Serena Witzke, January 2014 APA

Elegy, Aetia, and the Conquest of the Feminine in Propertius Book 4

Introduction

Propertius Book 4 is a paradoxical juxtaposition of female triumph and fe-

male ruin (which you can see in Handout I): the poet ventriloquizes women in

half the poems (4.3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11), allowing them a rare chance to speak; Cynthia

conquers the amator in 8; and the lena manipulates him (5). But female triumph is

undercut by images of brutalized or dead female bodies: Tarpeia is violently killed,

now-deceased Acanthis is imagined in torment, Cleopatra is vanquished, dead

Cynthia disintegrates while condemning her jumped-up rival for murdering her and

torturing her slaves, two prostitutes are tossed out naked on the street, Hercules be-

sieges and usurps an all-female shrine, and the elite Cornelia laments a life cut

short with little to show for being a good matrona. There are no fewer than five

dead women in these eleven poems. Propertius intersperses (or camouflages) these

meditations on female destruction with Callimachean aetia in celebration of impe-

rialist Rome. Fraught with contradictions, Book 4 presents a complex rumination

on imperialism and elegy by blurring the distinctions between them where women

are concerned.

Part I: A New Poetic Program?

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Propertius sets up a number of expectations with his new book of poetry. At

the end of book 3, he bade farewell to elegy, saying goodbye to Cynthia and inti-

mating new types of poetry to come, and in book 4 he claims to attempt state poet-

ry, namely Callimachean aetiologies for Roman monuments and Roman cultural

institutions. Augustus has raised the idea of cultural rejuvenation and traditional

continuity in his public works and the claims he made in the Res Gestae. One of

the first extant works of poetry after the Aeneid, Propertius Book 4, with its claims

of state poetry, raises the expectation of continuity with the themes in that work as

well—and yet, as Book 4 unfolds, we are treated to something completely discord-

ant with the proposed program. In poem 1B Horos urged the poet to give up his

aspirations for writing state poetry, but the admixture of state and elegiac topics

suggests the poet only took Horos’ advice in half-measure, at least on the surface.i

The book appears to present itself as half elegy, half aetia,ii but only poems 2

and 10 are dedicated foundation poems. Propertius’ musing on the origin of the

function of the Tarpeian rock (4) quickly dissolves into a depiction of elegiac

doomed love; and when Hercules assaults the shrine of the Bona Dea (9), he does

so as an exclusus amator.iii Thus both poems muddle the line between aetiology

and elegy. Having said goodbye to elegiac women in book 3, and announced a

program of Roman historical, foundational subjects, Propertius deliberately raises

expectations that he will turn instead to the traditional, legitimate, and exemplary

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women of Rome’s past. His program of Roman aetiologies enters him into a dia-

logue with Livy book 1, but he notably leaves out the women we would expect to

see in foundational Roman poetry: Rhea Silvia, the Sabine women, and Lucretia.

As Henry and James point out,iv there is no Rome without these women. The only

foundational woman Propertius and Livy share is Tarpeia, and here the elegist fo-

cuses on eros, not the monetary reward emphasized in Livy. In fact, nearly all of

the women in Book 4 are disreputable or elegiac—a far cry from the purported

program in 4.1 and the lofty goals of Livy and Vergil, who demonstrate the female

relationship to the state with a number of women from Rome’s mythic history.

Book 4 moves away from aetiological women almost immediately, devoting the

center to elegy’s cast of the subaltern, earthy, and illegitimate females, swinging

back to a traditional Roman wife only in Poem 11.

What the book does have in common with Vergil and Livy is the series of

conquered, destroyed, or eliminated women who are written off their pages (see

handout II). In Vergil, Aeneas’ Trojan wife Creusa is lost, Dido is abandoned, the

Trojan women are left behind in book 5, Latinus’ wife is maddened and silenced,

the militaristic Camilla (herself a precursor for militant Cynthia in 4.8) is de-

stroyed, and the mute Lavinia is passed around as a war prize. As James notes,v

women in the Aeneid are associated with dead cities that must be abandoned or

conquered. Similarly, as Joshel remarks,vi assaulted and/or dead women litter the

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pages of Livy’s foundational book: the raped and murdered Rhea Silvia, the raped

Sabines, the raped Lucretia (who then kills herself) all institute new phases of the

Roman state. Propertius’ parade of dead women is actually at home in the state

tradition of violence against women.

Much has been made of the continuities and discontinuities in Book 4, nota-

bly by Hutchinson, Janan, and DeBrohun,vii but what remains constant throughout

the book is the subjugation of the feminine. Significantly, this is the first poetic

work to follow the Julian laws on sex and marriage. What becomes apparent

through the parade of elegiac and legitimate Roman female characters in Book 4 is

that, disreputable or not, all women in Rome are playing a game they are doomed

to lose. Only in Poem 11 do we see a reputable, legitimate Roman wife who

obeyed the rules of the game, produced children for her husband and succeeded at

the values of Augustan morality—but her narrative is tempered with her discontent

and her status as deceased. What does this odd ending to Propertius’ state poetry

mean?

Part II: Elegy Remixed

Propertius’ supposedly imperialist poetry is less about Roman power over

enemies than about male power over women. Elegy itself purports to be a celebra-

tion of women, love, and male passivity, but the poet throughout book 4 dramatiz-

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es the conquest of the feminine through militia amoris,viii or at least militia, which

takes over from the earlier trope of servitium amoris.ix

In 4.3, the forlorn Arethusa complains of neglect because of Lycotas’ mili-

tary service. We are treated to a review of Rome’s imperial interests through her

querulous lament for the absent Lycotas: places like Bactra and Britain, people

such as the Persians, Getae, and Indians (7-10), with further reference to the Par-

thians (36). Despite the many references to marriage and conjugal love, Arethusa

is a puella under exclusive contract robbed of her lover (and importantly, custom-

er) Lycotas, as recent scholarship demonstrates.x Her worries are those of the ele-

giac puella and amator when each thinks of the absent other. Arethusa thinks

about the delicate body of her beloved, then jealously imagines the love-bites he

may be receiving abroad from another puella (dentibus ulla puella / det mihi

plorandas per tua colla notas! 25-26). She wants to believe that Lycotas’ wan ap-

pearance is attributed to absence from her side (27-28), and she speaks of the bed

his duty has made him abandon, with speech that resembles Cynthia’s in 1.3 as she

chastises her own absent lover. Thus the specter of the elegiac relationship lives on

in this book of state poetry. Arethusa also longs to be like Gallus’ Lycoris who

braved the cold and the camps of military service to be with her soldier (45-48),

and this desire strengthens the elegiac associations. In this poem, military service

(service to the state) has injured a woman, in this case figuratively through the re-

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moval of her lover and through the substitution of militia amoris for actual militia.

Hallett has previously noted that the Augustan military programme is harmful to

lovers,xi and indeed here the contracted puella must waste years of her life chastely

weaving with only a sister and pale nurse for company (41-42). Her lover, by con-

trast, has abandoned the stance of servitium amoris for the betrayal of an active

military career that the Propertian speaker himself had previously shunned, out of

loyalty to his beloved.

In 4.4 Propertius moves from the more obvious elegiac scene of 4.3 into

what initially appears an aetiological poem about the function of Rome’s Tarpeian

Rock. But Propertius moves away from Rome’s early history to focus on Tarpe-

ia’s character. In Livy she was motivated by greed, but Propertius recasts her moti-

vation as eros, and re-writes her as a disconsolate lover like Arethusa. Hallett notes

that Hellenistic writers attributed Tarpeia’s actions to love, but Roman historical

authorities preferred the widely accepted alternative tradition of her materialistic

motivations.xii Propertius’ rejection of monetary interference in the elegiac love

affair reinforces his preference for the Hellenistic tradition of Tarpeia’s eros, but

Tarpeia’s purer motivations do not completely eradicate his disapproval of her

treachery. As Welch has remarked, however, Tarpeia’s refusal to agree with the

state’s appropriation of her sexuality in its service (for she was a Vestal Virgin)

voices Propertian dissent with state mandate on acceptable sexual behavior.xiii

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Here too we see militia interfering in the elegiac relationship (see handout

IIIA). Where militia had hindered, now it facilitates, as it brings Tatius into Tar-

peia’s sphere. But the result remains the same. Whereas 4.3 commented on the de-

structive effect of the lover’s absence on the puella’s household, 4.4 highlights the

male’s literal conquest of the female. War sets the stage for the couple’s meeting:

in IIIA1 the bellicus equus drinks at the spring, and the pila Sabina stand in the

Roman Forum (11-14). In IIIA2 Tarpeia’s heart is captured by Tatius’ fine form

in his armor, as he rides about on his horse commanding the men (19-22). She be-

comes an elegiac lover, desperate to be near her beloved, and as you can see in

IIIB, whose affections she wants to purchase with access to besieged Rome, no in-

significant bauble (and more than the elegiac lover usually brings).xiv But a female

amator is an unnatural thing, and Tarpeia presages her own destruction with refer-

ences to other female lovers and betrayers of family: Scylla and Ariadne (39-42).

The reader is reminded of male power and conquest through Tarpeia’s perverted

appeal to the story of the Sabine women—but that rape was uninvited, and was in-

stigated by Roman men. A female-instigated snatching and bedding (as she sug-

gests, 61-62) is an inappropriate inversion of power that can be righted only with

punitive physical violence. In IIIA3 Tatius turns his military might on Tarpeia,

and she is literally destroyed by his Sabine arms (ingestis armis, 91).

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Two more of the supposedly ‘state’ poems, 6 and 9, move between elegy

and male violence. Poem 6 describes the fall of Cleopatra, a seemingly state-

centered, political topic, but reverts quickly to poetic revelry. Furthermore, the po-

et glossed Cleopatra and Antony as elegiac lovers in 2.15/16,xv and her destruction

is both the ruin of a female enemy, and the destruction of the elegiac puella

through male force. In 4.9 Hercules appeals to the priestess of the women’s shrine

and grove of the Bona Dea as an exclusus amator,xvi trying to wheedle entry, with

persuasive speech, from an intractable woman who denies him access. When the

words unworthy of a god (verba minora deo, 32) fail, he resorts to unbridled male

violence, the persuasion of brute force. With his shoulders he pushes down the

walls and assaults the closed door (61-62), obliterating and banishing henceforth

the feminine (69).

This conquest of the feminine is not purely military, but also conquest

through social reality: the amator will always dominate the puella because she is

ultimately bound by economic circumstances that limit her choices and prevent her

from denying a lover.xvii In this she has much in common with the legitimate

wives limited by Augustus’ new moral legislation, who may no longer choose to

remain devoted to the memory of a single husband without facing economic penal-

ties: neither woman may be an univira as their lovers and husbands might wish.xviii

Propertius’ earlier elegies had isolated the amator and his beloved from reality: the

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amator laments alone (1.17, 1.18, 2.19, 3.21), and few other characters appear to

shatter the elegiac conceit. Book 4, by contrast, is urban and picaresque: a lena,

slaves, street whores, maids, and murderous female rivals dominate. These

‘earthy’ characters highlight the amator’s relationship to the puella: for all her ma-

nipulation, she is dependent on him.

In 4.5 the lena triumphs over the amator by squeezing him for money, but in

doing so she reminds the reader that the puella needs his money to survive. The

bawd Acanthus mentions various riches that the puella may desire at the beginning

of the poem (gems, the murex from which Tyrian purple is made, Coan silk [a

common elegiac luxury], fancy cups, 21-26), but the procurement of these objects

is not without danger and not without purpose. In handout IVA1 Acanthis imme-

diately highlights the violence that sex workers risked from their customers (si tibi

forte comas vexaverit, utilis ira: / post modo mercata pace premendus erit, 31-32),

and the careful choreography required by the puella to retain the interest of the

amator (33-40).xix In IVA2 she suggests that the puella take all comers: the sol-

dier, the sailor, even the foreign freedman (49-52) should be welcome if he can pay

(53). Her persuasive speech comes to its point shortly in IVA3; the puella won’t

gain anything from verses, and the springtime of youth is the only time she has to

make money, because age will soon mar her beauty (dum rugis integer annus, /

utere, ne quid cras libet ab ore dies! 59-60). Though the amator is livid at the

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seemingly greedy speech, he betrays, with a depiction of Acanthis’ end, the fate

that is in store for the puella who does not abide by her instructions and store up

wealth while she still can, which you can see in handout IVB: old age and dis-

ease lived out in rags, in a hovel with no fire; death; and a shabby funeral await the

impoverished woman (67-74).

Poem 4.7 further highlights the puella’s dependence—after her death she

complains that the amator has not adequately commemorated her (23-34), as you

can see in Handout IVC. Despite her constant acquiescence to his desires, once

dead she is allowed to go to burial without tears, without a watchman for her

corpse, on a pitiable bier, her head propped up by a jagged tile (23-26). She re-

ceived a poorly constructed pyre that burned her unevenly, no aromatics upon it,

no flowers, not even a libation. The shabby funeral presaged in 4.5 has come to

pass. The amator has allowed Cynthia’s memory to be suppressed in her household

(47-48, 41-46), and he has replaced her with a rival soon after Cynthia’s death.

These facts stand in contrast to his earlier ardor and call into question the amator’s

claims of undying interest and passion, so quick is he to discard her.

Poem 4.8, by contrast, may seem an ode to female triumph, but with the

specter of Cynthia’s death in 4.7, this poem stands as a Pyrrhic victory. Cynthia is

resplendent in her temporary conquest: she interrupts her poet’s dinner party like

an angry, cuckolded husband, flings her rivals out in the street, beats the amator

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mercilessly, abuses his slave, forces him to comply with the terms of her treaty,

and imperiously purifies the house before consenting to bed him (51-88). But we

know that her conquest is short-lived: Hutchinson notes that the chronology of the

love affair places this poem some years before the events of 4.7, and here we see

that the lover has not abided by his promises: Lygdamus is ordered sold in 4.8, but

still remains in 4.7, and the very existence of 4.8 means that the amator disregard-

ed Cynthia’s wish in 4.7 that he burn his poetry about her. In this poem too we see

more aspects of violence suffered by sex workers (see handout IVD): the girls

working the amator’s party (and engaged in a mercantile relationship with him,

much like the puella), Phyllis and Teia are abused (their hair torn, clothes ripped,

summarily hauled from the couch and chased into the street) with no intercession

from the man who hired them. The amator, in fact, is pleased by the punishment

of the girls, as it offers him proof of Cynthia’s devotion. They are forgotten as

quickly as Cynthia will be after her death, as she complained in 4.7. The interplay

of these two poems problematizes the elegiac relationship, showing it at its high

and low points, but in both demonstrating the zero sum game of elegy: someone

must lose, and it is inevitably the female.

Conclusion

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Propertius offers a glimpse into the dark side of elegy (which Ovid will fully

exploit in his Amores). Does he subscribe to the system of abuse and subjugation

that he presents? He need not (and up to this point has not) put suffering female

bodies on display. Book 4 could have been written without tortured, mutilated,

and dead women. The poet chooses to highlight elegy’s Janus face of admiration

and destruction of women. Nevertheless, even while sympathizing with the female

plight, the poet cannot divorce himself from his position of power through citizen-

ship and masculinity;xx his work perpetuates the dominance of male over female.

The program and recusatio of 4.1 take on new meaning upon re-reading. Instead

of dividing his time between imperialist poetry and elegy, he systematically

demonstrates how elegy, far from rejecting state poetry, perpetuates one of its

principles: the subjugation of the feminine and the conquest of the subaltern by the

citizen male. Pause.

I hope in this paper to have raised subjects for discussion, rather than having

drawn concrete conclusions; the mystifying structure and subject matter of the

book leave open many avenues for discourse on Propertius’ representation of the

feminine.xxi

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, W. (1964). “Hercules Exclusus: Propertius, IV, 9.” American Journal of Philology 85

(1), 1-12. Cohen, D. (1991). “The Augustan Law on Adultery: The Social and Cultural Context.” In D. I.

Kertzer & R. P. Saller (eds.), The Family in Italy: from Antiquity to the Present (pp. 109-126). New Haven: Yale University Press.

DeBrohun, J. (2003). Roman Propertius and the Reinvention of Elegy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Frank, R. I. (1975). “Augustus' Legislation on Marriage and Children.” California Studies in Classical Antiquity 8, 41-52.

Gale, M. (1997). “Propertius 2.7: Militia Amoris and the Ironies of Elegy.” Journal of Roman Studies 87, 77-91.

Galinsky, K. (1981). “Augustus' Legislation on Morals and Marriage.” Philologus 125, 126-144. Gibson, R. K. (2007). Excess and Restraint: Propertius, Horace, and Ovid's Ars Amatoria

(B.I.C.S. Supplement Vol. 89). London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Griffin, J. (1977). “Propertius and Antony.” Journal of Roman Studies 67, 17-26. Hallett, J. (1971). “Book IV: Propertius' Recusatio to Augustus and Augustan Ideals.” Harvard

University, Cambridge, MA. Henry, M. M., & James, S. L. (2012). “Woman, City, State: Theories, Ideologies, and Concepts

in the Archaic and Classical Periods.” In S. Dillon & S. L. James (eds.), A Companion to Women in the Ancient World (pp. 84-95). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hutchinson, G. (ed.). (2006). Propertius: Elegies Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

James, S. (2002). “Future Perfect Feminine: Women Past and Present in Vergil's Aeneid.” In W. S. Anderson & L. N. Quartarone (eds.), Approaches to Teaching Vergil's Aeneid (pp. 138-146). New York.

James, S. (2003). Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

James, S. (2005). “A Courtesan's Choreography: Female Liberty and Male Anxiety at the Roman Dinner Party.” In W. W. Batstone & G. Tissol (eds.), Defining Genre and Gender in Latin Literature (pp. 269-299). New York: Peter Lang.

James, S. (2012). “Re-reading Propertius' Arethusa.” Mnemosyne 65, 425-444. Janan, M. W. (2000). Politics of Desire. Ewing, NJ: University of California Press. Joshel, S. R. (1992). “The Body Female and the Body Politic: Livy's Lucretia and Verginia.” In

A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (pp. 112-130). New York: Oxford University Press.

Keith, A. (2008). Propertius: Poet of Love and Leisure. London: Duckworth. Keith, A. M. (2000). Engendering Rome: Women in Latin Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1979). “Servitium Amoris.” The Classical Quarterly 29 (1), 117-130. Murgatroyd, P. (1975). “Militia amoris and the Roman Elegists.” Latomus 34, 59-79. Murgatroyd, P. (1981). “Servitium Amoris and the Roman Elegists.” Latomus 40, 589-606. Nugent, S. G. (1995). “Vergil's "Voice of the Women" in Aeneid V.” Arethusa 25 (2), 255-289.

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Perkell, C. (1997). “The Lament of Juturna: Pathos and Interpretation in the Aeneid.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 127, 257-286.

Richardson, L. (2006). Propertius Elegies I-IV. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Welch, T. (2005). The Elegiac Cityscape: Propertius and the Meaning of Roman Monuments.

Columbus: Ohio State University Press.                                                                                                                i  Hallett  (1971)  discusses  at  length  Propertius’  recusatio  and  rejection  of  Augustan  ideals.  ii Richardson (2006) iii Anderson (1964); Welch (2005) iv Henry & James (2012) v James (2002) vi Joshel (1992) vii DeBrohun (2003); Hutchinson (2006); Janan (2000) viii Gale (1997); Murgatroyd (1975) ix Lyne (1979); Murgatroyd (1981) x James (2012) xi  Hallett  (1971:  p.  147)  xii  Hallett  (1971:  pp.  116-­‐117)  xiii  Welch  (2005:  pp.  77-­‐78)  xiv She also calls upon mythological precedents for her love, as elegiac lovers do (39-46) xv Gibson (2007); Griffin (1977) xvi Anderson (1964) xvii James (2003) xviii Cohen (1991); Frank (1975); Galinsky (1981). xix James (2005) xx A. Keith (2008) xxi other things to cite in handout bibliography: A. M. Keith (2000); Nugent (1995); Perkell (1997); Welch (2005)

Serena Witzke, UNC Chapel Hill APA Conference, Chicago switzke@email.unc.edu January 5, 2014

 

ELEGY, AETIA, AND THE CONQUEST OF THE FEMININE IN PROPERTIUS BOOK 4

I. WOMEN IN BOOK 4 Ventriloquized women: Arethusa (4.3), Tarpeia (4.4), Acanthis (4.5), Cynthia (4.7, 4.8), Cornelia (4.11). Brutalized women: Tarpeia, crushed under the shields; Acanthis, tubercular; street prostitutes Teia and Phyllis, beaten (4.8); the nymphs of 4.9, whose shrine is destroyed. Dead women: Tarpeia, Acanthis, Cleopatra (4.6), Cynthia, Cornelia. Militia and conquest of women: Arethusa, bereft of her soldier lover; Tarpeia, destroyed by Sabine arms; Cleopatra, defeated; Hercules’ violence against the nymphs and their female shrine. Conquest of women through social reality: the puella is dependent on the lover’s money (4.5); Cynthia is neglected after her death (4.7); Cynthia gains a Pyrrhic victory (4.8); Cornelia, the faithful wife, is disconsolate after death (4.11).

II. VERGIL AND LIVY: VIOLENCE AND WOMEN IN THE FOUNDATION MYTHS

Vergil: Aeneas’ Trojan wife Creusa is lost, then dies; Dido is abandoned, commits suicide; the Trojan women are left behind in Book 5; Amata is maddened, commits suicide; Camilla is defeated; Lavinia is merely a war prize. Livy: Rhea Silvia is raped, imprisoned; the Sabine women are snatched and forced into marriage; Tarpeia is murdered; good Tullia is murdered; Lucretia is raped, commits suicide.

III. MILITIA AND THE PUELLA

A. Militia and Tarpeia (4.4)1

(1) War at Rome: 11-14 namque ubi nunc terris dicuntur iura subactis, stabant Romano pila Sabina Foro murus erant montes; ubi nunc est Curia saepta, bellicus ex illo fonte bibebat equus .

And where justice is now dispensed in a subject world, Sabine javelins stood in the Roman forum. For a wall there were hills; where building now hedge in the Senate House, the war-horse drank from the spring there.

                                                                                                               1 All Latin text from Hutchinson’s Propertius Elegies IV; all translations adapted from Goold.

2

(2) Tatius the general: 19-22 vidit harenosis Tatium proludere campis pictaque per flavas arma levare iubas. obstipuit regis facie et regalibus armis, interque oblitas excidit urna manus.

(3) Tarpeia’s death by military arms: 89-92 at Tatius (neque enim sceleri dedit hostis honorem) “nube” ait “et regni scande cubile mei.” dixit, et ingestis comitum super obruit armis; haec, virgo, officiis dos erat apta tuis.

She saw Tatius maneuvering on the sandy plain and uplifting his blazoned arms over his horse’s golden mane: she was stupefied by the king’s looks and his kingly armor, and the urn dropped from between her heedless hands. But Tatius (for the foe allowed no honor to treachery) answered: “Wed, and thus mount my royal bed.” So saying, he crushed her beneath the massed shields of his company. This, maiden, was a meet dowry for your services.

B. Tarpeia as elegiac amator: 4.4.55-62

“dic, hospes, spatiorne tua regina sub aula? dos tibi non humilis prodita Roma venit. si minus, at raptae ne sint impune Sabinae, me rape et alterna lege repende vices. commissas acies ego possum solvere †nuptae: vos medium palla foedus inite mea. adde, Hymenaee, modos; tubicen, fera murmura conde: credite, vestra meus molliet arma torus.”

“Tell, O stranger, do I parade as queen in your court? In my betrayal of Rome you have no mean dowry. If not that, then lest the Sabine rape go unavenged, rape me, and settle the score by the law of reprisal. As your bride I can part the armies locked in battle: make of my wedding-gown a treaty of reconciliation. Nuptial god, add your music! Trumpeter, silence your barbarous blasts! Trust me, warriors: my marriage-bed will put your strife to rest.”

IV. DESTRUCTIVE SOCIAL REALITIES

A. Notes for the sex worker: 4.5

(1) Violence is possible: 31-32

“si tibi forte comas vexaverit, utilis ira postmodo mercata pace premendus erit”

(2) Take all comers: 49-53 “nec tibi displiceat miles non factus amori, nauta nec attrita si ferat aera manu, aut quorum titulus per barbara colla pependit, cretati medio cum saluere foro. aurum spectato, non quae manus afferat aurum!”

“If he chance to have pulled your hair, let his anger bring you profit: he must be punished by purchasing peace later.” “Spurn not the soldier ill made for love, or the seaman if his gnarled hand carries coin, or yet one of those on whose barbarian neck a label has hung and whose chalked feet have danced in the marketplace. Look at the gold, not the hand that brings it.”

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(3) Get the money now while you’re young: 54, 57-62

versibus auditis quid nisi verba feres? […] qui versus, Coae dederit nec munera vestis, istius tibi sit surda sine arte lyra. dum vernat sanguis, dum rugis integer annus, utere, ne quid cras libet ab ore dies. vidi ego odoratum victura rosaria Paestum sub matutino cocta iacere Noto.”

“Listen to their verses, and what will you gain save empty words? […] Whoever brings verses and not gifts of Coan silk, consider his penniless lyre to be without a tune. While your blood is in its spring and your years free of wrinkles, make the most of the fact, lest the morrow take toll of your beauty. I have seen rose-beds of fragrant Paestum that promised enduring bloom lying withered by the sirocco’s morning blast.”

B. Acanthis’ demise: the eventual fate of the poor puella and funeral: 4.5.67-78

vidi ego rugoso tussim crebrescere collo, sputaque per dentes ire cruenta cavos, atque animam in tegetes putrem exspirare paternas: horruit algenti pergula curva foco. exsequiae fuerunt rari furtiva capilli vincula et immundo pallida mitra situ, et canis, in nostros nimis experrecta Dolores, cum fallenda meo pollice clatra forent. sit tumulus lenae curto vetus amphora collo: urgeat hunc supra vis, caprifice, tua. quisquis amas, scabris hoc bustum caedite saxis, mixtaque cum saxis addite verba mala!

I have lived to see the phlegm clotting in her wrinkled throat, the bloody spittle that she coughed up through her decayed teeth, and to see her breathe out her last rank breath on heirloom rags: her sagging shack shivered with its fire gone out. For her funeral she had the stolen bands that bound her scanty hair, a cap that had lost its color through foul neglect, and the dog that to my chagrin was over-vigilant when my fingers needed to undo stealthily the latch of the door. Let the bawd’s tomb be an old wine-jar with broken neck, and upon it, wild fig-tree, exert your might. All ye that love, pelt this grave with jagged stones, and mingled with the stones cast curses!

C. Cynthia’s funeral: 4.7.23-34

at mihi non oculos quisquam inclamavit euntes: unum impetrassem te revocante diem: nec crepuit fissa me propter harundine custos, laesit et obiectum tegula curta caput. denique quis nostro curvum te funere vidit, atram quis lacrimis incaluisse togam? si piguit portas ultra procedere, at illuc iussisses lectum lentius ire meum. cur ventos non ipse rogis, ingrate, petisti? cur nardo flammae non oluere meae? hoc etiam grave erat, nulla mercede hyacinthos inicere et fracto busta piare cado?

But no one cried aloud upon my eyes at my passing: I might, had you called me back, have gained another day. No watchman rattled his cleft reed for my sake, and a jagged tile gashed my unprotected head. Besides, who saw you bowed with grief at my funeral or your suit of mourning warmed with tears? If it irked you to accompany the cortege beyond the gates, still you might have bade my bier move more slowly to that point. Why, ungrateful man, did you not call the winds to fan my pyre? Why was my funeral fire not perfumed with spice? Was it then too much to cast hyacinths upon me, no costly gift, and to hallow my grave with wine from a shattered jar?

4

D. Punishment of street prostitutes: 4.8.57-62 Phyllidos iratos in vultum conicit ungues; territa vicini Teïa clamat, ‘aquam!’ †lumina† sopitos turbant elata Quirites, omnis et insana semita voce sonat. illas, direptisque comis tunicisque solutis, excipit obscurae prima taberna viae.

Angrily she makes for Phyllis’ face with her fingernails; terrified, Teia cries out, “Help, neighbors! Fire!” Screams of abuse awaken the sleeping citizens and the whole street resounds with angry voices. With hair torn and clothes ripped the girls take refuge in the first tavern they find in the dark.

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