Incest, Cannibalism, Filicide: Elements of the Thyestes Myth in Ovid's Stories of Tereus and Myrrha

This thesis analyzes key stories in Books 6–10 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses through a focus on the pair of stories that bookend the central section of the poem, the narratives of Tereus and Myrrha. These two stories exemplify the mythic types of the family-centered stories in Books 6–10: Tereus’ is a tale of filicide (specifically, filial cannibalism), while Myrrha’s features incest. Ovid links these stories through themes and plot elements that are shared with the tragedy of Thyestes, a paradigmatic tragic myth encompassing both filial cannibalism and incest, otherwise untold in the Metamorphoses. Through allusions to Thyestes’ myth, Ovid binds together the sequence of human dramas in the poem, beginning and ending with the Tereus and Myrrha stories. Furthermore, the poet reinforces and signals the connections between the stories through textual echoes, lexical formulations, and shared narrative elements.Master of Art

Pro filia, pro uxore: Young Women in the Conventional and Unconventional Families of Roman Comedy

In this dissertation, I explore both the diverse variability and the traditional ideologies of the Roman family in the powerfully relevant medium of Roman comedy, with a particular focus on how different types of families in the genre treat young women. Plautus and Terence reinvented their dramatic form to depict families that would be recognizable, meaningful, and resonant for their audiences in Rome and Italy of the 200s–160s BCE. These playwrights show an expanded definition of family beyond the familiar citizen form repeatedly presented in later evidence. Around the citizen families that are the focus of the genre, they stage families of choice created by marginalized people (lower-class women and foreign soldiers in particular).In Plautus’ and Terence’s plays, I identify two patterns: (1) a critique of the legal and social institutions that governed citizen family life in Rome of their day and (2) a counter-staging, as it were, of alternate models of families that contrast sharply with the citizen family in their structures, members, and priorities. Plautus and Terence critique the ideological vision of family relationships, with particular attention to the destructive effects of patria potestas on daughters, and they frequently stage non-legal or socially unacceptable chosen families that are oriented toward cherishing and protecting girls and young women.In Chapter One, I give background on the genre of New Comedy and on familial norms in Roman law and in Plautus’ and Terence’s plays. In Chapter Two, I analyze the harm that patria potestas and uncaring fathers can cause for citizen daughters in Plautus’ plays. In Chapter Three, I show that in contrast, in both Plautus and Terence’s plays, families led by lower-class women, often meretrices, protect and support the young girls in their care, even without biological kinship or the resources of citizen men. In Chapter Four, I identify a new form of relationship between foreign soldiers and the meretrices with whom they pursue marriage-like unions. I conclude with a discussion of the resonance and legimacy these depictions would have granted to members of such unconventional families in Plautus’ and Terence’s varied and stratified audiences.Doctor of Philosoph