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The Cambridge Companion To The Age of Nero Cambridge Companions To The Ancient World 1st Edition Shadi Bartsch
The Cambridge Companion To The Age of Nero Cambridge Companions To The Ancient World 1st Edition Shadi Bartsch
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T H E C A M B R I D G E C OMPA N ION TO
S
The age of Nero has appealed to the popular imagination more than any other
period of Roman history. This volume provides a lively and accessible guide to
the various representations and interpretations of Emperor Nero as well as
to the rich literary, philosophical, and artistic achievements of his eventful
reign. The major achievements of the period in the fields of literature, govern-
ance, architecture, and art are freshly described and analyzed, and special
attention is paid to the reception of Nero in the Roman and Christian eras of
the first centuries CE and beyond. Written by an international team of leading
experts, the chapters provide students and non-specialists with clear and com-
prehensive accounts of the most important trends in the study of Neronian
Rome. They also offer numerous original insights into the period, and open
new areas of study for scholars to pursue.
S
Edited by
S H A DI B A R T S C H
University of Chicago, Illinois
K I R K F R E U DE N B U R G
Yale University, Connecticut
C E DR IC L I T T L EW O OD
University of Victoria, British Columbia
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom
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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107052208
doi: 10.1017/9781107280489
© Cambridge University Press 2017
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2017
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow
Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
names: Bartsch, Shadi, 1966– editor. | Freudenburg, Kirk, 1961– editor. |
Littlewood, C. A. J. (Cedric A. J.), editor.
title: The Cambridge companion to the age of Nero / edited by Shadi
Bartsch, University of Chicago; Kirk Freudenburg, Yale University,
Connecticut; Cedric Littlewood, University of Victoria, British Columbia.
other titles: Age of Nero
description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press,
2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: lccn 2017024676 | isbn 9781107052208
subjects: lcsh: Nero, Emperor of Rome, 37–68. | Rome – History – Nero,
54–68. | Rome – Intellectual life. | Latin literature – History and criticism. |
Art, Roman. | Architecture, Roman – History.
classification: lcc dg285 .c35 2018 | ddc 937/.07–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017024676
isbn 978-1-107-05220-8 Hardback
isbn 978-1-107-66923-9 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
CONTENTS
S
List of Illustrations page viii
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Timeline of Events xiv
List of Abbreviations xviii
Julio-Claudian Family Tree xix
Map of the Roman Empire in 69 CE xx
P A R T i: N E R O ’ S W OR L D 19
1 Nero the Performer 21
MATT HEW LEIGH
4 Nero’s Women 63
ANT HO NY A . BA RR E TT
P A R T ii: N E R ON I A N L I T E R AT U R E 77
5 Post-Augustan Revisionism 79
CE D R I C LI T TLE W OO D
v
C ON T E N T S
P A R T iii N E R ON I A N S E N EC A 135
9 Senecan Drama and the Age of Nero 137
CH IAR A TO RR E
11 Seneca and the Quest for Glory in Nero’s Golden Age 164
CA THARIN E EDWARDS
P A R T iv N E R O ’ S M ON U M E N TA L R OM E 177
12 Art and the Decadent City 179
CA RO L I NE V O UT
PA R T v T H E N E R O S OF R EC E P T ION 259
16 Nero: The Making of the Historical Narrative 261
DONATIEN GRAU
vi
C ON T E N T S
P A R T vi A F T E R THE L AS T L AU G H 333
21 The Neronian “Symptom” 335
ER IK GUN D ER SO N
vii
I L LU S T R AT ION S
S
3.1 Map of the Roman Empire in 69 CE. Ancient World page 50
Mapping Centre © 2016 (awmc.unc.edu). Used by
permission.
4.1 Denarius, Nero, and Agrippina, 54 CE. Photo Andreas 66
Pangerl www.romancoins.info.
4.2 Relief depicting Nero and Agrippina. Sebasteion, Sevgi 67
Gönül Gallery, Aphrodisias. NYU – Aphrodisias
Excavations.
12.1 Portrait of Nero, 55–9 CE, Museo Nazionale, Cagliari, 184
inv. 6122 (Photo: DAIR 66.1946).
12.2 Portrait of Nero, 64–8 CE, Worcester Art Museum, inv. 185
no. 1915.23 (Photo: Museum).
12.3 Central octagonal of vault mosaic showing Odysseus and 187
the Cyclops, room 13, Domus Aurea, Rome, 64–8 CE
(Photo: DAIR 70.2074).
12.4 North wall of Triclinium A, Moregine, showing Apollo 189
and the Muses Clio and Euterpe, Fourth style, first
century CE (Photo: SAP 85182).
12.5 East wall of Triclinium A, Moregine, showing the Muses 189
Urania, Thalia, and Melpomene, Fourth style, first
century CE (Photo: SAP 85183).
12.6 South wall of room n in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii, 192
showing the punishment of Dirce, 62–79 CE (Photo:
Alinari).
13.1 Nero’s sestertius of 63 CE ca. Detail of reverse with the 197
Arch of Nero.
13.2 Column plinth with female figures and Victories, 198
probably from the Arch of Nero on the Capitoline Hill.
Rome, Capitoline Museums.
13.3 Fragment of relief with Parthian warrior, probably from 199
the Arch of Nero on the Capitoline Hill. Rome, Museo
Nazionale Romano.
viii
LIST OF I L LU S T R AT ION S
ix
LIST OF I L LU S T R AT ION S
14.4 Day 9 of the fire. After Panella 2011: fig. 10a.6 219
(S. Borghini and R. Carlani).
15.1 Tomb of the Domitii, Pirro Ligorio, Effigies Antiquae 239
Romae 1561 (1773 edition by Carlo Losi), Atlanta, Emory
University, Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book
Library and the Michael C. Carlos Museum.
15.2 Nero, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo 241
Massimo alle Terme, inv. 616, photo E. Varner.
15.3 Nero, Rome, Museo Palatino, inv. 618, photo E. Varner. 242
15.4 Nero/Vespasian, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, 243
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, inv. 53, photo E. Varner.
15.5 Nero/Titus, Rome, Galleria Borghese, inv. 748, photo 244
E. Varner.
15.6 Domitian, Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori, inv. 1156, 245
photo E. Varner.
15.7 Nero/Domitian, Naples, Museo Nazionale 246
Archeologico, inv. 6061, photo E. Varner.
15.8 Nero/Augustus, Rome, Musei Vaticani, Sala dei Busti 247
274, inv. 715, photo E. Varner.
15.9 Nero/Titus or Domitian, Museo Nazionale Romano, 249
Chiostro Piccolo, inv. 587757, photo E. Varner.
20.1 Publicity still of Nero (Peter Ustinov) and Poppaea 325
(Patricia Laffan) in Quo Vadis (1951). Jerry Murbach
Collection.
20.2 Nero (Charles Laughton) lounging about in The Sign of 326
the Cross (1932). Screenshot.
20.3 Nero (Peter Ustinov) on his bed in Quo Vadis (1951). 326
Screenshot.
A.1 Type 1 portrait of Nero, Louvre Inv. No. MR 337 (Ma 355
1210; N 1580).
A.2 Type 2 portrait of Nero (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 356
Cagliari).
A.3 Type 3 portrait of Nero (Museo delle Terme, Rome). 356
A.4 Type 4 portrait of Nero, gilded bronze (previously in the 357
Alex Guttmann collection, present whereabouts
unknown).
x
C O N T R I B U TOR S
S
ANTHONY A. BARRETT
Department of Classics, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies
University of British Columbia
SHADI BARTSCH
Department of Classics
University of Chicago
CATHARINE EDWARDS
Department of History, Classics and Archaeology
Birkbeck, University of London
KIRK FREUDENBURG
Department of Classics
Yale University
DONATIEN GRAU
Guest Curator, Getty Museum
ERIK GUNDERSON
Department of Classics
University of Toronto
J. ALBERT HARRILL
Department of History
Ohio State University
DANIEL HOOLEY
Department of Classical Studies
University of Missouri-Columbia
EUGENIO LA ROCCA
Scienze dell’Antichità
Universita di Roma “La Sapienza”
xi
LIST OF C ON T R I B U TOR S
MATTHEW LEIGH
Faculty of Classics
St Anne’s College, Oxford University
CEDRIC LITTLEWOOD
Department of Greek and Roman Studies
University of Victoria
CARLOS F. NOREÑA
Department of History
University of California, Berkeley
JOSIAH OSGOOD
Department of Classics
Georgetown University
JOHN POLLINI
Departments of History and Art History
University of Southern California
ELENA RUSSO
Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures
Johns Hopkins University
PETER STACEY
Department of History
University of California, Los Angeles
CHIARA TORRE
Dipartimento di Studi Letterari, Filologici e Linguistici
Università degli Studi di Milano
ERIC VARNER
Department of Art History
Emory University
CAROLINE VOUT
Faculty of Classics
Christ’s College, Cambridge University
GARETH WILLIAMS
Department of Classics
Columbia University
MARTIN M. WINKLER
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
George Mason University
xii
A C K NOW L E D G M E N T S
S
The editors would like to acknowledge the helpful report received from
our anonymous reviewer at Cambridge University Press as well as thank
the contributors for their patience during an unusually long process of
fruition. True to form, Nero defeated our expectations in refusing to let
us, like Seneca, retire from dancing attendance upon him for as long as
possible. We hope the outcome will be of appropriately dramatic
interest.
We extend thanks as well to our copy-editor at Cambridge University
Press and to our editor, Michael Sharp, and editorial assistant, Emma
Collison, for their assistance with this volume.
xiii
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
BCE
49 Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon and invades Italy.
48 Caesar defeats Pompey at the battle of Pharsalus. Pompey is
murdered in Egypt.
47 Caesar is appointed dictator for ten years.
44 Caesar is murdered on the Ides of March by Brutus, Cassius, and
their conspirators. The Senate recognizes Octavian as his heir, but
Mark Antony refuses to cooperate.
43 Octavian and the consuls of 43 defeat Mark Antony at Mutina, but
both consuls are killed. Octavian is made consul and establishes
the second triumvirate, an alliance with Mark Antony and the
wealthy Lepidus. They kill their enemies.
42 Caesar is deified. Octavian and Antony at Philippi defeat Brutus and
Cassius, who commit suicide.
38 Octavian marries Livia Drusilla (b. 58), mother of Tiberius and of
Nero Claudius Drusus, with whom she was pregnant when
divorced by Tiberius Claudius Nero.
32 Hostilities lead to the collapse of the triumvirate/Mark Antony
divorces Octavia.
31 The Battle of Actium occurs on September 2, with Octavian and
Agrippa triumphant over Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
30 Mark Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide.
29 The Forum of Caesar is constructed in Rome
27 Octavian “transfers the state to the Roman people” and takes the
name Augustus. The first Pantheon is built in Rome and dedicated
by Marcus Agrippa.
19 The Arch of Augustus is built in Rome to commemorate victory
over the Parthians.
17 Augustus adopts Agrippa’s and Julia’s two sons, Gaius and Lucius, as
his own sons.
xiv
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
xv
I N T R ODU C T IO N : A N G L E S ON A N E M P E R OR
might be taken to mean that he was not afraid of them and that he saw
clear advantages to showing himself in their company.
Cedric Littlewood begins a series of essays on literature with
a general discussion of the crucial role Neronian literature plays in
establishing certain Augustan texts and authors as canonical. Especially
in the high genres of epic and tragedy, the poetic reception of Augustan
literature is characterized by inversion, contrast-imitation, and a deter-
mination to outrage decorum by saying what may not be said. But what
exactly may not be said? Precisely the same material accommodates
critiques of Augustan myths and ideals or, alternatively, a narrative of
decline in which post-Augustan culture is portrayed as degenerate.
A Neronian determination to remember the violence of pre-Augustan
poems, for example, in Persius’ reintroduction into satire of an “epodic”
voice or in Lucan’s allusions to the Georgics, is a pointed reversal of
literary history and a challenge to Augustan reconciliations. The lament
for lost grandeur, prominent in texts such as Petronius’ Satyrica, is an
ancient commonplace. The loss of political liberty is often advanced as
a cause of literary decline, but, we should note, often by deeply unreli-
able narrators.
Much of the dissonance in post-Augustan literature is created not
by inverting models of smooth perfection, but by exposing and ampli-
fying inherited tensions. Through selective reminiscence, and often
jarring juxtaposition, dialogs between Augustan authors are revisited
by their successors. Seneca’s Medea combines Virgilian and Horatian
texts in a meditation on the sublimity of limitless power that is as much
a fulfillment of Augustan imperial ambition as its tragic demise.
Gareth Williams begins his study of Lucan’s Civil War with
a reminder of the now lost or fragmentary historical epics that might
have provided its author with models. From the Augustan age alone we
know that Rabirius wrote an epic on the war between Octavian and
Antony, and that Sextilius Ena and Cornelius Severus wrote civil war
poems. The Elder Seneca compares their treatments of the death of
Cicero. In a twenty-three line fragment of Albinovanus Pedo’s poem on
Germanicus’ expedition in the North Sea in 16 CE, Williams detects the
high declamatory pitch and artificiality that will characterize post-
Augustan and especially Lucan’s epic.
Lucan’s Civil War is a poem of “chaotic contradictoriness” whose
fragmented form mirrors its subject. Fractures in Lucan’s authorial
voice – now turning away from its subject and throwing up digressions
to prevent the narrative of Rome’s dissolution, now driven on by
burning energy – parallel the characterization of the poem’s opposing
7
S H A DI B A R T S C H , K I R K F R EU DE N B U R G , & C E DR IC L I T T L EW O OD
8
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Chapter II.
PRAYER AT THE SIGNING OF A CHILD WHEN IT
RECEIVETH A NAME ON THE EIGHTH DAY
AFTER ITS BIRTH.
Be it known that on the eighth day after birth the babe is brought
by the nurse to the temple, and she standeth before the doors of the
temple.
And the priest maketh,
Blessed be our God... Trisagion. O most holy Trinity... And after
Our Father... For thine is the kingdom...
Then the troparion of the day, or of the holy habitation. And the
priest signeth its forehead, mouth, and breast, and saith the prayer.
Let us pray to the Lord.
O Lord our God, to thee we pray, and on thee we call, Let the light of
thy countenance be signed on this thy servant (or, on this thine
handmaid), name, and be he signed with the cross of thine only-
begotten Son in his heart and understanding, that he may flee the
vanity of the world and every evil device of the enemy, and may keep
thy commandments; and grant, O Lord, that thy holy name may
remain upon him unrenounced, when at the fitting time he shall be
conjoined with thy holy church, and be perfected with the terrible
mysteries of thy Christ, that, living according to thy commandments
and preserving the seal unbroken, he may attain unto the
blessedness of thine elect in thy kingdom, through the grace and
love to man of thine only-begotten Son, with whom thou art blessed,
together with thy most holy, and good, and life-creating Spirit, now
and ever, and to ages of ages. Amen.
Then, taking the child in his hands, he standeth before the doors
of the temple, or before the image of the most holy God-bearing one,
and maketh the sign of the cross, saying,
Hail, grace-accorded God-bearing Virgin! for out of thee the sun of
righteousness, Christ our God, hath shined, enlightening them that
are in darkness. And thou, O righteous elder, be thou glad, receiving
in thine arms the deliverer of our souls, even him that granteth
resurrection unto us.
And the dismissal is made.
It is necessary to know that, if the newly born babe, being
exceedingly weak, do not suck, but appear likely to die, it behoveth
not to wait six or eight days, and then to baptize it, as some wickedly
say; but at the very hour of its birth to wash it only, and immediately
to baptize it, that it die not unilluminated. Since they that are five
months pregnant are, by the laws and canons, responsible for
murder, if it happen that by any shock they abort the babe, so much
the more is it necessary to avoid the condemnation of them that are
brought forth, that they die not unilluminated.
Chapter III.
PRAYERS FOR A PARTURIENT WOMAN AFTER
FORTY DAYS.