‘Mothers don't write: they are written’. This aphorism, which we owe to the feminist literary critic Susan Suleiman, is particularly fitting to summarise not only the situation in Graeco-Roman society but also the spirit of this volume, which comes out of the conference ‘Motherhood in Antiquity. A Colloquium of the Network EuGeStA (European Gender Studies in Antiquity)’, organised by Sharrock at the University of Manchester on 8 and 9 April 2014.
Though drawing on the prior feminist tradition retraced in the introduction, and in particular on the studies of L. Irigaray and J. Kristeva, the editors go beyond this tradition, choosing to follow a line of development that has come out of recent and increasingly more sophisticated research on motherhood in ancient literature: ‘thinking about how and what mothers might mean changes the way we think about meaning itself’ (pp. 16–17). Thus, a significant part of the book explores ‘how contemporary theorization about maternity and mothers can illuminate some of the more rhetorical or figurative kinds of mother trouble in classical literature’ (p. 17).
Conceived as a follow-up to the introduction, Chapter 2, ‘Uncanny Mothers in Roman Literature’ by M. McAuley, shows how the metaphor of maternity underlies certain exemplary narrations of Ennius and of writers of the Augustan age like Horace, Livy and Virgil. Indeed, it is to this last author that we owe the most interesting version of the ‘mother/metaphor’. The troubling and absent (or ‘uncanny’, to cite an expression of S. Freud's discussed in the introduction) mothers of the Aeneid ‘highlight the fissures that can be discerned in the poem's narrative and ideological fabric, as it seeks to promote an imperialist vision of Roman civilization and conquest, while also registering … the violence and suffering that accompany these acts of foundation and fatherhood’ (p. 41).
Continuing this exploration of the political and rhetorical use of maternity as metaphor, allegory and symbol, the volume goes on to examine a large number texts belonging to different literary genres, ranging from classical Greece to late Roman antiquity. The inclusion of fields until now unexplored from this point of view, such as ancient science and philosophy, imperial drama, epic and epigraphy, constitutes an undeniable enrichment of the scholarly conversation.
But the outstanding and most innovative aspect of this work may well be its organisation: the papers are not presented according to the chronological order of the authors considered (overwhelmingly males), but rather on the basis of the life cycle of motherhood, in order to draw our attention to the subject matter rather than to traditional ‘his-tory’.
Thus, the opening chapter concerns the pre-birth influences of a mother, ‘From Body to Behaviour: Maternal Transmission in the Ancient Greek World’ by F. Gherchanoc. In contrast to Aristotelian theory, which attributed the transmission of hereditary characteristics exclusively to the father, Gherchanoc, using treatises by Hippocrates, Plato, Soranus of Ephesus and Mnesitheus, reassesses the mother's capacity to transmit information and properties as well as character and behaviour, as also seen in various tragedies and in Aristophanes’ The Clouds.
Chapter 4, ‘Νωδυνία: L'Oubli des Souffrances Maternelles et le Chant Théocritéen: d'Alcmène (Id. 24) à Bérénice (Id. 17)’ by F. Klein, focuses on the cessation of queen Berenice's labour pains (νωδυνία) at the moment of the birth of the future Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Theocr. Id. 17). A possible, implicitly political, reading would link another text by Theocritus, Id. 24, to Id. 17. Here the idealisation of Alcmena's maternity through the suppression of pain in Heracles’ birth as well as the tender presentation of her as the exemplary mother of a hero are seen as allegorical references to queen Berenice, also the mother of a king.
In the title of Chapter 5, ‘“Nimis … mater”: Mother Plot and Epic Deviation in the Achilleid’ by F. Bessone, we find the brilliant iunctura ‘too much a mother’ (Stat. Ach. 2.37–8), which takes in both the dominant note in the representation of the nymph Thetis, namely her fear for her son's fate, and her role in the story, ‘too much’ for an epic poem. Thetis cannot in fact change her son's destiny through the ‘mother plot’ of Achilles’ disguise, but, along with Achilles’ ‘gender-deviation’, she creates a deviation in the tradition of the epic poem. This episode also introduces features at once comic and tragic, Hellenistic and erotic-elegiac.
A different divinity is the focus of ‘Augustan Maternal Ideology: the Blended Families of Octavia and Venus’ by J.P. Hallett. Virgil presents Venus as a maternal divinity who fosters Julian family ties, rather than as the goddess of erotic love. The reasons for this unusual portrait are in the Augustan maternal ideological purposes and in the tribute offered by Virgil to Octavia, sister of the emperor Augustus. Seen in this light, Octavia shares with Venus the ability to handle the challenges posed by the children of different husbands (and by the children Antony had with Fulvia and Cleopatra) within what today we call ‘blended families’.
The two following contributions, ‘Motherhood in Roman Epithalamia’ by H. Harich-Schwarzbauer and ‘The Roman Mother-in-Law’ by Sharrock, are dedicated to the challenges posed to mothers by their children's marriages. The former examines the evolution of the epithalamium from Catullus (c. 61 and 62) through Statius (Silv. 1, 2) to Claudian, who at times inserts panegyric features (c. 10), at times Christian elements (c.m. 25), and at still other times echoes of the contemporary debate on a mother's responsibility towards an adolescent daughter (De raptu Proserpinae). Sharrock's contribution shows that the stereotype of the mother-in-law is infrequent in the Roman imagination, while it is the stepmother who is always negatively portrayed. Analysing numerous literary passages considered to be typical examples of opprobrium attached to the mother-in-law, Sharrock explains that these do not actually present specific attacks on the figure of the mother-in-law; or that, on the contrary, they are examples of the central, positive role she performs; or, again, that they can be explained in the context of situations of a more general character. Sharrock reaches new conclusions through a re-examination of Terence's Hecyra and of Venus as a negative (anthropomorphised) example of the mother-in-law in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.
According to Seneca's Oedipus, the greatest crime a mother can commit is incest with her son. J. Fabre-Serris's thesis in Chapter 9, ‘Maximum Thebis (Romae?) scelus / maternus amor est (Oed. 629–30): Amour de la Mère et Inceste chez Sénèque’, is that Seneca intervened against Agrippina, defeating her attempts to seduce her son, Nero, according to Tacitus, with the aim of recovering her power over him. Fabre-Serris also finds that Seneca once again spotlights Agrippina as an exemplum of a ‘bad mother’ in the Consolatio ad Helviam matrem, where he assumes the posture of a philosopher teaching his mother how to behave.
In ‘Mighty Mothers: Female Political Theorists in Euripides’ Suppliant Women and Phoenician Women’, G. Sissa refers to the surprising speeches of Jocasta to Eteocles and Polynices and of Aethra to Theseus, the former on the necessary rotation of power and the latter on how to be a real man. She then goes on to highlight the degree to which the assertions of these two mothers are ‘substantive, normative, and meant to be valid in a “trans-gender” perspective’ (p. 204).
The chapter ‘Wife, Mother, Philosopher: On the Symbolic Function of Augustine's Monnica’ [sic] by T. Fuhrer, is dedicated to one of the most renowned maternal figures. Analysing the so-called Cassiciacum Dialogues and certain autobiographical passages of Book 9 of the Confessions in the light of the ‘role theory’ developed in modern social sciences, Fuhrer shows how Augustine has the saint speak and act not only in the role of mother but also in the innovative role of ‘philosopher’, thereby subverting the rules of the role traditionally assigned to a woman and to a mother.
The two following chapters deal with maternal expression of grief. Chapter 12, ‘Virgilian Matres: From Maternal Lament to Female Sedition in the Aeneid’ by Keith, is focused on the mater dolorosa, starting with the typically maternal fears that lead Venus to intervene continually in favour of Aeneas, in her ambition to see his imperial destiny fulfilled. Then, passing from the divine sphere to the human, Keith shows how, by contrast, maternal (mortal) grief weakens the Augustan account of imperial Roman expansion. The first two mothers in the poem, Creusa and Andromache, though never referred to with the term mater, dedicate their touching last words to their sons, Iulus and Astyanax. Maternal grief, like that of Amata and of Euryalus’ mother, can at times also have a collective effect. Speaking more generally, there is a ‘gendered association’ between lament and women, as is shown by the Trojan women who mourn the fall of Troy and then the death of Anchises. ‘Octavia: A Roman Mother in Mourning’ by V. Hope is the second contribution on this exemplary key figure in the imperial dynasty. Hope focuses on registering Octavia's reaction to the death of her second son, Marcellus, Augustus’ designated heir, which becomes a public as well as a personal tragedy. The anecdotes reported by Aelius Donatus and Servius about her fainting during Virgil's reading of the verses dedicated to the youth's demise make her the foremost example of the Roman mother overcome by grief. Yet, in a famous passage of the Aeneid (6.860–86) Octavia is missing and ‘Anchises takes a paternal role as the head of the gens’ (p. 281). In the elegy of Propertius (3.18), who mentions her as mother, her role is questioned, while in Seneca (Ad Marciam de consolatione), because of her excess of grief as compared to the more restrained Livia, Octavia is held up as a model not to be imitated. Her figure is therefore complex and contradictory, as is the representation of maternal grief shown in an analysis of various passages of Latin literature in the first part of the chapter.
Closing the volume on a lighter note is ‘Mothers as Dedicators’ by O. Bobou, the only chapter based on material culture. It presents in detail five case studies of large-scale objects, from across Greece and from the classical to the Hellenistic period, which bear dedications of women and in particular of mothers. It is also the only example, in the entire book, of words written by women as authors of dedications. A great deal of information, at times surprising, can be found in the discussion concerning mothers in Greek society, among which is the fact that, in having a monument made to their children, ‘they took on a traditionally male role’ (p. 316).
This is certainly the best conclusion for a book whose aim is to offer a perspective on maternity as feminine as possible.
