Constructing Goddesses: Gender and Politics in Flavian Epic

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the intersection between divinity, gender, and ideology in Flavian Rome and reveals a shift in the portrayal of Venus, Minerva, Diana, and Juno in the epics of the Flavian period (Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Statius’ Thebaid, and Silius Italicus’ Punica). I argue that the Flavian dynasty, with its emphasis on traditional gender norms and its systematic assimilation of imperial women to goddesses, creates a cultural discourse that affects literary genres such as epic and triggers the reconstruction of female divine identities in light of mortal gender norms. Actions previously permitted because of goddesses’ divine status are now deemed inappropriate due to their gender. While I contribute a literary analysis that furthers our understanding of gender in Flavian epic, I also bring together various historical and material sources to demonstrate how the depiction of goddesses in epic reflects contemporary sociopolitical concerns. Goddesses’ polysemic potential, derived from centuries of diverging traditions, makes them fruitful vehicles for social dialogue about the nature of imperial power, the desirability of moral reform, and the construction of femininity.

Chapter 1 presents Diana’s eviction from the battlefield in Thebaid 9 as a programmatic case study. Goddesses must now practice the virtues of mortal women and are no longer welcome in masculine-coded spaces. Chapter 2 reviews historical, numismatic, sculptural, and poetic evidence from Flavian Rome to demonstrate that both divine and mortal women were valuable to the imperial household primarily for their iconic, legitimizing function. While Flavian writers contribute to these socially sanctioned images, they also expose the downside of divinizing rhetoric as they capitalize on the disparity between idealized versions of goddesses and their more problematic mythological iterations in a complex evaluation of elite female power. Chapters 3 through 6 are each dedicated to one of the four primary Olympian goddesses. In Chapter 3, I argue that Valerius Flaccus and Statius emphasize Venus’s identity as an adulteress and a Fury and thus construct her as the ultimate monstrous female, the embodiment of Flavian anxiety about powerful women. In Chapter 4, I examine how Minerva is assimilated to a Fury via her gradual conflation with her aegis and thus becomes a destabilizing force in all three Flavian epics. This hostile characterization of the emperor Domitian’s patron goddess contributes to an atmosphere of fear about the future of the empire. In Chapter 5, I demonstrate how Valerius Flaccus and Statius repeatedly question and threaten Diana’s virginal status via her association with Luna and Hecate, and I propose that the emphasis on social evaluation of the goddess’s identity reflects the pressure that gossip placed on elite Roman women, specifically the Vestal Virgins. Finally, in Chapter 6, I focus on Juno’s antagonism with Jupiter, Rome, and her past epic selves. I argue that, thanks to Vergilian intertexts and her privileged position as the wife of Jupiter, the goddess becomes a barometer by which we can determine the stability of each Flavian epic world and, by extension, evaluate the text’s presentation of Jupiter and monarchical power. Given the emperor’s identification with Jupiter and the empress’s with Juno, my analyses shed light on the political outlook of each epic.