Eucharis Liciniae Liberta

Sander M. Goldberg (University of Los Angeles, California)

What Romans thought of the ars ludicra and of the entertainers who performed under that heading are matters of considerable interest in Roman studies. The problems raised by Roman attitudes toward the theater, however defined, lie at a crucial intersection of literary, social, and legal history and inevitably factor in discussions of, to name just a few topics of current interest, the status of women, the relationship of actors and orators, and the exercise of citizen rights. These problems also touch on matters of some sensitivity among scholars, e.g. the boundary between ‘literary’ and ‘sub-literary’ genres, the relevance of official legal status to actual social practice (and the evidence for each), the congruity of modern ideological presumptions and ancient attitudes. Yet for all the discussion of such issues, some of our most important evidence is in danger of falling through the cracks. This paper centers on one such piece of evidence, the long funerary inscription of the young mime artist Eucharis that was erected by her father (at the expense of her patrona) toward the end of the Republic (ILLRP 803). It is thus nearly contemporary with the so-called Tabula Heracleensis, our earliest evidence for the infamia of actors, but it suggests a very different picture of the social position of stage artists.

The inscription is physically elegant, and the paper will begin with some attention to the importance of its look. We will then move to a close reading of the text, ranging from its meter (iambic senarii) to its language, with special attention to some noteworthy phrases, e.g. docta erudita, recalling the puellae of love elegy, and amor parentis, recalling to the legalistic mind the fact that, strictly speaking, a liberta does not have a parens. It soon becomes clear that the inscription is not just rich in the cultural clichés of the late Republic, but has striking literary and social overtones—none of which has ever been seriously discussed. This will bring the paper at last from philological and literary commentary to broader consideration of mime and its place on the Roman cultural scene (including a brief look at the career of Cytheris, the mima behind Gallus’ Lycoris), and then on to the larger question of how we go about writing the social history of the late Republic.