By analysing three paradigmatic passages, this paper explores how Prudentius uses classical love motifs and imagery not only to lambast paganism, but also as a powerful rhetorical tool to convey his Christian message. The ‘fire of love’ imagery is conspicuous in Psychomachia 53–57, which wittily blends Christian and erotic language. In an entirely different context, the flamma amoris is also fully exploited to depict lustful young Vestal Virgins, in combination with other classical metaphors of passion, such as the ‘wound of (...) love’ and the signa amoris. Additionally, the contrast between heat and cold is a central element in the description of the Vestals’ tardy nuptials, redolent of classical satirical portraits of vetulae libidinosae. Finally, in Hamartigenia 628–636 the relationship between the soul and God draws from a Christian tradition of bridal representation, but the lapse into sin is portrayed as the love triangle, typical of the Latin love elegy. These examples illustrate how Prudentius creatively and consciously frames love and sex imagery in new contexts, exploring their potential and infusing clichés with new meanings and forms. (shrink)

Within Prudentius’Peristephanonthere are three main episodes which focus upon the torture and/or death of women: the torture and death of Eulalia inPerist. 3, that of Encratis inPerist. 4 and the death of Agnes inPerist. 14. This article compares the variety and types of pain that these women are depicted as undergoing during their martyrdoms, analysing the extent to which gender and sexuality play a role in their responses to pain or to the threat of it. The article first examines the (...) martyrdoms of Agnes and Eulalia and uses these as a basis for analysing the torture of Encratis who is depicted as suffering the most pain and who, even more than the other two, is represented as a liminal figure, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of her status as a living being. A comparison and contrast between Prudentius’ representation of Encratis and his depiction of Loth's wife in hisHamartigeniawill give further insight into the significance of Encratis’ suffering and the way in which the slow and painful decay of her flesh links her with the city she protects. It will be shown how the vulnerability of these martyrs’ female flesh and the threatened or actualized violation of their virginal bodies are rendered at once shocking and their source of triumph over traumatic pain. (shrink)

We hold a rather recent commentary on Prudentius, Peristephanon, which Pierre-Yves Fux provided in two volumes (2003 and 2013). The commentary proves that the text by Prudentius contains undissolved problems as to its criticism and exegesis. The following remarks refer to the poem on the martyr Romanus (perist. 10). It becomes clear that a part of the damage of the text that has been handed down to us is caused by conscious interference, which goes back to Late Antiquity.

Prudentius’s hymn on St. Eulalia suffers from an interpolated stanza : the carnifices’s flight caused by the dove, i.e. the soul, leaving the mouth of the dying saint is an exaggeration not found anywhere else in the ancient acts and legends of the Christian martyrs. It disturbs the poem’s composition and violates the tenderness of its poetical invention. The spurious lines, though patched up with material borrowed from the author, show some weakness in expression and offer the problem of differentiating (...) between satelles and lictor, a differentiation that was never made by the poet himself. The forged stanza was made up and included by an interpolator who wished to complete the poem’s storyline specifying a motive which had only been alluded to in the authentic poem. (shrink)

In this paper two poetological passages from Prudentius’ Cathemerinon liber are analysed from the perspective of the idea of “presence in the distance”; in other words, Prudentius’ lyrical forebears, who belong to both the Biblical and the classical tradition, harmonise in those poetical claims of the Christian hymnodist; Prudentius speaks with their voice and even proclaims to fulfil them. In Cath. 5 he recalls the Song of Moses from Exodus 15 by almost paraphrasing it and, at the same time, he (...) reuses fragments from Horace’s ode 4,5, while alluding to its main themes. In the opening stanzas of Cath. 9, Prudentius reveals his models by referring first to Horace’s Odes, then by openly mentioning David the psalmist, and he portrays himself as the heir and at the same time as the fulfilment of both literary forerunners. Further examples from Cath. 6 and from the Contra Symmachum illustrate how Prudentius does not present the act of reusing ancient fragments as contradictory, although they originally conveyed a pagan message. Thanks to the Christian poet, the past finds a new vitality. (shrink)

In thePeristephanon, a collection of hymns in praise of the Christian martyrs, the Spanish poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens refers back to a time more than a hundred years before he was writing, when Christianity was not the predominant influence in the Roman world but the religion of a beleaguered minority. In the course of Prudentius' lifetime, the trials that were suffered by that minority under emperors such as Decius and Diocletian became an important point of reference for increasing numbers of (...) Roman converts seeking to identify with Christianity and its sectarian past. At the time, however, those trials were recorded in only meagre written accounts. Prudentius, whose successful administrative career might have culminated in elevation to a senior position in the imperialscrinia, displays particular interest in the extent of the official archival material in thePeristephanon. In a number of passages in this work, he comments on the fragility of historical documents, which are easily destroyed by acts of malice or the effects of time. The following discussion will examine the ways in which he reflects on the permanence, or otherwise, of his own written texts. Analysis of his imitation of elegiac verse inscriptions will demonstrate how he draws attention to the inadequacy of even the most monumental types of human writing. But I will argue that, by identifying his poems with the martyrs' perishable bodies, Prudentius claims that they too can be a medium for a divine presence not confined to any perishable physical form. (shrink)

At Peristephanon 2.549-560, Prudentius depicts St. Laurence as consul in a heavenly Rome. This extraordinary passage achieves two purposes. First, it links the celebration of Rome’s conversion to the concluding prayer. By looking toward the martyr in heavenly glory, Prudentius can make his prayer heard despite his separation from the martyr’s body. Laurence’s exaltation also qualifies aristocratic ambitions. Prudentius glories in the Senate’s conversion, but senatorial lifestyles were at odds with his ideals (as Laurence’s denunciation of the rich underscores). By (...) putting Laurence at the apex of the afterlife for which both senators and ascetics longed, Prudentius can rejoice in the conversion of Rome’s élite and still maintain the superiority of ascetical to worldly lifestyles. (shrink)