Jermaine Bryant, Princeton University
This paper uses Sütterlin’s traumatic trope of splitting to read Propertius’ Umbrian identity in poems 1.22 and 4.1. As Barchiesi notes, although many Latin poets are identified with the label “Roman,” none aside from Caesar come from Rome itself until the late imperial period. Though Cicero’s De Legibus provides us with a way of conceptualizing Roman dual identity, town and citizenship (2.5), Propertius professes an allegiance that fits neither category: he claims loyalty neither to Assisi nor Rome, but Umbria, a region that he repeatedly invokes in light of the horrors of the Perusine War. This Umbrian self-definition is particularly intriguing considering historical studies have argued that the region had no strong ethnic patriotism, including prior to and during the Social War (Syme, Bradley). I argue that the elegist links his Umbrian identity to (and possibly constructs it through) the traumatic effects of Roman civil war on the region and uses Umbria to culturally split himself and his countrymen who suffered Italian warfare from the Romans who waged it.
The Perusine War features prominently in the poems that conclude Propertius’ Monobiblos, 1.21 and 1.22. Moreover, 1.22 is the first poem that provides any biographical information about the poet. In response to his friend’s inquiry about his origins, Propertius defines himself by the experience of civil war violence, without even giving his name (Qualis et unde genus qui sint mihi 1.22.1; tu proiecta mei perpessa es membra propinqui 1.22.7; Vmbria… me genuit 1.22.9-10). In 4.1., when Propertius identifies as Roman for the only time in his corpus—in order to praise Umbria (ut nostris tumefacta superbiat Vmbria libris | Vmbria Romani patria Callimachi 4.1.63-64)—the proclamation is immediately undercut by a distinctly non-Roman interlocutor, the Babylonian astrologer Horos, reminding the poet of his homeland (Vmbria te …antiqua …edit mentior? 4.1.121) and suffering caused by Romans (ossaque legisti non illa aetate legenda patris 4.1.127-8; abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes 4.1.130). In these poems, Propertius lays bare the traumatic social clefts left by civil war. These reflections on patria occupy conspicuous positions in his corpus, his sphragis and the opening to his "new" poetic project.
Traumatic splits come in many forms. They can be narrative splits, e.g., temporal disruption, introduction of a mirror self, or ejection of a narrator, or they can be representations of fragmentation. Civil war, an event in which a group must fight against itself, is particularly ripe for this mode of analysis. Sütterlin’s theorization of splitting as traumatic trope opens up a rich array of work on trauma as social experience (Eyerman 2001, Alexander 2012), and trauma theory as a way of bridging personal experience and collective memory, especially during civil war. Trauma is for many groups not merely painful memory, but birth of identity (Eyerman, Alexander and Breese 2011). By reading Propertius’ fashioning of Umbrian identity against the trope of splitting, we can gain not only a better understanding of Propertius’ poetry, but open new avenues of inquiry for ancient ethnicity studies and trauma studies.