(M)others in Saguntum:
Obliterating Roman Identity in Silius’ Punica 2

Antony Augoustakis (Baylor University)

At the outset of the Second Punic War, Saguntum, a city on the periphery, is tested for its virtus and fides towards Rome, at a time when Rome herself fails to display loyalty towards the Saguntines and save them from massive suicide and destruction (von Albrecht 1964; Vessey 1974; Küppers 1986; McGuire 1997; Ripoll 1998; Dominik 2003 and 2006).  In this paper, I reinterpret the portrayal of the Saguntine mothers, wreaking havoc on the city like Bacchants and leading its population to self-destruction, as an effort on the women’s part to annihilate the city’s own complex identity (2.592-680).  I submit that the Saguntines finally erase and severe their ties with Rome.  The obliteration of the Saguntines’ Roman identity poignantly underscores Rome’s own lack of strategy, virtue, and piety.  Moreover, categories such as same and other collapse in the narrative, as the transformed women take off their traditional, Roman roles of women and mothers and then proceed to a virtual annihilation of the (male) population of the city.

Saguntum’s inhabitants descend from colonists from Greek Zacynthus, mixed with people who emigrated from Italian Ardea.  The mixture of peoples and civilizations is indicative of the city’s past and present.  At the end of a long siege, the Saguntines burn their heirlooms, from Zacynthus and Italy, and thus destroy the evidence of their past at the sight of death.  The burning consists of the destruction of both works of peace, such as the clothing produced by women, and of weapons of war, carried by men, as well as the token of the foreigners’ arrival in a new city, the images of their homeland gods (2.600-4).  The burning at the instigation of the Erinys constitutes the annulment of the Saguntines’ recognition of their identity as “Ardeans” or “Zacynthians.”  The eradication of every reminder of their origins is only one step away from the obliteration and utter devastation of family ties, as the public and the private merge into one, consumed in a frenzy reminiscent of civil war strife.  The episodes that follow one after the other emphasize the lack of pity for members of the same family, such as the wife’s for her husband, a son’s for his father, a brother’s towards the brother (2.632-49).  For instance, the death of the twins, Eurymedon and Lycormas, proves the confusion and annihilation of memory and identity.  Although the poet addresses such deeds as infelix gloria (2.613) and laudanda monstra (2.650), the result of the mass suicide remains dubious, iniustis neglecta deis (2.657).

Hannibal’s entrance into an empty city is marked by an utter lack of distinction among the lifeless bodies (nullo discrimine, 2.681).  What could formerly be described as other, because of the (Bacchic) frenzy of the women, now looks as same, as part of a crowd, undistinguishable by the fire following the suicide (semambusta infelix turba, 2.681-2).  Hannibal’s effort to conquer and assimilate the Saguntines has proved vain, while at the same time the absence of the Romans is underscored in the narrative as a defining element of the next phase of the war.