At first glance, Valerius’ decision to take his theme from Greek myth rather than Roman history (note the recusatio or foreswearing of the latter at 1.12-14) seems to indicate an escape from contemporary realities. But even a cursory examination of Valerius’ narrative suffices to convey the extent to which the poem is embedded in its cultural and historical moment. As numerous critics have pointed out, the mythical world in which Jason and his comrades move has been thoroughly ‘‘Romanized.’’ Despite the obviously Greek background of the myth, Valerius’ poem manifests a preoccupation with Roman culture and history (Summers 1894: 56-7; Pollini 1984: 51-61; Boyle 1991: 272-5). On a straightforward narrative level, the Flavian poet can be seen to alter details of his subject matter in order to provide links to the Roman world. In the first book, for example, Jupiter is made to prophesy a succession of world empires that will lead to Rome (1.531-60, discussed above). Other allusions to Roman history or culture in the poem include the conquest of Jerusalem (1.12-14); the Fasti, or lists of Roman magistrates (2.245); the god Janus (2.620); a Roman purification ceremony (3.417-58); the eruption ofVesuvius (4.507-9); Roman civil war (6.402-6); the Italian hero Picus (7.232-4); the festival of Bellona (7.635-6); and a Roman wedding custom (8.243-6). Equally notable are the numerous Roman geographical references, which are often substituted for Greek references in Apollonius.
The “politics’’ of the poem are a rather more complex matter. A flattering analogy between the Argonauts and the emperor Vespasian is asserted in the proem (1.7-21); such gestures were virtually compulsory in this period though, and this one is not sustained in the subsequent narrative. So much for overt political content; elsewhere the anxieties and preoccupations of the non-imperial Roman aristocracy seem to inflect Valerius’ treatment of the myth. The view of history traditionally inscribed in Roman epic, that of a heroic aristocracy, is subjected to increasing ideological pressure in the Flavian period. One of the central conflicts within elite Roman culture at this time was the incompatibility between Roman aristocratic ambition and desire for public distinction on the one hand and the increasing restrictions imposed by the political configurations of the principate on the other. This contemporary tension surfaces almost immediately in Valerius’ narrative, when Jason’s heroism and popular esteem are presented as problematic for Pelias: ‘‘the renown of [Jason] weighed upon him, as did his valor, which is never pleasing to a tyrant’’ (1.30). This is a striking divergence from the traditional version of the myth, in which the quest for the golden fleece was Jason’s first notable deed. The deviation creates a telling correspondence with contemporary Rome, where aristocratic exercise of authority or pursuit of military glory was likewise decidedly double-edged; indeed, it was a commonplace of the first century that too much renown would draw the hostile attention of the emperor. Thus, at its very outset, the Flavian Argonautica signals a reprocessing of the traditional mythic material in ways that resonate with the concerns of the Roman nobility.
A little later, the poem establishes an even stronger symbolic equivalence between its hero and the contemporary Roman aristocrat, as latent political tensions in Flavian Rome rise to the narrative surface. This occurs when Jason, ordered by Pelias to retrieve the golden fleece, carefully considers his options. Upon realizing that the tyrant is craftily engineering his destruction, Jason’s first impulse is to raise a rebellion: ‘‘What is he to do? Should he call to his aid the fickle populace that hates the old tyrant, and the patres who for a long time now have pitied Aeson?’’ (1.71-3). The stratification of a fictive Thessalian society into distinct segments or power blocs - populus, tyrannus, patres - serves to transform the mythic picture by evoking contemporary political realities. Indeed, the use of the term patres (‘‘senators’’) in this mythological context invests the scene with an unmistakably Roman flavor. More precisely, the existence of senators as a specific political body, and a potential source of support against a single monarch succinctly reproduces the political configuration of the early principate. Intriguingly, the thought of leading the patres in rebellion is a fleeting one, which fades from consciousness altogether before it can be seriously entertained. In this way, Valerius offers a disconcertingly accurate picture of an atrophied senatorial class, no longer in possession of a stable power-base and thus ultimately impotent in its anger and resentment against a despotic ruler. The brief scene thus provides a trenchant reflection of the enduring tensions between emperor and non-imperial elite in the late first century, along with the familiar pattern of mingled accommodation and resistance on the part of the latter.
The concluding episode of the first book, featuring the ‘‘political suicide’’ of Jason’s parents, is another scene rich in contemporary resonance, evoking the suicides of the senatorial opposition under the early principate. In this passage, already mentioned above, Pelias orders the execution of Jason’s father shortly after the ‘‘Argo’’ has set sail (1.700-29). Upon hearing the news, Aeson and his wife Alcimede decide to pre-empt the death sentence by ending their lives together before the arrival of the imperial executioners (1.730-73). Once again, the passage bears an unmistakable contemporary stamp. The poet has created a death scene all too familiar to the nobles of the early principate, a scene repeatedly recorded in the historian Tacitus’ scathing chronicle of the period (e. g., Tac. Ann. 11.3, 15.61-4, 16.18-9, 16.33-5). The suicide of Aeson and Alcimede reproduces many of the details found in the historical accounts: the tyrant’s death sentence, the choice of the wife to die with her husband, the arrival of troops or magistrates at the home of the condemned, and the striking disjunction between the private circumstances of the suicide and the public status of the executioners (McGuire 1997: 192-3).
World History
