'Foedera': A study in Roman poetics and society

"Foedera: A Study in Roman Poetics and Society" is a cultural and ritual analysis of the processes and outcomes of Roman alliance and the role of poetry in articulating the tensions and paradoxes of Roman alliance. I argue that the cultural and ideological aspects of foedera in the creation of the Roman Empire have been underappreciated and that their cultural logic problematizes narratives about Roman alliance. The dissertation reconstructs the ritual event of a foedus and analyzes the political and cultural aspects related to foedera. The themes and issues raised are then applied to the formulation of the concept in the works of Lucretius, Vergil, Manilius, and Lucan where a number of bold contextualizations of the word require careful study and contemplation. The dialectic between poetry and empire raises issues about the stability of foedera as instruments of social and political cohesion.;In the first chapter, "Constructing Foedera," I argue a number of points. I suggest that although Romans understood that foedus was etymologically related to fides, it was the notion of foeditas in the sacrifice of the piglet that provided a more culturally meaningful etymology. I argue that this connection originated during the 2nd Punic War when Romans for the first time became aware that the violation of foedera resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Roman soldiers. The key point is not the deaths themselves, but the putrefaction---the liquids and smells---that engrossed a battlefield as the rotting corpses made the landscape a locus foedus, a foul place. I then discuss in detail the ritual of the foedus, focusing in particular on the types of foedera fashioned by Rome, then move to a discussion of the fetial priests, the sacrifice of the porcus, and end with a discussion of actual tabulae foederum. Finally, I discuss the role of foedera in the organization of Livy's account of Roman history in the Ab Urbe Condita in order to show how a Roman author configures the implications of foedera during Roman history and to introduce ideas about the problem of founding Rome on foedera.;In the second chapter, "Foedera and Roman Cosmology," I argue that the collocations foedera naturae and foedera mundi offer important insights into how Romans during the late Republic and early Principate were broadening the scope of foedera to include the physical processes of the universe so as to reframe the role of foedera in organizing Roman society. In particular, I analyze Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Manilius' Astronomica.;In the third chapter, "Foedera and the Bellum Civile," I suggest that Lucan fuses fully the cosmological foedera discussed in chapter two with the significance of foedera discussed in Livy's history, where one can sense a tension between the imperial expansion of Rome through foedera and their underlying association with Roman Civil War. In essence, Lucan's Bellum Civile creates a world without foedera; the foedera that composed and brought order to the Republic have been annihilated while the radical connection of foedera to a single man-god (in the form of Nero) has yet to occur within the narrative scope of the poem. Civil War itself denies the cohesive and stabilizing forces of foedera. This universe without foedera creates spaces in which Lucan can explore the profound breakdowns in society that lead to Civil War and ultimately the Principate.;The final chapter, "The Aeneid, Foedera and the Foundation of Rome," will discuss the role of foedera in the poetics of Vergil's Aeneid. Like Lucan, Vergil's endpoint is the creation of a universe without foedera. But for Vergil this is a process of universal history in which the foedus that performs the foundation of Rome is in fact part of a series of violated foedera that permeate the entire history of the Mediterranean world. Yet within the foedus of Aeneid 12 is the possibility that Rome can end the process of foeditas that has besmirched the epic landscape Vergil constructed. From the macroscopic frame of the poem, the journey of Aeneas represents the unification of all time and space under a single foedus, and yet the fulfillment of this unification only comes through the advent of Augustus. Within this process of unification is the striking of foedera which ultimately result in the Punic, Social, and Civil Wars. Within the narrative matrix of Vergil's poem all foedera are imbued with the potential of foeditas. From this point of view it is imperative that the eventual endpoint of the poem is to achieve a state where foedera are no longer necessary and the entire orbis is Roman. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...