P.'s book is a fresh, erudite and innovative approach to the study of the iconographic programme of the early Principate against the backdrop of audience interpretation. Power, art and representation lie at the heart of this investigation, which is divided into six chapters, followed by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, a useful general index and an index locorum.
In Chapter 1, ‘The Mutual Constitution of Augustus’, P. sets out in a clear and concise manner the theoretical premise and the aim of her study. In the intellectual shade of the Harvard School, as she admits (p. 33), she pays her debts to P. Zanker's (The Power of Images [1988]) and G.K. Galinsky's (Augustan Culture [1996]) seminal works for the study of Augustan culture. Yet, by drawing on reader response theory, she moves towards a different direction, away from Augustus’ intentions as an imperial auctor and closer to Roman poets’ vital role in constructing meaning (visual, verbal). For P. viewing and reading constitute two politically constitutive acts (p. 33), which become all the more meaningful, since Augustus’ power was mediated through a highly symbolic language of inscriptions, coins, monuments, texts, statuary and rituals. The premise of her argument is that the poets as readers build on the tension between the author and the reader, between representation and reality, between signified and signifier, thus revealing the inseparability of artistic meaning from audience response. She justifies her search for competitive, even subversive, readings of Augustus’ regime on the basis of the rhetorical training and the literary aesthetics of the time, which encouraged such ‘forensic’ interpretative strategies on behalf of the readers. By focusing on four major symbols of Augustan iconography, namely the so-called sidus Iulium, the Palatine complex, the Forum Augustum and the triumphal ritual, P. aims at exploring the poets’ critical power and their libertas to construct meaning against Augustus’ authorial intent. A first instructive example of this approach is offered by P.'s discussion of Aeneas’ interpretation of the murals depicting the Trojan War on the temple of Juno at Carthage (Virg. Aen. 1.450–93) (pp. 16–19). The chapter concludes with useful outlines of the following chapters of the book (pp. 29–34).
P. wishes to offer a holistic approach that combines architectural, archaeological and textual evidence with intertextuality and deconstructionist literary theory. And she succeeds admirably, as one can see in her examination of the iconographical development of the sidus Iulium, the comet that appeared in 44 bc at Julius Caesar's funeral games (Chapter 2, ‘History in Light of the Sidus Iulium’). P. makes a convincing case against the standard (more or less) belief in Augustus’ appropriation of the star as a symbol of his greatness. Her combined use of republican literary evidence (Cicero, Catullus) with a detailed analysis of representations of the comet on coinage (pp. 43–50, 64–8) validly supports her contention that deification already held a place in Rome's political discourse by the mid-first century bce (possibly under Hellenistic influence). P.'s insightful discussion of the multivocal response of Virgil, Propertius, Ovid and Manilius to the Julian star demonstrates the variability of interpretations over time and confirms her argument that Augustan control over the comet imagery was imposed in retrospect in view of Augustus’ political dominance (p. 37). The close reading of the Caesarean comet imagery in Virgil's Aeneid should be singled out, especially the mysterious flames upon Iulus’ hair (Aen. 2.681–4) or the comet-like flames surrounding Lavinia's hair (Aen. 7.73–80) (pp. 60–1). Nevertheless, I find the examination of sidereal implications in Iulus’ interaction with Apollo (Aen. 9.590–665) rather unsatisfactory (pp. 58–60).
P.'s ability to juggle disparate sources and parallels is felt once again in Chapter 3, ‘Questioning Consensus on the Palatine’, which offers a close investigation of the poets’ response to Augustus’ architectural and ideological appropriation of the Palatine Hill. P. is deeply engaged with prior scholarship on Augustus’ promotion of Roman, masculine order over foreign, feminine subversion in Palatine iconography. But she proceeds to a comprehensive and illuminating exploration that, informed by postmodern writings on discipline (Foucault, 1977) and the dialogue between speech and politics (Caravero, 2005), uncovers the Augustan poets’ attempt to ‘refocaliz[e] the Palatine through the marginalized perspectives of women, noncitizens, and conquered opponents’ (p. 89). Her close reading of Prop. 2.31/32, conventionally regarded as a ‘pro-Augustan’ piece of poetry, manifests the ways in which the poet's elegisation of the Palatine and the Danaid portico (pp. 92–108), by offering alternatives of forgiveness, erotic reconciliation and interpretative freedom, effectively undoes Augustus’ legislative and ideological attempt to control women's bodies. This is another fine example of P.'s main thesis that meaning is not dictated by the maker, but rather it is constructed in the imagination of the audience (p. 19). Her readings of Danaid imagery in Virgil, Horace and Ovid are equally suggestive. However, I find the omission of Heroides 14, Hypermestra's letter to Lynceus, rather regrettable, since it would have bolstered her take on suppressed feminine autonomy and patriarchal order immensely.
Chapter 4, ‘Remapping the Forum Augustum’, opens with a useful overview of Augustus’ preoccupation with mapping (e.g. the Agrippan map) and other symbolic arrangements of space (pp. 142–5). By reading the Forum Augustum through the lens of Virgil's Aeneid 6 and Ovid's Ars amatoria 1 P. offers yet another insightful and erudite discussion of how the Augustan poets manage to ultimately usurp Augustus’ role as creators of topographical meaning. Both texts, P. contends, with their lacunose responses to (imperial) spaces and their disordered topographical narratives prompt readers/viewers to look for omissions, errors and motivations behind Augustus’ symbolic arrangement of space. Ovid, in particular, through his erotic appropriation of the Forum Augustum, essentially challenges the princeps’ interpretative centrality in the city and substitutes his ‘erotics of domination’ for Augustus’ ‘politics of domination’.
Chapter 5, ‘The Triumph of Imagination’, is not concerned with a monument but rather with a ritual of monumental significance, the triumph. It is the conventionality and fictitiousness of the Roman triumph, P. argues, which enables the poets to build on the arbitrary relationship between representation and reality and asserts once again their role as meaning makers. The visual representation of a triumph on the Boscoreale Cup serves as a blueprint not merely because of its representative choices and omissions but also for transforming a large public event into a product of private use (pp. 190–3). The reading of the Gallan fragment as a distanced contemplation of a Caesarean triumph strikes an original note (pp. 201–5). So does P.'s detailed investigation of Ovid's appropriations of the triumphs in his exilic work. The exiled poet, through memory and poetry, takes up an active role in the creation of an interpretative polyphonic community whose members, through the act of reading, can participate in the ritual of the Roman triumph, even if they find themselves thousands of miles away from the city of Rome (pp. 215–39).
Chapter 6, ‘The Last Word?’, by looking back to Augustus’ concern for posthumous fame concludes the book in ring composition and offers a useful recapitulation of its basic themes.
This is a well-researched and insightful piece of work. With her magisterial combination of history, archaeology and literature P. offers a perceptive analysis that enhances our appreciation of the Augustan poets’ response to early imperial iconography. Beyond doubt, this highly original and comprehensive study will become a standard book of reference for all those working on Augustan culture.
