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Calpurnius Siculus and the Munus Neronis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

G. B. Townend
G. B. Townend
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

In a recent number of this Journal, Edward Champlin called in question the dating of the Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus, traditionally placed in the early years of Nero's reign. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the Neronian date fits the references in the poems much better than does Champlin's date in the reign of Severus Alexander, and that there is no valid reason for doubting it.

Some of the purely negative arguments may be dealt with briefly. When in 4.87 Calpurnius uses the phrase ‘facundo comitatus Apolline Caesar’, there is no need to take this as referring to the divine comes who becomes part of imperial propaganda in the third century (C., p. 96). Already in Nat. Deor. 2. 165–6 Cicero mentions Homer's attachment of various gods to great men as ‘discriminum et periculorum comites’; and in Rep. 2.44, ‘Fortuna comitata est’ Tarquin. For more specific activities, Propertius (4. 3. 16) makes Arethusa regret that she married ‘non comitante deo’; and this is brought into the realm of poetical composition in Prop. 3. 2. 13 and Ovid, Tr. 4. 1. 20, where the gods act as comites to the writers. This is precisely the context of Calpurnius' words, where Apollo's facundia is set beside the kingliness of Jupiter, as in Ecl. Eins. 1. 29–33, and provides poetic inspiration, just as Apollo does, ibid. 38, amplified in the following lines (39–42) with reference to Nero's poem on the Sack of Troy, and again in Apocol. 4, where there is a suggestion of Nero's identification with the god (‘ille mihi similis voltu similisque decore, nec cantu nec voce minor’). Nero was to exploit this idea much more as the reign proceeded, but Apollo's patronage of the poet-emperor was too firmly established at the beginning of the reign for any doubts to be raised.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 70 , November 1980 , pp. 166 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © G. B. Townend 1980. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 ‘The Life and Times of Calpurnius Siculus’, JRS LXVIII (1978), 95–110.

2 Most succinctly by A. Momigliano in CQ XXVIII (1944), 97–9. Other discussions by F. Skutsch in RE in, 1401–6; C. H. Keene in his edition (1887, repr. 1969), 2–14; R. Verdière in his edition of Calpurnius and related works (1954), 15–21, 23–42. Champlin's suggestion was put forward by Kraffert, H., Beiträge zur Kritik und Erklärung (1883), 151Google Scholar, which I have not been able to see.

3 cf. Ecl. Eins. 2. 38, ‘tuus iam regnat Apollo’.

4 As in Ovid, Pont. 1. 8. 73, ‘nullique obnoxia bello’.

5 As in the prefatory epistle to book 12, written from Bilbilis.

6 cf. Keene, op. cit. (n. 2), 12–13, Verdière, op. cit. (n. 2), 49–51.

7 cf. the commonplace in Tac., Ann. 13. 4. 1, ‘neque iuventam armis civilibus neque domesticis imbutam’. The more specific reference to the achievement of peace in Calp. 4. 146 (evidently written some time later than 1), ‘coeptamque, pater, ne desere pacem’, will fit in well with the success of Corbulo in Armenia in A.D. 58 (Tac., Ann. 13. 41). In the same year also occurred the revival of the apparently dead ficus Ruminalis in the comitium (ibid. 58), which Haupt, M., de carminibus Calpurnii et Nemesiani (1854), 23Google Scholar (followed by Keene, 4) took as explaining Calp. 4. III, ‘stupefacta regerminat arbos’. The phrase is basically commonplace, but stupefacta is puzzling without some topical reference. The apparent bad omen of the tree's withering may have required some such ingenious explanation as that it collapsed with excitement at the emperor's prowess. Verdière, 250, n. 423, is unhappy about the date, which would not tally with his own choice of 55 for the fourth Eclogue. He chooses to question the accuracy of Tacitus' report.

8 Dio 80. 20. 2, Herodian 5. 8. 8, SHA, Elag. 17. 1, with emphasis on the public display of the bodies.

9 There must be some connection with the language of Tiberius to Macro in Ann. 6. 46. 4, ‘occidentem ab eo deseri, orientem spectari’; but the picture is still curious, and contributes little or nothing to the sense of the whole passage. See Verdière, 230–40, for a variety of suggested interpretations, none convincing.

10 Suet., Aug. 7. 1. It can hardly be significant that Severus Alexander is stated to have kept divi among his Lares (SHA, Alex. 29. 2).

11 So, most conveniently, R. S. Rogers in TAPA LXXXIV (1953), 240.

12 e.g. Pliny, NH 2. 92; Suet., Cl. 46. 18

13 J. P. Postgate, CR XVI (1902), 38–40, effectively dealt with all these problems.

14 If the mosaic calendar from Thysdrus quoted by Champlin (103–4) can be held to indicate Alexander's birthday on 1 October, this supposed star may well be represented; but that is not a comet lasting for three or four weeks.

15 Ann. 12. 58. 1, with the note, ‘Iuliae stirpis auctorem Aeneam’; Suet., Nero 7. 2.

16 Ann. 12. 41. 6; Nero 7. 1.

17 For the contracted form in Silver Latin verse, cf. supplicis in Sen., Med. 1015, denaris in Mart.

18 Cited by Champlin, 100, n. 26. In the former passage, the presence of the word index in the previous line makes clear how the contest is visualized; and it is notorious that Paris was swayed primarily by the goddesses' speeches rather than by their actual beauty.

19 Alexander himself was of course not a Julian in any sense. His father was a Gessius, and he adopted the dynastic name of Aurelius.

20 References in SHA appear somewhat inconsistent. In Elag. 17. 8, the Colosseum is referred to as restored by that emperor; in Alex. 24. 3, funds are devoted to its restoration, along with the theatre, circus and stadium, which would appear to have needed only routine repairs; in Max. Balb. 1, 4, the Colosseum seems still to need attention in A.D. 238. Even if Alexander's contribution was limited to the upper gallery, such a structure would require nothing like the great timbers which made Nero's amphitheatre so famous. On the whole question, see Keene, 197–203.

21 Nerone nella storia aneddotica e nella leggenda (1923), 220–33.

22 Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. Lipsius, and Bonnet, (1891, repr. 1959), 230Google Scholar.

23 ibid. 163, with Greek version in exactly the same terms, 162.

24 Suet., Cal. 21.

25 Notorious though this disaster was (as indicated by Pascal), it is not surprising that Calpurnius says nothing of it, as not altogether auspicious, especially in what was supposed to be a bloodless munus (‘neminem occidit’, as Suetonius says).

26 Thus he specifically states (Ann. 15. 37. 1) that he will relate only a single example of the emperor's luxurious banquets, ‘ne saepius eadem prodigentia narranda sit’.

27 So Tac., Ann. 13. 42. 2–4.

28 His emphasis on unprecedented features of the games (as aristocratic performers were not, nor sea-fights) underlines the necessity for the building itself to be no less a novelty, as Nero's undoubtedly was. After the opening of the Colosseum in A.D. 80, all these things became commonplace.

29 Animals for show and pleasure in ancient Rome

30 Animals in Roman life and art (1975), 93–4, with 134, 145, 148–9, 200, 205.

31 Dio 66, 25. 2.

32 Banner HA Colloquium 1972/4, 82, with n. 15.

33 206, n. 591, ‘un tambour tournant autour d'un axe horizontal’.

34 de Bell. Pers. I. 24. 43.

35 RE IV. 156, reading τῆϛ Ιδέαϛ καθóλον and taking the adjective as describing the actual door. He also states that it was in the Hippodrome itself, evidently to fit in with the passage of Varro.

36 Le Sénat romain sous le règne d'Odoacre (1966), plates xxxxiii. 2, xxxiv–v. Examples of the same medallion, some bearing the legend REPARATIO MUNERIS FELICITER and dated on the authority of A. Alföldi (p. 22) to A.D. 425–9, are given by Alföldi himself, in Die Kontorniat-Medaillons (1976), I, 22, no. 77 (pl. 26. 10) and 139, no. 412 (pl. 173. 12, 174. 1–2); and there is a striking variant (p. 74, no. 222 = pl. 89. 7), showing the same ‘Drehgestell’ flanked by man and beast, plus a further man holding a lance and a curved amphitheatre-podium with five spectators sitting above it. None of these can be earlier than Theodosius, and none of the motifs appears to be traceable in any earlier artefact.

37 Not clearly identifiable, but evidently the same as the bear in the adjoining contorniate in plate xxxiii in Chastagnol, where the creature is directly attacking an armed man with no apparatus to hide behind: cf. Alföldi, pl. 26. 1–6, with 10.

38 All this expensive equipment will have been particularly suitable for the senators and equestrians, who were not engaged in serious fighting, and whose functions included varia harenae ministeria, such as Pliny's libitina.

39 Platner-Ashby, Topography, 9, echoing Platner's earlier statement in Topography and monuments of ancient Rome (1911), 332, and mentioning a fence a little way in front of the podium. For Lugli, the podium is only three metres high (Rome antica: il centro monumentale (1946), 328, 331) and the fence serves to prevent the beasts from catching hold with their claws of the metal bars which protect the spectators. The archaeological evidence for much of this detail is obscure, but accounts seem to agree in describing the lofty podium of the Colosseum, with its outworks, as safeguarding the spectators, with no mention of any sort of nets. There is no attempt to represent nets on coins or contorniates. However, Gebhard, E. R., Studies in the Antiquities of Stobi II (1975), 43–63,Google Scholar examines the evidence for protective nets erected in theatres adapted for venationes, perhaps not before the second century after Christ. Certainly traces of holes for posts and rings for guy-ropes are clear at Stobi (pp. 50–53). At Philippi Gebhard calculates that a net provided a total height of 3.70 m., ‘optimum height for protection against large cats’—she estimates the height of the podium in the Colosseum as 3.60 m. In general, it is far from clear how many of the demi-amphitheatres (e.g. Verulamium) were ever used for wild beast fights, rather than cock-fighting, the baiting of chained animals, gladiators, or fencing-displays between soldiers.

40 There is no reference to the amphitheatre in the later years of the reign; and the wooden structure made it an easy victim to the great fire, which also destroyed Taurus' stone amphitheatre (Dio 62. 18. 2). Pliny's reference is clearly to a structure no longer in existence.

41 The association of Nero with Mars seems without parallel. If this poem was written early in 58, it will be explained by the fact that Corbulo was just opening his first real campaign against Parthia (Tac., Ann. 13. 34. 2, ‘eius anni principio’), for which Nero was to claim all the credit (ibid. 41. 4).