Book Description

"Slavery was a defining characteristic of Roman social, economic, and cultural life from the Republican period to Late Antiquity. Slaves are pervasive in the historical record, appearing in brothels, at the theatre, in the amphitheatre, in the homes of the wealthy and on the farms of the surrounding countryside. Their place and influence in the literary history of the Latin-speaking world demands attention as well and this thesis will offer a discussion on the significance of slavery within two seemingly dissimilar texts: Vergil’s Georgics and St. Augustine’s Confessions. Vergil fashions the narrative of his didactic poem around shifting focalizations, forcing the reader to approach the agricultural world from many and varied perspectives, from the divine, to human beings, oxen, plants, soil, and tools. This presents a narrative wherein all elements of the agricultural world are become interconnected through a relationship of violence and domination. The personification and anthropomorphism of these disparate elements in combination with the slave language consistent throughout the poem, however, makes clear that Vergil is not presenting simply a violent world but the enslavement of all aspects of the farmer’s world. In a similar fashion, Augustine anchors his Confessions around the internal enslavement he experienced in his journey towards conversion. Augustine finds himself in bondage to his carnal and earthly desires and ambitions which distract him from the spiritual path he will eventually take. This slavery is located entirely in the spiritual sphere and hinges upon the inner immaturity, the pueritia, of Augustine that persists long after his maturation in the external world. Slavery for both Vergil and Augustine is an issue of understanding the nature of things, for Augustine, the nature of the human soul and for Vergil, the nature of an imagined Roman world after the rise of Octavian to the principate. Slavery links these two authors and will provide the foundation for future studies of literary slavery throughout the Latin canon"--