Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature

199 Pages·2012·1.846 MB·English

by  Victoria Emma Pagán

CONSPIRACY THEORY IN LATIN LITERATURE
Ashley and Peter Larkin Series in Greek and Roman Culture
CONSPIRACY THEORY

L ATIN LITERATURE
in
VICTORIA EMMA PAGÁN
FOREWORD BY MARK FENSTER
University of texas Press
Austin
Copyright © 2012 by the University of Texas Press
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First edition, 2012
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Pagán, Victoria Emma, 1965–
Conspiracy theory in Latin literature / by Victoria Emma Pagán.
pages.  cm. — (Ashley and Peter Larkin series in Greek and Roman culture)
isBn 978-0-292-73972-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Conspiracy theories—Rome. 2. Rome—History. 3. Conspiracy in literature.
4. Juvenal—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Tacitus, Cornelius—Criticism and
interpretation. 6. Suetonius, ca. 69–ca. 122—Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title. II. Series: Ashley and Peter Larkin series in Greek and Roman culture.
DG211.P343 2012
870.9′3556—dc23
2012016119
doi: 10.7560/739727
For Andy
ΑΕΙ
. . . solum insidiarum remedium esse sensit, si non intellegerentur.
She figured the only way to avoid the plot was to seem unaware of it.
tacitUs, Annales 14.6.1
CONTENTS
foreworD By Mark fenster ix
acknowleDGMents xiii
introDUction
FROM CONSPIRACY TO CONSPIRACY THEORY 1
chaPter 1
CONSPIRACY THEORY IN ACTION 23
chaPter 2
JUVENAL AND BLAME 47
chaPter 3
TACITUS AND PUNISHMENT 67
chaPter 4
SUETONIUS AND SUSPICION 89
ePiloGUe
THE GOLDEN AGE OF CONSPIRACY THEORY 119
vii
aBBreviations 125
notes 129
BiBlioGraPhy 161
inDex locorUM 175
General inDex 179
CONSPIRACY THEORY in LATIN LITERATURE
viii
FOREWORD
On occasion, a harried reporter contacts me to ask what I think about some
present conspiracy theory infecting the republic. Explain this craziness to us,
Professor. Is the United States a nation of nutcases, or what? Dinner party
conversation often transpires similarly when a new acquaintance learns that
I’ve written a book about conspiracy theory. How interesting, the compan-
ion states, before he or she declares with confidence that those crazy believ-
ers (who, not coincidentally, believe something opposite to the speaker) are
unique to our time, our culture, our nation.
This lay impulse neatly tracks a more ambitious intellectual and academic
perspective that understands what it sees as conspiracy theorists’ paranoia
as a functional but irrational response to stimuli extant in the political air—
stimuli from which elites are curiously immune, despite their own willingness
to view theorists’ political organization itself as something of a conspiracy.
Some of the academic work on conspiracy theory thus frames the object of
its research as merely the product of particular conditions unique to the time
period and culture under consideration, one that can simply be diagnosed as
a dysfunction and pathology produced by and contingent on present events.
The error in these assumptions is obvious to historians and comparativ-
ists—or, really, to anyone with a memory or who has traveled. It ignores that
previous periods and other popular and political cultures harbor groups and
individuals who view the world around them as orchestrated by powerful
characters who operate off stage. Viewing the current political leadership as
criminally illegitimate; the moneyed elite as holding excessive and unchecked
control; a foreign power as holding too much influence over domestic events,
or a racial, ethnic, or religious Other as an existential threat to the nation—
none of these is a new phenomenon. Indeed, such beliefs seem quite common
if not endemic to modern democracies. (Allow me to defer for the moment
the question of whether such views may on occasion be accurate.) Conspiracy
Mark fenster