La poesia di Virgilio nell’Italia del Divi Filius

From the second half of the 19th century, the majority of the Roman historians have advocated the idea of a neat antithesis between the political experiences of Caesar and those of Augustus. Eminent scholars like Theodor Mommsen, Eduard Meyer, Thomas Rice Holmes and Christian Meier have had a great influence on the development of the discipline, and still, to this day, the political movement from the res publica to the Principate is interpreted as a a desultory and incoherent process. The change was marked by the rise of these two figures, who are inseparably linked together, but at the same time in opposition with each other due to their choices, their strategies, and their government initiatives. Current scholarly research shows caution regarding the possibility of speaking of an imitatio Caesaris by Octavian (SION-JENKIS 2012: 27-28), and those who are most likely to boost this hypothesis do not deny the existence of substantial differences between them, especially in terms of form and conception of the power that they hold (KIENAST 19993; 2001: 1-26). Through the lens of Latin literature, this thesis aims to enter the debate and reopen the investigation: Vergil will be called to the stand in order to reconstruct the perspective that the cives of the 1st century BC would have had of both the relationship between the princeps and the Divus, and the eventual continuity between them, in particular for the period beginning with Caesar’s assassination (44 BC) and concluding with the triple triumph (29 BC).To do so, I will pursue a twofold goal: I intend to clarify first that the persistence of Julius Caesar’s memory in Latin literature and in the Roman collective consciousness was greater than which Ronald Syme had attributed to him (SYME 1939: 317-318; 2016: 230- 254), expanding further upon Peter White’s conclusions in the famous article “Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome” (WHITE 1988: 334-356). I will then try to argue that, in the Eclogues, in the Georgics and in the Aeneid, it is possible to pinpoint significant clues that Vergil had in mind – or tried to express – regarding a certain image of Octavian as heir of Caesar and as continuator of his political agenda, notably on the matters related to Italy and Italians. Indeed, among the different aspects generally considered by historians to disprove the existence of a continuity between them (i.e. typology of government, conception of power, organization of the army, forms of self-representation, reforms, etc.), the role of Italy in their respective political discourses has been scarcely examined (RAAFLAUB 2010: 166-167), I will relay the results of my research in three main chapters, in which I will carry out the analysis of the Vergilian works through a multidisciplinary approach. Juxtaposing the tools of literary criticism and those of the historical investigation, I will contextualize the allusions contained in the texts alongside the material culture and the social-political fabric of the Rome of the 1st century BC. Such a methodological choice is dictated both by the evidence of a constant dialectic between power and literary production in the age of Augustus, and the idea that Vergil – because of evident biographical reasons – must have been inspired/influenced by the complex and painful dynamics that drove to the unification of the peninsula in the name of the Iulii. So, before bringing forth new hypotheses on the representation of Italy and its diverse people in the Aeneid, it will be necessary to understand how the poet associated himself with Octavian’s political discourse and with the idea of Italian unity that he tried to spread in view of the war against Mark Antony and Cleopatra. [...]