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Symposium and Genre in the Poetry of Horace*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Oswyn Murray
Oswyn Murray
Affiliation:
Balliol College, Oxford
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Extract

The concept of the genre is a problematical one, not least because each critical tradition uses the notion in different ways. My own approach is related to the needs and interests of the cultural historian; it will thus at least serve to clarify basic points of methodology if I first try to define what I mean by the genre. For me the genre takes its origin in the literary expression of basic social needs, and the differences between the genres begin as differences in both the occasion of performance and the purpose of performance. Thus to take classical examples, a tale of heroic exploits, a wedding song, a lament, a hymn to the gods, a drinking song, are performed on different occasions and therefore have different characteristics, different accompaniments of dance, ritual, music or action; but a particular event in each category will have similarities with other events in that category, and therefore appropriate conventions and appropriate metrical patterns will emerge. Similarly the purpose of the event will affect its presentation in a variety of ways: a hymn to the gods may praise or call for aid, a public speech may seek to expound a policy or to secure a condemnation. In this sense, and to this extent, I find myself in agreement with Francis Cairns: ‘The genres are as old as organized societies; they are also universal. Within all human lives there are a number of important recurrent situations which, as societies develop, come to call for regular responses, both in words and in actions.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 75 , November 1985 , pp. 39 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Oswyn Murray 1985. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 See for instance Cairns, F., Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (1972)Google Scholar; Conte, G. B., Memoria dei poeti e sistema letterario (1974);Google Scholarid., Virgilio, il genere e i suoi confini (1984). My own views were in fact formed under the influence of Curtius', E. R. masterpiece, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1948; Eng. trans. 1953)Google Scholar.

2 Cairns, op. cit., 34. The relationship between genre and rhetoric derives from the fact that the rules of rhetoric are the literary formulation of such regularities.

3 See Murray, O., ‘Symposion and Männerbund’, Concilium Eirene XVI. 1 (1982), 47–52Google Scholar. There are of course other differences mentioned there, notably the greater importance of food in the Roman convivium: cf. Fraenkel, E., Elementi Plautini in Plauto (1960), 408–13.Google Scholar For the archaeology of the Roman banquet and the significance of cooking utensils, see Rathje, A., ‘A Banquet Service from the Latin City of Ficana’, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 12 (1983), 7–29Google Scholar. But this finds no reflection in sympotic poetry.

4 See further below p. 48.

5 Hence the existence of story patterns which emphasize either the parrhesia of guests towards their host or the arrogance of kings in refusing to tolerate such parrhesia. The question of Hellenistic royal entertainments is complicated by the fact that Macedonian drinking customs were rather different, as the traditions about Philip and Alexander show.

6 Martial 1. 20, 43; 2. 43; 3. 60, 82; 6. 11; 9. 2; Juvenal, Sat. 5; Pliny, Ep. 2. 6; cf. Horace, Sat. 1. 4. 83 ff., and the Elder Pliny's account of Cato's practice in distributing wine: N.H. 14. 91.

7 On this tradition and its subsequent fortune see Momigliano, A., Secondo Contributo (1960), 69–87Google Scholar. The most important passages are:

Cato ap. Cic., Brutus 75: ‘atque utinam extarent ilia carmina, quae multis saeclis ante suam aetatem in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum virorum laudibus in Originibus scriptum reliquit Cato.’

Cato ap. Cic., Tusc. Disp. 4. 2. 3 (F 118 Peter = 124 Schönberger): ‘gravissimus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato morem apud maiores hunc epularum fuisse et deinceps qui accubarent canerent ad tibiam clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes.’

Varro, de vit. pop. Romani 11 ap. Non. Marc. p. 77 M = 107 L (F 84 in Riposati, B., M. Terenti Varronis de vita populi Romani (1939)Google Scholar: ‘in conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua in quibus laudes erant maiorum et assa voce et cum tibicine.’

Cf. Val. Max. 2. 1.9; Quint. 1. 10. 20.

8 On the unsatisfactoriness of 4. 1 as proem it is enough to quote Penna, A. La, Orazio e l'ideologia del principato (1963), 136Google Scholar: ‘L'ode di proemio, che annunzia la ripresa della poesia erotica rientra in un genere proemiale nettamente diverso da quello di 1. 1: al centro non sono qui la dignità del poeta e la funzione della poesia.’ These elements are found precisely in 4. 15. La Penna himself is forced to regard the first two poems as a joint proem in order to solve the problem. Equally for the oddity of 4. 15 as a conclusion it is enough to quote from the latest article on that poem, published in 1985: ‘Invece il finale del quarto libro cambia del tutto spirito e tono [from the other books]: non è più la limpida nota dell'anima oraziana che si effonde attraverso i semplici moduli del Persicos odi, puer, apparatus … e neppure la confessione dell'agognata celebrità della gloria poetica, ma è la figura di Augusto …’ (Riposati, B., ‘L'ultima ode di Orazio (IV, 15) e i carmi convivali’, Riv. di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 25 (1983), 3)Google Scholar.

9 Compare p. 44 below on 1. 38.

10 See Murray, O., ‘Rileggendo il Buon Re secondo Omero’, Cronache Ercolanesi 14 (1984), 157–60;Google Scholar cf. H. Dahlmann, ‘Zur Überlieferung über die “altrömischen” Tafellieder’, Abh. der geistesviiss. u. sozialiciss.-Kl. Akad. Mainz 1950, Nr. 17.

11 Aulus Gellius 11. 2. 5 = carmen de moribus F 2 Jordan p. 83 = F 389 Schönberger; on the meaning of ‘grassator’ see Préaux, J., ‘Caton et l'ars poetica’, Latomus 25 (1966), 710–25:Google Scholar it corresponds to the Greek parasitos, kolax, akletos, professional entertainer or sponger.

12 Aulus Gellius 19. 9; Plutarch also mentions the practice of singing Sappho and Anacreon at contemporary symposia, Quaest. conviv. 7. 8. 711 D.

13 See Griffin, J., ‘Augustan Poetry and the Life of Luxury’, JRS 66 (1976), 87–104Google Scholar. It will be seen that I am unable to accept the view of White, P., JRS 68 (1978), 74–92Google Scholar that the poet's position was no different from that of any other cliens, though they were of course expected to perform many of the same duties: cf. Horsfall, N., Ancient Society (Macquarie) 13 (1983), 161–6Google Scholar.

14 Contra K. Ziegler, Das hellenistische Epos (1934): I hope to return to this question later.

15 In Pisonem 65–72.

16 The building was the centre of an exhibition in 1983–4; the paintings were restored and photographed, many of the building's sculptures identified, and a number of documents published for the first time in the catalogue, L'archeologia in Roma tra sterro e scavo, Roma Capitate 1870–1911 (1983): see especially the contributions of C. Haüber, S. Rizzo, M. de Vos and C. Scandurra, 204–52. The original publication is still fundamental: Vespignani, V. and Visconti, C. L., Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica 2 (1874), 137–71;Google Scholar the graffito is described pp. 161–4. See also Thylander, H., Acta Archaeologica 9 (1938), 101–26Google Scholar; Lugli, G., I Monumenti antichi di Roma e Suburbio 3 (1938), 466–8Google Scholar. I thank Carmine Ampolo for drawing my attention to this building and its graffito.

17 See the excellent discussion of White, P., ‘The Presentation and Dedication of the Silvae and the Epigrams’, JRS 64 (1974), 40–61Google Scholar.

18 For Hellenistic sympotic epigrams see the fundamental study of Giangrande, G., ‘Sympotic Literature and Epigram’, L'Epigramme grecque, Entretiens Hardt XIV (1967), 93–177Google Scholar.

19 See Giangrande, op. cit., 140–3; G. Williams, Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (1968), 7–10; 103–31.

20 At first sight the reading ‘clare’, much championed recently, might seem to fit my argument even better, but compare φίλτατε Πείσων in Philodemus 33. The tension between friendship and inequality is the essential point of the poem, well brought out in the opposition ‘care … eques’ centred around ‘Maecenas’. I do not agree with those who think that for Horace an eques was not of high social status.

21 Compare the treatment of the same theme, the wealth of the millionaire Sallustius Crispus, and the good use he puts it to in Crinagoras 40 GP = Anth. Graec. 16. 40 and Horace, Odes 2. 2, with the comments of Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc.

22 See Seneca Rhet., Controv. 2. 4. 12–13 for the best example of the ‘malignitas Maecenatis’ against Agrippa.

23 See most recently Nisbet, R. G. M., ‘Horace's Epodes and History’ in Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus (1984), ed. Woodman, A. J. and West, D. A., pp. 11–18Google Scholar; though I am not convinced by his attempt to regard the poem as an eye-witness account of the battle.

24 In his important study of the text of the poem (Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4 (1983), ed. Francis Cairns (ARCA 11), 105–19) Nisbet denies that ‘unico’ would be understood as implying that Livia was a ‘femina univira’. Yet the context bristles with traditional Roman categories of women, ‘virgines’, ‘matres’ and pre-nubile girls. The situation is precisely paralleled in the ludi saeculares seven years later (ILS 5050): Livia and Octavia lead the ‘matres familiae nuptae’ (123–5); the ‘pueri et puellae’ are those who in 17 B.C. will sing the ‘carmen’ (147). The poem describes a religious celebration: in a context where marital status is so important, and in a period when marriage legislation was under discussion, the wife of the princeps becomes an honorary ‘femina univira’, just as under the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus she was declared to possess three children in the first grant of the ‘ius trium liberorum’: ‘Ulpianus XIII ad legem Iuliam et Papiam: Princeps legibus solutus est: Augusta autem licet legibus soluta non est, principes tamen eadem illi privilegia tribuunt quae ipsi habent.’ (Digest 1. 3. 31).

25 cf. Nisbet, op. cit., (n. 23), 17: ‘Not enough attention has been paid to the wines, which as usual in Horace have a symbolic significance’.

26 he best account is still Stockton, D., ‘Primus and Murena’, Historia 14 (1965), 18–40Google Scholar.

27 On 1. 36 see the excellent commentary of Nisbet and Hubbard. For the combination of return from Spain and assumption of toga virilis see Crinagoras 10 GP = Anth. Graec. 10. 19, for the return of Marcellus in 25 B.C.; related epigrams are Diodorus 1 GP = 9. 219 (return of Tiberius in 24 B.C., too young for ceremony); Apollonides 26 GP = 10. 19 (assumption of toga virilis by son of L. Calpurnius Piso).

28 On this episode see Rostagni, A., Suetonio de Poetis (1944), 113–15Google Scholar.

29 See White, op. cit. (n. 17).

30 See the list in Murray, op. cit. (n. 10). Horace's playful juxtaposition of different sympotic styles in this poem (the literary discussion, the plain man's cena, the bacchanalian orgy) has produced some strange interpretations: cf. Nisbet, CR 33 (1983), 25 f. It is perhaps better to read the poem as a private joke for a particular occasion.

31 Aulus Gellius 10. 23. 1–2; Pliny, N.H. 14. 89–90; Val. Max. 6. 3. 9; F 38 Riposati. The exemplum seems to derive from Varro, not from the annalistic tradition, where Fabius Pictor (Pliny, N.H., loc. cit. = F 37 Peter) offers another exemplum with a rather different meaning: see Riposati, pp. 53–7.

32 Pliny, N.H., loc. cit.; Plut., Quaest. Rom. 6.

33 Isidore, Etymol. 20. 11. 9: F 30 Riposati.

34 Wine and viticulture were introduced into central Italy in the late eighth and early seventh centuries (Ampolo, C., Dialoghi di Archeologia n.s. 2 (1980), 31)Google Scholar; for the earliest period the persistence of sitting and the presence of women seem confirmed: for the latter see Colonna, G., ‘“Graeco more bibere”: l'iscrizione della Tomba 115 dell'Osteria dell'Osa’, Quaderni del Centro di Studio per l'archeologia etrusco-italica, Archeologia Laziale 3 (1980), 51–5Google Scholar. Gras, Michel (‘Vin et société a Rome et dans le Latium à l'époque archaique’, Modes de contact et processus de transformation dans les sociétés anciennes (Actes du colloque de Cortone 1981), Collection Ec. Fr. d'Athènes et de Rome 67 (1983), 1067–75)Google Scholar interestingly interprets the prohibition on contact with wine as a religious taboo referring only to unmixed wine. We are here of course concerned not with the reality, but with the interpretation offered by the anti quarian tradition, which rather seeks to explain those sympotic customs which are unacceptable to Greeks.

35 ‘Negavit moris esse Graecorum ut in convivio virorum accumberent mulieres’: Cic., Verr. 2. 1. 26. 66.

36 Macrobius, Sat. 2. 4. 12.

37 Not 23 B.C., as I shall argue elsewhere.