Table Of ContentTHE CLOSURE OF SPACE IN
ROMAN POETICS
Th is ambitious book investigates a major yet underexplored nexus
of themes in Roman cultural history: the evolving tropes of enclos-
ure, retreat and compressed space within expanding, potentially
borderless empire. In Roman writers’ exploration of real and sym-
bolic enclosures – caves, corners, villas, bathhouses, the ‘prison’ of
the human body itself – we see the aesthetic, philosophical and pol-
itical intersecting in fascinating ways, as the machine of empire is
recast in tighter and tighter shapes. Victoria Rimell brings ideas and
methods from literary theory, cultural studies and philosophy to bear
on an extraordinary range of ancient texts rarely studied in juxtapos-
ition, from Horace’s Odes , Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s I bis , to Seneca’s
Letters , Statius’ A chilleid and Tacitus’ Annals . A series of epilogues
puts these texts in conceptual dialogue with our own contemporary
art world, and emphasises the role Rome’s imagination has played in
the history of Western thinking about space, security and dwelling.
VICTORIA RIMELL is Associate Professor of Latin Language and
Literature at Sapienza Universit à di Roma. Th e author of three pre-
vious books with Cambridge – P etronius and the Anatomy of Fiction
(2002); O vid’s Lovers: Desire, Diff erence and the Poetic Imagination
(2006) and Martial’s Rome: Empire and the Ideology of Epigram
(2008) – she has published many articles on Latin literature and
Roman culture.
THE W. B. STANFORD MEMORIAL LECTURES
Th is lecture series was established by public subscription, to honour the memory
of William Bedell Stanford, Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin,
from 1940 to 1980, and Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1982 to
1984.
THE CLOSURE OF SPACE
IN ROMAN POETICS
Empire’s Inward Turn
VICTORIA RIMELL
University Printing House, Cambridge CB 2 8 BS , United Kingdom
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107079267
© Victoria Rimell 2015
Th is 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 2015
Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Rimell, Victoria.
Th e closure of space in Roman poetics : empire’s inward turn / Victoria Rimell.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-07926-7 (hardback)
1. Latin poetry–History and criticism. 2. Space (Architecture) in literature.
3. Space perception in literature. 4. Literature and society–Rome. I. Title.
PA 6047. R 64 2015
871′.0109–dc23
2014049355
ISBN 978-1-107-07926-7 Hardback
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.
Nella lotta perpetua tra l’aperto
e il chiuso, tra paesaggi vasti
e il ristagno cupo, liberare
l’energia di ogni creatura –
esiste pi ú maestosa
e insostenibile avventura?
Franco Marcoaldi, La Trappola
Contents
List of fi gures page i x
Acknowledgements x
Note on texts, translations and abbreviations xi
Introduction: interior designs 1
1 Empire without end: opening, expansion, enclosure 28
condere in Virgil’s Aeneid 39
Excavating foundation myths: from A eneid 1 to Tacitus Annals 16 62
Digging the dirt: Suetonius’ Nero 72
Epilogue: Roman Ond á k: the underground art scene 77
2 All four corners of the world: Horace’s enclaves 82
Lyric’s realm: the angulus 82
Th e violence of the edge: beyond lyric 101
Epilogue: Anish Kapoor’s dirty corners 106
3 Roman philosophy and the house of being: Seneca’s Letters 113
Codes of confi nement: from corners to circles 114
Th e refuge-cum-den: tight spots 125
Shaking out metaphor: (se) excutere 137
Epilogue: Rachel Whiteread’s casts: sculpture inside out 147
4 Blood, sweat and fears in the Roman baths 157
Singing in the bath: Seneca Epistles 56 163
Th e writing on the stall: Scipio’s shower 178
Martial 6.42 and Statius Silvae 1.5: inside Etruscus’ baths 198
Vitruvius’ baths: the height of sophistication 214
Epilogue: Jean-Philippe Toussaint’sB athroom 223
5 Imperial enclosure, epic spectacle 231
Launching the Aeneid : Georgics 1–4 232
Lucan’s prisons: empire’s small worlds 240
vii
viii Contents
Watch the mountain shrink: Statius’ A chilleid 252
Epilogue: David Blaine’s magic: the hero enclosed 270
6 Th e homeless problem: exile, entrapment, desire 276
Home from Rome 277
Tristia 2 and the illusion of security 287
Inside the burning bull: Tristia 3.11 295
Ibis : exploding enclosure, unmaking elegy 307
Epilogue: Adrian Paci: H ome to Go 318
Bibliography 323
Index locorum 348
Subject index 355
Figures
1 Roman Ond á k, Time Capsule , 2011. Courtesy of the artist and
gb agency, Paris. Photo: Stuart Whipps. page 79
2 Anish Kapoor, Shooting into the Corner , 2008–9 (mixed media
installation), MAK, Vienna 2009. © Anish Kapoor. All Rights
Reserved, DACS 2014. Photo: Nic Tenwiggenhorn. 110
3 Rachel Whiteread, House , 1993. Courtesy of the artist and
Artangel. Photo: Stephen White. 152
4 Adrian Paci, Home to Go , 2001. Plaster, marble, dust, tiles, rope.
Courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto, Milan. 320
ix
Acknowledgements
Th is book has taken shape over many years, and could not have been written
outside of a community of scholars, students and friends who have – know-
ingly or unknowingly – inspired and energized me all the way. Th e project
grew out of the W. B. Stanford Memorial Lectures I gave at Trinity College
Dublin in 2009, and I am immensely grateful to my colleagues at TCD
and NUI Maynooth (especially Anna Chahoud, Monica Gale and David
Scourfi eld) for inviting and welcoming me, and to the students who came
to drinks and asked me questions afterwards. I’d especially like to thank
those brilliant people who read bits of the manuscript and/or off ered advice,
thoughts, bibliography, conversation and stimulus: (in alphabetical order)
Alessandro Barchiesi, Shadi Bartsch, Francesca Romana Berno, Shane Butler,
Joy Connolly, Andrea Cucchiarelli, Basil Dufallo, William Fitzgerald, Richard
Fletcher, Nadia Fusini, Nick Geller, Emily Gowers, Philip Hardie, Jane Clare
Jones, James Ker, Alice K ö nig, Mich è le Lowrie and Diana Spencer. Th anks
also to my students at Sapienza University of Rome, who helped me thrash
out Seneca, Statius and Martial in particular, and to the colleagues and gradu-
ate students who heard and responded to papers given at the universities of
Berlin, Chicago, Durham, London, Rome, St Andrews, Vienna and at Venice
International University. Special thanks to my husband, Alessandro Schiesaro,
for support, entertainment and an eagle eye towards the end; to John
Henderson, the Fastest Reader in the West, whose generosity and spark are a
model to us all; and to the anonymous readers at Cambridge University Press,
who went beyond the call of duty and helped me enormously – thank you.
I am very grateful to Franco Marcoaldi for letting me reprint his poem; to the
editors of C lassical Philology and to Winter Press, for permission to reuse por-
tions of two articles which appear in the bibliography as Rimell ( 2013a ) and
( 2013b ); and to Anish Kapoor, Roman Ond á k, Adrian Paci and Artangel for
permission to use images of their work free of charge. Finally, I would like to
thank Michael Sharp, Fleur Jones, Kim Richardson and Rob Wilkinson for
their precision, guidance and hard work.
x
