Armaque Fraternae Tristia Militiae:
The Seven Against Thebes, Civil War, and Grief in the Poems of Sextus Propertius
Jermaine R.G. Bryant
Senior Honors Thesis Department of Classics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Preface
In this thesis, I investigate the way Propertius uses the myth of the Seven Against Thebes in order to reflect on his feelings about Roman civil war. He draws on the tale from all three great tragedians: he invokes Aeschylus by name (2.34.44) when referring to conflicts of the past; uses Euripides’ Phoenissae to illustrate familial grief, especially the grief of women during war; and draws on the civic and personal (i.e., the losses in his own family) trauma of unburied bodies found in Antigone. In poem 2.1, a great poetic manifesto to his patron Maecenas, he includes Thebes alongside the recent civil disputes of Mutina and Philippi (2.1.21-34). In poem 1.7, Ponticus, the amator’s friend and fellow poet, is writing an epic about the Seven, a work
Propertius describes as a “sad tale of fraternal bloodshed” (1.7.1-2: Cadmeae…Thebae | armaque fraternae tristia militiae). In poem 2.34, another friend, Lynceus, is also setting out to write an epic, also about the Seven Against Thebes. These examples are striking, given that this myth does not appear in the other extant poetry of the late Republic and Principate.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Death of Caesar, Perusine War, and the life of Propertius……… 4 Chapter 2: The Seven Against Thebes in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides………...14
Chapter 3: Propertius and the Seven Against Thebes: Allusion and Politics in Propertius’ Poetry………...23
Chapter 1
The Death of Caesar, Perusine War, and the life of Propertius
Following Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, Rome entered a state of extreme uncertain-ty. The assassins, hoping to be hailed as heroes and restorers of the Republic, wanted nothing more than for Caesar’s body to be thrown into the Tiber and for Rome to return to the traditional practices and peace it enjoyed before the death of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BCE. For them, un-fortunately, Caesar’s mark on Rome would not be undone so easily. The assassination did not usher in a new age of the Republic—one free from the tyranny of strongmen—but instead left a power vacuum for a new man to fill. The question soon was not “how do we undo the damage that Caesar has done?” but rather “who will be the new Caesar to rule the reeling empire?” (Osgood, 49).
faction in the city. A few days later, however, it was revealed that Caesar hadposthumously adopted hisyoung grand-nephewGaius Octavius, and named him the principal heir of his estate. Antony was also named in the will, but this surprising revelation introduced a challenger to Antony’s place as Caesar’s successor (Osgood, 49; Att. 14.21.2-3).
Despite lacking Caesar’s endorsement, Antony continued to lead Caesar’s supporters in the city. When giving the eulogy at Caesar’s funeral, he famously presented Caesar’s bloodied toga to the crowd of supporters and incited them to riot. The hostile environment in Rome led the assassins to flee, and the popular support for Caesar and his legacy continued to grow in Rome (Osgood, 51). Shortly after, Octavian returned to Rome to collect on his inheritance and his new status. Although Antony had denounced lifetime dictatorships, he aligned himself with Caesar’s legacy and assumed Caesar’s position in the city in a way that made him appear increasingly tyrannical. Thus Octavian began to seem a more palatable alternative: possibly because he lacked honors, was inexperienced in military matters, and was only 19 years old (or any combination of these factors), he seemed harmless in comparison. Many senators, most notably Cicero, started to align themselves with Octavian and to oppose Antony publicly, a political move that placed the two rivals in direct conflict for the first time.1 Octavian began to gain favor with the military, and illegally2 gained command of two of Antony’s legions in November of that same year(Osgood, 49; Phil. 5.28)
As Antony’s term as consul drew to a close, he was chosen as governor of Macedonia, a decision that upset himgreatly, as he had been hoping for command of Cisalpine Gaul, which
1Cicero calledOctavian a “young man to be praised, decorated, tossed aside” (laudandum adulescentem, ornandum, tollendum, ad fam. xi. 20.1), a remark reported to Octavian, who used it to stir up the troops against Cicero; see also letter xi.21, in which Cicero responds to the report of this incident. Cicero was not a fan of either Caesar or Antony, and was ready to use Octavian in order to hold off Antony, in hopes of keeping the Republic alive.
was given instead to Decimus Junius Brutus,3 a conspirator against Caesar. Antony marched his troops north to besiege Brutus at Mutina, where he clashed with Octavian alongside the co-consuls Hirtius and Pansa.4 Although Antony lost the battle, neither of the opposing consuls survived. Their deaths cleared the path for Octavian to become consul at age 19in 43 (Osgood, 59;citingSuet. Aug. 26.1, App. 3.86, 88).
Seeing that the combination of his Caesarian ties and ever-growing ambition meant that his tenuous alliance with the anti-Caesarian senate would soon come to an end, Octavian sought a more long-term alliance. He went to make a truce with Mark Antony, but not before passing legislation officially condemning the assassination of Caesar and declaring the conspirators enemies of the state. In November of 43, Octavian, Antony, andLepidus entered into the legally recognized Second Triumvirate, an always shaky alliance that nonetheless lasted seven years.5 The three quickly issued proscriptions of around 130 senators, and an unknown number of equites. “Sulla had used proscriptions to help end the bloody war he had [been] fighting against the Marians. The triumvirs, by contrast, used the measure as preliminary to fighting: it was yet another way in which the period was unlike any before in Roman history.” (Osgood, 63) Among those proscribed was Cicero, only recently one of Octavian’s outspoken supporters in the senate. Not one of Rome’s “leading men” was safe. The city was rife with executions, people fleeing, and constant fear. The chaos of the period was palpable, and undoubtedly left scars in the minds of the Roman people (Osgood, 63 citing Nep. Att. 12.4, App. 4.5, Dio 47.6.5)
3 Not to be confused with Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar’s assassins.
4 Octavian had recently been inducted into the senate and given official propraetorian command over Antony’s former troops.
The Triumvirate went on to defeat Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42 BCE and, six years later, Sextus Pompey at Naulochus, an event that symbolically marked the end of the official alliance. In Italy, however, the forces of the triumvirs had never seemed unified. In 41, less than a year after the battle of Philippi, in response to Octavian’s distribution of land to Caesar’s soldiers, Antony’s wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius Antonius (consul at the time) raised eight legions against Octavian in Italy. Their professed goal was the dissolution of the triumvirate and the installation of Antony as a consul of the “newly restored republic” (Osgood, 161). There was a fairly large population of senators, who, although not proscribed, were still hostile to the triumviral regime and were eager to join Lucius in his “restoration effort” (Osgood, 161). Additionally, those dispossessed by Octavian were naturally eager at the prospect of re-claiming their land. Consequently, in Italy the population was divided among the soldiers who stood to benefit from the land reforms and all of the other citizens (Osgood, 161-162, citing Appian 5.17, Sallust BJ 86.3 and 41-42). Consequently, the soldiers were preparing to fight not other Roman soldiers, as they had in the civil wars, but Roman civilians (Osgood, 162). The civilian army had some short-lived success and briefly held Rome before being pushed back to Perusia in Umbria to await reinforcements from Cisalpine Gaul, reinforcements that Mark Antony would never send. The Antonian forces, trapped inside Perusia, were besieged for several months. Their hunger is said to have become so bad that the “slaves… tried to live on grass” (Osgood, 166, citing Appian, 5.32). The Italians, fearing death by starvation, surrendered to Octavian’s army. When Octavian entered the city, he ordered that the town councilors (300 senators and equites) be slaughtered before the altar of the divine Julius Caesar. Appian claims that Octavian would have let his soldiers sack the city if a citizen had not set his own house on fire and burned down the town.6 Appian recounts the event:
Many of the senators and knights came down, all presenting a pitiful appearance by rea-son of their sudden change of fortune. As soon as they passed out of Perusia a guard was stationed around it. When they reached the tribunal Octavian placed Lucius by his own side. Of the rest, some were taken in charge by the friends of Octavian, others by centuri-ons, all of whom had been instructed beforehand to show them honour and to keep watch upon them unobserved. He commanded the Perusians who stretched out their hands to him from the walls, to come forward, all except their town council, and as they presented themselves he pardoned them; but the councillors were thrown into prison and soon after-wards put to death, except Lucius Aemilius, who had sat as a judge at Rome in the trial of the murderers of Caesar, who had voted openly for condemnation, and had advised all the others to do the same in order to expiate the guilt (The Civil Wars 4.48).7
The butchering of the leading citizens and the subsequent destruction of the town undoubtedly left deep scars on the people who experienced it. As a boy at the time, Propertius presumably witnessed some of the horrors of the Perusine War. Unfortunately, he provides very little biographical information in his own poetry, but the information he does provide tends to center on the civil wars, specifically the Perusine War. In the sphragis poem 1.22, Propertius identifies himself and his homeland.
Qualis et unde genus, qui sint mihi, Tulle, Penates, 1 quaeris pro nostra semper amicitia.
si Perusina tibi patriae sunt nota sepulcra, Italiae duris funera temporibus,
cum Romana suos egit discordia cives— 5 sic mihi praecipue, pulvis Etrusca, dolor,
tu proiecta mei perpessas membra propinqui, tu nullo miseri contegis ossa solo—
proxima suppositos contingens Umbria campos
me genuit terris fertilis uberibus. 10
You ask, always in friendship, Tullus, what are my household gods, and of what race am I. If our country’s graves, at Perusia, are known to you, Italy’s graveyard in the [hard] times, when Rome’s citizens dealt in war (and, to my special sorrow, Etruscan dust, you allowed my kinsman’s limbs to be scattered, you covered his wretched bones with no scrap of soil), know that Umbria rich in fertile ground bore me, where it touches there on the plain below.8
7 Translation by Horace White.
In poem 4.1, the poet expresses further pride for his once beautiful homeland, praise uttered by the astrologer Horos:
Umbria te notis antiqua Penatibus edit— mentior? an patriae tangitur ora tuae?— qua nebulosa cavo rorat Mevania campo, et lacus aestivis non tepet Umber aquis, scandentisque Asis consurgit vertice murus, murus ab ingenio notior ille tuo (4.1.121-26).
Ancient Umbria gave birth to you, at a noble hearth: am I lying? Or has my mouth revealed your country? Where misty Mevania wets the open plain, and the summer waters of the Umbrian lake steam, and the wall towers from the summit of climbing Assisi, that wall made more famous by your genius?
Alison Keith claims that this mention of Assisi and its walls serves as the identification of the poet’s hometown. The characterization of Assisi, however, is not much more personal than his characterization of Mevania two lines before it. Horos is highlighting famous towns in the Umbrian region from which Propertius hails, and claiming all Umbria as his home, rather than any one town in particular. Given that this is our only real evidence for Propertius’ homeland, and it does not actually specify that the poet is from Assisi, only that he comes from a place near there,9 Propertius’ claims of his heritage revolve around not Assisi, but the region as a whole.10 In any case, his exact place of residence in the region does not affect the reading of his poetry, as all Umbria certainly felt the effects of the war. After the war, biographical information about Propertius is absent from his poems: we do not know where the poet and his family lived after
9 Given the scanty amount of biographical evidence about Propertius, I have reservations about claiming the poet is from Assisi proper.
the war, or when Propertius came to Rome, nor do we know conclusively when he wrote his first book of elegies.11
If we look again at poem 1.22, we will see that the poet not only claims Umbria as his homeland, but openlyevokes the Perusine War as a central part of his identity. To ask the poet of his origin is to ask him of the civil wars and of the horrors that he witnessed in his youth. Aside from mentioning the death of his relative, Propertius understandably does little to distinguish himself from his larger group of kinsmen all around Umbria: being a member of a group so evis-cerated by civil war likely led him to associate with his fellow Umbrians in a sort of collective identity. Like many of his fellow countrymen, Propertius’ family was dispossessed when Octavi-an grOctavi-anted lOctavi-and to Caesar’s old troops. Horos reminds the speaker of the struggles of the poet’s youth.
ossaque legisti non illa aetate legenda patris et in tenuis cogeris ipse lares: nam tua cum multi versarent rura iuvenci, abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes. mox ubi bulla rudi dimissast aurea collo, matris et ante deos libera sumpta toga, tum tibi pauca suo de carmine dictat Apollo et vetat insano verba tonare foro (4.1.127-34)
Not of an age to gather them, you gathered your father’s bones, and yourself were forced to find a meaner home. Since though many bullocks ploughed your fields, the merciless measuring-rod stole your wealth of land. Soon the bulla of gold was banished from your untried neck, and the toga of a free man assumed in front of your mother’s gods, then Apollo taught you a little of his singing, and told you not to thunder out your words in the frantic Forum.
Horos now gives us biographical information more specific to Propertius. It is possible that his father was one of the leading nobles executed by Octavian, but the language of collecting
his father’s bones suggests that he was involved in handling his father’s remains. His father died before he was of citizen age, that is, before he turned 15 or 16 (Adkins, 345), but he does not specify how young the poet was at the time. We do not have clear birth and death dates for Propertius, but Alison Keith suggests that he was born around 55 BCE and died after 16 BCE (Keith, 1). Ovid, however, suggests that Propertius is younger than Tibullus, who was born between 60 and 55 BCE,12 so Propertius may have been born after 55. Using this approximate date of birth, we can say that he would have experienced the Perusine War as a child or a young adolescent. As Osgood states, “Propertius was…literally a child of the civil wars; the various struggles between Caesarians and Republicans cheated him, and thousands of others, of a normal youth” (157).13
Unlike Horace and Vergil, adults at the time of the civil wars of the 40s, Propertius was not afforded the luxury of choosing a side: regardless of whether he was closer to 15 or 10 at the time of the siege, witnessing the obliteration of a prominent town and its leaders at such an early age left a trauma from which he would never fully recover. His worldview was shaped by the destruction of war, although he was too young to participate in the politics that caused these civil conflicts. His political consciousness would have been well-developed by the time of Actium in 31 BCE, but his larger-scale feelings about Roman civil war would have complicated whatever partisan stake he might have had in the battle’s result. That is, although he may have had a preference about the possible victor, he would have cared more about ending a century of civil conflict in Rome. Hence, as I will argue in Chapter Three, the myth of the Seven Against Thebes allows Propertius to invoke the larger losses caused by Roman civil war, among them
12 Miller suggests that Ovid implies that Propertius is younger than Tibullus citing Tristia IV.10.41-54. “Vergilium vidi tantum, nec avara Tibullo | tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae. | successor fuit hic tibi, Galle, Propertius illi”
lasting grief and trauma for Rome and Roman citizens, rather than focusing on his own personal losses and partisanship.
Over the past century, scholars have explored the more political bent of Propertius’ poet-ry, from Sullivan’s article “The Politics of Elegy,” where he casts Propertius as a “make love, not war” poet, to Stahl’s idea that Propertius’ poetry explores the nature of the tensions inherent to the relationship between the interests of the individual as opposed to the interests of the state. Both explore the poet’scomplex relationship with Augustus, the civil wars, his new legislation, and being so closely connected to the emperor through his literary circle, but neither hesitates to put the label “anti-Augustus” on him.
While literary criticism regarding the politics of many Augustan authors has become more nuanced in recent years, the notion that the author’s feelings on the emperor are more com-plex than a simple “black or white” has largely escaped Propertian scholarship.14 Robert Gurval acknowledges Propertius’ categorical denunciationof both parties in the civil war, and the ten-sions of working under Maecenas, but does not comment on lasting grief, remarkingonly on his anti-Augustan writing agenda (173-189). Stephen Heyworth directly acknowledges the exception of Propertius; he begins his article “Propertius, Patronage, and Politics” by saying that he will ig-nore the admonitions to “avoid thinking of authors as ‘Augustan’ or ‘anti-Augustan” (2007), and ends it by saying he “used his words to express his abhorrence for the policies and ideals of the regime.” Others, such as Micaela Janan and Paul Allen Miller, have taken a psychoanalytical approach to the poetry. Both approaches are important for decoding this abstruse body of work, especially when it comes to matters of unpacking the immense emotional baggage that comes with the topic of the poet and civil conflict.
Chapter Two
The Seven Against Thebes in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
This chapter briefly reviews the extant prior texts about the Seven, on which Propertius drew: Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes,Sophocles’ Antigone, and Euripides’ Phoenissae. I fo-cus here on themes of fraternal conflict, civil unrest and grief, particularly familial grief. In Eu-ripides’ Phoenissae the theme of familial conflict and grief of women,and in Sophocles’ Anti-gone the themes of bones and bodies are particularly important, and are echoed in Propertius’ poetry.
an epic Thebaid of unknown authorship date back to the 7th or 8th century BCE, another testament to the age and prominence of this myth in the early Greek canon. Other epic cycle poets also take an interest in the myth: Stesichorus, Pindar, and the mythographers all detail the events of the expedition (Lamari, 2016). Around 400 BCE, Antimachus wrote his own Thebaid and Epigoni. The epic tradition had already served the tragedians, with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides all writing multiple plays about the house of Thebes and the events surrounding the expedition. Unfortunately, the early epic versions of the myth do not survive, so we can only guess at their contents based on references in later works, combined with the shared events of the later tragedies we do have. Although the details of the events vary, the basic narrative is as follows.
The war on Thebes is the centerpiece of the “Theban Saga” in Greek poetry. After Oedi-pus realizes that he had killed his father and married his mother Jocasta (who kills herself), he abdicates the throne and leaves the city. Through some curse—coming either from Oedipus, whose sons dishonored him before he left, or from Apollo, because of his pre-existing anger at Oedipus’ father Laius (Gantz, 503)—Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polyneices are fated to quarrel and, eventually, kill each other.15 Hoping to prevent this fate, the brothers reach an agreement. According to Hellanicus, Eteocles inherits the throne, and offers Polyneices a large share of the inheritance if he agrees to leave the city and never lay claim to the kingship. This account offers no explanation as to why Polyneices decides to attack the city: Gantz proposes that, like the biblical Esau, Polyneices felt cheated of his share (504). According to Diodorus and the Biblio-theca, the two decide to rule the city in alternating years, with one brother staying in Thebes and occupying the throne for a year, while the other takes his share of the inheritance and goes into exile for a year. When the two cast lots to determine who will rule for the first year, Eteocles
wins, and Polyneices goes to Argos. In Argos he takes refuge with the Argive king Adrastus, and marries his daughter. At the end of the year Polyneices returns to Thebes, where Eteocles refuses to relinquish control of the city, and forces Polyneices to go back to Argos. When he arrives there, Polyneices seeks Adrastus’ help again, this time asking for his support in taking back Thebes. Adrastus agrees, and recruits a group of leading Argive men to assault the city: his son-in-law Tydeus,16 Eteoclus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, Capaneus, and Amphiaraus, a seer and Adrastus’ brother-in-law. These six, along with Polyneices, comprise the eponymous “Seven Against Thebes.”17
Although we know that there must have been some sort of recruitment of the champions, most of the myths about how that recruitment happened are lost. I have already touched upon how Adrastus and Tydeus were conscripted into the expedition, but perhaps the most famous story of this nature is the recruitment of Amphiaraus. Unlike those of the Trojan War a genera-tion later, we have no evidence that the heroes of the Theban expedigenera-tion were obligated to parti-cipate by any sort of oath. Amphiaraus and Adrastus, however, had a separate agreement to abide by any decision that Eriphyle—Amphiaraus’ wife and Adrastus’ sister—reached regarding the two of them, because she had arbitrated a previous dispute between the two of them very fairly. Polyneices, knowing about this pact, bribed Eriphyle with the necklace of his ancestor Harmonia, who agreed to bid her husband go to Thebes in exchange for the necklace. Since Amphiaraus
16 Tydeus had also been exiled from his homeland of Calydon. He and Polyneices came into conflict some time after both of their arrivals in Argos, but when Adrastus remembered an oracle he received saying that he must yoke his daughters to a boar and a lion, he married the two to his daughters. He then promised that he would restore both of them to their homelands, beginning with Polyneices since he arrived in Argos first (Gantz, 509)
was a seer, he knew the tragic fate that the group would suffer, so he attempted to warn them while they were planning the attack, but could not do so before he himself was roped into the ex-pedition. Before he leaves, he orders his young son Alcmaeon to avenge his impending death. Alcmaeon does so both by killing Eriphyle and by leading the Epigoni, the sons of the seven who succeed in taking the city (Gantz, 508).18
As Amphiaraus had predicted, the expedition does not go well. Aeschylus shows each Argive champion attacking a Theban gate guarded by a Theban champion.19 Each of the seven dies in his attack on the city: Tydeus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, and Eteoclus all fall to their Theban adversaries in unsuccessful attempts to take their assigned gates. Amphiaraus is swal-lowed up by the earth while trying to flee. Capaneus, in an act of hubris, exclaims that not even Zeus could stop him from taking Thebes, only to be promptly struck down by a thunderbolt. Polyneices and his brother Eteocles kill each other in a mutual strike that leaves both claimants to the throne dead following the attack. The only Argive survivor is Adrastus, who flees on his horse Arion back to Argos.
In the aftermath, there are no suitable heirs to the kingdom. Polyneices did leave a son, Thersander, but his father was branded a traitor, and Thersander is too young to lay claim to the throne. Oedipus may also be alive at this point, depending on the tradition, but cannot return to Thebes because of his crimes of incest and murder. Since there are no viable male heirs to inherit control of the city, Creon, Jocasta’s brother who had previously ruled Thebes as regent following
18 There are several accounts of events between the planning of the assault and the actual attack on the city. Tydeus supposedly went to Thebes before the attack, to attempt to negotiate with Eteocles. His em-bassy was a failure, not least because in defending himself from attack, after a competition, he killed forty-nine Thebans (Il. 4.382-400, 5.800-808, 10.285-90; DS 4.65.4; ApB 3.6.5). According to Mimner-mus, he also kills Ismene (Gantz, 513). This anecdote seems to have been extremely popular, as it is widely attested by mythographers and is the only episode from the expedition we find in the Iliad.
the death of Oedipus’ father Laius, takes up the mantle once again. According to Sophocles, Haemon is betrothed to one of the two remaining members of the line, Antigone (the other being Ismene), but Antigone and Haemon both die because of a dispute over the funerary rites of Poly-neices.Meanwhile in Argos, news of the failed expedition reaches the homes of the champions. The grief-stricken Evadne, wife of Capaneus, commits suicide by jumping onto her husband’s pyre. Alcmaeon, making good on his promise to his father, kills his mother Eriphyle and assemb-les the sons of the fallen champions into the “Epigoni,” a group that would successfully take Thebes.20
Although Propertius does interact with the tradition of the Seven on a broad scale—as with his friend Ponticus in poems 1.7 and 1.9, and his friend Lynceus in 2.34 (both of whom are writing their own Thebaids)—his more specific references appear to come from the most famous works of the great tragedians: Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Euri-pides’ Phoenissae.21 In the tragic setting, Thebes functions not only as the setting of these events, but also serves as the “anti-Athens” (Zeitlin, 145): “Events in Thebes and the characters who en-act them both fascinate and repel the Athenian audience, finally instructing the spectators as to how their city might refrain from imitating the other’s negative example” (Zeitlin, 145). When Propertius invokes the Seven, I believe, he is calling upon Thebes in a similar fashion. Rome is by no means identical to Athens, but Thebes serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of civic collapse nevertheless. Rome, although damaged by the civil wars, survived them; Thebes did not. While the entire narrative tradition surrounding the epic is rich in themes of death and grief,
20 Herodotus tells us that there was an Epigonoi epic dating back to the time of the Iliad and Odyssey, and we see references to the Epigoni in the Iliad and the Odyssey (Il. 4.405-410, Od. 15.248)
the tragedies specifically focuson the civic dangers of a warring state, dangers about which Propertius strives to warn his audience.
Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes is the third in his award-winning trilogy called the Oe-dipodea. The first two plays, Laius and Oedipus, about the previous two generations of ruling Thebans, do not survive. Seven, the earliest of the Thebaid tragedies, is likely the closest in con-tent to the missing epic. Aeschylus focuses on the youngking Eteocles and his defense of the ci-ty. When the city comes under siege from his brother’s forces, Eteocles assembles his own team of generals to defend the gates of the city. Although he knew that his brother’s army was attack-ing the city, he did not initially realize that his brother was leadattack-ing a contattack-ingent. Upon discover-ing this new information, Eteocles goes out to face his brother in battle. His force successfully wards off the attacking Argives, but many of the Theban defenders die as well. At the end of the play, a herald returns with the bodies of the two brothers, who killed each other simultaneously. Although Aristophanes in Frogs famously characterized the play as “full of Ares” (1021), no fighting occurs onstage, nor does the play glorify war and violence. Rather, it does the opposite. The play’s chorus of women (who together have more lines than any one character) illustrates the fear of the city’s more vulnerable population. At the very end of the play as well, Ismene and Antigone, the two remaining members of the royal house, lament the deaths of their brothers and the end of the men of the Theban line. In poem 2.34, while invoking the Seven in a poem
concerning his friend Lynceus’ Thebaid, Propertius even invokes Aeschylus by name (Aeschyleo coturno: 2.34.44), and in doing so he explicitly calls upon Aeschylus as a source for his poetics.
sui-cide after learning about her incest—is also alive and in the city. This play, unlike Aeschylus’ Seven, features actual dialogue from Polyneices, which allows the other side of the split family to lend its perspective. In one scene, Jocasta arranges a meeting between the quarreling brothers. Polyneices recounts the struggles of his exile, and is clearly entitled to his turn on the throne in accordance with their agreement. Eteocles, however, having had a taste of power, is too
consumed by greed to relinquish control. Jocasta cannot choose one of her two sons, and neither son can let the other win. When Propertius invokes this version in poem 2.9 (“Thebani media non sine matre duces” 2.9.50), he chooses specifically to use this scene. Frustrated and
desperate, the former queen reprimands both her sons: Eteocles for being too selfish to uphold his end of the deal, and Polyneices for marching on his home. After the brothers kill each other in single combat, Jocasta commits suicide and Oedipus goes into exile with Antigone.
Sophocles’ Antigone takes place after the events of the Thebaid, and is primarily concerned with how Thebes attempts to recover. Creon, Jocasta’s brother who was once regent after the death of King Laius, is now regent again. Newly appointed as ruler, Creon declares that Eteo-cles’ body be given honors and be buried, while Polyneices’ body is to be left unburied for vul-tures. Antigone, defying Creon’s orders, performs very basic rites for her brother by throwing a few fistfuls of dirt on his corpse. When Creon hears about this, he confronts Antigone, who firm-ly holds that she was acting justfirm-ly by burying her brother, as was customary of the deceased’s closest female relative. Enraged by her disobedience, the regentcommands that she be buried alive. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s betrothed, attempts to convince his father to spare her, but is unable to sway him. When Creon learns that he has violated the will of the gods by punishing Antigone for performing her ritual duties to her brother, he changes his mind and tries to retrieve her from the tomb. He finds that Antigone, rather than starve to death, has hanged herself. Haemon, grief-stricken, kills himself as well. Upon returning to the palace, Creon learns that his wife Eurydice heard about Haemon’s death, and committed suicide as well. Antigone fits very well into Propertius’ program for the Seven: it features bones and bodies a tremendous amount of familial grief, a focus on women, and a pair of lovers that he is able to tie into the erotic aspects of his elegies. When he calls upon the myth in 2.8, Propertius invokes the lovers, discussing the way Haemon mixed his bones with Antigone’s:
…non Antigonae tumulo Boeotius Haemon corruit ipse suo saucius ense latus,
et sua cum miserae permiscuit ossa puellae, qua sine Thebanam noluit ire domum?
(2.8.21-24)
Although his use of the myth in this reference on the surface appears to relate more to the speak-er’s desire to die and be buried with his betrothed, it evokes his program of women who die in the wake of the attack on Thebes. In the context of the period in which Propertius is writing, the character of Antigone is interesting because she expresses grief and split allegiances between her family and the state.
Although we do not have any Latin tragedies to tell us how much Propertius may have called upon those traditions directly, the references to the Greek plays seem fairly clear. Proper-tius likely would have been very familiar with at least Phoenissae, as it seems to have been an extremely popular teaching text for Roman youths (241). “The popularity of Phoenissae in edu-cation corresponds exactly to the strong favor it enjoyed among the cultivated public. Phoenissae is the text most represented among the literary papyri of Euripides, with about thirty witnesses from the third century BC to the seventh century AD” (Cribiore, 242). The other plays as well, especially Aeschylus’ Seven, were very popular in antiquity, and material evidence suggests that they were widely read and reproduced in Roman times.22 Propertius and his educated readers would have been very familiar with this family of myths, and that familiarity allows him to use the myths extensively. My final chapter analyzes that usage, and demonstrates how he is able to connect the myths with his own personal experience living during a siege, as well as his
relationship with civil war more generally.
Chapter 3
Propertius and the Seven Against Thebes:
Allusion and Politics in Propertius’ Poetry
In this chapter, I discuss the way in which Propertius uses the myth of the Seven, particu-larly the themes of familial grief, bones and unburied bodies, and civic unrest to tie to his poli-tical, personal, and generic agendas in his work.
At the outset of Book 2, Propertius describes his subject matter to his patron, Maecenas.23 In this recusatio, he outlines the various subjects he refuses to write about, because he has chos-en instead to write love poetry:
non ego Titanas canerem, non Ossan Olympo
impositam, ut caeli Pelion esset iter, 20 nec veteres Thebas, nec Pergama nomen Homeri,
Xersis et imperio bina coisse vada,
regnave prima Remi aut animos Carthaginia altae, Cimbrorumque minas et bene facta Mari:
bellaque resque tui memorarem Caesaris, et tu 25
Caesare sub magno cura secunda fores. nam quotiens Mutinam aut civilia busta Philippos
aut canerem Siculae classica bella fugae, eversosque focos antiquae gentis Etruscae,
et Ptolemaeei litora capta Phari, 30
aut canerem Aegyptum et Nilum, cum attractus in urbem septem captivis debilis ibat aquis,
aut regum auratis circumdata colla catenis Actiaque in Sacra currere rostra Via
te mea Musa illis contexteret armis 35
et sumpta et posita pace caput (2.1.19-36).
…I’d not sing Titans; Ossa on Olympus, with Pelion a road to Heaven; or ancient Thebes; or Troy that made Homer’s name; or split seas meeting at Xerxes’s order; Remus’s first kingdom, or the spirit of proud Carthage, or the German threat and Marius’s service. I’d remember the wars of your Caesar, his doings, and you, un-der mighty Caesar, my next concern.
As often as I sang Mutina; Philippi, the citizens graveyard; the sea-fights in that Sicilian rout; the ruined Etruscan fires of the former race; Ptolemy’s Pharos, its captive shore; or sang of Egypt and Nile, when crippled, in mourning, he ran through the city, with seven imprisoned streams; or the necks of kings hung round with golden chains; or Actium’s prows on the Sacred Way; my Muse would al-ways weave you into those wars, mind loyal at making or breaking peace.24
Here Propertius catalogues major conflicts of mythology and history, beginning with the Greek tradition, moving forward chronologically from the cosmogony and the establishment of the power of the gods (19-20), to mortal mythical topics (23), and then to Greek history (24). He then begins in Roman legend (25), then moving through Roman history (25-36). Curiously, the subject matter that most interests Propertius falls in its correct place in the literary timeline, that is, relatively recent Roman historical events. These events too he lists chronologically, culmin-ating with a discomfiting characterization of Augustus’ rise to power.
This recusatio is twofold: the speaker first spurns epic, leaving behind the “good Roman genre” that Maecenas—acting as a sort of proxy for Augustus—would prefer that he write, and
instead writing elegy (a less appealing genre to his patron and Augustus for several reasons).25 In the second part, the speaker adds that if he were to write epics, he would not write about the mythical, legendary, or glorious historical topics that have been written about before, subjects considered well-established or acceptable subjects of epic. Instead, he would write about the re-cent civil wars and about Augustus, from whom he distances himself, referring to him as “Mae-cenas’ Caesar” (2.1.25). Propertius invokes Caesar, and his supposed triumphs in a shockingly negative light, suggesting that his characterization of Augustus and the civil wars will be a tale not of Augustus’ triumph over the traitorous forces of Mark Antony, but instead of the pain that Augustus wrought inside and outside of Italy, including the destruction of his own family line (2.1.29).
Although the speaker claims that such events would be the topics of a hypothetical Pro-pertian epic that he refuses to write, he nevertheless invokes the themes of civil strife and Caes-ar’s actions in the recent civil war several times, especially in book 2.26 Similarly, despite its reg-ular claims to reject the mythical subject matter of epic, this corpus abounds with allusions to heroic myth. Rather than casually dismissing Thebes as a subject of his own poetry, then, Prop-ertius demonstrates a particular interest in the myth of the Seven throughout his corpus.27
Before Propertius, we have no record of the myth of the Seven Against Thebes28 appear-ing in the works of the major extant Latin poets.29 The myth is also absent from the works of Callimachus, whom Propertius claims as his Greek model (Callimachus Romanus,4.1.64). The
25 Stahl 1985: 139-72.
261.21, 1.22, 2.1, 2.15, 2.16, 2.34, 3.11, 4.1, 4.4, 4.6.
27 1.7.1-2; 1.9; 1.15.15, 21; 2.1.21; 2.8.21; 2.9.50; 2.16.29; 2.34.37-44; 3.5.41 3.13
apparent lack of prior attestation of this myth makes Propertius’ frequent use of it all the more striking: he invokes the Seven in ten separate poems (sometimes more than once, as in 1.15)— 1.7.1-2; 1.9; 1.15.15, 21; 2.1.21; 2.8.21; 2.9.50; 2.16.29; 2.34.37-44; 3.5.41 3.13. This number might merely reflect Propertius’ inclination to include esoteric Greek myths, in the fashion of the neoterics, but I argue, instead, that the cultural backdrop of the period, along with the poet’s at-tention to civil conflict throughout his corpus, makes his interest in the Seven significant. Also, he invokes the Seven at times that suggest that his fixation on this myth is thematically signifi-cant. For example, in poems 1.7 and 1.9, the speaker’s friend Ponticus is preparing to write an epic about the Seven. Joseph Farrell suggests that Propertius’ interest in the Seven in this context reflects the speaker’s prediction of poetic mediocrity for Ponticus (just as Antimachus, the author of an earlier Thebaid was second-rate compared to Homer), but does not note that the actual in-vocation of Antimachus applies not to Ponticus but to the second poet who is writing an epic, namely Lynceus in poem 2.34.30 Although Antimachus comes up short compared to Homer in his genre, the same cannot be said about the tragedians—for whose work the phrase armaque fraternae tristia militiae (1.7.2) is equally applicable—in theirs. The myth’s prominent role in book 2, especially when Propertius is discussing civil war, must be taken into account when dis-cussing Propertius’ interaction with its tradition.
Propertius uses the myth of the Seven to mark the beginning and end of his poetic book that is most focused on the theme of civil war, book 2. In this book hespecifically invokes each of the poet’s works concerning the Seven to underscore his deep interaction with the corpus. The references to Adrastus, Capaneus, and Amphiaraus in poem 2.34 are certainly specific to
Aeschylus’ tragedy, as is evident when he refers to the playwright by name at 2.34.41. In 2.8, his
description of Haemon mixing his bones with Antigone’s evokes Sophocles, and his description of the Theban princes fighting with their mother torn between them in 2.9 evokes Euripides. Ovid, a slightly youngercontemporary of Propertius, later calls upon this myth to an even greater extent, possibly influenced by Propertius, but without a coherent program.31
Their sharedinterest is natural: the narrative of a sovereign dying without having estab-lished his successor, leaving multiple heirs to fight over his kingdom, is germane to the political landscape of Augustan Rome. The dramatis personae of the tragedy facilitate seamless drifting between the wider themes of elegy and a distinctly Propertian invocation of political strife, en-abling him to call upon both simultaneously. Brian Breed notes the connection between the Seven and civil war in book 2, but argues that the themes of civil conflict serve as a model for elegiac rivalry rather than a vehicle for considering contemporary politics, because civil war properly falls under the scope of epic (Breed 2010: 232-257). In my view, this argument dras-tically underestimates the amount of reflection on civil war throughout the Propertian corpus.
Unburied bones and unburied bodies, associated with civil war, are a recurring theme in the corpus, and serve as disturbing reminders of the deaths of fellow Romans. While the poet’s fixation with death and bones is often used in an erotic context,32 when he uses them in the light of civil war, the concerns of souls that cannot rest and of not being able to offer one’s dead a proper burial—a theme common in epic, but previously untapped in extant elegy—come to the surface. In poem 1.22, Propertius mentions the unburied bones and limbs from the war in Umbria: “tu proiecta mei perpessa es membra propinqui | tu nullo miseri contegis ossa solo” (7-8). In 2.15, he invokes the image of unburied bones again when recalling the battle of Actium,
31 Ars 3.13, 3.21; Met. 6.93, 9.404; Tristia 4.3.63 and 64, 5.5.54; Fasti 1.491, 2.43, 6.433; Heroides 9.155; Ibis 350, 428, 561 et al.
and the bones of citizens being tossed about in the sea (2.15.44: nec nostra Actiacum verteret ossa mare), and indirectly does so again 2.16, where he mentions that Antony’s soldiers will soon become the bones to which he hadpreviously referred (2.16.37-38: …complevitinani | Actia damnatis aequora militibus). In these poems, Propertius demonstrates his discomfort with the unburied bodies of Roman citizens: not only do their bodies mean that their souls cannot rest in peace, but, in another sense, also mean that the vestiges of the civil war did not go away. In her recent article, Reitz-Joosse even refers to the Actian Sea as a “restless and unmarked mass grave” that “contains the bones of every anonymous Roman Everyman” (290). Reitz-Joosse holds that Propertius characterizes the Actian Sea as a monument to the battle—but, I argue, Propertius does not stop there. The body of every unburied soldier is a reminder of the civil war, and in that way, a small monument.33
He also uses bones to invoke women in civil wars: in poem 1.21, the speaker Gallus tells the listener, his brother-in-law and fellow warrior, to let his sister know that the bones strewn along the Etruscan hillside are his (1.21.9-10).34 In 2.8, Propertius doubly invokes the bones after the war on Thebes through Antigone and Haemon, stating that Haemon mingled his bones with Antigone’s (2.8.23). Haemon’s mingling his bones with Antigone’s aligns with Propertius’ erotic characterization of lovers’ deaths, but it also reminds the reader that Antigone had been killed for performing a funerary ritual over the body of her own brother after a civil war. In both poems, Propertius invokes the image of a female family member visiting the site of the death of a male family member after a civil war in order to perform last rites on his body.35
33 In poem 3.7, an elegy to the poet’s recently deceased friend Paetus, who died at sea, although not in a battle. The poet laments that he will not receive a proper burial because his body is lost: “et mater non iusta piae dare debita terrae | nec pote cognatos inter humare rogos” (3.7.9-10). 34 Note my reading of “Acca” in poem 1.21.
Returning to poem 2.1: the theme of the civil war continues to loom in the background, manifesting itself in the speaker’s characterization of the events of Augustus’ rise to power. Pro-pertius mentions Philippi and Mutina (27), the Perusine War (29), then proceeds into a lengthier description of the subjugation of Egypt and the eventual end of the war (30-34). This character-ization does not offer a triumphant image of the new Roman Empire and its new sovereign. In-stead, Propertius discusses the events by describing the remnants they left behind: civilian tombs (27), overturned hearths (29), and Actian prows (34)—all of them physical reminders of the deaths of Romans because of internecine strife. These public reminders of the deaths of fellow citizens play a similar role to the role of the poet’s thematic use of Roman bones. Just as the un-buried bones are a constant reminder of the very recent civil war, physical monuments, such as the tombs and the prows, also memorialize the deaths of the friends and family of many Romans. While monuments are built and triumphs held in order to commemorate victories, when they celebrate the defeat of fellow Romans, those same monuments become also constant reminders of defeat. Propertius expresses a connection to the people defeated in the wars, and depicts Rome as both having been beaten up by her own triumphs and—in the fashion of an Antigone or Acca —performing the rituals of grief over her own lost citizens (2.15.45-6).
his main influences at the time of the Perusine War were the women around him, especially his mother. Similar to the war on Thebes, the Perusine War ended in a siege on Perusia, as Proper-tius was certainly a child too small to participate in the defense of the city at this time, his expe-rience of the war was likely one spent watching the women around him react to the events of the battle. This viewpoint, although complicated by the fact that he would have been surrounded by the action while also being a spectator to it, is similar to the experience of the audiences of the tragedies, especially Phoenissae. The young Propertius would have been be sheltered from the direct assault on the city, and therefore would not have witnessed the action firsthand, but he al-most certainly would have heard reports from the battlefronts.
In poem 4.1, the astrologer Horos alludes to the death of Propertius’ father and the poet’s assuming the toga of manhood when he was young (4.1.132). The inference that Propertius’ fa-ther died in the war is very strong. The absence of his fafa-ther would mean that his primary memo-ries and perspectives on the war came through largely female influences. We can assume that after the Perusine War, the male population of the region had been significantly diminished, like the French “Lost Generation” after World War I. Throughout his poetry, Propertius explores the theme of diminished houses and the grief of women through the Seven.
discovering her incest with Oedipus in other versions. It makes sense, however, that Propertius would call upon this play, because it shows a mother divided between her two sons, unable to choose a side because she loves them equally. Unlike the American civil war, a natural reference point for American readers, the Roman civil wars were not structured by geography. Although there are stories of brothers fighting brothers during the American civil war, this phenomenon would have been much more common in the Roman civil wars of the first century. Catullus fa-mously referred to Caesar and Pompey to as socer and gener to highlight their familial relation-ship (29.24; see also Aeneid 6.825ff). Octavian and Antony, despite being bitter rivals, were co-heirs and therefore surrogate brothers, and later, with the marriage of Octavia to Anthony, be-came brothers-in-law. Similarly, Eteocles and Polynices fought for control of Thebes with their mother in the middle, who then watched her two sons kill each other. Jocasta stayed neutral, lost both sons in the war, and then committed suicide because of her grief.
This allusion is also important because it looks to the end of the family line. The young Propertius likely watched many women grapple with the deaths of their male relatives, and with seeing the end of their family lines. At the end of poem 2.7, Propertius seems unconcerned with the end of his own line, if he cannot be with Cynthia (hic erit et patrio nomine pluris amor, 2.7.20),36 but in both 2.1.29 (eversosque focos antiquae gentis Etruscae) and 2.9, the destruction of the ancestral line seems to be deeply troubling. This difference in opinion is largely determin-ed by their differing contexts. In 2.7, Propertius states that he would rather cut off his family line than not be with Cynthia. Ending his family line this way would be an act of political rebellion, one that Propertius would bring about on his own terms. His insinuation that Caesar wants more legitimate Roman children to use as soldiers is also worth noting (nullus de nostro sanguine
les erit. 2.7.14) as it demonstrates that Propertius’ opposition to Augustus legislation lies not on-ly in his desire to remain with Cynthia, but also in his stance that he will in no way help August-us wage more wars, civil or otherwise. Conversely, the family lines of Etruria, or of Thebes, were cut short by civil war. The members of these families did not choose to stop having child-ren—the male members of the line were killed in civil strife. The Seven Against Thebes, Anti-gone, and Phoenissae all end with female family members left to mourn dead male relatives, with their city facing destruction because the next generation of leaders is dead. Thus, I argue, Propertius’ concern with civil war does not focus primarily on anti-Augustan politics. Instead, he shares in the grief of those who lost their homes because of the destructive nature of civil war.
Even when using the women in the Seven to call upon more traditional elegiac themes, the Theban saga allows Propertius to evoke the themes of greed and loyalty to one’s partner in the larger context of civil war. In 2.16 and 3.13, the poet calls upon Eriphyle as an example of a woman whose ability to be swayed by gifts brought about destruction. In 2.16, the speaker as-serts that gifts made her and Creusa37 miserable (“aspice quid donis Eriphyla invenit amari | arserit et quantis nupta Creusa malis,” 2.16.29). Unlike Creusa’s gifts, it was not the physical necklace Eriphyle accepted that brought about her demise. Instead, it was the fact that she con-vinced her husband to join the assault on Thebes, thus dooming him. Eriphyle’s mistake does not stop at accepting a gift: she becomes the most active female supporter of the civil war. Propertius contrasts her with Evadne, the wife of Capaneus, who jumped onto her husband’s funeral pyre after he died in the attack on Thebes. Propertius represents her as a paragon of female excellence alongside Penelope (3.13.24). In an earlier poem, he refers to her as the “fame of Argive
chastity” (Argivae fama pudicitiae, 1.15.22), and implicitly invokes Eriphyle in the next line,
when he uses the myth of her daughter-in-law family taking vengeance on her son.38 (Alphesiboea suos ulta est pro coniuge fratres 1.15.15).
The poet seems particularly interested in these two women: the only time he names any of the chieftains in the Seven, two of the three are the husbands of these women (2.34.39-40). Even in the single other poem where Propertius mentions a male character from this myth with-out a female character, he implicitly alludes to Eriphyle by invoking the furies following Alc-maeon after his mother’s murder (aut Alcmaeoniae furiae aut ieiunia Phinei, 3.5.41). He uses these two women as examples of “the good wife” and “the bad wife,” but if we are to believe that the only reason that Eriphyle is “the bad wife” is entirely because she gave into her greed, then we will be ignoring the larger context of these allusions. We have no version of the myth where Evadne is offered a bribe to betray Capaneus, so Evadne cannot be characterized as the antithesis of Eriphyle on account of her lack of greed. She can, however, be described as superior to Eriphyle in terms of loyalty more generally, because although Eriphyle earned her infamy by ensuring her husband’s death at Thebes, Evadne gained her glory through her husband’s death. It is also worth noting that Evadne gains praise for having carried out her grieving to such a great extent that she was willing to sacrifice herself during her husband’s funeral. Hence she fits into Propertius’ broader trend of using women from this myth to demonstrate women grieving for their lost male family members.
As I hope is evident by now, civil wars, especially the civil wars of the previous century, appear prominently throughout Propertius’ poetry.39 Curiously, in the passages that concern the
38 This version of the myth appears only in Propertius. Usually her brothers are the ones who take revenge on her behalf after Alcmaeon marries Callirhoë. This may speak to Propertius’ tendency to make the wo-men of this myth hismain focus. For more, see Richardson p. 187.
Ro-civil wars, the poet’s trademark anger, established in poem 1.1 and found throughout the corpus, is absent. Grief takes its place. In the sphragis poem, 1.22, Propertius identifies himself as com-ing from Umbria and invokes the Perusine War, which affected him profoundly. After loscom-ing close relatives and, no doubt, family friends, he further witnessed the confiscation of his ancest-ral lands by Octavian. An early life marked by personal experience of civil war played a large role in shaping Propertius’ upbringing. Perhaps he views the conflict in the Theban tragedies as somewhat analogous to the one in Rome, and uses the narratives surrounding the war of the Seven and its aftermath as cautionary tales for the Roman people.
These references to Thebes and its civil wars often appear near references to Actium and other past civil conflicts in Rome, and are often characterized similarly.40 When he invokes the theme of civil wars, Propertius’ tone when reflecting on civil conflict is overwhelmingly sorrow-ful. Considering that Propertius depicts his eponymous speaker as characteristically irate,41 there is surprisingly never any anger about the civil war. One might argue that poem 2.7 is an except-ion to this pattern, but although it shows anger directed at Augustus, it is not concerned with his past actions in the civil war. Instead, his issue is Augustus’ legislation that would keep him from Cynthia.42 Breed argues that in this way, Augustus fills the role of an elegiac rival, as with the praetor figure in poems 1.8 and 2.16. I take a different approach. The response to Augustus’ le-gislation in 2.7 does not pertain to the resentment Propertius harbors against Augustus because of
man state was a horrifying and sudden development that had a scarring effect on all Romans, and Proper-tius was no exception.
40 2.1.21 and 25-34, 2.16.29 and 38, 2.34.37-44 and 61; cogor et aetatis tempora dura queri (1.7.8); “si Perusina tibi patriae sunt nota sepulcra | Italiae duris funera temporibus (1.22.4); et sua cum miserae per-miscuit ossa puellae (2.8.23); et quaecumque super dispersa invenerit ossa (1.21.9).
41 Anger is characteristic of the Propertian speaker, as initially established in 1.1, and evidenced at 1.25.28; 1.18.14; 2.4.4; 2.5.9, 13, 22, and 23; 2.15.19; 2.24a.13; 2.6.38; 3.25.10.
his actions during the civil war. Instead of looking back at the atrocities Augustus brought about during the war with Mark Antony, he is looking forward at the vision of Rome that Augustus is trying to bring to fruition through unjust policies. Propertius’ rebellion against the Augustan re-gime is less about a troubling history of Augustan brutality: he shows anger in response to a pos-sible future of Augustan social tyranny.
Poem 2.15, the poem most easily interpreted as epitomizing Propertius’ “make love, not war” attitude, may help. Upon first glance, it is easy to interpret as an example of elegiac-erotic dissent. It begins with Propertius recounting an epic night of passion with Cynthia (quantaque sublato lumine rixa fuit, 2.15.4), and ends with an exhortation of Cynthia to more amorous en-counters (“tu modo dum lucet fructum ne desere vitae | omnia si dederis oscula pauca dabis,” 2.15.49-50). This exhortation, however, follows a digression where Propertius wonders how the world would be if everyone behaved as he did:
qualem si cuncti cuperent decurrere vitam et pressi multo membra iacere mero, non ferrum crudele neque esset bellica navis, nec nostra Actiacum verteret ossa mare,
nec totiens propriis circum oppugnata triumphis 45 lassa foret crines solvere Roma suos.
haec certe merito poterunt laudare minores:
laeserunt nullos pocula nostra deos (2.15.41-48).
If all men longed to pass their lives like this, and lay here, bodies held by draughts of wine, there’d be no vicious swords, or ships of war, nor would our bones be tossed in Actium’s deep, nor would Rome racked so often by rounds of private quarrels, be weary and grieving with loosened hair. This, at least, those who come after us should rightly praise: our cups of wine offended none of the gods.
civil wars: the behavior that he says will bring an end to the wars is not love or being with one’s mistress—it is partaking in a drinking party. Thus Propertius is not expressing a general pacifist sentiment or private amorous ethic. His vocabulary specifies that he is talking about the end of civil wars (nostra; propriis; suos; 2.15.44; 45; 46). He also calls onRomans to find meaning in living at peace, rather than inmilitary victories over their own people (47-48). This proposed shift in values amounts to a scathing indictment against the instigators of the civil war, without specifying Augustus in any way.
Propertius’ critiques of civil war are thus not a mere manifestation of an anti-Augustan political agenda in his poetry. Although his poems contain the occasional jab directed at Augus-tus, and his repeated negative portrayal of civil war does implicate AugusAugus-tus, his fixation with civil war is greater and more significant.43 It is a constant source of pain for the poet. Propertius may have come from a region of Italy that was loyal to Antony during the civil war, but he never expresses any pro-Antonian sentiments, and in 2.16 he directly calls out Antony as responsible for the deaths of his own men at Actium (2.16.37-38).44 Jasper Griffin (1986) proposes that An-tony was the model of the elegiac amator. The similarities between Antony and the amator, however, extend only as far—in the most generous of readings—as his relationship with Cleo-patra. Although Antony’s affairs left him open to critiques from his contemporaries, and have influenced our modern image of him, he was first and foremost a political leader. At the time of the civil war, hismilitary record and political influence dwarfed Octavian’s.
The critiques that Antony was primarily concerned with sexual exploits, dating back to Cicero in the 40s BCE, are exaggerations of his character traits designed to undercut his position
43 Examples of oblique jabs include tui… Caesaris (2.1.25); magnus Caesar in armis (2.7.5); and the supposed financial motive Propertius ascribes to the military expedition of poem 3.4: magna, viri, merces (3).
as the heir apparent to Caesar’s control over Rome. I argue that Propertius was aware of this stra-tegy, and that heholds Antony accountable for his role in the war. When Propertius was living through the civil wars, he would not have been old enough to choose a faction, only to see the damage it caused. Propertius had no assurance that Antony would have been a better ruler of Rome than Augustus was, and although Augustus (then Octavian) was responsible for the de-struction of Propertius’ home, Antony was also responsible for the deaths of his fellow Romans. Propertius is less interested in the “who” of the civil war than in the “what,” and in exploring his grief over the deaths in his family and the pain those deaths caused him and the people surround-ing him.
Grief characterizes every invocation of civil war throughout Propertius’ poetry. He does express resentment, but the resentment is always secondary to grief, and his resentment is not di-rected towards Augustus specifically. Rather, he focuseson civil war and its effects more gener-ally. His extensive exploration of his grief is fitting, as elegy is a self-declared genre of lament, thought to have its origins in Greek funeral mourning, and the elegists often used the false ety-mology “ἐ ἐ λέγειν” to speak to that effect.45 This grief is often used in an amatory context, “al-low[ing] the Roman love elegist to present himself as a man of constant sorrow” (James 2003: p.110) in order to persuade the puella to sleep with him. Propertius, however, taps into elegy’s original context, and uses the lament, now well-established as an amatory trope, to explore his feelings of grief for his relatives and his country.
Conclusion
Understanding Propertius’ unique and continuous programmatic use of the Seven is
critical to developing a more nuanced and complete understanding of the poet’s attitude on civil
war, Augustus, and the coming age in Rome. Propertius’ political agenda in writing his poetry
cannot be simply described as “anti-Augustus,” as is traditional in the scholarshipon his work. The myth of the Seven enables Propertius to explore his grief through his poetry, thereby
connecting his poetry to the elegiac tradition. Propertian scholarship’s anti-Augustan thesis is
inadequate to explain Propertius’ feelings about Augustus and the principate. Although negative
feelings about the civil war permeate the corpus, Propertius’ politics are subtler than a sheerly
anti-Augustan stance: rather than an attitude of resentment toward a possible monarch, his
politics on the civil war—as expressed through the myth of the Seven—focus on grief and loss
for himself and his whole country.
The overwhelming sadness that resounds through his characterization of the Seven
extends to his characterization of the recent civil wars. His personal connection to the events of
the civil wars, and his finding a text that resonates with him like the Seven make the tradition on
which Propertius draws especially important for understanding his poetry. Propertius’ use of
Thebes allows him to show his readers how he feels about his formative childhood
experiences, and to provide an example of the inevitable consequences of civil strife. He abhors
the destruction of cities and families. He does not want to see the women of Rome grieve over
their loved ones yet again. His issues with Augustus may be salient in his poetry, but they never
suggest that the wrong person won the civil wars, only that he has difficulties accepting a leader
what to make of a leader who brought so much pain to the Roman people, and he is continually
trying to grapple with the memory of Augustus’ brutality, while still enjoying the stability and
luxury that Augustus’ reign brings. He is aware of this dissonance. He knows that being a
member of Maecenas’ circle places him uncomfortably close to the leader with whom he takes
issue, and in Book 2, after being accepted into Maecenas’ circle, goes to great lengths to reckon
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