Messalla as Osiris: Military might and masculine fertility in Tibullus 1.7
Tibullus composed carmen 1.7 around September 25th, 27 BCE, in praise of his patron, Messalla, who was bestowed a triumph for quelling Aquitania’s revolts. Earlier scholarship mentions that this poem blends a heroic ode with a religious hymn to Osiris-Bacchus, but overlooks the significance of the various rivers mentioned in the poem. In this project we explore how Tibullus divinizes Messalla as the legitimate Osiris figure, replacing Antony who had identified himself with the god after marrying Cleopatra.
Tibullus does this in two ways. First, he foregrounds Messalla’s military prowess with a catalogue of rivers. He begins with the recently conquered Aquitanian rivers, followed by the Cydnus and the Nile. This reverse timeline of Messalla’s military achievements commemorates his most recent Gallic campaigns and his governorship over the Eastern provinces is represented by the Cydnus. Finally, the Nile represents his appointment as consul in 31 BCE replacing Antony before defeating him at Actium. The Cydnus was also where Cleopatra first seduced Antony, whereas, by contrast, Messalla successfully governed the Eastern provinces while maintaining his allegiance to Augustan Rome. Second, Tibullus’ ode to the Nile and agriculture evokes Osiris and his Roman counterpart Bacchus as male deities of liquid fertility. Rivers were often identified as masculine entities, and by conquering the territories in which they flowed and consolidating Roman imperium around Mediterranean, Messalla represented the prosperity flowing into Rome during the Pax Romana. Messalla thus represents a more masculine Osiris figure than Antony who was infamously maligned for succumbing to Egypt’s effeminate extravagance. The reference to Bacchus and to Messalla’s restoration of the Via Latina ensured that Tibullus’ portrayal of Messalla struck the perfect balance between his patron’s Roman and Egyptian identities. Through this homology, Tibullus blurs boundaries between divinities and ethnicities, reflecting the changing cultural landscape of Imperial Rome.
Bibliography
Boyd, Barbara Weiden. 1984. "Parva Seges Satis Est: The Landscape of Tibullan Elegy in 1.1 and 1.10." Transactions of the American Philological Association. 114: 273-80.
Cairns, Francis. 1979. Tibullus, a Hellenistic Poet at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Jones, Prudence J. 2005. Reading Rivers in Roman Literature and Culture. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Lee-Stecum, Parshia. 1998. Powerplay in Tibullus: Reading Elegies Book One. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP.
Miller, Paul Allen. 2002. Latin Erotic Elegy: An Anthology and Reader. London: Routledge. Putnam,
Michael C. J. 1973. Tibullus: A Commentary. Norman: U of Oklahoma, in Co-operation with the American Philological Association.