![]() Metamorphoses 15 develops this rivalry between poetic and temporal power, ultimately envisioning the poet’s apotheosis in terms that trump the deifications of Caesar (745–851) and Augustus (861–70):Īnd now I’ve completed my work, which neither Jupiter’s wrath, nor fire nor sword can erase, nor gnawing old age. Footnote 7 Propertius depicts himself as a triumphing general leading a band of imitators ( 3.1), while Ovid, once part of that band, imagines himself first triumphed over by Love in Amores 1.2, triumphant himself at Amores 2.12, and finally surpassing even kings ( cedant carminibus reges regumque triumphi, “let kings and royal triumphs yield to songs,” Am. Horace declares he has built a monument “more lasting than bronze” ( exegi monumentum aere perennius, Odes 3.30.1) and crowns himself with a triumphal laurel (16) in anointing himself a princeps of poetry (13). Footnote 6 The poet envisions himself returning home from Greece (10–11) to lead the Muses in procession, clothed in the victor’s purple (17) presiding over sacrifices and victory games (19–25) and founding a marble temple to Caesar often read as an emblem of the Aeneid ( 16 26–39). Footnote 5 In Georgics 3, Vergil describes his quest for poetic glory (8–9) in terms that evoked or anticipated Octavian’s triumph after Actium. This analogy takes striking form in the poets’ representation of themselves as triumphing generals in advancing their claims for artistic greatness. And the Latin authors – to use another derivative of the aug- root – keenly explore the resultant similarities between themselves and the emperor, particularly in their dependence on the validating judgment of an audience. Footnote 4 But the same holds true for literary authority. The immense auctoritas (authority) that underpinned Augustus’ rule ( RG 34), even his honorific name, existed within and because of his subjects’ perceptions: autocracy thus found a paradoxical basis in mutual consent. This anecdote encapsulates the interdependence of author and audience, emperor and subjects, that, in the argument of this book, also preoccupied the poets of Augustus’ day and lent them a dynamic model for discussing Rome’s new order. The princeps’ dying scene thus reveals two opposing impulses: the emperor’s attempt to control his public persona to the last, and his simultaneous admission that his audience enjoyed final rights of judgment over his performance. Footnote 3 At the same time, though, this comic quotation places Augustus in the low-status position of an actor and solicits his witnesses’ approval, even their permission to leave. Footnote 2 So, too, does his staging of this scene: his attendants had little choice but to answer his question in the affirmative, as indeed the Menandrian tag presumes. ![]() On the one hand, Augustus’ dying attempt to “set straight” ( corrigi) his sagging jowls exemplifies the concern for public appearance he had shown during life. This chapter thus presents a bottom-up, audience-oriented model for understanding the iconography of Rome’s developing monarchy not as imperial “propaganda” but as a collectively constructed res publica (public property) in which audiences continued to exert interpretive liberty.Īnd dismiss me from the stage with applause.” ![]() The Augustan poets use their own bidirectional relationships with readers, mediated by texts, as a way to explore the mutual constitution of Augustan power, including its reliance on audiences’ use and judgment of political symbols and rituals. This introductory chapter surveys scenes of interpretation in Vergil and Ovid alongside evidence for the contexts, habits, beliefs, and educational practices informing the consumption of words and images to argue that reading during the age of Augustus was understood as an active process with political implications. ![]() From Augustus’ deathbed request for applause to the poets’ use of the triumph as a symbol for their glory, the Romans understood that audiences played a vital role in creating meaning, power, and fame. ![]()
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