Literary representations of the voice in antiquity have in recent years attracted considerable scholarly attention. Within this prolific field, the originality of the present study lies in its reassessment of the equation between enforced silence and loss of agency. It argues that in imperial literature enforced voicelessness constitutes a means of exploring how victims develop original and empowering strategies of communication that transcend the prevailing norms regulating verbal interaction. The monograph focuses primarily on two such strategies: the expressive potential of bodies, chiefly developed through allusions to the performative context of pantomime, and the role of silence in religious settings. This analysis offers substantial insight into the intermedial and cultural dimensions of the literary works under investigation as well as into the role of voice in the construction of identity.
In Chapter 1 an examination of the descriptive model of vocal emission developed in two of Galen’s medical treatises, On Prognosis and De usu partium, sets the stage for a conceptualisation of voice as a physical process that foregrounds issues of control. This model highlights both the corporeality and the fragility of voice, while paradoxically casting its mutilation as a potentially liberating act. A study of the imagery of struggle and domination in accounts of vocal operation exposes its broader cultural, political and ethical resonances: not only does it reflect the Second Sophistic culture of intellectual debate and the imperial authority structuring it, but it also casts mastery of one’s voice as a marker of the proper exercise of political power.
The second chapter aims to nuance the political and gendered interpretations of the Tacita episode in Ovid’s Fasti 2, according to which the episode illustrates the dangers associated with unrestrained speech. An analysis of the rape narratives surrounding the episode reveals a progression from a straightforward correlation between voice and power to a more nuanced exploration of silence as a potential means of retaining agency. Tacita’s silence and identity fluidity align her with mystery-cult goddesses, for whom secrecy and anonymity serve as protective, beneficent virtues. The disjunction between Lara’s backstory as a rape victim and her divine status suggests that silence and anonymity can enable victims to retain agency by eluding external control, distancing themselves from their traumatic experience, and assuming a form of divine empowerment. K. finally contends that attributing a backstory to a deity whose name and memory have been lost constitutes a reflection on Augustus’ reshaping of Rome’s religious landscape.
Chapters 3 and 4 aim to nuance gendered interpretations of three myths of female vocal loss (Philomela, Echo and Syrinx) in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and in the novels of Achilles Tatius and Longus. They argue that these myths investigate how body and voice function as competing modes of communication by invoking the performative framework of pantomime, especially through the motif of the dissociation of voice from body and the resulting erosion of fixed communicative categories. In Ovid and Achilles Tatius silenced victims appear to preserve a degree of control through the expressive qualities of bodily gestures. Longus on the contrary, by suggesting that female voices may be not merely silenced but even appropriated by male characters to enhance their musical abilities, adopts what K. describes as an ‘anti-pantomimic’ stance (p. 111). Although the chapter demonstrates that Longus operates within a framework in which silence signifies disempowerment, it offers little clarification as to how this reading aligns with the monograph’s broader argument, which explicitly seeks to nuance the equation of voicelessness with disempowerment.
The fifth and final chapter explores the episodes of voice recovery in the pseudo-Lucianic Onos and in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. One of the key insights of this chapter, which brings together the monograph’s central, interrelated themes, lies in its interrogation of Lucius’ control and authority over his voice following his transformation back into a human being in Book 11 of the Metamorphoses. The emphasis on the frailty of the human voice and its separability from the body together with the tropes of inspiration cast Isis as a muse-like figure, who speaks through Lucius’ weak body, resulting in a form of ventriloquism. This chapter is particularly illuminating in its comparative analysis of the conceptualisation of voice in the Onos and the Metamorphoses and in their metanarrative implications. Loukios appears to retain some of the uninhibited forms of artistic expression acquired through public pantomimic performances, which are exhibited in the resulting ego-narrative. Lucius’ similar experiences, however, heighten his bodily self-awareness and elicit shame at its public exposure. The anxieties surrounding Lucius’ identity, marked by the complex interplay between author and narrator, account for the sense of disjunction in the characterisation of the protagonist between the first ten books and the final one.
In the epilogue K. underscores continuities with earlier literary representations of silence and agency in Latin martyr literature, focusing on the episode of Romanus in Prudentius’ Peristephanon (fourth century). In this Christian text the martyr’s voice endures miraculously even after his tongue has been severed. The mutilation and dramatisation of the suffering body function as a mode of communication deemed more effective than speech. Simultaneously, the narrative raises questions about Romanus’ agency and control over his voice, as his body becomes the medium through which the truth of Christ’s and God’s word is conveyed. K. further examines the metatextual implications of Romanus’ inspired speech, which serves as a foil for reflecting on the poet’s agency.
Overall, the monograph successfully fulfils its primary aim of showing that ancient writers explore enforced silence and loss of agency in a more nuanced way than systematic disempowerment. Each chapter may be read individually with great benefit by specialists of the works under discussion, thanks to K.’s subtle, erudite and often original interpretations. A continuous reading of the monograph proves illuminating, bringing into relief both the continuities and the fractures in the representation of voicelessness across historical, linguistic and cultural terrains. At the same time, such a reading raises methodological questions regarding the interplay between individual and original conceptions of the experience of voicelessness, and the consistency of the cultural contexts in which these works were produced. Rather than tracing intertextual connections, the monograph emphasises ‘fruitful thematic resonances’ between texts, attending to the ‘authorial perspective and cultural moment’ and to ‘observable patterns applicable to a wider literary world’ (p. 11). The placement of the chapter on Galen in the initial position justified by the argument that his model of voice operation offers ‘an intensified and intensely physical manifestation of an idea that appears more widely in Roman literature’ (p. 39) and provides a framework for interpreting Ovid’s Fasti (p. 42), risks circular reasoning. On the one hand, the chapter highlights both the originality of Galen’s description of the phonatory apparatus, shaped by his cutting-edge anatomical research, and the culturally situated imagery through which he articulates it. On the other, K. supports the political and ethical resonances of Galen’s description not through his own texts, but via Suetonius’ ethically charged portrayal of Claudius’ speech impairment. This argument might render the ethical and political implications of Galen’s model, as well as his (un)conscious engagement with earlier Roman literary frameworks, speculative. Moreover, Ovid’s potential role within the conceptual framework within which Galen and Suetonius operate is not addressed. Nevertheless, the study offers original readings of well-known works that will interest scholars across multiple fields, while laying the groundwork for more systematic and targeted investigations into literary representations of enforced silence in antiquity.
