Sicilian landscape as contested space in the first century BC: three case studies

Abstract

RRC Roman Republican Coinage. ed. M. Crawford. 2 vols. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974. References to other classical works are abbreviated according to The Oxford Classical Dictionary 4 th edn. 2012: xxvi-liii. Names of mythological figures reflect the perspective of the source discussed, e.g. Cicero says Ceres, Diodorus Siculus says Demeter. 15 association with grain, and role in the history and development of the Roman state placed it at the forefront of this discourse. 3 Thus, conflict and instability in Sicily threatened the physical, psychological, and political state of Roman hegemony, and political or social unrest at Rome often resulted in conflict in Sicily. This connection between the fates of Sicily and Rome was used by authors in the first century to capitalise upon or understand contemporary events, often writing at times when conflict on Sicily paralleled the island's pre-Roman history and the future of Rome was unclear, unstable, or under threat. Thus, this thesis argues that Sicily's construction and presentation as 'contested space' became a topos in Late Republican literature, across all genres, designed to emphasise the danger that a given event or movement presented to Romethe closer Roman Sicily resembled its pre-annexation state, the greater the perceived threat to the Republic. 4 The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the constructions of Sicily and its landscape in Late Republican literature reflect the instability and insecurity of the Roman state and the anxieties of its peoples. Through three case studies across three chapters, I argue that the literary constructions of Sicily as a 'contested space', employed in selected works of the first century authors Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, and Virgil, are used to contextualise contemporary (and often negative) events at Rome and in Sicily, and frame the authors' own attitudes and concerns towards Roman imperialism, civil unrest, and food security. Moreover, I argue that this construction of Sicilian landscape transcends the bounds of genre (which enhanced the intentions behind the implementation of constested space), and was used alternatively to engage with, reinforce, or challenge contemporary audiences and discourses in the face of a politically unstable Rome.