[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
This volume, developing from the 2018 Symposium Cumanum, confronts didactic, an area that is notoriously difficult to define.[1] Avoiding the intractable problem of genre criticism, the contributors conceive of didactic capaciously, tracing a “didactic ethos” (p. 2) of teaching and learning and a “boom” (p. 1) in didactic textual production in the Roman world during the late Republic and early Empire. The editors emphasize that didactic literature fulfilled the normative function of defining and enforcing socio-cultural mores, especially important in a period when Rome was appropriating and transforming the cultural traditions of the peoples it subjugated.[2] By including prose alongside poetry, the editors follow Hutchinson and present all didactic texts as equally self-conscious about form and content.[3] The volume thus contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the relationship between literary and technical literature, and/or technical literature as literature.[4]
The volume is divided into three thematic subsections: “Teaching Philosophies,” on the intersection between philosophy and didactic literature (all verse); “Erotodidaxis,” on works teaching about desire and the desire to teach (again all verse); and “Metadidaxis,” on aspects of didactic that “undermine a stable sense of ‘didactic’ as a genre” (pp. 6–7). As with most edited volumes, some contributions reflect less clearly on the themes laid out in the introduction, but they all have something to offer, and the volume successfully explores a wide range of literature in exciting new ways—much to the credit of the editors. I do not have space to treat each contribution fully, but will draw thematic connections across subsections, showing how the contributions respond to each other on multiple levels. I will also suggest avenues for future research.
The first theme is the tendency of didactic literature to grapple with social norms, reflecting how knowledge production is politically motivated and socially contingent.
Keith provides an insightful and meticulously researched reading of Epicurean themes in the codas of Vergil’s Georgics, presenting Vergil as an interlocutor in contemporary philosophical debates. Her reading of the sphragis of G. 4 together with the invocation to divine Caesar in G. 1 demonstrates how Vergil bridges political and philosophical discourse, opening up the possibility of reading the iuvenis of Ecl. 1 not only as a stand-in for Octavian, but also as a divine Epicurean savior in the style of DRN 5.7–12. Keith also reconciles the apparent contradiction between labor and eudaimonia in G. 2’s Praise of the Farmer by showing how contemporary Epicurean philosophers made their doctrine accommodate economic realities. Future work might delve further into the complexities of labor in these texts, e.g. by examining Philodemus’ striking claim that that the estate owner’s dependence on unfree labor mitigates against the potential harm presented by agricultural toil in the hedonistic calculus (On Property Management, col. 23.711).
Green’s chapter explores how anthropomorphism in the treatments of animal mating in Vergil, Grattius, Ovid, and Germanicus has political point: the authors’ use of the concept of adultery reflects Augustan moral legislations, where public litigation of adultery enacted state control over married women’s bodies. Green’s reading could be expanded beyond the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis to consider how Augustus’ other moral reforms regulated marriage between classes, to encourage production of the “right kind” of Roman citizens. Such “selective breeding” is a natural parallel to Grattius and Vergil’s lessons, all the more disturbing in light of their human implications.
Maticic explores the potential and ultimate limitations of Hyginus’ engagement with the literary tradition. While teaching the reader how to determine the correct placement of boundary lines, Hyginus alludes to Archimedes, Vergil’s Georgics, and, perhaps most surprisingly, Lucan’s Pharsalia. Although the references seemingly serve Hyginus’ immediate didactic purpose, Maticic’s analysis reveals that they share pessimistic views of warfare. Because Hyginus and his readers have vested interests in the violent processes of Roman imperialism on which the technical discipline of surveying was mutually dependent, these potentially subversive allusions cannot represent straightforward political critique (p. 174), but tread the familiar line of literary ambiguity.
Another theme is the tension between aesthetics and utility.
Paschalis’ chapter argues that Lucretius uses Callimachean intertexts to make opposing claims about the value of poetry for teaching philosophy, rejecting Callimachus’ Hesiodic claim that the power of poetry lies in persuasion rather than truth. But the compatibility between poetry and philosophy (qua truth) is a central problem for didactic – for Lucretius especially, since Epicurus was supposedly hostile towards poetry[5] – and Paschalis could go further to explain why Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus specifically is relevant to this question. Indeed, Sider has argued that didactic derived from the Hellenistic impulse towards versifying prose treatises, and that Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus is an early example of the genre, with part of the poem possibly derived from Callimachus’ On Rivers (Sider 2014: 14). If this is true, Lucretius’ allusions to Callimachus are less oppositional than Paschalis supposes.
In an inventive and persuasive chapter that will be useful to anyone interested in sexual innuendo in Greek and Latin, Kronenberg identifies a “poetics of masturbation” in the winter portions of the farmer’s calendar in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Vergil’s Georgics. Using a variety of sources to support her reading, Kronenberg shows that Hesiod’s text is animated by autoerotic innuendo, which underscores Hesiod’s lessons about the dangers of idleness during infertile and unproductive seasons. Adopting the same imagery in the corresponding section of Georgics 1, Vergil reverses Hesiod’s lesson and—classic Vergil—adds a metaliterary spin: rather than seeing masturbation as something to be avoided, Vergil associates it positively with poetic creativity, following the Hellenistic valorization of aesthetics over utility.
A third theme is the indeterminacy surrounding didactic speakers and their subjects.
Heslin reconciles Vergil’s identity as an avowed Epicurean with some markedly un-Epicurean elements of his poetry by using the concept of “philosophical irony.” The conclusion of the second Georgic illustrates the shortcomings of Epicureanism’s pretentions to universalism: the farmer, though he does not understand his blessings (or because he does not, p. 59), enjoys the same happiness as the Epicurean sage. The farmer fades from view as Heslin concludes that “one of the main purposes of the Georgics was to liberate Latin poetry from the subjugation to philosophical discourse that Lucretius had established” (p. 63), a claim that is more credible if narrowly applied to agricultural/philosophical didactic.
Stroup’s chapter emerges from a larger project on Varro’s Res Rusticae as political cryptography. In line with Kronenberg and Nelsestuen on the political and philosophical underpinnings of Varronian agronomy,[6] Stroup argues that Rust. is not a “straight-faced farming handbook” (p. 150), but rather a didactic work of political philosophy using agriculture as a cover. Agriculture was a fitting topic since, Stroup claims, the villa was where authors wrote treatises designed to save the Republic during the dangerous political atmosphere of the 40s and 30s (Cic. Fam. 9.2), and agri cultura, the cultivation of the villa’s setting, became a codeword for statecraft. Valuably elucidating Varro’s under-examined expertise as a ventriloquist, Stroup turns to his dedication to Fundania (Rust. 1.1–4), arguing that the reader is primed from the beginning to recognize the text as a coded treatise on statecraft written in Ciceronian style. The framework of cryptography is compelling, but Stroup cannot fully lay out her methodology in such a brief chapter, and as it stands, some elements need further explanation. Cic. Manil. 6.15 is used to establish agri cultura as a codeword, but to me it looks like a simple example of the industries that flourish when the state functions correctly (indeed it is part of a list, mentioned alongside herding and trade). Stroup also does not fully explain why a female addressee signals the concealed topic of the treatise, which solely concerns the senatorial class. That Varro chose to write agronomy as a cover for political commentary does much to tell us about the importance of farmer-posturing in Roman elite self-fashioning,[7] but by disposing of the ostensible subject of the treatise, Stroup implies that elite Romans were concerned solely with intellectual pursuits; this risks reproducing an anachronistic bias that views economic realities as crude impositions on the “true” meaning of a text. A cryptographic interpretation can exist alongside readings of the Rust. as agronomy, productively revealing Varro’s treatise in its contemporary context.
O’Hara focuses on the inconsistent quality and confusing manner of Horace’s teaching in the Ars Poetica, an aspect of the text that has long frustrated critics. His reading evolves from a larger project on speakers’ authority in Latin satire and didactic, which argues that successfully embodying the role of a teacher is more important for these genres than correctly instructing the addressee. Horace, then, expertly pretends to teach, with the result that his “teaching is undercut, but never consistently or decisively” (p. 179). For O’Hara, determining whether Horace’s teachings are accurate is missing the point, because the mimetic focus of didactic is on the persona of the instructor, whose advice is sometimes good, and sometimes poor. As a result, the didactic speaker satirically undermines his reader’s confidence in both his knowledge and their own.[8] O’Hara draws on a wide range of ancient texts and modern scholarship to situate his argument, and his choice to combine satire and didactic in a study of authorial personae is ingenious.
Finally, Racette-Campbell and McAlhany’s chapters discuss how didactic modes affect our understanding of other genres.
Racette-Campbell examines Propertius’ use of verbs of teaching and learning to show how erotodidaxis is represented in the Elegies: programmatically invoked at the opening of Book 1, the diction gradually decreases in the following books. Comparison to Vergil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Ars Amatoria has mixed results: docere and discere are relatively uncommon in both poems – a surprising result if they’re supposed to be markers of didactic. Racette-Campbell’s data and interpretation provide a helpful contribution to studies on the topos of praeceptor amoris in Propertius, but readers will differ in their opinions about the methodology.[9] So, too, questions arise about comparative datasets: if Lucretius is an important inspiration for Propertius (p. 121), why isn’t DRN included in the analysis? What are we to make of the programmatic invocation of the Georgics in Elegy 1.1 if it turns out that Vergil differs so significantly in his use of teaching and learning verbs? Does he differ in didactic method, or only in the language used to describe it? As Racette-Campbell notes, Propertius is writing when the elegiac genre is still forming, so its relationship to didactic is naturally in flux: further work, building on Racette-Campbell’s analysis, might reveal how didaxis is used to establish elegy’s generic (and moral) boundaries.[10]
McAlhany’s chapter demonstrates how assigning authors to a category like didactic biases readers towards certain critical approaches. The chapter has a clear payoff in recognizing that Varro possessed a multifaceted authorial persona, which allows McAlhany to read his Menippean satire Papia Papiae in a new light, but the point is that the text is not didactic. The contribution would relate more clearly to the others if it reflected further on how readers’ assumptions about an author’s association with didactic specifically (rather than antiquarianism, which McAlhany takes as synonymous) shapes our engagement with a text to the point that we foreclose certain interpretive possibilities.
The volume is not an exhaustive treatment of didactic literature in the Roman world—its focus is primarily on poetry and on canonical authors—and contributions differ in the comprehensiveness of their research, particularly in integrating non-Anglophone scholarship.[11] Still, Gellar-Goad and Polt should be congratulated for editing a volume that clearly demonstrates the benefit of positing a broad category of Roman didactic literature, encouraging us to read canonical and non-canonical authors alongside each other. The book is well-produced: I noticed only a few typos and one missing bibliography entry.[12] Formatting is not always consistent across chapters, but this never hinders understanding.
References
Canevaro, L. G., and O’Rourke, D., ed. 2019. Didactic Poetry of Greece, Rome and beyond: Knowledge, Power, Tradition. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.
Fögen, T. 2009. Wissen, Kommunikation Und Selbstdarstellung: Zur Struktur Und Charakteristik Römischer Fachtexte Der Frühen Kaiserzeit. Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck.
Formisano, M., and van der Eijk, P., ed. 2017. Knowledge, Text and Practice in Ancient Technical Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gellar-Goad, T. H. M. 2020. Laughing Atoms, Laughing Matter: Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura and Satire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Greene, E. 2022. “Sex and Violence in Propertius.” In James, S. L. ed. Golden Cynthia: Essays on Propertius. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 99–116.
Horster, M., and Reitz, C., ed. 2005. Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Hutchinson, G. O. 2009. “Read the Instructions: Didactic Poetry and Didactic Prose.” CQ 59: 196–211.
König, J., and Whitmarsh, T., ed. 2007. Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
König, J., and Woolf, G., ed. 2017. Authority and Expertise in Ancient Scientific Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Loar, M., Macdonald, C., and Padilla Peralta, D., ed. 2017. Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Rourke, D. 2018. “Make War Not Love: Militia Amoris and Domestic Violence in Roman Elegy.” In Scourfield, J. H. D. and Gale, M. R. eds. Texts and Violence in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 110–139.
Schiesaro, A., Mitsis, P., and Clay, J. S., ed. 1994. Mega Nêpios: Il destinatario nell’epos didascalico. Pisa: Giardini.
Sharrock, A. 1998. “Response: Haud Mollia Iussa.” In Atherton, C. ed. Form and Content in Didactic Poetry. Nottingham Classical Literature Studies 5. Bari: Levante. 99–115.
Sider, D. 2014. “Didactic Poetry: The Hellenistic Invention of a Pre-Existing Genre.” In Hunter, R., Rengakos, A., and Sistakou, E. eds. Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads: Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts. Berlin: De Gruyter. 13–30.
Taub, L., and Doody, A., ed. 2009. Authorial Voices in Greco-Roman Technical Writing. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Volk, K. 2002. The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Authors and Titles
- Introduction (T. H. M. Gellar-Goad and Christopher B. Polt)
- Lucretius’ DRN and Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus: Comparing and Contrasting Didactic Projects (Michael Paschalis)
- Epicurean Codas in Vergil’s Georgics (Alison Keith)
- Fortunatus et ille: Vergil’s Ironic Epicureanism (Peter Heslin)
- Idle Hands: The Poetics of Masturbation in the Winter Scenes of Hesiod (Op. 493–563) and Vergil (G. 1.291–310) (Leah Kronenberg)
- Animal Love from Vergil: Contesting Marital Propriety in the Age of Augustus (Steven J. Green)
- The Language of Teaching and Learning in Propertius (Melanie Racette-Campbell)
- Buried in Books: Varro’s Papia Papae in the Shade of Scholarship (Joseph McAlhany)
- Si Est Homo Bulla: Writing between the Lines in Varro’s de Rebus Rusticis (Sarah Culpepper Stroup)
- The Shadows of Archimedes: Intertextual Anxieties in Hyginus Gromaticus’ Constitutio Limitum (Del A. Maticic)
- Satire, Didactic, and New Contexts for Problems in Horace’s Ars Poetica (James J. O’Hara)
Notes
[1] E.g. Schiesaro et al. (1994), Volk (2002) and Canevaro and O’Rourke (2019), all cited.
[2] Loar et al. (2017)
[3] Hutchinson (2009).
[4] An extremely abridged list focused on studies of texts from the Roman world: Horster and Reitz (2005), König and Whitmarsh (2007), Fögen (2009), Taub and Doody (2009), Formisano and van der Eijk (2017), and König and Woolf (2017).
[5] Volk (2002), 94; cf. Heslin p. 49 in this volume.
[6] Kronenberg (2009) and Nelsestuen (2015), both cited.
[7] Thus I would disagree with Stroup’s judgment that Varro would not consider himself the proper author of an agricultural treatise (p. 150).
[8] For didactic and satire producing epistemic uncertainty, O’Hara draws on Gellar-Goad (2020).
[9] Racette-Campbell cites Gibson, but see Sharrock (1998).
[10] Racette-Campbell labels the rape of the Sabines as Romulus teaching “an unelegiac lesson” (p. 123), but sexual and physical violence is clearly in the amator’s wheelhouse (Greene 2022) and O’Rourke describes Romulus as an exemplum of “elegiac jealousy” (2018: 129); cf. Ovid’s positive depiction at A. 1.131-2.
[11] All bibliographies include at least one non-Anglophone entry.
[12] “Tthe” (p. 3), “sStructure” (p. 100), and “alsothey” (p. 154). Nelsestuen (2015) missing from Stroup’s bibliography.