Poet and Beloved: Roman Elegiac Characters
Stock Characters from Roman Love Poetry: the Who's Who Guide
Roman love elegy was a popular form of poetry in the late Republican and early Imperial periods. Elegiac narratives typically described the relationship of the poet and his beloved, along with various other stock characters.
The Poet
The central figure of Roman love elegy, the poet was also known as the Ego or the Amator ("lover"). Love elegy was written in a first person narrative voice, usually male, and always with a love interest. The poet is sometimes referred to as the poet-lover, signifying his dual identity.
The poet is invariably impoverished, usually faithful and rarely romantically-satisfied. Much of elegy turns on the poet's repeated appeals to his beloved and her repeated rejection of him.
The Beloved
The second most important character in love elegy, usually called puella ("girl"), the beloved is characterised as proud, wilful, sexually promiscuous and hopelessly alluring.
Many literary critics have identified the elegiac puellae as real Roman women, perhaps mistresses of the poets. All the love poets gave their beloveds pseudonyms, usually inspired by figures from Greek history or mythology, but this has not deterred readers from trying to work out the 'real' identity of the women.
Catullus and Lesbia
The early Roman elegist Catullus calls his beloved 'Lesbia'. This name is an adjective that describes a "woman from Lesbos," the island home of Sappho, the famous Greek lyric poetess. 'Lesbia' is widely identified as Clodia, the sister of a prominent politician.
According to one of Cicero's surviving legal speeches, Clodia led a scandalous life. He accuses her of incestuous relations with her brother, general promiscuity and the murder of her husband Marcus Celer. Clodia's notoriety makes her an easy, if not necessarily accurate, target for the identification of 'Lesbia'.
Scripta Puella
Many other scholars argue that the girls were purely literary invention. During the second half of the 20th century, opinion swung towards a fictional interpretation. In the 1980s Maria Wyke wrote a series of important articles that introduced the concept of the scripta puella (the "written girl"): the girl who serves as a metaphor for the poem itself, rather than representing "a genuine girl."
Lena
Sometimes translated as "witch", sometimes as "procuress" and sometimes simply as "old woman".
The role of the Lena in the poems seems to be a mix between a sorceress and a brothel-keeper: in his Amores, Ovid spies on a conversation between his puella Corinna and her lena, in which the older woman advices her protégée on how to get the greatest price from a man. Tibullus describes the lena's love-potions and incantations in many of his elegies..
Praeceptor Amoris
The "teacher of love," most familiar from Ovid's Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Loving"). The Praeceptor Amoris also appears in Tibullus Book 1 and 3, once in the guise of Priapus, and the second time as Apollo. Wise in the ways of love, but usually without a beloved himself, the Teacher instructs the novices in ways of attracting, ensnaring and keeping hold of their beloveds.
The Patron
All artists, philosophers and writers of ancient Rome were either exceedingly wealthy men (like Pliny), or were supported by wealthy men. Two particularly prominent patrons were Messalla and Maecenas, who between them paid for the upkeep of Propertius, Tibullus, Lygdamus, Ovid and many others.
Messalla is a frequent character in the poetry of Tibullus and Lygdamus. He appears as a visitor to Tibullus' imaginary cottage in the country, as a victorious general, and as the over-protective relative of a young girl named Sulpicia. Incorporating Messalla into his poems was perhaps Tibullus' way of ensuring that he retained his powerful and wealthy patron.
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