[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Bassani & Berg’s Introduzione and Malaspina’s concluding remarks respectively set the stage for the essays in the volume and provide a framework for the theoretical issues that animate the discussions throughout.
The Introduzione provides a status quaestionis on the book’s main topic (‘Le emozioni e il paesaggio naturale’) and describes its contents. The five sections contain contributions reflecting various scholarly approaches that are often combined, resulting in different interpretive views and methods: I. Letteratura e archeologia della natura inamoena; II. Letteratura della natura horrida; III. Incontri horridi; IV. L’horridus dietro casa; V. Permanenze e ritorni. All contributions are based on an extensive and up-to-date bibliography. Consequently, the book will be of great interest to scholars of ancient literatures, archaeology, history, and anthropology.
In his concluding remarks, Malaspina outlines the stages of the ‘progressive hermeneutic abstraction’ that the studies of the locus horridus/inamoenus (vs. the locus amoenus[1]) in classical antiquity have undergone in recent times: rhetorical ‘ekphrasis/descriptio’; ‘landscape’, both territorial and cultural (loca vs. loci); post-structuralist ‘space’; ‘atmospheres’, which he defines as ‘space as experienced by humans’. This development is rightly connected with two further prominent trends in postmodern culture: the ‘emotional turn’ and the eco-critical approach. As the subtitle suggests (‘The Romans’ anxieties towards nature’), the contributions focus on loca/loci of Roman antiquity that aroused ‘anxiety’ in their experiencers, whether they were readers, viewers, visitors, or ‘colonizers’. Some contributions blur the boundaries between humans and non-humans (i.e., culture and nature, domesticated and wild nature, and so on), reflecting an ecological awareness that could affect the modern readers’ views of the relationship between humans and nature.
Following the proverb ne sutor ultra crepidam, I will limit my comments to a few articles that align more closely with my scholarly expertise. This will enable me to point out some of the book’s strengths, as well as some potential for further research.
Wyler deserves credit for clearly stating a major methodological premise of his investigation that turns out to be fundamental to the entire book. In fact, he quotes Pierre Descola’s seminal work, in which the term ‘nature’, ‘a collective of the non-human world’, is defined as ‘a purely cultural way of establishing a distance between humans and non-humans’.[2] Wyler considers episodes from the myth of Dionysus, examining iconography – such as mosaics and artifacts – as well as literary references—such as Nonnus’ Dionysiaka. Wyler demonstrates how the deep ambiguity inherent in Dionysiac mythical discourse becomes manifest by the blurring of the boundary between wild and domesticated nature.
In fact, whenever boundaries are blurred and the contiguity of opposites is recognized, control is lost and anxiety arises.
Berg discusses the décor—including paintings, mosaics, statues, and housewares—found in Roman domus, mainly in Pompeii. All spaces in houses are designed to be loca amoena, suitable for accommodating the inhabitants’ comfortable life. However, awe-inspiring elements are shown to lurk behind the delight-inspiring ones—typically, in the form of images portraying the tragic story of Diana and Actaeon.[3] This shows that the threat of ‘wild’ nature is always intertwined with the peace of ‘domesticated’ nature. As Malaspina points out (p. 320), the level of abstraction in the conception of ‘space’ perhaps reaches its climax in this contribution, as the intertwining of the wild and the domesticated is explicitly conceived in terms of ‘atmosphere’.
O’Hearn fruitfully brings together literature and ‘material’ ecocriticism, a critical approach centered on matter and its agency. This approach blurs the boundaries between humans and non-humans.[4] O’Hearn focuses on the parallel Ovid draws between erupting volcanoes—a locus horridus par excellence—and burning lovers. The poet assimilates the former to the latter, and explores the Romans’ anxieties aroused by both volcanic eruptions and love, which they feared could tip into violence. Ovid’s depiction of the ‘monstrous’ Polyphemus’ ‘eruption of passion’ towards Galatea is not surprising (met. 13.862-9); much more disquieting, however, is Sappho’s volcano-like burning for Phaon (epist. 15.9-12), as it blurs cultural boundaries not only between humans and non-humans, but also between genders.
Ecocriticism is represented by Solley’s identification of the ecological view emerging from Horace c. I.22-23 is also valuable. The two poems are read as a complex and disturbing ‘picture of contact and continuity between the human and natural worlds’.
Zanovello explores the contiguity between opposing aspects of the natural world, focusing on the indigenous god Draco (‘serpent’).[5] His contribution is based mainly on epigraphic evidence from North Africa, though he does not overlook literary sources (including late ancient hagiography). Zanovello provides an overview of the serpent’s various meanings in ancient (not only Graeco-Roman) natural and religious lore, presenting it as a chthonic being, connected also with health, healing waters, and the protection of the domus and family. The god Draco is mentioned in some epigraphic dedications (such as CIL VIII.17722[6]) and is possibly portrayed in others (such as CIL VIII.18893[7]).
Importantly, Zanovello provides valuable insights into a type of evidence that is not commonly considered in studies of this field. Moreover, in line with the topic of the section (Permanenze e ritorni), which focuses on linking the past and the present, Zanovello investigates traces of this tradition’s survival in local Islam.[8]
An interesting avenue for further research lies in the paper by Berardi-Presutti. Although ‘Conceptual Metaphor Theory’ (CMT) is not explicitly referred to,[9] this theory sheds light on their contribution, which hints at the cognitive function of metaphors.[10] In fact, it is common—and not only in Latin—for aspects of the complex rhetorical concept of ‘argument’ to be conceptualized in terms of ‘journey’.[11] Referring to CMT would have clarified, on the one hand, why the orators, who avoid delving into the kind of hard probatio, ‘that comprises various means of creating belief’ (Quint. inst. I.8.1), are said to ‘avoid the rugged and stony ranges of argument and lay themselves down in pleasanter places’ (argumenta velut horrida et confragosa vitantes amoenioribus locis desident); on the other hand, it would encourage further investigation, as the conceptual metaphors that shaped the Romans’ understanding of concepts can be shown to express their everyday thinking and to link their language to their thought and behavior.[12]
Finally, Lampinen employs a stimulating methodological framework that combines a focus on ‘emotional response’ with a ‘postcolonial’ perspective. She examines passages by Lucan and Tacitus that feature forests and ‘holy groves’ of the Gauls and Germans, and shifts the focus from the immediate emotional response of the reader to the collective emotional response of the Romans to these loca horrida. The discursive use of this imagery—forests and the rites allegedly performed within them by ‘non-Romans’, including human sacrifice—is shown to make concrete ‘the anxieties of a colonizing mind’, reflecting a fear of the untrustworthiness of the ‘colonized’ peoples. In this respect, it is comparable to likely discursive uses in works by British colonizers in 19th-century India.
Overall, this is a stimulating collection of essays. Due to the wide variety of approaches, it will be valuable and enriching for scholars from different fields. This variety also results in a rich bibliographic apparatus, from which any reader can learn a great deal.
Some may regret the lack of abstracts for individual contributions, as well as the few typos. However, these issues do not detract from the excellent quality of the multifaceted research presented in this volume.
Authors and titles
Ria Berg, Prefazione
Maddalena Bassani – Ria Berg, Introduzione.
I Letteratura e archeologia della natura inamoena
- Paolo Carafa, Il mondo naturale nei paesaggi antichi creati dall’uomo
- Alessio Ameduri, L’eruzione dell’Etna in Virgilio (Aen. 3, 570–84). Una catastrofe ‘da manuale’
- Leah O’Hearn, Etna in the Breast. Ovid, Volcanoes, and the Violence of Erotic Desire
- Giuseppe Lepore, Poseidon e le ‘terre molli’. Ansie acquatiche e tentativi di stabilizzazione dei terreni paludosi
- Jacopo Turchetto, Inamoena Cappadocia. Luoghi inospitali e acque magiche in Anatolia centrale
II Letteratura della natura horrida
- Francesco Berardi – Marco Presutti, La metafora del ‘locus horridus’ nei manuali retorici tra impressioni visive e percezioni sonore
- Antti Lampinen, ‘Lucus horridus’. Emotional Responses to ‘Northern’ Holy Groves in Lucan and Tacitus
- Elina Pyy, ‘Densa noctis in umbra vi potitur votis’. Forest imagery and landscape description in the rape of Deidamia in Statius’ Achilleid
III Incontri horridi
- Maddalena Bassani, Un horridus Gerione alle Aquae Patavinae. Nuove ipotesi per il cippo policefalo da Este
- Nathaniel Fleury Solley, Ecological Awe in a Horatian Diptych (Odes 1, 22–1, 23)
- Miika Remahl, Lion Encounters and Hostile Environments in Lucan’s Pharsalia and Statius’ Thebaid
- Eleonora Voltan, ‘Iamque adeo scopulos Sirenum’. Il mito di Ulisse e le sirene nella pittura parietale romana
IV L’horridus dietro casa
- Ria Berg, Bringing the Wilderness into the Domus. ‘Loca horrida’ in Roman Domestic Decor
- Simone Foresta, L’orrida assenza e il felice ritorno del princeps. La natura nell’elaborazione augustea tra ansie e rinascite
- Stephanie Wyler, Killer Creepers. The Uncanny of Nature in Dionysiac Roman Images
- Francesca Mermati – Luca di Franco, Domare l’horridus. Il paesaggio flegreo da immaginifica ambientazione sacra ad elemento del luxus
V Permanenze e ritorni
- Marco Giglio, La Grotta del Cane ad Agnano. Un locus horridus antico?
- Paola Zanovello, Draco e il culto del serpente nel nord Africa romano
- Diana Spencer, Rome’s Unquiet Ghost? The Death and Resurrection of Nero in Suetonius and Piranesi
Ermanno Malaspina, Epilogue: Horridus/Inamoenus from a Landscape Typology to a Way of Life?
Notes
[1] A modern typology to which only a heuristic status can be ascribed.
[2] P. Descola, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris 2005.
[3] Its presence in Apuleius’ well-known description of the atrium of Byrrhaena (met. II.4.10) is no coincidence.
[4] See Timothy Clark, Material Ecocriticism, in: T.C., The Value of Ecocriticism, Cambridge 2019, 111-36.
[5] In inscriptions from other Latin-speaking provinces, Draco is used exclusively as a Greek male proper name.
[6] The name of the person who dedicated the inscription, Abidius Bassus, is said to betray an African origin. This perhaps is based not on the name itself, but on the spelling. The B/V exchange (Abidius = Av-) is frequent in non-literary texts from Africa: cf. J.N. Adams, The Regional Diversification of Latin, 200 BC – AD 600, Cambridge 2007, 636-63.
[7] The dedication actually reads genio domus sacrum (‘sacred to the genius of the house’), and not genius domus sacrum: see the entry in the Clauss/Slaby epigraphic database (EDCS-25600201).
[8] Perhaps the references to Italian ‘santo protettore’ and ‘santone locale’, which would correspond to the Arabic ‘marabout’, are not entirely accurate here.
[9] Although a ‘metafora concettuale’ is spoken of at 93.
[10] Metaphors are stated to reflect ‘le percezioni dell’uomo comune dinanzi alla realtà’ and to be ‘via d’accesso privilegiata per ricostruire l’immaginario di una civiltà’. On CMT, see Zoltán Kövecses, Metaphor. A Practical Introduction, Oxford 20102. See also the essays collected in Spatial Metaphors. Ancient Texts and Transformations, ed. by Fabian Horn – Cilliers Breytenbach, Berlin 2016.
[11] Kövecses, Metaphor (n. 10), 96.
[12] For conceptual metaphors used to conceptualize the mind and its activities, see e.g. William M. Short, A Roman Folk Model of the Mind, Arethusa, 45 (2012), 109-47.