Roman Satire and the Old Comic Tradition Quintilian famously claimed that satire was tota nostra, or totally ours, but this innovative volume demonstrates that many of Roman Satire s most distinctive characteristics derived from ancient Greek Old Comedy. analyzes the writings of Lucilius, Horace, and Persius, highlighting the features that they crafted on the model of Aristophanes and his fellow-poets: the authoritative yet compromised author; the self-referential discussions of poetics that vacillate between defensive and aggressive; the deployment of personal invective in the service of literary polemics; and the abiding interest in criticizing individuals, types, and language itself. The first book-length study in English on the relationship between Roman Satire and Old Comedy, Roman Satire and the Old Comic Tradition will appeal to students and researchers in Classics, Comparative Literature, and English. jennifer l. ferriss-hill is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Miami. Her articles have appeared in American Journal of Philology, Classical Philology, Illinois Classical Studies, and Transactions of the American Philological Association.
Roman Satire and the Old Comic Tradition jennifer l. ferriss-hill University of Miami
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: /9781107081543 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ferriss-Hill, Jennifer L., 1979 author. Roman satire and the old comic tradition /, University of Miami. pages cm This monograph is a thoroughly revised and expanded version of my Ph.D. dissertation, Poetics and Polemics: Horace s Satiric Idiom and the Comic Tradition (Harvard University, 2008). Acknowledgments. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-08154-3 (Hardback) 1. Satire, Latin History and criticism. 2. Lucilius, Gaius, approximately 180 B.C. approximately 102 B.C. 3. Horace. 4. Persius. 5. Satire, Greek History and criticism. I. Title. PA6095.F47 2014 877 0.0109 dc23 2014032224 ISBN 978-1-107-08154-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For Robert, Beatrice, and Julian
Contents Acknowledgments [page ix] Introduction [1] Rereading Quintilian [1] Roman Satire on Old Comedy [3] Truth-Telling Laughter [23] How Did the Roman Satirists Know Old Comedy? [38] 1. The Poet in Tension [45] The Urban Poet [45] The Didactic Poet [62] The Misunderstood Poet [72] The Abject Poet [86] The Lawbreaking Poet [95] The Poet as Chef [101] Conclusions [118] 2. Defensive Poetics [121] The Defensive Poetics of Old Comedy [121] Callimachus and Terence [128] Lucilian Beginnings [138] Horatian Manipulations [143] Persian Twists and Juvenalian Withdrawal [156] Conclusions [169] 3. Literary Criticism [171] Of the Poet s Own Genre [171] Of Other Genres [187] Lucilius and Roman Satire s Old Comic Models [188] Horace [195] Persius [203] Juvenal [212] Conclusions [215] 4. Criticizing the Komodoumenoi [217] The Komodoumenoi of Old Comedy and Roman Satire [217] Language Criticism [228] Conclusions [241] A Conclusion and Some New Directions [242] vii
viii Contents Bibliography [251] Index Locorum [277] General Index [295]
Acknowledgments This book is a thoroughly revised and expanded version of my Ph.D. dissertation, Poetics and Polemics: Horace s Satiric Idiom and the Comic Tradition (Harvard University, 2008). I remain grateful to my committee members, Richard Thomas, Albert Henrichs, and Christopher Krebs, for their expert guidance, and to others who provided patient advising though without the title of adviser, notably, Kathleen Coleman, Gregory Nagy, and Richard Tarrant. I owe special thanks to Richard Thomas for his counsel as I went about the long process of turning my dissertation into this book; to Ralph Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, who provided feedback to my contribution (Ferriss-Hill, 2012) to their edited collection, Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity, that proved invaluable for Chapter 3; and to Kenneth Reckford and John Paul Russo, who with characteristic generosity agreed to read the entire manuscript. Thanks also (at the risk of sounding like Horace at Satires 1.10.76 90) to the many other docti et amici with whom I have discussed this project over the course of almost a decade, not least among them my colleagues at the University of Miami, who make coming to work such a pleasure. Finally, thanks are due to my teachers at St. Paul s Girls School, London, who first instilled in me a love of Latin and especially of Horace. I wish to acknowledge the generous financial support provided by the Whiting Foundation during my final year of dissertation writing, and by the University of Miami, in the form of two summers of funding through Provost Research Awards and of a full academic year as a Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Humanities. I am grateful to my editor at Cambridge University Press, Laura Morris, for her expert assistance and encouragement, to all involved in the production process, and to the Press readers, without whose insightful and detailed comments this book would be far weaker. In response to my inquiries through the proper channels, Kirk Freudenburg revealed himself as Reader A, and I am delighted to be able to express publicly my gratitude to him for the time and care he clearly invested throughout the review process. ix
x Acknowledgments Finally, profound thanks to my family: to my parents, who always encouraged my interest in academia; to my husband, who has been a model of patience and support during this whole journey; and to all four grandparents to our two children, for whom they have provided more hours of babysitting than I can begin to count.