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Conquering Ida: An Ecofeminist Reading of Catullus’ Poem 63

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2022

Leah O'Hearn Open the ORCID record for Leah O'Hearn [Opens in a new window]
Leah O'Hearn*
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La Trobe University Email: L.O'Hearn@latrobe.edu.au
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Abstract

Many have recognised poem 63 as a study in contrasts – light versus darkness, masculine versus feminine, rationality versus madness, animal versus human, culture versus nature. Caught between these polarities is the figure of Attis, removed from everything bright, male, sane, human, and civilised by one impassioned act. The poem suggests that it is partly the nature of the place, its quasi-Hippocratic airs, waters, and places, that emasculates Attis, making him like a notha mulier, iuvenca, and famula. This article will use ecofeminist theory – in particular, Val Plumwood's Feminism and the Mastery of Nature – to investigate the logic of domination running between the poem's polarities and to show how a foreign ‘Eastern’ wilderness effeminises Greek Attis. Moreover, it will be shown that the characterisation of Attis and the galli as a dux and his comites associates the story with the Roman imperial endeavour, suggesting that we can read the poem alongside others that portray conquest (11, 29) and the experience of young men abroad on provincial cohorts (10, 28, 47). In this way, Catullus implies that the imperial project is also made weak and feminine by its very contact with foreign places.

Keywords

AttisCatullusnatureecofeminismMount Idaimperialismgenderenvironmental determinism
Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 55 , 2021 , pp. 116 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies

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