certa clara affero? Senecas Apocolocyntosis und die Zeichensprache des Principats

Abstract

Only at first glance does Seneca’s satirical Apocolocyntosis appear a straightforward, ex post criticism of the reign of Claudius. A closer look reveals that the author provides a nuanced view of early Imperial politics and society, as well as their specific forms of expression. By employing analytical techniques and concepts taken from philology, the underlying structure of the text emerges as aiming at a pointed deconstruction of contemporary codes of communication. In particular, Seneca highlights the problems of referentiality that affected the principate’s inventory of signs. By introducing an «unreliable narrator», he draws attention to the purely descriptive quality of the principate’s ritualised language and ceremonies. In doing so, he calls into question, whether any forms of expression can still lay claim to normative validity. This becomes particularly clear in his mockery of Claudius’ apotheosis, but the same brand of conscious ambiguity can be traced also in other parts of the text: for instance, the reader can never be certain whether the laudes Neronis are an actual praise of the new princeps or rather a persiflage of the encomiastic genre. Similar doubts apply also to the ambivalent character of Augustus. The contrasting modern interpretations of this text therefore emerge as the product of subtle, but intentionally contradictory «reading instructions» placed in the text by the author. In that, the text reflects Seneca’s precarious status as an equestrian social riser, former exile and heavily scrutinised magister of Nero. The Apocolocyntosis further echoes the inner-elite competition of the time and the experiences of contingency made by leading senators in a climate poisoned by volatile Imperial favour and maiestas trials.