Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars

348 Pages·2010·2.74 MB·English

by  Brian Breed

Citizens of Discord
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Citizens of Discord
Rome and Its Civil Wars
Edited by
brian w. breed
cynthia damon
andreola rossi
1
2 010
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Citizens of discord : Rome and its civil wars / edited by Brian W. Breed, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola
Rossi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–538957–9
1. Rome—History—Mithridatic Wars, 88–63b.c . 2. Rome—History—Civil War,
49–45b.c . 3. Rome—History—Civil War, 43–31b.c . 4. Rome—History—Civil War, 68–69.
5. Rome—History—Mithridatic Wars, 88–63b.c .—Historiography. 6. Rome—History—Civil War,
49–45b.c .—Historiography. 7. Rome—History—Civil War, 43–31b.c .—Historiography.
8. Rome—History—Civil War, 68–69—Historiography. 9. Rome—History—Mithridatic Wars,
88–63b.c .—Literature and the war. 10. Rome—History—Civil War, 49–45b.c .—Literature and
the war. 11. Rome—History—Civil War, 43–31b.c .—Literature and the war.
12. Rome—History—Civil War, 68–69—Literature and the war. I. Breed, Brian W.
II. Damon, Cynthia, 1957- III. Rossi, Andreola, 1963-
D G254.2.C572010
937’.05—dc22 2009042641
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Preface
The essays included in this volume all derive from a conference held at
Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst in
November 2007. We are grateful for the support of the departments of
classics of UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College, and Mt.
Holyoke College; the Amherst College Lecture Fund and Faculty Research
Awards Program; Joel Martin and Lee Edwards, present and former deans
of humanities and fi ne arts, UMass Amherst; Paul Kostecki, vice provost
for research, UMass Amherst; and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation.
Geoff Sumi, Elizabeth Keitel, Richard Tarrant, and Chris Kraus served as
respondents at the conference and subsequently shared their thoughts and
questions with the contributors, for which generous service we thank
them. In organizing the conference and preparing this volume we have
benefi ted from the help of many, including Rex Wallace, Becky Sinos,
Thalia Pandiri, Geoff Sumi, Lisa Marie Smith, Sarah Upton, Laurie Moran,
Michelle Barron, Andrew Carroll, Patrick McGrath, Joanna Rifkin,
Whitney Wade, Kathleen Coleman, John Bodel, and Corey Brennan. Jen
Gerrish contributed editorial assistance. The work has been characterized
always by concordia .
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Contents
Contributors, xi
Introduction, 3
Brian W. Breed, Cynthia Damon, and Andreola Rossi
part i Beginnings, Endings
1. The Two-Headed State: How Romans Explained Civil War,2 5
T. P. Wiseman
2. Word at War: The Prequel, 4 5
William W. Batstone
3. Rome’s First Civil War and the Fragility of Republican
Political Culture, 73
Harriet I. Flower
4. Civil War? What Civil War? Usurpers in theH istoria Augusta, 87
Cam Grey
viii contents
part ii Cycles
5. “Learning from that violent schoolmaster”: Thucydidean Intertextuality and
Some Greek Views of Roman Civil War, 105
Christopher Pelling
6. Tarda Moles Civilis Belli : The Weight of the Past in
Tacitus’ H istories, 119
Rhiannon Ash
7. Aeacidae Pyrrhi : Patterns of Myth and History in Aeneid1–6,133
David Quint
8. Ab Urbe Condita : Roman History on the Shield of Aeneas,1 45
Andreola Rossi
part iii Aftermath
9. Creating a Grand Coalition of True Roman Citizens:
On Caesar’s Political Strategy in the Civil War, 159
Kurt A. Raafl aub
10. Spurius Maelius: Dictatorship and theH omo Sacer, 171
M ichèle Lowrie
11. Representations and Re-presentations of the Battle of Actium, 1 87
Barbara Kellum
12. Discordia Fratrum : Aspects of Lucan’s Conception of Civil War,2 07
Elaine Fantham
part iv Afterlife
13. “Dionysiac Poetics” and the Memory of Civil War in
Horace’s Cleopatra Ode, 223
A ndrew Feldherr
14. Propertius on Not Writing about Civil Wars, 233
Brian W. Breed
15. “Caesar grabs my pen”: Writing Civil War under Tiberius, 2 49
Alain M. Gowing
contents ix
16. Intestinum Scelus : Preemptive Execution in Tacitus’A nnals, 261
Cynthia Damon
17. Doing the Numbers: The Roman Mathematics of Civil War in Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra, 273
Denis Feeney
18. “My brother got killed in the war”: Internecine Intertextuality,2 93
Richard Thomas
Abbreviations, 309
Bibliography, 311
I ndex, 3 29