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Insects As Metaphors For Post-Civil War Reconstruction Of The Civic Body In Augustan Age Rome, Olivia Semler

Theses and Dissertations

Early Augustan Age literature saw a focus on recovery from a period steeped in the tragic losses of civil war; Vergil, in his Georgics, and Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, employed insects likened to, or transformed into, humans as a way to suggest possible models for recovery. While these models have been studied throughout classical scholarship for their value in proposing a new Roman Golden Age and its tenability, scholars have long overlooked the importance of the insects used in such models, and the ways in which they can substantially alter our understanding of these metaphors. As structures for cultural understanding …