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The elegiac woman at Rome1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Maria Wyke
Maria Wyke
Affiliation:
Newnham College, Cambridge
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Extract

How do women enter the discourse of Augustan love poetry and become elegiac? Studies of the representation of women in antiquity generally suggest that women enter its literatures doubly determined. Broadly speaking, literary representations of the female are determined both at the level of culture and at the level of genre: that is to say by the range of cultural codes and institutions which order the female in a particular society and by the conventions which surround a particular practice of writing. I propose in this paper, therefore, to explore the place of the elegiac woman in the literary landscape of Augustan Rome through an examination of the interplay of her cultural and generic determinants. The phrase ‘the elegiac woman’ which appears in the title of this paper should make clear at the outset that my concern will be not with the realities of women's lives in Augustan society but with a poetic genre of the female.

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Type
Research Article
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Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 33 , 1987 , pp. 153 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

NOTES

2. See e.g. Foley, H. P. (ed.), Reflections of women in antiquity (1981)Google Scholar.

3. Wyke, M., ‘Reading female flesh: Amores 3.1’, in Cameron, Averil (ed.), History as text (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

4. Hallett, J. P., ‘The role of women in Roman elegy: counter-cultural feminism’, Arethusa 6 (1973) 103–24Google Scholar.

5. For these characteristics of the third Propertian poetry-book see e.g. Solmsen, F., ‘Propertius and Horace’, CP 43 (1948) 105–9Google Scholar; Hubbard, M., Propertius (1974) 68–115Google Scholar; Putnam, M. C. J., ‘Propertius' third book: patterns of cohesion’, Arethusa 13 (1980) 97–113Google Scholar.

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7. On the new characteristics of the fourth book and its two poetic programmes see Camps, W. A., Propertius elegies book iv (1965) 1–6Google Scholar; Pillinger, H. E., ‘Some Callimachean influences on Propertius book 4’, HSCPh 73 (1969) 171–99Google Scholar; Van Sickle, J., ‘Propertius (uates): Augustan ideology, topography and poetics in elegy IV, 1’, Dialoghi di Archeologia 8 (1974) 116–45Google Scholar; Hubbard (n. 5) 116-56; Macleod, C. W., ‘Propertius 4, 1’, PLLS 1 (1976) 141–53Google Scholar; Miller, J. F., ‘Callimachus and the Augustan aetiological elegy”, ANRW 30.1 (1982) 371–417Google Scholar; Stahl, H-P., Propertius: ‘love’ and ‘war’ (1985) 248–305Google Scholar.

8. Putnam (n. 5).

9. Nethercut, W. R., ‘Recent scholarship on Propertius’, ANRW 30.3 (1983) 1849–50Google Scholar explores the similarities rather than the differences between the narrative fluctuations of books 3 and 4.

10. Fedeli, P., Properzio elegie libro iv (1965) xxii and xxxGoogle Scholar, for example, appears to concur with Postgate's original view that book 4 is a posthumous work.

11. See e.g. Hubbard (n. 5) 116-18 following Dieterich.

12. The history of claims for book 4's cohesiveness is conveniently set out by Nethercut, W. R., ‘Notes on the structure of Propertius book 4’, AJPh 89 (1968) 449–64Google Scholar. For a more recent discussion see Hutchinson, G. O., ‘Propertius and the unity of the book’, JRS 74 (1984) 100–3Google Scholar.

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14. For Propertius' poetic treatment of marriage generally see Lilja, S., The Roman elegists' attitude to women (1965) 230–9Google Scholar.

15. As Fedeli, P., Properzio. Il libro terzo delle elegie (1985) 213Google Scholar and cf. Prop. 1.3.41.

16. See Maltby, R., ‘Love and marriage in Propertius 4,3’, PLLS 3 (1981) 243–7Google Scholar.

17. Suet., Div. Aug. 64Google Scholar. See Williams, G., ‘Some aspects of Roman marriage ceremonies and ideals’, JRS 48 (1958) 21 n. 20Google Scholar and Purcell, N., ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome’, PCPS 212 (1986) 94.Google Scholar Cf. Ogilvie, R. M., A commentary on Livy books 1-5 (1965) 222Google Scholar on Livy's wool-working Lucretia, and Dee, J. H., ‘Arethusa to Lycotas: Propertius 4,3’, TAPhA 104 (1974) 88Google Scholar on Propertius' Arethusa.

18. Cf. Dee (n. 17) 83.

19. For the elegiac metaphor of militia amoris see Baker, R. J., ‘Miles annosus: the military motif in Propertius’, Latomus 27 (1968) 322–49Google Scholar and Murgatroyd, P., ‘Militia amoris and the Roman elegists’, Latomus 34 (1975) 59–79Google Scholar.

20. See M. B. Arthur, ‘The divided world of Iliad VI’ and Perkell, C. G., ‘On Creusa, Dido, and the quality of victory in Virgil's Aeneid’ in Foley (n. 2) 19-44 and 355–77Google Scholar. For Greek tragedy's alignment of the sexes inside and outside the house cf. Zeitlin, F. I., ‘The dynamics of misogyny: myth and mythmaking in the Oresteia’, Arethusa 11 (1978) 149–81Google Scholar.

21. Dee (n. 17) 81-2 notes the oppositions in poem 4.3 between Rome/abroad, domestic/military, female/male.

22. The comparison with Aeneid 8.585-93 is made by Little, D., ‘Politics in Augustan poetry’, ANRW 30.1 (1982) 303Google Scholar.

23. Fraenkel, E., Horace (1957) 288–91Google Scholar discloses more ominous tones in the sympotic last stanzas.

24. Livy 1.57-9 and see Ogilvie (n. 17) 218-20.

25. Tib. 1.10.1-6 and cf. Tib. 1.3.1-56. For the relation of this outburst and Arethusa's subsequent complaints to the topoi of elegiac erotic writing see Dee (n. 17).

26. Lycotas, for example, has teneros lacertos (4.3.23) while Cynthia has pedibus teneris (1.8.7).

27. As in Prop. 3.8.

28. Lilja (n. 14) 234-5 observes that in 4.3 marriage is depicted in the same colours as elegiac affairs.

29. See Dee (n. 17) 87 and Fedeli (n. 15) 127, and cf. Prop. 4.3.31-2 with the restlessness of the Ovidian lover in Am. 1.2.2.

30. See e.g. Little (n. 22) 301-3.

31. Rothstein, M., Propertius Sextus Elegien ed. 3, vol. 2 (1966) 229Google Scholar took Lycotas to be a translation of the Latin name Lupercus found at Prop. 4.1.93 and was supported by Grimal, P., ‘Les intentions de Properce et la composition du livre IV des élégies’, Collection Latomus 12 (1953) 8Google Scholar. Fedeli (n. 15) 119 thought a connection with the Postumus of 3.12 more probable.

32. Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's pastoral art: studies in the Eclogues (1970) 344–5Google Scholar. M. Hubbard (n. 5) 142-5 notes that the Greek names probably have pastoral connotations. Lycotas reappears as a defender of rural values in Calp. Sic. Ecl. 7.

33. Jacobson, H., Ovid's Heroides (1974) 319–48Google Scholar.

34. Pillinger (n. 7) 174-8; Miller (n. 7) 380-1.

35. Cf., on Ovid's Heroides, Henderson, J., ‘Becoming a heroine (1st): Penelope's Ovid’, LCM 11 (1986) 7-10, 21-4 and 37–40Google Scholar.

36. As Dee (n. 17) 96.

37. Boyd, B. W., ‘Tarpeia's tomb: a note on Propertius 4.4’, AJP 105 (1984) 85Google Scholar.

38. For the Callimachean character of poem 4.4 see e.g. Miller (n. 7) 371-85.

39. As noted by Fedeli (n. 15) 137.

40. Wellesley, K., ‘Propertius' Tarpeia poem (IV.4)’, Acta Classica Univ. Scient. Debrecen. 5 (1969) 96Google Scholar and cf. Boyd (n. 37) 86.

41. E.g. Grimal (n. 31) 25-8; Baker (n. 19) 342-4; Pinotti, P., ‘Sulle fonti e le intenzioni di Properzio IV 4’, Giornale Italiano di Filologia NS 5 (1974) 21–7Google Scholar.

42. Ogilvie(n. 17)64-78.

43. Pinotti (n. 41) 18. Cf. Hollis, A. S., Ovid. Metamorphoses book viii (1970) 34Google Scholar.

44. Ogilvie (n. 17) 74-5. Cf. Pinotti (n. 41) 18-19.

45. Hollis (n. 43) 32.

46. Pinotti (n. 41) passim. Adrian Hollis has suggested to me that a specific model for the Tarpeia narrative may lie in the tale told in Ap. Rhod. fr. 12 (Powell) to which the elegist might have had access via Parthenius' Narr. Amat. 21.

47. Hubbard (n. 5) 119-20 and Brenk, F. E., ‘Tarpeia among the Celts: watery romance, from Simylos to Propertius’, Deroux, C. (ed.), Studies in Latin literature and Roman history 1Google Scholar, Collection Latomus 164 (1979) 166-74.

48. Grimal (n. 31) 35.

49. On Greek society cf. Gould, J., ‘Women in Classical Athens’, JHS 100 (1980) 54Google Scholar.

50. Varro LL 5.41. Cf. Ogilvie (n. 17) 74-5.

51. Beard, M., ‘The sexual status of vestal virgins’, JRS 70 (1980) 16Google Scholar.

52. See Warden, J., ‘Another would-be Amazon: Propertius 4,4,71-72’, Hermes 106 (1978) 177–87Google Scholar.

53. For criticism of even this revised reading see esp. Veyne, P., L'élégie érotique romaine: l'amour, la poésie et l'occident (1983)Google Scholar. Cf. Wyke, M., ‘Written women: Propertius' scripta puella’, JRS 11 (1987)Google Scholar forthcoming.

54. Courtney, E., ‘Three poems of Propertius’, BICS 16 (1969) 80–7Google Scholar; Puccioni, G., ‘L'elegia IV 5 di Properzio in Sludi di poesia latina in onore di Antonio Traglia vol. 2 (1979) 609–23Google Scholar; Hubbard (n. 5) 137-42; Barsby, J., Ovid Amores 1 (1979) 90–107Google Scholar.

55. Richlin, A., ‘Invective against women in Roman satire’, Arethusa 17 (1984) 67–80Google Scholar and The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humour (1983) 109–16Google Scholar.

56. Wheeler, A. L., ‘Erotic teaching in Roman elegy and the Greek sources. Part I’, CPh 5 (1910) 440–50Google Scholar; ‘Erotic teaching in Roman elegy and the Greek sources. Part 2’, CPh 6 (1911) 56–77Google Scholar; ‘Propertius as praeceptor amoris’, CPh 5 (1910) 28–40Google Scholar.

57. Wheeler (n. 56) catalogues the differences between the praecepta of Acanthis and those of the earlier male narrator.

58. See Veyne (n. 53) 74. But for the rejection of vv. 55-6 from the text of Prop. 4.5 see, most recently, Heyworth, S. J., ‘Notes on Propertius, books III and IV’, CQ n.s. 36 (1986) 209–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. See e.g. Richlin (n. 55) 69-72.

60. For a comment on such views see Dee, J. H., ‘Elegy 4.8: a Propertian comedy’, TAPhA 108 (1978) 41–53Google Scholar and Warden, J., Fallax opus: poet and reader in the elegies of Propertius (1980) 78–81Google Scholar.

61. See e.g. Pillinger (n. 7) 189-99.

62. As Warden (n. 60) 72.

63. Hubbard (n. 5) 115 and cf. Warden (n. 60) 150.

64. Evans, S., ‘Odyssean echoes in Propertius IV.8’, G & R 18 (1971) 51–3Google Scholar; Currie, H. MacL., ‘Propertius IV.8 – a reading’, Latomus 32 (1973) 616–22Google Scholar; Muecke, F., ‘Nobilis historia? Incongruity in Propertius 4.7’, BICS 21 (1974) 124–32Google Scholar; Hubbard (n. 5) 149-56; Allison, J. W., ‘Virgilian themes in Propertius 4.7 and 8’, CPh 75 (1980) 332–8Google Scholar; Warden (n. 60) 13-61; Dalzell, A., ‘Homeric themes in Propertius’, Hermathena 129 (1980) 33–5Google Scholar.

65. In addition to the above see Dee (n. 17) and McKeown, J. M., ‘Augustan elegy and mime’, PCPS 205 (1979) 74–8Google Scholar.

66. See Adams, J. N., The Latin sexual vocabulary (1982) 14-21 and 145–59Google Scholar.

67. Anderson, W. S., ‘Hercules exclusus: Propertius iv.9’, AJPh 85 (1964) 1–12Google Scholar; Warden, J., ‘Epic into elegy: Propertius 4.9.70f’, Hermes 110 (1982) 228–47Google Scholar.

68. Hubbard (n. 5) 116-8.

69. Pillinger (n. 7) 174-8.

70. In addition to the commentators see e.g. Curran, L. C., ‘Propertius 4.11: Greek heroines and death’, CPh 63 (1968) 134–9Google Scholar; Paduano, G., ‘Le reminiscenze dell' Alcesti nell'elegia IV. 11 di Properzio’, Maia 20 (1968) 21–8Google Scholar; Hubbard (n. 5) 145-9; Warden (n. 60) 103.

71. Nethercut, W. R., ‘Notes on the structure of Propertius, book IV’, AJP 89 (1968) 449–64Google Scholar. Cf. Grimal (1953).

72. See Wyke (n. 53) forthcoming.

73. See e.g. Gardner, J. F., Women in Roman law and society (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74. Williams (n. 17) 23-5. Cf. Hallett (n. 4) 111.

75. As Hutchinson (n. 12) 102.

76. Lilja (n. 14) 233-7 makes comparable observations on the difference between the portraits of Arethusa and Cornelia.

77. Pillinger (n. 7) 189-99.

78. Van Sickle (n. 7) 121-2.

79. See Purcell (n. 17) for the anomalous movement of Livia right out into the public sphere.

80. Curran (n. 70) 134-5.

81. Cf. Curran (n. 70) 136.

82. See esp. Lange, D. K., ‘Cynthia and Cornelia; two voices from the grave’, in Deroux (n. 47) 335–42Google Scholar.