The Einsiedeln Eclogues and the image of the emperor in Neronian culture

Abstract

The so-called Einsiedeln Eclogues are two short bucolic texts published by H. Hagen in 1869 from a single Carolingian manuscript and traditionally dated to the Neronian age. Recent polemics about the date of Calpurnius’ eclogues (which also used to be dated to Nero’s time after M. Haupt’s seminal 1854 dissertation, but are now redated by some scholars to the 3rd century AD, with other scholars still insisting on Haupt’s date) have provoked attempts to redate the Einsiedeln Eclogues as well to a later date. An in-depth discussion of the problem would be out of place here; instead, the present paper focuses on the parallels between the Einsiedeln Eclogues and the Neronian traditions of power representation that have been overlooked by proponents of the post-Neronian dating for the text. In particular, the following topics are discussed: the image of the praised emperor as a poet; the importance of Trojan connections for the emperor; a particular construction of the image of Apollo in the first poem, perhaps in some connection with the emperor; and the very extravagant style of the praise itself, together with the extreme degree of politicization of the texts, unusual even for the traditionally politicized bucolic genre.