Looking for Empedocles in Latin Poetry: A Skeptical Approach

Résumé 0

Motifs such as "harmony," "concord," and "the four elements" are very common in Latin poetry, but they may not always indicate a specifically Empedoclean. Words like "concordia" and "discordia" appear frequently in contexts where domestic or civic harmony and disharmony are at issue, but where philosophy of any sort is not. The four elements generally do occur in contexts that are philosophical, whether in a direct, metaphorical, or even a parodic sense; but the conception of the physical world as comprised by earth, air, fire, and water was common to many philosophical schools, including Stoicism, which was much more familiar than Empedocleanism as a philosophical sect to Romans of all periods. Specifically Empedoclean motifs often do appear during the last half of the first century BC. This can be explained by the politicization of the cult of Venus, particularly as the divine ancestress of the gens Iulia. In combination with the importance of Venus' consort Mars as the father of Romulus, these divinities invited allegorization as Empedoclean "Love" and "Strife" governing the four elements as a symbol of Roman, and especially Julian, governance of world affairs. On the other hand, both before and after the gens Iulia was in its political ascendancy (i.e. for most of the Republican period before the rise of Julius Caesar himself, and for most of the Imperial period after the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, if not indeed after the end of Augustus' reign, i.e. that of the most self-consciously "Julian" of emperors), the particular relevance of Venus/Love and Mars/Strife to major political interests, and so a specifically Empedoclean conception of Roman global hegemony, held much less appeal. In view of these facts, it makes sense to assess apparently Empedoclean motifs in Latin poetry not as essential or even conventional ingredients of any particular genre, but in terms of their relevance to prevailing cultural circumstances at any given time.