SCS-15: Latin Elegy

This paper argues that Propertius employs the Furies as guardians of proper generic limits. This role is an intuitive extension of their religious role as defenders of natural boundaries: the Furies protect xenia, safeguard a rigid hierarchy within the family, and even keep celestial bodies in their proper orbits (Heraclitus Derveni Papyri D89). In the elegies of Propertius, we observe a unique development in which the elegist places the Erinyes front and center in passages of hypothetical or realized generic transgressions.

In describing the Quinquatrus at Fasti 3.809-48, Ovid exhorts a catalogue of celebrants—weavers, cobblers, and carpenters, among others—to worship Minerva, the patron goddess of a thousand crafts (mille dea est operum, 3.834). Scholarship on this passage typically focuses on the social history of the festival (Cinaglia, Fowler, Frazer, Pasco-Pranger). However, Ovid’s vocabulary throughout is explicitly metapoetic, thereby placing the poet among Minerva’s celebrants.

Ecohorror is in vogue and it is my contention that Propertius’ Elegies have something to contribute to this subfield of ecocriticism. Recent work by Heather Sullivan has explored questions of plant-human hybridity and horror elements thereof in several works of science fiction (2022). My own impression of ecohorror asks questions of works with a focus on the vegetal and natural landscape, and how these forces, usually perceived as inert or subject to human influence, can lash back out with terrifying effects.

‘Servitude of love’ (servitium amoris) was a popular elegiac motif that Roman poets employed to impress their beloved by portraying themselves as slaves to them (see Szelest 1988, Menefee 1981, Copley 1947). However, this game of pretense (see McKarthy 1998: 472) becomes upended when a freeborn loves a slave – a relationship that was regarded as shameful (Ov., am. 2.7; Hor., carm. 2.4; Prop. 1.9; Catull. 6).

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.