Pompeyo y sus "magnas clientelas" durante el Bellum Civile: crítica al modelo de gestión provincial mediante clientelas

El presente artículo realiza un sucinto repaso a la trayectoria de Cn. Pompeyo Magno en las distintas localizaciones donde estuvo destinado, constatando la creación de múltiples lazos de clientela con particulares, comunidades e incluso provincias y reinos. Estos vínculos son contrastados con el papel que este tipo de clientelas jugaron en el decisivo enfrentamiento contra Julio César a partir del año 49 a.C. Mediante este análisis, se propone valorar la verdadera utilidad que este tipo de relación de dependencia tuvo a lo largo del conflicto, así como la eficacia de la clientela provincial como herramienta de control, gestión e integración de individuos y colectivos por parte de determinados personajes en el seno del Estado romano tardo-republicano.

Achilles Tatius and the Destruction of Bodies

Chapter 6 argues that Achilles is attracted to the gallery of bodily carnage on offer in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Civile, and Seneca’s Phaedra, as part of his apparent obsession with the vulnerability of human bodies and their susceptibility to wounding. It makes four distinct arguments. Section 6.2 makes the case that the episode of Charicles’ death in Achilles manifests strong indications of interaction with the accounts of the gruesome death of Hippolytus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Seneca’s Phaedra. Section 6.3 demonstrates that Achilles (or rather Clitophon) exhibits a recurrent interest in bodily dismemberment and reconstitution analogous to that in Ovid and Neronian poetry (especially Lucan). Section 6.4 argues that the decapitation of ‘Leucippe’ in Book 5 not only is modelled on the similar fate of the historical Pompeius Magnus but also combines the accounts of this event found in Lucan and Plutarch. These sections suggest that Achilles is alive to developments in Neronian literature that privilege the aesthetics of gore and bodily destruction, and which reflect the Roman imperial taste for violence more generally (perhaps energized by the institution of the amphitheatre). Section 6.5 elaborates a number of ways in which Achilles is attracted to the arresting style and verbal wit of Ovid, especially in connection with his flood narrative.

Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels

This work establishes and explores connections between Greek imperial literature and Latin poetry. As such, it challenges conventional thinking about literary and cultural interaction of the period, which assumes that imperial Greeks are not much interested in Roman cultural products (especially literature). Instead, it argues that Latin poetry is a crucially important frame of reference for Greek imperial literature. This has significant ramifications, bearing on the question of bilingual allusion and intertextuality, as well as on that of cultural interaction during the imperial period more generally. The argument mobilizes the Greek novels—a literary form that flourished under the Roman Empire, offering narratives of love, separation, and eventual reunion in and around the Mediterranean basin—as a series of case studies. Three of these novels in particular—Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, Achilles Tatius’ Clitophon and Leucippe, and Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe—are analysed for the extent to which they allude to Latin poetry, and for the effects (literary and ideological) of such allusion. After an Introduction that establishes the cultural context and parameters of the study, each chapter pursues the strategies of an individual novelist in connection with Latin poetry: Chariton and Latin love elegy (Chapter 1); Chariton and Ovidian epistles and exilic poetry (Chapter 2); Chariton and Vergil’s Aeneid (Chapter 3); Achilles Tatius and Latin love elegy (Chapter 4); Achilles Tatius and Vergil’s Aeneid (Chapter 5); Achilles Tatius and the theme of bodily destruction in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lucan’s Bellum Civile, and Seneca’s Phaedra (Chapter 6); Longus and Vergil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid (Chapter 7). The work offers the first book-length study of the role of Latin literature in Greek literary culture under the empire and thus provides fresh perspectives and new approaches to the literature and culture of this period.