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THE DIDOS OF BOOK FOUR: GENDER, GENRE, AND THE AENEID IN PROPERTIUS 4.3 AND 4.4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2018

Bobby Xinyue
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Extract

In the second poem of Propertius’ fourth book, the form-shifting deity Vertumnus claims that he is suited to any role that he is associated with because he can appear convincingly as a girl or a man: indue me Cois: fiam non dura puella; / meque uirum sumpta quis neget esse toga? (‘dress me in Coan silk, I shall be a gentle maiden: and who would say that I am not a man when I don the toga?’, 4.2.23–4). Later in Propertius 4.9, another gender ambiguous character, Hercules, while trying to gain entry into the shrine of the Bona Dea, boasts that he had woven and performed a handmaiden's service (4.9.47–50):

      idem ego Sidonia feci seruilia palla
      officia et Lydo pensa diurna colo;
      mollis et hirsutum cinxit mihi fascia pectus,
      et manibus duris apta puella fui.
      I have also done the tasks of a slave-girl in a Sidonian gown
      and worked at the daily burden of the Lydian distaff.
      A soft breastband has surrounded my shaggy chest,
      and with my hard hands I was a fitting girl.
Scholars have noted that the language used by Propertius to depict gender inversion in these episodes has profound implications for understanding the generic complexity of the poet's new, more aetiological, fourth book. DeBrohun points out that, when Hercules recalls the soft (mollis) breastband on his hairy (hirsutum) chest – a contrast further substantiated by his claim that he had become a puella with rough hands (manibus duris) – the hero ‘softens’ his appearance in terms that resonate strongly with the Augustan poets’ expression of the terminology of Callimachean poetics, thus allowing readers to interpret this scene as an act of generic realignment that symbolizes Book 4's attempt to accommodate both grand topics and erotic narratives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , October 2018 , pp. 218 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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References

1 Passages of Propertius are cited in the form in which they appear in Heyworth, S. J. (ed.), Sexti Properti Elegi (Oxford, 2007a)Google Scholar; variants and conjectures are not noted except in cases where they are important for the discussion. Translations of Propertius are based on Heyworth, S. J., Cynthia. A Companion to the Text of Propertius (Oxford, 2007b)Google Scholar. All other translations are based on the Loeb editions. For the origin, name, and religious significance of Vertumnus, see especially the recent and very thorough study of Bettini, M., Il dio elegante. Vertumno e la religione romana (Turin, 2015)Google Scholar, which uses Prop. 4.2 as an anchor for his investigation; see also Radke, G., Die Götter Altitaliens (Münster, 1965), 317–20Google Scholar. The idea that Vertumnus is a god of change is also expressed by Propertius’ contemporary Horace in Sat. 2.7.13–14.

2 Several scholars have argued, persuasively, that Prop. 4.9 explores the constructions of gender through the indeterminate gender of Hercules. See Lindheim, S. H., ‘Hercules Cross-Dressed, Hercules Undressed: Unmasking the Construction of the Propertian amator in Elegy 4.9’, AJPh 119 (1998), 43–66Google Scholar; Janan, M., The Politics of Desire. Propertius IV (Berkeley, CA, 2001), 128–45Google Scholar.

3 DeBrohun, J. B., Roman Propertius and the Reinvention of Elegy (Ann Arbor, MI, 2003), 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Fedeli, P., Properzio. Elegie. Libro IV (Bari, 1965)Google Scholar, on 4.2.23; Hutchinson, G., Propertius. Elegies. Book IV (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar, on 4.2.23–4; E. Coutelle, Properce. Élégies. Livre IV (Brussels, 2015), on 4.2.23.

5 Coutelle (n. 4) on 4.2.24. Note also Vertumnus’ claim three lines later, arma tuli quondam (‘I bore arms once’, 4.2.27); on metapoetic readings of this line, see Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.2.27 and Coutelle (n. 4) on 4.2.27.

6 See e.g. Hutchinson (n. 4), 86: ‘4.1 has juxtaposed Rome's evolution and the possibility of change for the poet. This poem [i.e. 4.2] proves that possibility’; see also DeBrohun (n. 3) 169–75; Welch, T. S., The Elegiac Cityscape. Propertius and the Meaning of Roman Monuments (Columbus, OH, 2005), 42–3Google Scholar.

7 DeBrohun (n. 3), 171; see also Wyke, M., The Roman Mistress (Oxford, 2002), 84Google Scholar.

8 For an innovative reading of the epic and elegiac movements of 4.1, see O'Rourke, D., ‘“Eastern” Elegy and “Western” Epic: Reading “Orientalism” in Propertius 4 and Virgil's Aeneid’, Dictynna 8 (2011), 3–8Google Scholar. Several scholars have argued for a bipartite programme for Propertius’ final poetry book: see Stahl, H.-P., Propertius. ‘Love’ and ‘War’. Individual and State under Augustus (Berkeley, CA, 1985), 255–79Google Scholar; Wyke (n. 7), 78–114.

9 On the correspondence between 4.7 and 4.8, see Warden, J., ‘The Dead and the Quick: Structural Correspondences and Thematic Relationships in Propertius 4.7 and 4.8’, Phoenix 50 (1996), 118–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janan (n. 2), 110–27.

10 Critics generally agree that the intrusion of a second voice at line 71 retracts and amends the poetic programme set out in 4.1.1–70. For arguments in favour of division of 4.1 into two separate poems, see Sandbach, F., ‘Some Problems in Propertius’, CQ 12 (1962), 264–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heyworth (n. 1, 2007b), 424–5.

11 See recently O'Rourke (n. 8). In addition, on the Actian scenes in Aen. 8 and Prop. 4.6, see Miller, J. F., ‘Propertian Reception of Virgil's Actian Apollo’, MD 52 (2004), 73–84Google Scholar. On the dialogue between Prop. 4.9 and Aen. 8.184–305, see Warden, J., ‘Epic into Elegy: Propertius 4.9.70f.’, Hermes 110 (1982), 228–42Google Scholar; Janan, M., ‘Refashioning Hercules: Propertius 4.9’, Helios 25 (1998), 65–77Google Scholar.

12 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.3.30.

13 On the allusion to Aen. 7.456–7 at Prop. 4.4.68, see the comments ad loc. in Rothstein, M., Die Elegien des Sextus Propertius, second edition (Berlin, 1920–4)Google Scholar; D'Arbela, E. V., Properzio. Elegie (Milan, 1964)Google Scholar, and Hutchinson (n. 4).

14 Warden, J., ‘Another Would-Be Amazon: Propertius 4, 4, 71–72’, Hermes 106 (1978), 177–187Google Scholar, esp. 178–80, 182–4, 187 (quotation from p. 184).

15 Janan (n. 2), 76–8; T. S. Welch, Tarpeia. Workings of a Roman Myth (Columbus, OH, 2015), 178–82. Janan (n. 2), 70–84, especially argues that 4.4 gives voice to a feminine desire that collapses the binary and hierarchical oppositions of conventional Roman thought, including those of man/woman.

16 On the extent to which Virgil's depiction of Dido is indebted to models from (a) Latin love elegy, see Cairns, F., Virgil's Augustan Epic (Cambridge, 1989), 135–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; (b) Greek tragedy, see Moles, J., ‘Aristotle and Dido's Hamartia’, G&R 31 (1984), 48–63Google Scholar; Hardie, P., ‘Virgil and Tragedy’, in Martindale, C. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil (Cambridge, 1997), 312–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oliensis, E., Freud's Rome (Cambridge, 2009), 64–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Panoussi, V., Greek Tragedy in Vergil's Aeneid (Cambridge, 2009), 45–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 133–8; (c) Apollonius’ Argonautica, see Krevans, N., ‘Dido, Hypsipyle, and the Bedclothes’, Hermathena 173–4 (2002–3), 175–83Google Scholar; Nelis, D., Vergil's Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds, 2001), 133–5Google Scholar; (d) Ennius’ Annales, see Fernandelli, M., ‘Come sulle scene: Eneide IV e la tragedia’, Quaderni del dipartimento di filologia linguistica e tradizione classica ‘Augusto Rostagni’ 1 (2002), 164–211Google Scholar, esp. 164–81; (e) Roman Republican tragedy, see Giusti, E., Carthage in Virgil's Aeneid (Cambridge, 2018), 88–147Google Scholar.

17 On the sexual and social transgressions of Penthesilea and Dido, see Keith, A., Engendering Rome. Women in Latin Epic (Cambridge, 2000), 115–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Cairns (n. 16), 135–50, argues that Virgil's depiction of Dido draws heavily on the tradition he found represented in contemporary Roman erotic elegy, especially Propertius and Gallus.

19 On similarities between Camilla, Penthesilea, and Dido, see e.g. Lyne, R. O. A. M., Further Voices in Vergil's Aeneid (Oxford, 1987), 136Google Scholar n. 57; Boyd, B. W., ‘Virgil's Camilla and the Traditions of Catalogue and Ecphrasis (Aeneid 7.803–17)’, AJPh 113 (1992), 213–34Google Scholar; Nugent, S., ‘The Women of the Aeneid: Vanishing Bodies, Lingering Voices’, in Perkell, C. (ed.), Reading Vergil's Aeneid. An Interpretive Guide (Norman, OK, 1999), 261Google Scholar; Horsfall, N., Virgil. Aeneid 7. A Commentary (Leiden, 2000)Google Scholar, on Aen. 7.814–15.

20 In relation to this, it should be noted that, later in Book 4, when Aeneas makes up his mind to tell Dido of his departure, Virgil's depiction of him strongly resembles an effeminate elegiac amator seeking to gain favour: temptaturum aditus et quae mollissima fandi / tempora, quis rebus dexter modus (‘[that] he would seek an approach, the most tender moment to speak, and a favourable means’, 4.293–4); compare with Ov. Met. 9.611–12 (Byblis blaming the messenger for not conveying her sentiments to Caunus): non adiit apte, nec legit idonea, credo, / tempora (‘[the servant] did not approach him rightly; chose an unfitting time, I suppose’). The word aditus in Virgil's passage also conveys the idea of spatial transgression (compare with its usage at Aen. 2.494, fit uia ui, rumpunt aditus primosque trucidant, ‘Force finds a way; [the Greeks] burst a passage, slaughter the foremost’; or at Aen. 9.683, inrumpunt aditus Rutuli ut uidere patentis, ‘The Rutulians rush in when they see the entrance clear’), evoking the image of an attempted infiltration by the shut-out lover, which itself is an inversion of the non-elegiac image of the military siege. Saylor, C., ‘Some Stock Characteristics of the Roman Lover in Vergil, Aeneid IV’, Vergilius 32 (1986), 73–7Google Scholar, also makes a number of general observations about Virgil's familiarity with some of the stock characteristics of the lover in Roman literature.

21 See OLD, s.v. foedus 3.

22 See OLD, s.v. foedus 1.

23 Note that, when Aeneas at the beginning of Book 5 looks back at Carthage and sees the smoke from Dido's pyre, the poem pointedly frames her behaviour as being typically female (furens quid femina possit, ‘what a woman can do in frenzy’, 5.6) and symptomatic of the grief caused by love (duri magno sed amore dolores / polluto, ‘but the cruel pangs when deep love is profaned’, 5.5–6).

24 See esp. Miller (n. 11); also Miller, J. F., Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets (Cambridge, 2009), 80–9Google Scholar.

25 See also Pillinger, H. E., ‘Some Callimachean Influences on Propertius Book 4’, HSPh 73 (1969), 191–4Google Scholar; Coutelle, E., Poétique et métapoésie chez Properce. De l'Ars amandi à l'Ars scribendi (Louvain, 2005), 596–7Google Scholar.

26 Gurval, R., Actium and Augustus. The Politics and Emotions of Civil War (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995), 227Google Scholar; DeBrohun (n. 3), 218; O'Rourke (n. 8), 10. See also Janan (n. 2), 102, who writes emphatically: ‘Contempt for the feminine, celebration of clear-cut hierarchies of dominance and power, and an absence of self-doubt, all exalting a self-assured Roman masculinity, constitute 4.6's foreground.’

27 On the awkward praise of 4.6.65, see Gurval (n. 26), 271; Hutchinson (n. 4) on this line.

28 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.6.22.

29 DeBrohun (n. 3), 192.

30 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.3.23–8. On the femininity of Lycotas, see also Janan (n. 2), 59.

31 DeBrohun (n. 3), 150.

32 On amor militis, see Wyke (n. 7), 91.

33 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.3.30.

34 Note also that Arethusa's complaint of loneliness and sleeplessness, tum queror… / lucis et auctores non dare carmen aues (‘Then I complain that…the birds that herald the day do not produce their song’, 4.3.31–2), mobilizes language that encourages intertextual comparison.

35 The phrase arma uiri thalamo clearly also alludes to the opening and ‘alternative title’ of the Aeneid. On the significance of this kind of titular evocation in the Aeneid, see Góráin, F. Mac, ‘Untitled / Arma virumque’, CPh 113.4 (forthcoming, October 2018)Google Scholar.

36 The image of an armed and bare-chested Hippolyta recalls Virgil's Camilla, who, as mentioned above, is compared to the Amazon; see also Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.3.43–4. Nuda…papilla also evokes the scene of Camilla's death: blood oozed from her exposed breast (exsertam…papillam, 11.803–4) where she was struck by Arruns’ spear. On the significance of this scene to the constructions of gender in the Aeneid, see Keith (n. 17), 27–30.

37 Welch (n. 15), 179, argues that foedus is often used by elegists to appropriate the sanctity and permanence of political alliances to the realm of love. Cf. Prop. 2.9.35; Catul. 64.335; 109.6.

38 Note also that Ov. Her. 7, which presents itself as a letter from Dido to Aeneas, also ends with an epitaph (lines 195–6). The relationship between Prop. 4.3 and Ov. Her. 7 will be discussed later.

39 On the poem's contemporary associations and its reference to a military conflict with Parthia, see Hutchinson (n. 4), 101; Keith, A., Propertius. Poet of Love and Leisure (London, 2008), 162–4Google Scholar.

40 Livy provides three different versions of the story of Tarpeia in Ab urbe condita 1.11.6–9, the first of which (where Tatius bribed Tarpeia to let his troops into the citadel) is presented as the most convincing. The two alternative accounts reported by Livy make no reference to any kind of erotic passion on Tarpeia's part. For a recent discussion of Livy's passage, see Welch (n. 15), 135–66.

41 Varro seems to be the first literary source to identify Tarpeia as a Vestal virgin (see Ling. 5.41: hic mons ante Tarpeius dictus a uirgine Vestale Tarpeia, ‘This hill was previously called the Tarpeian, from the Vestal virgin Tarpeia’); see Welch (n. 15), 105–34, 107–15. On allusions to and reworkings of Varro Ling. 5 in Prop. 4, see McDonald, C., ‘Rewriting Rome: Topography, Etymology, and History in Varro De Lingua Latina 5 and Propertius Elegies 4’, Ramus 45 (2016), 201–8Google Scholar. O'Neill, K., ‘Propertius 4.4: Tarpeia and the Burden of Aetiology’, Hermathena 158 (1995), 53–60Google Scholar, has previously argued that the rival aetiological and amatory programmes of Propertius 4 intersect in the Tarpeia elegy, and that the transformation of a legendary story of historical significance into an unhappy tale of unrequited love can be construed as a kind of recusatio.

42 Additionally, Hutchinson (n. 4), 118, notes that Tarpeia's experience of only being able to see but not to know the man she loves provides a counterpart to Arethusa, whose real husband cannot be seen.

43 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.4.33–4.

44 Fox, M., Roman Historical Myths. The Regal Period in Augustan Literature (Oxford, 1996), 162Google Scholar.

45 See also Janan (n. 2), 79–81; Welch (n. 15), 178–82.

46 See also Wyke (n. 7), 99.

47 E.g. Warden (n. 14), 184–6; Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.4.70–2.

48 Compare also the usage of dos here with Verg. Aen. 4.103–4: liceat Phrygio seruire marito / dotalisque tuae Tyrios permittere dextrae (‘let her serve a Phrygian husband and yield her Tyrians to your power as dowry’); see Coutelle (n. 4) on 4.4.56.

49 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.4.59–60 thinks that a palla is too ordinary a garment to convey the idea of marriage (nupta). But none of the commentators on Propertius 4 takes issue with foedus.

50 Wyke (n. 7), 99, interprets this line as a reprise of the bipolar programme established by the opening poem. DeBrohun (n. 3), 194, however, sees molliet as adding an elegiac touch to martial Tatius. The sexual connotation of molliet arma is well noted by Welch (n. 15), 177. Cf. also Prop. 2.1.13–14: seu nuda erepto mecum luctatur amictu, / tum uero longas condimus Iliadas (‘or if her clothing is torn off and she wrestles naked with me, then to be sure I compose long Iliads’).

51 Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.4.62.

52 The recurrence of mollis and arma here (see previously at 4.3.43–4) provides another reason to treat 4.3 and 4.4 as a cohesive unit.

53 Warden (n. 14), 186; Hutchinson (n. 4) on 4.4.60 and 70. There is still debate surrounding whether the subject of alit in Propertius’ poem should be Venus or Vesta. Those who prefer Venus include Richardson, L., Propertius. Elegies I–IV, second edition (Norman, OK, 2006)Google Scholar, and Heyworth (n. 1, 2007b); but most editors print Vesta: see e.g. Barber, E. A., Sexti Properti carmina, second edition (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar; Fedeli (n. 4); Hutchinson (n. 4); and Coutelle (n. 4), among others.

54 Fox (n. 44), 163.

55 Warden (n. 14), 184.

56 On the Amazons’ eschewal of sex and preference for virginity, see also Diod. 3.53, 4.16; Hdt. 4.117. However, they are also said to be highly promiscuous: see Hdt. 4.113; Strabo 11.5.1–3. Ogden, D., Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods (Oxford, 1996), 183Google Scholar, suggests that the significance of these two apparently contradictory qualities lies in the fact that they are antithetical to marriage, which the Amazons are especially said to eschew (see Justin 2.4).

57 The comparison between Dido, Tarpeia, and the Bacchant also works on a spatial level. As Janan (n. 2), 77, points out, a Bacchant originates within the city and is drawn outside its confines. Likewise, Tarpeia must remain where she is even though what she desires, namely love and marriage, can only be found outside the city. Similarly, Dido's passion rages uncontrollably within Carthage (totamque incensa per urbem / bacchatur, ‘Inflamed in mind she rages through the whole city’, Verg. Aen. 4.300–1), while her sexual union with Aeneas took place outside the city walls.

58 Heyworth (n. 1, 2007b), 451.

59 Janan (n. 2), 81.

60 DeBrohun (n. 3), 148.

61 On the Parilia, see Beard, M., ‘A Complex of Times: No More Sheep on Romulus’ Birthday’, CCJ (formerly PCPhS) 33 (1987), 1–15Google Scholar.

62 Keith (n. 17), 115, argues that at Aen. 4.642–7 Virgil conflates Dido's mad desire for death with her sexual passion for Aeneas in the queen's action of grasping her lover's sword.

63 Hutchinson (n. 4), 118: ‘[The] morality of the final section is so stark, the inequality of the match between [Tarpeia] and her opponents so extreme, that we are drawn to question…the terrifying fierceness and brutality of Tatius.’

64 The lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus was passed in 18 bc, followed a year later by the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. The earliest possible date of publication for Propertius 4 is 16 bc: see Hutchinson (n. 4), 2–3.

65 For further discussions of the relationship between Prop. 4.3 and Ov. Her. 7, see esp. Knox, P. E., Ovid. Heroides. Select Epistles (Cambridge, 1995), 17–18Google Scholar; Piazzi, L., P. Ovidii Nasonis Heroidum Epistula VII. Dido Aeneae (Florence, 2007), 217Google Scholar. Regarding the influence of Prop. 4.3 on the Heroides in general, see Baca, A. R., ‘Ovid's Epistle from Sappho to Phaon (Heroides 15)’, TAPhA 102 (1971), 33Google Scholar; Jacobson, H., Ovid's Heroides (Princeton, NJ, 1974), 347–8Google Scholar; Lindheim, S. H., Mail and Female. Epistolary Narrative and Desire in Ovid's Heroides (Madison, WI, 2003), 29Google Scholar. On the relative dating of Prop. 4 and Heroides, see Dörrie, H., Epistulae Heroidum (Berlin and New York, 1972), 28–9Google Scholar; Knox, P. E., ‘The Heroides: Elegiac Voices’, in Boyd, B. W. (ed.), Brill's Companion to Ovid (Leiden, 2002), 126Google Scholar; Hutchinson (n. 4), 7, 101.

66 Fulkerson, L., The Ovidian Heroine as Author (Cambridge, 2005), 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, points out that the ending of Heroides 7 also alludes to the quasi-epitaph which Virgil's Dido provides for herself at Aen. 4.655–6. On the resonances between the concluding epitaph of Heroides 7 and the final distich of Heroides 2 (‘Phyllis to Demophoon’), see Jacobson (n. 65), 62–4; Lindheim (n. 65), 98, 104–7; Piazzi (n. 65), 303–6. On the use of epitaphs in the Heroides and its tradition in Latin love elegy and elsewhere, see Barchiesi, A., P. Ovidii Nasonis Epistulae Heroidum 1–3 (Florence, 1992), 180–2Google Scholar.

67 See esp. Desmond, M., ‘When Dido Reads Vergil: Gender and Intertextuality in Ovid's Heroides 7’, Helios 20 (1993), 56–68Google Scholar; Fulkerson (n. 66), 26–32.