The study of allusion and quotation practices has provided fertile ground for classical scholars, especially in recent years. Macrobius’ Saturnalia is perhaps one of the best starting points (because of the sheer amount of material), and one of the worst (again, because of the sheer amount of material). When I first approached K.’s new monograph and went through the index, nothing in particular (with the partial exception of Chapter 3, on gender) really caught my eye. A book on the Saturnalia examining Macrobius’ relationship with his scholarly sources, his sympotic predecessors and Virgil seemed like an expanded version of an editor’s introduction. But my initial impression was pleasantly subverted by K.’s monograph.
K. proposes to read the Saturnalia through the lens of ethical allusion; this offers a new and thought-provoking way of looking at the intertextual connections between Macrobius and his literary models, as it avoids a separation between moral and social analysis and aesthetic investigation. Macrobius, K. argues, far from the mere compiler that earlier scholarship had envisioned, actively and critically engages with his Graeco-Roman predecessors, reframing and repurposing passages and ideas to serve the aesthetic aims of his text, while also using them to reflect on human behaviour, social norms and hierarchies of power in the context of Late Antiquity.
The introduction provides an overview of the contents of the Saturnalia and situates the work in its historical and literary context, while also explaining the methodological and critical framework that will form the basis of the book, namely the nature and role of ethical allusive techniques. Chapter 1, ‘Scholarly Interlocutors in the Saturnalia’, and Chapter 2, ‘Macrobius’ Symposium: Plato and Plutarch in the Saturnalia’, deal with the question of how Macrobius treats and relates to his literary predecessors and principal models in constructing both his text and the ethical and moral message it conveys.
In Chapter 1 Gellius is identified as the main source for the erudite material about which the diners converse. K. highlights here the important interplay between quotations with or without attribution: Varro, who is repeatedly quoted and named, is framed in such a way that his authority is challenged, while Gellius, who is never explicitly mentioned, becomes the primary model for the characters’ scholarly interests. However, Macrobius takes a Ciceronian approach in defining his group of elite interlocutors, avoiding almost entirely, in contrast to Gellius, questions of class among characters cast as intellectual peers. Yet social distinctions are not abandoned altogether. The rigid division between the banqueters and enslaved people is frequently underlined, as the latter’s military accomplishments stand in contrast to the intellectual and philosophical virtues of the learned elite. Here, together with Chapter 3, K. shows particularly well how Macrobius can simultaneously broaden the boundaries of his ideal learned community and preserve other forms of social hierarchy.
Chapter 2 establishes the variegated network of allusions that Macrobius develops with Plato and the sympotic tradition. Macrobius’ relationship with Plato is, however, not straightforward. The Symposium is used to situate the Saturnalia within the tradition of literary banquets and to provide a foundation for polite conversation among the diners, but it also provides a foil against which the more restrained Saturnalian gathering defines itself. Furthermore, K. demonstrates how ‘Macrobius consistently reads Plato’s Symposium with and at times through Plutarch’s Quaestiones conviviales’ (p. 71), using both authors to construct the genealogy within which the Saturnalia is placed and the rules of convivial behaviour by which it is governed. The importance of Plato and Plutarch is confirmed by their appearance in passages of particular metaliterary significance for the Saturnalia.
Chapter 3, ‘Gender Norms and Philosophical Erudition’, expands on the Ciceronian idea of a more open learned elite by taking into account questions of gender and masculinity. Like enslaved people, women are used to exemplify virtues or weaknesses which are alien to the diners – and, by extension, ideal men: engagement with political life, as well as incorrect forms of erudition. These counter-exempla serve to define more strongly an ideal of masculinity based above all on erudition and intellectual achievement. While Cicero in his dialogues included men outside the martial sphere, Macrobius widens the concept of masculinity so as to exclude any connection to the res publica altogether. At the same time, with intellectual prowess becoming the defining masculine trait, the body itself is largely removed from the discussion.
Finally, Chapter 4, ‘Macrobius’ Virgils’, presents Macrobius’ views and approaches to his model par excellence. The ways in which the characters in the Saturnalia deal with Virgil are varied, but share the goal of highlighting his erudition above all else. By avoiding questions of imperialism and fictionality (which, in Late Antiquity, had attracted some criticism towards the Mantuan poet) and by underlining the centonic elements of the Virgilian oeuvre, Macrobius makes Virgil’s learnedness and his ability to reuse and recontextualise earlier texts his central virtues, thereby reflecting the very principles that inform the Saturnalia.
A last note should be added about the Appendix, ‘Humour and Characterization in the Saturnalia’, which discusses the humanising, gentle mockery that Macrobius reserves for some of his characters. This brief appendix, which follows the conclusion, offers a stimulating way of looking at some interesting allusive practices in Macrobius, which help him make fun of certain aspects of his characters’ scholarly methodologies or juxtapose his diners with their historical counterparts. In doing so, ‘he injects an element of Saturnalian reversal by momentarily undercutting the authority of his interlocutors’ (p. 172). The result of these humorous strategies is a useful qualification of the idealised learned community presented in the book: even the figures that embody Macrobius’ intellectual and moral ideas are allowed to become objects of mockery, so that they are rendered more human and accessible to readers.
The book’s originality lies in its approach to Macrobius’ numerous and varied ways of alluding to, using and repurposing earlier texts. The argumentation is convincing and well structured, with K.’s specific aims usefully anticipated at the beginning and restated at the end of the respective chapters. Every argument is also heavily supported by textual evidence from the Saturnalia, as well as being contextualised both with reference to earlier ancient works and tendencies and in relation to the late antique political, literary and social framework. The one weakness I could find is a certain repetitiveness within individual chapters: the central points that K. seeks to establish are reiterated at several points throughout the discussion, rather than being confined to the respective introductions and conclusions. This does not undermine the overall coherence of the book, but it can, at times, make the reading heavier than necessary, especially given the already considerable amount of material that K. discusses.
K.’s analysis shows that literary imitation and ethical reflection need not be treated as separate aspects of ancient texts: in the Saturnalia, the ways in which authors are read, quoted, challenged and reused are themselves part of the social and moral programme of the work. For this reason, K.’s monograph should prove valuable not only to scholars of Macrobius and Late Antiquity, but also to anyone interested in the relationship between intertextuality, literary authority and the construction of social norms.
