Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus PDF
Preview Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus
Eleni Manolaraki Noscendi Nilum Cupido Q Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Scientific Committee ´ Alberto Bernabe · Margarethe Billerbeck · Claude Calame Philip R.Hardie · Stephen J.Harrison · Stephen Hinds Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D.Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann Volume 18 De Gruyter Noscendi Nilum Cupido Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus by Eleni Manolaraki De Gruyter ISBN 978-3-11-029767-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-029773-7 ISSN 1868-4785 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress. BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutsche Nationalbibliografie;detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternet athttp://dnb.dnb.de. (cid:2)2013WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Boston Logo:ChristopherSchneider,Laufen Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen (cid:2)Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com Noscendi Nilum Cupido: Imagining Egypt from Lucan to Philostratus For Antony etsi gelidas irem mansur[a] ad Arctos … aut septemgemini caput impenetrabile Nili, hortarere vias. (Statius, Siluae 3.5.19, 21–2) For Scott si calcare Notum secretaque noscere Nili nascentis iubeas, mundum post terga relinquam. (Claudian, In Rufinum 2.244–5) Preface Theideaforastudyof Egyptinpost-Augustan literaturecame tomein 2006 during an NEH summer seminar on Trajan held in the American AcademyinRome.AsIconfrontedubiquitousEgyptianainthecityand elsewhere (the Pyramid of Cestius, the obelisks, Pompeii frescoes, and Hadrian’s Canopus to remember my best photographs), I found the mystique of Egypt as gripping in my present as I imagined it to have been before and after Actium. A double question gradually took hold:onceAugustus’conquestof Egyptasadefininghistoricalmoment was followed bythe conquests and ideologies of his Julio-Claudian suc- cessors,theFlavians,andtheAntonines,whatnewsignificationsdidthe Nile and its land take? Moreover, how did Greek imperial authors ne- gotiate the Roman reception of Egypt and incorporate it into Hellenic paideia?Overthenextfewyears,IkeptreturningtotheNileandEgypt and the present book hopefully offers some answers to the questions I first formulated in Rome. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge my debt to the editors of the series Trends in Classics, Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos, for taking an interest in these questions, for welcoming the size of the manuscript, and for attending to the project through the review process and beyond. Sincere thanks are also due to my anonymous reviewers at deGruyterwhogavememanyinsightfulcommentsandsuggestions.Sa- bine Vogt,Katrin Hofmann, andMaria Ergeguidedmeseamlessly from acceptance to publication and I greatly appreciate their prompt and de- tailed responses to all my questions. My chapter four was first published in 2011 as a chapter in the volume Brill’s Companion to Lucan. Many thanksgotothevolumeeditorPaoloAssoforinvitingmetocontribute and to Gaby van Rietschoten at Brill for permission to republish. I owe much gratitude to the directors of the 2006 NEH summer seminar,RichardTalbertandMichaelMaas,forinvitingmeintothevi- brantcommunityof theAmericanAcademy.Ilearnedmuchfromthem andmyfellowparticipantsandIwasespeciallyinspiredbyGregDaugh- erty, Jinyu Liu, and James Romm. As the book took shape, several col- leaguesandfriendsreadmychaptersorheardthemasconferencepapers in the United States, Britain, and Greece. I am grateful to Antony Au- VIII Preface goustakis,NeilBernstein,AvaChitwood,MartinDinter,LaurelFulker- son, Bruce Gibson, Kostas Kourtikakis, Wayne Losano, Helen Lovatt, John Marincola, Tasos Nikolaidis, Victoria Pagán, Costas Panayotakis, LilyPanoussi,TimStover,PolyxeniStrolonga,AngelikiTzanetou,Gar- eth Williams, and Tony Woodman for the tough thinking I had to do because of their insights. It seems obvious and yet it must be stated ex- plicitly that I do not invoke their authority: all responsibility for errors and omissions remains my own. The Humanities Institute and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida generously provided grants and awards thatallowedmetoescapeduringsummers,atreattrulyappreciatedonly by those who have lived through July in Tampa. The World Languages department at USF has been an excellent home, where Classics thrives inthemidstofaninternationalcommunityofcolleaguesandliteratures. My first thanks go to Ava Chitwood, Margit Grieb, Hip Kantzios, Wil- liam Murray, John Noonan, Chris Probes, and Stephan Schindler who helped me sharpen my writing and teaching skills by sharing their own. I am always in the debt of Stavros Frangoulidis and Lucia Athanas- saki,myundergraduateadvisorsattheUniversityof Crete,fortheireru- dition, their contagious love of Classics, and for setting me on the ad- venture of living abroad. These days abroad feels more like home (much like the conceptual transformation of Egypt) thanks to a family that I have come to consider my own: Frank, Beverly, and Scott F. Hall, Steve, Debbie, Tyler, and Shelby Davidson have heard more about Crete and Egypt than they ever wanted to, and they have done so graciously over many occasions and fine meals. As much as I want to thank them on the written page and in English, words fail me when I try to speak about my Cretan family. I wholeheartedly dedicate this effort to two dear friends and loved ones for joining my journey from the Delta to the sources: to Antony Augoustakisforhistrueandconstantfriendshipsinceourundergraduate years in Crete and for his meticulous and perceptive critiques of my work ever since; and to Scott F. Hall for bringing an artist’s eye to my readings of Egypt, for patiently and cheerfully editing the entire manuscript (twice), for staying up to keep me company during late nights of writing, and for knowing when the book was done. July 3, 2012 Merritt Island, Florida Contents Part I: Setting the Scene Introduction ......................................... 3 Imagining Egypt ................................... 3 Methodology and Outline ........................... 11 Theoretical Influences ............................... 24 Chapter1: Egypt and the Nile in Julio–Claudian Rome ....... 29 Part II: Lucan Chapter2: Pompey’s Nile............................... 45 Chapter3: Beyond Pompey’s Nile ........................ 59 Chapter4: The Nile Digression .......................... 80 Acoreus, Author of the Nile .......................... 83 Physics: The Nile between Earth and Sky ............... 86 Ethics: Lucan and Seneca on the Nile .................. 96 Poetics: The Bard’s Song and the River of Poetry ........ 103 The Bard’s Song ................................... 105 The River of Poetry ................................ 111 Conclusions ....................................... 116 Part III: Flavian Rome Chapter5: Egypt and the Nile in Flavian Rome ............. 121 Chapter6: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica .................... 133 The Nile in Cyzicus ................................ 138 The Nile in the Bosphorus ........................... 142 The Nile in Aea ................................... 147 The Nile on the Danube ............................ 156 Chapter7: Statius’ Thebaid .............................. 164 The Nile on Perseus’ Hill ............................ 167 The Nile on the Langia ............................. 170 The Nile in Athens ................................. 178
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