Vasileios Dimoglidis (University of Cincinnati)
In Latin literature, human body parts are frequently deployed figuratively, and such words as manus, pes, caput, and corpus acquire implicit meanings. Caput as a political metaphor occurs already in Livy (2.22) in order to describe Rome as caput rerum. After the transition to the imperial ages and more concretely during the Neronian period, caput turns into an allegory for the princeps. During recent decades, scholars examining body imagery in Neronian literature have focused on the political connotations of the caput (e.g., Most 1992; Rimell 2004; Marks 2008; Dinter 2012), but no attention has been given to Seneca’s tragedies.
In this paper, I focus on Seneca’s Thyestes and Agamemnon, and argue that caput turns into a term indicating shifting political and familial power structures. By having his tragic figures use this word with symbolic dynamics, Seneca makes caput a more complex signifier than a mere term for the ‘head’. Studies examining the figurative value of body parts in Latin literature set the methodological frame of my own analysis (e.g., McVay 2000; Wiseman 2012; Squire 2015; Mebane 2016).
At first, I examine instances where Seneca’s tragic figures apply adjectival modifiers to a metaphorical caput. I suggest that this combination equates to a pejorative form of address, denotes the downgrade of one’s status, or turns into a synecdoche for body and identity. Based on Thyestes’ crimes, Atreus uses the phrase invisum caput (Thyestes 188) as a means of undermining his brother’s status. Reflecting on Agamemnon’s crimes, Clytemnestra refers to Iphigeneia as lustrale…caput (Agamemnon 164) to accuse her husband of turning Iphigeneia into the head of a sacrificial animal. Aegisthus refers to himself as a vile…caput (Agamemnon 231) suggesting that his identity is predetermined by his name and family, which shall both function as models for his own character and future actions (Star 2006: 225; dos Santos 2016: 62).
Second, I suggest that caput is deployed as a metonym for authority, and decapitation as a symbol for defeat and loss of identity (Marks 2008: 73). By binding the heads of Thyestes’ sons (Thyestes 686), Atreus becomes the ruler of both Thyestes’ family and the props of his own revenge plot (Boyle 2017: 296). Once Clytemnestra binds Agamemnon’s head (Agamemnon 887-889), she seals her political power. On the other hand, severing or smashing a caput symbolizes tragic figures’ attempts at eliminating political power or preventing future political threat. By smashing the heads of Thyestes’ sons, Atreus ensures that any political threat that could emerge from these heads is permanently destroyed (Thyestes 726-729). Threatened by the political ramifications of the union between Agamemnon and Cassandra, Clytemnestra sentences Cassandra to decapitation (Agamemnon 1001-1003), that is, to the same penalty as her other political enemy, Agamemnon.
Taking advantage of the symbolics of body parts, Seneca structures his own poetics of the metaphorical use of caput. Through adjective collocations, Seneca generates a derogatory way to refer to someone, and upgrades this symbolic value so that his tragic figures use it as a synonym for power.