Empire and poetry in the Roman republic

Abstract

In this thesis I rethink the interface between poetry and empire in the last two centuries of the Roman republic. I bring together republican Latin poetry and historical approaches to Roman imperialism in a kind of Saidian ‘contrapuntal reading’. This allows new insights into the poetry of Lucilius and Catullus, and advances our understanding of an important stage in the development of Latin literature. The findings of this thesis will also be of interest to those concerned with the entanglement of literary production, cultural exchange, and imperial power more broadly. In Chapter One, I open up new avenues for literary research by integrating insights from recent scholarship on Roman economic history, political culture, and early literature, as well as current theorising from other disciplines. I identify an alternative paradigm for conceptualising Roman responses to the material and cultural resources acquired from imperial expansion, drawing especially on the ideas of ‘cargo’ and ‘affordances’. Following a methodological Prelude addressing ‘fragments and empire’, in Chapter Two I argue that Lucilius transformed poetry from a subaltern cultural import into a powerful tool for elite self-representation. I show that in Books 26–30 Lucilius creates an experimental persona for the first elite Roman poet (using the metaphor of the uersipellis or ‘shapeshifter’), in tandem with commentary on imperial developments between 133 and 123 BC. Then, in a detailed reading of the fragments of Book ‍1, I uncover how Lucilius engages with a variety of texts and discourses to make poetry an arena for debating the hot topics of the day. This gives us a new understanding of Book 1 as a satire on how empire was changing Roman society and how Romans were embracing these changes (or loudly resisting them) for their own personal advantage. In Chapter Three I turn to a selection of the polymetric poems of Catullus. I argue that empire is central to Catullus’ self-positioning in these poems, as he negotiates his precarious position in the Roman elite. I trace the loose narrative of Catullus’ return from Bithynia. In Poem ‍46, Catullus creates a poetic manifesto out of imperial travel; Poem ‍34 makes Diana a symbol for hybrid cultural identity; Poem ‍31 asserts the Romanness of Catullus’ home, Sirmio in Transpadane Gaul; Poems ‍37 and 39 displace Catullus’ potential exclusion from the Roman elite onto a rival; Poems ‍12 and 25 use stolen souvenirs as a way to manage relationships with elite peers and with an inferior. A brief Postlude interrogates the metaphor of poetry as punitive branding to explore the unprecedented impact of Catullus’ poetry at the very top of Roman society.