Canidia, Rome’s First Witch

Canidia is one of the most well-attested witches in Latin literature. She appears in no fewer than six of Horace's poems and in three she has a prominent role. Throughout Horace's Epodes and Satires she perpetrates acts of grave desecration, kidnapping, murder, magical torture and poisoning. She invades the gardens of Horace's literary patron Maecenas, she rips apart a lamb with her teeth, she starves a Roman child to death, and she threatens to unnaturally prolong Horace's life to keep him in a state of perpetual torment. She can be seen as an anti-muse: Horace repeatedly sets her in opposition to his literary patron, he casts her as the personification of his iambic poetry, and he gives her the surprising honor of concluding not only his Epodes but also his second book of Satires.

This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of Canidia to date. It offers translations of each of the three poems which feature Canidia as a main character as well as the relevant portions from the other three poems in which Canidia plays a minor role. These translations are accompanied by extensive analysis of Canidia's part in each piece that takes into account not only the poems' literary contexts but their magico-religious details.

1: Canidia, or What is a Witch?
(a) Introduction
(b) The Historical Canidia
(c) The Problem with Witches
(i) What qualifies as a saga?
(ii) The Witches Meroe and Canidia
(d) Conclusions

2: Satire 1.8: Canidia in the Gardens of Maecenas
(a) Translation and Text
(b) Introduction
(c) A Statue in the Garden, a Witch in the Graveyard
(i) Canidia's Invasion of the Satiric Garden
(d) Integrating the Intruder
(i) Elements of Vergil, Elements of Theocritus
(ii) Elements of Homer
(iii)Elements of Horace
(e) Priapus Flaccus and the Inversion of the Iambographic Tradition
(i) Satirizing Callimachus' Iambi
(f) Conclusions

3: Hag and Snatcher: Canidia as Child-Killing Demon in Epode 5
(a) Translation and Text
(b) Introduction
(c) Canidia as Child-Killing Demon
(i) Three Child-Killing Demons
1. Lilith
2. The Strix
3. Lamia
(ii) Canidia's Demonic Traits
(d) Canidia and the Puer – Epode 5 as Response to Vergil's Eclogue 4
(i) Epode 5 as Commentary on Civil War
1. Thyestean Oaths
2. A Feast for Dogs and Birds
(e) Conclusions

4: Routing the Empusa: The Iambic Canidia of Epode 17
(a) Translation and Text
(b) Introduction
(c) Sorry/Not Sorry: Horace's (Not So Apologetic) Apology
(d) Canidia the Empusa
(e) Canidia and the Epodes
(f) Canidia the Anti-Muse
(g) Conclusions

5: Venefica Minor: Canidia in Epode 3, Satire 2.1 and 2.8
(a) Canidia the Lesser
(i) Epode 3.1-14
(ii) Satire 2.1.47-53
(iii)Satire 2.8.90-95
(b) Final Remarks

Bibliography
Index

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