Patrick O Glauthier (Dartmouth College)
This paper reads the deluge and conflagration narratives in Metamorphoses 1 and 2 as human-induced disasters and argues that they figure the experience of living under the Augustan regime. My discussion draws on an anthropological perspective that defines disaster through its disruptive effects on society and that reframes the nature-society duality as a “mutuality, positing that nature and society are inseparable… each contributing to the resilience and vulnerability of the other” (Oliver-Smith 2019: 42). In both narratives, Augustan power disrupts environmental structures and processes, which leads to the disruption of social structures and processes, thereby revealing and imbuing with meaning the interconnection between social and natural worlds.
The two passages are regularly read together (e.g. Otis 1970: 91–92, Griffin 1992: 54–55, Myers 1994: 42–44, Feldherr 2016: 39–40), but not from this perspective. More specifically, Jupiter in Book 1 and both Jupiter and Phaethon in Book 2 have strong connections with Augustus and Augustan culture (Brown 1987: 214–15, Schmitzer 1990: 69 and 89–107, Barchiesi 2009, Rebenich 2009: 35–40, Williams 2009: 163–64, Dufallo 2013: 160–65). These connections allow us to read the consequences of the agents’ actions from a political or social perspective.
I begin with the flood. For the gods, the flood is no disaster: an Augustan Jupiter (1.175–76, 204–205) skillfully manipulates the natural world to achieve his desired end. The control of nature is key. For instance, despite the divine machinery, thunder is produced according to Lucretian theory (Anderson 1996: 177–78), and Iris transfers moisture to the clouds in notably scientific language (Bömer 1969: 105, Barchiesi 2005: 192). Through such passages, the flood becomes a natural, rather than supernatural, phenomenon that the Augustan bureaucracy deftly manages, with such symbolism matching the poem’s occasional equation of cosmos with imperium (Brown 1987: 215–17). From the human perspective, however, the flood is a disaster that profoundly disrupts society (1.272–73, 285–90); ordinary Romans experience Augustan rule as an environmental catastrophe. Augustan imperium is thus fundamentally ambivalent (Williams 2009: 163–64), both the triumphant control of nature and a human-induced disaster, a force that inspiringly and devastatingly collapses animate and inanimate creation into one undifferentiated whole (omnia pontus erat, 1.292).
A slightly different ambivalence shapes the conflagration. Phaethon’s actions inadvertently redirect the flow of natural forces, with disruptive results for society (2.214–16, 235–36) and the environment (2.216–225, 237–71); it’s a human-induced (sors tua mortalis, 2.56) disaster. Flying through a skyscape reminiscent of the contemporary Circus (Barchiesi 2009), Phaethon represents a cultural boldness that veers into uncontrollable excess; living through the Augustan moment feels like weathering an environmental catastrophe. And yet, while an Augustan Jupiter (Rebenich 2009: 36–37) averts the mutually assured destruction of nature and society (in Chaos antiquum confundimur, 2.299), Phaethon is lionized, not condemned; Earth’s prayer moves Jupiter-Augustus, but a human-induced disaster is also a sublime spectacle (2.327–28). The narrative, then, exploits the pathos of environmental degradation without suggesting a pro-environmental agenda.