Tilg, Stefan

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construction of his own career— has here accepted at face value Tacitus’ tendentious perspective onthe economy of prestige in his society. There were more paths to success than the historian would liketo admit. But we do not have to accept S.’s analysis of élite society in its entirety to see that Tacitus isinvested in his image as an alienated critic of the Principate— and that this might be a hard sell givenhis obvious political success.The following four chapters trace the development of Tacitus’ self-presentation over the course ofhis historiographical career. Ch. 2, on the Agricola, highlights that work’s focus on the circulation ofglory in both Rome and Britain. It argues that Tacitus diagnoses a ‘crisis of representation’ in Romanculture — a crisis which has lasted into the Trajanic period despite the best efforts of the newemperors — and ambitiously offers his own work as a solution.Ch. 3 focuses on the preface to the Histories, analysing how it seeks to persuade the reader thathistoriography and politics are inextricably linked. Tacitus suggests that it is impossible to write goodhistory under the Principate because political enslavement inevitably provokes a response that isemotional and therefore — regardless of whether it is favourable or hostile to the regime —always pernicious to good historiography. But he also hints that the Histories will be a uniqueexception, because of its author’s ability to stand outside the relations of reciprocity (positive andnegative) that have been the ruin of other historians.Ch. 4, still on the Histories, traverses a wider range of passages, including Otho’s two speeches tothe Praetorians, the destruction and restoration of the Capitol, and the Jewish War. Although thereadings are united by an interest in failures of signication — particularly of the signifying powerof the city of Rome — the arguments are more diffuse than in other chapters and less obviouslyconnected to the agenda of the book as a whole. Its most important claim is that Tacitusrepresents the Principate as entailing the loss of the meaning written into Rome’s urban fabric andsuggests that this meaning can only be recuperated within the alienated perspective provided byhis own text.Ch. 5 on Ann. 4.32–8 (the ‘second preface’, the prosecution of Cremutius Cordus and Tiberius’speech on the rejection of divine honours) is a return to strength. S. argues that this programmatictriptych plays a pivotal rôle in giving the work the ‘impression of political consequence’ and its‘status as an endangered book’. He makes much of Tacitus’ failure to articulate the precise utilityof historiography under the Principate (4.33.2), suggesting that this hints that the real purpose ofthe work is unspeakable, and so makes it appear far more politically signicant and dangerous toits author than it can ever have been. He also argues that Tacitus has both exaggerated thesignicance of Cremutius’ historical works for his downfall and given Cremutius a surprisinglyguarded (and so Tacitean) nal speech in order to make him paradigmatic of the dangers ofhistorical writing. He presses readers not to take these intimations of the regime’s hostility at facevalue, but rather to see them as a rhetorical device by which the successful senator seeks to createan impression of political independence.This is a long book. Its 300-odd pages offer many interesting and often provocative readings offoundational passages with which every reader of Tacitus must grapple. Yet this reader could nothelp feeling that it would have been even stronger had it focused more narrowly on the ‘alienationeffect’, for that is where its real pay-off lies. This book will make all readers of Tacitus look moreclosely — and more critically — at the strategies by which the historian constructs himself as asubversive critic of power.University of St Andrews Myles Lavanmp12@st-andrews.ac.ukdoi:10.1017/S007543581100058XJ. HINDERMANN, DER ELEGISCHE ESEL: APULEIUS’ METAMORPHOSEN UND OVIDSARS AMATORIA (Studien zur Klassischen Philologie 162). Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang,2009. Pp. 229. ISBN 9783631592304. £38.50.Ovid’s inuence on Apuleius’ Metamorphoses has been variously studied before, but Ovidian loveelegy has not been a particular focus of attention. J. Hindermann’s Basel PhD-thesis lls this gap.It concentrates on Apuleius’ reception of the Ars amatoria and makes occasional remarks on theAmores. H.’s guiding hypothesis is that Apuleius models his accounts of erotic relationships onelegiac, particularly Ovidian patterns. This concerns rst and foremost the prominent relationshipbetween Lucius and the slave-girl Photis, described in Met. 2 and 3. But H. also has something toREVIEWS 297at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435811000591Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 10:41:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, availablesay about other erotic or eroticized relationships in the novel, most signicantly those betweenSocrates and the witch Meroe in Book 1 and Lucius and Isis in Book 11. As a basis for furtheranalysis, H. rst compares Apuleius’ Photis episode with its equivalent in the Greek Onos.Although the Onos is only an epitome of Apuleius’ direct model, the Greek Metamorphoseis byso-called Loukios of Patras, H. is reasonably successful in arguing that Apuleius brings insignicant erotic, and specically elegiac, nuances.The following main part of the study is dedicated to a detailed comparison between structure andmotifs of the Ars amatoria on the one hand and potential correspondences in theMetamorphoses onthe other. H. bases her readings on a general analogue (41): the Ovidian student of love is comparableto the Apuleian student of magic; both are young men, ardent to experience a yet unknown higherpower; they submit themselves to a ‘teacher’ and set out on a ‘journey into new realms’; theyneglect family and negotium to devote themselves to an arduous otium; they keep away fromrespectable women and get involved with shady girls. Readers who think that these parallels arevague will be disappointed by the bulk of H.’s argument, especially where she claims thatApuleius himself was a pupil of Ovid and followed the latter’s instructions step by step: from theinventio of the object of love or magic to the eventual captatio of the puella (42–100). In herdiscussion of motifs (appearance of the puella, militia amoris, servitium amoris), H. is on rmerground and identies a number of attractive Ovidian contexts which could have inspired Apuleius,for example, to Lucius’ preference for a negligent ‘non-hairstyle’ (113–23) or to his ‘servitiumamoris light’ (158), in contrast to the self-destructive servitium amoris evinced by Socrates in hisrelationship with Meroe.The most intriguing part of H.’s study, however, is its concluding chapter on Isis as elegiacpuella (185–203). Here, H. adds to the comic readings of Met. 11, which, as an alternative tothe more traditional religious readings, have enjoyed considerable success over the lastdecades. H. argues that Lucius at the end of the Metamorphoses is presented as a dupe becausehe ends up with a stricter domina than Photis ever was. H. brilliantly observes that the ideas ofliberating slavery and of military service (cf. especially Met. 11.15) are not attested in Isiaccontexts before Apuleius, but constitute stock motifs of Roman elegy. Similarly, the elegiacmotifs of paraclausithyron and foedus aeternum may be relevant to Lucius’ attempt to drawcloser to Isis (in the preparations for his rst initiation, including two veritable door scenes inMet. 11.22.7 and 11.23.4) and to the exclusivity of his veneration of the goddess. But here andgenerally it seems problematic that in the last chapters of the novel Isis is eclipsed by herhusband Osiris (in this light Isis resembles an honourable matrona rather than a disreputablepuella — it is a pity that H. does not compare her approach with earlier readings of Isis asLucius’ legitimate wife, betrothed to him in a sort of hieros gamos, cf., e.g., D. Lateiner in CJ95 (2000), 326–7; J. McNamara in AncNarr 3 (2003), 108–9 and 122–7). Lucius’ secondinitiation is clearly into the cult of Osiris (Met. 11.27.2), and in his third and nal initiation noother god than Osiris appears in the context (Met. 11.30.3–4). H. keeps silent about this. Heronly brief (and recherché) attempt to integrate Osiris into her picture comes when reading Isisas a greedy elegiac puella who makes Lucius pay large sums for his initiations. Osiris would putup with Lucius just as the husband described by Ovid (Am. 3.4.45–8), who accepts his wife’smale friends not least because they bring many gifts.H.’s study is clear and informed, but suffers from an excess of detail in the main part (e.g. in theunnecessary full exploration of Ovidian contexts for their own sake) and from the single-mindedconviction that Ovid’s love elegy is the key to Apuleius’ representation of erotic relationships. Tothe mind of this reviewer the specic parallels with the Ars amatoria are not numerous andconvincing enough to recommend this text as a consistent and thoroughgoing ‘code’ for elegiacthemes and motifs in the Metamorphoses. It might have been more fruitful to examine theseaspects against the broader background of Roman elegy (in fact many of H.’s results hold upwithout Ovid) and in their shifting interplay with the rich literary texture that is theMetamorphoses (cf. in this direction now A. G. Mathis in W. Riess (ed.), Paideia at Play (2008),195–214). This said, it is clear that readers are free to use H.’s often remarkable observationsoutside the rigid framework in which they are presented. Unfortunately, the lack of an index doesnot help here and will no doubt impede an easy and widespread reception of H.’s work.University of Zurich Stefan Tilgstefan.tilg@klphs.uzh.chdoi:10.1017/S0075435811000591I I LANGUAGE, L ITERATURE AND RECEPT ION298at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435811000591Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 10:41:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available

Book Review: DER ELEGISCHE ESEL: APULEIUS' METAMORPHOSEN UND OVIDS ARS AMATORIA: HINDERMANNJ., DER ELEGISCHE ESEL: APULEIUS' METAMORPHOSEN UND OVIDS ARS AMATORIA (Studien zur Klassischen Philologie 162). Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2009. Pp. 229. isbn 9783631592304. £38.50

Book Review: DER ELEGISCHE ESEL: APULEIUS' METAMORPHOSEN UND OVIDS ARS AMATORIA: HINDERMANNJ., DER ELEGISCHE ESEL: APULEIUS' METAMORPHOSEN UND OVIDS ARS AMATORIA (Studien zur Klassischen Philologie 162). Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2009. Pp. 229. isbn 9783631592304. £38.50

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