bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest, Scaen. 318 Vahlen = Trag. 265 Jocelyn). This is the classical formulation of the problem of theodicy,15 and a standard polemic against the Stoic concept of divine Providence. It is significant that precisely in this connection16 Telamo shifts from the term dei to the term caelites and employs it in expressing the thought that the gods/inhabitants of heaven do not care about humans:
Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum,sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus.17
I have always said and will always say that the race of heaven-dwelling gods exists; but I do not think they care what the human race does.
The two passages from Accius must be read in this context.The junctures are similar: the topic is the cult of the—perhaps this adjective best reflects his tone—high gods: in the first case the approach to the caelitum aras (298 R = 606 D) and in the second an exclamation (593 R = 566 D): Delubra caelitum, aras, sanctitudines!18 In both cases the connection to earthly monuments produces a particular tension. The transcendence, or, to use a shameless anachronism, the otherness of the gods, is emphasized, and not the deus otiosus of the Ennianic Telamo. The distance—the form of the distance— given articulation by Accius prohibits any routinized, chummy closeness.
In the scanty remains of the formulations just cited the text is naturally inadequate for a reconstruction of Accius’s theology.19 One could follow the lead of Thomas N. Habinek and point to the creation of an artificial language, far removed from the everyday language of ordinary people. The creation of such a pure Latin would then mark an attempt to create an exclusive cultural resource of the nobility.20 Caelites instead of ordinary dei would mark a social difference. Instead, I suggest that Accius is taking a critical stance in a contemporary conflict within the nobility, arguing against the divine genealogies of Romans by systematizing theological thinking.
The term sanctitudo leads to a further observation. On the one hand, it is the current term in the pre-Ciceronian period, in contradistinction to sanctitas. On the other, the usual glosses provided by way of translation, such as “religious protection” or “holiness,” are not very convincing. In confronting the unfamiliarity of the term in its second-century meaning, we are made to recognize the influence of Cicero’s attempt to transform the term sanctitas into a general religious term meaning “necessary cult.”21 In this connection Accius also makes a pair of nomen and numen (646 R = 450 D, also 691f. R = 704f, playing on the similar sound of “name” and “divine will” in Latin. The forced differentiation can best be understood as an attempt to distinguish the cultic form by which the god is known in ritual—nomen—from its inaccessible personality (numen), or perhaps as an attempt to interpret the former through the lens provided by the latter.
The attribution of a heightened transcendence to the gods enabled the use of the gods’ names as metaphors, a practice already visible in Plautus. I would see the use of duo Mavortes, “two Mars,” as a description of the collision of two rows of soldiers as an example of this. We must keep in mind, however, that Accius marks this kind of usage very precisely as nonliteral: crederes, “one could believe” (321 R = 157 D).
Statements on Natural Theology
The theoretical content that characterizes the passages related to the gods that we have thus far considered can be observed in the formulation of other topics, even if the difference in topic sometimes makes it difficult to identify the processes of rationalization at work in particular cases in terms of Greek natural philosophy. Several passages thematize vitality and life forces: the relationship between reason (animus) and vitality (anima) is referred to in the Epigoni (fr. 296 R = 589 D) and becomes the subject of an explicit psychological question in the Epinausimache: according to the plausible interpretation of the late antique lexicographer Nonius Marcellus, anima signifies an elementary affective drive, in this case aggression caused by anger.22
Statements on geology help to maintain a scientific coolness. The mythological description of volcanism (529ff. R = 204ff. D) is treated with considerable distance through the use of dicitur and dictus – others “say”. Earthquakes, along with thunder and storms, offer primarily problems of perception (479f. R = 289f. D). The famous description of the shepherd in the Medea seeing a ship for the first time is above all precise, and only later in the text are there descriptions of physical processes like wind and waves with a slight shimmer of the mythological (391–402 R = 467–78 D).23 A comparable mode of representation can be found in the description of thunder (223–25 R = 54–56 D).
The astronomical and astrological passages are the most revealing. While in the Clutemestra it is the deum regnator, the lord of the gods, who brings the night, the formulation nocte caeca caelum e conspectu abstulit (“by blind night he removed the sky out of sight”) contains a precise theory of basic processes of perception. It is the lack of light that creates blindness. The conception of the dawn (aurora) as radiorum ardentum indicem (“indicator of burning rays”; 493 R = 9 D) corresponds to this in its general structure, without being a component of a unified theory. Neither here nor in the following passages does Accius’s theoretical achievement go beyond older notions. What is striking, however, is the consistency with which, in comparison with older Latin literature, explanations for natural phenomena in the domain of myth are avoided.24 Another example of this can be found in the description of the zodiac (711–13 D).25
Divination
Accius several times describes situations that are treated as omens, or prodigies that relate to the whole of society,26 whether within the dramatic plot or in contemporary Roman practice. It is not possible to identify a clear position on divination or criticism of divination on the basis of the fragments. What does come through clearly is the effort to apply a clear and precise terminology to the full range of such phenomena, as well as the attempt to formulate the conditions necessary for correct divination. This is shown in the conditional clause si satis recte aut uera ratione augurem (87 R = 644 D: “if I divine sufficiently correct or by true method”), and also in the use of multiple techniques in order to ensure greater accuracy: Principio extispicium ex prodigiis congruens ars te arguit (419 R = 496 D: “First of all the identical answer of inspection and prodigies accused you!”). Even in reference to the golden ram of Atreus, the relationship between portentum and prodigium is precisely defined.27
There are also more bitingly formulated criticisms of teachings on augury, which was at the core of public and political divination in Rome. In the Telephus the question is posed, Pro certo arbitrabor sortis oracla adytus augura (624 R = 92 D: “I shall have for certain lots, oracles, temples, and prophecies”). This criticism is expressed even more stringently in the Astyanax:
Nil credo auguribus, qui auris uerbis diuitantalienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos. (169f. R)
In no wise do I trust augurs, who enrich the ears of others with words, so that they may fill their own houses with gold.
These formulations are reminiscent of criticisms voiced by Ennius and Cato regarding the recourse to “unreliable seers” (harioli),28 but here, by contrast, the possibility that the Roman system should somehow escape criticism by appearing to direct that criticism solely at socially or geographically foreign practices is not left open. The use of assonance in augures, aures, and aurum does not subtract from the argument. Aurum, unlike Ennius’s drachmae, opens up the possibility of a metaphorical interpretation as payment. The context in which these texts were produced and first received is undeniably one in which both the theory and the practice of augury was the basis of controversy: the lex Aelia Sentia, which belongs to the
