This volume of essays arises from a conference in 2012 entitled ‘Lucain et Claudien face à face. Une poésie politique entre épopée, histoire et panégyrique’, itself a part of a research project to advance the understanding of ancient intertextuality and a modern approach to it through analysis of these two poets’ intertextual strategies. The volume does not deal with the influence of Lucan upon Claudian per se, though this is one theme, but looks more widely at the two poets within the practices of epic poetry and historical narrative, with a particular focus on intertextual dialogue in some articles. It is an extremely varied collection, and will be useful to readers interested in either author, but also to anyone trying to understand better the layered nature of Latin poetry, especially intertextuality, and our methods of analysing and interpreting it.
J.-L. Charlet's opening article tackles head-on the issues with studies that have used apparent textual parallels of Lucan in Claudian to argue that the former is a major or indeed the principal source for the latter (as R. Bruère had done, in particular), and performs a full reassessment of the intertextual relationship between the poets; the findings are usefully yet succinctly presented, with the conclusion that Lucan's presence is notable but not great, and less than that of Virgil, Ovid and Statius. Charlet then conducts a thematic and generic comparison of the two authors, concluding that Claudian's epic is not Lucan's idea of historical epic but something that goes much further, a political epic that encompasses both the politics of his day and the wider political ideal of Roma aeterna.
F. Felgentreu's article also compares the two authors, but in terms of how they handle the gods or differently ‘remove’ them from epic. He sees both authors as demythologising their epics, Lucan according to the demands of his particular historical subject matter in which the gods are unable to act according to their divine characters, Claudian according to the demands of his respectively pagan and Christian audiences who both require divine characters to whom no divinity may in fact be attributed (with no conclusion to be predicated, Felgentreu argues, upon the biographical exploration of Claudian's much disputed personal beliefs). C. Schindler too undertakes a study of both authors, contrasting their approaches to the Republic and the Republican heroes whom neither poet idealises, with Claudian, in particular, demonstrating that they fall short of the laudandi and heroes of his own texts.
F. Ripoll's is the first in a set of articles focused on only one of the two poets. He concerns himself with the tragic dimension of the Pharsalia, a poem that he considers to be as much a political as a poetic construction, contesting the vague application of ‘tragic’ to the text by scholars. He explores three themes: the questions of the narrator, of Fate and of heroism, concluding that this is not a ‘tragic epic’ but, for the purposes of Lucan's constructing a basis for renewal of his particular ideology as political action in the future, it is an ‘epic with a tragic mask’, manipulating emotions through its adoption of tragic themes. In this he contests the overriding view that Lucan is pessimistic, seeing the tragic as a means to rouse the reader towards an optimistic agenda.
F. Galtier too writes exclusively about the Pharsalia, specifically focusing on Cato at 2.234–391, within the traditions of sage figure and political leader, and to what extent he is recreated as a symbol of virtue. Galli Milić’s focus is also Lucan – the much-interpreted praise of Nero in his proem – but in terms of intertextuality with Manilius, who in turn is making allusions to Virgil; her paper stands out for its clear presentation of the relationship between the texts, amassing evidence to support her argument that the Pharsalia links epic and history with natural philosophy and cosmology through two-tiered allusivity.
F. Garambois-Vasquez writes about Stilicho in Claudian's work, in terms of his construction as an ideal Roman leader through his virtues, especially the emphasis on temperantia and constantia. She also observes the power of the symbols Claudian uses to ‘Romanise’ Stilicho, for example the trabea, garment of Roman power, or mythological comparators. Overall, she makes a cogent argument for the development of Stilicho as a Roman moral figure, symbolising Roman values of libertas, fides and pietas, and a hero fit for Roma aeterna. R. Rees's article on Claudian's De Bello Gildonico looks more specifically at the use of intertextuality, an area whose importance in Claudian scholarship has been demonstrated by C. Ware's Claudian and the Roman Epic Tradition (2012); Rees's attention, by contrast, is to late-antique Latin panegyric, combined with Lucan. Questions remain as to whether Claudian's panegyrical influences are really the Panegyrici Latini, as Rees acknowledges, but he makes a fairly compelling argument for the relationship, at least in terms of imagery and theme, if not lexis, which adds an important strand to our understanding of Claudian's genre.
The final section deals specifically with the presence of Lucan in Claudian, introduced by a detailed overview by P. Esposito, examining how Claudian rewrites and critically interprets Lucan in his layers of referencing, by different forms of allusion, manipulation and inversion of the model. The paper culminates with the call for a reconsideration of Claudian by scholars wanting to understand Lucan in Late Antiquity. B. Bureau then examines Lucan and Claudian's In Rufinum, with particular interest in the very different nature of each of the books of this poem, the former a mythological rendering of contemporary events, the latter largely historical. Bureau's observations concerning the dominant presence of Lucan in the second book and not the first add an interesting layer to the debate, in terms of what they tell us about Claudian's attitude to his poetic genre; questions concerning ‘epic’ as understood, structured and developed as a vehicle for political communication by Claudian are perceptively explored. Berlincourt takes a not dissimilar approach in examining Lucan's impact on Claudian's Panegyricus de consulatu Probini et Olybrii, considering the way in which the poem depicts the goddess Roma, amid a network of textual references in which Virgil is dominant but Lucan does play a part. The use of allusion with Lucan to engage the theme of civil war while never actually naming it recognises the layers of tension Claudian manages to build up within his texts and the complexity he is able to achieve through intertextuality.
P. Roche's article concerns the In Eutropium, which he argues takes its invective energy from Lucan by means of allusion, yet also, in doing so, invokes Virgil, through a second layer of allusion to the Georgics. The article explores three ways in which Lucan may be understood as present in Claudian – through rhetoric, exemplarity and his presentation of Roma – each providing a better picture of the methodology for understanding textual relationships. Roche grasps particularly well the way in which Claudian mines his models creatively, applying, extending and transforming aspects of his predecessors, with an awareness of their own allusivity which allows him to strengthen his own references, such as to Virgil through Lucan. C. Ware agrees with Roche that the In Eutropium is meant to be read through a Lucanian lens from the opening, sharing his argument that it is the network of Lucanian and Virgilian allusions that builds Claudian's own image of civil war. However, she also develops a convincing argument for Claudian's use of elegy among his very many allusions in this text, such as the creation of Eutropius as Dipsas from the Amores and as lena, based on a stereotype developed by Ovid, Tibullus and Propertius. In a masterful presentation of the extent of Claudian's allusive networks, Ware outlines clearly the challenges presented by the generic variety and range of conversations with other authors through which the In Eutropium hurtles.
The contribution by N. Coffee and C. Forstall is one of the most striking with respect to our overall understanding of author relationships and the modern study of intertextuality. They have employed the software Tesserae, which matches phrases of at least two words in two separate texts, for the presence of Lucan's Bellum Civile in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae and De consulatu Stilichonis, demonstrating a markedly greater engagement in the latter than in the former. However, this is a study in method more than in Lucan and Claudian, though conclusions are drawn in this respect, too, about the principal occasions of the references, for example, and their particular focus. In the majority, however, the paper explains the process of employing the software, and how it relates to traditional parameters for identifying an allusion, considering both the language parallel (as identified by the software, along with the words’ proximity) and the sense (which relies on the operator); other factors such as metrical similarities are obviously to be considered. The authors do not propose that at present this method gives the fullest possible picture of intertextual activity, and indeed much of the article sets out the limitations of the method, but it does seem a striking way of leading researchers to sites where there might be interplay worthy of further exploration.
The overall effect of this collection is to remind the reader of the importance of reading texts in light of one another and to explore the multiplicity of ways in which this can be done, plus its implications. It provides enough context throughout to be useful to readers who are less familiar with either author, but is also a prescient reminder both to reconsider the significance of Lucan, especially as a late-antique influence, and to take fresh approaches to the complex layering of signifiers in the poetry of Claudian. The collection reflects many of the current areas of interest in Latin poetry focused within a selection of papers (at a very high scholarly standard) that also put forward new ideas and arguments which will resonate beyond these two authors as well as add to our understanding of their works in particular.
