fowler, “Identities in Transformation,” 1.

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framework informs my analysis of the subsequent portraits which depict transformations in the identities of individuals during the very mortuary process that provides archaeologists with their evidence. Egyptian mummy portraits, in a very literal sense, reflected the individuals they commemorated yet their social function must be analyzed within a constructed mortuary identity. This reality reflects both Goodenough’s theory of social personae and Fowler’s idea of mortuary idealization. Thus, this examination exists at a nexus of archaeological inquiry and is subject to a variety of theoretical frameworks which intersect within the context of funerary commemoration.

Egyptian (or Fayum) mummy portraits is the academic term referring to a type of mortuary portraiture common in Roman Egypt, the largest quantities of which come from the Fayum Basin, most notably from Hawar and Antinoopolis. The practice of Roman portraiture was an artistic tradition dating back much farther than the Roman Imperial period. In the Roman Republic, funerary portraits were restricted to the nobility and to the families of serving magistrates. Those portrait masks had an exemplary role; they were intended to instil in younger 436

members of the family group the virtues practised by their ancestors.

The mummy portraits of

Roman Egypt are considered a stylistic evolution of this tradition “though in function they are 437

integral to the preparation of mummies in the last phase of ancient Egyptian cult of the dead.”

The portraits themselves appear in the middle of the first century and continued to be used for approximately two hundred years, up until the mid third century when the practice slowly fell out of favour. The title of Fayum portraits speaks to their local function, whose use followed the Egyptian funerary tradition of covering the head of the mummified individual represented in the

436

Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” 23.

Kurt Gschwantler, “Graeco-Roman Portraiture” in Susan Walker (ed.) Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), 21.

437

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portrait. To this end, “the portraits were painted on wooden panels that were inserted over the 438

mummy wrappings or on linen shrouds that covered the mummy.”

Portraits were also painted

on plaster heads as plaster became more widely available throughout Egypt. As previously mentioned, many art historical analyses have used the portraits’ hairstyles, clothes, and jewellery to date them. While some stylings speak to local tastes, the general reflection of metropolitan Roman fashion implies that the subjects of the portraits themselves were likely engaged in local administrations on behalf of imperial authorities.

439

Such an interpretation predicts my

succeeding section on the uniquely malleable landscape of Roman Egypt. Whatever the material and artistic details, the aesthetic purpose of the portrait remained consistent: to serve as a visual record of the deceased as he or she had appeared in life. While these paintings have artistic value, it is also important to acknowledge that these portraits served more than a purely decorative function. Rather, the artistic register of the mummy portraits allowed for their social function to be communicated without words and in situ, revealing the process of identity transformation and construction that occurs in death. The social function of these portraits was intensely multifaceted. The fact that most of the portraits were likely painted while the subject was still alive suggests an active form of artistic commemoration that would have involved more than 440

simply the painter and the subject.

Thus, community participation in this apparently

individualized artistic tradition can also be understood as intrinsic to the process of identity construction; this implies another level of social applicability. Individuals chose to depict themselves in ways that reflected their economic status, ethnic background, political position, or familial connections, a fact which speaks to the social nature of the paintings. Each portrait’s

438

Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” 23.

Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” 23.

440 Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” 24.

439

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clothing, jewelry, background, decorative elements (i.e. garlands, markers of employment, cups/food), or, in some cases, literary inscriptions, communicated a curated identity to those viewing it. Thus, in order for these portraits to perform the function for which they were created, a reciprocal social exchange was required between the deceased and the viewer who encountered the subject’s portrait post mortem.

I turn first to the local context within which both individuals under analysis would have found themselves. Egypt’s complex ethnic history meant that, by the Roman period, equally complicated legal structures were required to define and govern the heterogeneous region. This continued legislative complexity provides a social and political context in which individuals needed a variety of means, including art, to affirm their status, wealth, or ethnicity. To provide a brief overview, in the Ptolemaic system all people were divided into two groups: Hellenes (Greeks) and Egyptians. Hellenic - or “not Egyptian” - status was based on official national origin, and virtually all foreigners qualified as Hellenes. For most purposes, the term meant “immigrant” or “foreign settler”. Already in the Ptolemaic period, ethnicity looked increasingly slippery: “ethnic” categories were neither constant nor clearly defined, but were rather based in 441

fluctuating historical circumstances and forces.

Official ethnicity in the pre-Roman period

moved from representing the national origin of the head of the household to being a heritable 442

status, and from that to being an acquirable status.

As such, Graeco-Macedonian military

settlers, civilians of Greek descent, official Greeks of Egyptian or mixed descent, and Egyptians

441

R.S. Bagnall, “The Fayum and its People,” in Susan Walker (ed.) Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), 27.

442 Jean A. Straus, “Slaves and Slavery in the Roman Period” in Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest: A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary. Ed. J. Keenan, J. Manning, and U. Yiftach-Firanko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 453.

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untouched by the presence of foreigners all coexisted in both rural and urban contexts. The Romans, in response to Egypt’s ethnic malleability, took a different and distinctly legal approach to categorization and control. They maintained a distinction between Greeks and Egyptians but classified Hellenes as a subcategory of Egyptians, not as their opposite. As a result, a distinctly Roman class structure emerged. At the top were holders of Roman citizenship followed by the citizens of three, then four, Greek cities of Egypt: non-Romans, but still citizens. To complicate matters even further, citizens of Alexandria retained a slightly higher and legally distinct status compared to those of Ptolemais, Naukratis, or Antinoopolis. The final and lowest class in Roman-Egypt included Egyptians, or peregrine non-citizens in Roman terms, hence all 443

inhabitants that existed outside of the two previous categories.

The composite, contested, relational, and mutable character of ethnicity and legal status in Roman Egypt is undoubtedly at the root of the complexity in constructing and curating identities via artistic channels such as mummy portraiture. All individuals, whether holders of Roman citizenship, non-Roman citizens, or non-citizens would have been subject to a continually fluctuating regional landscape in which maintaining, or creating, a distinct individual identity was vital in communicating social, political, or economic capital. Freedpeople would have been doubly interested in self-asserting their identity due to their former enslaved status. Mummy portraits thus presented an entirely autonomous opportunity, separate from traditional administrative structures, for individuals to control their own identity. It is no surprise that these identities were often idealized. The complexity of legal status in Roman Egypt informed the need for individuals to affirm their status, wealth, or ethnicity in a constantly changing landscape of legislative and administrative structures.

443

Bagnall, “The Fayum and its People,” 28.

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Two case studies illuminate my analysis of the role that freedpeople played in this process of artistic commemoration. First is the portrait of Eutyches which is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The portrait (H 38 cm x W 19cm) depicts a young man in three-quarter view; the young man faces out towards the viewer, looking directly out from the portrait. Scholars have dated the portrait to the first half of the second century CE, however dating remains somewhat contentious as the provenance of the portrait is unknown.

The inscription is one of the most interesting in the corpus of portraits as it directly refers to the subject as: Εὐτύχης ἀπελ(εύθεροσ) Κασιανοῦ Ἡρακλειδ() [ Εὐανδ(ρο) σεσημ(είωμαι) ], 444

“Eutyches, freedman of Cassianus Heraclides”.

The portrait’s artistic details can be read

through a lens of mortuary identity construction and social communication. To begin, the inscription itself situates the subject as part of a specific class of freedmen, a fact which would have immediately communicated a variety of political, economic, and social implications to a viewer. The painting appears intensely life-like as incredibly fine brushstrokes create a highly realistic depiction of Eutyches. This constructed realism is notable when compared to the corpus of mummy portraits as a whole since the vast majority of individuals are depicted with much rougher brushwork and far less attention to minute artistic detail. The shining, almost completely smooth, golden skin of Eutyches as well as other details again serve to create a naturalistic delineation of the subject: Eutyches’ hair is a rich dark brown and painted with tiny, wispy strokes; his eyes are ringed with delicate eyelashes and a subtle ring of dark kohl; the left side of

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Different readings of the Eutyches inscription have proposed slight variations in translations. Translated by Parlasca (1966) as ‘Eutyches, freedman of Cassianus Heraclides’, the text has been altered by Clarysse in Doxiadis (1995) to read ‘Eutyches, freedman of Cassianus, son of Heraclides’. A final alternative reading was proposed by Bagnall and Worp (1981), who suggested the name ‘Evandros’ and the verb ‘signed’. Thus, their translation reads: ‘Eutyches, freedman of Kasianos’, then either ‘son of Herakleides, Evandros’ or ‘Herakleides, son of Evandros’ followed by ‘I signed’. Regardless of the nuances of translation, the most important piece of information to my own investigation, ἀπελ(εύθεροσ), remains consistent.

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his body is softly shadowed and turned slightly away from an external source of light. While all of these details at a basic artistic level served to reflect how Eutyches actually appeared in life, they also simultaneously contributed to Fowler’s idea of funerary identity construction. Thus, such attention to an accurate funerary depiction can be read antithetically as a marker of mortuary idealization. A freedman such as Eutyches would have had an interest in asserting his status, whether social, economic, or political, to the community to which he belonged, especially as someone who was unable to live a long life after manumission.

Other details in the portrait further support such an analysis. Eutyches is dressed in a white tunic with a purple clavus draped over his right shoulder. A white mantle sits across his left shoulder under which is written the three lines of Greek text. The choice of clothing, the augusticlavia, reinforces an idealized identity. The purple clavus, in Roman tradition, served to 445

indicate a social status above regular citizenry but below senators and magistrates.

The exact

contemporaneous function of such dress in Roman Egypt is not as important as the fact that it communicated a specific kind of Roman identity, one linked to political participation and elite status. Additionally, the presence of text itself could suggest a certain level of education, another marker of eliteness or community integration. All of these artistic features were thus chances for Eutyches, a freedman, to assert an idealized form of his own identity via an intensely malleable form of artistic commemoration.

A further potential example of freedmen mummy portrait commemoration appears in the portrait of a woman whose name and profession is inscribed onto her portrait. Discovered and excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1910-11 at Hawara, the portrait of Hermione Grammatike

445

Norma Goldman, “Reconstructing Roman Clothing” in The World of Roman Costume. Ed. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante, (Cambridge: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 221.

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now resides in Girton College, Cambridge. The portrait (H 30.5 x W 21 cm), which is dated to the early first century CE, is set among intricate bandages of the highest quality linen which are wound in layers in a rhomboid pattern. To the left of Hermione’s neck reads the inscription: Ἑρμιόνη γραμματική, ‘Hermione, Grammatike’. Unusually, this inscription provides both the name and profession of the subject in question. Various interpretations of the Grammatike inscription have provided a myriad of possibilities concerning the position, status, and ethnicity of the woman Hermione, all dependent on various translations of the mysterious Greek word 446

γραμματική.

However, for this analysis, I have chosen to proceed via Dominic Montserrat’s

reading of the inscription as one depicting a wealthy freedwoman whose employment was that of 447

a grammarian or teacher. This interpretation is based on the context of discovery. The painting style is much less detailed than that of Eutyches. Hermione is depicted in a close set view with only the edges of a light-coloured tunic top visible above the bottom portrait edge. She wears large, rounded earrings and her dark hair is drawn away from her face and parted down the middle of her scalp. These details, together with the portrait’s inscription, can be viewed as attempts to delineate and curate a form of idealized identity that would be immortalized and communicated after death. Just as with the portrait of Eutyches, Hermione’s artistic features communicate a lifelike reality which, while providing a sense of authenticity, also serve to reinforce a self-asserted identity. Unfortunately, the preservation of Hermione’s portrait is

446

According to Montserrat (1997), this term has been translated variously as ‘teacher’, ‘teacher of the classics’, ‘'instructor in the rudiments’, ‘reader in the Classics’, ‘lady’, ‘secretary’ and ‘literate’.

447 Montserrat (1997) discusses that the portrait of Hermione was found together with the portrait of a man with the inscribed name Heron. As such, an analogous analysis of both portraits provides the potential of their freedperson status. Hermione and Heron’s names are both religious (they are named after gods) and appear in a singular form on their respective inscriptions. While there may be other reasons for this choice of inscriptional commemoration (limited space, difficulty of writing), these naming patterns follow those of slaves and, subsequently, freedmen, who frequently only had a single name, often adjectival (Felix) or religious (Hermione, Heron).

195

significantly poorer than that of Eutyches. Nevertheless, Walker suggests that her clothing and jewelry follow patterns of elite Roman dress and display, thus placing Hermione’s depiction within a similar visual lexicon of Roman aristocracy.

448

The most important marker, however, of

freedperson self-delineation remains the inscription itself; Hermione most likely chose to include her profession on her funerary portrait, thus personally creating a narrative of identity. The gendered dynamic of Hermione’s portrait adds yet another layer of meaning to such a choice.

Hermione’s identity as a woman would have shaped her experience as a slave, freedwoman, and grammarian. In navigating these varied systems of oppression, the creation of a personal identity could have presented a vital form of self-preservation for someone who existed at the nexus of multiple systems of alienation. In asserting her position of employment alongside traditional artistic elements in her funerary portrait, Hermione was able to curate an individual identity that transcended systems of legal, patriarchal, and political oppression. This idealized reality would have been communicated to viewers within the context of a malleable landscape of political and social competition.

These two case studies provide an intensely focused analysis concerning the potential of freedperson identity construction. Such an analysis is naturally constrained by the limited quantity of mummy portraits. It is also limited by the general lack of inscriptions that would indicate freedperson status as other artistic or visual markers are essentially nonexistent. This means that while we do not have any other inscriptional evidence confirming the freedperson status of other subjects in Egyptian mummy portraits, the existence of the Eutyches and Hermione portraits suggests the possibility that many of the other individuals in these portraits may also have been freedpeople. Thus, the desire of such freedpeople to self-assert and curate a 448

Walker, “Mummy Portraits and Roman Portraiture,” 25.

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specific kind of identity via mummy portraits could have much wider implications. Economically, the mere ability to pay for a portrait would have been an immediate marker of economic and social status within a community. Demographically, mummy portraits are almost evenly split across gender and depict a wide variety of ages, the majority being somewhat middle aged, 30-50 449

years old, as reflects general life expectancy trends of the time.

The variety in subjectivity

further reinforces the social role that these portraits performed: a vastly varied contingent of a diverse population was equally interested in using this specific form of mortuary commemoration in order to curate a distinct identity in death. The personal artistic details as well as demographic and economic factors suggest a distinct desire for individuals, whether freedpeople or elite citizens, to use art as a means of identity construction. If this desire can be understood as foundational to the creation of Egyptian mummy portraits as a whole, the added dimension of freedperson status would suggest an even greater need to construct an idealized funerary identity.

To frame this specific reexamination of mummy portraiture, I turn first to Orlando Patterson’s analysis of natal alienation and slavery. Patterson posits that slavery was not only an economic or legal status, but also a social one as the slave, “alienated from all ‘rights’ or claims of birth, ceased to belong in his own right to any legitimate social order.”

450

Slaves were innately

socially separate from their free counterparts in that they were not allowed freely to integrate the experience of their ancestors into their lives or to anchor their living present in any conscious community of memory. Legitimate, binding markers of status, family, or community were

449

Euphrosyne Doxiadis, The Mysterious Fayum Portraits. Faces from Ancient Egypt, (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1995), 36.

450 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, (Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1982), 5.

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451

necessarily absent from the social relations of slaves.

The loss of ties of birth, the alienation

from all formal enforceable ties of “blood,” and from any attachment to groups or localities other than those chosen for him by the master inevitably led to profound emotional and social 452

implications.

This foundational function of natal alienation in Roman slavery suggests a system

in which freedpeople, after manumission, would have had a profound desire to reassert their legality and identity in whatever means were available to them, if only to affirm their newfound status as not slaves. This desire was often manifested via physical commemorations, of which mummy portraits are one example. In the context of Roman Egypt, freedperson mummy portraits can be understood as responding directly to the deracination that slavery brought about.

Not only was the fluctuating legal and ethnic landscape of Egypt intrinsic to this kind of identity construction, but Egyptian funerary traditions themselves reinforced art as a means of social communication. Thus, the artistic variables of each mummy portrait presented an opportunity for the deceased to construct a visual identity that communicated social and cultural capital.

These variables included, most obviously, hairstyles, jewelry, and clothing. However, more subtle choices of framing, painting style, and additional elements all equally contributed to the process of mortuary transformation and idealization. In the case studies of Hermione and Eutyches, elements of elite culture were immediately visible via clothing and jewelry while inscriptions provided a distinct insight into an individual conception of self.

Lauren Hackworth-Peterson suggests that in order to understand freedmen art one must take into consideration the contemporary audience(s) for each monument and shift the perspective from one that privileges only elite ideals to one that prioritizes features that would

451 452

Patterson, Slavery and Social Death 5-6.

Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 6.

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have commanded a viewer’s attention and thus communicated something about the social identity of the individual(s) who paid for it.

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Hackworth-Peterson’s proposed shift is intrinsic to

what this paper proposes: rather than understanding Egyptian mummy portraits as merely artistic indicators of elite expenditure and funerary investment, the cases of Eutyches and Hermione suggest that mummy portraiture served a distinctly social function. Portraits presented an immediate opportunity for marginalized individuals such as freedpeople to construct and communicate an incredibly basic element of political, cultural, and social life: identity. However, identity construction postmortem was “not usually concerned with (or capable of) materially representing the entire biographical identity of the deceased in a totalized singular form. Rather, funerary monumentalization commemorate[d] the deceased person while drawing on idealized, 454

desired identities.”

In the case of mummy portraits, individuals, including freedpeople such as

Eutyches and Hermione, sought to construct idealized identities that placed them within traditional Roman artistic structures, structures which in mummy portraiture communicated social and cultural capital in a highly competitive and malleable atmosphere.

455

Even as precise

distinctions in status remain difficult to ascertain in the absence of formal status indicators, the individuals depicted in my two case studies and, by extension, other freedpeople sought recognition via their own self-delineated and idealized mortuary identity.

Artistic delineations of freedperson identity were not limited to portraiture but can rather be found in a variety of contexts, including literary. Petronius’ Satyricon provides such an example: as Encolpius, the work’s protagonist, steps into the home of the wealthy freedman Trimalchio, he

453

Lauren Hackworth-Peterson, The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 228.

454 Fowler, “Identities in Transformation,” 14.

455 Hackworth-Peterson, The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History, 228.

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is amazed at the mural painted on the wall of the entrance hall. The mural depicts “a slave-market, price-tags and all. Then Trimalchio himself, holding a wand of Mercury and being led into Rome by Minerva. After this a picture of how he learned accounting and, finally, how he became a steward. The painstaking artist had drawn it all in great detail with descriptions underneath” (Petron. Sat. 29). This description of one freedman’s decorative self-delineation noticeably reflects many of the elements of mortuary idealization that Egyptian mummy portraits suggest. Trimalchio, in his own home, commissioned a piece of decorative art in which he himself is the subject and in which his identity is satirically idealized. While this example is part of a larger comedic commentary, its existence reinforces an understanding of freedperson art which prioritizes a process of self-definition and identity curation. Mummy portraits, just like Trimalchio’s mural, were incredibly effective at conveying an individual sense of social and cultural identity through their use of a widely understood and accepted visual register. These idealized identities communicated to the viewers who observed them a distinct sense of self.

Furthermore, in the particular case of freedpeople, a constructed sense of self would have been incredibly valuable in response to the intrinsic alienation of their previous position as slaves.

Freedmen constituted a separate collective identity that, in many ways, required much more conscious forms of memorialization. Physical freedperson commemorations, whether portraits, inscriptions, murals, or monuments were the result of individual initiatives and personal motives 456

that may not have been uniformly shared by all members of society.

Consequently, “there was

no single unified field of competition, but many separate, localized fields, which each developed 457

their own conventions.”

In the case of Roman Egypt, funerary mummy portraiture

456

Henrik Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in Imperial Italy,” The Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005): 38.

457 Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions,” 63.

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represented a vital means of personal self-definition for freedmen. As such, the localized, competitive, and highly malleable landscape of Roman Egypt in the early centuries CE is intrinsic to this paper’s artistic analysis. Freedpeople such as Hermione and Eutyches actively sought to assert their identity through the process of mortuary transformation. As such, mummy portraits performed a specific funerary function while also serving as a physical marker of social status, community participation, and self-delineated identity. While no commemorative practice was universal - throughout the Empire, or even within a region or a single community - the corpus of Egyptian mummy portraits allows for a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which 458

freedpeople sought to communicate and construct identity in the ancient world.

458

Mouritsen, “Freedmen and Decurions,” 62-3.

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Doxiadis, Euphrosyne. The Mysterious Fayum Portraits. Faces from Ancient Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1995.

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Images: CC0 1.0 (Open Access)

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Girton College, University of Cambridge

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