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Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

Online ISBN:
9780191741951
Print ISBN:
9780199644087
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica

Tim Stover
Tim Stover
Assistant Professor, Florida State University
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Published online:
20 September 2012
Published in print:
19 July 2012
Online ISBN:
9780191741951
Print ISBN:
9780199644087
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book offers a new reading of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, a poem which is here dated to Vespasian's regime (70–79 ce). Its primary purpose is to show that Valerius' epic reflects the restorative ideals of Vespasianic Rome, a thesis that sets it apart from the largely ‘pessimistic’ readings of other scholars. An important element of Valerius' poetics of recovery is an engagement with Lucan's iconoclastic Bellum Civile, a poem whose deconstructive tendencies offered Valerius a poetic point of departure for his attempt to renew the epic genre in the context of the political renewal triggered by Vespasian's accession to power. Thus, a secondary purpose of this study is to examine Valerius' response to his most recent epic predecessor, Lucan, a topic that has been woefully understudied. Accordingly, this work interprets Valerius' Argonauticaas a reaction to two primary stimuli, one poetic — Lucan's deconstructive epic of civil war — and one political — Vespasian's restoration of order following the destructive civil war of 68–69. The approach is thus both formalist and historicist: the book seeks not only to elucidate Valerius' dynamic appropriation of Lucan but also to associate the Argonautica's formal gestures with a specific socio-political context.

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