In Roman Love Elegy and the Eros of Empire, Phebe Lowell Bowditch explores the complex and contradictory rhetoric of Roman identity construction in Latin elegy through a postcolonial lens. Bowditch reads elegy “against the grain” (p. 209), and successfully shows that Latin elegy’s superficial rejection of hegemonic Roman discourses of elitist masculinity, urbanism, militarism, colonialism, and imperialism is, in fact, inescapably the product thereof, and therefore reinforces the very ideas it claims to defy. As a result, this poetry uses a gendered, Orientalizing, ‘Othering’ gaze in its construction of a Roman identity that is simultaneously familiar and foreign, urban and rural, old and new, critical and complicit, masculine and emasculated, threatening and threatened, and always, always self-aware.
Chapter 1 explains pertinent theory and terminology, and contextualises Roman Love Elegy within the history of scholarship. Bowditch demonstrates how concepts like ‘postcolonial ambivalence’ and ‘colonial discourses’ support current trends in elegiac studies, which read elegy as a polyvalent genre with complex relationships to Roman politics and Greek culture (in contradistinction to older perceptions of this genre as ‘counter-cultural’). The introduction articulates the value of using contemporary methods to re-evaluate the sources, thereby deepening previous interpretations.
Chapter 2 focuses on the figure of Osiris in Tibullus 1.7 in order to show the ambiguity of triumphal imagery. The poem’s ambiguity emerges from the imagined responses of a “complex audience” (p. 34). Romans who had supported Octavian Augustus could read here a justification of Rome’s imperial expansion into Egypt, while those who had been sympathetic to Mark Antony could read it as a conciliatory statement. Through the shifting gendering of Osiris, the indigenous Egyptians, and Hellenistic and Hellenized Egyptian elite, could read the subordination and assimilation of their land as personified by Osiris.
Chapters 3 through 5 orbit around the figure of the Elegiac Mistress. The idea of body as land makes a transition from Osiris to the elegiac puellae, as Bowditch considers how Propertius uses the body of Cynthia to imagine Rome’s geographic expansions. As Propertius uses Cynthia to embody imperial territories or imagining her military-like movements around these spaces, she comes to represent both the colonizing forces of Rome and the land and bodies of those who are colonized. Cynthia is also a means of complicating the center/periphery binary, as her dominance as mistress increases her mobility into these far-flung regions, seemingly decentering the periphery; but the amator’s metropolitan locus repeatedly calls attention back to Rome itself as the true center of imperial power.
From cartography to commodities, in Chapter 4, Bowditch demonstrates that the literary use of luxury goods in the poems of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid evinces discourses associated with imperialism, patronage, and gender. In Bowditch’s own words, “such exotica serve […] to trick out the elegiac mistress”, making her “a metaphor for the acquisitive greed of the Roman state” and underscoring her seductiveness (p. 144). Yet such material and carnal luxury flies in the face of the late republican moral reforms. Ambiguity emerges from the poet-narrator’s perspective, as he is both enthralled by his mistress and disgusted by her material wealth.
Chapter 5 returns to the Roman triumph, discussing its metaphorical and denotative significance. The triumphal imagery simultaneously reinforces Roman gender hierarchies as a metaphor for the relationship between colonizing empire and colonized territories, and exhibits Roman anxieties about the cultural rivalry between Greek and Roman cultures. Gender and genre, Bowditch argues, do the work of empire, as the elegiac poet-narrator’s description of seducing his mistress takes its inspiration from public triumphalism. Masculine Roman imperial identity is thus performed through the historical triumphs enacted in the streets of Rome and then reinforced by the elegiac use of triumphal imagery. The Roman anxiety about Greek culture, however, emerges in the man’s private, erotic submission to their Orientalized, Othered mistress––a mistress whose Greek name underscores Latin literary indebtedness to Hellenistic poetry.
In Chapter 6, Bowditch argues that Propertius 3.21-22 evokes the historiographical and rhetorical discourses that distinguished between two Hellenisms: one, a classic, pure Attic Greek, and the other, a florid, baroque Asiatic Greek, with the latter considered to have been negatively influenced by the effeminate and foreign eastern territories whence it comes. This imagery contextualises the elegiac mistress, who comes to represent the Alexandrian East. This apparent dichotomy is only superficial, Bowditch argues, and closer readings once again undermine elegy’s overt reclaiming of femininity and effeminacy, along with its rejection of Roman masculinity, dependant as it is on militarism and imperialism. The clear cut, Roman male, elite virtues give way to a blurring of these distinctions when the superficial semantics are further analysed, for these dichotomies need each other to exist, and the monstrous ‘Other’ is not so different from the Roman ‘Us’.
Chapter 7 is both a final analysis and the monograph’s conclusion. Bookending the study with a return to Egypt, Bowditch concludes her postcolonial study of Roman elegy by showing how the identification of Egyptian Isis with Greek Io complicates the Orientalizing binary of Us/Other. By her mythic wanderings and syncretic depictions, Isis-Io undermines the dichotomous colonial discourse by showing the multiple historic, literary, and cultural contact points between East and West. The syncretism of Isis-Io connects this goddess with Propertius’ mistress Cynthia, who is identified with Diana-Artemis, another goddess with whom Isis is occasionally identified. The syncretic web reveals the elegiac mistress’ hybridity, and therefore that of elegy itself, for she personifies the genre. Elegy, then, is unmasked as a hybrid, ambiguous, complicated genre, which emerges from and defies the gendered, imperial, colonial construction of Roman identity of its era.
Roman Love Elegy delivers on its promises to “[defamiliarize] the genre and [reveal] its implication in fashioning its contemporary audience into imperial subjects and sustaining Augustan imperial power” (p. 8). Bowditch builds on excellent elegiac scholarship, while offering new insights through her application of postcolonial theory. This book does the invaluable work of nuancing and complicating what we know about the literary, cultural, political, and economic dynamics at play in Latin elegy by reconsidering the sources in a new light. Bowditch’s illumination of how this genre constructs the public Roman male elite citizen through a private genre was particularly well done.
Experientially, I enjoyed reading Roman Love Elegy. Bowditch’s style is fluid, well paced, and clear, while remaining rigorous in her analysis. Her considerable expertise in Roman history and literature is clear, and Bowditch is to be lauded for writing such a study of a difficult and uncomfortable subject. Her literary analysis is undergirded by an excellent discussion of the historical and archaeological/material context. Additionally, as a non-expert in Latin literature, I think that Bowditch struck an excellent balance between providing enough background information to follow her discussion, without overloading the reading or drawing focus from her central argument.
I turn now to more critical reflections. An important feature of Bowditch’s analysis is how the colonial discourse of Latin elegy contributed to the construction of the (elite male) Roman citizen through an Orientalizing, Othering gaze. This well-argued and important point relies upon the idea of elegy as a poetic genre of the private sphere, in contrast with poetry of the public sphere, like epic. Bowditch’s very argument, however, belies this division of public and private: “At first blush each poem unfolds in the context of the personal narrative of an elite Roman male, but writ large across their parallel if competing stories is the bigger drama of Rome’s imperial and cultural identity” (p. 209). The understanding that the personal and private are political is so salient to Bowditch’s analysis, that I found the undefined use of public/private to be jarring. The language of personal/individual, instead of private, may have alleviated this seeming contradiction between terminology and argument.
It is necessary to address the widespread misuse of BDSM to discuss ancient literatures and their connection to real-world socio-economic realities, like enslavement. In discussing this topic, I am using Bowditch’s book as an opportunity to invite reflection on a broader issue. I am not pointing the finger of blame, nor do I think this critique invalidates the important academic contributions Bowditch’s analysis offers. As Bowditch’s reference to Andrew Wallace-Hadrill’s work indicates, this is a broader issue, and one of which we should all be aware.[1] The language of BDSM appears in a few places in this study, an example of which is the description of the imagined relationship between the poet-lover and the woman who is the object of his sexual attentions as a “sadomasochistic fantasy of [the poet-lover] as victim” (p. 179). Free, willing, and enthusiastic consent is at the core BDSM; without such consent, BDSM is not, in fact, BDSM–it is abuse and/or rape.[2] As is widely acknowledged, Latin elegy participates in what Bowditch eloquently calls the “erotics of enslaved looking” (p. 16), and the puella of elegy is most likely an enslaved girl. The free, willing, and enthusiastic consent upon which BDSM is based is wholly absent. This metaphor thus simultaneously misconstrues the power dynamics within the poems, while also perpetuating a discourse which stigmatises BDSM and marginalises those who practice it. This metaphoric misuse of BDSM is not unique to academic writing, as indicated by the numerous publications on the dangerous misrepresentation of BDSM in the Fifty Shades Series.[3] Nor is this discussion a mere rejection of ‘anachronism’. It is crucial that rape be called rape, for only in differentiating between that which is abuse and coercion, and that which is not, can we deconstruct the insidious perspectives and behaviours of rape culture.[4] My hope here is that, in raising this subject, we can alter our writing practices together in the academic community.
Finally, one, small, terminological critique: Bacchus-Dionysus and Osiris are called ‘bisexual’ (p. 45). Though not necessarily inaccurate, in context, the term ‘gender-fluid’ is more apt, as it is the gods’ ever-changing gender expression that is under discussion, not their choice of sexual partners.
Bowditch is to be congratulated for writing such a nuanced, critical, and timely contribution to classical and literary studies. Considering the long and ongoing legacy of the Roman Empire on later imaginations, Bowditch’s application of contemporary theory shows that we can and must understand Latin literature in new ways, and such analyses can only be generated through new questions. I recommend this book to anyone looking for an example of how to use postcolonial theory in the study of ancient literatures, and especially to those who work on ancient erotic or romantic literature, regardless of the language or culture of origin. Though best suited to scholars and experts, this book would also be a good resource for graduate students working in literature written in the Roman Empire generally, and more specifically Latin poetry and the ancient novels (Greek and Latin).
Notes
[1] “One of the more recent accounts of these processes, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill’s The Roman Cultural Revolution, sees a kinky masochism in the line, wherein such a ‘model of hellenisation implies an essentially passive role for the Romans. Willing victims, as if in some perverse game of sexual domination, they accept that Greek culture is ‘superior’ and surrender their ‘primitive’ culture to its control.’” Bowditch, Roman Love Elegy, p. 207; Wallace-Hadrill, The Roman Cultural Revolution, 2008, p. 23.
[2] See, for example, Shanna Germain’s book: As Kinky as You Wanna Be: Your Guide to Safe, Sane and Smart BDSM: Your Guide to Safe, Sane and Smart BDSM. Cleis Press, 2014.
[3] For example: Anna Smith, “Fifty Shades of Grey: what BDSM enthusiasts think,” The Guardian, February 15th, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/15/fifty-shades-of-grey-bdsm-enthusiasts; Emma Green, “Consent Isn’t Enough: The Troubling Sex of Fifty Shades,” The Atlantic, February 10th, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/; Anonymous, “Fifty Shades of Grey // A horror movie about consent,” The Mac Weekly, February 20th, 2025. https://themacweekly.com/68371/arts/fifty-shades-of-grey-a-horror-movie-about-consent/; Anonymous, “Fifty Shades of Grey: Fact checking the film’s portrayal of BDSM,” The Mac Weekly, February 27th, 2015. https://themacweekly.com/68438/opinion/fifty-shades-of-grey-fact-checking-the-films-portrayal-of-bdsm/.
[4] On scholarly ethics and rape culture, cf. e.g., Barbara Thiede. “Taking Biblical Authors at Their Word: On Scholarly Ethics, Sexual Violence, and Rape Culture in the Hebrew Bible.” JBL 143.2 (2024): 185–205.