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A DOUBLE TRAGIC ALLUSION IN AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS 14.1.3
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2023
Abstract
This article identifies a double allusion to the tragic characters of Phaedra and Eriphyle in Amm. Marc. 14.1.3 and considers its possible meanings. In combination, these allusions evoke the double nature of the story of Eriphyle, therefore functioning as a reference to the double nature of Caesar Gallus’ depiction in Ammianus. The double allusion consequently forms part of Ammianus’ tragic style throughout Book 14. Having identified the presence of this double allusion, the article illuminates its possible meaning by connecting Ammianus’ passage to the Virgilian rewriting of the description of Eriphyle in Homer.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz for his valuable suggestions and guidance during the development of the research that made this paper possible. I would also like to thank the reviewers and Dr Bruce Gibson, editor of The Classical Quarterly, for their comments, and Clare Roberts, administrator of the journal, for her kindness.
References
1 For the Latin text, I follow W. Seyfarth's edition, Ammiani Marcellini Rerum gestarum libri qui supersunt (Leipzig, 1978).
2 Megaera, one of the Furies, appears frequently in Seneca's tragedies (HF 102, HO 1006 and 1014, Med. 963, Thy. 252), but also in imperial epic (five times each in Silius’ Punica and Statius’ Thebaid, and three times in Lucan's Pharsalia). Ammianus is well acquainted with all these works: cf. Fletcher, G.B.A., ‘Stylistic borrowings and parallels in Ammianus Marcellinus’, RPh 11 (1937), 377–95Google Scholar; Hulls, J.-M., ‘Raising one's standards: Domitian as model in Ammianus 14.1.10’, AClass 51 (2008), 117–24Google Scholar, at 119–21; Kelly, G., Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian (Cambridge, 2008), 22–4Google Scholar, 165, 168–9, 211, 289. In all these instances, Megaera is associated with death and fierce punishment, so the comparison between this character and Constantina reinforces the negative judgement about her.
3 A.J. Ross, Ammianus’ Julian: Narrative and Genre in the Res Gestae (Oxford, 2016), 70–1. The word pseudothyrum is extremely rare, as are the original Greek words ψευδοθυρίς and ψευδοθύριον which, according to LSJ and TLG, occur only once each in the Septuagint. In Classical Latin, pseudothyrum is only found twice in Cicero (Verr. 2.2.50, Red. sen. 14), and Ross argues that Ammianus takes it from the Post reditum in senatu. However, a subtle comparison between Constantina and the character of Verres lurks in this episode, as will be further argued below, so it looks more probable that Ammianus borrowed it from the Verrines rather than from the speech Post reditum in senatu.
4 These two heroines notably appear in the underworld in both the Odyssey and the Aeneid. These passages will be discussed below.
5 Gian Biagio Conte coined the expression ‘strategy of contradiction’ to reflect this narrative aporia, which he recognized and studied in Virgil's Aeneid. See Conte, G.B., The Poetry of Pathos. Studies in Virgilian Epic (Oxford, 2007), 150–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Eur. Or. 14 τί τἄρρητ’ ἀναμετρήσασθαί με δεῖ; Julian writes τί με δεῖ νῦν ὥσπερ ἐκ τραγῳδίας τὰ ἄρρητα ἀναμετρεῖσθαι;
7 Ross (n. 3), 70. Tränkle, H., ‘Der Caesar Gallus bei Ammian’, MH 33 (1976), 162–79Google Scholar also suggested that Ammianus might have taken his model from the account of the sympathetic Julian.
8 Thompson, E.A., The Historical Work of Ammianus Marcellinus (London, 1947), 60–71Google Scholar.
9 Blockley, R.C., Ammianus Marcellinus: A Study of his Historiography and Political Thought (Brussels, 1975), 24Google Scholar. This deviation from the Aristotelian model of tragedy has recently prompted the suggestion that the whole episode was perhaps written in a parodic or inverted fashion; see F.J. Alonso, ‘Parody and inversion of literary genres in Ammianus Marcellinus’, in Á. Sánchez-Ostiz (ed.), Beginning and End: From Ammianus Marcellinus to Eusebius of Caesarea (Huelva, 2016), 243–60, at 250–4.
10 Selem, A., ‘Il senso del tragico in Ammiano Marcellino’, ASNP 34 (1965), 404–14Google Scholar.
11 Lana, I., ‘La vision tragique de l'histoire chez Ammien Marcellin’, Pallas 49 (1998), 237–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 As remarked by Thompson, E.A., ‘Ammianus’ account of Gallus Caesar’, AJPh 64 (1943), 302–15Google Scholar, the narration is constructed in such a way that accentuates Gallus’ negative traits and conceals the positive ones. For Blockley (n. 9), 20, Gallus is portrayed by Ammianus ‘as a typical tyrant in the moralistic sense of an evil and immoderate ruler’, comparable to Tacitus’ Tiberius.
13 Tränkle (n. 7), 172. Tränkle was disputing the view of Thompson (n. 12); the ambiguity and complexity of Gallus’ portrait has subsequently been noted by Barnes, T.D., Ammianus Marcellinus and the Representation of Historical Reality (Ithaca, 1998), 129–31Google Scholar; Kelly (n. 2), 284–93; and Ross (n. 3), 71–6.
14 Ross (n. 3), 71–6.
15 Alonso, F.J., ‘Fortuna y Némesis como elementos trágicos en el libro 14 de Amiano Marcelino’, CFC(L) 39 (2019), 245–55Google Scholar.
16 Kelly (n. 2), 287–9. As Kelly notes, the allusion to Cacus had already been identified by Fletcher (n. 2), 382.
17 This episode appears also in the epic tradition, as noted by M. Davies, ‘Appendix 1. Eriphyle in the Theban Epics’, in his online volume The Theban Epics (Washington, DC, 2014), https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/appendix-1-eriphyle-in-the-theban-epics.
18 Stat. Theb. 2.265–305, 4.187–213.
19 Wright, M., The Lost Plays of Greek Tragedy (London and New York, 2016)Google Scholar.
20 The different titles of the lost tragedies about the Theban cycle (Alcmaeon, Epigoni, Eriphyle) suggest the possibility that both Eriphyle's betrayal and Alcmaeon's ensuing revenge were subjects for tragedies. See Wright (n. 19).
21 As it has been already pointed out above, there seems to be a latent comparison between Constantina and Verres through the use of the character of Eriphyle and the allusion to Cicero's Verrines.
22 Homer does not mention any necklace. However, in the continuation of Pausanias’ passage discussed above (Paus. 9.41.3–5), he refers to these Homeric verses assuming that the gold is the material of the necklace, not a substitute for it.
23 This feature of the Virgilian allusions to Homer is noted by Conte, G.B., Dell'imitazione: Furto e originalità (Pisa, 2014), 38–47Google Scholar.
24 The standard article on the theatrical aspects of Ammianus’ work is Jenkins, F.W., ‘Theatrical metaphors in Ammianus Marcellinus’, Eranos 85 (1987), 55–63Google Scholar.