Texts and Violence in the Roman WorldMonica R. Gale, J. H. D. Scourfield From the bites and scratches of lovers and the threat of flogging that hangs over the comic slave, to murder, rape, dismemberment, and crucifixion, violence is everywhere in Latin literature. The contributors to this volume explore the manifold ways in which violence is constructed and represented in Latin poetry and prose from Plautus to Prudentius, examining the interrelations between violence, language, power, and gender, and the narrative, rhetorical, and ideological functions of such depictions across the generic spectrum. How does violence contribute to the pleasure of the text? Do depictions of violence always reinforce status-hierarchies, or can they provoke a reassessment of normative value-systems? Is the reader necessarily complicit with authorial constructions of violence? These are pressing questions both for ancient literature and for film and other modern media, and this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural studies as well as of the ancient world. |
Contents
Comic Violence and the Citizen Body | 44 |
Lucretius De rerum natura | 63 |
Horatian Satire and the Formation | 87 |
Militia amoris and Domestic Violence | 110 |
Violence and Resistance in Ovids Metamorphoses | 140 |
Senecas Audionasties | 179 |
Senecas Phaedra | 215 |
The Case | 246 |
Apuleius Golden Ass | 286 |
Two Narratives | 309 |
| 338 | |
| 374 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Actaeon acts Aeneid Agnes amatoria Amores ancient Apuleius arena argues assault audience body Book C. P. Segal Caesar Chapter Cicero citizen comedy context cruelty cultural death declamation depiction desire discourse discussion dismemberment elegiac elegy epic Epicurean episode erotic Euripides Fasti fear female force gaze genre Golden Ass Greek Hippolytus Horace Horatian satire human ideological Konstan Labrax Latin Latro libertas limbs literary Lucilian Lucilius Lucius Lucretius male manus Marsyas Metamorphoses metaphor military militia amoris moral mutilation myth narrative narrator norms OLD s.v. Ovid Ovid's Ovidian passage Phaedra Philomela phrase physical Plautus play pleasure poem poet political Procne Propertius Prudentius punishment quae quam quid quod rape reader reading representations of violence rhetorical role Roman Rome satire scene Scourfield Seneca Senecan tragedy sexual slave social soldiers spectacle story suffering suggests sword Tacitus Tereus Theseus Thyestes Tibullus torture tragedy tragic victims words wound καὶ