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• Epic meals: Who should read epic poetry in Rome?

  195–201

  Gergő Gellérfi

  Views:

  129

  In this paper, the presence of food and dinners in connection with epic poetry in three different Juvenalian poems is discussed. The first is Satire 4 containing a mock-epic, the plot of which revolves around a giant turbot that is described with epic-style elements, and that is given to the emperor Domitian characterized by uncontrolled gluttony. The other two poems, Satires 5 and 11, both focusing on dinner parties, are in connection with the epic genre as well: while in the closing poem of Book 1, several epic connotations appear in the description of the gluttonous Virro’s extravagant dinner, in Satire 11, the enjoyment of epic poetry is praised and compared to an almost pornographic dance performance in a luxurious feast. Reading the three poems together, it might be proved from another aspect that we have to make a distinction between the Juvenalian evaluation of topics described using epic-style elements and the epic poetry itself.

• Antulla’s tomb and Martial’s: poetic closure in book 1

  41–56

  Patricia Larash

  Views:

  51

  The final seven epigrams of Martial’s Book 1 form a subtle but important closural sequence (epigrams 1.112-1.118 inclusive). Despite their great variatio of topics, the seven epigrams are linked through concerns about the boundary between life and death, the integrity of a monument, and the theme of dignus legi, or what makes someone “worthy of being read.” Through a series of close readings, this article argues for the coherence of this sequence on formal, thematic, and verbal grounds. The sequence is centered on a pair of epigrams on the kepotaphion or tomb-garden of a young girl named Antulla (1.114 and 1.116). The function of this closural sequence is both formal, to bring closure to a disparate collection of epigrams, and thematic, to reprise themes from the mock-epitaph with which Martial opens book 1 (1.1).

• Fleeing Sisters: the Golden Age in Juvenal 6

  271-280

  Gergő Gellérfi

  Views:

  103

  The opening of Juvenal’s longest and maybe the most well-known poem, Satire 6, is based on the ancient concept of the “Ages of Man”, starting from the reign of Saturn and ending with the flight of the two sisters, Pudicitia and Astraea. The first part of this 24-line-long passage depicts the Golden Age by making use of two different sources: the idealized Golden Age appearing in Vergil’s poetry among others and the prehistoric primitive world from Book 5 of Lucretius. The Juvenalian Golden Age, presented briefly in a naturalistic way, is a curious amalgam of these two traditions, being the only time in human history according to the poet when marital fidelity was unblemished. However, while reading Satire 6, it seems far from obvious that the lack of adultery should be attributed to higher morals.