Women and War in Roman Epic

Elina Pyy

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Chapter 26 Women and War in Roman Epic

in Brill's Companion to Ancient Women and War in the Mediterranean World

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Elina Pyy

Elina Pyy
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Art:: Kapitel

Seiten:: 538–558

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004749368_027

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Abstract

The chapter discusses the significance of women for the narrative strategies of the Roman imperial war epics: Virgil’s Aeneid, Lucan’s Pharsalia, Statius’ Thebaid, and Silius Italicus’ Punica. By employing the method of classical narratology, I examine how these poets use female characters to challenge their earlier literary models, and to reshape the epic tradition. Women in their works are not the exemplary mediating matrons of Roman legendary historiography, nor the modest and mournful wives of Homeric epic. Instead, they are warmongers and warrior maidens, angry and unpredictable, selfish and suicidal. Through their characters, the poets are able to discuss issues and anxieties that were topical in their day: the painful memory of the civil wars, and the definition of Roman-ness in the multicultural empire. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first one discusses the dangerous queens of Roman epic: Virgil’s Amata and Statius’ Jocasta. I examine how these characters, marked by their failure to act as peace-makers and mediators, become scapegoats stained with the guilt of war, and how their suicides become the prerequisite for peace, unity, and a new beginning. The second part examines Virgil’s Camilla and Silius Italicus’ Asbyte, the warrior maidens who transgress conventional gender roles and strive for epic heroism. I demonstrate how Virgil and Silius employ the eroticizing and exoticizing gaze to construct these women as symbols of Otherness — symbols that they then use to discuss the question of who is, and who could become, Roman. The third part discusses the “manly matrons” of Roman epic: Lucan’s Cornelia and Marcia, and Silius Italicus’ Marcia. I scrutinize how the poets use the combination of marital devotion and warlike courage to fashion these women as epitomes of the old, Republican Romanitas — and how, by adding some dark and dangerous undertones, they are able to manifest the outdatedness of this ideal in the new, imperial environment.

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Brill's Companion to Ancient Women and War in the Mediterranean World

Reihe: Brill's Companions to Classical Studies, Band: 11 und Brill's Companions to Classical Studies: Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Band: 11

ISBN:: 9789004749368

Verleger:: Brill

Print-Publikationsdatum:: 26 Nov 2025

Fachgebiete
- Klassische Altertumswissenschaften
  - Frühgeschichte
  - Archäologie, Kunst & Architektur
- Geschichte
  - Kriegsgeschichte

Front Matter

Part 1 Introduction

Part 2 Goddesses, Myth, Amazons, and War

Part 3 Royal Women and War

Part 4 Women and Armies in War

Part 5 Representations of Women in Texts about War

Part 6 Afterword

Back Matter

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Afrikanistik	Internationale Beziehungen	Nahost- und Islamwissenschaften
Altorientalistik und Ägyptologie	Internationales Recht	Pädagogik
Amerikanistik	Judaistik	Philosophie
Asienwissenschaften	Klassische Altertumswissenschaft	Religionswissenschaft
Bibelauslegung	Kunstgeschichte	Slawistik und Eurasienkunde
Biologie	Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften	Sozialwissenschaften
Biowissenschaften	Medienwissenschaft	Sprachen und Linguistik
Buchgeschichte und Kartographie	Menschenrechte und humanitäres Völkerrecht	Theologie und Christentum
Geschichte	Musikwissenschaft

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Chapter 26 Women and War in Roman Epic

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Brill's Companion to Ancient Women and War in the Mediterranean World

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