The Epic Journey in Greek and Roman Literature ed. by Thomas Biggs and Jessica Blum (review)
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Like many collections of essays, the current volume started out as conference papers: some on the theme of "Home and Away: The Epic Journey," organized by the editors Thomas Biggs and Jessica Blum, and others part of a yearlong colloquium [End Page 110] offered by Andrew Johnston and Alexander Loney on the concept of "Home," both held at Yale in 2014. Instead of a lengthy introduction summarizing all the chapters, Biggs and Blum preface each of the four parts with succinct epitomes of the papers that follow, a strategy that is both effective and worth imitating.
In Part I, "Odyssean Journeys," Egbert Bakker ("In and Out of the Golden Age: A Hesiodic Reading of the Odyssey") offers the compelling argument that Odysseus' return involves a journey from the Golden to Iron Age, while Alexander Loney ("Pompē in the Odyssey") demonstrates how successful conveyances for the hero require mutual good faith on the part of patron and benefactor. Jessica Blum ("What Country, Friends, is This? Geography and Exemplarity in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica") explores the fascinating perspective of a poem that is both forerunner to and heir of Homeric epic, with a narrative leading toward tragic outcomes or heroic kleos. What unites all three papers is the "tension between progress and regress" (10).
Part II, "Gendered Maps," focuses on the nature of home in the context of epic journeys. Silvia Montiglio ("Wandering, Love, and Home in Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica and Heliodorus' Aethiopica") explores the very different experiences of Medea and Jason in the former and Chariclea and Theagenes in the latter, observing that Medea will have no home without Jason. Emily Baragwanath ("Heroes and Homemakers in Xenophon") argues that home for the returning Greek mercenaries can exist in the harmonious relationships between the men and women in the army. Alison Keith ("Women's Travels in the Aeneid"), looking at Dido, Andromache, and the Trojan women, shows how Vergil posits the possibility of female participation in an epic voyage only to exclude it in the end.
The topic of Part III, "Rome's Journey: Constructions of Rome through Travel," involves movement in the Roman world. Timothy O'Sullivan ("Epic Journeys on an Urban Scale: Movement and Travel in Vergil's Aeneid") explores horizontal and vertical movement in the poem, noting the contrast between disorderly travel and the eventual construction of Rome's walls following the destruction of Troy. Thomas Biggs ("Roman and Carthaginian Journeys: Punic Pietas in Naevius' Bellum Punicum and Plautus' Poenulus") shows how Vergil's representation of Aeneas' pietas can be paralleled in other Trojan (Anchises) and Carthaginian (Dido and Hanno) figures. Cynthia Damon and Elizabeth Palazzolo ("Defining Home, Defining Rome: Germanicus' Eastern Tour") expose the disconnect between Tacitus' account of Germanicus' travels East and the epigraphic and numismatic evidence, observing that the historian distorts the picture, making the journey seem frivolous. Andrew Johnston ("Odyssean Wanderings and Greek Responses to Roman Empire") observes how Greek writers from Polybius to Julian reclaimed meaningful agency in the context of social and political marginality by reimagining their personal odysseys as intellectual journeys.
Part IV, "Unearthly Journeys," follows treks far beyond the Greco-Roman world. Martin Devecka ("From Rome to the Moon: Rutilius Namatianus and the Late Antique Game of Knowledge") introduced me to Namatianus' De Reditu Suo (417 ce), whose underlying theme of the ebbing and flowing of tides observed in the Atlantic foresees a Rome that will rise again after the sack by the Goths. The poet's journey to Luna and knowledge of the moon's effect on the tides support the metaphor of Roman resurgence. The collection concludes with Karen ní Mheallaigh's "Looking Back in Wonder: Contemplating Home from the Iliad to Pale Blue Dot." Beginning with Lucian's Icaromenippus, whose narrator contemplates the earth from the moon, ní Mheallaigh includes other [End Page 111] "gaiaskopic" views represented in ancient literature that provide a cosmic...
