PRIAM AND POMPEY IN SUETONIUS' <i>GALBA</i>

Power, Tristan

doi:10.1017/s0009838807000754

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Cf. Syme 1958: 690; Hinds 1998: 25–6; Bosworth 2004: 551, n. 1; Power 2007: 792; 2014a: 75; Kelly 2008: 166–9; Gibson 2011: 189–93; also below, n. 23.…”

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Suetonius' Tacitus

Power¹

2014

J. Rom. Stud.

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This article discusses the relationship of Tacitus to his younger contemporary Suetonius, challenging the view that Suetonius wrote a ‘supplement’ to the historian. Scholarly focus on this pair has led to the widespread belief that Suetonius had read Tacitus’ Annals, which is unsupported by the evidence. The prevailing consensus that the biographer may at times be subtly criticizing the historian persists in commentaries on Suetonius’ Caesars. It is argued that where their two accounts appear to meet, Suetonius is better seen as responding to the earlier common source or sources, or distinguishing himself from the conventions of historiography at large.

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“…Cf. Syme 1958: 690; Hinds 1998: 25–6; Bosworth 2004: 551, n. 1; Power 2007: 792; 2014a: 75; Kelly 2008: 166–9; Gibson 2011: 189–93; also below, n. 23.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…29.2; Tac., Hist . 1.49.4), with Damon 2003: 200–1; Power 2007: 795; Suet., Otho 12.1 (~ Plut., Galb . 25.2; Tac., Hist .…”

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Suetonius' Tacitus

Power¹

2014

J. Rom. Stud.

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INVITUS INVITAM: A WINDOW ALLUSION IN SUETONIUS' TITUS

MacRae

2015

The Class. Q.

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Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit invitus invitam.As for Berenice, he immediately dismissed her from the city against his will, against her will. (Suet. Tit. 7.2) Suetonius' laconic description of Titus' dismissal of his consort, the Herodian Berenice, after his accession to the Principate has attracted the attention of readers across the centuries. The biographer's use of polyptoton, invitus invitam, to describe the mental states of the Roman princeps and Judaean princess has been read as particularly moving. Perhaps most notably, Racine turned the emperor's banishment of his lover into the central dilemma of his tragedy Bérénice. At the start of his preface to the text of the play, the dramatist amalgamates this sentence with another from earlier in the chapter, retaining the striking repetition, ‘Titus reginam Berenicen cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur, statim ab Urbe dimisit invitus invitam’. Racine claims that this account of the dismissal of Berenice provides appropriate subject matter for tragic poetry and, to support his case, he compares Virgil's treatment of the separation of Aeneas and Dido to the situation of Titus and Berenice. Suetonius is not normally read as a literarily sophisticated writer, but we should take a cue from Racine's response to this sentence. In this article, I argue that Suetonius himself chose to compare Titus and Berenice with Dido and Aeneas by an allusion in this sentence to Virgil's Aeneid and to Catullus' translation of the Coma Berenices. Within a rather matter-of-fact presentation of the relationship between the Flavian emperor and his Herodian consort, Suetonius evoked a more dramatic model.

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Trees and Family Trees in the Aeneid

Gowers

2011

Classical Antiquity

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Tree-chopping in the Aeneid has long been seen as a disturbingly violent symbol of the Trojans' colonization of Italy. The paper proposes a new reading of the poem which sees Aeneas as progressive extirpator not just of foreign rivals but also of his own Trojan relatives. Although the Romans had no family “trees” as such, their genealogical stemmata (“garlands”) had “branches” (rami) and “stock” (stirps), and their vocabulary of family relationships takes many of its metaphors from planting, adoption, and uprooting, while plant life is often described in human metaphors. Imperial historians use the growth and collapse of trees to mark the rise and fall of dynasties; natural historians like Columella and Pliny use metaphors of adoption, abortion, and adultery to characterize the perversions of agriculture and horticulture. It is thus no coincidence that Aeneas' encounters with Hector, Priam, Deiphobus, and others often take place against a background of real or metaphorical trees (tree similes, headless or mutilated human trunks, ancient trees and woods). These encourage us to see an element of dynastic encroachment in scenes that look pious and peaceable but confirm Aeneas' ascendancy and claim to Trojan succession. The Polydorus episode in particular can be read not just as a grotesque interlude but as a nightmare about endlessly reproducing heirs; one loose strand from Priam's house is allowed to remain, while Virgil deals imperfectly with the problem of Aeneas' own successors. The paper ends by re-examining Virgil's account of grafting in Georgics 2 and arguing that it is viewed positively, perhaps in order to cast Augustus' adoption of heirs as a miracle solution.

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PRIAM AND POMPEY IN SUETONIUS' GALBA

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Suetonius' Tacitus

Suetonius' Tacitus

INVITUS INVITAM: A WINDOW ALLUSION IN SUETONIUS' TITUS

Trees and Family Trees in the Aeneid

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