Social values/ commentary and interpersonal dynamics

What is odes 3.14 about?

The ode contains features of conventional type of panegyric, the celebration of Augusts’, a great man’s arrival

Odes 3.14.5-10

‘Let his wife [Livia] come forth, performing due ritual to the righteous gods, and with other matrons of our dear leader,45 and, adorned with suppliant garlands, the mothers of the young women and men recently saved from death.while the children keep ritual silence’.  

unico…mulier marito Odes 3.14.5-10

‘one and only’ i.e. ‘incomparable’ wife (Roman esteem). Livia had married Octavian in 39 and their marriage lasted over 50 years. ‘vinco’ expects political appraisal [livy 6.6.17 abt Camillus’. However the delayed marito and the force of the adjective is shifted to domestic affection. Showing the dual-role of imperial women.

What is implied by ‘vincus’

used for military and political leaders, referencing Livia’s behnd-the-scenes political manouvering so we expect a political compliment (livy 6.6.17 about Camillus).

prodeat…operata 3.14.5-10

‘let her come forth’ the verb suggests a formal appearance from the imperial palace. However there is no mention of obviam or of a place so Livia’s immediate purpose is to offer a sacrifice

operata refers to a sacrifice suited any home-coming, a public adventus.  It played a central part in a supplicatio. The ‘conventionally appropraite rites’ reflects the ancient feeling that gods can be held to bargins; i.e. sacrficing to them because they have repaid the nation’s prayers and sacrifices.

irginium matre iuvenumque nuper / sospitum, iuvenum  odes 3.14.5-10

refers to officers who have recently returned from Spain; virgines are their fiancees whose marriages have been delayed by war. Livia’s son, Tiberius had served in the war so she is associated with the matres. 

What’s the function of the women in odes 3.14

Horace asserts that the fate of the young women depends on the survival of their loved ones. The odes describes a supplicatio; this was a national day either of prayer for the future or thanksgiving for the past, and here women played a central part in the rituals. Such supplicationes were often voted on news of a victory, sometimes as a preliminary to a triumph, but here the situation is different as the victory lies in the past.  While women werent absent from public religion, but priesthoods and major public sacrifices were dominated by men. Horace uses women here as they are associated with religion mostly in the private sphere. 

How does Horace emphasis the private sphere in odes 3.14

Livia’s joy in her husband, the grave and reference of the matrons, the stilling of the children’s chatter places significant emphasis on the private sphere, even in the formal part of the poem. The rites evoke the traditional piety of the Roman people

Callimachean technique in Odes 3.14

he announces what everybody is expected to do

How does propertius deploy women

Propertius uses the puella figure to explore the fear of separation through service in the army in poem 3.12

 Propertius writes about a contemporary married couple [Gallas and Postumus]; his sympathies emphatically with the wife, who remains at home, faithful and anxious.

3.12 how could you leave Galla in tears’ 3.12.1 ‘Heaven pardon me, but perish all ye together that thirst for gain, and whoever prefers arms to a faithful wife! Yet you, madman, your cloak thrown over you as a hood, will drink from a helmet the water of Araxes when you are exhausted, whereas she meanwhile will waste away from empty rumours’ 3.12.5-14

plorantem 3.12

the tearful Galla is marked from the first as an elegiac figure.

auari 3.12

Postumus is ‘greedy’ for Parthian booty. The assumption about Postumus’ motive allies this poem closely with 3.4 where much stress is out on the wealth of the eastern countries that Augustus is attacking

arma 3.12

it enhances the link be recalling the first word of 3.4, it also references the Aeneid, a poem in which the hero forsakes the faithful bed of Dido infavour of Italy and the warfare he enocunters there; and it notoriously Augustan panegyric

immunda…lacerna  3.12

in a grubby cloak’. Propertius evokes the discomfort of a military campaign with vivid detail: the implication is that a lacerna is no more his usual clothing than a galea is his drinking vessel.

casta 3.12.15

In view of Postumus’ hardness of heart Galla is too good for him

How does the ‘female’ affect the reading of poem 3.12

 Propertius exploits the ‘pullea’ elegy to pursue a new agenda: the confliction Postumus faces with his infatuation of an idealised Cynthia. Postumus fits the Augustan agenda Amor and Roma. Book three deepend the elegiac pattern, it becomes ideological.

Women in Ovid

 Ovid uses women as a structural device to close book 6. Ovid’s finale for Fasti 6 is devoted to the praise of Roman noblewomen. 

What’s Ovid’s plan with Marcia in Fasti

 Ovid begins Marcia’s encomium by setting her in the religious hierarchy of the Domus Augusta [to contrast the first half of Ovid’s work on Rome’s dynastic religion]

Fasti 6.810

‘O florious dame! O lady worthy of that sacred house!” So Clio sang’

odecus, o sacra femina digna domo!  Fasti 6.810

the honorific decus is used of Maecenas by Vergil Georgics 2.40 and Horace Carmina 1.1.2. When Ovid uses it to describe Marcia, he means that she is an ornament to the imperial family.

odecus, o sacra femina digna domo!  Fasti 6.810

imply the royal Trojan ancestry of the Gens Iulia as well as Marcia’s own descent from the royal line of Numa and Ancus. This praise has the same resonance in Ovids similar description of Augustus in his Tristia 5.2b.5.

How is Marcia distinguished in Fasti

her noble birth, her physical beauty, and her intellectual fifts, each quality being equal to the other two. 

alos casta 802

Roman noblewoman of traditional virtue. 

Who is Marcia similar to?

Propertius’ Cornelia, who is distinguished, like Marcia, by her nobility and virtue but marcia is related to the Domus Augusta somewhat more tenuously as the daughter of Augustua’ first wife Scibonia and thus the half-sister of his daughter Julia.

What do Propertius’ Cornelia and Julia share in common

their generosity of spirit and their propinquity to Augustus, whom Propertius describes as weeping at Cornelia’s funeral 4.11.6.

How does Propertius’ Cornelia impact the structure of his poem? How does this link to Fasti?

Cornelia autobiographic epitaph, the death of a Roman woman, makes it a poem of closure. Therefore there is a closural link perceived between the last poem of Propertius’ book 4 and Ovid’s epilogue; both of which are devoted to the praise of a Roman noblewoman. So, Ovid uses women to close the book.