Narrating the Self: Autobiography in Late Antiquity

It should come as no surprise that Christian writers in late antiquity did not hold much admiration for Ovid, whose poetry was condemned in his own lifetime for corrupting public morals. In contrast with his close contemporary Virgil, he is almost completely ignored by patristic prose authors like Jerome and Augustine – and on the few occasions when his work is mentioned, it is disparaged and dismissed.

Recent years have seen growing scholarly interest in the question of ‘selfhood’ and subjectivity in ancient societies. Much debate has focused on the question of whether modern, individualistic conceptions of the human subject have antecedents in premodern societies, and whether the early evolution of such a notion of human subjectivity can be detected in the ancient world.

This paper argues that Ennodius of Pavia’s (473-521) disavowal of secular poetry in his autobiographical prose work, the Eucharisticon (written c. 511), constitutes an act of ascetic renunciation in line with a Christian Latin literary tradition.

Among the many rich and multivalent metaphors which both enliven and structure Augustine’s Confessions, the imagery of watery ebb and flow (fluctus/defluere, mare, gurges) holds a place of particular prominence.

In summer 361 CE, while based at Naissus (Niš) in Illyricum, the Roman Emperor Julian wrote a series of open letters in Greek to various communities in Greece such as Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, as well as a letter to the Senate of Rome in Italy, all of which sought to explain his usurpation of Augustan rank in February 360 while Caesar or deputy emperor in Gaul. Of these letters, the Epistle to the Athenians alone has come down to us almost completely intact.