I have a partly lexical, partly historical question for the group that I've
been curious about for years. Virgil uses the term "furor" at 3 key points:
at the end of the Aeneid, the last Eclogue, and in the Georgics. In the
Aeneid, it is used to describe Aeneas as he is seized by wrath and fury
when he sees Pallas' baldric on the fallen Turnus. In Eclogue 10, Gallus'
case of unrequited love produces a problematic furor which he seeks to
remedy. In the Georgics, Eurydice attributes furor to her second demise as
she cries out to Orpheus when he turns to look at her. Except for the
Eclogues reference, which seems to be more akin to the Platonic poetic
madness, the other references share a common circumstance where fate
suddenly and unpredictably alters the course of events through a sudden,
impassioned action. It would seem to me that such furor is perceived as a
fundamentally bad thing to expose oneself to, and I wonder if it was linked
with primitive, barbaric behaviour as opposed to rational, civilized,
discplined conduct. Lucan uses furor a lot to blast Caesar and his invasion
of Rome. He implicitly compares Caesar's moment of infamy when crossing the
Rubicon to barbarian hordes who had made the same passage earlier in Rome's
history. The link between barbarism and furor seems clear in the term
"furor Teutonicus" which Lucan and Vellus use. Is it likely that there was
a common Greek and Roman sentiment toward the barbarian tribes that classed
them as what a civilized person might become if overcome by extreme
passions like love and hate? The historians tend to look down on the
barbarians, but there are occasions where they are admired, and I wonder if
there was not a strange attraction and repulsion motivated tendency for the
"civilized" to see themselves, especially their excesses, in the
"barbarians." I wonder if this isn't the beginning for a lot of western
views about the "Primitive." This seems to be the case with H. Mattingly's
intro. to the 1948 Penguin Classics ed. of Tacitus where he suggests great
similarities between the Roman Empire of Tacitus' times and the British
Empire in 1947 with India and British Civil Servants as examples. He writes:
"Tacitus unmistakably contrasts the virtues of the Germans,
which
recall the uncorrupted morals of old Rome, with the degeneracy of the
Empire.
The Germans think lightly of the precious metals. [cf. Ovid, Meta.]
They
love freedom. Freedmen are kept in their proper place. Women are chaste,
home-life is pure, childlessness is not turned into a profitable career.
There are no insidious banquets, no professional shows, no pompous
funerals. Many a biting epigram sharpens the contrast. 'The Germans do
not
call it up-to-date to debauch and be debauched.' On the other hand, they
are not completely idealized. Their characteristic weaknesses are
exposed--
their indolence, their quarrelsomeness, their drunkenness, their silly
passion for war.
The tendency to moralize, then, is a feature, but not the main
purpose
of the book. The suggestion left on the mind of the reader is that, if
the
Empire should continue to relax in so deep a peace and if the Germans
should
add discipline to their valour, they would become a deadly menace to
Rome.
Tacitus was certainly speaking with the voice of history herself"
(24-5).
Is Mattingly right about Tacitus in this, or is he projecting his own
imperial outlook on him? And if Tacitus is making these statements, how far
back can we trace this idea of the barbarian as a threat if civilized man
becomes barbaric or even more barbaric than the barbarians?
Dan Knauss
_____________________________________________
Dan Knauss - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of English, University of Wisconsin - Madison
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