Classics Faculty Work

Title

​Montium Domina: Catullus’ Diana, Rome, and the Moon’s Bastard Light

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Publication Title

Acta Classica

Volume Number

58

Issue Number

1

DOI

10.15731/AClass.058.02

Abstract

Catullus' hymn to Diana (Carm. 34) has several affinities with his galliambic Carm. 63, the Attis poem. Close investigation of parallels between these works demonstrates the poet's concern with the problem of the transition from a Trojan past to an Italian present for the construction of a Roman identity, a problem that can be typified by the relationship of the Italian Diana and the Trojan mother goddess Cybele. Further, certain aspects of Catullus' depiction of the tension inherent to the synergy of the two goddesses in the religious identity of Rome can be seen to have influenced the climactic revelation of the future Roman identity in the closing movements of the Virgilian Aeneid.

ISSN

0065-1141

First Page

27

Last Page

46

Link Out URL

https://doi.org/10.15731/AClass.058.02

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