Latin Hexameter Poetry

In this paper I argue that Lucan's portrayal of Julius Caesar as a supernatural force of evil (Narducci 2002; Masters 1992; Marti 1945) that surpasses the boundaries of human possibilities is key to understanding the meaning of book 10 of the De Bello Civili, as well as the overall meaning of the poem.

Despite their failure to conquer Thebes, the Seven in Statius’ Thebaid succeed in sacking a city—though not the one they expect. Utilizing an ecocritical and intertextual approach, this paper explicates the role of nonhuman nature in the delay of the Seven. Similes in the Thebaid and intertexts with the fall of Troy in Aeneid 2 characterize the landscape of Nemea and its nonhuman inhabitants as an urbs capta. The sack of Nemea blurs the line between city and nature and presents excessive violence against nonhuman nature as dangerous.

Juvenal famously opens Satires 1 with a biting criticism of contemporary poets’ recycling of epic motifs: “no one’s home is better known to him than the grove of Mars is to me…what else? the seas struck by the boy and the flying artisan” (Sat. 1.7-8, 54). Jason’s theft of the Golden Fleece and Daedalus’ escape from Crete cannot compare with Juvenal’s own poetic crawl through modern-day Rome. Why, then, write epic? Juvenal singles out Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica—marked by the “grove of Mars,” (Freudenburg 2001: 210-12)—as an object of particular scorn.

Lucan’s Bellum Civile contains only two mythic excursuses: Hercules and Antaeus in Book 4 (581-660), and Perseus and Medusa in Book 9 (619-99). Although scholarship has contributed valuable studies on these scenes (on the former, see Grimal 1949, Thompson-Bruère 1970, Ahl 1972, Martindale 1981, Saylor 1982, and Asso 2002; on the latter, see Fantham 1992, Eldred 2000, Leigh 2000, Saylor 2002, Malamud 2003, and Papaioannou 2005), an in-depth examination of the relationship between the two digressions has not been attempted until recently.

This paper seeks, in a limited way, to build off several trends in the interpretation of Virgil’s Aristaeus epyllion (G. 4.315-558).  I begin with a question: Why does the bugonia described by Cyrene at the end of the epyllion (G. 4.538-58) differ so radically from the bugonia described by the narrator earlier in the poem (G. 4.294-314)?  I argue that the very existence of divergences has metapoetical and epistemological implications.

Although the reception of Hesiod has gained considerable attention in recent scholarship, be it in the Greek tradition (e.g. Hunter 2014, Koning 2010, Schroeder 2006) or Roman (e.g. Rosati 2009, Sider 1988, Ziogas 2013), Hesiod's presence in Lucan's Bellum Civile has not been sufficiently recognized beyond a few brief remarks (e.g. in Martindale 1977).

This paper defends lines 1.44-49 of De Rerum Natura as a genuine part of Lucretius’ original proem, despite the renewed tendency to suspect or excise them, and illustrates the didactic value of their repetition.  Lucretius describes the nature of the gods with these same 6 lines in two very different contexts, once at the outset of the poem during the hymn to Venus, and again in book 2 as the conclusion to his arguments against divine providence (1.44-49=2.646-651):

omnis enim per se divum natura necessest

This paper reasserts the thesis that the amoebaean songs in Eclogue 3 recall Fescennine verses and the origins of comedy (Ecl. 3.59, amant alterna Camenae, with Currie 1976, et al.; cf. Ecl. 7.18). I argue in addition that the poem as a whole represents the beginnings of literary history and libertas in Italy.