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Christopher Simpson

Teichoskopia and Autopatheia in Horace Odes 1-3In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 79 fasc. 1, 2001. Antiquité - Oudheid. pp. 65-68.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Simpson Christopher. Teichoskopia and Autopatheia in Horace Odes 1-3. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 79

fasc. 1, 2001. Antiquité - Oudheid. pp. 65-68.

doi : 10.3406/rbph.2001.4508

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_2001_num_79_1_4508

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Teichoskopia and utopatheia in Horace Odes 1-3

Christopher SIMPSON

It goes without saying that there is as much material for critical thought inHorace's poetry as there are sensitive readers. Indeed, it is that basic beliefwhich essentially lends the critical and theoretical basis to the still valuable'reception-theory' of the sort practised by Lowell Edmunds^). My purpose inthis note, however, is to point briefly to two aspects of Horace's craft in thefirst three books of his Odes, which were probably published as a collection in23 B.C. These are the poet's use of the devices of τειχοσκοπία andαύτοπάθεια (i.e. 'viewing from city walls' and autopsy).

τειχοσκοπια

In the so-called 'Second Roman Ode' (III, 2, 6-13), in what GordonWilliams called thirty years ago "a curious scene , we are presented with thewife of a warring tyrant and her adult daughter looking from battlementsanxious for their prince lest he meet with the Augustan warrior ravaging like alion per médias... caedis ("through the middle of the carnage")(2). That orace used the teichoscopic device in his second 'Roman Ode' is very well

known, as is the predecessor for this imagery very well recognized: HomerIliad, III, 146ff., where the women of Troy look out over the battlements andpoint to the heroes on either side.

Indeed, it was a scholiast's note to this very Homeric passage that termedthe Trojan women's action teichoskopia(2). Furthermore, as an aside, we maynote that teichoskopia has an even longer heritage as an iconographie motifand, in fact, seems to be represented in a Bronze Age pre-Homeric miniaturefresco from Thera which portrays women looking out over battlements whilethere are warriors marshalling in the plain below(4).

(1) L. EDMONDS, From a Sabine jar: reading Horace, Odes 1.9, Chapel Hill, 1992.(2) G. WILLIAMS, The Third Book of Horace's Odes, Oxford, 1969, p. 35.(3) LSJ, col. 1767.(4) For a colour plate of this fresco, C.G. DOUMAS, Thera. Pompeii of the ancient Aegean.

Excavations atAkrotiri 1967-79, London, 1983, p. 40, PI. XIV.

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66 CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON

So much for the straightforward use of the device. But there is also in theOdes a form of what may be termed 'reverse' teichoskopia in which the city

walls themselves are viewed or imagined. Three simple examples readilyjump to mind: for example, when towns are referred to by pointing to theirwalls, as at Odes, I, 7, 2f.: "Corinthi moenia ," 1, 18, 2: "moenia Catili", and atIII, 17, 6: "Formiarum moenia. "(5) In the first collection of Horace's Odes,

however, perhaps the most well-known occurrence is in Juno's speech atOdes, III, 3, 65ff. and the vow that, even if the walls of Troy were to be raisedin brass three times, nevertheless they will be cast down(6).

Another psychologically effective use of 'reverse' teichskopia is evident inVirgil's Aeneid when Aeneas introspectively considers the walls of Dido'sCarthage {Aeneid, I, 437: o fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt — "O

lucky people whose city walls now rise ")(7). Also, the same teichoscopicdevice appears in contemporary historiography in Dionysius ofHalicarnassus, when he describes at length the walls of Rome as he imaginedthem to have been in the mid fifth century B.C. {Ant., IX, 68).

Why is there this 'reverse' teichoskopia in Horace and other contemporarywriters ? Perhaps it reflects a sort of political nachleben in which polities,though now absorbed into the dominion of Rome, could still be referred to bytheir walls which, until fairly recently, were the most visible symbols of theirerstwhile independence.

αύτοπάθεια

The reference to city walls is significant, in and of itself, apart from thecommon use of the word moenia and the apparent subtle reversal of theteichoscopic device. The Greek historian Dionysius describes the walls of

Rome; whereas Livy, the Roman historian, pointedly does not. Why ? Thedifference is given a plausible explanation by John Marincola: "We may stateit almost as a rule that an historian never invokes autopsy for his nativecountry, unless he is claiming to make a substantial improvement in the rcord [Dionysius], writing in Greek,... emphasizes his autopsy at variousappropriate points, whereas Livy, writing for Romans, has no need to dothis."(8)

(5) E. Fantham, "Images of the city: Propertius and new-old Rome" in T. Habinek-A. SCHIESARO, The Roman Cultural Revolution, New York, 1997, p. 122-35, at p. 123f., n. 4.

(6) Odes, III, 3, 65ff.: ter si resurgat murus aeneus / auctore Phoebo, ter pereat meis / excisusArgivis...

(7) The use of the verb resurgere (65) is quite interesting here. As with much of the architecturaletaphor which Horace has employed elsewhere in the Odes, this word and Juno s promiseagain refer to future building. Insofar as it refers to building, the passage probably should be

compared to PROPERTIUS, IV,1

67 {surgit opus), which again is a building metaphor.(8) J. MARINCOLA, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography, Cambridge, 1997,p. 101, n. 190.

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TEICHOSKOPIA AND AUTOPATHEIA IN HORACE ODES 1-3 67

Now, Horace was no historian but he was still well very much aware of thetraditions of historiography and of the dangers inherent in composing

contemporary history, as his judgement of Asinius Pollio's account of the civilwar shows (Odes, II, 1, 6: periculosae plenum opus aleae — "a work 'fraught

with hazard'")(9). Indeed, according to David Potter, "the notion thatcontemporary history was dangerous because powerful people could take offense is a commonplace amongst Roman historians" but it "does not appear inGreek historians of the fifth or fourth centuries B.C.C10)"

Horace was also writing for Romans and, unlike Livy, he did appeal toautopsy. Not only did he explicitly refer to the city walls of Italian towns, healso alluded subtly and not so subtly to the actual monuments of contemporaryRome, as for example in the second Ode of Book I — the Regia and the shrineof Vesta among others(n)· What is more, in that Ode and elsewhere, he alsostressed personal experience: "vidimus'''' (Odes, I, 2, 13). This for Nisbet-Hubbard may be a "familiar rhetorical device" but, as was observed with rg rd to Livy, it is just the opposite from what one would expect of the

contemporary Roman historian.Autopsy (αύτοπάθεια), in fact, was the second part of historiography for

the foreign historian Polybius (XII, 25, e, 1)(12). Indeed, for all that "ancienthistorians. ..realize that eyewitness accounts are liable to deep corruption,"

autopsy was still a highly prized validation device even in the second centuryA.D.

In his highly readable and quite amusing How to Write History (Πώς δει

ίστορίαν συγγράφειν), 29, Lucian of Samosata makes a self-styled historianfrom Corinth assert that "ears are less trustworthy than eyes. I write then whatI have seen, not what I have heard 13". (The joke here, of course, is that theperson lampooned by Lucian had not even set a foot outside Corinth and, thus,

could not credibly make any claim of being an eye-witness.)Horace's stress on autopsy was deliberate. By emphasizing autopsy in a

few of his Odes, Horace has distanced himself from being, like Livy, a Roman

(9) R.G.M. NlSBET-M. HUBBARD, A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book II, Oxford, 1978,p. 15.

(10) D.S. POTTER, Literary Texts and the Roman Historian, London/New York, 1999, p. 16f.Potter cites Pliny, Ep., V, 8, 12; IX, 19, 5; IX, 27. Perhaps even in the opening poem of Book II,Horace was being quite daring. T. POISS, Plenum opus aleae. Zum Verhältnis von Dichtung undGeschichte in Horaz carm. 2, 1 in WS, 105, 1992, p. 129-53.

(11) C.J. SIMPSON, Horace, Carm. I, 2, 30-44, Apollo Palatinus and Allusions to Shrines inOctavian's Rome in Athenaeum, 81, 1993, p. 632-42.

(12) R.G. NlSBET-M. HUBBARD, A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book 1, Oxford, 1970, p.24; Polybius, 12, 25e- 1 25h, 4 ("αύτοπάθεια"). MARINCOLA, Authority and Tradition [n. 8], p.

72. For the alleged unreliability of eyewitness accounts, POTTER, Literary Texts [n. 10],p. 28, where he does not cite Polybius. The first part for Polybius was the collection and analysisof written material, specifically "υπομνήματα"; the third part was related to political activity.F.W. WALBANK, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, Vol. II, Commentary on Booh VII-XVIII,Oxford, 1967, p. 391.

(13) K. KlLBURN, Lucian VI, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, p. 43.

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68 CHRISTOPHER SIMPSON

historian writing for his compatriates. However, in doing so, he hasconsciously appropriated to his poetry one of the elements used by historians

as, as Marincola puts it, an "authenticating device"(14).Autopsy as an "authenticating device" is also seen elsewhere in the Odes. It

is evident, for example, at Odes, III, 5, 19ff., where Regulus is made toexclaim arma militibus sine caede...derepta vidi ("I have seen their weapons

torn from our soldiers without bloodshed"). Similarly, the device ofαύτοπάθεια is employed to validate the intensity of the poet's ownexperiences. For example, it is the force behind Odes, II, 13, 2 If. and Horace'sown brush with death: quampaenefurvae regna Proserpinae ...vidimus ("how

very nearly I saw the realm of dusky Proserpina"). Personal experience is alsoevident, for example, in the allusion to the Theatre of Pompey in Odes, I, 20,

3ff. and, of course, in the opening of the famous 'Soracte Ode', Odes, I, 9, If.:Vides ut alta stet nive candidum / Soracte,...)

Perhaps the most engaging example of Horace's use of autopsy as an"authenticating device", however, is at Odes, II, 19, 2. There, Horace's quiteincredible statement that he himself saw (vidi) Bacchus teaching nymphs onfar-off crags is reinforced (or deliberately undermined) by the clearly tongue-in-cheek words crédite posten.

Finally, in addition to being an "authenticating device", autopsy is alsoused to set the writer in a specific geographic context. This, after all, is theforce of Lucian's comment about the Corinthian 'historian', of Dionysius'

description of the walls of Rome, and of Virgil's guided tour by Evander(Aen., VIII, 306-58). They each appeal to the device of being an eye-witness,of actually 'being there' Horace does the same. Not only does Horace employthe device of 'reverse' teichoskopia (however sparingly) but the references tothe Tiber, the Campus Martins, Soracte, Monte Gargano, even the Bandusian

spring, and other locations (e.g. the sacra via of Sat., 1, 9, 1) are all designed toplace the writer within a plausible context of Italy or contemporary Rome(15).

Conclusion

These have been brief observations on how Horace in the first collection ofhis Odes (and, to a lesser extent, other poets as well) has dipped into the toolbox of essentially contemporary but non-Roman ancient historians. We seethis to some degree in Horace's use of the teichoscopic device but we see it

particularly in relation to his use of αύτοπάθεια (autopsy). In Horace, as inthe works of the contemporary historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, autopsyis used primarily as an "authenticating

device"placing the poet (and thereby

his auditor) at the scene and validating and reinforcing personal experience.

(14) MARINCOLA, Authority and Tradition [n. 8], p. 83.(15) E.g., Odes, I, 2, 13; III, 7, 26; I, 9, 2; III, 13, 1; II, 9, 7.