#julia caesaris

Mother/Daughter duo for the ages

pharsalia 3.20-35 trans. wilson joyce i.e. one of my most favouritest passages in the whole pharsalia <3 various thoughts:

i’m actually not a fan of the translation ‘wed you while my ashes were still warm’ when the latin is ‘innupsit tepido […] busto’ (married into a warm tomb). my dictionary gives an example of innubo being used with thalamis (marriage chamber) and i’m sureee i’ve posted about this before but to ME the image here is that cornelia’s marriage chamber is a tomb that sure could be her tomb (warm because she does not / (cannot) die) but that equally could be like. pompey’s tomb. he’s soooooo proleptically dead rn. yay

the triangle of dead julia / cornelia with her dead previous husband / proleptically dead pompey is definitely adjacent to the triangle of dead hortensius / marcia / cato in book 2. the ghost of crassus is somewhere in the first triangle btw. the ghost of the republic is in that second triangle too. i think lucan is even trying to make that more obvious by having julia stress how quickly pompey remarried bcs like. he didn’t. julia died in 54 bce and pompey only remarried like two years later.

adjacent to THAT is like. cato and marcia’s goth antiwedding is described entirely through what isn’t involved in it. on its own that might tempt you to say something about civil war and the breakdown of social bonds. but julia sees her marriage to pompey as continuing even despite her death and his remarriage -> more like civil war involves an over abundance of social bonds. which makes it Worse

can we talk about roman ghost marriage law btw. marriage does NOT end with death. sorry pompey but i think you need to figure out how to divorce a ghost

^ joke but also cornelia has a line in book 8 where she does actually mention her legal status as being married to pompey’s ghost. so.

julia’s ghost haunting the battle of pharsalus real? does she actually appear? yes. this is so sad hashtag i will see thee at philippi then. the donmar warehouse production of julius caesar understands this. also fun how pompey does have another dream sequence before pharsalus. is julia in it? no but also once again yes

Linking the post by @en-theos that talks about Clytemnestra's convoluted/quasi-incestuous family relationships in Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Excerpt: "agamemnon's actual wife is waiting for them in the traditional place of the mother of the groom, making her the mother-in-law of cassandra, who also bears a strong comparison to iphigeneia, clytaemnestra's actual daughter".

I am linking it because I think it is interesting to talk in this context about the ghost of Julia in the Pharsalia.

Quoting Jane Wilson Joyce's translation of Pharsalia III.20-27:

"When I was your wife, Magnus, you led joyful Triumphs: your fortunes have changed with your bedfellow! Condemned by Fate always to drag her powerful husbands down to disaster, your whore Cornelia wed you while my ashes were warm. She can stick close to your standards in war or at sea, so long as I have the right to break in on your not- untroubled dreams and to leave you no time for lovemaking - no! let Caesar lay claim to your days and Julia your nights!

(1) Julia is Pompey's wife, but most of all she embodies the dynasty established by Pompey's father-in-law, and positions herself as a direct parallel to that father-in-law ("let Caesar claim your days and Julia your nights"). Cf. Angeline Chiu, The Importance of Being Julia: Civil War, Historical Revision and the Mutable Past in Lucan's Pharsalia.

(2) Notably, Pompey, by the time of civil war, practically monopolized Agamemnon as part of his "public image". Cf. Edward Champlin, Agamemnon at Rome: Roman Dynasts and Greek Heroes.

(3) Consider also the age difference between Pompey and Cornelia: "the marriage was displeasing to some on account of the disparity in years; for Cornelia's youth made her a fitter match for a son of Pompey" (Plutarch Pompey 55, via LacusCurtius.)

(4) "a nightmare image / appeared - a ghastly head upreared through gaping earth, / and Julia stood, Fury-like, on her blazing pyre" (Pharsalia III.9-11, trans. Wilson Joyce). The vengeful ghost of a Julian lady associated with the Furies of course brings to mind the ghost of Agrippina tormenting Nero: Agrippina was, according to Nero, Clytemnestra to his Orestes - the terms Nero himself established and cultivated. Cf. again Champin's Agamemnon at Rome, from p. 308 onwards.

Julia Major: Let it always be known that I was who I am.

Track list below

There was a great discrepancy in age between Pompey and his wife, as he was forty-six and she but twenty-four. But in spite of this and in spite of the political consideration that had cause the marriage, it seems to have been a singularly happy one. Plutarch informs us that in 54 B.C. after Pompey’s consulship he “went about and spent his time with his wife in the various places of amusement in Italy,” though for the sake of strict accuracy the biographer feels in incumbent on him to make it clear that he is uncertain “whether Pompey did it through love of her, or because she loved him, and he could not bear to leave her, for this is also stated.” But Plutarch declares in no uncertain terms: “The love displayed by this young wife for her elderly husband was a matter of general note to be attributed, it would seem, to his constancy in married life, and to his dignity of manner, which in familiar intercourse was tempered with grace and gentleness, and was particularly attractive to women.”