Hirundo XIX by hirundo.mcgill

HIRUNDO vol. XIX

Hirundo The McGill Journal of Classical Studies Volume XIX

Founded in 2001, Hirundo accepts essay contributions from undergraduate students at McGill University that relate to the Ancient World. Hirundo is published once annually by the Classics Students' Association of McGill and uses a policy of blind review in selecting papers. It is journal policy that the copyright to the contents of each issue belongs to Hirundo. Essay in either French or English may be submitted to the Editor in Chief at: hirundo.history@gmail.com

No portion of this journal may be printed without the consent of the editorial board. © McGill Hirundo 2021

Hirundo

Editor in Chief Deputy Editor in Chief Outreach Editor

Daisy Bonsall Cindy Zeng Adam Rosengarten

Finance Editor

Carl Swanson

Editorial Board

Taylor Douglas Alison Drigenberg Kate Gelinas Olivia Genest-Binding Kimberly Hoing Marie Le Rolland Sarah Paulin Alexander Taurozzi Alie Teitz

Faculty Advisor

Darian Totten

Cover Artist Layout Design

Avery Warkentin Daisy Bonsall ii

Contents Editor’s Preface DAISY BONSALL

Fluid Queerness: Flowing into the Future 1

KEISUKE NAKAJIMA

Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and the Epic Tradition of Mockery SASHA BOGHOSIAN

“The Muse of Euripides:” Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Foreign Character of New Music

RACHEL NIRENBERG

The Ironic Politics Behind Aeschylus’ Oresteia MAYA ABUALI

Reconstructing Historical Narratives: Classics, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton DIONTAY WOLFRIES

On the relationship of the Oikos and the Polis in Ancient Greece PIERINA GONZALEZ CATUELA

Prostitutes, Plays and Public Policy: Representations of Enslaved Sex Workers and Their Impact on Regulations in Ancient Rome MAIYA WERBA

In Dialogue with the “Cold Pastoral”: Two Bucolic Ekphraseis of Theocritus and Keats TARYN POWER

A Performance in Sight Lines: The Bacchae and Complexities of Viewership GABBY ODDENINO The Choice is Yours: Relational Agency and the Shifting Materiality of Women’s Religious Objects in Roman Gaul CHRISTIANE-MARIE CANTWELL

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Editor’s Preface

I am delighted to present the nineteenth edition of Hirundo, McGill’s undergraduate research journal for Classical Studies. This issue would not have been possible were it not for the hard work of Cindy Zeng and the rest of this year’s Editorial Board. I am extremely grateful to this issue’s contributors for their insightful papers. Thanks is also due to McGill’s Department of History and Classical Studies for encouraging the exceptional undergraduate work that makes up this journal every year. I would also like to thank Emma Davidson, whose work as Editor in Chief last year was an invaluable guide for me, the Classics Students’ Association, for their continued support of Hirundo, and Avery Warkentin, for this year’s augury-inspired cover art. The papers in this issue of Hirundo include works on theatre, literature, archaeology, and Classical reception and reflect the diverse interests and perspectives of our student body and the myriad of ways McGill students engage with Classics. Though the production of this year’s issue was difficult because of the pandemic, all the journal’s contributors and editors rose to the challenge, going above and beyond to ensure that we were able to produce a quality publication. I am immensely proud of everyone who has invested time and effort into making this issue of Hirundo, and I hope you enjoy reading it. Daisy Bonsall Editor in Chief

Fluid Queerness: Flowing into the Future KEISUKE NAKAJIMA

In Homer’s Iliad, the fluidity of Achilles’ and Patroclus’s relationship guarantees their futurity; Socrates in Plato’s dialogue then resurrects their “queerness” through his model of ideal pederasty. In this paper, I will examine the expression of gender roles and queerness in Greek literature from two different chronological contexts: during the time of Homer, and in Classical Athens. I will demonstrate a thread of continuity which remains through the change of cultural constructions and social ideology which occurs between these two time periods. The Homeric world still primarily relies on heteronormative straight time for futurity, a concept which Lee Edelman sees as dominating our modern society.1 He argues that “queerness names the side of those not ‘fighting for the children,’ the side outside the consensus by which all politics confirms the absolute value of reproductive futurism,” and that being queer means “to insist that the future stop here,”2 that is, in other words, to give up the future altogether. The queerness of Achilles and Patroclus does not follow this model. Instead, they secure their continuity through immortal glory, gained by taking full advantage of their fluid queerness. The very concept of sexuality in our society often hinders the modern reader from fully comprehending the boundless nature of their relationship. After “homosexuality” enters English dictionary at the end of the nineteenth century and eventually develops into legal categories, it comes to “characterize not individual act […], but a type of personality.”3 David Halperin says that contemporary “‘sexuality’ seems to be one of those cultural fictions which in every society gives human beings access to themselves as meaningful actors in their world, and which are thereby objectivated.”4 The Homeric world is free from those “cultural fictions” of sexual identity, which allows the two heroes to enjoy their relationship limitlessly. It did not take too long for certain cultural constructions to appear as obstacles to understanding their queerness; Classical Athenians already wish to label Achilles and Patroclus in order to understand their relationship through their own socially constructed lens. Their fluid queerness finds no place in Athenian ideology, where the notion of sexual roles is constructed precisely based on their political hierarchy. The one exception is Socrates in Plato’s dialogues, who manifests a symmetrical model of pederasty, which resembles the relationship between the two heroes. HETERONORMATIVE CONTINUITY IN HOMERIC WORLD The Homeric world itself is by no means a queer utopia. Future continuity through heterosexual marriage and reproduction remains a recurring theme of the Homeric epics. The poet emphasizes familial lineage from the very first line of the Iliad, describing Achilles as the “son of Peleus,” which occurs even before his own name: “Sing of the wrath, goddess, of the son of Peleus, Achilles” (Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος).5 The proem treats Agamemnon similarly; his patronym occurs five times before his own name finally appears in line 24.6 When a soldier falls on the battlefield, names of relatives, of those who are far away at home, appear at length;7 the poet does not let the reader forget the importance of an individual in their familial continuity. If a man neglects the significance of blood lineage to his futurity, he forgets his mortal character. Louise Pratt argues that the way Zeus treats his wife and children in the Iliad serves as a warning to mortals.8 Zeus’ maltreatment of his family only works because he is immortal, and he can secure his futurity on his own. He 1

Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 2. Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, 3, 31. 3 Christopher Castiglia, “Same-Sex Friendships and the Rise of Modern Sexualities,” in The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 288-289. 4 David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (New York: Routledge, 1990), 27. 5 Homer, Iliad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920), I.1. All translations are my own unless otherwise specified. 6 Hom. Il., I.7, 12, 16, 17, 24. 7 Vivante, The Iliad: Action as Poetry (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), 51. 8 Louise H. Pratt, “Alien Minds: The Family Life of the Iliad’s Gods,” in Engaging Classical Texts in the Contemporary World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018), 38. 2

does not need a child to carry his legacy and therefore it is a natural conclusion for Zeus to marry off Thetis to a mortal, whose child will surpass his father;9 a stronger offspring is only a threat to Zeus. Mortals, on the other hand, must not act the same way, since “human parents who do not wish their children to outlive and to surpass them have a desire for immortality that is not appropriate to human beings.”10 Pratt uses the example of Amyntor, who curses his own son with childlessness, forgetting that his continuity depends on his son’s reproductive capability.11 One must also avoid being unfaithful to his wife, who plays an essential role in this continuity. Consider Agamemnon’s words in Iliad I, when the bird interpreter Calchas demands that he returns Chryseis to her father. Agamemnon expresses his displeasure in his reply: “for I prefer [her] even over my wedded wife Clytemnestra, since she is not inferior, not in respect to her body nor stature, her minds nor her work” (καὶ γάρ ῥα Κλυταιμνήστρης προβέβουλα κουριδίης ἀλόχου, ἐπεὶ οὔ ἑθέν ἐστι χερείων, οὐ δέμας οὐδὲ φυήν, οὔτ᾽ ἂρ φρένας οὔτέ τι ἔργα).12 Here Agamemnon’s preference of Chryseis over his wife demonstrates his forgetfulness of the importance of Clytemnestra’s ἔργα to his futurity. The result of this disloyalty is the destruction of his family, best known to us through Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. The conversation between Hector and Andromache in the Book VI perhaps most strongly establishes the epic’s underlying theme of heterosexual continuity. Here, Hector returns to Troy to command the Trojan women to entreat Athena for help on the battlefield. He sees Hecuba and tells her that she must gather other women and promise sacrifices to the goddess, “if she could pity the city and wives and infant babies of Trojans” (κ᾽ ἐλεήςῃ ἄστυ τε καὶ Τρώων ἀλόχους καὶ νήπια τέκνα).13 Hector’s language treats mothers and children as the symbol of the future, paralleling the modern political rhetoric which Edelman sees as evidence of the heteronormativity in our society.14 When Hector meets Andromache by the city gates, the poet offers a description of her: Ἀνδρομάχη, θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος Ἠετίωνος, Ἠετίων, ὅς ἔναιεν ὕπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ, Θήβῃ Ὑποπλακίῃ, Κιλίκεσσ᾽ ἄνδρεσσιν ἀνάσσων· τοῦ περ δὴ θυγάτηρ ἔχεθ᾽ Ἥκτορι χαλακοκορυστῇ. ἥ οἱ ἔπειτ᾽ ἤντησ᾽, ἅμα δ᾽ ἀμφίπολος κίεν αὐτῇ παῖδ᾽ ἐπὶ κόλπῳ ἔχουσ᾽ ἀταλάφρονα, νήπιον αὔτως, Ἑκτορίδην ἀγαπητόν, ἀλίγκιον ἀστέρι καλῷ, τόν ῥ᾽ Ἥκτωρ καλέεσκε Σκαμάνδριον, αὐτὰρ οἱ ἄλλοι Ἀστυάνακτ᾽· οἶος γὰρ ἐρύετο Ἴλιον Ἥκτωρ.15 Andromache, daughter of great-hearted Eëtion, Eëtion, who was dwelling under woody Placus, In Thebes under mount Placus, ruling over Cilician men; His daughter was a wife to bronze-helmeted Hector. She at that time met with him, and a nurse was coming with her Holding a tender-minded child in her bosom, still an infant, Hector’s son who was treated with affection, resembling a beautiful star, Hector called him Scamandrius, but the others [called him] Astyanax; for Hector alone was protecting Troy. In this description, Homer names Andromache’s family members in the same order in which they appear in the familial lineage: first her father Eëtion, then her husband Hector, and finally her child Astyanax. It emphasizes the poem’s straight time, measuring time’s forward flow through reproductive generations. Andromache’s 9

Pratt, “Alien Minds,” 38. Pratt, 38. 11 Pratt, 39. 12 Hom. Il., I.113-115. 13 Hom. Il., VI.275-276. 14 Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, 1-3. 15 Hom. Ιl., VI.395-403. 10

speech follows the same structure: mentioning her parents, then Hector, and lastly herself and her child.16 The aetiology of Astyanax’s nickname further demonstrates how one sees Hector’s futurity through his son; he is called “Ἀστυάναξ,” lord of the city, because of his father’s current role, as if Hector will continue to exist through him. Hector himself wishes his son to be just like him in the future, or even to surpass him;17 unlike Amyntor, Hector knows his son’s importance to his continuity. Understanding this straight time deepens the scene’s meaning, where Astyanax fears Hector’s bloodied helmet;18 just as Hector’s son fears his weapons and armour, war threatens the family’s future and even that of Troy itself. This dialogue’s placement in Book VI sets out a significant theme through the rest of the epic; after this scene, the audience is invited to picture the figures of Hector, Andromache, and Astyanax behind every fallen soldier.19 The Iliad is not only about these soldiers fighting at Ilium, but also about their families, the pasts which created them, and their continuities to the future. Consider also the scene from Odyssey VI where Odysseus meets the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa. The Book begins with Athena emphasising the importance of marriage to Nausicaa’s mortal family: Ναυσικάα, τί νύ σ᾽ ὧδε μεθῆμονα γείνατο μήτηρ; εἵματα μέν τοι κεῖται ἀκηδέα σιγαλόεντα, σοὶ δὲ γάμος σχεδόν ἐστιν, ἵνα χρή καλὰ μὲν αὐτὴν ἕννυσθαι, τὰ δὲ τοῖσι παρασχεῖν οἵ κέ σ᾽ ἄγωνται. ἐκ γάρ τοι τούτων φάτις ἀνθρώπους ἀναβαίνει ἐσθλή, χαίρουσιν δὲ πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ.20 Nausicaa, why did your mother make you so careless? Splendid garments are lying uncared But marriage is near you, when it is necessary for you to put on Beautiful clothes, and also to provide some for those who are leading you. For out of those things a good reputation wanders among men, And your father and mother rejoice. Marriage is not important to Nausicaa, but to her family. As Athena speaks of her marriage and what potential outcome it would bring, it is not about her but her parents; it is her mother that must be blamed for raising her if she is careless about marriage, but if she takes proper care, her parents will rejoice. Her parents’ futurity depends on the ἐσθλή φάτις (good reputation) which Nausicaa’s marriage might bring, and of course, on her children. As Nausicaa encounters Odysseus at a river, they praise each other’s beauty. Odysseus speaks first: “three times blessed are your father and mother, and three times blessed are your brothers; […] and that man is the most blessed on heart above others, who, prevailing with wedding gifts, leads you home [as a wife]” (τρισμάκαρες μὲν σοί γε πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ, τρισμάκαρες δὲ κασίγνητοι· […] κεῖνος δ᾽ αὖ περὶ κῇρι μακάρτατος ἔξοχον ἄλλων, ὅς κέ σ᾽ ἐέδνοισι βρίσας οἶκόνδ᾽ ἀγάγηται).21 Nausicaa’s beauty blesses her parents, since through her they see their futurity. By further stating that Nausicaa’s beauty would bless her husband most of all, the poet again emphasizes the importance of marriage. And Nausicaa replies to Odysseus, gazing at his beauty which Athena has given to him: “if only such a man could exist, having been called my husband, living here, and if it could be pleasing to him to stay here!” (αἲ γὰρ ἐμοὶ τοιόσδε πόσις κεκλημένος εἴη ἐνθάδε ναιετάων, και οἱ ἅδοι αὐτόθι μίμνειν).22 In this love-at-first-sight scene, Nausicaa immediately wishes that the stranger could be her husband. Her words here, which may appear rather surprising to a modern audience, clearly indicate that “heterosexual love” in the Homeric world sees its futurity in marriage and reproduction. “QUEERNESS” IN THE HOMERIC EPICS 16

Hom. Il., VI.413, 429-430, 432. Hom. Il., VI.476-480. 18 Hom. Il., VI.466-470. 19 Vivante, The Iliad: Action as Poetry, 56. 20 Homer, Odyssey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1917), VI.25-30. 21 Hom. Od., VI.154-159. 22 Hom. Od., VI.244-245. 17

This heteronormative linearity, however, does not strictly constrict the characters in Homeric epic, as they are able to view their futurity in various ways. At the beginning of Book XVI of the Iliad, Patroclus asks Achilles for a permission to march to battle wearing Achilles’ armour. Their language points towards the future; in order to convince Achilles, Patroclus mentions protecting the future generation, “ὀψίγονος.”23 The same word appears twice elsewhere in the Iliad, both in direct speech (Il.III.353, Il.VII.87); in both cases, the speakers are addressing men in the future through whose memory they will continue to exist, emphasizing the idea of continuity. Furthermore, when the Myrmidons at last go out to the battle, the poet compares them to wasps “having a brave heart, everyone [of which] flies forward and protects their children” (ἄλκιμον ἦτορ ἔχοντες πρόσσω πᾶς πέτεται καὶ ἀμύνει οἷσι τέκεσσι).24 The poet employs the word τέκος, which is elsewhere in the epic often used to describe Athena (cf. 1.202, II.157), or with an adjective dear, φίλον (cf. 3.162, 5.535); both usages suggest that the word τέκος connotes special parental affection, adding more gravity to the simile here. While the conversation evidently concerns the future, they do not see their futurity through straight time. Instead, the poet introduces a potential alternative, a queer way of visioning futurity which does not rely on reproduction. After Achilles has agreed to send Patroclus to the battlefield, the poet introduces the Myrmidons’ five captains, about two of whom he gives detailed accounts concerning their genealogies, Menesthius and Eudorus. Neither were raised by their birth father; Menesthius is a son of Spercheius, but is “ἐπίκλησιν Βώρῳ, Περιήρεος υἷι” (in name [a son of] Borus, a son of Perieres), and Eudorus, although his birth parents are Polymene and the Argusslayer Hermes, “the old man Phylas raised and cherished Eudorus well, embracing him with love as if he was his own son” (τὸν [Εὔδωρον] δ᾽ ὁ γέρων Φύλας εὖ ἔτρεφεν ἠδ᾽ ἀτίταλλεν, ἀμφαγαπαζόμενος ὡς εἴ θ᾽ ἑόν υἱὸν ἐόντα).25 By introducing these two heroes’ birth stories, heroes whose lineages exist apart from their birth parents, the poet suggests that mortals do not need to view their continuity on the heteronormative map. The Iliad’s Achilles and Patroclus also step out of this straight time, but in a very unique way. In order to construct their “queer” futurity, they take full advantage of the fluid nature of their relationship. Just like heterosexual couples in the Homeric world, the relationship between the two demonstrates “a structural asymmetry.”26 Achilles is clearly the protagonist, who carries more significance in the story, and the narrative treats him differently throughout the epic, while it subordinates Patroclus to Achilles. However, Homer makes the “effort to vary the structure, to make it more complex, or to redress the balance of power in the relationship between the friends.”27 Although Patroclus is weaker and socially subservient to Achilles, he is the older and wiser one of the two, and is his mentor.28 Patroclus also receives special care from the narrator, shown through the intimate second person addresses to him which Achilles never receives (cf. Il.XVI.20, Il.XVI.787). Throughout the poem, the asymmetry and hierarchy between the two heroes blurs, enabling them to freely take either role in the relationship. Halperin discusses Patroclus performing wifely duties for Achilles, but after the death of Patroclus, Achilles takes on the wife’s role as a chief mourner at his funeral.29 Book XVI most clearly demonstrates this fluidity that allows one to become the other. When Patroclus wears Achilles’ armour and goes to the war, he assumes Achilles’ role and successfully wards off his enemies.30 As a result, upon his death Patroclus gains the title “ὤριστος Ἀχαιῶν (the best of Achaeans)”, a glory through which he may be remembered in the future.31 Then, at last, Patroclus’ shadow appears to Achilles and asks: “do not place my bones far away from yours, Achilles, but in the same place, just as we grew up in your home” (μὴ ἐμὰ σῶν ἀπάνευθε τιθήμεναι ὀστέ᾽, Ἀχιλλεῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ὁμοῦ, ὡς τράφομέν περ ἐν ὑμετέροισι δόμοισιν).32 After their deaths, the boundaries between the two heroes disappear completely, allowing them to enjoy equal shares of death. Achilles and Patroclus secure their futurity by gaining κλέος (glory) via the fluidity of their relationship, or in other words, their queerness. 23

Hom. Il., XVI.31. Hom. Il., XVI. 264-265. 25 Hom. Il., XVI. 173-192. 26 Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 77-78. 27 Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 78. 28 Halperin, 78. 29 Halperin, 84. 30 Hom. Il., XVI.278-283. 31 Hom., Il., XVII.689. 32 Hom. Il. XXIII.83-84. 24

LATER INTERPRETATIONS OF ACHILLES AND PATROCLUS There is no need to wait until our time for Achilles’ and Patroclus’s queer relationship to be too complex to be fully understood. As early as Classical Athens, people wished to “label” their sexual roles through their own cultural conception. Athenian male lovers are categorized into two sexual roles, who are by no means equal: the masculine, “active” participant and the effeminate, “passive” one.33 These terms expand beyond just sexual roles to have wider social significance, since Classical Athenians tend “both to construct social and sexual roles hierarchically and to collapse the distinctions between them, associating sexual penetration and phallic pleasure alike with social domination.”34 Halperin uses Aeschines’ trial speech against Timarchus to demonstrate the rigid hierarchy between men’s two possible sexual roles: Aeschines successfully deprives Timarchus’ right to speak at the trial, asserting that Timarchus engaged in sex work when he was young.35 In Athens, this means giving up a citizen man’s social privileges and putting himself into a position of a woman or a slave. The Athenian ideology of pederastic relationships relies upon the same principal of asymmetry, as Halperin puts: “the hierarchical disposition of roles enjoined upon homosexual lovers by Athenian moral convention gives rise in practice to a socially and psychologically asymmetrical relationship.”36 The speeches of Phaedrus in Platonic dialogues often represent this view: he narrates the speech of Lysias in Phaedrus, which defines ἔρως as monodirectional, from an active ἐραστής to a passive ἐρώμενος, who in return expects to receive a certain benefit.37 The ἔρως is not reciprocal, since the ἐρώμενος is not expected to feel the same desire for his ἐραστής, but instead to submit to him out of gratitude, esteem, and φιλία, as Xenophon also suggests.38 In Aeschylus’ lost tragedy Myrmidons, for example, we see the wish to apply these labels to Achilles and Patroclus, disregarding their relationship’s true complexity. Although the majority of the play does not survive, one fragment yields sufficient information to infer Aeschylus’ view on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus: σέβας δὲ μηρῶν ἁγνὸν οὐ κατῃδέσω, ὦ δυσχάριστε τῶν πυκνῶν φιλημάτων39 and you did not respect a holy reverence of thighs, o ungrateful of the many kisses From this fragment, David D. Leitao understands the friendship between Achilles and Patroclus as a reciprocal relationship based on χάρις, which represents the social ideology of Classical Athens; he argues that Aeschylus writes in a time in which “[c]haris in general was gradually being redirected away from relationships among members of the elite and now came increasingly to characterize the ties that bound individual citizens […] to the state”, and the poet wishes to return attention to relationships between individuals.40 If we accept Leitao’s interpretation, Aeschylus has either purposefully simplified the relationship between the two heroes, or entirely failed to understand its complexity. For a relationship of χάρις assumes an absolute hierarchy and asymmetry between the two. Hesiod, for example, describes the rule of Zeus over other gods in terms of χάρις: λῦσε δὲ πατροκασιγνήτους ὀλοῶν ὑπὸ δεσμῶν, Οὐρανίδας, οὓς δῆσε πατὴρ ἀεσιφροσύνῃσιν· οἵ οἱ ἀπεμνήσαντο χάριν εὐεργεσιάων, 33

Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 33. Halperin, 97. 35 Halperin, 94. 36 David Halperin, “Plato and Erotic Reciprocity,” Classical Antiquity 5, no. 1 (1986): 65-66. 37 Plato, Phaedrus (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), sec.232cd. 38 Halperin, Plato and Erotic Reciprocity, 63-65. 39 Aeschylus, “fr. 135” in Aeschylus Fragments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 40 David D. Leitao, “Achilles in Love: Politics and Desire in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons” in Engaging Classical Texts in the Contemporary World, eds. C. M. Sampson and Louise H. Pratt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018), 59-64. 34

δῶκαν δὲ βροντὴν ἠδ’ αἰθαλόεντα κεραυνὸν καὶ στεροπήν· τὸ πρὶν δὲ πελώρη Γαῖα κεκεύθει· τοῖς πίσυνος θνητοῖσι καὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνάσσει.41 And he released his father’s brothers from destructive bonds, Sons of Ouranus, whom their fathers bound for their folly; They remembered fully the gratitude of his good deeds, And they gave thunder and a smoking thunderbolt And lightning; previously gigantic Gaia had hidden it; And relying on them he rules over gods and men. The idea of reciprocity is clear from the passage: Zeus has helped his πατροκασιγνήτους (father’s brothers), and in return they gave him thunder with which he rules the gods and men. And proving the asymmetry of the relationship, Zeus’ superiority to the others is not questioned. Similar are the relationships between poleis and their citizens in the Classical period; no one would imagine the two sides of the relationship to be equal nor interchangeable.42 Therefore, Aeschylus fails to understand the complex fluidity between Achilles and Patroclus; instead, he assumes an unbreakable boundary between them by applying the concept of χάρις to their relationship. In Plato’s Symposium, Phaedrus praises Achilles above all precisely because of his presumed role as an ἐρώμενος: “while it is true that the gods especially honour this virtue concerning love, they are more amazed by and admire and treat well, whenever the beloved feels affection to the lover, than when the lover [loves] the boy. For a lover is more god-like than a boy” (τῷ ὄντι μάλιστα μὲν ταύτην τὴν ἀρετὴν οἱ θεοὶ τιμῶσι τὴν περὶ τὸν ἔρωτα, μᾶλλον μέντοι θαυμάζουσι καὶ ἄγανται καὶ εὖ ποιοῦσιν, ὅταν ὁ ἐρώμενος τὸν ἐραστὴν ἀγαπᾷ, ἢ ὅταν ὁ ἐραστὴς τὰ παιδικά. θειότερον γὰρ ἐραστὴς παιδικῶν).43 Phaedrus criticizes Aeschylus’ depiction of the relationship for assigning the roles incorrectly to the two characters: “Aeschylus tells nonsense, claiming that Achilles loves Patroclus, who was more beautiful not only than Patroclus but also than all the heroes, and still beardless, then much younger, as Homer says” (δὲ φλυαρεῖ φάσκων Ἀχιλλέα Πατρόκλου ἐρᾶν, ὃς ἦν καλλίων οὐ μόνον Πατρόκλου ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἡρώων ἁπάντων, καὶ ἔτι ἀγένειος, ἔπειτα νεώτερος πολύ, ὥς φησιν Ὅμηρος).44 The truth is, however, both authors are equally incorrect in applying social labels to something that does not belong to their own society. In Classical Athens, a man’s sexual life was very tightly connected to his political life; sex was therefore hierarchical, and in a relationship one must assume their role as “active” or “passive,” and “he could not be both […] at once in relation to the same person.”45 Just as our modern sense of sexuality, the roles of ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος are something that Halperin calls “cultural fictions” — not universal, but unique to Classical Athens. The Iliad has no concept of the terms, and certainly never applies those labels to Achilles and Patroclus. Halperin rightly reminds us that the Iliad does not properly belong to the Classical Greece;46 examining the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in terms of ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος is just as irrelevant and incorrect as applying to them modern labels such as “gay” or “bisexual.” Instead, their relationship demonstrates a complex fluidity, which must not be simplified or wrongly categorized by foreign labels, imposing boundaries on its potential queer utopia. GENDER ROLES IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Classical Athenians construct their sexual ideology based in part on the importance of reproductive lineage for both familial and civic legacy. Athenian marriage concerns itself solely with securing this lineage, with the result that “[t]here probably never has been a monogamous society in which the role of the wife was 41

Hesiod, Theogony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018), ll.501-506. Sara Monoson, “Citizen as Erastes: Erotic Imagery and the Idea of Reciprocity in the Periclean Funeral Oration,” Political Theory 22 no. 2 (1994); 265. 43 Plato, “Symposium,” in Plato: Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, ed. W. R.M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), sec.180b. 44 Plat. Sym., sec.180a. 45 Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 29-33, 47. 46 Halperin, 87. 42

more closely restricted to one fundamental function, that of bearing children,” because of “the need of sons to preserve the clan and to continue the cult of ancestors and household divinities.”47 Athenian women are therefore treated as “perpetual children,” deprived of learning, because “[w]omen were trained to define their merit in terms of the motherhood of sons, and to anticipate the considerable likelihood of death in childbirth as a glorious martyrdom.”48 Thucydides’ account of Pericles’ funeral oration further reveals the gender roles that are engraved into Athenian society due to this heteronormative futurity. Before praising the fallen soldiers, Pericles begins his oration by addressing the ancestors: I shall speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and at the same time fitting, on an occasion like this, to give them this place of honour in recalling what they did. For this land of ours, in which the same people have never ceased to dwell in an unbroken line of successive generations, they by their valour transmitted to our times a free state. And not only are they worthy of our praise, but our fathers still more; for they, adding to the inheritance which they received, acquired the empire we now possess and bequeathed it, not without toil, to us who are alive to-day.49 Pericles places Athens in a continuity through “an unbroken line of successive generations,” viewing the present as a continuation of the past through the cycles of reproduction and inheritance. This futurity depends on Athenian citizens’ reproductive capacity, and it thus constructs women’s social role around childbirth: “those of you who are still of an age to have offspring should bear up in the hope of other children; for not only to many of you individually will the children that are born hereafter be a cause of forgetfulness of those who are gone, but the state also will reap a double advantage—it will not be left desolate and it will be secure;”50 children are the future both for individuals and for the city. Therefore, this oration centres heterosexual reproduction within Athenian ideology, enforcing its social gender roles. Due to this inevitable close connection between private and social life in Athens, Athenian “sexuality” is “constituted by the very principles on which Athenian public life [is] organized,” making sex life polarizing and hierarchal.51 Many textual sources emphasize this ideal separation of gender roles, which depict rigid spatial separation between men and women in Athenian households, while archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more fluid real life usage of domestic space.52 The plots of many Athenian tragedies express citizens’ fear of those who transgress gender roles. In Agamemnon, Aeschylus villainizes Clytemnestra for stepping out of the figure of an ideal Athenian wife. First, the audience becomes aware of her unusual intelligence. When Clytemnestra announces the Greek victory at Troy and Agamemnon’s imminent return, the chorus questions her information’s reliability, believing that she has acquired it from a dream or from rumours.53 Clytemnestra replies: “you are finding fault of my minds very much, like those of a young child” (παιδὸς νέας ὣς κάρτ᾽ ἐμωμήσω φρένας), deliberately rejecting her role as a “perpetual child” which Athenian men wish for a woman.54 After she explains her methods, the chorus speaks again: “woman, you speak well-mindedly like a man of sound mind” (γύναι, κατ᾽ ἄνδρα σώφρον᾽ εὐφρόνως λέγεις); addressing Clytemnestra as a γύναι here emphasises her failure to follow the Athenian concept of a

Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 98-100. 48 Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus, 104, 110. 49 Thucydides, “Book II” in History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. C. F. Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), sec. XXXVI. 50 Thuc. History of the Peloponnesian War, sec. XLIV. 51 Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, 31. 52 Carla Antonaccio, “Architecture and Behavior: Building Gender into Greek Houses,” The Classical World 93, no. 1 (2000): 518-519. 53 Aeschylus, “Agamemnon” in Oresteia, ed. Alan H. Sommerstein (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), l.274, 276. 54 Aes. Aga., l.277. 7

female.55 After Agamemnon’s murder, repeated reminders that Clytemnestra is a woman make clear that her gender increases the horror of her acts (cf. 1407, 1453-1454). In response, Clytemnestra again refuses to assume the social expectation of a woman to be “senseless.”56 Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s co-conspirator, then appears, whom the chorus criticizes for the opposite reason, for failing to meet social expectations as a man. The chorus yells at him: “woman, you who stay at home [did wrong to] men who newly came from war, dishonouring a man’s bed at the same time, deliberate this death for a commander man?” (γύναι, σὺ τοὺς ἥκοντας ἐκ μάχης νέον οἰκουρός, εὐνὴν ἀνδρὸς αἰσχύνων ἅμα,ἀνδρὶ στρατηγῷ τόνδ᾿ ἐβούλευσας μόρον).57 The chorus’ interactions with both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus indicate that gender roles structure Athenian society and if one does not respect their duties as an Athenian man or woman, they are considered as an enemy of people. These strict gender roles in Athens also influence the ideal practice of relationships between men in Classical Athens, which I discussed at length in the previous section. SOCRATIC RECIPROCITY: THE FLUID ἜΡΩΣ Even within these restrictive social and sexual roles, a fluid queerness continues to appeal to certain Athenians. Socrates in the Platonic dialogues, opposing the ideas presented by the character Phaedrus, challenges the Athenian ideology of asymmetrical and hierarchical relationships; instead, he proposes a symmetrical and reciprocal relationship between the ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος to be the ideal form of pederasty, through which both participants are able to gain their futurity. There are two main sources from which we understand his perspective: Symposium and Phaedrus. In both dialogues, Socrates allows himself to disagree with the social ideology by distancing his account from Athens. He does so in Symposium by giving up the authority of his speech to a female foreigner, Diotima. In Phaedrus, the narration begins with the two participants physically stepping out of the city wall and settling down in a locus amoenus, whose calming features contrast with the business of the city.58 Plato repeatedly references this bucolic landscape throughout the dialogue to emphasize this separation.59 In Symposium, Socrates makes a clear connection between the nature of love and immortal continuity. His account of Eros, or more precisely, Diotima’s account, states that Eros is a “δαίμων,” who is “ between divine and mortal (μεταξύ […] θεοῦ καὶ θνητοῦ),” and therefore he bridges the mortal and immortal.60 Accordingly, Eros helps mortals achieve immortality through procreation and creativity.61 It is not a coincidence that, when Diotima explains the wide ranging meaning of ἔρως, she uses the word “ποιητής” as an example, which has its roots in the verb ποιέω (to make);62 through this comparison, she begins to establish the creative and productive nature of love. She continues her explanation to Socrates with feminine imagery: “All men are pregnant in respect to both the body and the soul” (κυοῦσιν […] πάντες ἄνθρωποι καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ψυχῆν).63 By the power of Eros one can give birth, a process through which mortals can approach immortality. While physical pregnancy emphasises heteronormative continuity, the futurity that relies on childbirth, the futurity of the soul steps out of this linearity with its potential to bear “divine children.”64 Such conceptions can replace or even surpass heteronormative futurity through biological reproduction, on which Athenian ideology heavily relies: καὶ ἐὰν ἐντύχῃ ψυχῇ καλῇ καὶ γενναίᾳ καὶ εὐφυεῖ, πάνυ δὴ ἀσπάζεται τὸ συναμφότερον, καὶ πρὸς τοῦτον τὸν ἄνθρωπον εὐθὺς εὐπορεῖ λόγων περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ περὶ οἷον χρὴ εἶναι τὸν ἄνδρα τὸν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἃ ἐπιτηδεύειν, καὶ 55

Aes. Aga., l.351. Aes. Aga., l.1401. 57 Aes. Aga., ll.1625-1627. 58 Plat. Phdr., sec. 227a, sec. 230bc. 59 T. Pearce, “The Function of the ‘Locus Amoenus’ in Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 131 (1988): 298. 60 Plat. Sym., sec. 202de. 61 Halperin, Plato and Erotic Reciprocity, 73. 62 Plat. Sym., sec. 205bc. 63 Plat. Sym., sec. 206c. 64 Plat. Symp., sec. 208e-209b. 56

ἐπιχειρεῖ παιδεύειν. ἁπτόμενος γάρ, οἶμαι, τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ ὁμιλῶν αὐτῷ, ἃ πάλαι ἐκύει τίκτει καὶ γεννᾷ, καὶ παρὼν καὶ ἀπὼν μεμνημένος, καὶ τὸ γεννηθὲν συνεκτρέφει κοινῇ μετ᾿ ἐκείνου, ὥστε πολὺ μείζω κοινωνίαν τῆς τῶν παίδων πρὸς ἀλλήλους οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἴσχουσι καὶ φιλίαν βεβαιοτέραν, ἅτε καλλιόνων καὶ ἀθανατωτέρων παίδων κεκοινων̇ηκότες.65 And if he ever comes upon a beautiful, genuine and well grown soul, he entirely embraces both together, and towards this man he is at once filled with words concerning virtue and what is necessary for a man to be good and what he should pursue, and he tries to educate. For I know, being fastened to the beautiful boy and being accompanied with him, he gives birth and brings forth what he has been pregnant with for a long time, remembering him both when he is there and when he is absent, and he rears up together what was begotten with that boy, thus such men possess a much greater commonality than that of having children to each other and firmer love, since they have in common more beautiful and more divine children. He gives the examples of Homer, Hesiod, and other great poets who have gained immortality through giving birth to immortal children, namely their poems.66 In Ion however, Socrates argues that these poems cannot be created by human τέχνη, but only through divine possession.67 Then, how could one give birth to his immortal child, if he is not fortunate enough to experience divine intervention? The alternative he provides is reciprocal pederasty. Socrates’ speech in Phaedrus provides his model of an ideal pederastic relationship which differs from that of the Athenian norms. He first explains the nature of the soul with a simile of a charioteer. It consists of a pair of horses, one good and noble, and the other the opposite.68 One must train the troublesome horse in order for the soul to reach the domains of the immortals;69 Socrates describes the soul as “furnished with wings” when it is able to journey high, since the property of wings is to carry something heavy aloft, up to the abodes of the gods.70 For Socrates, being an ἐραστής means pursuing a quest for immortality, or in the specific context of Phaedrus, “to grow wings of the soul.”71 In other words, just like Diotima suggests in Symposium, ἔρως is not a static feeling, but instead “movement of the soul driven by need and deprivation toward productivity and self-representation.”72 However, as Socrates argues the ideal relationship between ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος, he establishes his disagreement with the Athenian model of asymmetry; the ἔρως flows out of the ἐραστής into his ἐρώμενος, so that the ἐρώμενος feels not φιλία, but ἀντέρως, counter-love.73 Socrates believes that, when the ἐραστής truly loves a boy and treats him like a god, the beloved will first be affectionate (φίλος) to his lover.74 The desire flows into the ἐραστής like a stream, and once he is filled, it begins to affect the ἐρώμενος: “the stream of beauty going back to the beautiful boy through the eyes, whither having arrived it was by nature disposed to go upon the soul, and set on the wings the passages of wings, it cherishes and urged to grow wings and filled the soul of the beloved with love” (τὸ τοῦ κάλλους ῥεῦμα πάλιν εἰς τὸν καλὸν διὰ τῶν ὀμμάτων ἰόν, ᾗ πέφυκεν ἐπὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἰέναι ἀφικόμενον, καὶ ἀναπτερῶσαν τὰς διόδους τῶν πτερῶν, ἄρδει τε καὶ ὥρμησε πτεροφυεῖν τε καὶ τὴν τοῦ ἐρωμένου αὖ ψυχὴν ἔρωτος ἐνέπλησε).75 Socrates claims that at this stage the ἐρώμενος is filled by ἔρως, not φίλια; he indeed “ἐρᾷ (loves)” the ἐραστής.76 65

Plat. Sym., sec. 209bc. Plat. Sym., sec. 209d. 67 Plato, Ion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), sec. 533d-535a. 68 Plat. Phdr., sec.246ab. 69 Plat. Phdr., sec.247ab. 70 Plat. Phdr., sec.246d. 71 Halperin, Plato and Erotic Reciprocity, 74. 72 Halperin, 74. 73 Halperin, 67. 74 Plat. Phdr., sec.255a. 75 Plat. Phdr., sec.255cd. 76 Plat. Phdr., sec.255d. 66

Therefore, what Socrates proposes here is the rejection of the asymmetrical pederasty which Phaedrus’s earlier speech laid out. This Socratic model of pederasty “erases the distinction between lover and beloved, between the active and the passive partner” and thus “eliminates passivity altogether,” allowing for a greater degree of reciprocity.77 This model resembles the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Both relationships begin with a systemic asymmetry which eventually blurs away, allowing for a certain fluidity between the two. In Socrates’ model of pederasty, the labelling of ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος becomes irrelevant, as proven by Alcibiades’ speech in Symposium in which he complains that Socrates seems to swap between the two roles: “He deceiving them as a lover, and he himself becomes a beloved rather than a lover” (οὓς οὗτος ἐξαπατῶν ὡς ἐραστὴς παιδικὰ μᾶλλον αὐτὸς καθίσταται ἀντ᾽ ἐραστοῦ).78 Just like Achilles and Patroclus, this fluidity does not subordinate either participant to the other.79 It therefore is able “to equip both partners with the requisite erotic response to the stimulus of beauty —with capacity to become more divine.”80 In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates thus challenges the rigidness of Athenian pederasty by reviving the queer fluidity of Achilles and Patroclus.

Halperin, Plato and Erotic Reciprocity, 68. Plat. Sym., sec.222b. 79 Halperin, Plato and Erotic Reciprocity, 75. 80 Halperin, 75. 78

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeschylus. “Agamemnon” In Oresteia, edited by Alan H. Sommerstein, 2-207. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Aeschylus. “fr. 135” In Aeschylus Fragments, edited by Alan H. Sommerstein, 144. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Antonaccio, Carla M. "Architecture and Behavior: Building Gender into Greek Houses." The Classical World 93, no. 5 (2000): 517-33. Castiglia, Christopher. “Same-Sex Friendships and the Rise of Modern Sexualities.” In The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature, edited by E. L. McCallum and Mikko Tuhkanen, 288–304. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Halperin, David. One Hundred Years of Homosexuality. New York: Routledge, 1990. Halperin, David. “Plato and Erotic Reciprocity.” Classical Antiquity 5, no. 1 (1986): 60-80. Hesiod. Theogony. Edited by Glenn W. Most. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. Homer. Iliad. Edited by Thomas W. Allen and David B. Munro. New York: Oxford University Press, 1920. Homer. Odyssey I-XII. Edited by Thomas W. Allen, 102-113. New York: Oxford University Press, 1917. Keuls, Eva. The Reign of Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Leitao, David D. “Achilles in Love: Politics and Desire in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons.” In Engaging Classical Texts in the Contemporary World, edited by Louise H. Pratt and C. Michael Sampson, 51-70. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018. Monoson, Sara. “Citizen as Erastes: Erotic Imagery and the Idea of Reciprocity in the Periclean Funeral Oration.” Political Theory 22, no. 2 (1994): 253-276. Pearce, T. “The Function of the ‘Locus Amoenus’ in Theocritus’ Seventh Idyll.” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 131 (1988): 276–304. Plato. Ion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Plato. Phaedrus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Plato. “Symposium.” In Plato: Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, edited by W. R. M. Lamb, 73-246. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. Pratt, Louise. “Alien Minds: The Family Life of the Iliad’s Gods.” In Engaging Classical Texts in the Contemporary World, edited by Louise H. Pratt and C. Michael Sampson, 29-47. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018. Thucydides, “Book II” in History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. by C. F. Smith. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928. Vivante, Paolo. The Iliad: Action as Poetry. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.

Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and the Epic Tradition of Mockery SASHA BOGHOSIAN

The impact of the epic tradition has reached far beyond antiquity: it influenced stories dating from the Middle Ages, the Early Modern period and it continues to influence contemporary narratives. As translations of the epic tradition started to gain popularity in the Early Modern period, more stories seeking to replicate or reference these epics began to appear. Whether directly or indirectly, many of these stories made reference to the classical epics of Homer and Virgil, which themselves made reference to previous epic stories and oral traditions. One such story is the mock-epic, The Rape of the Lock, written by Alexander Pope. This text was first published in 1712 before being rewritten and reformatted into its final form in 1714. I suggest that Alexander Pope drew inspiration from the epic tradition in order to write the final version of his work The Rape of the Lock. First, Pope’s historical and cultural context will be considered in order to determine how his response to these epics was mediated. Then, the nature of the transmission of the Homeric and Virgilian texts from antiquity to the Early Modern period will be examined to discern how Pope would have interacted with them. Finally, the evidence of his interaction with the classical epics will be studied by analyzing his use of epic conventions, such as an arming scene, ekphrasis, and a descent into the underworld, katabasis. Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688 to Roman Catholic parents. Due to the longstanding anti-Catholic sentiment in England, in 1700, Pope and his family were forced to move out of a ten-mile radius of London and into a rural home at Binfield, near Windsor Forest.1 Within this bucolic setting, Pope grew to love nature, gardening and reading the work of poets such as Homer, Virgil, Spencer, Milton and Dryden.2 After the publication of works such as Pastorals (1709), An Essay on Criticism (1711), the first version of The Rape of the Lock (1712), and many others, Pope caught the attention of prominent writers of the time, and thus entered into the literary and political life of London, where he befriended and collaborated with a group of Tory satirists.3 After these encounters, Pope started to not only translate classical texts such as the Iliad, but also brought the issues which were pertinent in his time, into his writing. The beginning of the eighteenth century in Britain was marked by widespread economic changes, brought on by a flourishing empire and an emergent capitalist system.4 In his poetry, and especially in The Rape of the Lock, he not only critiques capitalism and the emerging materialist interests of the elite, but also feminizes them.5 He associates the popular consumption of various objects, but most notably of fashion-related commodities, to women’s shallowness.6 This is demonstrated throughout the Rape, but most stoutly in the description of Belinda’s toilette in Canto I and II. It is clear then, that Pope was actively weaving his historical and cultural context as well as the epic tradition into his poetry. Pope read and was inspired by both the original classical epics as well as their translations. Due to the laws targeting Roman Catholics, Pope was barred from attending traditional public school. His education was thus unorthodox: at the age of eight, he was placed under the tutelage of a priest, who taught him Latin and Greek for a year.7 After having studied under the guidance of several priests during his early adolescence, Pope took charge of his own education and continued to study Greek whilst reading the works of various Latin, French and English poets, as well as Greek poetry in translation. Along with some of his favorite poets such as Waller, Spenser and Dryden, Pope read translations of Homer and Virgil’s epics. By the start of the eighteenth 1

C. T. Thomas, The Rape of the Lock: And Heroi-Comical Poem, ed. C. T. Thomas (India: Orient Longman, 1989), 1. Thomas, The Rape of the Lock, 1. 3 Thomas, 1-3; Helen Deutsch, Resemblance & Disgrace: Alexander Pope and the Deformation of Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 4. 4 Deutsch, Resemblance & Disgrace, 3. 5 Deutsch, 3. 6 Tiffany Potter, Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 11. 7 Arthur Wentworth H. Eaton, “Introduction,” in The Rape of the Lock, ed. A. W. H. Eaton (New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1901), 6. All biographical details in this paragraph were sourced from the introductory chapter of this same book, and more specifically within the 6-12 page range. 2

century, there were quite a few translations of the epic tradition widely available for public consumption, namely the translations of Chapman, Hobbes, and Dryden, his personal favorite. In 1709, three years before the publication of the first edition of the Rape, Pope started to translate the Iliad. It is therefore reasonable to assume that in the decade between the end of his formal education and the publication of the Rape, Pope had read both Homer and Virgil’s epics in the original Greek and Latin in addition to the translations. His writing was thus likely to be influenced by both the original and the translated works. His admiration for Homer was no secret: in the preface of his translation of the Iliad, Pope wrote that it is no “Wonder if he has ever been acknowledg’d the greatest of Poets, who most excell’d in That which is the very Foundation of Poetry.”8 Pope regards Homer as a living, though not contemporary, poet whose work should be imitated in a way which reflects the qualities unique to his viewing experience of the world.9 Pope is concerned with maintaining a “live” relationship between the ancient poetry of Homer and Virgil and his own, whilst keeping his contemporary historicity intact.10 This is evident in The Rape of the Lock: as a reader and an admirer of Homer and other classical poets as well as his contemporaries, Pope embedded many references which pertained to the original and translated works into his writing. The Rape of the Lock is a mock-epic narrative poem which tells the story of how Belinda, a woman of the upper-classes, had a lock of her hair cut and stolen by the Baron. First published in 1712, it was commissioned by Pope’s friend John Caryll for the purpose of easing a quarrel and reconciling two families whose friendship was marred by a most scandalous event: perhaps as a joke, Lord Petre cut off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor’s hair and refused to return it to her.11 In his own words, Pope found the theft of the lock to have been “taken too seriously” and was thus inspired to write a poem which reflects the silliness of the whole ordeal.12 In order to do so, Pope was foremost inspired by the mock epics written by previous poets of the seventeenth century: Boileau’s Lutrin (1674), which mocked a dispute regarding the placement of a pulpit, and Garth’s Dispensary (1699), which also mocked a dispute, although this one was concerning the free distribution of drugs to poor people.13 The idea of a mock epic, therefore, was not an original one, but it was borrowed and improved upon by Pope through the addition of subtleties which related to both the original ancient and the more contemporary epics. In 1714, Pope published the final edition of the Rape. It is in this longer edition, composed of five cantos rather than just two, that Pope was able to maximize the use of mockery, context, and epic conventions. By putting Belinda, a beautiful and upper-class maiden, at the center of an epic, Pope is commenting on the state of English society: within the context of an increasingly capitalistic and materialistic world, she is viewed as a hero.14 After having completed her toilette with the help of Ariel, her guardian sylph, and other supernatural beings, Belinda joins Clarissa, another maiden, to fight the baron and another man.15 During this fight, the baron manages to cut off a lock of Belinda’s hair. A gnome named Umbriel then goes to the Cave of Spleen, an imitation of the underworld, and returns with many wild feminine emotions. A full-scale Homeric war then takes place between men and women, during which the lock of hair disappears and reappears as the hairy tail of a comet which flies across the sky. As a result, Belinda is catasterized and her name is made to be immortal. As the hero of such an epic, Belinda is equated to heroic characters such as Achilles and Aeneas although she is just a pretty, materialistic and overly emotional young woman. Pope thus does not fail to convey his historical context as he feminizes the conventions of epic in order to mock, as much as possible, the event which prompted the creation of the poem.16 The structural elements of Pope’s The Rape of the Lock were modelled after Homer and Virgil’s epics, and the parallels become more evident as the story progresses. To understand how Pope mimics the original epics for the purpose of mockery, I will analyze the parallels in his use of an arming scene, ekphrasis, and 8

Douglas M. Knight, “Pope as a Student of Homer,” Comparative Literature 4, no. 1 (1952): 75. Knight, “Pope as a Student of Homer,” 75. 10 Knight, 77. 11 Stanley Edgar Hyman, “The Rape of the Lock,” The Hudson Review 13, no. 3 (1960): 406; Tillotson, The Rape of the Lock, 11. 12 Tillotson, The Rape of the Lock, 11. 13 Tillotson, 15; Ralph Cohen, “Transformation in the Rape of the Lock,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 2, no. 3 (1969): 209. 14 Knight, “Pope as a Student of Homer,” 78. 15 Hyman, “The Rape of the Lock,” 406. The rest of the plot summary is also sourced from this page. 16 Potter, Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century, 11. 9

katabasis. Belinda’s toilette in Canto I and II can be equated to the arming scenes of the Greek and Trojan heroes in the epic tradition, and is used to ridicule Belinda and belittle the materialist culture of femininity in eighteenth century England. Arming scenes are found throughout the Iliad, as well as the Aeneid. The arming scenes of Turnus and Aeneas in the Aeneid as well as those of Paris, Agamemnon, Athena, Patroclus and Achilles in the Iliad form a poetic motif which serves to prepare the characters for battle. In each of these scenes, the character in question dons each piece of armor one by one, just as Belinda does in her toilette. The major difference between Belinda’s arming scene and that of Achilles or other classical heroes lies in the materials with which they are armed. Pope’s own translation of the Iliad, published only a year after the publication of the final edition of the Rape, emphasizes the almost ritualistic process of arming: The silver cuishes first his thighs infold; Then o’er his breast was braced the hollow gold; The brazen sword a various baldric tied, That, starr’d with gems, hung glittering at his side; And, like the moon, the broad refulgent shield Blazed with long rays, and gleam’d athwart the field.17 Whilst Achilles dons silver cuishes, a breastplate of gold, a brazen sword starred with gems, and of course, the famous shield created by Hephaestus, Belinda prepares herself in a most laughable and feminine fashion. In place of silver cuishes, Belinda is sprayed with perfume; in place of a breastplate, Belinda wears makeup; in place of a sword, Belinda uses a comb; and in place of a shield, she wears a petticoat. Her arming is simply the toilette of a spoiled, elite, young woman.18 At the end of the scene, it is clear that Belinda’s main weapon is her beauty: Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms; The Fair each moment rises in her Charms, Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace, And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face; Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise, And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes.19 The use of feminine materials such as perfume, makeup, a comb and a petticoat produces nothing useful but a pretty face: her smile, her grace and the light in her eyes is awakened. This arming scene was thus a way of mockingly demonstrating that Belinda is not actually a warrior about to go into battle, she is simply a beautified woman. Pope’s comparison of Belinda and her armor of beauty to Achilles and his divine armor serves to mock and belittle the culture of femininity and materialism which was developing in England during the beginning of the eighteenth century. Within the Rape’s arming scene, parallel to that of Achilles in the Iliad, the epic device of ekphrasis was used for the purpose of derision. Within the epic tradition, ekphrases are often used to depict pieces of art which convey meaning through descriptive visual imagery. If Belinda’s toilette can, indeed, be compared to Achilles’ arming scene, Belinda’s petticoat can certainly act as a parallel to Achilles’ shield. In the Iliad, the scenes depicted on the shield are described in striking detail, and they convey not only the origin of the shield but also its connection to the story and to the Iliadic world. Through its portrayal of the Iliadic themes of war, destruction, conflict, celebration, death and life, the shield is a representation of the Homeric microcosm and of the epic tradition in general. In Canto II, as Belinda is getting ready for combat and ‘arming’ herself, the ekphrasis presents the petticoat as a weapon with which Belinda will soon enter battle: To Fifty chosen Sylphs, of special Note, We trust th' important Charge, the Petticoat. 17

Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer (Hazleton, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2004), 366. Potter, Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century, 11. 19 Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto I, 139-144. 18

Oft have we known that sev'nfold Fence to fail; Tho' stiff with Hoops, and arm'd with Ribs of Whale. Form a strong Line about the Silver Bound, And guard the wide Circumference around.20 According to Stewart Crehan’s analysis, “heroism and handicraft seem to go together:” Achilles could not have fought Hector without the appropriate armor which conveyed his strength and status as the hero and greatest fighter among the Greeks.21 Similarly, Belinda needs to be dressed in her petticoat to be ready for the battle that is to come. Pope conveys the strength of this petticoat by describing its making: composed of stiff hoops and whale bones in sevenfold layers, this petticoat seems to be able to withstand blows as if it is Achilles’ armor whilst also creating a boundary around Belinda’s body. Despite its seemingly strong appearance, the passage above emphasizes that the petticoat has failed on previous occasions. By comparing a petticoat which has seven layers of protection, yet fails anyway, and which has no particularly great origin, to the shield of Achilles, which was made by a god to be of the utmost protection, Pope renders Belinda a joke. She is no Achilles; she is but a woman who arms herself with feminine objects of unimportance. Ultimately, Belinda is “a mock-combatant in a ritual battle, who must lose and be symbolically slain to win and be reborn.”22 She follows a similar path as Achilles; she arms herself and loses in combat, but her name is eventually elevated to immortality. The ekphrasis of the petticoat thus emphasizes the disparity between the grand world of Homer and the minuscule, feminine world of the Rape. In doing so, Pope successfully mocks Belinda for the seemingly trivial theft of her lock of hair. Finally, another convention which was inspired by the epic tradition is the katabasis from Canto IV. In the epic tradition, a katabasis refers to the descent of a protagonist most famously into the underworld. Odysseus’ katabasis occurs in Book 11 of the Odyssey, when Circe instructs him to go to the land of the dead and speak to the shade of Tiresias for further instruction. Book 6 of the Aeneid also contains a katabasis in which Aeneas visits his father in the underworld so that he may see the future generations of great rulers of Rome. There is thus much precedent for the use of this device, and the parallels between the katabasis of The Rape of the Lock and those of Homer and Virgil’s epics are marked. In Canto IV of the Rape, the Cave of Spleen is described: A constant Vapour o'er the Palace flies; Strange Phantoms rising as the Mists arise; Dreadful, as Hermit's Dreams in haunted Shades, Or bright as Visions of expiring Maids. Now glaring Fiends, and Snakes on rolling Spires, Pale Spectres, gaping Tombs, and Purple Fires: Now Lakes of liquid Gold, Elysian Scenes, And Crystal Domes, and Angels in Machines.23 The images of phantoms, shades, spectres, gaping tombs, fires and Elysian scenes are all reminiscent of the underworld, though this underworld is entirely psychological.24 According to Geoffrey Tillotson’s edition of the Rape, spleen refers to the “fashionable name for an ancient malady, the incidence of which was jealously confined to the idle rich.”25 In the eighteenth century, the ancient malady of the spleen was linked to hypochondriacal melancholy.26 Spleen caused hallucinations which resembled the images described in Pope’s

Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto II, 117-122. Stewart Crehan, ““The Rape of the Lock” and the Economy of “Trivial Things,”” Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, no. 1 (1997): 50. 22 Hyman, Lock and Homer, 411. 23 Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto IV, 39-48. 24 Leo Damrosch, “Pope’s Epics: What Happened to Narrative?” The Eighteenth Century 29, no. 2 (1988): 196. 25 See footnote 16, Tillotson, The Rape of the Lock, 54. 26 Lawrence Babb, “The Cave of Spleen,” The Review of English Studies 12, no. 46 (Apr. 1936):167. 21

katabatic passage.27 This was therefore a clever way of linking the katabases found in Virgil and Homer to Pope’s own historical context. In fact, it is a mock version of the Elysian fields which invokes Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Aeneas sees the shades of the blessed roaming Elysium, except this time its location is not in some distant land, it is in one’s own brain. The shades, spectres, phantoms and fires of Belinda’s underworld are simply hallucinations caused by an illness which was thought to be most widely prevalent among women from the ages of “fifty to fifteen,” as noted by Umbriel the gnome.28 Women, after all, were thought to be “endowed by Nature with a more fine and delicate habit of body.”29 The cure to spleen is also mentioned: “Safe past the Gnome thro' this fantastick Band, / A Branch of healing Spleenwort in his hand.”30 The spleenwort, which was thought to have healing capabilities, is a small fern that is carried by Umbriel, the gnome. Similar to Aeneas, carrying the golden bough in order to safely pass through the underworld, Umbriel carries the spleenwort so that Belinda too might pass through the psychological underworld caused by this illness.31 By means of the katabasis, Pope is able to not only invoke classical epics such as Virgil’s Aeneid, but also bring into account cultural notions surrounding women and femininity. To conclude, Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is a mock-epic narrative poem which models Homer and Virgil’s epics in order to make a statement about both the triviality of the lock’s theft and the reality of his historical context. It is clear that during his upbringing, Pope interacted with both the translated and the original editions of Homer and Virgil’s epics. His admiration for both the ancient and his contemporary poets surely influenced his work once he was commissioned to write The Rape of the Lock. Among the many parallels made to the epic tradition, an arming scene, an ekphrasis and a katabasis were all used to explicitly compare the trivial nature of the theft of the real-life Miss Arabella Fermor’s lock to the grand, heroic nature of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The arming scene in Cantos I and II compares Arabella and her feminine items to Achilles and his divine armor. The ekphrasis in Canto II further emphasizes the ridiculous disparity between the grand heroic world of Homer and the small, feminine world of Belinda by comparing her petticoat to the shield of Achilles. Finally, the katabasis serves to characterize the nature of women through its visual imagery and parallels to Virgil’s Aeneid. Thus, it is possible to assume that Alexander Pope did indeed draw inspiration from the epic tradition to write the final edition of The Rape of the Lock.

See footnote 40, Tillotson, The Rape of the Lock, 56. Babb, “The Cave of Spleen,” 172-173. 29 Babb, 172. 30 Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto IV, 55-56. 31 See footnote 56, Tillotson, The Rape of the Lock, 57. 28

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Babb, Lawrence. “The Cave of Spleen.” The Review of English Studies 12, no. 46 (Apr. 1936): 165-176. https://www.jstor.org/stable/510175. Cohen, Ralph. "Transformation in The Rape of the Lock." Eighteenth-Century Studies 2, no. 3 (1969): 205-24. doi:10.2307/2737687. Crehan, Stewart. ""The Rape of the Lock" and the Economy of "Trivial Things"." Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, no. 1 (1997): 45-68. www.jstor.org/stable/30053644. Damrosch, Leo. "Pope’s Epics: What Happened to Narrative?" The Eighteenth Century 29, no. 2 (1988): 189207. www.jstor.org/stable/41467738. Deutsch, Helen. Resemblance and Disgrace, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. https://doiorg.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.4159/harvard.9780674419179. Eaton, Arthur Wentworth. “Introduction.” In The Rape of the Lock, edited by A. W. H. Eaton, 5-12. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1901. Hyman, Stanley Edgar. "The Rape of the Lock." The Hudson Review 13, no. 3 (1960): 406-12. doi:10.2307/3847965. Knight, Douglas M. "Pope as a Student of Homer." Comparative Literature 4, no. 1 (1952): 75-82. doi:10.2307/1769208. Pope, Alexander. The Iliad of Homer. Hazleton, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2004. Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock. Wikisource, last modified September 5, 2015. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock. Potter, Tiffany. Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2012. Tillotson, Geoffrey, ed. The Rape of the Lock. London: Routledge, 1971. https://doiorg.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.4324/9780203359068. Thomas, C. T., ed. “Introduction.” In The Rape of the Lock: An Heroi-Comical Poem, edited by C. T. Thomas, 1-4. Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 1989.

“The Muse of Euripides:” Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Foreign Character of New Music RACHEL NIRENBERG

The Battle of Marathon, which saw Athens (and allies) repel the Persians in their first attempt to invade Greece, was no doubt a major military and strategic victory for the city. The victory at Marathon was so great, in fact, that younger generations throughout the rest of the fifth century began to wonder if they would never match the previous generation’s achievement. Marathon, many believed, had represented a high-water mark in Athens’ history. In the intervening years, moreover, Athens had slipped inexorably into decline, the result of a new generation that was simply inferior.1 Those anxieties about cultural decline made their way into much of the satire and criticism of the day, especially where New Music was concerned. While New Music presented exciting opportunities for innovating playwrights like Euripides, who used it increasingly throughout his career, it was an easy target for conservatives because of its foreign influences, new instruments, and foreign players, as well as its association with sweeping emotion and instability. Critics therefore denounced it as barbarous, decadent, and feminine -- in short, Persian -- and, thus, as representative of everything wrong in Athenian society. Unable to move past these anxieties about cultural decline and foreign influence, critics ignored New Music’s innovation and richness, as well as its clear utility in tragedy, and decried it as bereft of artistic merit. However, while Euripides is probably the most famous composer of New Music, he was actually a relative latecomer to the movement. Other composers and playwrights had been experimenting for several decades before Euripides began to incorporate elements of New Music into his plays, either joining in the 420s or 410s, depending on what, precisely, is considered sufficiently experimental to qualify as New Music. In order to situate Euripides in the New Music movement, therefore, it is necessary to account for those previous decades, which saw three major trends: the professionalization of music, the sidelining of the chorus as the actors became more prominent, and the increasing complexity of text and music, which eventually necessitated the hiring of specialized musicians (and contributed to the increased focus on the professional actors rather than the amateur chorus).2 These changes, however, did not begin with the actors or playwrights but with the orchestra and specifically with the aulos, a double-reeded wind instrument played by blowing into two pipes. While the aulos was certainly not new to Greece or to Athens, it had, for a long time, been played overwhelmingly by slaves and foreigners and thus had not been taken particularly seriously by the Athenian elite.3 This disdain for the aulos and its players can be seen in the myths of Marsyas, its most famous mythological player. According to Melanippides’ dithyramb, Marsyas, Athena had played the aulos first, but disliking the way that it made her cheeks puff up, had “flung the instruments from her holy hand” and then “consign[ed] it to ruination.”4 Marsyas then found the aulos and challenged Apollo and his lyre to a competition. Different versions of the myth portray the competition slightly differently, but in all of them, Marsyas and his aulos are ultimately defeated by Apollo’s superior instrument.5 This dislike extended beyond mythology. At least according to Aristotle, free Athenian men had at one time even been banned from playing the instrument entirely. After the Persian War, however, the aulos became increasingly fashionable, to the point where Aristotle lamented that it had “even [been] introduced into 1

Andreas Markantonatos,“The Silence of Thucydides: The Battle of Marathon and Athenian Pride,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 124 (2013): 69. 2 Alan Hughes, Performing Greek Comedy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 103. 3 Robert W. Wallace, “An Early Fifth-Century Athenian Revolution in Aulos Music,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003): 87-8. 4 Greek Lyric, Volume V: The New School of Poetry and Anonymous Songs and Hymns, ed. and trans. David A. Campbell, Loeb Classical Library 144 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 25. 5 Diodorus Sicilus claims Marsyas was defeated because Apollo could sing while playing the lyre and Marsyas could not do the same while playing the aulos. Philostratus the Younger claims Marsyas played out of tune and Hyginus claims Apollo was able to turn his instrument upside down and play while Marsyas could not. In all three versions, Marsyas loses because of the weaknesses of his instrument. 18

education” for upper class youths.6 As a result of the aulos’ increasing respectability, students of music began to treat it as an object worthy of serious study, and innovating musicians like Lasos of Hermione “transformed the music that existed before [them by] pursuing the multiplicity of notes belonging to the aulos.”7 All of this attracted foreigners, who travelled from across Greece in order to participate in the study of the aulos and to play in competitions. Aulos playing became increasingly competitive, with internationally recognized stars competing for relevance by playing increasingly complex and virtuosic compositions in order to avoid being overshadowed.8 Aulos players in the orchestras of plays also began to be written into the action. In Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae, for example, an old woman demands that the aulist play “some airs that are worthy of you and me” and then sings along to his playing.9 Instrumental innovation of the fifth century was not limited to the aulos. Stringed instruments were also becoming increasingly versatile as musicians added extra strings, with some even going so far as to create a twenty-stringed magadis.10 The additional strings allowed for increased versatility because of the design of Ancient Greek stringed instruments, which lacked necks. Necks allow players to hold strings down at various points, creating different amounts of tension, and therefore many notes on a single string. On instruments without a neck, on the other hand, there is no way to vary the amount of tension on the string. Such instruments can therefore only play as many notes as they have strings. By adding additional strings to their instruments, innovating musicians increased the number of notes that those instruments could play. Further innovations, like new tuning devices, including one that gave Phrynis the ability to play twelve harmonies on just five strings, allowed stringed instruments to play many notes without becoming as unwieldy as the twenty-stringed magadis undoubtedly must have been.11 Because of the new multiplicity of potential notes to be used in compositions, pieces of music could become increasingly complex. These new musical innovations drew backlash even before they began to be used by Euripides. First, the increasing stature of the aulos infuriated many Athenians, especially in light of the aulos’ longstanding association with Boeotia, with whom Athens was having rather strained relations.12 Plato, for example, excluded it and all “poly-harmonic” instruments from his ideal city, which would allow for only the lyre and the cithara. He also attacked New Music in general, warning against “pursu[ing] complexity [or] great variety” in music, especially taking issue with the foreign intrusion into Athenian art as was represented by New Music. The Dorian mode, he wrote, was the only authentically Athenian mode and the sole one “that would fittingly imitate the utterances and the accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare or in any enforced business,” while the foreign Ionian and Lydian modes in use by New Music composers were “soft” and feminine.13 Interestingly, while Plato railed against the aulos precisely for its complexity, others began to suggest that the instrument was actually not complex at all and that aulists only played the aulos because they were not talented enough for stringed instruments. This belief became so ingrained that it apparently survived for several centuries, as Cicero suggested that “those who cannot become citharodes are aulodes.”14 The foreign nature of New Music was once again attacked in Pherecrates’ Chiron, where the titular Chiron is made to arbitrate a dispute between the personified Music, who alleges that she has been sexually violated by several prominent figures in the New Music movement, and her alleged attackers. She attacks Phrynis for his tuning device, claiming that he has “just about killed [her], turning and twisting [her] with his

Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1944), 1341a. Plutarch, De Musica, trans. William W. Goodwin (Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874), 1141c. 8 Eric Csapo, “Later Euripidean Music,” Illinois Classical Studies 24/25(1999): 402. 9 Aristophanes, “Ecclesiazusae,” in The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2, trans. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (New York: Random House, 1938), 890. 10 Wallace, “Revolution,” 80. 11 Egert Pöhlmann, “Twelve Chordai and the Strobilos of Phrynis in the ‘Chiron’ of Pherecrates (‘PCG’ Fr. 155),” Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica 99, no. 3 (2011): 123. 12 Wallace, “Revolution,” 89. The Boeotians had aided the Persians in the Persian War and ultimately sided with the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War. 13 Plato, “The Republic,” in Plato in Twelve Volumes, trans. Paul Shorey, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 3.398a, 3.398e, 3.99d. 14 M. Tullius Cicero, “For Lucius Murena,” in The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1856), 13.29. 7

twelve harmonies on five strings.”15 She moves beyond instrumental innovation, however, to criticize changes to singing technique, indicating that the bottom-up innovation beginning with the orchestra had finally reached the playwrights. Kinesias the Athenian, for example, has “completely destroyed” her by “inserting off-key modulations in his stanzas [so] that in the creation of his dithyrambs his right seems to be his left,” either referring to the general mess she believes Kinesias has made of dithyrambs or, as E.K. Borthwick amusingly suggests, creating a composition so complex that it has confused his dancers, who have gotten their right and left mixed up.16 She similarly attacks Philoxenus’ “off-key and unholy superfluous trills” and Timotheus’ “bizarre ant paths,” referencing the modulated, polymetric singing that was a staple of New Music in theatre.17 A practically identical complaint is lodged in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae, when Mnesilochus complains that Agathon’s stasimon sounds like “ants are crawling up his larynx.”18 Though Music has issues with all of the men who have violated her, she saves her harshest criticism for her foreign attackers. While Kinesias, the only Athenian, is “an acceptable man for [her]” despite “destroy[ing]” her, Timotheus, whom she takes pains to mention is “from Miletus,” has “far outdone the other men [she] mentioned” and had her “stripped and undone on twelve strings.” There is some debate about what the “twelve strings” are meant to reference musically, but it is clear that, whatever it is, it is Timotheus who has utterly destroyed Music.19 While the tales of sexual assault from the other musicians are mostly told through innuendo (Melanippides has “loosened” her and Phrynis has “thrust in his own whirlwind”), her violation by Timotheus has the imagery that most explicitly recalls sexual assault, as he has “bruised and scraped [her] most indecently” and had her “stripped” after he “me[t] [her] out walking by [her]self.” As such, Timotheus comes off as more dangerous than any of her other attackers. Interestingly, it is Timotheus who is credited by some with inspiring Euripides’ transition to New Music, as Satyrus’ biography of Euripides claims that the two were close friends.20 The first signs of his interest are indicated by the steady uptick in his use of monodies and duets. As Eric Csapo has convincingly shown in his study of trends in Euripides’ plays, Euripides made increasing use of the actors, the singers of monodies and duets, throughout the 420s and 410s, to the detriment of the chorus. In the four Euripidean plays written before 425, the average percentage of total lines sung by the actors (as opposed to spoken by actors or sung or chanted by the chorus) was only 1.7%, but in the years after, the average jumped to 7.4%.21 In comparing Euripides to a contemporary of his, Sophocles, whose plays were, on average, 2% sung by the actors, it is clear that Euripides relied on them significantly more than was typical.22 The reduction of the percentage of total lines sung by the chorus from 14.6% to 11.3% is less stark, but also supports the idea that Euripides began to write more for the actors than the chorus. Many of these monodies and duets were at least partially astrophic, meaning that they did not use the form of the strophe and antistrophe. In looking at, for example, the first monody from Hecuba (59-97), one of Euripides’ first plays to use this technique, it is easy to see its utility. Hecuba’s monody details her “insufferable misery” at the destruction of Troy and the loss of her husband and sons. Moreover, she has just experienced a harrowing nightmare that left her utterly terrified, having “never felt so afraid before” in her life.23 Her emotions are incredibly volatile and complex, a state of mind that Euripides is able to better capture outside of the inhibiting form of the strophe. Moreover, the complexity of New Music and its many notes would have allowed Euripides to better portray the chaotic nature of her grief. Considering the sort of unstable, complex characters 15

Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume II: Diopeithes to Pherecrates, ed. and trans. Ian C. Storey, Loeb Classical Library 514 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 501. 16 Pherecrates, “Chiron,” 501, E.K. Borthwick. 1968; "Notes on the Plutarch De Musica and the Cheiron of Pherecrates." Hermes 96, no. 1: 63. 17 T. B. L. Webster, The Tragedies of Euripides (London: Methuen, 1967), 18. 18 Aristophanes, “Women at the Festival (Thesmophoriazousae)” trans. George Theodoridis Poetry in Translation (2007), 100. 19 Pöhlmann (131) suggests that it is a reference to the melismatic style adopted by New Music. Anderson (134) disagrees, suggesting that it is a reference to interludes and preludes played on the cithara. 20 Ian Plant “Thucydides, Timotheus and the Epitaph for Euripides,” The Classical Journal 110, no. 4(2015): 385–96. Webster, “Tragedies,” 20. 21 Csapo, “Later Euripidean Music,” 409. 22 Csapo, 411. 23 Euripides, “Hecuba,” trans. George Theodoridis, Poetry in Translation (2007). 20

that Euripides tends to write about, it is not difficult to see why he began to gravitate toward astrophic monodies and duets. As he integrated New Music into his plays, Euripides also began to incorporate more complex meter, and to break metrical conventions. For example, the recognition scene in Helen between Helen and Menelaus at several points breaks the Dochmiac meter that underlies the scene, using a series of iambs, cretics, and anapests.24 The inconsistent meter serves a similar purpose to the astrophic composition in Hecuba. The recognition scene is incredibly chaotic, as Helen has initially mistaken Menelaus as having come on behalf of the Egyptian prince trying to marry her against her will, and therefore attempts to flee what she believes to be a kidnapping. While Helen and Menelaus are feeling intense distress, as the Dochmiac meter would indicate, distress is not the only emotion that they are feeling.25 Throughout the scene Helen experiences terror and joy at recognizing Menelaus, frustration that he does not recognize her, and a whole host of other emotions. The varied meter allows Euripides to portray each of these emotional states and the complexity of their reunion. It is also worth noting that these experimental sections are often given to characters who are “others,” either as a result of their womanhood or foreignness or both. In Orestes, for example, the two astrophic monodies do not go to Orestes, the play’s central character whose emotional state after murdering his mother is undoubtedly complex, but to Electra (982-1012) and to a Phrygian eunuch (1369-1502).26 Some scholars, such as Walther Kranz suggest that this had a practical purpose, as New Music tended to be higher in pitch than traditional music, so women’s “higher and softer voices” would have “seem[ed] to [Euripides] [more appropriate] for presenting his new songs.”27 However, considering that the actors playing women were not actually women, their voices would likely not have been more appropriate. A more compelling case can be made for social factors; namely, while allowances could be made for women and foreigners to experience these sorts of chaotic emotions, Athenian men were not supposed to. As such, Euripides may have found himself drifting toward the use of female and foreign characters. Whatever his reasoning was, however, it is clear his use of these sorts of characters increased, a change that can be seen in the composition of the choruses in his later plays, which increasingly began to center not only women but women of Asian origin, as was the case in Hecuba, Phaethon, Trojan Women, Andromeda, the Bacchae, and several others. Even in plays where the protagonist is Greek (Helen, Iphigenia in Taulis), the people around them are not. This tendency to center women was harshly criticized by Aristophanes, for whom Euripides’ later plays were a favourite target. The central plot of Thesmophoriazousae, for example, which portrays the women of Athens as furious at their representation by Euripides, mocks this tendency of his, as does Frogs, which sees Euripides compete with Aeschylus in a competition to see who the superior poet is. As Aeschylus and Euripides discuss Euripides’ plays, Euripides explains that “for [him], the woman spoke—so did the slave, the master, maiden, the old woman too,” to which Aeschylus responds that he “should be killed for daring this.” Even Dionysus tells Euripides he should “forget” this line of defence of his work, and Aeschylus is ultimately decided to be the superior poet.28 Aristophanes also takes aim at the specific New Music techniques that Euripides tended to use. Like Pherecrates, he attacks the modulated singing typical of New Music in Thesmophoriazousae by comparing it to “ants crawling up [Agathon’s] larynx,” though he targets Agathon rather than Euripides. In Frogs, however, Euripides is subject to essentially the same piece of criticism for his own melismatic style, when Aeschylus mocks him by singing about the “wi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yind” until Dionysus begs him to stop.29 Aristophanes also mocks Euripides’ foreign sources of inspiration, as Aeschylus attacks him both for writing “his tunes to the twelvestringed music of Cyrene” and for taking inspiration from all sources, “from prostitutes, Meletus’ drinking songs, flute tunes from Caria, from lamentations or dance melodies.”30 Euripides is criticized once again for not

Webster, “Tragedies,” 19. Martin Litchfield West, Greek Metre (Oxford Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, 1982), 108. 26 Csapo, “Later Euripidean Music,” 425. 27 Walther Kranz,Stasimon: Untersuchungen Zu Form Und Gehalt Der Griechischen Tragödie (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1933), 237. Translated from German by Csapo, 424. 28 Aristophanes, “Frogs,” trans. Ian Johnston, 1095-1100. 29 Aristophanes, “Frogs,” 1314. 30 Aristophanes, “Frogs,” 1573, 1545-8. 25

composing on the correct instruments. “Who needs a lyre for this man?” Aeschylus asks and instead summons a “very old and ugly woman” to play the castanets while “dancing very badly.”31 This seems to be a criticism of the sidelining of the chorus in favour of the actors singing monodies and duets. Aristophanes’ critique is similar to critiques made of Kinesias, another supposed “chorus-killer,” by the poet Platon. Prior to the New Music movement, Platon wrote, “if anyone danced well […] it was a good show,” but now, choral dance had been sidelined in favour of monodies, duets, and instrumentation, leading to staging where “they don’t do anything but stand stock-still as if stunned, and howl.”32 Similarly, the old woman playing the castanets’ terrible, boring dancing “fits the songs we’re going to sing,” which are similarly dreadful.33 However, while Aristophanes was certainly not alone in disliking Euripides’ plays and New Music in general, New Music also had its defenders. Notably, Sophocles’ satyr play Ichneutae has often been read as a defence of New Music and a censure of the close-mindedness of critics like Aristophanes. Ichneutae follows a group of satyrs sent on a mission to retrieve Apollo’s cattle, which have been stolen by a newborn Hermes. As they approach Hermes’ cave, however, the satyrs hear him playing the lyre and, having been “assaulted by a noise like no one ever heard before,” flee from the cave.34 As they run, they are stopped by an older satyr named Silenus, who complains that, when he was a youth, he was “never put to flight, never afraid, and […] didn't quiver at noises.” Instead, he “accomplished great things with [his] spear.” He complains that, by running, the younger satyrs are “babies” who have “besmirched” his spear and reputation.35 Finally, a nymph, irritated at the noise they have been making, stops them and explains that the sounds they are hearing comes from Hermes, whom she has been taxed with hiding. Bored, Hermes now “coaxes Aeolian tunes from the lyre.”36 The ending to the play has been lost, but because the play was based on the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, it is assumed that it similarly ended with the cattle being returned to Apollo and Apollo being gifted Hermes’ lyre.37 Timothy Power has argued that this play ought to be understood as a commentary on New Music, with the satyrs as “stand-ins for a fascinated, yet confused and even hostile Athenian public.”38 The play shows a certain optimism about the public’s reaction to New Music — though the satyrs initially flee from it, by the end of the play they are (literally) singing its praises. The satyrs’ overreaction at the lyre, which would have seemed benign and unremarkable to the Athenian audience, parallels the reaction of many of the critics to then-new musical inventions, and is perhaps akin to how modern audiences roll their eyes at Elvis having been censored on the Ed Sullivan Show. The ranting by the elderly Silenus about generational decline is another attack on critics like Aristophanes, as Silenus is portrayed as similarly hostile, whiny, and closed off to new experiences. Moreover, the fact that Hermes is specifically playing “Aeolian” tunes is an interesting touch considering the critiques of Euripides and New Music in general for its use of the “soft” Aeolian modes and one of Euripides’ sources of inspiration, at least according to Aristophanes, being “flute tunes from Caria.” Sophocles’ optimism about the eventual acceptance of New Music seems to have been warranted, as New Music ceased to be controversial during the fourth century. Though the backlash had been strong, it had not been successful in preventing playwrights from using New Music or audiences from enjoying it. In fact, as audiences became increasingly steeped in New Music, it ceased to feel particularly “new” and became accepted as mainstream theatre practice.39 In the centuries after his death, Euripides’ stature continued to grow, and his work became canonized. His “classical” plays were stored in state archives, made mandatory for reruns, and studied intently by scholars. A statue of him was even erected in the new Theatre Dionysus.40 Euripides’ New 31

Aristophanes, “Frogs,” 1550-4. Alan Hughes Performing Greek Comedy, 103. 33 Aristophanes, “Frogs,” 1553. 34 Sophocles, “Tracking Satyrs (Ichneutae),” trans. Anne Mahoney, 144. 35 Sophocles, “Ichneutae,” 145-175. 36 Sophocles, “Ichneutae,” 328. 37 Sophocles, “Ichneutae,” 338. See footnotes. 38 Timothy Power, “New Music in Sophocles’ Ichneutae,” in Paths of Song: The Lyric Dimension of Greek Tragedy, eds. Rosa Andújar, Thomas R. P. Coward, and Theodora A. Hadjimichael (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 359-60. 39 Mark Griffith, “Music and Dance in Tragedy After the Fifth Century,” in Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca. 400 BC to ca. AD 400, eds. Vayos Liapis and Antonis K. Petrides(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 209. 40 Uwe Walter. “The Classical Age as a Historical Epoch,” in A Companion to the Classical Greek World, ed. Konrad H. Kinzl (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 8. 32

Music therefore became “classic,” in much the same way that the Dorian mode had seemed “classic” to fifthcentury critics. While New Music became increasingly uncontroversial, however, the fears of decline that had motivated the initial backlash never disappeared. Instead, it found new apparent examples of cultural decline. Just as fifth century Athenians had thought themselves inferior to a previous generation, so too did the generations that followed them. The artistic expression of fifth century Athens, the popular thinking went, could never be matched by the inferior poets and generation that followed, whose work could never even compare to the great tragedians of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles.41 Just as fifth-century Athenians had regarded the height of Athens as the Battle of Marathon and their city-state as now irrevocably in decline, so did later Athenians believe themselves to be in a state of decline compared to “classical” Athenians and their art.

Walter, “Classical Age,” 8. 23

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Warren D. Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece. Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. Aristophanes. “Ecclesiazusae.” In The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Translated by Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House, 1938. Aristophanes. “Frogs.” Translated by Ian Johnston. http://johnstoi.web.viu.ca//aristophanes/frogs.htm Aristophanes. “Women at the Festival (Thesmophoriazousae).” Translated by George Theodoridis. Poetry in Translation. 2007. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Thesmo.php Aristotle. Politics. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1944. Borthwick, E. K. "Notes on the Plutarch De Musica and the Cheiron of Pherecrates." Hermes 96, no. 1 (1968): 60-73. Csapo, Eric. “Later Euripidean Music.” Illinois Classical Studies 24/25 (1999): 399–426. Euripides. “Hecuba.” Translated by George Theodoridis. Poetry in Translation. 2007. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Hekabe.php Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume II: Diopeithes to Pherecrates. Edited and translated by Ian C. Storey. Loeb Classical Library 514. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Greek Lyric, Volume V: The New School of Poetry and Anonymous Songs and Hymns. Edited and translated by David A. Campbell. Loeb Classical Library 144. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Griffith, Mark. Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca. 400 BC to ca. AD 400. Edited by Vayos Liapis and Antonis K. Petrides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Hughes, Alan. “Music in Comedy.” In Performing Greek Comedy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Kranz, Walther. Stasimon: Untersuchungen Zu Form Und Gehalt Der Griechischen Tragödie. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1933. M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Translated by C. D. Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1856. Markantonatos, Andreas. “The Silence of Thucydides: The Battle of Marathon and Athenian Pride.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement 124 (2013): 69–77. Plant, Ian. “Thucydides, Timotheus and the Epitaph for Euripides.” The Classical Journal 110, no. 4 (2015): 385–96. Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Volumes 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1969. Plutarch. De Musica. Translated by William W. Goodwin. Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874. Pöhlmann, Egert. “Twelve Chordai and the Strobilos of Phrynis in the ‘Chiron’ of Pherecrates (‘PCG’ Fr. 155).” Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica 99, no. 3 (2011): 117-133. Power, Timothy. “New Music in Sophocles’ Ichneutae.” In Paths of Song: The Lyric Dimension of Greek Tragedy, edited by Rosa Andújar, Thomas R. P. Coward, and Theodora A. Hadjimichael, 343-365. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2018. Sophocles. “Tracking Satyrs (Ichneutae).” Translated by Anne Mahoney. http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0011.tlg008.perseus-eng1:124-144. Wallace, Robert W. “An Early Fifth-Century Athenian Revolution in Aulos Music.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003): 73–92. Walter, Uwe. “The Classical Age as a Historical Epoch.” In A Companion to the Classical Greek World, edited by Konrad H. Kinzl, 1–25. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. Webster, T. B. L. The Tragedies of Euripides. London: Methuen, 1967. West, Martin Litchfield. Greek Metre. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

The Ironic Politics Behind Aeschylus’ Oresteia MAYA ABUALI

The question of whether or not Aeschylus, or the ‘Father of Tragedy,’ as he is often referred to in scholarship, infuses his works with political propaganda has been widely debated among academics over the centuries. Given the nature of the Oresteia’s plot in that it is replete with references to 5th-century Athenian modes of governance, particularly in Eumenides, the third play of the trilogy, and given the background of the playwright, it is reasonable that to assume to a certain degree, regardless of his intentions, Aeschylus will have included his own aristocratic political values within the play. There is a vast array of literature regarding the content of the play’s text itself, being a primary source providing direct insights into the beliefs of the author, and many have detected discrete advances of aristocratic notions within the plot. What scholars have rarely acknowledged is that, irrespective of the content of the play, the Oresteia is inherently political in that it belongs to a festival that symbolically encompassed the novel democratic values of its temporal context. The procession of the festival itself, in unison with the elements of participatory action that constituted the ancient Greek theatre, stand in contrast to the idealization of the elite that Aeschylus wished to advance in his play, creating a conflation of values on one stage. Rather than merely analyzing the language of the text itself, this essay seeks to address the political implications of the play’s staging, spacing, topography, as well as the inclusion of the chorus, and its place in a newly founded democratic body of citizens, and within the festival itself. Before outlining the external elements of the play that make it innately political, it is first necessary to address certain reservations within the text that may limit its characterization as such. Having lived from 523456 BCE, Aeschylus bore witness to a wave of significant changes in Athens, including the introduction of democracy to the polis, the Spartan intervention, the institutional reforms of Cleisthenes, and lived just long enough to witness the reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles. The latter marked a major shift in Athenian politics away from the exclusive and considerable influence of the elite and toward the fuller expression of demokratia characteristic of the late 5th-century, in lessening the prerogatives of the Areopagus council. Furthermore, the playwright himself fought against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE and is said to have taken part in the famously decisive battle of Salamis in 480 BCE and Plateia in 479 BCE. With such a degree of involvement in political life in Athens, there is no uncertainty in the fact that the tragedian possessed political views. Ancient sources have also claimed that the playwright’s family belonged to the aristocracy.1 Therefore, we can infer based on his background that Aeschylus had aristocratically oriented motivations in his writings. However, one thing we cannot deny is the perceptible ambiguity within his text. R. Seaford argues that ambiguity is rooted deep within the very language of tragedy.2 It exists as the space between the human way of proceeding in the drama and the fate dictated by the gods, between what the tragic characters say and what the audience comprehends, and even between the values of all the spatiotemporal boundaries of Athens (i.e., the values of the polis vs. those of the oikos). We must also consider the persistence of the Sophistic methodologies of thinking during the Classical period, which, in contrast to Platonic logic, wholly facilitates ambiguity and subjectivity within a given discourse. Sophists do not seek to illustrate the concrete validity of a single thesis but rather to form Dissoi logoi. Taking all of this into account, Aeschylus could simply have been postulating on paper the conventions of the Athenian judicial system and the values of the polis in general, without a central message in mind to convey. Due to the ambiguities that are present in his play, it is reasonable to assume that he could have constructed more than one implicit argument in the Oresteia. Did Aeschylus genuinely wish to inculcate a duty of questioning values, or consciously set out to examine or question his own ideology?3 The severe ambiguity between intention, be it explicit or implicit, and function, is also crippling.

Anthony J. Podlecki, “The Political Background to Aeschylean Tragedy,” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), 157. 2 Richard Seaford, “Historicizing Tragic Ambivalence: The Vote of Athena,” in History, Tragedy, Theory: Dialogues on Athenian Drama, ed. B. Goff (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 202. 3 Simon Goldhill, “Civic Ideology and the Problem of Difference: The Politics of Aeschylean Tragedy, Once Again,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies120 (2000): 38. 25

Despite this, Seaford highlights the risk of permitting the pervasiveness of ambiguity in literature to trap it in a disabling cliché, in which “irreducible ambivalence becomes the final destination of analysis.” 4 There is certainly a danger of fetishizing ambivalence at the heart of tragedian works; scholars will often fail to state where this ambivalence can be found, whether in the mind of the author, in the text, in the mind of the ancient audience, or the modern reader. While one may choose to acknowledge that ambivalence (or its opposite) is not innate in the text, or the performance of the play, or in the reception of its audience, the text may also be shaped by ambivalence within the mind of the author himself. It is also vital to note, before analyzing the reception of the Oresteia, that we cannot simply rid ourselves of our own preconceptions; we should thus attempt to understand what tragic ambivalence might mean in 5th-century Athens. Now that this ambiguity has been acknowledged as a distinctly present limitation, we may turn to evaluate concrete aspects of Athenian society that will afford us the understanding of why the Oresteia is, despite this, an intrinsically political work. Much of the scholarship on the Oresteia has been directed towards pulling at the threads of Aeschylus’ narrative fabric in order to reveal clues of a hidden, underlying aristocratic propaganda. Even as “democratic” and “civic” pride were bolstered in 5th-century Athens, fissures within the system allowed leading aristocratic families to exercise a degree of political control. In the case of the Oresteia, this motivation is literally masked within characters like Orestes; royal figures of the mythical heroic past. Aeschylus subtly conveys the elite familial dynamics throughout his play, glorifying them in their ‘rightful’ positions. Mark Griffith explores the way in which choregically financed tragic performances were a method that aristocrats utilized to dramatize and solidify their own persisting positions as leaders in the polis. The theatre is a prime example of the process by which ‘old families’ work to preserve their prestige through older, traditional channels within the new structure of democratic government.5 In the Oresteia, this is made clear in the representation of the relationship between Orestes and Athena, which tied Aeschylus’ fictional elite family to the gods in mutual support. The Goddess of Wisdom herself acted as the designated proxenos (representative) of Orestes in his legal and religious entanglement in the Eumenides; this is based on the assumption of a previously existing bond of mutual loyalty and duty between the royal Argive and divine families.6 In calling upon Athena for aid, Orestes laments: I call reverently upon Athena, this land’s queen, to come to me with her help; and without warfare she will gain myself, and my land, and the Argive people as her true and everfaithful allies.7 Upon her arrival, Athena implores Orestes to explain who he is and why he has summoned her: What do you wish to say to this, stranger, in your turn? Name your country and descent and fortunes; then defend yourself against their censure.8 To which Orestes replies: I tell you; and you shall quickly hear the facts of my descent. I am an Argive, and you do well to enquire about my father — Agamemnon, the men’s commander in their fleet, with whom you yourself made Troy’s city of Ilion a city no more.9

Goldhill, “Civic Ideology,”, 38. Mark Griffith, “Brilliant Dynasts: Power and Politics in the ‘Oresteia’” Classical Antiquity 14, no. 1 (1995): 97. 6 Griffith, “Brilliant Dynasts,” 96. 7 Aeschylus, Eumenides in Aeschylus: Oresteia, trans. and ed. C. Collard, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 286-291. 8 Aes. Eum., 436-439. 9 Aes. Eum., 454-458. 5

In Orestes, by virtue of Apollo (a means which must be considered as a privilege alone), inviting the “wisest arbiter” of gods and men to protect himself in the case made against him, the royal character is taking advantage of his elite status.10 This is evident when, in speaking with the goddess he refers to Agamemnon, his father, and recalls their former allyship in the legendary Trojan War. In exhibiting these dynamics to an audience of Athenian citizens of varying social classes, there is a discrete but distinct effort made by Aeschylus to preserve the façade of superiority that elite families possessed in Athenian society. The aristocratic principles underscored in the works of Aeschylus fit haphazardly into the realm of 5thcentury Athenian theatre; there is an ironic embracement of the citizen body accompanied by an utter lack of exclusivity in the medium through which they are promoted. David Wiles explores how 5th-century Athens operated collectively as opposed to individualistically; the pertinence of the chorus in the Oresteia reflects this. The chorus entails a group of performers who are acted as a collective, contributing to the action of the play with their lines sang or spoken in a unified voice. The chorus typically represented the general population of a particular narrative, and often symbolized the people of greater Athens and their reception to the issues advanced by the heroes, gods, and goddesses in the play. In the Oresteia, the chorus shifts from adopting the identities of old men in the Agamemnon, the elders of the polis, to a group of slave women in the Libation Bearers, to their final and arguably most significant shift as the Furies in the Eumenides. Though the main crisis of each play in the trilogy is not caused by their collective group, the issues of justice and retribution prevalent in the plays, particularly in the Eumenides, is not necessarily settled by the protagonist.11 Instead, Aeschylus presents the conflict as one impacting the entire human community, with the chorus adopting the roles that make up the jury in the Eumenides.12 Thus the community shares in on the administration of justice through the jurors who represent them. The exit of the chorus at the end of the play is a festive procession of the Furies and jurors/citizens, with the latter singing an exhortative hymn of joy and praise from all the city’s people: Enter with eagerness your house all of torches! Thus have Zeus the all-seeing and Fate come down together to support the people of Pallas! —Cry out your joy now, in song! There is a ceremonious exit, as the procession circles the orchestra and then leaves by the side. ATHENA leads the way, followed by the FURIES in retinue with her servants carrying torches; the jurors are at the rear.13 The mere fact that such a significant case was deliberated amongst the masses allows one to question the extent to which Aeschylus wished to promulgate exclusively elite values. The common people of Athens are not only sharing in on the issues of the ‘noble,’ but deliberating and dictating their fate through the voice of the chorus. This reflects the power of Athenian citizens in the democratic process during the 5th-century, when they gathered in assemblies to vote and take decisions on law, foreign and domestic policy. Therefore, the theatre was not only a place of theaomai (seeing), but also reflection, a vital element for communal selfawareness through which they were able to question their grasp of the reigns on the political, cultural, and moral dimensions of Athens. Through an investigation on the function of the chorus and crowd behavior in Athens (whether in the auditorium or in the theatre), Wile reveals how theatrical performances operated as social and political events. Wiles proposes that humans compose a social and cultural fabric through the language we deploy, the religion we practice, and the arts we engage in, and consequently our moral choices are rooted in cultural norms; theatre must therefore engage us not as individuals but as members of a cultural community.14 Regarding the functions of the chorus as the theatrical representative of a political body, Wiles observed that 10

Griffith, “Brilliant Dynasts,” 97. Timothy Gantz, “The Chorus of Aischylos’ Agamemnon,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 68. 12 E. R. Dodds, “Morals and politics in the Oresteia,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 6 (1960): 19-31. doi:10.1017/S006867350000287X. 13 Aes. Eum., 1044-1057. 14 David Wiles, Tragedy in Athens: performance space and theatrical meaning, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997): 18. 11

5th-century tragedy was a performance practice that built community with “shared pleasure in discussion comprising but one aspect of communal life.”15 Upon weighing extant evidence and analyzing the space of the Athenian theatre, Wilesasserts that the audience, in a sense, was part of the performance; this is instrumental in our understanding of theatre as a democratic practice. A layer of complexity is created in the interaction between actors and audience where the inferred aristocratic and exclusive values are conveyed; Aeschylus wished to advance this connection to promote the inherent egalitarian nature of the Athenian theatre. Tragedy is directly related to the Greek polis in that it belongs to the festival Dionysia, which reflected the dominant ideological structures of democracy in terms of its ritual and dramatic performances.16 This is not to say that the Oresteia (or any other tragedy) promotes a naively conceived plot riddled with explicit democratic propaganda; rather the festival itself, in organization and structure during the 5th-century, is an institution of the democratic polis, and its performances inevitably reflect their political environments. This is evident in the final setting of the Oresteia, with the Areopagus court having been newly reformed, its references to contemporary politics in general, its “obsessive thematic focus on the logic of justice,” along with its procession with the praise of the polis.17 Furthermore, the rituals that precede the play, the funding of the performances and administration of the festival, and even the seating of the audiences were wholly representative of the ideals and practices of democracy. These components constitute the theatre as an analogous institution to the law-court assembly — the “three great institutions for the display of logoi in the city of words,” as Goldhill puts it.18 The careful selection of judges, chorus, and actors were done through democratic procedure. Furthermore, the choregia is a specifically democratic system; the arrangement of seating referenced political positions in democracy (e.g., seats for the boule), the very procedure for acquiring tickets was through inscriptions on the deme roll, and the assembly in the theatre to allow for discourse on the theatre itself — these are all axiomatic indications and symptoms of democracy in action.19 It is not merely the coherent democratic symbolism pervasive in the operation of 5th-century tragic Athenian theatre that politicizes the Oresteia; the competing aristocratic ideologies that lie within the text, along with a reception by Athenian audiences, defines the play as a political work. An under-explored dimension on the scholarship of the portrayal of Aeschylus’ work, and in any 5thcentury tragic Athenian works for that matter, is how the physical environment where it was originally staged impacted the reception of the play by the audience. The importance of visual dramaturgy, or Opsis (visuality), is crucial to understanding this. Visuality in ancient Greek theatre was not limited to costumes, masks, props, or even the actors within the performance space, but the surrounding multi-faceted panorama that merged tragedy with the landscape of its historical presence. The performance space of the Theatre of Dionysus itself was located in the historic and religious heart of the city.20 In order to understand the way that the Oresteia was received by the audience, we must note how the spectators at the theatre of Dionysus, whether they were of the Athenian demos or foreign visitors, were consistently engaged in an interactive form of spectatorship; their vision constantly oscillated between a focused view of the action of the play before them and the peripheral view of the surrounding environment. With the field of vision that the theatre of Dionysus permits, the audience could have looked out at the temple and sanctuary of Dionysus, the city walls, significant nearby cult sites and sanctuaries, the old city of Athens, Attic hills, all the way down to the Aegean Sea. Both most importantly and imminently, the Areopagus court, where the scene is set, is located just on the other side of the hill upon which the Festival is held. In the Eumenides, Athena addresses the people of Athens in speaking to the importance of the court: In this place the city-people’s reverence and the fear which is its kin will keep them from wrong-doing, by day and night alike, if 15

Wiles, Tragedy in Athens, 47. Goldhill, “Civic Ideology,” 34. 17 Goldhill, 34. 18 Goldhill, 35. 19 Goldhill, 35. 20 Peter Meineck, “Under Athena’s Gaze: Aeschylus’ Eumenides and the Topography of Opsis,” in Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre, eds. George W.M. Harrison and Vayos Liapis (Boston: Brill, 2013), 161. 16

the citizens themselves make no innovation in the laws through evil infusions.21 Aeschylus inflated the influence of the court of Areopagus, whose authority had been recently curtailed by the reforms of Ephialtes in late 460 BCE. As suggested in the play, the Areopagus court at the time of the Oresteia remained a high court in control of homicides. The Areopagus was also considered to be a fortress for conservatism, and had its influence diminished when Ephialtes reduced the property qualifications for holding a public office, which caused it to lose its prestige. Aeschylus infused the text, and particularly Athena’s dialogue, with an aggrandizing of the court in its position, perhaps implying that it should maintain its status as a powerful force, although no longer composed of the conservative force of former archons. The audience could also gaze upon the monumental edifices that surrounded the actual theatre, such as the Parthenon. The Oresteia was staged at a time when any visiting audience members could view the destruction wrought by the Persians in 480 and 479 BCE on the sacred monuments of the Acropolis, and on other visible areas of Athens. Therefore, any particular political references translated through the texts of Aeschylus are immediately felt through the view of Persian destruction. Thus, audience members of the Oresteia could gaze upon the massive edifice of the Acropolis, the very temple that worships the goddess being portrayed in the play, bringing a potent sensation of reality to their viewership. Another facet of visual importance concerning the topography of the Oresteia is the presence of Bronze Athena, which stood across from the entrance to the Acropolis. Aeschylus fuses the symbolism of the old Athenian past with the new democratic present by placing one of the most sacred icons, the smaller ancient wooden bretas of Athena, in a dynamic visual relationship to the monumental and novel statue atop of the Acropolis.22 In Eumenides, Apollo tells Orestes to “come to the city of Pallas and sit clasping [Athena’s] ancient image in your arms.”23 The text refers to the ancient bretas of Athena Polias, reported by Pausanias to have fallen from the sky.24 In iterating this through Apollo, it was obvious that Aeschylus wished for the audience to imagine Athena Polias’ statue in conjunction with the novel Bronze Athena situated across the way. From this stems the notion of a statue of the deity actively watching over the theatre and the audience, gazing upon the performances being staged in her honour. It was almost as though the audience was engaged in a reciprocal act of watching and being watched. In fact, in Eumenides, the city of Athena is described as a watch-post for the gods by the Chorus: I shall accept a home with Pallas, and I shall not dishonour this city which Zeus the almighty and Ares hold as a gods’ outpost; they delight in its guarding the altars of Greek deities.25 As a result, in viewing the play at the Theatre of Dionysus, its historical, mythological, and political context entirely encompass it and rendered Aeschylus’ message more tangible, blurring the dissonance between the narrative and reality. The “visual dramaturgy” emphasized by scholar Peter Meineck affords us an entirely new dimension to envision the reception of Aeschylus’ works, and both the literal and metaphorical close proximity of religion and politics to the theatre space. It is clear that Aeschylus wished to advance aristocratic values through the Oresteia, as is evident in the political imagery within the play: the elite Argive family and their close connections with the gods, along with his emphasis of the conservative Areopagus council as the rightful court to dictate significant matters through the character of Athena. Nonetheless, as part of the Festival of Dionysia, which is reflective in its operation of the newly founded democratic system of the polis, and as presenting the Chorus as such a crucial role in the progression of the play, there becomes a confusion between whether the play vouched for the aristocrats or the people. Regardless of what Aeschylus wished to promote, one may easily recognize inherent political elements 21

Aes. Eum., 690-694. Meineck, “Under Athena’s Gaze,”. 163. 23 Eum. 80 24 Meineck, “Under Athena’s Gaze,” 174. 25 Aes. Eum., 916-920. 22

in the Oresteia and other plays of its time from the democratic systems of the polis at the time being reflected in the rituals and performance of the theatre, as well as the value of the Athenian ‘collective,’ and the visual and physical surroundings of the theatre.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeschylus. Aeschylus: Oresteia. Translated and edited by C. Collard, Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Dodds, E. R. “Morals and politics in the Oresteia.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 6 (1960): 19-31. Gantz, Timothy. “The Chorus of Aischylos’ Agamemnon.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 65-86. Griffith, Mark. “Brilliant Dynasts: Power and Politics in the “Oresteia.”’ Classical Antiquity 14, no.1 (1995): 62-129. Goldhill, Simon. “Civic Ideology and the Problem of Difference: The Politics of Aeschylean Tragedy, Once Again.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 120(2000): 34-56. Harrison, George W.M. and Vayos Liapis (eds). Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Meineck, Peter. “Under Athena’s Gaze: Aeschylus’ Eumenides and the Topography of Opsis.” In Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre. Edited by George W. M. Harrison and Vayos Liapis, 161-179. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Podlecki, Anthony J. The Political Background to Aeschylean Tragedy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966. Revermann, M., and P. Wilson. Performance, Iconography, Reception: studies in honour of Oliver Taplin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Seaford, Richard. “Historicizing Tragic Ambivalence: The Vote of Athena.” In History, Tragedy, Theory: Dialogues on Athenian Drama. Edited by B. Goff, 202-222.Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. Wiles, David. Tragedy in Athens: performance space and theatrical meaning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Reconstructing Historical Narratives: Classics, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton DIONTAY WOLFRIES

Lenwood Davis, in a statement applying equally to Huey P. Newton, says of Malcolm X that “little has been written about him as an educator, scholar, and historian.”1 Likewise, there has been little scholarship concerning why they became the sort of educators, scholars, and historians that they did. Richard Wright, in his introduction to Black Metropolis, provides a compelling reason for the development of their Afrocentric historical pedagogies: “Many migrants like us were driven and pursued, in the manner of characters in a Greek play, down the paths of defeat; but luck must have been with us, for we somehow survived.”2 The significance of this passage extends far beyond the experiences of this particular group of Black migrants. It is a powerful statement on the lives of many Black people in America leading up to the Civil Rights Movement. In reaction to fellow AfricanAmericans being “driven and pursued […] down the paths of defeat” by injustices, Malcolm X and Huey Newton sought to call attention to the reality of their condition in America. According to both men, worsening the situation was the spiritual death plaguing them. This spiritual death—the lack of will to continue fighting for equality—was one that resulted not only in their failure to reach their true potential but also in their continued societal oppression. The remedy to their plight, they believed, was to be found in education. Ironically, as suggested by Wright’s reference to Greek tragedy, Classics—a discipline that had historically functioned to justify the inferiority of Black people—was co-opted by these men and used as a tool to achieve this aim.3 Before dealing with this, however, it will first be necessary to discuss the debates around the historical paradigm of presentism and the marginalization of Black voices in Classics. With this as a framework, it will then be possible to trace the development of their understandings of the discipline in response to the world around them by consulting their references to ancient history in their respective autobiographies or speeches. To Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton, knowledge of the past, including the Classical Tradition, and reclaiming their role within it became essential to not only understanding their societal predicament but also to reversing the spiritual death plaguing African-Americans by providing them with positive examples to emulate. The historical paradigm of presentism is essential to understanding the varying interpretations of Classics and, as such, will be omnipresent throughout this paper. According to David Armitage, precisely defining this paradigm is a difficult task. As he argues, it has held different meanings to various individuals both inside and outside the discipline of history. For this paper, the basic definition offered by Armitage will prove most useful. That is to say, an understanding of presentism as “a term of abuse conventionally deployed to describe an interpretation of history that is biased towards and coloured by present-day concerns, preoccupations and values.”4 The consequences of this on our 1

Lenwood G. Davis, “Reeducating the Afro-American: Malcolm X’s Scholarly and Historical Pedagogy,” in Malcolm X's Michigan Worldview: an Exemplar for Contemporary Black Studies, ed. Rita Kiki Edozie and Curtis Stokes (Michigan: Michigan State UP, 2015), 53. 2 Richard Wright, “Introduction,” in Black Metropolis: a Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, ed. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Clayton (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970), xvii. 3 Joy Connolly writes, “Classical education and the universalist ideals on which it is based, […] reinforced patterns of prejudice” (82). Jay Fliegelman, in his work on the early American adoption of classical rhetoric, suggests that this revolution “contained its own deeply racist dimension” (192). In short, the discipline of Classics has historically marginalized or outright deemed Black people to be unable to participate due to their perceived inferiority. 4 David Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” in History and Human Flourishing, ed. Darrin M. McMahon (Oxford: Oxford UP), 4. 32

understandings of the ancient world are made clear when considered along with Michel Foucault’s regime of truth: Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.5 Placed into this subjective conception of truth, the discipline of history becomes “a form of knowledge and a form of power at the same time.”6 Under the influence of this regime and the values of his present-day society, the historian, in his quest for truth, “paints the landscape of the past in the colors of the present.”7 Such an approach emphasizes how historical studies transform the past by interpreting it in accordance with the values of the present, thereby “controlling and domesticating” our understanding of it.8 Michel-Rolph Trouillot expands upon this idea. He writes, “any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences,” resulting from the events that interpreters of the past deliberately choose not to include.9 Trouillot argues that Western historians originally classified nonWestern nations as non-historical, which was an attitude that would endure into the time of Malcolm X and Huey Newton. In other words, their understandings of the past did not fit into the West’s dominant regime of truth. Interpreting the past and writing the resulting historical narratives, therefore, are two actions that are intertwined with the values internalized by the interpreter. Not only do these values act as a transformative medium, but they also dictate what is considered worthy of remembrance. For this reason, Trouillot, like Foucault, defines the writing of history as an act of power.10 Historians, both professional and amateur, are hindered by this inescapable lens of the present, through which they filter the past: seeking objective knowledge, they transform it into subjective interpretation under the guise of the impartial truth. Therefore, presentism, although it is frowned upon by professional historians, has had a profound impact on our understanding of the ancient world. To highlight this impact, it is first necessary to ask: who has historically interpreted the ancient world? Over the last two centuries, at least, it is often the classicists that engage with the ancient material; and it is thus the classicists that have dominated our interpretations. This response, however, leads to the follow-up question: who are these classicists? In a general sense, according to David Armitage, they are professionals, who attempt to “reconstruct the past without the distorting effects of the present.”11 This definition is echoed by Mary Lefkowitz, writing that they are historians of the ancient world, “who try to look at the past critically, without prejudice of any kind, so far as humanly possible.”12 It is difficult to find fault with their assessments; however, in consideration of the conception of the historian presented by Foucault and Trouillot, one portion of her statement must be highlighted: “so far as humanly possible.” To prove her point, she references the work of the Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, who will be discussed in more detail below. She claims that he had a use for the past, namely drawing attention to the 5

Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), 73. 6 Mark Poster, “Foucault and History,” Social Research 49, (1982): 119. 7 Poster, “Foucault and History,” 119. 8 Poster, 119. 9 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015), 27. 10 Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 7, 27, 28. 11 Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 3. 12 Mary R. Lefkowitz, “Ancient History, Modern Myths,” in Black Athena Revisited, ed. Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy Maclean Rogers (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 5. 33

condition of African-Americans, and therefore did not interpret it objectively.13 In short, she cites Garvey as an example of what a classicist is not. The conclusions from these considerations are significant. It becomes clear that amongst the vast majority of historians, presentism is thought to be something one must avoid at all costs; and, related to this, that many historians, except for a brave few, explicitly boast that they are thus largely free from the constraints it presents.14 In consideration of this dismissal of presentism, it is worthwhile to inquire into a more specific answer to the question: who are these classicists, if not individuals like Garvey? While discussing critical race theory, Shelley Haley identifies its origins as a “response to the backlash against civil rights legislation” in the 1970s — the period directly following the murder of Malcolm X and one in which Huey Newton was still active.15 This theory, she writes, challenges the frequently negative interpretations of Africans and peoples of colour in the scholarship of Classics.16 Like Foucault and Trouillot, Haley argues that traditional interpretations of the past have been tainted by the contemporary values of the interpreter.17 These values, as she notes, have primarily been those of nineteenth and twentieth-century intellectuals — and more specifically, white intellectual men. Of course, one might also argue that Haley’s work falls victim to this inescapable presentist bias. There is always a dialogue between the values of our present-day and the state of the disciplines of History and Classics.18 And, as such, there is always the possibility for bias in one’s interpretation of the ancient world. It is equally true that some conclusions may be more probable than others. The significance of Haley’s work, however, is perhaps best illustrated by Foucault’s assertion that “Truth is undoubtedly the sort of error that cannot be refuted because it was hardened into an unalterable form in the long baking process of history.”19 The importance of her work, then, does not depend on whether or not she is unbiased or entirely correct. Rather, it holds value as a result of its questioning of traditional interpretations: she, like Armitage, highlights the fallibility of modern scholarship and the need for critical engagement with our regime of truth; or in other words, she stresses the need to question the “long baking process” that has rendered such subjective interpretations fact. With this established, the link between the biases of the interpreter and the resulting historical narratives becomes clear. Although one may attempt to argue that the race of the interpreter does not matter, Haley provides several examples to the contrary. Perhaps the most telling of which is her discussion of Scybale, an African woman described in Pseudo-Virgil’s Moretum. Traditional interpretations of the text have often presented Scybale as either old, ugly, enslaved, or some combination of the three—descriptions that are not found in the source material.20 Haley points out, “she only becomes ugly if the beholder has been socialized to believe that African physiognomy is ugly.”21 The same remains true for the reading of her as a slave: Scybale becomes a slave only if one 13

Lefkowitz, “Ancient History,” 7. Armitage,“In Defense of Presentism,” 10, 19. 15 Shelley Haley, “Be Not Afraid of the Dark: Critical Race Theory and Classical Studies,” in Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies, ed. Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), 27. 16 Haley, “Be Not Afraid of the Dark,” 27. 17 Haley, 27. 18 Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 10. To quote James Porter, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in reference to comparisons between two Classical histories: “Not only do no final truths emerge (though a good deal of time-honoured conventions do); it is also likely that no two histories will even remotely resemble one another. In place of the comforting illusion that even if times change antiquity no longer does, comparison of histories of scholarship or any series of studies around a single object reminds us of just the opposite illusion (or is it a fact?), namely that antiquity is changing all the time, from generation to generation and from scholar to scholar” (489). 19 Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986), 73. 20 Haley, “Be Not Afraid of the Dark,” 46. 21 Haley, 46. 14

assumes that an African in a Greco-Roman context ought to be considered a slave. To interpret her in such a manner not only casts her in a negative light but also mitigates any influence that she might have had, instead relegating her to a passive position of subservience in the Greco-Roman world. The study of Scybale foregrounds the dangers that are inherent in the act of interpretation: such ancient figures provide “appropriate symbols” for the interpreter to mould, whether consciously or not, into “the validation of a stereotype.”22 Therefore, although Lefkowitz’s definition of a classicist certainly has merit, it is imperative to acknowledge that — like Garvey, Malcolm X, and Huey Newton — the individuals that have historically interpreted the ancient world also possess inherent biases. In short, “The past does not speak to us; we speak for the past.”23 And by speaking for the past, we also shape it. Consequently, Armitage concludes that the study of history possesses ethical implications. The words of Wole Soyinka provide an understanding of the ominous nature of these implications for Black people to date: We black Africans have been blandly invited to submit ourselves to a second epoch of colonialism — this time by a universal humanoid abstraction defined and conducted by individuals whose theories and prescriptions are derived from the apprehension of their world, and their history, and their social neuroses, and their value systems.24 Simply put, much of these readings of the past either propagate an unjustly negative view of Black individuals in the Greco-Roman context or fail to acknowledge possible instances of African influence altogether under a guise of objectivity. It is within this world, one in which Black people were marginalized both in the realm of Classical scholarship and in reality, that Malcolm X and Huey Newton lived. For both men, their experiences as youth and young adults were essential to the formation of their own presentist understandings of history. As for Malcolm X, he recounts this early life before he had become the controversial activist we know of today in his autobiography. After a period of frequent movement, he spent much of his formative years in Lansing, Michigan, where they were frequently harassed by “The Black Legion,” the local hate society. In the local school, Malcolm and his siblings were the only Black students—as he remarks, “white people in the North usually would ‘adopt’ just a few Negroes,” but would never truly accept them.25 Following his enrollment in high school, his English and History teachers would become significant foils to him. His History teacher, Mr. Williams, “was a great one for ‘n****r’ jokes.”26 Once they had arrived at the section of their textbook on Black history, Malcolm laments that it was only one paragraph long and that “Mr. Williams had laughed through it practically in a single breath.”27 While his English teacher, Mr. Ostrowski, was generally more supportive, he, too, felt that the American “Negro” had to learn his place. A “natural-born ‘advisor,’” Mr. Ostrowski questioned Malcolm on his hopes for the future. When he expressed hope at becoming a lawyer, his teacher responded, “A lawyer — that’s no realistic goal for a n****r. You need to think about something you can be.”28 It is in the context of such dismissals and disparaging comments that Malcolm’s early life becomes significant to his eventual development of an Afrocentric conception of history meant to 22

Haley, “Be Not Afraid of the Dark,” 41. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 3, 19. Concerning the lack of discourse on the role of Africa in the Classical tradition — or the silencing discussed by Trouillot — Shelley Haley offers another example: Dido of Carthage (34-41). Through a rereading of the Aeneid, she illuminates the possibilities for African influence that had been neglected in traditional interpretations. 24 Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature, and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1976), x. 25 Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books, 2015), 9, 28. 26 X and Haley, Malcolm X, 30. 27 X and Haley, 30. 28 X and Haley, 38. He ultimately dropped out after the eighth grade, essentially illiterate (Davis 54). 23

combat the harmful and intertwined notions that Black people had no history and could not accomplish anything of note in contemporary society. In Malcolm’s words, his father, Earl Little, was a devout follower of the aforementioned Marcus Garvey. He would often take a young Malcolm to meetings of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.29 Garvey, seeking to better the condition of African-Americans, made use of his knowledge of Egyptian and African history. In doing so, he sought to instill pride in their former accomplishments and to promote a return to Africa. Although a young Malcolm did not yet pay much attention to these teachings, they later formed the basis of the Black Radicalism that characterized much of his work and that of Huey Newton.30 Similarly, Huey P. Newton, known today as a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, recounts his tumultuous early life in his autobiography entitled Revolutionary Suicide. While the cynic might argue that he simply adopts many of the emotionally impactful tropes found in Malcolm’s narrative, it is undeniable — and Huey goes to great lengths to emphasize this — that experiences such as these were not uncommon in the Black communities of America. From Arkansas to Louisiana and Oakland, Huey’s family, like those of Malcolm and the authors of Black Metropolis, was forced to move around in the absence of consistent work. When they were not travelling across state lines, they nevertheless “moved around quite a bit […] in search of a house that would suit our needs” and a better life with freedom.31 Unfortunately, he concludes that “Oakland is no different” in the indifference and corruption that afflicted Black families.32 Concerning Oakland’s education system, Newton was even more scathing in his description. Like Malcolm, he recounts the doomed visions of future greatness that he and his siblings held: “We, too, had great expectations. And then we went to school.”33 The school system, he argues, conducted a serious “assault on Black people.”34 There were moments of this assault that were quite explicit; however, as also made evident in Haley’s discussion of the reception of Scybale, much of it was implicit: “smartness” and “goodness” were associated with whiteness, and the opposites with blackness — a concept that would eventually be internalized by Huey and, in agreement with Malcolm X, countless other Black children. To Huey, all his teachers accomplished was to “try to rob me of the sense of my uniqueness and worth, and in the process they nearly killed my urge to inquire.”35 With this system of education around him, he felt that he could not learn and, thus, did not learn. By the time he reached his high school graduation, he acknowledged that he was essentially illiterate. He was not alone — as he writes, “most of my classmates were in the same boat, because no one in the school system cared whether we learned to read or write.”36 These negative experiences played a significant role in instilling both men with the desire to learn, through which they identified the characteristics of what Wole Soyinka referred to as the “second epoch of colonialism.” Throughout much of Malcolm’s early life, his lack of formal education haunted him — that is, until he went to prison. By his admission, despite the influences of his father and Garvey, he entered prison as “the personification of evil,” still suffering from the “deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.”37 Ailments, he later argues, that 29

At these gatherings, Malcolm experienced his father, among others, chanting such slogans as “No one knows when the hour of Africa’s redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day, like a storm, it will be here” (X and Haley, 7). 30 Charles Ezra Ferrell, “Malcolm X’s Pre-Nation of Islam (NOI) Discourses: Sourced from Detroit’s Charles H Wright Museum of African American History Archives,” in Malcolm X's Michigan Worldview: an Exemplar for Contemporary Black Studies, ed. Rita Kiki Edozie and Curtis Stokes (Michigan: Michigan State UP, 2015), 132. 31 Huey P. Newton and J. Herman Blake, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 15-16. 32 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 14. 33 Newton and Blake, 18. 34 Newton and Blake, 19. 35 Newton and Blake, 22. 36 Newton and Blake, 231. 37 X and Haley, Malcolm X, 173, 182. 36

were directly related to his negative experience “as a black youth here in America.”38 This perverse existence, however, would change. After several years of incarceration at Charlestown Prison — a prison filled with “malicious gossip, perversion, grafting, [and] hateful guards” — he was transferred to Norfolk Prison Colony, an experimental rehabilitation facility.39 This new prison allowed for an opportunity for education that Malcolm had not previously experienced. The library contained a vast collection of books that mainly dealt with the subjects of History and Religion. He made extensive use of this privilege, reading “aimlessly, until [he] learned to read selectively, with a purpose.”40 This purpose came with his introduction to the Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad. Reginald, Malcolm’s brother and a convert to Islam, introduced him to the Nation’s historical pedagogy — teachings similar enough to those of Marcus Garvey with which Malcolm was intimately familiar but had not yet been experienced enough to entertain. According to Mr. Muhammad and the Nation, “The true knowledge, […] was that history had been ‘whitened’ in the white man’s history books” in an attempt to erase the “great empires and civilizations and cultures” found in Africa while the white man “was still living on all fours in caves.”41 In other words, the Nation, in a manner reminiscent of the ideas found in Foucault and Trouillot, taught that the writing of history is an exercise of power; however, in this case, they believed that African-Americans were on the wrong side of that power. This belief in the miseducation of Afro-Americans had a profound impact on Malcolm. In a letter from 1950, he references his early exposure to Marcus Garvey’s teachings, lamenting that “there is much more that I know today concerning that affair that I didn’t know before because [sic] my youth and dead mind.”42 For Malcolm — a man who had been taught that the Black man had no history — the teachings of the Nation were a revelation. As he reflects, “The teachings ring true — to every Negro” and their experiences in America, regardless of religious affiliation.43 The influence of the Nation’s Afrocentric history provided Malcolm with a purpose: raise African-Americans from the “mud of human society” that he had been engulfed by as a youth, facilitating his transformation into a criminal “parasite.”44 He began by educating himself. While still in prison, he taught himself how to read, engaged in a correspondence course in Latin, and hunted “in the library for books that would inform [him] on details about black history.”45 Through such readings, he began to learn about the ancient world. These learnings manifested in several references to mythology throughout his narrative. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is found in Chapter 15, fittingly entitled “Icarus.” Recalling the story that he had read in prison while studying “a lot of Greek mythology,” he vowed to not forget that whatever success — or following the analogy, wings — he attained was due to Allah and his conversion to Islam.46 In telling this story, Malcolm also expertly uses classical mythology as a tool to understand his life, foreshadowing his downfall within the Nation: like Icarus, he would fly too high. Arising from this increasingly intimate knowledge of Classics, he describes his perception of those alleged distortions in the historical record that he believed masked the accomplishments of Africa. Aesop, for example, he identifies as “a black man who told fables;” and, as evidence, he cites that “Aesop” is simply the Greek word for an Ethiopian.47 Discussing his studies of the Oriental philosophers, he suggests that Socrates had travelled throughout Egypt and, once there, had potentially been initiated into certain Mystery cults. Malcolm concludes, “Obviously Socrates got 38

X and Haley, Malcolm X, 386. X and Haley, 160. 40 X and Haley, 161. 41 X and Haley, 165. 42 Ferrell, “Malcolm X’s Pre-Nation of Islam,” 132. 43 X and Haley, Malcolm X, 177. This certainly applies to Newton who felt that religion was not for him (38, 58, 71). 44 X and Haley, 387, 386. 45 X and Haley, Malcolm X, 177; Davis, “Reeducating the Afro-American,” 57. 46 X and Haley, 293. 47 X and Haley, 178, 188. 39

some of his wisdom among the East's wise men” — a conclusion likely influenced by his readings about Herodotus.48 In a debate regarding the existence of the famed poet Homer, he references the theory that the poet had only ever been a symbol of the oppression of Africans by colonial European slavetraders. He suggests that the Europeans blinded the Africans “so that they could never get back to their own people” and then taught them “to sing about the Europeans’ glorious accomplishments,” whilst forgetting their own.49 Although the evidence he cites for this — the alleged relationship between the terms “Homer,” “Omar,” and “Moor” — is far from convincing, it is nevertheless reflective of his developing Afrocentric conception of history. Furthermore, it is an anecdote that is indicative of the influence that Malcolm’s self-education had on his developing method of exalting his fellow AfricanAmericans. He sought to devote “the rest of [his] life to telling the white man about himself” and dismantling the lie told to Black children “that their race had no history.”50 Much like Malcolm, Newton’s attempts at reversing his fortunes with a makeshift, homemade education provided the foundation for his adoption of an Afrocentric perspective of ancient history. Inspired by the criticisms of his teachers who “felt justified in discouraging” him, he set about learning how to read on his own.51 Pursuing this goal, he found himself struggling through the works of Socrates and Aristotle among others.52 These studies would ultimately provide Huey with the lens through which he viewed both other works of literature and the world around him. For example, once he made it to college, he describes his reading of Ozymandias by filtering the work through the Greek myth of Sisyphus: “Each time you push the rock up the mountain, it rolls back down on you. Men build mighty works, and yet they are all destroyed.”53 Most important, however, is his substantial engagement with a text that he refers to as a seminal experience in his life: Plato’s Republic.54 Although Huey does not discuss the ancient material as extensively as Malcolm, it is nevertheless significant that the text reappears at critical narrative junctures: this process of learning how to read, attempts at reaching his peers on the streets, and the pivotal trial with his life on the line. Despite it being a “long and painful process,” he made his way through the text with the use of a dictionary; and, once he had finished, he repeated this process in an attempt to master the vocabulary.55 Though he had not yet engaged with the concepts discussed in the Republic, he would later study the text in college — and by then, he “was prepared for it.”56 His reading of Plato’s work represented a consequential moment in his life. Not only did it help alleviate the shame associated with being illiterate, but it also played a substantial role in shaping his perception of the world and, in particular, the plight of African-Americans. While discussing philosophy with his friends whom he knew to be entrenched in the street life, he claims that Black Americans, like the cave-dwellers in Plato’s allegory, “were in prison and needed to be liberated in order to distinguish between truth and the falsehoods imposed on us.”57 During his trial for the murder of a police officer, Newton reiterates this, asserting that “the prisoners in that cave were a symbol of the Black man’s predicament in this country.”58 As such, Huey’s homemade education — one that emphasized the study of the Classics — provided him with a new understanding of the

X and Haley, Malcolm X, 182. X and Haley, 188. 50 X and Haley, Malcolm X, 188, 185; Davis, “Reeducating the Afro-American,” 64. 51 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 53. 52 Newton and Blake, 57. 53 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 34; Brian P. Sowers, “The Socratic Black Panther: Reading Huey P. Newton Reading Plato,” Journal of African American Studies 21, no. 1 (2017): 28. 54 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 231. 55 Newton and Blake, 54. 56 Newton and Blake, 55. 57 Newton and Blake, 76. 58 Newton and Blake, 231. 49

societal forces and the perceived miseducation that plagued his childhood and the Black community as a whole. With these newfound understandings of American society, both men began advocating for the reconstruction of the role of Africa in the Classical tradition through an appeal to Afrocentrism. After his release from prison, Malcolm rose to the position of Minister in the Nation of Islam. Renowned for his oratorical capabilities, he gave multiple speeches and lectures on the subject of Black history. To Malcolm, doubtlessly influenced by Garvey and Mr. Muhammad, reclaiming — or reconstructing — the history of their people was essential to elevating their social position in America. Following his departure from the Nation, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, wherein he organized a series of lectures on the topic. As he suggests in one such speech, And the thing that has kept most of us — that is, the Afro-Americans — almost crippled in this society has been our complete lack of knowledge concerning the past. […] Proof of which: almost anyone else can come into this country and get around barriers and obstacles that we cannot get around; and the only difference between them and us, they know something about the past, and in knowing something about the past, they know something about themselves, they have an identity.59 Central to this perspective is his understanding of the term “Negro.” The Negro, he argues, is an individual that is the product of “Western crime:” the deprivation of African history and identity.60 Without a language, a culture, and a country to call their own, Malcolm contends that they, like “a tree without roots,” are essentially dead; and as a dead people utterly without pride, they lack the motivation to better their circumstances in society.61 He believed that by promoting Afrocentrism and instilling in African-Americans a pride in their heritage they will “automatically get the incentive, the inspiration, and the energy necessary to duplicate what our forefathers formerly did.”62 With this incentive to do and be better, he hoped that others would be prevented from falling into the degenerate state that had characterized his youth and thus prove his high school teachers wrong. To accomplish this, he suggests, whether accurately or not, that several prominent ancient civilizations were, in fact, black civilizations: Sumerians, Carthaginians, Egyptians — all Black peoples. Concerning the Egyptians, Malcolm emphasizes the “trickery” of Western history books. Through the West’s appropriation of Egyptian culture, he argues that they have “skillfully […] even convinced other white people that the ancient Egyptians were white people themselves.”63 Furthermore, he mentions Hannibal, the Carthaginian general. Hannibal, to Malcolm, is yet another example of how “they steal your history, they steal your culture, they steal your civilization — just by Hollywood producing a movie showing a Black man as a white man.”64 Though he had renounced much of the racist rhetoric that characterized the Nation of Islam’s teachings, he nevertheless maintained one firm belief: while civilizations in Africa were flourishing, the Europeans remained in caves. Consequently, he believed that knowledge flowed from the South to the North — from Africa to the European civilizations that have become a critical part of the Western tradition.65

Malcolm X, Malcolm X on Afro-American History, ed. Steve Clark (New York: Pathfinder Publisher, 1970), 9-10. X, Malcolm X, 22. 61 X, 23. 62 X, 10-11. 63 X, 25. 64 X, 30. 65 X, 33. 60

Likewise, in Newton’s view, the struggles that he, Malcolm, and countless other Black people experienced had a profound and lasting impact on their community that needed to be remedied. As he writes in his powerful introduction, Connected to reactionary suicide, although even more painful and degrading, is a spiritual death that has been the experience of millions of Black people in the United States. This death is found everywhere today in the Black community. Its victims have ceased to fight the forms of oppression that drink their blood. The common attitude has long been: What’s the use?66 This spiritual death provides terminology for the degeneracy of the “Negro” observed by Malcolm; and, similarly, it is this attitude that Huey strove to eradicate amongst Black Americans. The Black Panther Party, he admits, was “formed in the spirit of Malcolm; we strove for the goals he set for himself.”67 Following his example, Huey notes multiple instances in which he believed the history of Black people to have been either marginalized or outright erased. In the first chapter, he remarks that “Racism destroyed our family history.”68 This assertion, reminiscent of Malcolm’s speeches, highlights the damage done to Black families: the destruction of their heritage and pride. Worsening this, he argues, is the fact that “White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books;” or, in other words, the authors of the historical narratives had intentionally silenced the record of their heritage.69 Influenced by his readings of Plato’s Republic and Malcolm X, Huey advocated for the reconstruction and propagation of a more Afrocentric version of history to guide the Black community out of its allegorical cave of ignorance. While still in college, Newton began attending meetings of the Afro-American Association, a group dedicated to instilling Black people with a pride in their heritage. During these meetings, they discussed their understanding of “their heritage, their history, and their contributions to culture and society.”70 Despite this, Huey was not satisfied with solely learning about Black history. He wished to apply these learnings to their current situation in society. Accordingly, he sought out the Revolutionary Action Movement that was an organization that opposed the notion held by the teachers “that black people had no history to teach,” justifying the lack of courses on Black history.71 Upon forming the Black Panthers in 1966, Huey assisted in the organization of multiple community programs, including several dedicated to educating the youth on Black history and fighting for the implementation of college courses on the topic.72 To Newton, reconstructing their past was essential to reversing the “spiritual death” plaguing African-Americans. By providing examples of their glorious history and of “Black men and women who refuse[d] to live under oppression,” he believed that they would “become symbols of hope to their brothers and sisters, inspiring them to follow their example.”73 Newton, however, did not simply seek to become a second Malcolm X. Rather, he adopted the methodologies he discovered in his readings of ancient texts to an extent that his predecessor did not. With this in mind, Huey’s actions closely resembled the work of another prominent activist: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, published following his brief stint in prison in April 1963, he addressed the people criticizing his work and methods. Early in the letter, he 66

Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 4. Newton and Blake, 185. 68 Newton and Blake, 11. 69 Newton and Blake, 185, 72. 70 Newton and Blake, 63. 71 Newton and Blake, 72. 72 Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs, ed. David Hilliard (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 12, 41. 73 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 185. Fittingly, he provides Malcolm X as a more modern example of such a model to follow. 67

outlines his ideology: “anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider within its bounds.”74 As Dr. King concedes, however, the reality of African-Americans in Birmingham was much grimmer. He then presents how the Classics — or more specifically, Socrates — influenced his methodology. Dr. King, in his own way, implicitly reconstructs the historical narrative: he forces Socrates to espouse his own ideals, asserting “the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”75 Although Huey, like Malcolm, rejected King’s philosophy of nonviolence, he nevertheless adopted this approach. He presents himself as a modern Socrates — a gadfly hoping to discover a more just society through the questioning of the values held by fellow Black Americans and White Americans alike.76 As this gadfly, Newton emphasized the importance of explaining concepts as fully as possible to those “who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois.”77 Amongst his peers on the Oakland streets, he would often discuss concepts such as the existence of God, self-determination, and free-will. He recounts that, much like Socrates, he would ask them, “Do you have free will?” Demonstrating the weaknesses of their assumptions with several follow-up questions, he remarks that “these dilemmas led to arguments that lasted all day.”78 During his trial, in comparison, being aware that Mr. Jensen, the prosecutor, wanted to provoke him to explode on the stand, Newton instead sought a good debating session.79 Relying on his Socratic experience, he was determined to reveal the sinister reality of what it “meant to be a Black man in America” and the desire that Plato’s Republic had instilled in him to “find a way to liberate Black people.”80 The conclusions brought forth by studying the uses of Classics in the works of Malcolm X and Huey Newton are twofold. Firstly, it is undeniable that the discipline can be — and often is — moulded to fit the beliefs of the interpreter, whether they be a twentieth-century intellectual or a racial activist. To date, however, the dominant interpretations have been those exclusive of minorities. Secondly, there are reasons that such an Afrocentric perspective of the discipline developed: the attempt to remedy an evil that has yet to be fully undone — the marginalization of Black history; and, of course, to combat the resulting “spiritual death” of the African-American population, as diagnosed by Huey and Malcolm. In their ways, both men recognized the phenomenon later described by David Armitage: the ability of history to be used as a tool to achieve human flourishing.81 I do not wish to suggest that they were strictly correct in their interpretations of the ancient material. In certain cases, this seems quite unlikely. However, as Martin Bernal wrote in his preface to Black Athena, his colleagues convinced him that although “some of [his] ideas were probably wrong in the particular, [he] was on the right track.”82 Such a statement, I believe, should be applied to the Afrocentric perspectives of Malcolm X and Huey Newton. Although they might have been wrong in the particular, they, like Shelley Haley and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, made progress by recognizing the silences in the historical record, calling attention to them, and attempting to solve them. In the words of Malcolm X, “Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future.

Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in Reporting Civil Rights, vol. 1 (New York: Library of America, 2003), 778. 75 King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 780. 76 Sowers, “The Socratic Black Panther,” 27. 77 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 62. 78 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 75; Sowers, “The Socratic Black Panther,” 33. 79 Newton and Blake, Revolutionary Suicide, 233. 80 Newton and Blake, 231. 81 Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 2. 82 Martin Bernal, Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1 (New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1987), xv. 41

Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past.”83

Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary (New York: Pathfinder, 1992), 56. 42

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armitage, David. “In Defense of Presentism.” In History and Human Flourishing, edited by Darrin M. McMahon. Oxford: Oxford UP, in press. Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: the Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1987. Connolly, Joy. “Classical Education and the early American Democratic Style.” In Classics and National Cultures, edited by Susan A. Stephens and Phiroze Vasunia, 78-99. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Davis, Lenwood G. “Reeducating the Afro-American: Malcolm X’s Scholarly and Historical Pedagogy.” In Malcolm X's Michigan Worldview: an Exemplar for Contemporary Black Studies, edited by Rita Kiki Edozie and Curtis Stokes, 53-66. Michigan: Michigan State UP, 2015. Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs. Edited by David Hilliard. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008. Ferrell, Charles Ezra. “Malcolm X’s Pre-Nation of Islam (NOI) Discourses: Sourced from Detroit’s Charles H Wright Museum of African American History Archives.” In Malcolm X's Michigan Worldview: an Exemplar for Contemporary Black Studies, edited by Rita Kiki Edozie and Curtis Stokes, 119-134. Michigan: Michigan State UP, 2015. Fliegelman, Jay. Declaring Independence: Jefferson Natural Language & the Culture of Performance. Stanford UP, 1993. Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 76-101. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986. Foucault, Michel “Truth and Power.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 51-76. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986. Haley, Shelley. “Be Not Afraid of the Dark: Critical Race Theory and Classical Studies.” In Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies, edited by Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, 27-50. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009. King Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Reporting Civil Rights, vol. 1. New York: Library of America, 2003. Lefkowitz, Mary R. “Ancient History, Modern Myths.” In Black Athena Revisited, edited by Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy Maclean Rogers, 3-23. University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Newton, Huey P. and J. Herman Blake. Revolutionary Suicide. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. Porter, James I. “Reception Studies: Future Prospects.” In A Companion to Classical Receptions, edited by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray, 488-500. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Poster, Mark. “Foucault and History.” Social Research 49, (1982): 116-142. Sowers, Brian P. “The Socratic Black Panther: Reading Huey P. Newton Reading Plato.” Journal of African American Studies 21, no. 1 (2017): 26-41. Soyinka, Wole. Myth, Literature, and the African World. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1976. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 2015. Wright, Richard. Introduction to Black Metropolis: a Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Edited by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Clayton. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970. X, Malcolm. By Any Means Necessary. New York: Pathfinder, 1992. X, Malcolm. Malcolm X on Afro-American History. Edited by Steve Clark. New York: Pathfinder Publisher, 1970. X, Malcolm and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 2015.

On the relationship of the Oikos and the Polis in Ancient Greece PIERINA GONZALEZ CATUELA

The relationship between the household and the state is so central in the ancient world that one of its most famous politicians, Cicero, speaks of marriage, children, and the family as the basis of the state. This relationship of dependence between politics and the family is constantly brought up in literature from ancient Greece. Myths, poets, and plays suggest that the oikos and the polis are in fact connected and that the negligence of one of these institutions provokes the failure of the other. The notion that the polis and the oikos cannot function without the other is exemplified by the main characters in Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Medea by Euripides, and Antigone by Sophocles. It is fundamental to consider the complex definitions of the oikos and the polis in ancient Greece. In English, oikos directly translates to ‘household,’ yet this definition does not describe the important nuances which exist in ancient Greek. Contrary to our modern understanding of household the oikos encompasses more than just the nuclear family. Indeed, the oikos includes more than one generation of family members, slaves, animals, and the property of the family.1 The Greek household is dictated by unwritten rules based on gender. For example, the man is supposed to protect the oikos within the public sphere. Nevertheless, it is the woman who is allocated the most important tasks within the oikos, as she manages the slaves and makes sure that the household functions. She is expected to give birth to a number of children, who represent the continuity of the husband’s lineage. Furthermore, the woman is responsible for raising and protecting the children. The oikos is a cohesive unit which relies on the fulfillment of the roles assigned to each member, in which loyalty between the members is necessary for its maintenance. Furthermore, the oikos is the basis of the polis, because it produces citizens, soldiers, and contributes to the polis economically by producing farmers and workers.2 The polis, on the other hand, translates as the state. Much like the oikos, the polis is a cohesive unit relying on well-established practices. Every citizen shares the same culture, as well as the same religion. Moreover, it is defined by written laws, which all citizens must obey.3 The polis is part of the public life of the Greeks and, as such, demands the participation of men as lawmakers, as orators in assemblies, as voters, and as soldiers when the city-state decides to wage war. Women, on the other hand, are expected to stay out of the public life of the polis and remain in the private life of the oikos.4 The polis is seen by the Greeks as an efficient and rational domain, necessary for the function of daily life and the oikos.5 The delicate balance between the polis and the oikos maintains life in ancient Greece organized and meaningful. However, these institutions get disrupted when men and women neglect their duties within the oikos or the polis. This is the case of King Agamemnon in Agamemnon. As recounted in the Iliad, King Agamemnon fights in Troy for ten years and is not home to take care of his oikos for an entire decade. He himself describes his absence as “much too long,”6 a recognition that his departure was delayed for a long time and that he has prioritized the polis and its war rather than his own oikos. Furthermore, the king of Mycenae is constantly reminded by Clytemnestra and by the chorus that he “sacrificed his own child” and that his hands are “stained” with the blood of Iphigenia, his daughter.7 In fact, when Artemis demands Iphigenia as a sacrifice to appease her own anger, Agamemnon could call the war off; however, he is more concerned about the affairs of the polis than the oikos. Thus, by sacrificing his own daughter, he neglects his duty as the protector of the household.8 1

James Mark Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena: Oikos and Polis in Sophoclean Drama,” (University of California, 2007), 1. Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena,” 1. 3 Shields, 2. 4 Debra Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea: Patterns of the Heart and Mind,” Anthós (1990-1996) 1 (1992), 120. 5 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” 123. 6 Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Classics, 1966), 137. 7 Aes. The Oresteia, 162, 110. 8 Giulia Maria Chesi, The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Berlin: De Grutyer, 2014), 17. 2

This abandonment of Agamemnon’s oikos causes the disturbance of both the polis and the oikos. During his long absence, Mycenae is without a king, leaving Clytemnestra no choice but to become the new ruler. However, the reader must be reminded that women must not step into the public sphere of the polis.9 Yet with Agamemnon being absent, Clytemnestra becomes directly involved within the public sphere, and must adapt to male behaviour. The watchman and the leader of the chorus notice this, respectively declaring that Clytemnestra “maneuvers like a man,” and “sp[eaks] like a man.”10 Even Clytemnestra describes her heart as made of “steel,” a strong metal, which makes her manly.11 Clytemnestra leaves behind her femininity. Consequently, her oikos now lacks a woman. Soon, she becomes dangerous, as she exiles her own child, and abandons her role as a protective mother.12 Here again, the oikos is disrupted by the absence of the child, representing lineage, and the death of the head of the household. Clytemnestra also becomes violent, killing her husband, and explaining to the chorus that she “strike[s] him once, twice,” while he “cries in agony.”13 The polis is in chaos; Clytemnestra becomes a tyrant. She tells Aegisthus, her lover, “You and I have power now,”14 which shows that the couple now holds absolute authority in the city, and that the original oikos has been destroyed.15 With Orestes and Agamemnon gone, there is no legitimate king or a clear succession to the throne. In conclusion, the absence of Agamemnon masculinizes Clytemnestra because it pushes her to step into the public sphere, assuming the role of king. By behaving like a man, Clytemnestra deprives her oikos of a protective mother, which results in the exile of Orestes, her son, and the murder of her husband, which disrupt the oikos. This disturbance destroys the order of the polis, which is now ruled by a tyrant. Agamemnon is not the only one to forget his oikos. Jason in Medea is another great example of abandonment of household duties in favor of politics. When the reader meets Jason, the hero and his family have been exiled from Iolcus, accused of having murdered its king, Pelias. Then they go to Corinth, where Jason decides to marry Creon’s daughter, the princess. By leaving his first wife, Medea, Jason breaks the bond between him and his former wife, made by virtue of their marriage; Jason “betrayed [the] marriage ties.”16 His departure deeply disrupts the oikos, as the head of the household leaves. Nevertheless, Jason tries to justify his neglect of the oikos by arguing that he is simply making an alliance with the king of Corinth. In fact, by marrying the princess, Jason and his children cease to be exiles and find a home in Corinth. In Jason’s own words, the new marriage “is for us to live a prosperous life.”17 This enables Jason to curate his own favorable reputation and to secure a kingdom. His actions are related to the polis, as reputation is part of the public domain. What is more, Jason intends to have more children with the princess, thus securing his bloodline, and raising the people who will one day inherit the kingdom, or the polis. By following this reasoning, Jason is thinking rationally by ancient Greek standards.18 His problem was his exile, but in making this alliance, he solves it. As explained above, the polis is thought as being rational and efficient. Jason is thus living in the world of the polis, while totally forgetting his oikos. Jason may have solved one problem, but he created another. In fact, there is no man in Medea’s oikos. As a consequence, Medea starts acting like a male and steps into the public sphere of the polis, just like Clytemnestra. For instance, Medea makes an alliance with the king of Athens, Aegeus, but alliances belong to the polis’ domain and therefore can only be performed by men. What is more, Medea decides to avenge herself, which proves her gain of male attributes, considering that women tend to have a passive role and tend to conform to new situations, while men are pictured as reactionary.19 Medea has “no cowardice” and, much like 9

Dylan Sailor and Sarah Culpepper Stroup, “Translation of Transgression in Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon,” Classical Antiquity 18, no. 1 (1999), 176. 10 Aes. The Oresteia, 103, 116. 11 Aes. 162. 12 Chesi, The Play of Words, 11. 13 Aes. The Oresteia, 163. 14 Aes. 172. 15 Chesi, The Play of Words, 32. 16 Euripides, Euripides I, trans. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (New York: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 81. 17 Eur. Euripides I, 95. 18 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” P122. 19 Anton Powell, Euripides: Women and Sexuality, (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1990), 2. 45

Clytemnestra, she abandons her role as a mother.20 According to the nurse, Medea “hates the children.”21 She is also willing to kill them, thus she stops protecting them. After the destruction of the oikos, most characters portray Medea as an imminent danger. Creon declares he is afraid of her because she may be “hatching plans for something bad.”22 Even the chorus, who sympathizes with her, expects her to “do some harm against those inside her home.”23 Jason calls her a “powerful evil,” while Medea herself tells her kids that she has “a violent mood.”24 This is when Medea starts affecting the oikos of Creon and her own. First, she poisons the princess and Creon, which ruins Creon’s oikos, since the child and the head of the household are now absent. Medea does not stop here, she also kills her own children, further damaging her own oikos.25 However, one should notice that Medea also affects the polis. By killing the king of Corinth and the princess, she leaves the polis without a ruler and gets rid of the next in line for the throne. This means that the polis does not count with a clear succession anymore. By killing her own kids, Medea “utterly wrecked Jason’s house,” and “ruined [him] with childlessness”26 since Jason loses his bloodline.27He has no one to inherit his wealth, no one to project his family into the future politically. By losing his bloodline, Jason loses contact with the polis which is what he laments the most as the rational character living in the world of the polis that he is.28 However, it would be unfair to state that Medea is the only one responsible for the destruction of the polis in Corinth. In fact, Creon, king of Corinth, contributes to the fall of the polis by caring too much about the oikos, and too little about the polis. Indeed, by holding his daughter, Creon himself is affected by Medea’s poison. Saddened by the loss of his daughter, Creon “g[ives] up” on his life, thus leaving the polis without its king.29 Furthermore, instead of exiling Medea, knowing that she is a danger to his family and to his city, he allows Medea to stay in Corinth for another day. Medea persuades him, claiming that Creon is a father, so he should feel “kindness” for her children, and not exile her and her children just yet.30 Here, Medea uses Creon’s deep care for the oikos to arouse feelings of pity. Finally, Creon declares that his bond with Corinth is his “closest bond, after [his] children.”31 In other words, Creon confirms that he cares more about his oikos than he does about the state, thus destroying the polis. In short, in Euripides’s Medea, Jason clearly disturbs the oikos when he decides to leave Medea for Creon’s daughter. Even though he claims to be doing this to find a polis for his family — thus ending their exile — he leaves his oikos without a husband. As a consequence, Medea takes on the role of husband by behaving like a man, which obliges her to engage in the world of the polis. This makes her violent, proved by the fact that she kills her own children, completely destroying her oikos. Finally, Creon further damages the polis when he gives up on his life, depriving his polis of a king. The same pattern of destruction is repeated by Creon in Antigone, who puts the oikos aside in favor of the polis. After the civil war between the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Creon becomes the king of Thebes, since both young men lose their lives. The new king orders that Eteocles be given a funeral, whereas Polynices is to be exposed and left unburied, as he tried to overthrow the rightful king of Thebes, Eteocles. Creon’s purpose is to set an example; the loyal citizen gets all the honors, the disloyal one, just like Polynices, does not. In this situation, Creon’s main concern is the restoration of order in the city. As Creon says, “anarchy” is “the greatest crime,” and therefore it must be avoided at any price, including his own oikos, considering that Polynices is his nephew and, as such, Creon ought to protect his body and give him proper burial.32 Furthermore, Creon’s next decision is to kill Antigone, his niece, for breaking the law, after she tried to bury Polynices despite Creon’s mandate. Again, Creon’s obsession for order in the polis does not allow him to protect his oikos. The king of Thebes is too busy thinking as a politician that he neglects his role as the head of the 20

Eur. Euripides I, 124. Eur. 74. 22 Eur. 85. 23 Eur. 80. 24 Eur. 124, 77. 25 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” P124. 26 Eur. Euripides I, 128. 27 Eur. 106, 128. 28 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” 124. 29 Euripides, Euripides I, 123. 30 Eur. 87. 31 Eur. 86. 32 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Classics, 1982), 94. 21

household. He also ignores Greek tradition, which is part of the oikos, in which every corpse is buried, independent of the cause of death or the background story. By refusing to bury Polynices, Creon does not adhere to traditional Greek values, but rather the laws of the city.33 In conclusion, Creon only cares about the order of the polis. Indeed, he establishes laws to avoid anarchy and to discourage disloyalty, which benefits the polis. However, he neglects the oikos, since he ignores Greek tradition and forbids the burial of Polynices. Eventually, the negligence of the oikos brings about the disruption of the polis. However, another character is to be blamed for the tragic end of this play. “Disloyal,” Creon yells at Antigone,34 as Antigone neglects the polis in favor of the oikos by disobeying the laws, when a good citizen is supposed to always abide by the law. Since Creon is not paying attention to the oikos, Antigone becomes the new protector of it. Paralleling Medea and Clytemnestra, she steps into the shoes of a male, taking on the social and political responsibilities within the oikos.35 First, she defies Creon’s decree when women are expected to conform to men’s orders. Creon refutes by defining Antigone’s actions as “naked rebellion” against the polis.36 Furthermore, when Antigone is caught burying Polynices against Creon’s orders, as the sentry says, “she d[oesn’t] flinch,” and during interrogation, she “d[oes] not deny a thing.”37 Antigone is dauntless; she does not hide from Creon’s retribution. In fact, she is not afraid of death, as she shouts, “give me glory!”38 Antigone is ready to die for her oikos. What is more, Creon adds that “from now on, they [Ismene and Antigone] will start acting like women,” which suggests that by disobeying Creon and by not succumbing to him, Antigone acts like a man.39 Antigone disobeys the polis to maintain the oikos, which shows her neglect for the former and his favoritism for the latter.40 As a consequence, she also contributes to the fall of the oikos and the polis. Because of the actions of Antigone, Creon becomes growingly concerned about the polis. As mentioned previously, he wants to avoid anarchy, but Antigone is actively contributing to it. In a last effort to keep the polis stable, Creon becomes a tyrant.41 Antigone is the first one to notice this tyrannical shift, and calls him a “lucky tyrant” with “ruthless power.”42 In fact, Creon considers that he has absolute power over Thebes: “I now possess the throne and all its power.”43 Creon owns the throne and the city, which he confirms by telling his son, Haemon, that “the city is the king’s.”44 When Haemon tries to make him realize this mistake, Creon simply replies that Thebes cannot “tell [him] how to rule.”45 In other words, Thebes should only submit to what Creon says, as he is the sole and ultimate power. Creon’s tyranny affects his oikos and “a crushing fate” awaits him.46 In conclusion, Creon destroys his oikos and begins focusing on the polis exclusively. This causes an unbalance, in which Creon also destroys the polis by becoming a tyrant. Consequently, many characters die; Antigone is the first one. She disrupted the polis by disobeying the law, and her punishment is her own death. The oikos suffers from this, as one member is no longer present, and Antigone is not fulfilling her role. As a result, Haemon commits suicide and is followed by his mother, Eurydice who has the same fate. With their deaths, Creon’s oikos meets its end. Furthermore, it disrupts the polis because Haemon, who was supposed to become king after his father, is gone. The city is now left without a clear successor to the throne and the possibility of another civil war arising puts the polis in a state of chaos. With Eurydice’s death, Creon loses all possibility to maintain his bloodline and this obscures the line of succession for the polis. Therefore, Creon is not the only character to damage the polis and the oikos, considering that Antigone defies the law, which forces Creon to punish her, thus depriving the oikos of one of its members. This results in the death of Eurydice and Haemon, the heir to the throne, which in turn leaves the polis in disarray. 33

Melissa Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” The Classical Quarterly 61, (2011) 420. Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 84. 35 Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” 412. 36 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 94. 37 Sophocles, 81. 38 Sophocles, 84. 39 Sophocles, 90. 40 Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena,”, 3. 41 Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” 420. 42 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 84. 43 Sophocles, 67. 44 Sophocles, 97. 45 Sophocles, 97. 46 Sophocles, 127. 34

In these three plays, namely Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Medea by Euripides, and Antigone by Sophocles, one encounters characters who neglect either the oikos or the polis, while paying more attention to one rather than the other. As the oikos develops in the private sphere and the polis belongs to the public sphere, these institutions are deeply connected. All three plays confirm that the disruption of one of these institutions inevitably brings the destruction of the other; they cannot survive separately.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Translated by Robert Fagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1966. Blankenship, Debra. “Oikos and Polis in the Medea: Patterns of the Heart and Mind.” Anthós (1990-1996) 1, no. 3 (1992):119-126. Pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu. Chesi, Giulia Maria. The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus' Oresteia, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Ebook.central.proquest.com. Culpepper Stroup, Sarah and Sailor, Dylan, “Translation of Transgression in Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon,” Classical Antiquity 18 (1999): 153-182. www.jstor.org/stable/25011096?seq=26#metadata_info_tab_contents. Euripides. Euripides I. Translated by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Mueller, Melissa. “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone.” The Classical Quarterly 60, no.2 (2011): 412-425. www.jstor.org/stable/41301546. Powell, Anton. Euripides: Women and Sexuality. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1990. Shields, James Mark. “A Sacrifice to Athena: Oikos and Polis in Sophoclean Drama.” University of California, 2007. lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2015-12.dir/pdfRKa4xzLuTa.pdf Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1982.

Prostitutes, Plays and Public Policy: Representations of Enslaved Sex Workers and Their Impact on Regulations in Ancient Rome MAIYA WERBA

While evaluating the interplay between media representation, public discourse, and public policy is a common feature of cultural discussion in the present day, little work has been done to assess this relationship in ancient Rome, especially in the context of enslaved sex workers. The lack of scholarly attention presents an unfortunate gap in current knowledge insofar as a deeper understanding of how these respective institutions influenced each other would provide a deeper understanding of each individual element therein. Sex work was a widespread institution in ancient Rome, and it is likely that most sex workers were enslaved.1 Indeed, beginning during the reign of Caligula (37-41 CE), sex work was taxed by the state; therefore, it was integrated into society in a fundamentally different way than in modern times.2 The purpose of this paper, then, is to gauge the kind of relationship which existed among public discourse, media representation, and the regulation of enslaved sex workers. Ultimately, a high degree of correlation existed between these institutions, both in cases where the notion of a scapegoat was propagated in order to avoid the incrimination of elites as well as in cases characterized by a general anxiety surrounding free women being subjected to the same treatment as enslaved sex workers. In terms of source material, this paper focuses on representations of enslaved sex workers in Roman media, public discourse, and legislation. In regard to representations in the media, due to the small and highly trope-like nature of enslaved sex workers in plays, as well as the constraints of this paper, I will be focusing primarily on the works of Plautus, though other examples will be brought up as necessary. In regard to public discourse, I will mainly make use of recorded speeches from public events relating to enslaved sex workers. As the nature of such sources necessarily limits the perspective of public discourse to that of elite Roman men, I will also draw on archaeological remains in order to ascertain divergent aspects of public discourse. In terms of legislation, I will make use of legislation that refers to sex work and enslaved sex workers that affected their regulation, social status, or sale. Thus, legislation referring to sex workers in general will be considered. Similarly, while there were varied kinds of sex workers, this paper, as it focuses on those enslaved, will not consider high class courtesans or free women engaged in temporary sex work, even if they were also regulated by these laws.3 Since it is likely that the majority of sex workers were enslaved, regulations on sex workers as a whole should be considered and evaluated as part of regulations against enslaved sex workers unless, as will be discussed later, the legislation itself specifies otherwise. Additionally, this investigation will be limited to the 1st century CE. The connections between these diverse issues of representation, discourse, and policy will be evaluated in a series of case studies relating to brothel depictions, pimps, romantic relationships with enslaved sex workers, and violence against them. In turn, for each of these subtopics, I will delineate their media representations, public discourse, and legislation to examine where commonalities emerge. Before delving into our discussion, it is imperative to establish specifically who enslaved sex workers were and where they came from. The majority of enslaved sex workers were drawn from those captured in war and conquest, from those who were already enslaved, and from those “kidnapped by robbers and pirates.”4 Within the already enslaved population, one source of sex workers was vernae, house-born slaves.5 Likewise, 1

Thomas McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 73. Most sex workers were slaves or slaves of more legal interest (likely both) (McGinn, Economy of Prostitution, 59), especially because unlikely free women could have been compelled into sex work (McGinn, Economy of Prostitution, 60). 2 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 73-6 3 Ria Berg, “Unveiling Roman courtesans” in The Roman Courtesan, Archaeological Reflections of a Literary Topos, eds. Ria Berg and Richard Neudecker, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, Vol. 46 (Roma: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, 2018), 50. 4 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 55. 5 McGinn, 57-8. 50

many sex workers, especially those in brothels, were slaves, as it is unlikely that free women could have been compelled into sex work as slave owners and pimps were the ones who forced sex workers “to work a great deal for little reward.”6 However, not all sex workers worked explicitly in brothels — those in brothels were “only a fraction of the number of sex workers working in the city.”7 Therefore, there were numerous enslaved sex workers of different backgrounds and occupying different spaces in ancient Rome. In turn, it is important to note that this paper cannot speak to all of their experiences, but only those perceived to be most common in Rome those most prevalent in legislation, media, and discourse. The widespread nature of sex work can be attributed to the many varying forms that sex work operations took. There were a wide range of establishments which offered sexual services: tabernae, meritoria, cauponae, stabula, deversoria, synoecia, thermoplia, ganeum, ganea, and gurgustium, though the latter three are “low dive” and most explicitly associated with sex work.8 It is difficult to distinguish other lower-class institutions, such as tabernae or thermopolia, from brothels based on either archaeological or literary sources.9 The pervasiveness of sex work in these spaces created an association between this work and lower-class spaces and housing, which were already disliked by Roman elites out of class prejudice.10 Nevertheless, there was still no “moral zoning” and, for the most part, brothels or similar establishments were able to operate anywhere.11 This reality highlights a disconnect between public discourse and legislation: although the public complained about the existence of these spaces, they were both legal and prevalent in Roman society. In fact, many upperclass Romans owned the land on which brothels operated and derived profit from their rent.12 These spaces were regulated by aediles, who allowed them to operate and whose main responsibility was to “preserve public order.”13 The aediles ran a registry of sex workers, which was discredited after a scandal in 19 CE, and ensured status distinctions by “enforcing the use of appropriate clothing,” likely due to Augustan adultery legislation14 Such oversight suggests that enslaved sex workers were, to a degree, visibly different from others, but not to the extent that the government needed to take additional measures to identify them. In turn, brothels and brothel-adjacent spaces were diverse and dispersed throughout the city with evidently little regulation as long as they did not actively disrupt public order. The brothel itself played a significant role in the public image and narrative of sex work. Brothels were seen as dirty in the public eye and while this might have been true, it is unlikely that they were all as vile as some accounts present them to be, as public accounts were affected by classist rhetoric.15 In terms of what the brothels looked like: a “sex worker worked in a booth or small room (cella) within the brothel with her price outside her door.”16 This was a space for short, evidently transactional, visits. Brothels also provide a mediated insight into the perspective of sex workers through graffiti remains in which sex workers talk about their clients. However, it is important to “acknowledge the polysemous nature of graffiti: not only can they lie, create fictive personas, and play tricks on readers… they could have different meanings to various individuals.”17 One particular commonality among brothel graffiti is the prevalence of names and the mention of the sexual capabilities of clients; however, many prostitutes “may have been expected to write graffiti supporting their clients’ claims to masculine sexuality.”18 This dynamic created a public narrative in which enslaved sex workers were sexualised and praised the sexual skills of their clients. Thus, it would be faulty to assume that enslaved sex workers were able to honestly express themselves through graffiti. In any case, such graffiti would have played a significant role in the public understanding of enslaved sex workers. 6

McGinn, 59-60, 73. McGinn, 222. 8 McGinn, 16. 9 McGinn, 16. 10 McGinn, 17-20. 11 McGinn, 79. 12 McGinn, 31-2. 13 McGinn, 149. 14 McGinn, 152. 15 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 84. 16 McGinn, 39. 17 Sarah Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 56. 18 Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii, 115. 7

One common trope among representations of enslaved sex workers is that of their evil and abusive pimps, who usually feature as the villains of plays. The common narrative in plays, especially in comedy, deals with a “dishonourable pimp,” as is the case of Ballio in Pseudolus.19 In particular, Ballio’s turpitude is “a matter of his status,” thus an equivalency is drawn between his vocation as pimp and his immorality.20 For example, when asked why he sold Calidorus’ girlfriend, he replies, “I felt like it and she belonged to me.” He proceeds to laughingly accept all the insults that Calidorus and Pseudolus direct at him, even accusations of murdering his parents.21 Likewise, in Pseudolus, Calidorus specifically laments the lack of regulation of pimps and their consequent malicious behaviour.22 This passage in particular speaks to an attempt to create a causal relationship between cultural rhetoric and policy: it implicitly agitates for changes in public policy through literature. Thus, it speaks to an engagement between public discourse and literature, in this case on the issue of pimps. Similarly, the threat of being owned by a pimp is also present in these plays: Synecrastus, for example, sees being owned by a pimp as the absolute worst fate.23 In this way, responsibility for the misfortunes of enslaved sex workers was either attributed to or blamed on their pimps, rather than their clients or the broader system of sex work in Rome. The portrayal of pimps as evil and to be feared characterizes other characters as more moral in comparison. Therefore, this narrative propagated in plays representing enslaved sex workers serves to absolve the public of any responsibility, instead providing a clear villain who can be held responsible. Pimps were regulated both in terms of their behaviour and status by the Roman government. The Lex Iulia of 23 CE prevented the senatorial elite from marrying below their class, and freeborn persons from marrying people like sex workers and pimps.24 As well, pimps were not allowed to hold public office; however, they were still able to exert control over their slaves and keep their earnings.25 To avoid legal restrictions and incrimination, elites would use intermediaries and pimps. This could create a scenario where “slave sex workers might form part of the peculium of a slave pimp, who himself might be the vicarius of another slave or the property of a freed or freeborn manager,” or another variation of a “middle man” to absolve the elite owner of involvement.26 Such a dynamic ties directly into the narratives we have seen surrounding pimps in public discourse and media representation, where they are portrayed as fundamentally wrong and beyond redemption. Therefore, there was little new regulation past punishing pimps; furthermore, this enabled elites to avoid the consequences of association with enslaved sex workers as their middle man pimps suffered instead. Nevertheless, although enslaved sex workers without a respectable heritage are rarely rescued in plays, they are occasionally given the space to criticize their masters. For example, in Plaut’s Persa, Sophoclidisca, an enslaved sex worker owned by a pimp, criticizes her master while asserting her intelligence by mocking him for not being able to “figure out my brainpower, you dumb baby. Can you shut up? Could you stop nagging?”27 First of all, Sophoclidisca’s pronouncement of her intellectual superiority over her master’s speaks to a common trope in Roman plays in which slaves mock their masters. Sophoclidisca’s speech, however, is particularly significant given the fact that she says it directly to her master, rather than as an aside or in conversation with another character. Second, the comedy of this moment is seen in the assertion of an enslaved sex worker knowing better than her owner. Third, it is rare for enslaved sex workers to speak, let alone to their masters. The fact that Sophoclidisca explicitly tells her master to stop talking would have stood 19

Roberta Stewart, “Who’s Tricked: Models of Slave Behavior in Plautus’ Pseudolus,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 7 (2008): 69. 20 Stewart, “Who’s Tricked,” 77. 21 Plautus, Pseudolus, ed. and trans. Wolfgang de Melo, Loeb Classical Library 260, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), lines 345-50. 22 Plaut. Pseudolus, lines 201-4. 23 Amy Richlin, Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus and Popular Comedy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 229. 24 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 72; Gaius, Institutes of Roman Law by Gaius, trans. Edward Poste, 4th edition, ed. E.A. Whittuck, M.A. B.C.L, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904), Justinian’s Codification 66-8 (outlines various types of marriages with a clear indication that certain pairings would never happen). 25 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 37, 52. 26 McGinn, 36. 27 Persa (translated in Richlin, Slave Theater, 227). 52

out from other works.28 In turn, this rarity suggests that, while a cultural narrative of the sex worker who speaks out against their master existed, there was a common understanding that the sex worker with the intelligence to do so was rare. In this way, their representation did not align with narratives that demonstrated the agency of enslaved sex workers. In particular, the relationship between legislation and media representations of enslaved sex workers demonstrates a general desire to prevent the existence of any genuine connection between enslaved sex workers and elites. Significantly, when enslaved sex workers who are perceived to deserve their enslavement are freed, there is always an existential threat that enables their freedom. For example, in Pseudolus, Calidorus’ scheme to free his enslaved paramour, Phoenicium, occurs only because she is being sold to a Macedonian soldier; the fact that he will no longer have to access her motivates him to change her situation.29 In fact, their alleged love is undermined when Pseudolus reading her letter and “interprets [her name] literally and concretely in order to conjure up the image of her as sprawling in the writing tablet” in order to undermine the image of Calidorus as a “romantic lover” and his romantic idea of Phoenicium.30 Thus, a pattern emerges where enslaved sex workers are freed not out of genuine connection, but out of lust. Of particular significance here are the Ne Serva laws, which prevented men of a certain standing from marrying sex workers and put similar restrictions upon connections with pimps.31 This is especially noteworthy considering laws on manumission specified marriage as an acceptable reason for the freeing of a female slave.32 Therefore, enslaved sex workers would have been disproportionally harmed by this legislation as it reduced their likelihood of freedom. Likewise, women who had engaged in sex work are understood to be disgraced and lacking the same “virtue” of a Matrona.33 In particular, the cultural discourse surrounding this issue, mainly provided by the jurist Ulpian (c. 170-228), represents a sentiment against proper Romans uniting with infamous women.34 Therefore, a uniform narrative emerges across public discourse, media representation, and law in which romantic connections between elites and sex workers are either limited or entirely discredited. A further common trope surrounding the representation of enslaved sex workers in plays is that of the sex worker who secretly never deserved to be enslaved and is eventually rescued. For example, in Plautus’ Epidicus, the central characters are Telestis, a newly enslaved woman bought by a soldier who desires her, and Acropolistis, a slave freed by a man who believes her to be his daughter. Naturally, the end of the play reveals Telestis to be the true daughter and to have been wrongly enslaved the entire time.35 Throughout the piece, the enslaved Telestis is still described as worthy of being free.36 This suggests an underlying belief that being free was something people could perceive, even when one was wrongly enslaved. Moreover, this highlights “the ambiguous status of sex slave” and how their appeal “stems partly from the titillating fact that they might be respectable women,” look like respectable women, and “recently were respectable women before” they were enslaved.37 This element speaks not only to a hyper-sexualization of enslaved women, but also to the understanding that, in the context of plays, enslaved women were easy to exploit sexually. Likewise, since the enslaved women in such contexts will always be eventually rescued, their exploitation, while moving, is known to be temporary and, therefore, endurable. Those who are enslaved unjustly — respectable women — are given the opportunity to speak out against their oppression and abuse, such as in the case of Virgo, whose “words told the audience what it feels like to be threatened with a beating, and what it feels like to be sold, far from home one way or the other.”38 However, it is important to note that it is mostly respectable women, the unjustly enslaved, who are given the opportunity to express themselves. Enslaved sex workers who stay 28

See all of Plautus’ other plays, where women rarely talk, especially enslaved ones. Plaut. Pseudolus, lines 40-5. 30 Stewart, “Who’s Tricked,” 73-4. 31 McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 289. 32 Gaius, Institutes, II 19. 33 Marcellus, “Digest, Book XXVI,” in Medieval Sourcebook: Corpus Iuris Civilis: The Digest and Codex: Marriage Laws (Fordham University). 34 Rebecca Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire,” The Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999): 51-2. 35 Richlin, Slave Theatre, 257 36 Epidicus 43-4, trans. Richlin, Slave Theatre, 257. 37 Richlin, Slave Theatre, 257. 38 Richlin, 264. 29

enslaved, on the other hand, are rarely used as examples of pathos; rather, they primarily exist as examples of comedy, as in the case of Sophiclidisca. Therefore, the common trope of the respectable women being enslaved and rescued does not provide a genuine space for the pain of enslaved sex workers; rather, it highlights a fear for the safety of respectable women and a desire for enslaved sex workers. Such concerns surrounding female modesty and the need to protect Roman women from immorality were generally the dominant narratives in public discourse and legislation. Indeed, the fear of abduction and slave dealing networks around pirates, pimps, and trades were “linked in the popular imagination.”39 Suetonius notes that Mark Antony had his friends “pimp for him” and “accordingly obliged both matrons and ripe virgins to strip, for a complete examination of their persons,” like a slave dealer.40 This anecdote speaks to a similarly derogatory language, as seen earlier, in regard to pimps and the sale of slaves. It also speaks to a dislike, seen in plays, of the corruption of potentially respectable women by bringing them down to the condition of enslaved sex workers. In particular, the key issue was that female slaves were exploitable as sex workers, so any respectable women brought to that status would also face such exploitation. These narratives all speak to various ideas in public discourse which would provoke harsh judgment of sex workers insofar as they were considered a part of the licentiousness that was advocated against. Outside of fears of abduction, there was also a general concern about public spaces being too risqué, leading to a ban on women occupying certain seats at games or arriving too early.41 This emphasizes the desire to protect the modesty of respectable women by removing any potential exposure to sexual or corrupting people. Consequently, sex workers faced similar limitations such as bans from certain religious practices reserved for respectful women, although they did have their own holiday, the Nonae Capratinae.42 Such regulation provided a degree of status only for respectable women in contrast to, enslaved sex workers. The other major legislative changes in the 1st century were the aforementioned Ne Serva laws, which made it illegal for husbands to pimp out their wives – this regulation, however, had “no connection with (actual as opposed to prospective) sex work” and concern for slaves “provides only a partial explanation.”43 Significantly, this legislation does not explicitly demonstrate any sympathy for enslaved sex workers in public discourse; rather, it is specifically a compassion for women, who would otherwise be respectable, being subjected to an unfortunate and undeserved position. Conversely, respectable women who transgressed these moral boundaries were punished in public discourse. Cicero’s Pro Caelio (56 BC) reveals that the notion of being an enslaved sex worker could be used for character assassination and as a weapon against respectable women in general. For example, when Cicero discusses the potential innocence of Caelius, he references Clodia’s morality and behaviour as the standard by which either “[it] will supply us with the defence, that nothing has been done by Marcus Caelius with any undue wantonness; or else your impudence will give both him and everyone else very great facilities for defending themselves.”44 Here, Cicero associates Clodia “with a group [meterixes] technically forbidden to give evidence in court,” even though the designated Clodia is an elite Matrona.45 In turn, Cicero’s motivation in speaking to Clodia in this way is evidently to degrade her through this (erroneous) association. He continues, asserting that the charges in this case concern “one woman—both imputing enormous wickedness; one respecting the gold [received from Clodia]... [and] the other respecting the poison” used to try to kill Clodia.46 That Clodia is the victim in this crime and yet Cicero feels justified in attacking her character via claims of sex work suggests a serious and visceral response against sex workers in Roman discourse; otherwise, it would not be as effective to blame Clodia, the victim, to the extent that Cicero does in this speech. The conception that a woman who acts in an illicit manner permanently degrates her status exists consistently in Roman public discourse, such as in Seneca’s Controversia, where once again the association with sex work serves to alter a woman’s worth.47 Insofar as Cicero uses the perception of Clodia’s misconduct 39

McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 56. Suetonius, De vita Caesarum, trans, Alexander Thompson (London: George Bell and Sons, 1890), LXIX. 41 Suet. De vita Caesarum, XLIV 42 McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law, 25. 43 McGinn, 289. 44 Cicero, Pro Caelio, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: George Bell & Sons,, 1891), 50. 45 Matthew Leigh, “The Pro Caelio and Comedy,” Classical Philology 99, no. 4 (October 2004): 304. 46 Cicero, Pro Caelio, 51. 47 Flemming, “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit,” 43-4. 40

in order to discredit her, this speaks to a fine line in Roman public discourse between respectable women who need to be rescued, as discussed above, and those who deserve to fall in social status. Such a belief also helps explain the obsession with protecting the virtue of respectable women: once gone, it could never be retrieved. In this way, we can see that a simple association with sex work was powerful enough to merit a fall in social status; this highlights the prevalence of a distaste for sex workers in public discourse and society. Consequently, a strong connection exists among the media, public discourse narratives, and the legislation that emerged in order to preserve the morality of free Roman women. The Ne Serva law criminalizing husbands who pimp out wives was driven more by anxiety than reality and was shaped “by literary convention or motivated by personal hostility.”48 This anxiety is clearly demonstrated in the tropes of plays, described earlier, where audiences are meant to sympathize only with women who do not deserve enslavement; it is also echoed in public discourse promoting modesty and regulations against women in certain spaces. Similarly, the “animus directed at pimps in general” suggests a contrast in Roman public consciousness regarding a moral understanding of the exploitation of sex workers as opposed to other dependencies. In essence, a belief emerged claiming that wives, instead of enslaved sex workers, had to be protected from villainous pimps.49 In turn, legislation sought to protect wives via laws such as those preventing husbands from being able to pimp them out or allowed them to sell their sexual labour.50 Evidently, this legislation follows the concerns of public discourse and media tropes, which in turn speaks to a strong correlation between the concerns of such discourse and tropes in the creation of legislation on this issue. Consequently, a dominant concern for respectable Roman woman was more important to legislation than other aspects of sex work which held stronger footing in reality. Furthermore, violence and exploitation are both common elements of plays relating to enslaved sex workers. This violence took on many forms, such as via pimps and owners, as discussed above, but these are not the only perpetrators. In fact, violence against enslaved sex workers is even perpetuated by their fellow slaves, such as in the case of Plautus’ Asinaria, where Libanus and Leonida “force the young owner Argyrippus and his sex worker amica to promise them freedom, beg them for money… the amica is made to call each of them sweet names and is asked to kiss and embrace them.”51 This event speaks to a common trope of casual violence against enslaved sex workers, and specifically that this violence was deeply intertwined with the sexualization of enslaved sex workers – the amica is not simply being attacked, but also sexually assaulted. Moreover, it is important to note that, when enslaved sex workers instrumentalize their sexuality to their own advantage, they are usually punished for it, as “women’s sexual power is both exploited and resented onstage.”52 This also highlights a difference between exploited male and female slaves: “female slaves, as you might expect, [do not] complain about the sexual use made of them by their owners, although male slaves commonly complain.”53 While female slaves were commonly and violently sexually exploited in plays, sex workers were, on the other hand, kept out of the home with their exploitation occurring in other spaces.54 This also speaks to a difference in the representation in plays between enslaved sex workers, slaves, and respectable women: this type of abuse only occurs in spaces occupied by enslaved sex workers and is, therefore, fundamentally different from the abuse occuring in domestic spaces.55 In turn, the kinds of violence experienced by enslaved sex workers in media representations are unique insofar as they are contextualized by both the pervasiveness of their exploitation and the spaces they occupy. The reality of enslaved sex workers regarding such violence closely follows their literary representation as they were subject to attacks from clients, pimps, and owners. Even though aediles were charged with maintaining order, violence was still fairly common in brothels, especially gendered violence.56 48

McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution. 57. McGinn, 73-5. 50 “Book XLVIII. Title V. Concerning the Julian Law for the Punishment of Adultery,” in Medieval Sourcebook: Corpus Iuris Civilis: The Digest and Codex: Marriage Laws, 2-4. 51 Richlin, Slave Theater, 216. 52 Richlin, 268. 53 Richlin, 268. 54 Richlin, Slave Theater, 276. 55 Richlin, 277. 56 McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution, 88-9. 49

In particular, “forced entry, or its attempt, into a brothel is a theme with a long history in Roman literature and” life.57 For instance, Ulpian believed a man was not liable if he broke down a sex worker’s doors due to lust and thieves enter independently and take her property; moreover, he portrays this as relatively common.58 This kind of violent visit to a brothel was a common feature of the comissatio.59 In this way, we see violence against enslaved sex workers and their spaces as devalued in public discourse, as it did not acknowledge their pain. In turn, this can explain the lack of additional legislation against these attacks, as there was no sympathy to prompt a push for change. Overall, we see that an apathetic relationship existed among those with the power to prevent this violence – likely because they were the ones perpetrating it. In conclusion, the connection among public discourse, media representation, and legislation reveals a preference to focus on issues that do not require elites, who explicitly profited from this industry, to change, but, rather propogated the notion of cultural scapegoats in the form of pimps and a societal fear for free women who, in reality, never faced the danger that enslaved sex workers did. In particular, the consistency between cultural discourse and legislation speaks to a high correlation between these narratives. Similarly, while media representation displays greater variety than public discourse and legislation, the cohesion between this representation, legislation, and public discourse on particular issues suggests close ties between these various institutions. Ultimately, the interplay among these various cultural and societal aspects merits further investigation that could serve to provide a greater understanding of how cultural institutions, power dynamics and the law operated in ancient Rome in the context of enslaved sex workers and beyond.

McGinn, 89-91. McGinn, 89-91. 59 McGinn, 91. 58

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berg, Ria. “Unveiling Roman Courtesans.” In The Roman Courtesan: Archaeological Reflections of a Literary Topos, edited by Ria Berg and Richard Neudecker, 41-65 Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, Vol. 46. Roma: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, 2018. “Concerning the Julian Law for the Punishment of Adultery.” In Medieval Sourcebook: Corpus Iuris Civilis: The Digest and Codex: Marriage Laws. Fordham University. Cicero. Pro Caelio. 56 BC. Translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London: George Bell & Sons,1891. Flemming, Rebecca. “Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit: The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire.” The Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999): 38-61. Gaius. Institutes of Roman Law by Gaius. Translation and commentary by Edward Poste, M.A. Fourth edition, edited by E.A. Whittuck, M.A. B.C.L. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904. Leigh, Matthew. “The Pro Caelio and Comedy.” Classical Philology99, no. 4 (October 2004): 300-335. Levin-Richardson, Sarah. The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Marcellus. “Digest, Book XXVI.” In Medieval Sourcebook: Corpus Iuris Civilis: The Digest and Codex: Marriage Laws. Fordham University. McGinn, Thomas. The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. McGinn, Thomas. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Plautus. The Little Carthaginian. Pseudolus. The Rope. Edited and translated by Wolfgang de Melo. Loeb Classical Library 260. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. Richlin, A. Slave Theater in the Roman Republic: Plautus and Popular Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2017. Stewart, Roberta. “Who's Tricked: Models of Slave Behavior in Plautus's "Pseudolus".” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 7 (2008): 69-96. Suetonius. De vita Caesarum. Translated by Alexander Thompson. London: George Bell and Sons, 1890.

In Dialogue with the “Cold Pastoral”: Two Bucolic Ekphraseis of Theocritus and Keats TARYN POWER

Bucolic is a genre obsessed with dialogue. Not only are interlocution and verbal competition defining motifs of the genre, but the genre itself is created through a process which Mathilde Skoie calls “eclectic reception.”1 Kathryn Gutzwiller defines the pastoral as “poetry about herdsmen, usually in dialogue, often involving erotic love, and commonly incorporating songs, such as singing contests between herdsmen, love serenades, or laments for the dead.”2 She further notes that it was only with the continuation of the Theocritean brand of rustic poetry in Virgil that the genre was cemented.3 Rosenmeyer further notes that the Bucolic entered the modern tradition through “tradition, imitation, continuity of artistic purpose.”4 Bucolic poetry, then, requires reception — the continual rereading and rewriting of its themes and conventions by generations of poets — for its very existence. It is, as Skoie writes, “a matter of piping on pastoral instruments of your forerunners.”5 Theocritus’ first idyll is often read as the introduction to the pastoral genre as a whole, incorporating most of Gutzwiller’s criteria. Rather than two songs in competition, however, the unnamed goatherd offers an extended description of a kissubion, or ivywood cup, which he means to give in exchange for Thyrsis, a herdsman singer’s song. The trope of extended description of an object — or ekphrasis — finds its origin in epic, not bucolic, poetry; however, as essentially “figured reception,”6 it finds an important place in this genre obsessed with its own creation. By the time John Keats writes “Ode On a Grecian Urn” nearly two thousand years later, the ekphrasis is thoroughly integrated into the Bucolic canon. In this paper, I will place these two ekphraseis in conversation, examining their shared and differing themes, as well as the dynamics of viewing and narration built. In both, ekphrasis is used as an allegory of the active creation of the Bucolic genre in which both poets are working. The goatherd’s cup in Theocritus’ first idyll, which he offers in exchange for Thyrsis’ song, is essentially a physical embodiment of the genre’s main themes. The cup itself is κεκλυσμένον ἁδει κηρῶι (“sealed with sweet wax”)7 (27), and ivy, helichryse, and acanthus flowers wind all around it. Its surface holds as much sweetness and simple, natural beauty as does the locus amoenus in which the two interlocutors are sitting that Thyrsis describes for the reader at the outset of the poem. The goatherd also describes three scenes which emerge from between the winding tendrils of the plants: a woman with two competing lovers, an aged fisherman throwing out a net from a craggy rock, and a young boy, whose distracted weaving of a cricket trap leaves the vineyard he is tasked to guard and his lunch open for two mischievous foxes to raid. Rosenmeyer interprets these scenes as “echoes of the world beyond the pleasance” of the pastoral due to their depictions of turmoil and toil which are “frozen” on the cup so as to not overflow into the rest of the poem.8 This description, however, ignores the fact that the toil represented in these scenes is transformed into something altogether Bucolic in the eyes of the goatherd. The theme of frustrated erotic love in the scene of the two young men, for instance, finds its echo both in the story of Daphnis in Thyris’ song and in countless other pastoral idylls, notably the story of Polyphemus and Galatea as told in idylls 6 and 11. The woman laughs (γέλαισα 36) at the men’s labouring in vain, much as Aphrodite laughs (γελάοισα 95) when she witnesses 1

Mathilde Skoie, “Passing on the Panpipes: Genre and Reception.” In Classics and the Uses Reception, ed. Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 94. 2 Kathryn J. Gutzwiller, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature (Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), 84. 3 Gutzwiller, A Guide to Hellenistic Literature, 84. 4 Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Los Angeles and Berkely: University of California Press, 1969), 4. 5 Skoie, “Passing on the Panpipes,” 92. 6 Andrew Bennett, Keats, Narrative and Audience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 135. 7 Unless otherwise stated, all translations are my own. My readings are all greatly informed by the commentary of Richard Hunter in Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 8 Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet, 91. 58

Daphnis’ suffering. Further, the men are said to νεικεíουσ' ἐπέεσσι (“strive or quarrel with words”) one after another, which, as Hunter points out, “suggests the Bucolic agon, and ἔπη hints at the performance of hexameters.”9 In other words, the word choice is suggestive of poetic exchange and competition allowing for an interpretation of these men as herdsman singers not unlike Thyrsis. The boy happily weaving an ἀκριδοθήραν — a locust-trap — from asphodel stalks and rush likewise offers an easy analogy to the Bucolic singer, especially when accompanied with the description of the καλὸν [...] ἀλωά (“beautiful vineyard”) weighed down with ripe grapes (46 - 54). Plenty, pleasance, and the joy of creation — or “poetic πóνος,” a reinvention of the traditionally Hesiodic term for labour10 — are the primary focus in this story, despite the imminent threat of losing his lunch, which remains only a minor inconvenience. The aged fisherman is the least obviously Bucolic of the cup’s figures, due to his age and his labouring; however, the focus is in his strength which is ἄξιον ἅβας — worthy of youth (44). He is also, perhaps, proof of the Hesiodic influence on Theocritus’ pastoral: as Rosenmeyer terms it, there is “an echo [...] of πóνoς” in pastoral poetry, though never more.11 Toil can exist in the locus amoenus, but it must only be a flicker of it, or made itself to be pleasant, as the problems of the cup’s figures are. Mostly, it exists outside the frozen, perfect noon-hour in which the poems take place, adding tension and improving the pleasure of the scenes by contrast. The cup captures this perfectly, its figures frozen in states of near-ponos, but so well-made and surrounded by lovely decoration that the goatherd can make pleasant — and thus, pastoralize — their troubles. The thematic programme of Keats’ urn, when placed in comparison to the ivy cup, shares many of its themes, and even some nearly identical images. The poet speaks of a “leaf-fringed legend” which “haunts around [its] shape” (5-6), recalling the ivy and flowers encircling the narratival pictures on the cup. His “Bold Lover,” like the two young men in the cup’s first scene, “never, never canst [...] kiss” (17) and will be “for ever panting” with a “heart high sorrowful and cloyed, / A burning forehead and a parching tongue” (29-30). He, too, is labouring in vain for love. The woman “cannot fade” and will be forever “fair” (19 - 20), which echoes the beautiful woman who is carved on the cup and appears as a τι θεῶν δαíδαλμα — something skillfully made of or by the gods (31). Both women are made near to the immortals by being frozen in art. Keats’ “fair youth” (15) is not weaving but piping, yet his age and placement amongst the perpetual plenty of springtime (“nor ever can those trees be bare” 16) echo the boy in Theocritus, though his affinity with the Bucolic singer is much more explicit. No old man appears on this urn; in fact old age is singled out as inherently separate from the scenes on the urn: in the narrator’s final address to the urn, he says, “When old age doth this generation waste, / Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe / Than ours” (47 - 48). The reminder of aging is still the most direct reference to the suffering of reality outside of the object, as in Theocritus. Similarly to idyll 1, this aging is stopped, the figures frozen into immortality. Thus, the overarching theme and narrative force in both ekphraseis is stillness: the pastoral in both is and must be “cold” in order to achieve “eternity” (45). One scene on Keats’ urn which does not appear to have any parallel in the kissubion is the rather enigmatic passage about the sacrifice; on further examination, this inconsistency further proves the importance of reception to the Bucolic genre. The poet asks the urn: “Who are these coming to the sacrifice? / To what green altar, O mysterious priest, / Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies?” (31-33). While Rosenmeyer argues that “the gods and religion have no standing in the Theocritean bower,”12 he notes that in Virgil’s third Eclogue, Damoetus says that he will make a sacrifice of a heifer for the harvest: faciam vitula pro frugibus.13 Wilson sees the heifer as an echo of the procession scene on the Parthenon frieze (fig. 1), the subject of Keats’ quasi-ekphrastic “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles.”14 Therefore, we can interpret this as proof of the eclectic reception that Skoie speaks of.15 From his letters, it is clear that Keats has read Theocritus and

Richard Hunter, ed., Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 80. Niels Koopman, Ancient Greek Ekphrasis: Between Description and Narration (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2018), 176. 11 Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet, 23. 12 Rosenmeyer, 125. 13 Qtd. in Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet, 126. 14 Douglas B. Wilson, “Reading the Urn: Death in Keats’s Arcadia,” Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900 25, no. 4 (Autumn 1985): 836. 15 Skoie, “Passing on the Panpipes,” 94. 10

connects him most strongly to the pastoral tradition, despite not being able to read Greek, as Beatty notes.16 In 1818, the poet writes to his brother that when inspiration strikes him, he is “according to [his] state of mind, [...] with Achilles shouting in the Trenches, or with Theocritus in the Vales of Sicily.”17 This letter proves what his poem already implies: his pastoral style comes from a variety of sources. Even the inclusion of Achilles, the epic hero, does not seem out of place in his list of possible inspirations. The motif of ekphrasis, as I mentioned above, stems famously from the Shield of Achilles in Homer; an element of epic is the key motif of both Keats’ poem and the ivy-cup of Theocritus’ goatherd. In Theocritus, not only is the ekphrastic mode Homeric, the kissubion itself also finds poetic precedent in Homer — both the herdsman Eumaeus and Polyphemus — himself a sort of shepherd — drink out of a similar ivy-cup.18 The implication, then, is that this is a cup for rustic people, but the actual allusion is to epic poetry. Further, Theocritus’ lovers do not simply quarrel but νεικείουσ' ἐπέεσσι (strive with words), which Hunter notes “rewrites the ‘legal’ νεῖκος of the Homeric shield.”19 The old fisherman, like Keats’ cow, might also have a source in real art: Hunter claims that “‘realistic’ depiction of veins, muscles, and sinews is a familiar feature of Hellenistic statuary,”20 such as, most famously, the Louvre Fisherman (fig. 2). Thus, Theocritus’ preoccupation with the fisherman’s rough physicality can be read as his appeal to the visual arts as a source for poetry. All these glimpses of other sources, unexplained by the dialogue between our two poems, open up the possibility to trace countless other conversations that the poets are engaging with other poetic traditions and even other media in order to create their embodiment of the pastoral. Though some aspects — nature, song, pleasance — seem necessary for any poem to be read as Bucolic, the actual content and sources seem less important than the way in which they are told. It is thus the narrative structure of both these ekphraseis which I will attend to next. In both Keats’ and Theocritus’ descriptions of their objects, a narrator describes and interprets them for the reader, but there are key differences in the framing of this narrative which allow us to explore how these ekphraseis mirror our poets’ act of genre creation or innovation through reception. In idyll 1, the description has a role in the poem’s larger narrative, as the goatherd is describing it for Thyrsis, to whom he means to give the cup in return for a song. Thus, Halperin notes that “according to rustic notions of value, the song is equivalent to the cup in value.”21 This idea is also echoed through the goatherd’s conditional offer αἰ δέ κ'αεíσῃς [...] αἶγά τέ τοι δωσῶ [...] βαθὺ κισσύβιον (“And if you should sing, [...] I will give to you both a goat and a deep ivy-cup”) (23 - 27), the use of the indicative future form of δωσῶ proving the direct correlation: provided Thyris sings, the goatherd will hand over the cup. The “performance of the cup” through ekphrastic description can thus be read as one half of a competitive song exchange.22 The term performance seems appropriate in this situation: as Payne points out, the cup is never actually produced, nor is Thyrsis invited to look at it until after his song is finished.23 The description is therefore an act of poetic creation, wherein the goatherd is conjuring the image up in both Thyris’ and the reader’s minds. Further, he describes more than could possibly be visible on the cup. The narrator seems able to easily read and interpret the minds of the characters. He claims to know that the men are suffering from love as the woman’s νοός — her mind and, by extension, attention — is being tossed carelessly between them; that the foxes intend to go after the boy’s food and vines while the boy himself is happily devoting all his attention to his weaving. In addition, the figures appear to be in motion, the scenes all too dynamic to be truly carved into a wooden cup. The unnamed goatherd is also able to predict what the viewer’s reactions will be: of the fisherman, he claims φαίης κεν γυίων νιν ὅσον σθένος ἐλλοπιεύειν (“You would say that he is fishing with all the strength of his limbs”) (42); at the end of his description, he says the cup is τέρας κε τυ θυμὸν ἀτύξαι (“A wonder; it would amaze your heart”) (56). The second person ‘τυ,’ literally directed to Thyrsis but also in 16

Frederika Beatty, “Theocritus in Hampstead,” The Classical Journal 43, no 6 (March 1948): 328 Qtd. in Beatty, “Theocritus in Hampstead,” 327. 18 David M. Halperin, “Three Scenes on an Ivy-Cup,” in Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983), 168. 19 Hunter, ed., Theocritus: A Selection, 80. 20 Hunter, ed., 82. 21 Halperin, “Three Scenes on an Ivy-Cup,” 163. 22 Vassiliki Frangeskou, “Theocritus’ ‘Idyll’ 1: an unusual Bucolic Agon.” Hermathena 161 (Winter 1996): 25 23 Mark Payne, “Ecphrasis and song in Theocritus’ Idyll 1,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 42, (2001): 265. 17

and object is necessary to the creation of the artwork itself; further, by preempting the viewer’s own reception of the work, it mirrors the ongoing reading and rereading of the work, thus actively engaging in the creation of its own genre. The conclusion of each ekphrasis, as the moment when the narrator’s guidance ends and the poem is passed over to the memory of the reader, are key to understanding the allegory of genre creation. The final couplet of Ode on a Grecian Urn is accepted as the poem’s ultimate thesis. Precious little else about these two lines has any degree of scholarly consensus. The punctuation, it seems, is the sticking point, sparking strikingly similar debates to those over the corrupt lines of Theocritus. O’Rourke notes that the lines appear in the latest manuscript from Keats’ lifetime as follows: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.28 With this punctuation, the urn breaks its long-held silence to speak just five words, and the rest is the response of the poet. The silent urn is made to speak, as “a friend to man, to whom [it] says” the above, even after “old age shall this generation waste” (46-48). Eternal, it speaks to all men, through all time. The meaning, at first, supports a reading of a Romantic assertion of what the pastoral means: a celebration of simple beauty, along the lines of Schiller’s treatise on “Naive and Sentimental Poetry”29 — the urn is perhaps asserting the value of the natural, simple lives which play out on its surface. The preoccupation with artistic creation and the complexities of its dynamics of viewing, however, negate this simplified vision of the pastoral. The urn only exists through Keats’ artistic creation, rather than nature. The final couplet is thus an assertion of the pastoral genre’s power to create something which does not exist. Further, his art has the ability to speak to the world at large. This speech is the extension of the Bucolic genre out of the locus amoenus and into the minds of every single one of the poem’s readers. Keats’ poem, then, ends with the claim of the Bucolic genre’s continuation through the reception of its continued reader. In contrast, Theocritus’ poem has no such declaration, merely a hand off of the cup from the goatherd to Thyrsis. The goatherd invites the singer to examine the cup for himself, saying, ἠνíδε τοι τò δέπας· θᾶσαι, φíλος, ὡς καλòν ὄσδει (“Here is the cup for you; admire, friend, how sweet it smells”) (149). The cup is now made manifest, just as Keats’ urn is made real enough to speak by the end of his poem. The goatherd also adds that Ὡρᾶν πεπλύσθαι νιν ἐπὶ κράναισι δοκησεῖς (“You would think it to be washed in the streams of the Hours”) (150), once again directing the reader’s impression of the cup, as well as adding to the cup’s narrative. The “Hours” are, as Hunter points out, associated with the Graces; the cup’s connection to these goddesses of beauty and creativity confers poetic power on it and the genre it represents.30 Further, the introduction of the water motif immediately after the story of Daphnis — which ends with its hero dissolving into a stream — also shows the process through which the genre will continue: this is the first moment of reception, as Thyrsis’ song adds to and changes the character of the cup. This scene aligns with Skoie’s idea of the Bucolic existing in this sort of passing down or at the meeting of two poets.31 Leaving the kissubion in Thyrsis’ hands, Theocritus foreshadows the continued handing down of the cup through countless other poets, and thus, the continuation of the creation of Bucolic poetry. Thus, the presentation of pastoral themes through the poet’s narrative manipulation in the ivy-cup and the Grecian urn allegorizes the Bucolic genre in which the poets are participating. The dialogue between poet and object, as well as between the poems themselves, are necessary to the formation of the genre. Both the urn and the goatherd’s cup appear in their poems as simultaneously and paradoxically concrete and entirely abstract. When reading these two poems, the reader must simultaneously believe in their existence in space in order to follow Keats and Theocritus’ careful tracing of ivy and flowers, maidens and men across their surface, but also accept that they could never exist in the way that they are described. They can exist only through imagination. Bucolic poetry itself is much the same. The heavy heat and slow time of the noon-hour, 28

Qtd in. O’Rourke, “Persona and Voice,” 27. Friedrich Schiller, Naive and Sentimental Poetry and On the Sublime, translated by Julius A. Elias (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1966). 30 Hunter, ed., Theocritus: A Selection, 106. 31 Skoie, “Passing on the Panpipes,” 92. 29

practice referring to the reader, combined with the the potential particles κεν and κε, contributes to the sense that the goatherd is creating the cup in your mind, but that the cup is not truly a physical object accessible to either you the reader or the you in the poem, ie. Thyrsis. It is the goatherd’s — and thus, the poet’s — ability to craft a poetic description of the ivy-cup that is truly striking the reader as a wonder. Meanwhile, in Keats’ poem, the narrator’s interlocutor is the urn itself. This one-sided dialogue encompasses the entire poem, without a narrative frame. The first stanza illustrates perfectly this style of narration. Before launching into any description of the urn itself, Keats addresses it directly: Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? (1-7) He follows this description by six more unanswered questions in rapid succession, creating a sense of a frantic interrogation, before repeating again the power of silence: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone. (11-14) These passages quite obviously entrench the poem within a distinctly Bucolic tradition from the outset and once again point to the variety of sources for this genre — recalling both Tempe and Arcady alone nods to Theocritus and Virgil in the space of one line. What is most important, though, is the duality of silence and sound. The quietness of the urn is said to make its story “sweeter,” which is reiterated again in the following stanza’s claim for “unheard” melodies. This, at first glance, seems to engage in a paragone of art and poetry, popular in literary and artistic circles at least since the Renaissance, and which is traditionally associated with ekphrastic poetry, according to Hagstrum.24 In this tradition, some version of Horace’s maxim ut pictura poesis — as in painting, so in poetry — or Simonides’ characterization of poetry as a speaking picture is used to elevate either poetry or painting to the level of the other, depending on the current relative cultural value of the two media.25 O’Rourke finds this explanation wanting, as the power of such a “historical theme [...] over a particular literary text” is impossible to judge.26 While the assertion of poetry’s power is one aspect, Bennett’s characterization of ekphrasis in this ode as “figured reception,” reveals that it goes beyond that: the poem is a “production (partly by mimesis) of our response to the text as a work of art.”27 Rather than speaking authoritatively to a viewer in the second person as in idyll 1, in Keat’s poem, the narrator’s reactions to the urn serve to reflect what the viewer’s should be to the poem, which is the true artwork. The urn, like the kissubion, only exists in its description. Further, the scenes it depicts seem to move and change: their figures too dynamic and too life-like, the descriptions of sounds and feelings altogether too sensual for the “unravished bride of quietness” it is said to be. The poet’s insistent repetitions regarding the urn’s quiet stillness seem only to emphasize that, in the hands of the poet, as in the mouth of Theocritus’ goatherd, the object is neither quiet nor still. Both narrators’ accomplishment is to make apparent what is not visible and make alive what is carved in wood or painted on marble; in short, to create what can never exist. Both poems use pictorial description in order to model their own reception. The dialogue between narrator 24

Jean Hagstrum, The Sister Arts, The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1958), 24 - 28. 25 Hagstrum, The Sister Arts, 24 - 28. 26 James O’Rourke, “Persona and Voice in the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’” Studies in Romanticism 26, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 31. 27 Bennett, Keats, Narrative and Audience, 135. 61

the whispering of the trees and brooks, the piping and singing of the rustic but somehow educated singers — all of these jump from the page into the readers’ mind’s eye, fanciful but vibrant and vital. The power of the Pastoral, then, is nearly a shared vision — or pleasant delusion — which passes from poet to poet and reader to reader through millenia. It is this power which transforms the urn, the cup, and the ink on the page — the “Cold Pastoral” — to the eternal, elusive beauty which the poetry evokes.

APPENDIX Fig. 1: Marble Relief from the South frieze of the Parthenon, 438-432 BCE, marble, British Museum.

Fig. 2: The Old Fisherman Vatican-Louvre, 2nd century BCE Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, black marble and alabaster, 1.8m, Musée du Louvre.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bennett, Andrew. Keats, Narrative and Audience: The Posthumous Life of Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Beatty, Frederika. “Theocritus in Hampstead.” The Classical Journal 43, no. 6 (March 1948): 327 - 332. Frangeskou, Vassiliki. “Theocritus’ ‘Idyll’ 1: an unusual Bucolic Agon.” Hermathena 161 (Winter 1996): 23 - 42. Gutzwiller, Kathryn J. A Guide to Hellenistic Literature. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, 2008. Hagstrum, Jean H. The Sister Arts, The Tradition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1958. Halperin, David M. “Three Scenes on an Ivy-Cup.” In Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry, 161 - 190. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983. Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In Selected Poems, edited by John Barnard, 191-92. London: Penguin Classics, 2007. Koopman, Niels. Ancient Greek Ekphrasis: Between Description and Narration. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2018. https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1163/9789004375130_006. O’Rourke, James. “Persona and Voice in the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’” Studies in Romanticism 26, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 27- 48. Payne, Mark. “Ecphrasis and song in Theocritus’ Idyll 1.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 42 (2001): 263 - 87. Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. The Green Cabinet: Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Schiller, Friedrich. Naive and Sentimental Poetry and On the Sublime. Translated by Julius A. Elias. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1966. Skoie, Mathilde. “Passing on the Panpipes: Genre and Reception.” In Classics and the Uses Reception, edited by Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas, 92-103. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Theocritus. A Selection: Idylls, edited by Richard Hunter. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Wilson, Douglas B. “Reading the Urn: Death in Keats’s Arcadia.” Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900 25, no. 4 (Autumn 1985): 823 - 844.

A Performance in Sight Lines: The Bacchae and Complexities of Viewership GABBY ODDENINO

“Here: I am come to Thebes: I, Dionysus, son of Zeus and son of Cadmus’ daughter:” thus opens the Bacchae, with, perhaps, the clearest declaration within the play.1 In a text so wrapped up in deception, disguise, and willful misunderstanding, the upfrontness of these opening lines is striking. The audience is being addressed by Dionysus. Dionysus is the son of Zeus. He is in Thebes. The frankness of these statements lets the undertone of each piece of information pulse with questions. Why is he in Thebes? What is the story of his parentage? Why are we watching? And that is the chief question of the Bacchae. It is a play of great horror and violence, unsettling even thousands of years removed from its cultural milieu. So why do we watch? And why does the play encourage us to question this? Motifs on sight and seeing reappear through the text, running like a great connecting line through the various tragic acts of violence and shame. This paper seeks to explore the motif of “seeing” in the Bacchae, using analysis of the theatrical conventions evoked, the metanarrative established through the motif, and a close reading of the text. To discuss how “sight” within the Bacchae functions, what “sight’ means must first be defined. In the introduction of Gaze, Vision, and Visuality in Ancient Greek Literature by Anna Novokhatko and Alexandros Kampakoglou, three separate definitions are discussed: “vision,” “visuality,” and “gaze.” This paper adheres most closely to “gaze,” defined in the text as “not the mere act of looking, but a socially-determined, complex interactive relationship of agents and viewers, which is characteristic of a particular set of social circumstances.”2 Something being “witnessed” or “seen'' necessitates that there is either an understanding or a misunderstanding taking place which will further the themes and plot of the Bacchae. These moments by virtue of the medium either have an effect on, or originate from, the audience. When looking at different examples of this within the text it becomes more complex — there are times where the “sight” of something exists wholly within the text or wholly with the audience’s reaction, and of course mixes between the two. Part of what makes the motif of “sight” within the Bacchae interesting is how it exists on multiple levels of understanding, perception, and engagement with the audience. The text of the Bacchae begins with Dionysus outlining his plans to “show all mortals that [he is] god” and teach the city “what comes of its resistance to [his] rights.”3 This desire to show is the driving force of the dramatic action — all subsequent events stem from this initial endeavor by Dionysus to be seen for what he truly is by the city that spurns him. The desire for truth through sight set up in this opening reappears throughout the rising action of the play, most obviously continuing with Pentheus and his mission to go and see what the women are doing on the mountain. While it ends badly, it stems from Pentheus’ earnest desire to protect his city. He sees the rites as “Bacchic wickedness” and “an unhealthy cult,” with Dionysus in disguise as a “foreigner . . . [performing] outrageous wickedness”4 against his city. Even at the tragic conclusion, sight takes center stage, with Agave holding Pentheus’ severed head, unseeing, she wants to “hang it on [Cadmus’] house” to show the world how his “daughters are the best by far, the best of all humanity.”5 Pride is a major motivator (and destructor) of true sight. Those who engage in sight through worship, however, are often not only spared but elevated in the narrative. The chorus and the audience both are engaged in viewership as worship, shielding them from the effects of pride within a tragedy. Brilliantly, both Pentheus and Agave’s desires here are in fact the same as Dionysus’ — they all want to bring honour to their family. Dionysus explicitly states in his opening monologue that one of his reasons for

Euripides, “The Bacchae,” in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, trans. Emily Wilson, ed. Mary R. Lefkowitz and James S. Romm (New York: The Modern Library, 2017), 743. 2 Alexandros Kampakoglou, and Anna Novokhatko, Gaze, Vision, and Visuality in Ancient Greek Literature, Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes Ser, V. 54 (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018), xvi. 3 Eur. “The Bacchae,” 744. 4 Euripides, 751. 5 Euripides, 780. 66

wanting to be recognized as a son of Zeus is because he “must save the honour of [his] mother.”6 Family pride, honour, justice — these are all presented from the first as ways in which being seen is not only important, but necessary. Being seen allows for understanding, for recognition, and for acceptance, which all in turn allow for these characters to fully exist. Not being allowed to see is a punishment, one that Pentheus himself tries to inflict upon Dionysus’ human persona, commanding that he be “shut in the stable with the horses,” able to “see only darkness.”7 Both being seen and seeing are power struggles. The characters in the play are powerful both through others' perception of them and through their perception of the world. Their roles are defined by how others see them, with Pentheus needing to be seen as a good king to be a good king, Agave needing to be seen as a good daughter to be an honourable member of the family, and Dionysus, perhaps most importantly, needing to be seen as a god to be a god. Being seen and seeing is a necessity of existence within the Bacchae, but for all the positive emotions and results it can inspire, their reverse can also be (and often is) invoked. Pentheus’ walk up the mountain, done in pursuit of good recognition, is an exercise in humiliation, framed by his declaring “I feel ashamed” at the start of this march.8 This shame is expounded by the fear of being seen (recognized) and then mocked. He offers the disguised Dionysus “Anything, just don’t let the maenads mock me.”9 The outside gaze compounds the feelings of shame and emasculation that already exist for Pentheus as inherent in the act. Pentheus’ negative relationship with sight continues through this scene, with his madness induced visions of “two suns, Thebes itself . . . looking double . . . You’ve changed into a bull — or were you always?”10 Finally, the maenads upon seeing him brutally kill him on Dionysus’ orders, using him as “their poor target.”11 Pentheus cannot access truth in sight — he refuses to understand or acknowledge Dionysus and thereby is forced to undergo only the negative results of being witnessed (humiliation, rejection, estrangement). This does not mean, however, that seeing things truly equals positive results. Truth can easily be made painful to the viewer, with disguise offering protection from the harshness of reality. Agave’s delusion falling away so that she can see her ruin, that she is holding her “own Pentheus’ head” and not a lion’s, causes horror and grief, the final revelation before the departure of the family from Thebes to exile.12 And of course, while the inability of any characters in the play to see Dionysus for what he is, both on a physical level and on a religious level, is the catalyst of the tragedy, when they do finally face this realization after having passed the point of no return, it becomes terribly tragic. This initial mistake, confronted by the existence of Dionysus as disguised, either by his own volition or through the nature of his birth during the action of the play, sets off the events of the play in this language of disguise. The portrayal of Dionysus from the onset is very theatrical — the very beginning of the show is him describing the role he is about to take on, setting up a play within a play and himself as both actor and arbiter. Helen Foley posits that “both honoring and comprehending the god are essentially theatrical acts, an exploration of the nature of illusion, transformation and symbol.”13 The audience, engaged in the viewing of the play (an act of worship for Dionysus) and being offered from the beginning the ability to comprehend him in both his role as god and as god-in-disguise, by this notion is then also engaged as actors within this doubled play through their passive act of viewing. When Dionysus tells us that he “took mortal shape, transformed to human nature” at the top of the play,14 this is him letting the audience in on the secret, just as they were in on the fact that it was Athenian citizens portraying each of these roles. This seems to be a nod to that theatrical practice, a known entity taking on a fictitious role. The introduction of the chorus immediately after cements this play within a play metanarrative. They sing praises to Dionysus, yet this is a part of a performance. Is this hymn to be taken by the audience as in earnest? Is it another plot device? What is the intended message? Dionysus moves 6

Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 744. Euripides, 759. 8 Euripides, 768. 9 Euripides, 768. 10 Euripides, 771. 11 Euripides, 776. 12 Euripides, 781. 13 Helene P. Foley, “The Masque of Dionysus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014) 110 (1980), 108. 14 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 744-5. 7

between the roles of god and man throughout the drama, using the theatrical conventions of his domain as the tools by which he achieves his goals. By introducing theatricality so early, the lines between text and meta text become blurred. The audience can’t know whether to interpret something as a function of the theatrical medium or as an important piece of text, and thereby must afford the same weight given to the dramatic action to conventional things, like masks and disguises, that would normally be simply accepted. A salient example of this conscious theatricality is in the use of masks. In C.W. Marshall’s article “Some Fifth-Century Masking Conventions,'' one of the points made on the use of masks in a theatrical production is that “yoking the use of masks to the venue itself helps to maintain a focus on how the audience perceives the masks, which is more important than how the masks actually looked when we try to understand the plays better.”15 The early establishment of accepted theatrical conventions as part of the on-stage world of the Bacchae calls for the masks, as a standard of tragic theatre, not to blend in, but instead to stand out. The audience, from the first scene in the play with Dionysus beginning his show with chorus and costume, know that theatricality itself is just as much a character to analyze as any other.16 Dionysus says from the first that he is playing a role, at the very least donning a metaphorical mask even if in practice the actor did not change masks. Presentation and depiction of the masks themselves also aid in their heightened theatricality. The constantly smiling mask, and its oddness in a tragic play,17 helps to force the audience to make conscious interpretations of the presence of theatrical conventions. This type of visual play with audience interpretation continues through the show, with Pentheus’ disguise as a woman and the mask representing Pentheus’ disembodied head both pushing the boundaries of what is typical. We see Pentheus preparing for his role in the play within a play on stage. We see the results of horrific violence through a theatrical prop. Dionysus is the pinnacle of this engagement with masking conventions and audience perception, as he cycles through various layers of honesty in his disguise and form. As Foley writes, “We can thus accept Dionysus' appearance in the epiphany as true to what we have come to understand about the god only if we consciously see the god's face as a mask, that is a theatrical or symbolic rather than a direct or "real" manifestation of the many-faceted divinity.”18 That Dionysus, by the requirements of theatrical convention is never truly “unmasked” becomes not just an accepted fact, but through this dialogue crafted around the perception of these conventions is turned into a perfect encapsulation of his character. The presence of the chorus within the story also works as a conscious use of theatrical devices that emphasizes the presence of a “gaze.” Dionysus invokes the chorus at the start of the play, calling them to come “take up [their] tambourine — which [Dionysus] invented . . . beat your rhythms all around this palace . . . let the whole town see.”19 This is the opening of Dionysus’ play within a play — to quote Foley, “Dionysus makes the chorus his players and his destruction of Pentheus a "play," replete with set, costume and spectators.”20 The town is his audience, Pentheus his player, the myriad of disguises and falsehoods his costumes. The chorus provides the backdrop for this play, while also being very obviously a part of the real play going on, the one the audience signed up to watch. The audience is again seeing the two layers of events and validating them through their vision. The chorus goes into the backstory that Dionysus has already provided in the form of a hymn, describing Dionysus’ birth and parentage. Those within the inner play need this — they are not privy to the existence of the real introductory speech. Meanwhile the audience confirms that the play within the play is happening, as they are the only ones who are separate enough from the action to be able to confirm that it is a performance, while also being the only ones involved enough in the process and the theatrical act of attending the festival of Dionysus in the first place that they can understand the implications of watching a play within a play. Richard P. Martin refers to watching choral performances as “giving witness,”21 providing outside validation of their holiness. As the audience provides validation to the chorus within the play, they provide validation to themselves that this is a holy act. 15

C.W. Marshall, “Some Fifth-Century Masking Conventions,” G&R 46 (1999), 190. Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 745. 17 Foley, “The Masque of Dionysus,” 108. 18 Foley, 132. 19 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 745. 20 . Foley, “The Masque of Dionysus,” 110. 21 Richard P. Martin, “Outer Limits, Choral Space”, in Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth, And Ritual In Greek Art And Literature: Essays In Honour of Froma Zeitlin, ed. Kraus, Goldhill, Foley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 48. 16

That the chorus’ singing is also chiefly a form of worship allows them to confirm and validate Dionysus’ self-perception and the audience’s perception of him. The Chorus is told to “Call and shout and whoop, as sonorous flutes ring out the holy music, a sound of holy joy,”22 evoking the wild ecstasy of Dionysus. They remark on the “blasphemy” of Pentheus,23 encouraging proper worship. They provide eyes in scenes like that of Pentheus’ fall,24 necessary both for the process of humiliating Pentheus and so that the external audience can see the effects of the gaze upon him. The chorus serves again, both an internal and external purpose. They regulate and judge the worship of characters within the play, as an ever watching presence representative of the divinity that, as Foley puts it, “Pentheus can neither see nor control.”25 By making them such visible representatives of Dionysus, the text is further alienating Pentheus, giving him a whole visible group of people that his lack of clear sight prevents him from understanding. The chorus’ internal regulation of worship and Dionysiac festival serves as a confirmation of the external worship and viewership being conducted by the audience. The audience can recognize the chorus as the best representation of themselves as a whole within the play — the large group of people who can both recognize Dionysus for who he is, and in that recognition are praising him. The chorus and audience are connected in that for both, the purpose of their presence is to watch and judge. By framing the story around these theatrical devices being part of the reality of the show, the audience engages with them in a heightened manner, focusing not only on them as part of the performance, but the performance as part of the story. This breaks the rules, breaks the illusion that the theatricality is real to the audience by making it real within the play itself. The existence of theatricality within the Bacchae breaks apart the suspension of disbelief and asks the audience to disbelieve what they are seeing. The props become simultaneously what they represent and what they are. The characters have the ability to be, at any one point, the actor, the character the actor is playing, the character the character is playing, and the narrative device they exist as. Yet, while the audience is by virtue of viewing the play being forced to analyze it, they are also meant to feel emotions from the dramatic action thereby doubling the intensity of the production. In David Konstan’s discussion of Aristotle and opsis, he writes that Aristotle in the Poetics was “associating opsis with a certain kind of shock effect rather than with the emotions of pity and fear proper. At least to the extent that visual effects are productive of this alternate response, it is not appropriate to exploit them in tragedy.”26 The Bacchae’s use of these visual aspects of theatricality might seem at first to fall into the category of the “shock effect” — the disguise Pentheus wears is shocking, the violence of the maenads is shocking, the use of the mask as a representation of Pentheus’ head is shocking. And this makes sense! Horror is an intrinsic part of the Bacchae, motivating the characters to action and the audience to continue watching. But the dissolution of the barrier between the form and content of the play also dissolves the barrier that is formed through shock and horror. Instead of making the audience feel alienated from the action by horrifying them, these visual aspects horrify them because the audience is invested in the tragic emotion evoked. Opsis “can also provide, or at least support, a suitably tragic pleasure.”27 In the Bacchae it certainly does so — for example, we feel pathos towards Agave largely because we get to watch her experience the realization facilitated by the mask prop. These visual aspects of theatricality work because they operate both on the tragic level of the audience watching the events happen and pitying those who undergo them, and the horror of being told “you’re a part of this too” and knowing that the mask is in fact, both a mask without a head, and a head without a body. Operating as both horrific and pitiable, the visual elements work as a way to increase the complexity of the tragic praxis that elicits pity and fear from the audience. Not only does the use of props show the audience just how much they are integrated into the world of the performance, but it also serves to emphasize what being seen can do. Pentheus is fully objectified after his death, his body is reduced to his dismembered head, the mask Agave holds. The prop of Pentheus’ head is a key example in the argument that visuality in the Bacchae produces both “shock and horror” and “pity and fear.” 22

Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 748. Euripides, 755. 24 Euripides, 768. 25 Foley, “The Masque of Dionysus,” 111. 26 David Konstan, “Propping Up Greek Tragedy: The Right Use of Opsis,” Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre, eds. George Harrison, and Liapēs Vaios,(Leiden: Brill, 2013), 64. 27 Konstan, “Propping Up Greek Tragedy,” 65. 23

The mask is inhuman and inorganic and yet being presented as part of a human body. As Peter Meineck argues, masks draw the audience’s attention to themselves.28 The disembodied mask-head of Pentheus is already the emotional focal point of the scene, and it becomes the visual focal point. The audience has a physical object to place the despair and grief of Agave on, the resigned and saddened acceptance of Cadmus, the glee and righteousness of Dionysus. Pentheus has now been fully brought low, going from being perceived and presented as a good and powerful king, to being humiliated as a woman, and finally to being an object, less even than an animal. Pentheus, in his humiliation, exists both to the fictionalized Thebes and to the audience as the scapegoat. Dionysus blames the whole city for not worshiping him, but Pentheus suffers to restore balance. The act of violence exhibited upon Pentheus allows for the city to restore the relationship between the god and the city. The humiliation and killing of Pentheus is very visible, with Dionysus telling Pentheus that the town and maenads “will watch [him] like a show.”29 That this is all a narrative taking place within the larger narrative of the Dionysia festival again places emphasis on the fact that Pentheus is the unwilling star. In his discussion of the Bacchae and festival in Violence and the Sacred, Rene Girard writes that “Festivals are based on the assumption that there is a direct link between the sacrificial crisis and its resolution” and that the strength of festivals is that they are “reenacting, in fact, the moment when the fear of falling into interminable violence is most intense and the community is therefore most closely drawn together.”30 The audience and the city of Thebes being witness to this allows for restoration to happen and increases the theatricality of it. If we accept Pentheus as a scapegoat, then this is another part of the play within a play that Dionysus is performing. This show of sacrifice and of punishment also pushes the horror — Pentheus is turned into a religious object, no longer a man or a king but a physical example of the sins of his city, reflecting his objectification after his death as a literal prop, the mask Agave holds. This forced inclusion of the audience through their viewing of the play is also in full force when the Bacchae depicts deviance. The themes of deviance are rife throughout the play — women are on the mountain acting and interacting in ways that defy accepted social standards, men are made to dress and act as women, a god disguises himself as a man. Interestingly, despite Aristotle’s assertion the tragedy portrays characters who are better than the audience, the Bacchae is all about showing characters brought down a level. Gods become mortal, men become women, women become animals. Dionysus’ retort to Pentheus’ accusations of his corruption of the city, that “people act badly in the daylight, too,” highlights the fear of this deviance.31 While Pentheus goes on about how the rituals done at night are “dirty tricks,”32 Dionysus figures out the real fear — that it is less about the execution of these deviant activities than the fact that are no longer hidden, that the city of Thebes must confront that it too can be corrupted, and indeed already has been. Pentheus, despite being willing to “pay a pile of gold” to witness the women’s activities on the mountain, is motivated by fear of them and how their “shocking actions catch like fire.”33 The concern that if others see what these women are doing, if Pentheus does not, like the good king he tries so hard to be, protect his city from the sight of these acts, they will spread “to the shame of Greece.”34 Shame is the emotion most closely connected to both witnessing deviance and being seen as deviant. Pentheus wields accusations of deviance as weapons, calling the disguised Dionysus the “girly foreigner” while ordering his arrest.35 Froma Zeitlin argues that in tragic theater “the self that is really at stake is to be identified with the male, while the woman is assigned the role of the radical other,”36 which fits into the use of deviance as a source of shame in the play. Pentheus continues his insult of Dionysus by weaponizing accusations of feminine 28

Peter Meineck, “The Neuroscience of the Tragic Mask,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 19, no. 1 (2011), 113-158. 29 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 772. 30 René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (London: Continuum, 2013), 129, 128. 31 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 758. 32 Euripides, 768. 33 Euripides, 768, 767. 34 Euripides, 767. 35 Euripides, 774. 36 Froma I. Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 66. 70

identity, saying that his “hair is too long, unsuitable for wrestling: it ripples down [his] cheek so alluringly. [His] skin is white, [he] must take care of it.”37 As Zeitlin posits though, the feminine which is humiliating and fearsome for Pentheus is a way for Dionysus to exert power.38 Dionysus is unaffected by Pentheus’ posturing — there is nothing unnatural about this for Dionysus and thereby nothing to be feared or shamed by. He uses Pentheus’ shame to then in turn hurt him, convincing him that the only way to stop the worst deviance of the maenad rituals is to dress in women’s clothes with “a flowing wig,” “floor length dress,” and a “deerskin cape and thyrsus wand.”39 Pentheus having to walk through the city dressed as such coincides with the loss of his sanity, his fear of being mocked giving way only to the strange and terrible vision Dionysus inflicts upon him, a clear downward spiral. This progression from being the figure capable of weaponizing accusations of femininity to giving into femininity and eventually being killed, half mad, while dressed as a woman, is easy for the audience to trace. There is never any hope of relief for Pentheus once he puts on the costume of a woman, the medium does not allow it. The audience has been made explicitly a part of the pageant Dionysus is conducting — since their gaze is not a foreign force washing over the events of the play but instead an active participant, Pentheus by voicing his shame, tells the audience what to feel towards him in this costume, and thereby ensures that he is shamed. Zeitlin goes on to argue that there is a connection between the feminine and theater, that Euripides’ plays have a “general emphasis on interior states of mind as well as on the private emotional life of the individual, most often located in the feminine situation.”40 Accepting Zeitlin’s theory adds another layer of perception to the scene of Pentheus’ humiliation. The audience (and the chorus, and Dionysus) can all see both the trappings of theatricality in the play and the performance of femininity, which is in itself yet another aspect of theatricality. Pentheus’ being dressed as a woman signifies both his humiliation on one level, and his engagement with Euripidean emotional life on another. As he proceeds up the mountain, Dionysus calls out that he was “so keen to see, so keen to get things you should never ask for . . . dressed as a woman, a frenzied maenad, the mirror image of your aunt and mother.”41 Pentheus is both representing the folly of his own desire to see, and the outside view looking in at the state of the women worshiping Dionysus. Pentheus’ fall also engages the audience's viewership and sight in a historiographical sense. Death and destruction were in no way foreign to the Greeks, especially not when the Bacchae was first performed in 405 B.C.E., after years of war among the various Greek city states. For the audience, seeing these common emotions acted out both in such a heightened scene and with a physical object to direct their emotions towards would have allowed for a catharsis of emotion — in scenes such as the one with Pentheus’ head, the audience is made just as much a part of the Theban royal family as Agave. The opening of the play and Dionysus’ theatricality blurs the lines between reality and fiction. Having the audience first be implicated as a part of the crowd allowing the great acts of violence of the maenads to be committed (again, look to Dionysus’ fourth wall breaking “they’ll watch you like a show”), and then having them grieve over the horrifying prop of Pentheus’ with the Theban royal family and then have to leave the world of the play (and, depending on when the play was performed, possibly the theater) just as the Theban royal family must go into exile evokes great empathy for the events and characters of Dionysus’ production.42 As many among both the audience and the actors were likely to have lost family members to violence in recent years themselves, would not watching this play where the loss of a family member lead to both a loss of home (a relevant fear as the Athenian empire declined) and where this was framed as an act of worship and penance have inspired an emotional reaction? The pathos of such an experience must have run deep, especially as this play extends beyond the stage. How many may have pictured their fallen family and friends as Pentheus, dead for trying to defend his city from a chaotic, otherworldly force? Would they have recognized themselves in the sight of Agave wailing for what she had done, for the loss of her son? That the pathos of this is so pronounced allows Euripides to get around some of the restrictions on his text as set by the very theatrical convention he controls so masterfully for most of the play. Pentheus is said to

Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 757. Zeitlin, Playing the Other, 64. 39 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 768. 40 Zeitlin, Playing the Other, 81. 41 Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 771. 42 Euripides, 773. 38

“exit,”43 heading towards the mountain and his doom, instead of being torn apart on stage. While it was not custom to portray such violence on stage,44 Euripides makes it clear in the chorus’ description and Agave’s tragic realization. That it happens off-stage, whether intentionally or unintentionally, has another effect on the audience’s viewership in that the violent act of taking away a beloved family member happening away from any place where there is someone who would have the power to stop it might have struck home in a time of war. This makes the audience’s engagement in watching the events that are shown all the more heightened because they must both imagine the violence for themselves and process the personal emotions they are assigning to the events of the play. Over and over, in the metatext, text, and subtext, the Bacchae attempts to prove that seeing and being seen are two of the most powerful acts. There is an art to seeing — in the theatrical world of Dionysus, denial of recognition can destroy a being. It has the power to move gods, and Dionysus' own desire, the most human thing about him, is driven by this denial. Being seen, though at first seeming passive, is in fact a performance. It’s not enough for a person to see, because they could see incorrectly. Or worse, they could correctly perceive the viewed object, in a way that highlights its flaws. When Pentheus is shown mad visions, when Dionysus destroys a household for acknowledgement, when Agave sees that it is her son’s head she holds, when the Theban royal family leaves their home in shame, when the Maenads see and destroy Pentheus — these are the strongest moments of drama, and they are all motivated by sight. The audience is so ingrained into the text of the show, asserting the power of sight once again. Would any of this matter if it wasn’t being witnessed? What would be the point of Dionysus putting on such a performance, if we weren't there to watch it? Sight is not only the power behind the play, but the very reason for its existence.

43 44

Euripides, “The Bacchae,” 773. R. Sri. Pathmanathan, "Death in Greek Tragedy," Greece & Rome 12, no. 1 (1965), 2. 72

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Euripides. “The Bacchae.” In The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, edited by Mary R. Lefkowitz and James S. Romm, trans. Emily Wilson. New York: The Modern Library, 2017, 743-785. Foley, Helene P. “The Masque of Dionysus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association (19742014), 110 (1980) 107-133. Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. London: Continuum, 2013. Harrison, George William Mallory, and Liapēs Vaios, eds. Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre. Mnemosyne Supplements. Monographs on Greek and Latin Language and Literature, 353. (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Kampakoglou, Alexandros, and Anna Novokhatko. Gaze, Vision, and Visuality in Ancient Greek Literature. Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes Ser, V. 54. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. Marshall, C.W. “Some Fifth-Century Masking Conventions,” G&R 46 (1999): 188-202. Martin, Richard P. “Outer Limits, Choral Space”, in Visualizing the Tragic: Drama, Myth, And Ritual In Greek Art And Literature : Essays In Honour of Froma Zeitlin edited by Kraus, Goldhill, and Foley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Meineck, Peter. “The Neuroscience of the Tragic Mask,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 19, no. 1 (2011): 113-158. Pathmanathan, R. Sri. "Death in Greek Tragedy." Greece & Rome 12, no. 1 (1965): 2-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/642398. Zeitlin, Froma I. Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

The Choice is Yours: Relational Agency and the Shifting Materiality of Women’s Religious Objects in Roman Gaul CHRISTIANE-MARIE CANTWELL

THE CASE OF THE RING The Sources of the Seine sanctuary (Saint-Germain) is a site of religious importance in Roman Gaul. It has yielded many archeological finds, crucial to the study of religion in the province as well as the lived experience of its population. The site includes body-part votives, made of wood, bronze, and limestone, representing limbs and organs that dedicators are assumed to have been seeking treatment.1 These votives are thought to be dedicated to Sequana, the native goddess of the river Seine, based on the few inscriptions found on pots and votives.2 One object of interest from the Sources of the Seine site is a gold ring reading D(eae) Sequan(a)e Clem(entia) M/ont/iol(a) v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito).3 This object is a rarity in and of itself, as inscribed rings, especially in such rich materials as gold, are often lost or have been melted and repurposed later in history.4 Yet this ring holds importance for many reasons. First, a woman dedicated it. This gender is under-represented in epigraphic data in Roman Gaul. Secondly, this woman with a Gaulish name,5 thought it important to write her dedication in Latin, instead of Greek or Gaulish. This is a potent choice in the representation of her religious identity, for she uses a language imported into Gaul by the conquerors of the territory for personal ends. Thirdly, it was dedicated in a sanctuary among Roman body-part votives, while seeking the help of an indigenous deity, native in practice. This ring offers invaluable insight into the religious and social practices of one woman under conquest: how she juggled the Gaulish and Roman parts of her identity, what she believed in, and how she manifested these beliefs. INTRODUCTION The process of Romanization6 in Gaul began with the annexation of Southern Gaul in the late 1st century BC and was completed by Caesar's conquest of the North in the 50s BC.7 Through it, material culture in the province underwent a noticeable shift from pre-conquest forms to new seemingly “Roman” ones. Sustained and intense cultural contact produced obvious social, relational, and cultural changes; however, the mechanisms of this transformation are harder to retrieve. For some aspects of society, such as urbanization, the Roman model seems to have created a homogeneous culture in Gaul, similar to the one seen in Rome itself. However, not everything was Romanized to the same extent. Indeed, religion in the province seemed to have retained many indigenous aspects, such as native deities and sanctuaries, while still adopting certain Roman practices, such as votive and altar dedication. Religion in Roman Gaul was neither fully Roman nor indigenous, but exhibited characteristics of each, due to the varied responses to the cultural contact. Often this religious Romanization is discussed in terms of the male elite,8 both Roman and indigenous, but it is hard to believe that only men were active participants in this change. As seen with the example of the Dea Sequana ring, both women 1

Simone-Antoinette Deyts, “The Sacred Source of the Seine,” Scientific American 225, no. 1 (1971): 65–73. Deyts, “The Sacred Source of the Seine.” 3 Clementia Montiola willingly fulfills the wish with merit to the Goddess Sequana (CIL XIII, 2861). 4 Alfredo Buonopane, “Anelli d’oro Iscritti Offerti a Divinità. Una Ricerca Preliminare,” In Oro Sacro : Aspetti Religiosi Ed Economici Da Atene a Bisanzio, ed. Isabella Baldini, Anna Lina Morelli (Bologna: Ante Quem, 2014), 91–106. 5 Montiola is a Gaulish name. (Hughes 2017, p. 120 based on the translations and transcriptions of Marilynne Raybould (1999)). 6 Romanization is a highly loaded term, but I will employ it strictly to talk about the process that triggered an observed change in material culture in Gaul over the Roman period. It represented complex ongoing conversations and negotiations of cultural contact over four centuries (1st BC-3rd AD). 7 Cassibry, Kimberly, “Northern Gaul, Germany, and Britain,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015). 8 Woolf (1998), and Derks (1998) for example. 2

and men were engaged in religion and participated in the cultural change. But how do women across Gaul negotiate the cultural shift of Romanization in religious contexts? How do these negotiations manifest in the religious objects? What can this tell us about the process as a whole? Widgodner presents compelling data in a bid to answer some of these questions. Through body-part votives, she explores the form of these objects for men and women to compare dedication patterns in Roman Gaul. She finds that women most often dedicated votives in the Roman form, while men dedicated slightly more votives, and mostly indigenized forms.9 Women seemed to have used the same spaces as men, which establishes them firmly as active participants in both religion and its Romanization in Gaul. According to Widgodner, most women in Gaul accepted Roman culture and chose to illustrate this in their religious beliefs, yet this data is only representative of one type of religious activity in the province. It does not cover the manifold manifestations of beliefs, and as such, the questions remain largely unanswered. In this paper, I will argue that religious Romanization was a by-product of repeated personal decisions that depended on varying structures, using women’s religious materials as evidence. Further, I will demonstrate that each woman participating in religion, took part in this complex negotiation of cultural contact, through their personal agency, I will first address why religious materials can be used effectively to address gendered questions. Then I will cover two important theories which will make up the backbone of my argument, namely agency theory and gender theory. These are essential in explaining how the choices made by people could have influenced their culture and how gender manifests in society. I will present the data on women’s religious materials: body votives10 and dedicated altars. Finally, I will analyze these results, and explore what they mean for the experience of women in Roman Gaul and the process of Romanization as a whole in the province. THEORY RELIGIOUS OBJECTS Religious objects offer important advantages in the study of women’s material culture over secular artifacts. They can be gendered easily, based on form and inscription, in ways that secular objects, which do not represent parts of a body or are not inscribed, cannot. Further, religious objects are invaluable in examining women’s experience because each were made with intent. Each component is meaningful and reflects the cultural norms which led to the object’s creation.11 The offering of religious objects was a highly performative act both for the dedicator, in materializing their beliefs, and for witnesses, who took part in the religious community. Though it is difficult to change someone’s religion even under duress, this could occur. This transition of Romanization in Gaul, especially with women, is what I hope to access through religious materials. Religious objects will be discussed in terms of three categories: Roman, indigenous, and syncretized. The Roman materials followed traditional forms of Roman dedication or were dedicated to a Roman deity. The indigenous materials followed forms predating Roman conquest and were dedicated to deities native to Gaul, like Sequana.12 The syncretized materials represent a mix of religious norms. Religious syncretization is traditionally defined as the process of cultures and their religions mixing to create a new whole.13 In Gaul, this manifested mostly in the names and forms of deities, as many Gaulish Gods were equated to Roman Gods and referred to under another name14 or were married to a Roman God.15 Religious materials could also have syncretic forms, combining Roman characteristics with Gaulish ones. Votive dedications, altar dedications, or 9

Alena Wigodner, “Gendered Healing Votives in Roman Gaul: Representing the Body in a Colonial Context,” American Journal of Archaeology 123, no. 4 (2019): 619–61. 10 Data from Wigodner, “Gendered Healing Votives in Roman Gaul.” 11 Ton Derks, Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998). 12 Lumping together all non-Roman materials erases the variety of cultures and societies that existed in Gaul prior to the conquest. I am not suggesting in this paper that all indigenous material followed the same norms, simply that they are opposed to the Roman ones. This creates a fabricated distinction between types of objects and deities, when there must have existed much more fluidity between cultures. This divide will be applied to simplify the discussion, while still acknowledging the diversity within each group. 13 Anita Maria Leopold and Jeppe Sinding Jensen, “Historical Background of the Term Syncretism: The Problem of Definition,” in Syncretism in Religion – A Reader, eds. Anita Maria Leopold and Jeppe Sinding Jensen, 13 – 28 (New York: Routledge, 2014). 14 For example, Apollo Mongetimarus, a deity with a name composed of a Roman and Gaulish deity. 15 Like Rosmerta and Mercury. 75

any representations of a deity in stone were Roman forms, but could be combined with Gaulish inscriptions and carving styles.16 A religious object could have been in a Roman form, as a body-part votive, and displayed native characteristics, such as being inscribed in the Gaulish language. All the materials studied in this paper are Roman in form, but could be dedicated to Roman, native, or syncretized gods. All religious materials hold important information about cultural contact in Gaul, since individuals who lived through this change, and were affected by it, created them. Indigenous and Roman forms represent concerted decisions of the maker or dedicator to use norms identifiable to either culture. Syncretic materials are manifestations of negotiations between cultures in Roman Gaul, while Roman and indigenous types represent different conversations. AGENCY THEORY Agency theory is rooted in the principle that each individual or group has the capacity to make a decision, in a somewhat conscious manner, separately from their power in relation to others.17 Contrary to the argument of rational choice theory, in which individuals make choices based on internal factors, external factors play an important role in shaping the final outcome of each decision, such as physical environment, societal norms, institutions, and beliefs.18 These elements are called the structure, which acts like the framework for decision making with agency as the motor. Since human institutions make up this structure, it is malleable and influenced by each decision. The structure is maintained as long as individuals repeat their decisions. Reproduced decisions create society, which influences these decisions recursively.19 In the same way that a horse cannot pull a carriage on its own, structure does not directly influence the outcomes of a decision. As reins for a horse and buggy, there must be something linking agency to the decision framework. I will apply the theory of relational agency, in which ones’s relationship with the structure affects final decisions. Agency can only exist within the relationships that each individual has, whether social, temporal, or material.20 There are no choices in a void. Linking structuration and relational agency theory, if certain elements of the structure change, relationships to those elements will change as well. Any subsequent decisions made from these altered relationships may differ from the ones before. For example, every morning I decide to buy a cup of tea at a certain café. If all the elements in my structure remain stable, I will repeat this decision continuously. If an element of my structure changes, such as the café closing, my relationship to it is severed and my decision will be different. This illustrates how external factors affect individual decisions. While not all decisions generate tangible outcomes accessible to study, some do, creating material culture that reflects an individual’s relationships to their world and their lived experience. Through objects, we can hope to discern the relationships which lead to their creation. In Roman Gaul, this holds exciting opportunities. Since agency theory grants all individuals involved in contact a certain amount of power, everyone is an active participant in their own lives.21 Much of the research on Romanization demonstrates power in the hands of Romans or the indegenous elite, and most often only men.22 Agency theory construes women as their own entities, not passive recipients of culture. Through their materials, we can see patterns of women’s concerted decisions that enforced or changed certain societal norms. Religious objects are important for this reason because they were made with intent. Studying them, we hope to discover these decisions and what they tell us about the society where they were made. This is valuable information about the lived experience of each woman. 16

Jane Webster, “Necessary Comparisons: A Post-Colonial Approach to Religious Syncretism in the Roman Provinces,” World Archeology 28, no. 3 (1997): 324–38. 17 Andrew Gardner, “Agency,” in Handbook of Archaeological Theories, eds. R. Alexander Bentley, Herbert D. G. Maschner, and Christopher Chippindale (AltaMira Press, 2007) 124–41. 18 Gardner, “Agency.” 19 This is structuration theory, first posited by Giddens (1984). 20 Gardner, “Agency,” 130. 21 Anthony Giddens, “Elements of the Theory of Structuration,” The Constitution of Society, 1–28 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984). 22 For a Romano-centric view of Romanization see Haverfield (1923). Most recent publications on Romanization reclaim the motor of change for the indigenous elite population (for example see Fontana 2001). 76

Agency theory can also account for changes in material culture. In a situation of conquest, two cultures, which had not intensively interacted before, come to be in continued contact, changing the structure of those experiencing it. As the structure changes, so do individuals’ relationships and decisions. This could explain the Romanization of material culture. Roman rule in the provinces affected structures, in institutional and social ways, modifying every individuals’ relationship to the framework, engendering different decisions. As novel decisions were repeated, they may have stabilized into a new normal, enforcing distinct social structures and creating materials different from those pre-conquest. Before stabilizing a new structure, agents pulled from Indigenous and Roman base structures. As relationships to them evolved and as people made decisions about who they were in the “new” normal, they made materials to reflect it. Material culture then illustrates negotiations of identity between groups in the Roman period. GENDER THEORY Gender23 in contemporary Western society is divided into: woman, man, and non-binary. Gender can be construed along many lines,24 but it is most valuable and accurate to conceptualize gender as agency. This means that the repeated decision of agents construct and maintain gender and its norms. No one “has” gender, since it is not a tangible entity, unlike a sexed body. Consciously or not, agents decide to buy into the constructed norms. 25 To be a woman is to perform the gendered expectations of “woman” in that society. As agency theory denotes, human decisions create all social institutions. While women are performing gender norms and expectations, they are also actively constructing them.26 These conversations between gender and agents should be reflected in women’s materials. In Roman culture, gender is inextricably tied up with politics, religion, economics, and culture.27 Performing gender norms is a constant and unconscious decision, and all women’s objects reflect societal gender expectations in some way. Women’s objects reflect the pressures society enacts to govern women and their lived experiences in a situation of continued cultural contact. In Roman Gaul, women were active members of society. They did not form a group separate from men, with their own norms, but they lived in the same society, governed by similar structures.28 While women’s materials support analyses of gendered narratives, they also present aspects of the greater society in Gaul, informing a broader-scope narrative. DATA METHODOLOGY In Gaul, religious materials consist of body-part votives and altars. Not all of these can be assigned to a specific gender because some had no inscribed name on the altar or the body-part dedicated is a gender-neutral appendage. Altars inscribed with the names of their dedicators can be gendered due to Latin naming convention for feminine names. Body-part votives that represented torsos, heads, chests, breasts, groins, and reproductive organs can be gendered according to a biological sex binary of male or female. There is no true correlation between representing female body parts and female dedicators, even though such a conclusion does feel intuitive. Men could have dedicated votives for female relatives or to goddesses that required this type of worship. I maintain that female votives represented dedications by women. The votive tradition in Gaul succeeded the one in Italy, in which individuals would dedicate representations of

Gender is not equal to sex. Sex designates one’s reproductive organs and divides people into three groups: female, male and intersex. Gender is the amalgamation of social constructs associated to different groups in society (Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender). People who are female often are designated to the category of women, and males to the men. Due to the constraints of the materials, I will apply a false binary of female/male. 24 See Conkey and Gero (1997) for an overview of the considerations of gender through an archeological lens. 25 Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994). 26 Margaret W Conkey, and Joan M Gero, “Programme to Practice: Gender and Feminism in Archaeology,” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997): 411–48. 27 Lin Foxhall, “Religion,” in Studying Gender in Classical Antiquity, 137–57 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 28 Emily Hemelrijk and Greg Woolf, “Introduction,” in Women and the Roman City in the Latin West, eds. Emily Hemelrijk and Greg Woolf, 1–5 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013). 77

the body part for which they needed healing.29 It was a personal action, limited to the sick dedicator, because they were entering into a contract with the deity.30 The dedication of this object was an essential part of the ritual itself. Archeologically, it represents the materialization of the dedicator’s belief that a god could heal the body part. Widgodner reinforces the necessary presence of the person who the votive represented by highlighting the added component of bathing in the springs, around which many of the sanctuaries in Gaul were centered.31 For the healing-wish to be fulfilled, the dedicator must also have bathed themselves, or at least the body part afflicted. It was necessary for women to have been physically present at the site and to have dedicated their own votive.32 This was not something that a male relative was likely to have accomplished for them. Dedicating votives was not solely an elite practice. Sanctuaries where the votives were found (see Figure 1) were all close to one another, sometimes less than 15 kilometres apart. As Widgodner highlights, there was no need to accomplish a pilgrimage to dedicate, allowing non-elites to participate. Much like in Italy, in Gaul the mass production of votives meant that they did not incur large costs, reducing another social barrier and allowing all classes of society to partake in this form of worship.33 The altars are identified as belonging to women if the inscribed name of the dedicator is feminine. Although a male relative could have dedicated these altars in her name, this is less likely since these were dedicated as wishes or contracts with a deity. As with the votives, the dedication of altars was a personal and self-motivated action. Contrary to the votives, the altar dedications became a public form of worship. The action of the dedicating woman was embodied in her altar. By means of her inscribed name, she could be identified as having partaken in this cult for as long as the altar remained on display. The altars not only represented a contracted wish between a deity and an individual, but also the participation of that individual in a religious cult. This was an extremely important social function in Rome. Although the quality of the engraved finds differed for all the altars, these must have been elite materials due to the cost of erecting such a monument. It is possible that socially mobile non-elites might have also dedicated altars in an effort to imitate, and eventually become, elites.34 BROAD PATTERNS If we take the religious materials to have been dedicated by women, three broad patterns emerge: geographic distribution, form of the dedication based on motivation, and the correspondence between the type of name of the dedicator and the type of deity. There is a distinct geographic distribution for the altars and the votives. The votives were mostly concentrated in the North of the province (Belgica and Lugudensis), while the altars were concentrated in the South (Aquitani(c)a and Narbonensis). There is not much chronological difference in the assemblage of altars and votives, although the votives were present in the territory from the 1st B.C. to the 3rd A.D.,35 while the altars dated from the 1st A.D. to the 3rd A.D. The altars in the South appeared around the 1st A.D, earlier than in the North, where they show up in the 2nd A.D. This suggests that the votives were the dominant form of dedication in the North of the province for at least two centuries. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, both forms co-existed in the North, while altars remained dominant in the South.36

Jessica Hughes, “The Anxiety of Influence: Anatomical Votives in Roman Gaul, First Century BC–First Century AD,” in Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion, 106–50 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 30 Emma-Jayne Graham, “Partible Humans and Permeable Gods,” in Bodies of Evidence, eds. Jane Draycott, Emma-Jayne Graham, 45–62 (London: Routledge, 2018). 31 Wigodner, “Gendered Healing Votives in Roman Gaul: Representing the Body in a Colonial Context.” 32 Wigodner, 624. 33 Wigodner, 621. 34 Freedwomen are such a group. There are 4 instances of freedwomen dedicating altars, all in Gallia Narbonensis (see 19, 21, 23 and 26 in Table 2). 35 Hughes, “The Anxiety of Influence.” 36 The practice of dedicating body votives barely penetrated into Southern Gaul. There might have been more body dedications which do not survive, possibly due to an environment less auspicious for conservation. As well, Gaul was composed of many tribes, which all had their own culture and practices (Woolf, “Generations of Aristocracy: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Societies of Interior Gaul.”). The body part votives might have been an adaptation of prior forms of dedications in Northern Gaul (Hughes, “The Anxiety of Influence: Anatomical Votives in 78

F igure 1 – The burgundy plot points are for gendered body part votives.37 The scheme for the altars is as follows: yellow for Aquitani(c)a, purple for Belgica, blue for Narbonensis, and green for Lugudensis, a bull’s eye = 2 altars, a star =3 and a heart = 4.

The second broad pattern is that the votives and altars had overlapping usages. Following the Roman tradition, the body-part votives should have been dedicated for healing, with those depicting breasts or female reproductive organs being for fertility, a type of sexual healing.38 The altars were dedicated for a variety of reasons. Based upon the traditional roles39 of the deities to whom the altars were dedicated, we can glean some of the reasons why these wishes were made. As seen in Table 1, some dedications wished for fertility, like the ones to Bona Dea,40 but others were wishes related to trade with the Castor and Pollux/Mars and Mercury dedication.41

Roman Gaul, First Century BC–First Century AD”). Perhaps the Southern tribes did not have the same practices, and so did not see the need to adapt the Roman form for their needs. 37 This map plots male & female gendered votives. There are a total of 1050 gendered votives, and 409 represent female bodies (Widgodner 2019). The data for the body part votives comes from Widgodner (2019), while the data from the altars comes from my own research. 38 Healing may not be the only motivation for dedicating body-part votives. Hughes (2017) has argued that in Gaul, some body-part votives are meaningful as a continuity of the pre-conquest practices. It would be natural for the meaning of the votive dedication to shift in Gaul, since it is a situation of cultural contact. This shift is corroborated by the nonbody part votives dedicated also in sanctuaries, like the gold ring described above. The site in votives were deposited was host to a variety of other religious activities, like people seeking protection and general fortune (de Cazanove, “Anatomical Votives (and Swaddled Babies): From Republican Italy to Roman Gaul”). 39 Roman deities had a variety of roles, depending on who was worshipping them and where. We can never fully retrieve every individual’s understanding of the deities, as such I will be using generalizations of their roles. 40 H H J Brouwer, “The Goddess and Her Cult,” in Bona Dea: The Sources and a Description of the Cult, 323–99 (Leiden: Brill, 1989). 41 Derks, Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices. 79

Table 1 – Roman Gods in Inscribed dedications in Narbonensis42 Bona Dea

Mercury

CIL XII 1706

Minerva

CIL XII 2206

Pluto and Prosepina

CIL XII 1833

Silvanus

CIL XII, 1097

Victory

CIL XII 1707

CIL XII 5830, CIL XII 654, AÉ 1946 154 , AÉ 1946 155 Castor & Pollux CIL XII 1904 / Mars & Mercury Fortune

CIL XII 5373, CIL XII 993

Isis

CIL XII 1562, CIL XII 1532

Mars

AÉ 1990 700

Women who dedicated altars appealed to a wide range of deities, with roles that extended beyond healing. It could be thought that the two types of dedications were made with distinct intentions. The body votives could only be for healing and the concentration of these objects in the North would represent pilgrimage sites.43 Then, the altars would then capture all other types of wishes. However, this does not explain why there were altars also dedicated to deities of fertility, like some body votives were. This demonstrates an overlap in the purposes for dedications, and that women could decide in which way to ask for fertility. The third pattern, within the altar inscriptions, is that women most often dedicated to a deity which matched their name type. As an example, see the epigraphic data from Aquitaini(c)a below. Roman women overwhelmingly dedicated to Roman gods, and indigenous women to indigenous gods. Women with mixed names usually chose fully indigenous or Roman deities. There were nine instances where there is not a one-toone correspondence.44 Of these, two-thirds of women with Roman names dedicated to indigenous or syncretized gods, illustrating an uneven relationship.

All abbreviations in the paper follow this convention: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum = CIL, Année Épigraphique = AÉ, Carte archéologique de la Gaule (1, 18, 21-03, 27& 31-02) = CAG-1, CAG-18, CAG-21-03 CAG-27 & CAG-31-02, Au fil de Sirona… la déesse de Mediolanum/Mâlain, Dossier Archéopages Widehen & Kasprzyk = Widehen and Kasprzyk (2016), The Sacred Source of the Seine by Simone-Antoinette Deyts, 1971 = Deyts (1971). 43 Grünewald (2017) believes that these healing sanctuaries are pilgrimage sites rather than local sanctuaries. Though there is no doubt that there were pilgrims visiting these sanctuaries, their density near the Sources of the Seine is too high to be sustained solely by pilgrim worship, per the argument in Widgoner (2019) outlined above. 44 # 4, 10, 15, 23, 33, 35, 36, 43 and 36. 80

Table 2: Altar dedications in Aquitani(c)a: Cells shaded in red are of indigenous/Gaulish type, in blue the Roman type, in yellow the syncretized/mixed type. If they are not shaded, that information is unavailable or uncertain. References

Place

God

Date Name of Dedicator ADAD[26]

Lectoure/Lectora

Bona Dea

Valeria Gemina

CIL XIII, 510

1. 2.

Billiere Convenarum

n/a CIL XIII, 29

Lugdunum Abelloni

Aelia Mar

n/a

Iulia et Sextiliae

1-300

CIL XIII, 567

Bordeaux/ Burdigala

Juno

CIL XIII, 571

Bordeaux/ Burdigala

Jupiter Maximus

Optimus Livia Divogena

1-300 CIL XIII, 573

Bordeaux/ Burdigala

Taurobolium

Valeria Iullia et Iulia sancta 101-300

Taurobolium

Sulipicia Albina third daughter of Sulipicius 150-300

Bordeaux/ Burdigala

AÉ 2010, 939

CIL XIII, 11082, CAG-18, p 132

Bourges/Avaricum

Mavida

Caccula

n/a

Lectoure/Lectora

Taurobolium

Flora Pompey

241

CIL XIII, 516

CIL XIII, 527

Lectoure/Lectora

Faustina

n/a

176-200 CAG-31-02, 428

10.

Saint-Plancard / Lugdunum Convenarum Sutugio

Iulia Secundina

n/a

ALTARS

I will now briefly overview the epigraphic results for the four parts of Gaul to explore the inscribed materials of women. Aquitani(c)a: (Southern Region) (see table 2 above) Altars are dominant in this region, but less have been found than in the other Southern region, Narbonensis. No body part votives have been found in Aquitani(c)a. There was an emphasis of dedications to Roman deities, even by non-Roman women, like in inscription 9: I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo) / Livia Divogena / poni iussit / (denariis) CL h(eres) c(uravit).

Table 3: Belgica (Northern Region) Place

Name Dedicator

God

in References

ofDate AD

AE 2010, 985

11.

Tholey / Treveri

n/a

144-253 CIL XIII, 660

12.

Toul/Tullum

Ceres

Iulia

n/a AÉ 2002, 1011

13.

Tongeren / Tongres / Tongern / Atuatuca

Jupiter Dolichenus Volusia Sabina

151-300

Dijon / Divio

Mother Goddess

n/a

CIL XIII, 5478

14.

Nigida Rufula

CIL XIII, 5646

15.

Essarois

Vindonnus

Julia Mai

Apollo Mongetimaro

Durama daughter Dudris

n/a Widehen and Kasprzyk (2016) p. 33

16.

Malain / Mediolanum

n/a

There were fewer altars in this region than anywhere else in Gaul, while an abundance of body-part votives were present. Compared to Narbonensis and Aquitani(c)a, the division between native deities and Roman was more equal. Noticeably, there was only one altar dedicated for fertility (12). Table 4: Narbonensis (Southern Region) References Place

God

Name of Dedicator Date in AD

CIL XII, 1097

17.

Apt / Apta Iulia / Apta Silvanus

Aris, slave of Domitia Severina n/a CIL XII, 5830

18.

Apt / Apta Iulia / Apta Bona Dea

Cornelia daughter of Lucius Gratilla n/a CIL XII, 654

19.

Arles / Arelate

Bona Dea

Caiena Priscae freed women, priestess 51-100 AÉ 2013, 1042

20.

Colombiers / Baeterrae Mother Goddess

Iuventia Calvina

1-100 AÉ 1992, 1180

21.

Coudoux

Vitiocelus

Donnia Gai women of Vera

free

1-100

CIL XII, 1562

22.

Die / Dea Vocontiorum

Augusta Isis

Birria Secundilla

n/a CIL XII, 2221

23.

Grenoble / Gratianopolis

Cularo Mother / Goddess Lucretia, freedwomen of Nemetialis Quintus n/a CIL XII, 1532

24.

La Batie-Montsaleon / Mons Seleucus / Dea Augusta Vocontiorum Isis

Cornelia Materna

n/a AÉ 2010, 850

25.

La Roquebrussanne / Aquae Sextiae Aesovius

Verveldia Servata

n/a CIL XII, 637

26.

Lambesc / Aquae Sextiae Iboite 27. 28.

Amoena freedwomen of Pompeius CIL XII, 1706

Le Pegue / Pagus Aletanus Mercury

Daughter of Segundus

n/a

Le Pegue / Pagus Aletanus Victory

Cornelia

n/a

CIL XII, 5373

29.

Montfort / Narbo

Fortune

n/a

1-200 AÉ 1990, 700

30.

Nimes / Nemausus

Mars

Peregrina

n/a

Nyons / Vasio

N/a

Valeria Secundina

n/a

CIL XII, 1697

31.

CIL XII, 2206

32.

Saint-Nazaire-enRoyans / Vienna 33.

CIL XII, 1707

Minerva

Saint-Remy-deProvence / Glanum / Clanum Ears

Successa

1-50 AÉ 1998, 887

Loreia Pia

1-200 AÉ 1946, 154

34.

Saint-Remy-de-Provence / Glanum / Clanum Bona Dea

Dominia, priestess

n/a AÉ 1946, 155

35.

Saint-Remy-de-Provence / Glanum / Clanum Bona Dea

Vinicia Eutychia

n/a

36.

Saint-Remy-deProvence / Glanum / Clanum Fortune

CIL XII, 993 Carsia Udia

n/a AÉ 2016, 1024

37.

Sainte-Jalle Baginiensis

Pagus Neris

Venia

151-250

Titia Peregrina

n/a

AÉ 1990, 713

38.

Seguret / Vasio

n/a

CIL XII, 1833

39.

Vienne / Vienna

Pluto and Prosepina Cornelia

n/a

Vienne / Vienna

Sucello

n/a

CIL XII, 1836

40.

Gellia Iucunda

CIL XII, 1904

41.

Castor/Pollux Mars/Mercury

Vienne / Vienna

+ Priestess of Vienna

n/a

Narbonensis had the highest number of dedicated altars in Gaul. They were dedicated more often to Roman than to native deities, and there was an emphasis within the Roman deities to fertility goddesses such as Bona Dea, Isis, and Fortuna (18, 19, 22, 24, 34, 35, 36), even among women with non-Roman names (see 35 and 36). Altars to Roman and native Gods were erected around the same time and co-existed in the religious landscape. Table 5: Lugudensis: (Northern Region) CAG-27, p. 96

42.

Berthouville

Mercury

Iulia Sibylla

1-200 CAG-27, p. 96

43.

Berthouville

Mercury CanetonnessusLicinia Lupula

1-200 CIL XIII, 2457

44.

Briord / Brioratis / AmbarriGeneralized Gods

Camulia Attica

n/a CIL XIII, 2462

45.

Briord / Brioratis / AmbarriMercury

Camulia Attica

n/a

Culoz / Ambarri

Cassia Saturnina

n/a

CIL XIII, 2532

46.

Mars Segemoni

CIL XIII, 1756

47.

Lyon / Lugudunum 48.

Nuits-Saint-Georges Nuits-sous-Beaune Haedui

Taurobolium / /

Billia Veneria daughter of Titus 101-200 CAG-21-03, p.19

n/a

Bellina

101-300

CAG-01, p. 105

49.

Saint-Benoit / Ambarri

Mother

n/a

n/a CIL XIII, 2861

50.

Saint-Germain/Les Sources de La Seine

Sequana

Clementia Montiola

n/a CAG-01, p. 94

51.

Saint-Sorlin-en-Bugey / Ambarri Jove and Juno

Afrania Afra

n/a

52.

Saint-Germain/Les Sources de La Seine

Sequana

Sienulla daughter of Vectus n/a

Deyts (1971), p. 68

This assemblage was most closely related to Belgica. Although Lugudensis had the second most altars after Narbonensis, the distribution between types of deities was more diverse. Roman types were not as dominant as in Narbonensis and Aquitani(c)a. There are many dedications to Mercury in this assemblage, either to his Roman or syncretized form (42, 42 & 45). There was a temple dedicated specifically to Mercury around Berthouville, which condensed the altars to this deity in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.45 As well, there are two dedications by the same woman, 44 and 45. In this region, there were many body votive deposits, and indeed 50 (the ring) & 52 are inscribed dedications found at such a sanctuary. There were no altar dedications for fertility to either Roman or indigenous gods, even though there were votives dedicated for this reason. ANALYSIS This data represents over 400 years of Roman rule in Gaul. The subsequent analysis will be affected by the chronological aspect of my results, as culture changes over time because agents differ from generation to generation. However, what is striking is that during these 400 years the variation in the data is maintained, and no single type took over. We might expect that as Roman culture spread into Gaul, it became dominant, due to native elites mimicking Roman practices and then spreading them through hierarchical structures.46 Yet the existence of body part votives dedicated to native gods co-currently in the latter period with altars to Roman gods47 highlights the persistence of indigenous forms of expression. By the 2nd century AD, the Romans had ruled Gaul for centuries, and yet the religious materials were not homogenized. Altars 42 and 43 are prime examples, both found in Berthouville and dedicated within the same timeframe.48 42 was dedicated to Roman Mercury and 43 to syncretized Mercury Canetonenssus. Since these dedications co-existed in the same sacred space, they illustrate a material diversity within a restricted geographical and temporal area. Women chose which god they preferred to enter a contract with to fulfill their wishes.This was not an error of omission but a concerted choice.49 The geographic distribution of altars and votives was quite different. The altars were concentrated in the South. This Roman practice gained more traction there than in the North, perhaps because the South had earlier and more sustained contact with the Mediterranean through trade connections and earlier Roman 45

This area is known to have been the site of a temple to Mercury (van de Grift, “Tears and Revel: The Allegory of the Berthouville Centaur Scyphi”). 46 This is indeed Woolf’s analysis (1998). 47 Wood body part votives have been found in Gaul into the latter half of the 2nd century AD (Hughes 2017, 108). 48 42. Deo Merc(urio) Iul(ia) Sibylla d(e) s(uo) d(onum) d(edit) (CAG-27, p. 96) 43. M(ercurio) C(anetonnessi) do(navit) / L(icinia) Lupula (CAG-27, p.96). 49 What this choice represents in terms of religious belief is irretrievable. It is possible the syncretized and the Roman forms differ in meaning. Since the syncretized deity Mercury Canetonenssus was the deity of a local city, perhaps using the syncretised name declared group membership (Lajoye, “Analyse Sociale Des Donateurs Du Trésor de Berthouville (Eure).”). 85

conquest.50 The relationships to the structure created under Roman rule had time to stabilize and the decisions were repeated often and widely enough to have generated a discernible impact on material culture. The Roman empire sought to modify social and urban landscapes of Southern Gaul by establishing colonies and cities in the Roman model for better control over the indigenous population.51 This changed the structure of every individual involved in the conquest -- the indigenous population, whose relationships were altered, and the Romans, who created new relationships with the pre-existing native elements in Gaul. This shift eradicated old modes of asserting power among the Gaulish elite.52 Coupled with the Roman decimation of the druids, this severed the native population’s relationships to religious institutions.53 With their structures altered and their religious elements eliminated, the agents in the South could not repeat the decisions they had made before the conquest.54 There must have been a change, and the altars represent this shift in Gaulish elite society. Because traditional norms for worship were modified, agents formed new relationships with Roman structural elements.55 Paired with the need to redefine power dynamics, elite individuals represented themselves in new ways on the altars. This form of dedication was public, and dedicators could have been identified by the inscribed name. Since the altars would remain on display, this religious act became more than piety, but also a way to assert prestige and group membership.56 It is clear that women bought into the practice of altar dedication to define themselves as Roman or indigenous based on their name or chosen deity and as powerful. They were involved in power negotiations during the conquest. For example, in the assemblage, inscription 41 was dedicated by a flaminica in Narbonensis (Vienne).57 This woman dedicated four statues to principal deities, Castor, Pollux, Mars and Mercury made from expensive materials (auratas). It was rare for dedicated statues to have attached inscriptions. This practice was reserved for the most lavish dedications in Narbonensis.58 This woman gave generously, as part of her function as flaminica,59 but this was a more ostentatious gift than normal. Benefactresses in the Roman West were not only motivated by religious intentions, but also by increases in public honour. Although they could not hope that their munificence would lead to political office, unlike men, this may have granted certain privileges.60 Thus, the lavish dedication, necessitating an inscription, was used by this woman to assert power and wealth, underscoring her importance as a priestess. Though her name is lost, even if it were never on the inscription at the time of dedication, her title would have been enough for her contemporaries to identify her. This dedication positioned her as a person of power in the sacred and social realms. This behaviour was not relegated to the South of the province. In Lugudensis, inscriptions 44 and 4561 were both dedicated by the same 50

Greg Woolf, “Generations of Aristocracy: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Societies of Interior Gaul,” Archaeological Dialogues 9, no. 1 (2002); Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 38-52. 51 Woolf. Becoming Roman. 38. 52 Woolf, “Generations of Aristocracy.” 53 J. F. Drinkwater, The Gallic Empire: Separatism and Continuity in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire, A.D. 260-274 (Stuttgart: Steiner-Verlag, 1987.) 54 Certainly, the longer standing contact in Southern Gaul with the koine would have created structures in the South differing from the ones in the North, even pre-conquest. However, this disparity became exacerbated by the varying treatments of these regions by Rome itself, further intensifying it, yielding these results. 55 The elites choosing to appeal to Roman elements could have been caused both by the loss of the pre-conquest structural elements, like the druids, and because “it incorporated them into the power structure of the empire” (Hingley 2005, 105). 56 Derks, Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices. 57 D(ecreto) d(ecurionum) flaminica Viennae / tegulas aeneas auratas / cum carpusculis et / vestituris basium et signa / Castoris et Pollucis cum equis / et signa Herculis et Mercuri / d(e) s(uo) d(edit) (CIL XII, 1904). 58 Sandrine Agusta-Boularot, and Emmanuelle Rosso, Signa et Tituli : Monuments et Espaces de Représentation En Gaule Méridionale Sous Le Regard Croisé de La Sculpture et de l’épigraphie : [Actes Du Colloque, Maison Méditerranéenne Des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aix-En-Provence, 26 et 27 Novembre 2009] 18 (Marseille: Errance, 2015). 59 Following E. A. Hemelrijk (2005), flaminicae in the West were priestesses in their own right, not solely the wives of flamen. This position was an elected role of religious office, with specific political powers and privileges. 60 Emily A. Hemelrijk, Hidden Lives, Public Personae: Women and Civic Life in the Roman West (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 61 44. Dibus(!) Cael(estis) / Camulia At/tica aram / posuit (CIL XIII, 2457). 45. Deo Mer(curio) / In honorem / domus divinae / deo Mercurio / proscaenium om/ni impendio suo / Camulia Attica / d(onum) d(edit) (CIL XIII, 2462). 86

woman.62 44 is a dedicated altar while 45 is an inscription commemorating a theatre in a religious complex.63 This woman erected a religious building and put her name on it. Certainly, an aspect of her motivation would have been rooted in religious sentiments, much like the flaminica, illustrating the participation of women in the religious sphere. Camulia Attica’s inscription signalled her wealth and religious beliefs, while implicating herself in the discussions of societal power dynamics, while drawing on the Roman elements of her structure. Although the inscriptions of Camulia Attica were found in Lugudensis, and not the South, they represent how the altars had a religious and political purpose in Roman Gaul. As seen with the flaminica, this model also applies, so we can imagine that it was amplified in the elite circles of Southern cities. These forms of dedications were the byproducts of decisions based on agents’ relationships, which declared one’s solidarity to Rome or indigenous Gaul, and implicated negotiations of power and privilege. Women actively engaged in displays of power in Gaul and used Roman forms for their own goals. The altars were not dedicated by women to the same extent in the North of Gaul because Rome did not enforce the abandonment of traditional norms in those communities.64 While the structures in the South and their attached relationships were overturned, the North did not experience sudden disarmament.65 The martial values intrinsic to the structure were maintained, and the relationships preserved. That is not to say that they remained stagnant. New relationships were being made with Romans, while the older relationships were maintained. This created a double structure absent from the South, yielding different religious decisions. Women in the North could have as easily dedicated altars that appealed to the Roman structures as dedicated body votives. Indeed, there were concentrations of Roman body-part votives in the North, co-opted from the soldiers of the Roman army.66 The votive tradition sprung up less as a response to shifting power structures as an exploration of the different structural elements that Roman contact created. Some sanctuaries existed before the conquest,67 and soldiers in the area could have visited them and deposited wood votives for their rituals. These dedications would have changed the religious landscape of the sanctuaries and affected the structure of everyone dedicating there. Native individuals, perhaps due to the perceived effectiveness of this type of dedication, began to deposit their own body votives. Agents repeated this decision until they incorporated these body-votive dedications into local structures and cultures. Women played into this aspect of Romanization by reiterating these dedications for healing. For example, a woman could have dedicated a body-votive for fertility, then have fallen pregnant. This wish-fulfillment would have shifted women’s relationship with the practice and would have urged those wanting children to dedicate body votives as well. The decisions of these women were repeated until they created a new norm in Northern Gaulish culture, where body votives were used for fertility, unlike the South, where altars were preferred. These choices created gendered expectations. The votives became the expected way that women would dedicate for more than fertility, although the votive assemblage mostly reflects this. For example, inscription 15,68 a votive in the shape of a leg, illustrates that a woman participated in a wish for healing a limb. Though this might have been an outlier, its mere presence, as part of the visual landscape of the sanctuary, would have affected the structure of all individuals dedicating. Since it is more plausible that non-gendered votives belonged equally to men as to women, it illustrates that there were no gendered divisions in religious practices in Roman Gaul. By engaging with the votive tradition, women were actively shaping its place in their structure, just as men were. This evidence, coupled with the involvement of women in the Southern altar data, illustrates that religious Romanization was a mixed-gender discussion. Women were expected to partake, revealing certain gender norms. Still, the geographic distribution of the dedications did have some overlap. In the Northern Belgica and Lugudensis, women dedicated body votives and altars, albeit in different proportions.69 For women who 62

These were found in the same region, and though we cannot be certain it was the same woman it does seem probable. Even if they had been dedicated by different women, they were at least from the same family, based on the nomen (Mathieu, “Conscience et Réalité de L’Amoenitas Urbium.”). 63 Hemelrijk, Hidden Lives, Public Personae: Women and Civic Life in the Roman West. 64 Woolf, “Generations of Aristocracy: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Societies of Interior Gaul,” 13. 65 Derks, Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices, 45-54. 66 Woolf, Becoming Roman. 67 Derks, Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices. 68 Vind(onno) Mai f(ilia) / Iulia v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) (CIL XIII 5646). 69 This can be seen by the altars 14, 15, 16 located within the cluster of the body-votives findspots in Belgica. 87

could afford it, they had a choice of which form they would dedicate for the same wish – fertility. There was not one dedication intrinsic to a certain type of wish. Neither form took over the other, indicating a variety of beliefs within women in Gaul as to which forms and deities were most effective. In the North of Gaul, there seemed to be a cultural preference for votives to native deities. Even the altars were predominantly to non-Roman gods.70 This inclination toward native deities, both in the votives and the altars could also speak to a sustained religious structure. Romanization of material forms occurred by repeated communal decisions on the part of women to dedicate breasts and uteri, but deities remained indigenous because of the repeated decisions to dedicate to them. Even in Narbonensis, there was variability in deities worshipped for fertility. These goddesses included Bona Dea, Isis, and Fortuna.71 Although Roman goddesses were adopted, there was no consensus about which one was the expected form for fertility. No norm was developed and individual women’s choices were responsible for divergent goddesses. This reveals that women conceivably were not constricted by stringent gendered norms in their structure, as they were allowed to act upon their relationships to varying deities in meaningful ways. Women were forming the way they worshipped, while also sustaining their own deities. Thus, assuming the votives became commonplace elements of the religious structure in Northern Gaul, women who did dedicate altars rebuked communal practices. Perhaps they pulled from either the Roman structural elements or even the Southern norms, where the dedication of altars had stabilized as the de facto form. Each agent’s relationships with the votive tradition were different and so each made different decisions. In this way, it was the repeated choice of each woman that became the communal norm and any perceived Romanization was individual, the by-product of women duplicating their decisions. The results present the range of deities to whom altars were dedicated to in Roman Gaul. This array of forms illustrates continuity in the province of Roman and indigenous structural elements. Agents could access both well into the third century, creating Roman, native, and syncretized materials. The latter type demonstrates a persistence of twin structural elements. For example, from Aquitani(c)a, a woman named Livia Divogena72 dedicated to Roman Jupiter Optimus Maximus, although through her name, she identified herself as both Roman and indigenous.73 Her Gaulish name still had authority, but she chose a Roman god, over a native of syncretized one who would have matched her name. Despite her appeals to the Gaulish elements in her identity, her religious materials revealed an attachment to Roman structure. Her decision to dedicate an altar with her name, claiming it as her own, perpetuated the place of the Roman god in her structure. In Narbonensis, even women with non-Roman names74 dedicated to Roman goddesses. They were invested in the Roman religious elements, publicly vowing their wishes and spending money on this Roman dedication. These women also had connections to indigenous elements. Name changing is a powerful decision, reflecting a deliberate shift in relationships.75 Similarly, cases of retaining native names, like these two women did, was a marker of identity. They had relationships with native structural elements, while also accessing Roman norms and deities. It could be that these altars were materializations of one stage in a larger process; however, the persistence of both norms represents the continued existence of indigenous and Roman structure. Syncretized and mixed materials were created by individual women who represented their own relationships to religious and cultural norms. 70

In Belgica, of the 6 votives, 14 & 15 are to native deities (Mother Goddess and Vindonnus respectively), 12 & 13 to Roman ones (Ceres and Jupiter Dolichenus, respectively), and 16 to a Syncretized deity (Apollo Montigemaro). Of the Roman inscriptions, 13 is to a god commonly associated to the Roman army in the Northern provinces Collar, “Military Networks and the Cult of Jupiter Dolichenus.” Thus, this one is likely to have been dedicated by a woman traveling with the army, more than someone from the area, revealing that women living in Belgica could have preferred non-Roman deities. 71 Bona Dea : 18 (CIL XII 5830),19 (CIL XII 654), 34 (AÉ 1946, 154), 35 (AÉ 1946, 155). Isis: 22 (CIL XII 1562), 24 (CILXII 1532). Fortuna: 29 (CIL XII 5373), 36 (CIL XII 993). 72 4. I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo) / Livia Divogena / poni iussit / |(denariis) CL h(eres) c(uravit) (CIL XIII 571). 73 This individual has a Latin nomen –Livia, but a Gaulish cognomen –Divogenus. Her cognomen indicates her membership in a native elite family in Gaul. Using a Latin nomen but a Gaulish cognomen was a common practice among native elites in Gaul (Stüber, “Effects of Language Contact on Roman and Gaulish Personal Names.”.) 74 Vinicia Eutychia to Bona Dea (35: Vinicia Euty/chia Bon(a)e Dea(e) AÉ 1946, 155) and Carsia Udia to Fortuna (36: B(ona) F(ortuna) / voto / Carsia Udia CIL XII 993) 75 Alex Mullen, “Names as Indicators of Contact,” in Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean: Multilingualism and Multiple Identities in the Iron Age and Roman Periods (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 122–44. 88

Syncretized materials validate the continuity of Roman and native norms since elements from both were present. Most women dedicated to deities that matched their name types. Native agents dedicated to native deities, and Romans to Romans. The coexisting and co-current materials in the province became part of a shared ritual landscape. The tendency for women to dedicate along one form perhaps demonstrates a further norm wherein an agent must use the religious materials from their group. This norm could be gender-specific, coupled with a propensity for women to maintain social structures. Since repeated decisions of community member supported cultures,76 refusing to mix types would have perpetuated each culture individually, as agents kept making decisions along specific and separate lines. This would have ensured the survival of Roman and indigenous religious materials, at least for women, for they were involved in the propagation of both structures. This allowed women who created syncretized and mixed materials to pull from a heterogeneous set of elements. Women were actively creating a space where a variety of materials could emerge, allowing for the diversity seen in this study. Women’s religious objects embody the heterogeneity in their decisions after the conquest, and the continued conversations that each woman had while making them, into the 3rd century A.D. CONCLUSION The gold ring presented at the beginning of this paper can now be seen in a different light, having presented the theories, the full set of data, and the analysis of the assemblage. Clementia Montiola, the dedicator of this object, decided that her wish would be most likely fulfilled if it was in the shape of a gold ring, a Roman practice.77 It was a general wish to a native deity, Sequana, in Latin. This weaving of indigenous and Roman elements embodied the heterogeneity of religious material in Gaul. Clementia chose her dedication type based on her own relationships with structure, just like those women who decided altars or the votives were optimal. By dedicating, she performed a religious ritual, perpetuating the place of the goddess, the Roman form of dedication, and gendered expectations of religious practice in the structure. This ring is an outlier. Yet, without women repeating decisions to dedicate altars and body votives until they became part of the structure, these forms would have also remained interesting exceptions in the dominant material forms of religious activity, whatever that would have been. In this paper, I have explored the religious objects of women in Roman Gaul. I presented a working theoretical framework for religious objects, agency, and gender. Then, I produced the data from the votives and the altars. These yielded three main patterns: geographic distribution, overlapping usages for the dedicationtypes, and concordance in the altars between the name of the dedicator and the deity to whom they are dedicated. I hope to have shown that women were active participants in the change in the religious material culture after the Roman conquest. With each decision, women participated in the transformation of their culture by creating, amplifying, and directing Romanization. They were actively involved in the negotiations surrounding power dynamics in the South and shifting practices in the North, not just taking cues from men. These women had a choice in the way in which they could dedicate, especially when it came to fertility and their chosen deity. As they each decided to dedicate one type, they perpetuated the form and deity, creating a space for those types and the gendered expectations of proper dedication. Persistent decisions to use Roman and Indigenous forms created twin structural norms. As women chose to dedicate according to one specific type, they also conserved it, allowing other women to form relationships to the elements and make varied decisions, yielding syncretized materials. Through the period, women were active agents in the formation of Romanized materials in Gaul. Their role is not to be discounted. By exploring how women navigated this new cultural landscape, we not only diversify the known experiences of Roman rule in Gaul, but we also extend our understanding of Romanization itself. Indeed, it does not seem that the change in material culture was caused by the acculturation of indigenous societies at all but by a drastic shift in structure. This severed important religious and social relationships and forced the native and Roman populations to continuously re-evaluate and create new ones. Women may not have a strong voice in the written record, but they played an important role in shaping the landscape in Roman Gaul, one choice at a time. 76 77

Gardner, “Agency.” Buonopane, “Anelli d’oro Iscritti Offerti a Divinità. Una Ricerca Preliminare .” 89

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Haverfield, Francis. The Romanization of Roman Britain. Oxford University Press, 1923. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000015877932. Hemelrijk, Emily A. “Priestesses of the Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Titles and Function.” L’Antiquité Classique, no. 74 (2005): 137–70. https://doi.org/10.2307/41666131. Hemelrijk, Emily A. Hidden Lives, Public Personae: Women and Civic Life in the Roman West. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Hemelrijk, Emily, and Greg Woolf. Introduction to Women and the Roman City in the Latin West, 1-5. Edited by Emily Hemelrijk and Greg Woolf. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/reader.action?docID=1357633&ppg=169. Hingley, Richard. “Resistance and Domination: Social Change in Roman Britain.” Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse, and Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire. Edited by D. J. Mattingly and Susan E. Alcock. Vol. 23, (1997). Portsmouth R.I.: JRA. Hingley, Richard. Globalizing Roman Culture: Unity, Diversity and Empire. London: Routledge, 2005. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203023341. Hughes, Jessica. “The Anxiety of Influence: Anatomical Votives in Roman Gaul, First Century BC–First Century AD.” Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 106–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316662403.004. Jiménez, Alicia. “A Critical Approach to the Concept of Resistance: New ‘Traditional’ Rituals and Objects in Funerary Contexts of Roman Baetica.” Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal, no. 2007 (2008): 15– 30. https://doi.org/10.16995/trac2007_15_30. Lajoye, Patrice. “Analyse Sociale Des Donateurs Du Trésor de Berthouville (Eure).” Romanisation et Épigraphie. Études Interdisciplinaires Sur l’Acculturation et l’Identité dans l’Empire Romain. Edited by R. Häussler, (2008) 127–32. Montagnac. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263503859_Analyse_sociale_des_donateurs_du_treso r_de_Berthouville_Eure Leopold, Anita Maria, and Jeppe Sinding Jensen. “Historical Background of the Term Syncretism: The Problem of Definition.” Syncretism in Religion -- A Reader. Edited by Anita Maria Leopold and Jeppe Sinding Jensen. New York: Routledge, 2014 https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcgill/reader.action?docID=4467723. Lorber, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1994. http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzUyO DcwX19BTg2?sid=c157e245-1a01-4c08-855749b098105da0@sessionmgr4007&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1. Mathieu, Nicolas. “Conscience et Réalité de L’Amoenitas Urbium.” Amoenitas Urbium, edited by Robert Bedon and Nicole Dupré, (2001) 113–14. Limoges: Presses Universitaires de Limoges. https://books.google.ca/books?id=dsTbDASLCocC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Mullen, Alex. “Names as Indicators of Contact.” Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean: Multilingualism and Multiple Identities in the Iron Age and Roman Periods, (2010) 122–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139105743. Stüber, Karin. “Effects of Language Contact on Roman and Gaulish Personal Names.” In The Celtic Languages in Contact: Papers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Congress of Celtic Studies, edited by Hildegard L.C. Tristram. Bonn: Potsdam University Press, 2007. Webster, Jane. “A Negotiated Syncretism: Readings on the Development of Romano-Celtic Religion.” In Dialogues in Roman Imperialism. Power, Discourse, and Discrepant Experience in the Roman Empire, edited by D. J., Mattingly and Susan E. Alcock. Portsmouth, RI: JRA, 1997a. Webster, Jane. “Necessary Comparisons: A Post-Colonial Approach to Religious Syncretism in the Roman Provinces.” World Archeology 28, no 3 (1997b): 324–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/125022. Webster, Jane. “At the End of the World: Druidic and Other Revitalization Movements in Post-Conquest Gaul and Britain.” Britannia 30 (1999): 20. https://doi.org/10.2307/526671. Webster, Jane. “Creolizing the Roman Provinces.” American Journal of Archaeology 105, No. 2 (2001) : 209. https://doi.org/10.2307/507271.

Widehen, Marie-Agnès, and Michel Kasprzyk. 2016. “Au Fil de Sirona… La Déesse de Mediolanum/Mâlain.” Open Edition Journals, no. 43 (December): 28–33. https://doi.org/10.4000/ARCHEOPAGES.1847. Wigodner, Alena. “Gendered Healing Votives in Roman Gaul: Representing the Body in a Colonial Context.” American Journal of Archaeology 123, No. 4 (2019) : 619–61. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.123.4.0619. Woolf, Greg. Becoming Roman. Cambridge University Press, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511518614. Woolf, Greg. “Generations of Aristocracy: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Societies of Interior Gaul.” Archaeological Dialogues 9, No. 1 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203800002051.

Hirundo is the Latin word for martlet, a mythical bird without legs, always shown in flight, unceasing in its quest for knowledge. The McGill coat-ofarms has three martlets.

Hirundo XIX

Articles inside

A Performance in Sight Lines: The Bacchae and Complexities of Viewership

Prostitutes, Plays and Public Policy: Representations of Enslaved Sex Workers and Their Impact on Regulations in Ancient Rome

On the relationship of the Oikos and the Polis in Ancient Greece

Reconstructing Historical Narratives: Classics, Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton

The Muse of Euripides:” Euripides, Aristophanes, and the Foreign Character of New Music

The Ironic Politics Behind Aeschylus’ Oresteia

Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and the Epic Tradition of Mockery