Weeping and <i>Virtus</i> in Early Imperial Roman Epic

<p>Are men always feminized when they weep? It is well-known that Greek epic heroes like Odysseus weep without losing their claim to masculinity; does the same rule hold true for Roman epic heroes? In this dissertation I examine how men weep in Roman epic poetry of the early Roman empire as an aspect of the performance of masculinity. Specifically, I explore the multiple valences of male tears and related emotional expressions across three core texts: Vergil’s <em>Aeneid</em>, Lucan’s <em>Bellum Civile</em>, and Statius’ <em>Thebaid</em>. I seek to understand judgments of and explanations for men’s tears within my sources, using philological analysis in a roughly dramaturgical framework. By comparing scenes where men weep in epic poetry to scenes in other forms of literature, I argue for specific masculine roles which these various men are performing – sometimes performing well, sometimes poorly – to understand more about the emotional culture of elite Roman men.</p> <p>My chapters formulate readings of individual epics which, taken together, show shifts in Roman emotional and literary culture. In Vergil’s <em>Aeneid</em>, I argue that Aeneas learns how to weep like a Roman man over the course of the epic. At the beginning of the epic, he weeps like a Homeric hero; by the end of the epic, he is demonstrating the self-control of a Roman general or politician. Lucan’s <em>Bellum Civile</em> picks up historically-relevant characterizations of his leading men Caesar, Pompey, and Cato, and reveals their shortcomings through flawed or otherwise ii i inappropriate displays of weeping. In agreement with some scholars of Lucan’s poem, I also suggest that these flawed displays of weeping suggest that the universe of Lucan’s poem is hopelessly disordered. The men of Statius’ <em>Thebaid</em> tend to shed tears which approximate <em>fides</em> or feign <em>pietas</em>, reflecting a larger shift in Roman culture over the course of the early empire: the rise of overt emotionality as a valid form of expression among men. The <em>Thebaid</em> generally challenges the tradition in which the poet locates it, melting down many of the values of Roman epic poetry in the tears of its men.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies

Year

2026

Author dc:creator

• Somerville, Mary

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.brynmawr.edu/dissertations/279

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.brynmawr.edu:dissertations-1273