After 69 CE - Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome

Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, Darcy Anne Krasne

Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, Dec 17, 2018 - Literary Criticism - 499 pages

The fall of Nero and the civil wars of 69 CE ushered in an era scarred by the recent conflicts; Flavian literature also inherited a rich tradition of narrating nefas from its predecessors who had confronted and commemorated the traumas of Pharsalus and Actium. Despite the present surge of scholarly interest in both Flavian literary studies and Roman civil war literature, however, the Flavian contribution to Rome’s literature of bellum ciuile remains understudied. This volume shines a spotlight on these neglected voices. In the wake of 69 CE, writing civil war became an inescapable project for Flavian Rome: from Statius’s fraternas acies and Silius’s suicidal Saguntines to the internecine narratives detailed in Josephus’s Bellum Iudaicum and woven into Frontinus’s exempla, Flavian authors’ preoccupation with civil war transcends genre and subject matter. This book provides an important new chapter in the study of Roman civil war literature by investigating the multi-faceted Flavian response to this persistent and prominent theme.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Lucanean Lenses: 25
• Lucan and Civil War in Punica 14: 51
• Civil War and Valeriuss Argonautica: 69
• Narrating Nefas in Statiuss Thebaid: 89
• Civil War and the Argonautic Program of Statiuss Thebaid: 109
• Senecas Thyestes and Phoenissae in Statiuss Thebaid 7: 123
• Leadership and Exemplarity: 145
• Civil War Themes in Siliuss Saguntum Episode: 179
• Vespasians Rise from Civil War in Josephuss Bellum Judaicum: 199
• Lemnos and Rome in Valerius Flaccuss Argonautica: 227
• Family Society and Self: 253
• Civil War Parricide and the Sword in Silius Italicuss Punica: 271
• Engendering Civil War in Flavian Epic: 295
• A last act of love? Suicide and civil war as tropes in Silius Italicuss Punica and Josephuss Bellum Judaicum: 321
• Ruination Restoration and Empire: 341
• Patterns of Cosmic Disintegration in the Argonautica: 363
• Instability and the Sublime in Martials Liber Spectaculorum: 387
• Bibliography: 411
• Notes on Contributors: 443
• Thematic Index: 447
• Index of Passages: 463

About the author

Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati; Darcy A. Krasne, Columbia University, New York, USA.

Bibliographic information

• Title: After 69 CE - Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome; Volume 65 of Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes
• Editors: Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, Darcy Anne Krasne
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2018
• ISBN: 3110585847, 9783110585841
• Length: 499 pages
• Subjects: History / Ancient / General; Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical