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15 - Uncertainties

from PART IV - THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

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Summary

Cicero was murdered by the soldiers of Antony and Octavian in December of 43 B.C. In the following year, according to the ancient tradition, Virgil began to write the Eclogues. A new age, in both politics and literature, had begun. The period between Virgil's début and the death of Ovid was one of extraordinary and unprecedented literary creativity at Rome. Perhaps no other half-century in the history of the world has witnessed the publication in one city of so many unquestioned masterpieces of enduring significance in so many different fields. Between them Virgil, Horace and Ovid imparted to most of the major genres of poetry what might appear their mature, even definitive, shape. Epic, lyric, elegy, bucolic, didactic, satire, all underwent this magisterial discipline. In prose one monumental undertaking, Livy's history Ab urbe condita, survives (in part) to uphold Ciceronian canons of historiography against the influence of Sallust and to leave a permanent mark on the tradition. Only drama and oratory languished in a society in which free speech, at least among the upper classes, was confined within increasingly narrow limits.

In some such manner, simplified by hindsight and the selective operations of taste and chance, what is conventionally called the Augustan Age of Latin literature tends to be presented. Contemporary reality was considerably more complex. The record of lost and fragmentary literature, added to the explicit testimony of our sources, provides evidence of much diversity and experiment, conducted to a counterpoint of sometimes fiercely outspoken criticism and controversy. All the best work of Virgil, Horace and Ovid was experimental and a good deal of it, in the eyes of their contemporaries, controversial.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1982

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References

Cameron, A. (1976). Circus factions. Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium. Oxford.
Du Quesnay, I. M. Le M. (1976). ‘Vergil's Fourth Eclogue’, Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 1976. ARCA 2. Liverpool.Google Scholar
Fraenkel, E. (1957). Horace. Oxford.
Gow, A. S. F. (1950). (ed.). Theocritus. 2 vols. Cambridge.
Johnson, W. R. (1973). ‘The emotions of patriotism: Propertius 4.6’, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 6:.Google Scholar
Kidd, D. A. (1977). ‘Virgil's voyage’, Prudentia 9:.Google Scholar
Syme, R. (1939). The Roman revolution. Oxford.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (1928). Erinnerungen 1848–1914. Leipzig.
Wilkinson, L. P. (1969). The Georgics of Virgil: a critical survey.
Williams, G. W. (1968). Tradition and originality in Roman poetry. Oxford.
Winterbottom, M. (1974). (ed.). The Elder Seneca. Declamations. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. & London). London & Cambridge, Mass.

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